Podcast 13 min read

Rich Brand, Poor Brand w/ David Brier

with David Brier

Chris Do and David Brier examine how generosity, customer care, and accountability build a rich brand culture.

Chris Do

Founder, The Futur™ · October 16, 2025

A better identity cannot repair a broken culture

A brand can look different and still behave exactly like the competition. The failure begins when the promise reaches people who cannot sustain it. David Brier, author of Brand Intervention and Rich Brand, Poor Brand, brings decades of creating brands to that problem, asking why some client initiatives flourished while others struggled.

His explanation moves the discussion away from the presentation and into the organization. Similar creative ingredients, he found, did not produce similar results. The difference was the culture receiving them.

Brier describes two chefs working with the same proteins and produce. One makes something forgettable; the other makes something worth returning for. The ingredients matter, but they cannot explain the entire experience.

That analogy carries an uncomfortable implication for creative professionals. A brand initiative can be thoughtfully conceived without becoming a durable advantage. The people expected to deliver it still have to make it real.

Culture sustains differentiation. It determines whether the work survives beyond its introduction, through ordinary decisions, customer interactions, and the relationships inside a company.

In conversation with Chris Do, Brier defines branding as “the art of differentiation.” Do then presses him to distinguish the other terms in his book’s title. Rich and poor sound financial, but that is not the distinction Brier intends.

“There are very poor, large companies and there are very rich, small companies,” Brier says.

Size is not the measure. Neither is revenue. The subject is the quality of the environment and whether it enables people to help one another succeed.

A poor culture, in Brier’s account, reduces relationships to transactions and treats internal progress as a contest. One person advances at another’s expense. A rich culture connects those outcomes: a colleague’s growth is part of success, not a threat to it.

Do gives the contrast a useful shape. Transactional versus relational. The distinction is not whether money changes hands, but whether the interaction recognizes anything beyond the immediate exchange.

Brier locates that difference in an experience almost anyone can recognize: entering a room. Some rooms make a visitor feel smaller, uncertain, and peripheral. Others communicate that the person belongs there and has something valuable to contribute.

That is culture before anyone names it.

The point is not to replace business performance with pleasant feelings. It is to examine what allows a company’s stated difference to become credible. A promise of care means little if the organization makes people feel inconvenient.

This also changes the assignment for the consultant. Creating a compelling voice is only part of the job if the client cannot maintain the behavior behind it. Brier’s interest is increasingly in finding those blind spots, the assumptions that prevent an organization from seeing what it can become.

The brand, in this reading, is not finished when the creative work is approved. Approval gives the organization something to live up to.

That is where the harder work begins.

The craft expands beyond the artifact

Brier’s path into this argument began with making things. He describes painting in his teens, intending to become an illustrator, and then recognizing how much of the final result would sit outside his control.

An illustration could be handed to an art director whose typography or color choices undermined it. Rather than accept that boundary, he expanded his responsibility. Design offered more control over the whole expression; branding extended that concern further.

The progression matters because his emphasis on culture is not a rejection of craft. It is an extension of the same concern: what happens to the work after it leaves the maker’s hands?

He remembers drawing with fine technical pens before moving into computer-based work. The tools changed, but the underlying interest remained in creating something with intention. What now excites him is also the conversation that helps a client recognize a possibility previously hidden from view.

Do identifies the shared moment: the client and adviser connect the dots and see what the company could become. Brier’s qualification is that the discovery needs an environment capable of supporting it afterward.

An inspired leader is not yet an aligned organization.

That expansion from making the artifact to accepting responsibility for its consequences is a useful companion to Moving from Makers to Entrepreneurs. Here, the issue is not abandoning creative skill. It is deciding how much of the result falls within the creative professional’s concern.

Brier calls one of the qualities behind rich cultures “fanatical intention.” Do asks him to make the phrase more concrete. Brier describes commitment that does not dilute, a conviction that stays present rather than appearing only when circumstances are convenient.

Intention includes the other person’s experience. For Brier, the commitment is not simply to the work itself. It also concerns what someone else receives from it.

That distinction keeps intensity from becoming self-congratulation. A person can be absorbed in producing excellent work while remaining inattentive to colleagues or customers. Brier’s standard asks whether the commitment reaches beyond the maker.

His discussion identifies several expressions of that outward concern:

Helping colleagues grow rather than treating their progress as competition.
Listening long enough for a customer to answer a real question.
Taking responsibility for the experience, not merely completing the exchange.

None requires a particular personality. Brier is direct, describing himself through his Brooklyn background and his willingness to challenge closely held assumptions. But he does not present loudness as the requirement for commitment.

The same intention can appear in quieter forms: patience, attention, or the willingness to stop speaking. The behavioral test matters more than the performance of enthusiasm.

This is also where generosity becomes more demanding than a friendly manner. A smile attached to an immediate sales push still leaves the transaction at the center. Genuine attention requires room for the other person’s needs to alter what happens next.

The relevant contrast is not polished versus informal. It is scripted warmth versus an interaction that makes the person feel understood.

Craft, in other words, extends to how the company treats the person receiving it.

The customer arrives before the meeting begins

Do tests Brier’s argument against a practical objection. Care takes time. A restaurant cannot keep turning tables at the same pace while giving every guest a longer conversation, and an attentive service experience can carry a premium.

Brier agrees that some forms of care cost more. But he resists making expense the defining condition. A small gesture can communicate recognition without requiring an elaborate service operation.

Do offers a revealing example from his own business. His former mentor walked through the office from a customer’s perspective and began with the parking spaces.

The best spaces had been reserved for employees. Do’s intention was to take care of his team. The mentor did not dismiss that concern, but pointed out that a client struggling to park was already beginning the meeting badly.

The recommendation was modest: reserve two of the next-best spaces for visitors. Then make them unmistakable with signs, rather than relying on instructions that still required the visitor to figure things out.

The next change was upstairs. A personalized welcome sign would greet the arriving client by name. Not a generic expression of hospitality, but visible evidence that someone had expected this particular person.

Recognition does not require luxury. In Do’s telling, the changes required rearranging spaces and printing a page, not redesigning the office or buying expensive gifts.

Clients noticed. Some told him they had never felt so important; some photographed themselves beside their parking signs. The agency had changed the emotional conditions of the meeting before the meeting began.

That observation belongs beside the broader subject of Crafting a Great Client Experience: From Mediocre to Memorable. The experience is not confined to the scheduled presentation. Arrival is already part of the relationship.

Do’s examples make the point through ordinary details:

Reserve a parking space so the visitor does not begin with confusion.
Use a personalized welcome sign to make preparation visible.
Learn a guest’s name rather than treating every arrival as interchangeable.
Notice an unattended need and address it without waiting for a request.

At a fishing lodge, Do recalls staff learning guests’ names and greeting arrivals with “welcome home.” The wording changed the implication of the welcome. It suggested belonging rather than temporary access.

At a hotel in Vietnam, he remembers something even smaller. Staff organized his children’s device cables with Velcro straps and left microfiber cloths beside the devices.

The room was expensive, but the detail he retained was inexpensive. Someone had noticed how the family was using the space and responded to it.

These stories do not establish a universal formula for hospitality. They show the difference between adding a perk and responding to a person. A perk can be distributed automatically; the cable straps felt connected to an observed need.

Brier recalls a restaurant visit in similar terms. What stayed with him was not just the food, but the staff’s evident pleasure in explaining it and answering questions without making the guests feel uninformed.

Attention was part of the product.

The strategic value in these accounts is not that every company should imitate a hotel. It is that an organization can inspect its own ordinary interactions for moments when customers are left to navigate alone.

The real promise appears when something goes wrong

A personalized greeting is relatively easy to admire. A more demanding expression of culture appears when taking care of a customer requires the company to absorb a cost.

Do offers two personal service experiences, one involving Volvo and another involving Sony. They are accounts of how those companies treated him, not evidence of universal policies. Their relevance lies in the decisions he remembers.

His car had recently passed out of warranty when he brought in a problem with a bent piece of metal trim. The trim had cut his finger, and the quoted repair was $1,200.

He contacted Volvo’s corporate operation. According to Do, the company told him to bring the car in and took care of the issue.

The second case involved a Sony flagship AV receiver. After several years, a function stopped working, and he sent the unit in. He recalls being told that the model could no longer be repaired or replaced with the same unit.

Sony sent him a new flagship receiver instead. In his account, it offered more features than the one he had originally purchased.

Both experiences altered how he spoke about the brands. He was not merely relieved that a problem had been resolved. He was willing to tell other people that the companies had stood behind their products.

That distinction matters. The resolution became a story he wanted to repeat.

Brier draws a further line between care initiated by the company and care extracted through repeated demands. Eventually doing the right thing is not identical to taking ownership at the outset.

The customer remembers the effort required to reach the answer. A favorable outcome can still carry the residue of an exhausting process.

This is the more difficult side of the conversation about generosity. A business can comply with the narrow terms of an agreement and still damage the relationship. Conversely, choosing to respond beyond the minimum can become the strongest evidence of what the company values.

Do warns against repeatedly telling customers that a problem belongs elsewhere. “You have no customers,” he says of where that posture can lead.

The warning is blunt, but the examples are specific. Neither story rests on advertising language. Both depend on what happened after the product failed to meet his needs.

The relationship between attentive listening and a commercial outcome also sits near the subject of The Skill You Need To Win Clients That No One Talks About. In Brier and Do’s discussion, attention has to continue after the sale, when the customer has less reason to expect persuasion.

Brier extends the argument into a prediction about AI. As companies pursue faster and more efficient operations, he expects people-centered businesses to distinguish themselves through recognition and care.

That is his forecast, not a demonstrated limit on technology. The practical point does not depend on settling what a machine can eventually do.

Efficiency and recognition are different outcomes. A faster response does not, by itself, establish that a company understood the problem or accepted responsibility for resolving it.

The decisive question inside these stories is what the company chose to protect: the narrow boundary of its obligation, or the relationship beyond it.

Generosity still has to produce something

There is a danger in discussing rich culture entirely through warmth. It can sound as though good intentions excuse weak results. Do’s contribution prevents the argument from settling there.

He describes a familiar management problem: a team points to the amount of work completed, while the outcome remains unclear. Hours have been spent, tasks have been finished, and effort is undeniable. But the intended benefit has not appeared.

Activity is not an outcome. Respecting the effort does not require pretending that the effort achieved its purpose.

Brier gives this problem a broader frame by considering the direction of ideas. Some extend outward and benefit others. Some turn inward toward what can be accumulated or taken. Others disperse into activity without a clear beneficiary.

Do clarifies the practical difference, and Brier describes the third category as “random busyness.”

The distinction can be expressed without adding a new system to Brier’s argument:

Outward ideas benefit others. Their value extends beyond the person or company producing them.
Inward ideas concentrate the gain. Their focus is what comes back to the person pursuing them.
Dispersed activity lacks a beneficiary. Energy is spent without a clear account of who is better off.

Brier’s objection to inward thinking is not simply that money is involved. Earlier, he rejects the assumption that substantial financial ambition and kindness are incompatible. The issue is whether financial success becomes the only outcome that matters.

He describes feeling least satisfied with work for clients whose interest stopped at their own accumulation. The business result could be substantial while the larger purpose of the work felt constrained.

Dispersed activity poses another problem. It can consume a team without producing either a meaningful commercial result or a clear benefit for someone else. Everyone stays occupied; nobody can explain what improved.

Do locates the remedy in agreed outcomes. Depending on the assignment, he wants to examine click-throughs, revenue, video views, or subscription growth. Those examples are not interchangeable targets; they illustrate the need to identify what the work is meant to accomplish.

The tension is useful. Brier criticizes cultures that reduce everything to metrics, while Do insists that work needs evidence of progress. Together, those positions distinguish measuring results from treating people as nothing but numbers.

A rich culture is not measurement-free.

Do does not want to prescribe every task and then assess whether the instructions were followed. He wants the team to understand the objective and have authority over how to reach it.

That gives autonomy a corresponding obligation. The person making decisions also has to participate in evaluating the result. Otherwise, freedom becomes detachment from the consequences of the work.

This concern provides a useful bridge to How to Do More in a Week than Most Do in a Month, though the immediate issue here is not fitting more tasks into a schedule. It is distinguishing productive movement from a full schedule.

Do recognizes why the shift can be uncomfortable. Following instructions offers a ready defense when results disappoint: the employee did what was requested. Ownership removes that shelter and replaces it with judgment.

Accountability begins on both sides of the desk

The argument reaches its hardest point when Do asks how a person or organization gets out of dissipating energy. The obvious answer would be to demand more accountability from employees.

Brier starts elsewhere. The leader should examine the environment that has made ownership unattractive.

That response prevents accountability from becoming a slogan directed only downward. If people consistently avoid taking responsibility, the organization has to consider what its own conduct encourages.

The conversation does not provide a complete diagnosis for every workplace. It does insist that leadership is part of the inquiry. The founder or manager cannot treat the pattern as something occurring entirely outside their influence.

Do’s preferred arrangement supplies the other half of that obligation. The objective should be clear enough for a team to act, and the authority to make decisions should accompany responsibility for the result.

Demanding initiative while retaining every meaningful decision would not resolve the problem described here. Neither would granting freedom without establishing what the work is supposed to achieve.

Brier also addresses the employee in a junior position. His recommendation is neither silent resentment nor an immediate exit. It is a direct conversation with the manager or, ideally, the owner.

He outlines what that conversation should contain:

Describe the problem being encountered.
Explain the problems it is causing and the symptoms showing up.
Propose a remedy that includes personal accountability.

The last point changes the nature of the conversation. A proposed repair is more substantial than a complaint when the person raising it identifies a responsibility they are willing to accept.

That does not make the employee responsible for repairing the entire organization. It makes the proposal reciprocal: a request for change paired with a commitment to participate in it.

Brier then puts a boundary around the effort. If the organization resists a healthier interaction and refuses accountability, the person has learned something important about the culture.

The same standard applies to clients. Brier says he has ended a small number of client relationships over the course of his career when the foundation for constructive work was absent. Finger-pointing and resistance were symptoms; the deeper issue was whether the relationship could support creation.

This is where generosity stops meaning unlimited accommodation. Supporting another person does not require remaining indefinitely in an arrangement that refuses mutual responsibility.

It also returns the discussion to the original problem of differentiation. A company cannot sustain a distinctive promise if its people are unwilling to own the decisions that make the promise credible. Nor can a consultant supply that willingness through better language alone.

The practical challenge is therefore unusually concrete. Examine the arrival before revising the welcome. Examine the response to a defect before praising the service culture. Examine who benefits from the work before counting the hours spent on it.

Then examine whether people have both the authority and the expectation to improve those conditions.

A printed sign can change the beginning of a meeting. A service decision can change how a customer describes a company. A candid conversation can reveal whether an organization is prepared to change at all.

The brand is not waiting for a better statement. It is waiting for someone to take responsibility.

TRANSCRIPT

Today, on this episode, we're going to talk to David Breyer. He's written a couple books. One is called Brand Intervention, which we've reviewed before. But what we're interested in talking to him about today is rich brand, poor brand. He's going to share with us the principles of how brands can develop a rich culture. This is a qualitative thing. This is not about dollars and cents versus a poor culture, what we have to do. And there's some big themes that we touch upon. One, which is about radical intention and accountability and how being generous and supporting and lifting not just customers, but your entire team and everyone in your orbit, that's the best thing that you can do. That's the most fertile thing that you can do to develop a rich culture. Hi, my name is David Breyer, and you're listening to The Future. So, David, what are we talking about today? What's on your mind? Well, let's see. Between the two of us, we have a lot of decades of experience. Yes. We've been in the world of creating, like creating brands, creating voices for all types of different companies, product services, etc. But here's the thing that I found. After I wrote Brand Intervention, which is very well received, people were like, oh, cool. You know, it's got large type. It gets to the meat really fast. And that was based on, at that point, three and a half decades of experience of creating brands. There was a new layer that started to unfold as I spoke to people. And that was, why did some of the brand initiatives and products and things that were created, not some, for some clients, it had amazing legs. And it just crushed it. And others, they kind of struggled. I was like, what was the difference between these two? They were each given, you know, it's kind of like, I use this as a metaphor or analogy. So if I gave two chefs the exact same items, the same proteins, the same produce, the same, you know, one produces eh, and the other, but the same exact ingredients produces something and we're like, oh my God, wow, I can't wait to get more of this. What was the difference? And what I found in brands, the brands that really crushed it were the ones that had a culture that was capable of sustaining and maintaining the brand that was created. And there were qualities and traits that I found, probably qualities and traits that you also have found, whether it's for your own agency or that you've seen in clients' offices. You're like, how come there's like a dysfunctionality there, right? And so that's the thing that basically inspired Rich Brand, Poor Brand because there were subtle nuances. And I think part of it also came to light when I became really good friends with Claude Silver from VaynerX. You know, that was, and she's just, she's the chief heart officer, works with Gary Vee. And to me, that told me more about Gary Vee is hiring her than just watching Gary Vee and his content. It was like, he made that as a very deliberate choice to manage the internal culture, to keep that unit functioning as a healthy organism, right? Holistically. And that was the thing that I said. And so that's what inspired Rich Brand, Poor Brand because there are nuances, there are subtleties. We know that there are. She's the chief heart officer, works with Gary Vee. And to me, that told me more about Gary Vee is hiring her than just watching Gary Vee and his content. It was like he made that as a very deliberate choice to manage the internal culture, to keep that unit functioning as a healthy organism, right, holistically. And that was the thing that I said. And so that's what inspired Rich Brand Poor Brand because there are nuances, there are subtleties. We know that there are, as customers even, there are places that we enjoy shopping because there's a culture there. And there are places that we don't. There are companies that we enjoy interacting with. And there are individuals, I've been very fortunate to actually have some amazing clients who have been able to create incredible cultures. I mean, they are so, they're kind, they're gracious. They're big thinkers, right? Sometimes people have the idea that there are, okay, someone who has very big goals financially, et cetera, that that is exclusive from them being kind or actually caring about the other person or about you being, when you're having a meeting with them, you being the most important person in the room that you actually feel recognized. These are the subtle traits and nuances. And that was this thing that basically drove Rich Brand Poor Brand because that was the thing that made a brand really capable. Like, no matter, we could take anything. You put it in that environment and it would flourish. It would have wings. Okay. We can't assume that somebody's watched our previous conversation together or listened to that. True. So you're using three words. We need to put some definitions on these words. So you're using rich, poor, and the word brand. And for the uninitiated, what is brand? Whenever I'm asked what is brand, I always bring it down to branding as kind of like an action. And that is the, and it's as covered in Brand Intervention, it is a four -word definition that I basically wrote because I rejected the fact that there were, at this point, there's over 25 ,000 books written on branding. Over 25 ,000. So I was like, wait a second. With that many opinions, there's got to be something simpler and more fundamental truth. And that came down to this four -word definition, the art of differentiation. So branding is the art of differentiation. Okay. So then there's, is there, if we go further, there's rich differentiation and there's poor differentiation? There are rich, there are rich cultures and there are poor cultures that make the ability to differentiate and succeed as a brand possible. And rich is not, rich doesn't mean, hey, what's their, what's their annual revenue? That's not what I mean by rich. And poor doesn't mean small. There are very poor, large companies and there are very rich, small companies. So it is, these are quality, these are qualitative things. Now they will show up, obviously, a rich brand, a company that has a culture that's rich. Like when you walk into it, you feel cared for it. When you walk into it, you know that everyone's got your back and that you've got their back. There's an actual, sort of an unspoken brotherhood. And actually here's something even more to give a context. Michael Jordan was always an amazing player, but he even acknowledged when he truly became an amazing player is when he advanced from focusing on how good could his game get to how do I make an amazing team? How do I empower others? That's very much the philosophy that's really part of Rich Grand Poor Brand. Okay, that's excellent. So branding is the art of differentiation. So we hire consultants, advisors, creative types. To help people learn how to be different in an artful way. And then when we talk about rich and poor, we're not talking about financials. We're talking about quality of culture. Poor culture. game get, to how do I make an amazing team? How do I empower others? That's very much the philosophy that's really part of Rich, Grand, Poor, Brand. Okay, that's excellent. So branding is the art of differentiation. So we hire consultants, advisors, creative types to help people learn how to be different in an artful way. And then when we talk about rich and poor, we're not talking about financials, we're talking about quality of culture, poor culture, rich culture. What's one trait of a rich culture and what's one trait of a poor culture? Well, a poor culture would be one that was really only transactional and only metrics and a rich one would be one where it was like, are we there to actually help the person in front of us? And am I there to help my colleagues? Am I there to actually not like we've seen, like we've all seen this. We've all seen, we've gone into environments where it's highly competitive. And, and if I'm going to make progress, it's going to be at the sacrifice of him or her. Where as opposed to that's a poor, poor culture setting. A rich culture setting would be as I rise, they rise. And if they don't rise, I'm, I have, I have not achieved anywhere near my level of success. Could we say, in other words, a poor culture is transactional. We need to talk about what that means. And then rich culture is more relational. It's knowing, it's knowing that, that the, that the, like if you win, I win. It's no, it's knowing that those two things are actually connected at the hip. That is not just a nice little, you know, inspirational poster to have on the wall. I mean, I mean, you've been, you've, you've been doing this for how many, what, 30 plus years. So I've been doing this for 45, right? So between the two of us, we have 75 years of experience. We've seen the good, the bad, the ugly. We've, we've walked into rooms and everyone that's listening to this has experienced this. Everyone has walked into a room where the room kind of felt bigger than you, whether it was unfamiliar or you didn't know the people, whatever. And we, and you kind of shrunk. Everyone's experienced that. We've also experienced a room where we walked into it and we felt welcomed. We felt recognized. We felt like a valuable piece. That's, that's one very concrete example between like a rich brand versus a poor brand. Okay. I just, I'm trying to do the mental math. I'm sorry. I can't concentrate right now. How old is David? That's what I'm thinking this whole time. How old are you? Because I'm 53. And if you've been doing this for 15 years longer than me, my math is you're in your late 60s. Is that true? I, I, in, in two weeks, I'm going to be 66. Okay. So you started a little bit younger than me, which is good. How is David inspired, motivated, and passionate at 66? Cause we're entering into retirement years and it seems like you're pretty fired up right now. I, I am the, whenever anybody talks to me about, I mean, honestly, I feel, I feel excited. I, I, I, I, I love what I, I love what I do. Yes. But let me clarify. I don't know if this was your path, but my path was this. I started out as a, first I was going to be an illustrator. You see some of these things. I was going to first be an illustrator cause I was doing fine art paintings in my teens. I then was going to be an illustrator. I then decided, you know, if I'm just an illustrator and I hand it off to an art director who doesn't know their ass from their elbow, are they going to just decide to pick, you know, lime green, some horrible font and just, and it's just going to be terrible. So at that point I realized I need to probably widen my zone of responsibility. So then I said, I'm really going to be a designer because I was, I discovered some stuff. I was doing fine art paintings in my teens. I then was going to be an illustrator. I then decided, you know, if I'm just an illustrator and I hand it off to an art director who doesn't know their ass from their elbow, are they going to just decide to pick, you know, lime green, some horrible font and just, and it's just going to be terrible. So at that point, I realized I need to probably widen my zone of responsibility. So then I said, I'm really going to be a designer because I was, I discovered some stuff from Herb Blue Ballon that just blew my mind. And that's what I changed. Then that evolved into more comprehensive with the, with the branding aspect. Now I say that only because what fired me up in the beginning was the, being the artisan. Like, I mean, I've got, I've got, I've got a piece, I got this piece right here, which I, I have to twist the camera, but that's you. Do you, do you remember rapidographs where you, did you? Yes, of course. Okay. So rapidographs. So, I mean, I, that's how I actually, if way, all before, this was all before it was any computer. You're talking about a pen, everybody. Yeah. Probably from Koh -I -Nor maybe. Yeah, that's right. Koh -I -Nor. Okay. And so it was super, super fine, needle fine. And it was, and I, and that's what we used to design the logos, do all the various things. And so I had to kind of resistingly move into the, this computer device thing. Right. And, but that was the artisan side. Now for me, the joy, the joy is, I mean, I still design and I, but I also love words. I love language. I love the story. Um, I think we both know the, the incredible importance of story. Um, but it's also, I love speaking with my clients and helping them find these blind spots, these things that they're just not looking at that are the, those are the doors that we opened those doors. All of a sudden they're like, we had no idea. And I love unearthing that potential. That's what lights me up. Okay. So you like being able to meet people in their companies and their organizations and see the blind spots, connect dots, and then have that light bulb eureka moment as a shared experience between you and the client where you're like, wow, I didn't know we could be like this. I didn't know we could do that. The majority of the time it's through creative directors, art directors, ECDs, those kinds of things, people, because we were working mostly with ad agencies. Absolutely. And, and, and the thing is, is it's rewarding when you have that moment and now it can actually continue to exist because there's the fertile soil of the right type of culture, which is the rich brand, poor brand part. If there's not that fertile soil, you can inspire one person. And I, cause I only deal with CEOs. Did you, did you primarily deal with CEOs when you were doing all the agency stuff or? Towards the end of the design service part of my life, I was dealing, not some CEOs. So if I'm dealing with a CEO as a small company, I'm usually dealing with a CMO, somebody like a guy, somebody in the C -suite executive or yeah, a C -suite executive. Yeah. Okay. So do you see yourself doing this until you can't do this anymore until the wheels fall off the wagon? Probably. It's going to be in this form. or another, or another, because there's lots, there's a number of things that I do. I mean, there was, I mean, just as a case in point, you know, cause I'm asked you like you are, I mean, I'm asked to speak at different events and different conventions, et cetera. Well, there was something that was very close to my heart and I was asked to basically speak in Australia. I'd never been to Australia before. That's one hell of a flight, right? It's long. And, you know, went down, treated like royalty. It was amazing. It was incredible. And, you know, I was the keynote speaker. And as a result, three and a half million dollars were raised, was raised for something that I support and believe in. I love that. I lit up the room. It was very close to my heart, and I was asked to basically speak in Australia. I'd never been to Australia before. That's one hell of a flight, right? It's long. And, you know, went down, treated like royalty. It was amazing. It was incredible. And, you know, I was the keynote speaker. And as a result, $3 .5 million was raised for something that I support and believe in. I love that. I lit up the room just the way I would light up a client. So to me, that sort of igniting that fuse, that taking the shades off where someone goes, oh, my God, that's wow. Like, wow. That just is infinitely exciting. Okay. So you pause a little bit because maybe the expression of what you do might evolve and change. Maybe as you continue to evolve in your path, maybe it's writing, public speaking, maybe some other book or who knows what it is. But this is something that lights you up. We've established that. Very good. I have to ask that because it's not that often that I'm speaking to someone who's a little bit older than me. And people, the young people always ask me, Chris, what do you do after this? I'm like, there's no after this. is kind of it. Why does there need to be an after this? Because that's the young person's perspective. So I'm going to ask it on their behalf for you. Okay. Let's get into this. All right. I'm just also curious about what your take on how you show up different in the world. So we're talking about branding as the art of differentiation. How is David Breyer different in the world? From what I, I think I have two answers to that. I mean, I think that there's kind of my idea and I think there's the things that I hear. Which, thankfully, are not terribly, it would be really bad, it would be bad if the gap was like, whoa, what the heck? Right? You know, my thing, my basic thing in the world is that I help, that I kind of help bust myths that limit a company, an individual, a movement, something. You know, I, that, that's kind of what I do when I do it and I do it well and, and just based, and that's a lot of the feedback that I get. It's like, whoa, you opened my eyes to seeing things that, whether I wasn't even looking at that I didn't even realize were issues or important things to really take ownership of. So that's, so that's kind of, you know, it's, it's not, it doesn't seem to be terribly different out there. Obviously it's a matter of scale. You know, I think, I mean, we all, we all know the, the greats who have these, you know, incredible followings, you know, and obviously the wider that following is, the more lies one can, it can impact. So, you know, that's, you know, so impact is always an important thing because I think one of the worst things that could ever happen is indifference. It's like, that is like the worst thing. It's like, oh, so -and -so left the room. We didn't notice. Ooh, that would be, that's about the worst thing again. So wait, I didn't get the answer I was seeking here. How you, for what I asked you, how are you different? And then you said that there's the public perception or what people tell me. And then there's David, like, I didn't get a clear answer on this one. I'm sorry. I'm holding your feet to the fire. How are you different in this world? How am I different, like, from, from others? Like, how am I, how am I different in terms of the art of differentiation from that vantage point? Yes, yes. Like, David Breyer's a brand. Yeah, yeah, totally. So I guess I would say that I, how I'm different is that I'm kind of, you know, one of my, there's a couple of nicknames that I, that kind of follow me around here and there, that I'm the brand father, that I'm the, that I'm the slayer of the mundane. So I'm definitely known to, to ruffle up like closely held myths. That's kind of how I'm different that I, I'm known for being very direct and very, that's, my New York, the New York side of me being a Brooklyn kid. And so that's, so that's an element that I'm different. I mean. I guess I would say that I, how I'm different is that I'm kind of, you know, one of my, there's a couple of nicknames that I, that kind of follow me around here and there, that I'm the brand father, that I'm the, that I'm the slayer of the mundane. So I'm definitely known to, ruffle up like closely held myths. That's kind of how I'm different that I I'm known for being very direct and very, that's, that's my New York, the New York side of me being a Brooklyn kid. And so that's, so that's an element that I'm different. I mean, you know, I mean, you know, Gary's got his, okay. The, the Ukrainian kid who moved to Jersey, who did the wine shop thing with his dad and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And, and so Gary's got, he says that, you know, you, you've got, you've got your, you know, you're, you're, you're very, you're very analytical, you're introspective, you're, you're, you got, you got the, the quiet side, but you're looking and you're highly observant and, you know, and so, and, you know, and you take someone like Brian Collins, who like Brian's got his angle, but, you know, and that's fine. He's sort of, he's sort of in what I call that sort of New York elite, uh, you know, sector. Um, but where I fall, I was, I would say that I am different in that I'm the rebellious, uh, one that, that, that shakes, shakes the tree to see how much, how much we can get out of it. All right. Excellent. So you're, you're kind of more like you got that Brooklyn, New York edge to you. You're going to say it as it is. Matter of fact, and you've been doing this for a very long time. So the grandfather makes a lot of sense to me, an experienced person who's kind of seen it up close for a number of decades. So you're a battle tested veteran. Okay. Wonderful. All right. Let's get into the culture part. So how do I jump in on this conversation with you so that we can push and pull a little bit to see like where this might relate to a lot of people? Okay. What page are we on? I'll, everybody open your books. Hold on. All right. So, so here the perfect page, perfect page is page one 53, which is chapter 21. All right. Chapter 21, how to unleash your David in a world of Goliaths. And that basically is the sort of the summary of the 20 points, the 20 traits. And that is probably the best place because we can literally cherry pick from so many of these because they all touch upon in a very summarized manner. The points that are throughout the book. Okay. When you said what page, what page number did you say? It's, it's this one. Chapter, chapter 21. Chapter 21. Okay. Yeah. See, so I started mixing numbers in my mind. Like, wait a minute, this is not Goliath and David here. Hold on. And that's why, that's why it opens this one. I mean, I, this is one of my favorite quotes from Jim Rohn, you know, learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job, you can make a living, but if you work hard on yourself, you'll make a fortune, you know, that sets the stage. Great quote. By the way, did, where does this artwork come from? This was the, the artwork was basically, it was a, a lot of kind of semi -created and some, little bits and scraps that I kind of, I, I would, I found some pieces here and there on, in my various, you know, various, uh, stock, stock agencies that I was working with. So they inspired it because I wanted this. I wanted this very much to feel like a gallery. It reminded me of when I used to go to galleries in Soho growing up in New York. And I just wanted it to feel like that kind of artwork. I wanted it to be in our world of such everything being so sterile. I wanted it to be earthy and I wanted it to be organic. Is that Claude on the back of the book? Absolutely. Okay. Oh yeah. Now there's context for the photo. Fantastic. Okay. How to unleash your David in a world of Goliaths. Okay, let's go. So, you know, Goliaths are cumbersome and nowhere near as nimble as you. That is your superpower. Here's your rich brand, poor brand checklist to put all this into action. I used to go to galleries in Soho growing up in New York, and I just wanted it to feel like that kind of artwork. I wanted it to be, in a world of such, everything being so sterile, I wanted it to be earthy, and I wanted it to be organic. Is that Claude on the back of the book? Absolutely. Okay. Oh, yeah. Now there's context for the photo. Fantastic. Okay, how to unleash your day in a world of Goliaths. Okay, let's go. So, you know, Goliaths are cumbersome and nowhere near as nimble as you. That is your superpower. Here's your rich brand, poor brand checklist to put all this into action. So, number one, so empower others. Shift focus from sales and pitches to empowering colleagues and customers. Help others grow, and your brand will thrive. You know, and each chapter obviously provides more than that, but that's just, again, you walk into a space where, I mean, here's the question that I think really gives a context. Why is it that car salespeople have the worst reputations, right? Like, who wants to go? You get, oh, you get people cringe. Oh, I don't want to go and see. Why? Because they will show up, and they'll give you a big smile, and they'll shake your hand, and they'll look at your little kid and say, oh, that's such a beautiful little kid. What can we have you driving out in here today? You know, it's kind of like, ugh. You get cringy. It's like, when do I get my shot from this visit, right? And so, you know, that's probably the most extreme example of that kind of, ugh, right? So, but the place where you go, where you feel cared for, where someone actually pauses, stops, looks you in the eye, and asks you a question, and shuts up and lets you answer it. I mean, how often does it doesn't happen enough, right? You know, fanatical intention, right? I mean, that's the second one. You know, to survive fully, we must connect. To connect, we need to recognize the necessity of community. Own that. You know, that was from a, I was having a conversation with, someone who had also, I'd shared a stage with. He's like a super affluent, like a multi, multi, multi, -millionaire successful entrepreneur. And we ended up speaking, and he talked about this fanatical intention. And I love that phrase, because is that really, the people that I find, I mean, you tell me. I mean, what I have found, the people who are the most successful have a fanatical intention. You know, not only for what they do, but for what you get out of it, for your side of the experience. Have you found that to be the case? I don't know. I'm mapping what you're saying to my own experiences. It's like, well, there's intention in, what is fanatical intention? Well, I mean, it's like, it doesn't, it doesn't lessen. It doesn't dilute. It doesn't, it's, it's to the point of being almost obsessed. I mean, let's look at it. I mean, I would say that Gary, Gary Vee has a fanatical intention with regard to when he's talking about something, he's all in. He's not going halfway. You know, that to me is an example of fanatical intention. You know, you look at, I mean, you look at Frank Gary, the architect. There's no way that he's going to produce those completely rule -breaking structural designs, choice of materials, walls that aren't straight and all the various things without having a fanatical intention, you know? And, and I just, you know, and I just completed, for example, there's a, so, you know, that you obviously know that the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, you know who he is. So Frank Lloyd Wright, there's an 800 acre estate about four hours away from my office. So the end of last year, for a couple of years, they were like, David, we'd love to have you like help us with branding this, da, da, da, da, da. And so the end of last year, they were like, we got you in the budget. I'm like, great. So the first quarter of this year, working on branding. You know, and I just completed, for example, there's a, so you know that you obviously know that the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, you know who he is. So Frank Lloyd Wright, there's an 800 acre estate about four hours away from my office. So the end of last year, for a couple of years, they were like, David, we'd love to have you like help us with branding this da da da da da. And so the end of last year, they were like, we got you in the budget. I'm like, great. So the first quarter of this year, working on branding that, which I never in a million years would have thought I'm working on probably the most celebrated American architect there is. And I got to visit the facility, the buildings. They put me there overnight. I slept in like one of the rooms that he designed and, and I saw the actual, his studio and the drawing drafting table where he did the drawings for the Guggenheim museum. Right. So I mean, this is like, wow, this is pretty amazing. He had fanatical intention. He designed over 1100 buildings and over 500 of them got built more prolific than anyone in history. So to me, fanatical intention, there are different things that one can have fanatical intention about Gordon Ramsay has fanatical intention. And it shows up in different ways. Some are louder. Claude, Claude, Claude Silver has fanatical intention with regard to the heart aspect of the culture and the people that she supports. And it shows up in different ways. It doesn't, it's not one flavor. It can, it could, it could be more flavors than a Baskin Robbins joint. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But some, but someone that wouldn't be that committed, it definitely aligns with commitment and conviction and being that committed to state that publicly is absolute to, in my book, that's fanatical intention. And I, and, and that's, and that is a wonderful attribute. Great. So three, so is the power of love. Want a killer brand? Fall in love with your customers. When they feel the love, they'll move mountains for you. I was speaking to a mastermind the other night and I said, are there, I said, look, are there a lot of advances with regard to AI? Yes. Is everyone trying to leverage AI to accelerate this and to increase the efficiency of that? Yes. But it is my prediction. But it is my prediction. That the companies that are going to absolutely outlast and out and outperform other companies will be the ones that actually are people centric. That because there's no machine that is going to make you or I feel the recognition of, wow, I was just understood. No matter how well scripted, no matter how well scripted it is, no matter how perfectly stated it is, no matter how much they've humanized the voices or the videos or whatever AI comes up with, there's, it's like, you know, I mean, if you're having a conversation, like I, I've, I've seen you, you travel with your, with your, with your, is it, do you have one, one son or do you have multiple kids? Two boys. Two boys. All right. So there's, there's no way, like when you're listening to your boy share something from, from his heart, he's had a moment. He's had an experience. He's had something that he'll remember and he'll cherish. There's, and when he shares that with you and you listen to that, there's no way that a machine, no matter how good, can ever replace you in terms of your affinity, your admiration, your appreciation, and that love. So that's what that, that's what that one is about. Okay. To do things with this kind of love would almost always, not always, but almost involve, I think, a certain level of craft and things would take longer to do. You can't push people through a line. You can't turn tables as quickly. And you have to spend time talking, getting to know people. no matter how good, can ever replace you in terms of your affinity, your admiration, your appreciation, and that love. So that's what that one is about. Okay. To do things with this kind of love would almost always, not always, but almost, involve, I think, a certain level of craft and things would take longer to do. You can't push people through a line. You can't turn tables as quickly. And you have to spend time talking, getting to know people. So then I automatically start to think there's a price tag attached to all this. Can be. Can be. I mean, but haven't you, I mean, at the same time, sometimes there's an incredible something that's just a little gesture. You know, a little gesture. It's not something that's big, not expensive, not even long in duration, but it's a gesture. And you're like, wow, that was amazing, right? You know, it's like. Yes. So there's a grace to it. So, yeah, I mean, oftentimes, I think you're right. There is definitely going to be a percentage of those that are going to be, that's the premium that we're willing to pay for that. In your life, have you experienced those small gestures that you can recall? I have some, but. Yeah. Are there things that you're like, hey, this doesn't cost any money, but they did it and it made me feel different. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I, what comes to mind are some, probably a few restaurants where the culture of the restaurant, just even the way the person sat us down and then just, and just greeted us and just, and welcomed us. In fact, there was a place, there was this amazing restaurant in the Bahamas. It's called Flying Fish. It overlooks the water. My wife and I, we had a little break on our little visit. And so we went there. Someone said, that's a good place to go. We went there. Oh my, it was unreal. I mean, the food was unreal. The, the care was unreal. They were so cheerful. It's like, welcome. I mean, they actually was like, welcome. It was like that element of being a stranger. Like the, no, you were, you were instantly family. They were like, welcome, come. And they were so pleased and happy to service us and provide the most beautifully plated food, the most incredibly, and, and we, would have a question and no question was met with, huh, you should know better. It was like, oh, glad you asked. And they were so thrilled to share. And we, what we found out was that this chef who was ranked the second in the, top ranked chef in the Bahamas, was completely self -taught. And you could tell he created a culture, an absolute rich brand culture, just in his people. They were proud of everything they brought. They were proud to share that deliciousness that you were going to enjoy. And so that's what I remember. What about you? I have a bunch. So I'm going to do something like really low cost things. I'm going to credit my former business mentor, Keir McLaren. He's passed away since then. So that's why I say former. He told me like, you know, every time I come to a place of business, I walk around and I try to imagine what it's like to be a customer of yours. So he gave us three recommendations. He says, why are the, customer parking spaces over there? That's not a good spot. I said, well, because I want to take good care of my employees. I give them the best parking spaces. He goes, okay, I understand the intention behind that. But if I'm struggling to get into this thing, it's already starting the meeting poorly. Give them the second best parking spaces then. Reserve two of them. He goes, and don't give them directions on where to park, put a sign up for them. Like, oh, I could do that. He goes, when they come up the stairwell and they enter into your office, put up a, you know, I'm sure your designers can do something where it says, welcome, David Breyer. It's not just, hey, it's tailored for them. And these changes cost us nothing. He goes, okay, I understand the intention behind that, but if I'm struggling to get into this thing, it's already starting the meeting poorly. Give them the second best parking spaces then. Reserve two of them. He goes, and don't give them directions on where to park. Put a sign up for them. Like, oh, I could do that. He goes, when they come up the stairwell and they enter into your office, put up a, you know, I'm sure your designers can do something where it says, welcome, David Breyer. It's not just, hey. It's tailored for them. And these changes cost us nothing. We move some people around. Some people are moaning or groaning. It's fine. And before they arrive, somebody prints it out on a piece of paper. It's three cents, paper and a toner. Put it in there. And we've been told many times by different people, I've never felt so special nor important in my life. I actually took a selfie in front of my own parking sign because I feel like I'm an A -list actor. Spot reserved for me. I feel like I'm the CEO of this company. And so if they bring that energy into the room, we're having a good meeting. We'd have to royally F it up. But even if we did, they'd still probably show us a lot of grace because of how everything was framed. And then I stayed at this fishing lodge, in which I'm going to again. When you get off the airplane and you pull up to this floating lodge, everybody there is going to learn your name. You're on a first name basis and they kind of know something about you. So they're taught to do that. But as you get off the plane, they don't just say welcome. They say, welcome home. That word home, it's a trigger word. It means this is your place. And we're glad to see you again. So there's little things like that. And then there's big corporate things, I think, that you can do. This costs a little bit of money, but I want to give credit here because there are two instances where big corporations did right by me. And they could have done differently and that's fine. But they chose to do the right thing, which makes me, I think, a customer for life. One is Volvo. Share the story. So my car's out of warranty. It just got out of warranty and there's been an annoying defect that I never got around to. So when I finally brought it in, they're like, oh yeah, it's going to cost $1 ,200. I'm like, wait a minute. I know I'm out of warranty, but that piece of metal trim is bent and it cut my finger the other day. So I reached out to corporate and they're like, we got you. Please bring it in. We'll take care of this thing. And to their word, they took care of it. That was awesome. Number two was Sony. I love to share a story. I buy the Sony flagship receiver, AV receiver. And after a couple of years of use, there's one thing that wasn't working. So they said, hey, send it in. I'm like, cool, whatever. Box it up, send it in. They said, your receiver's so old, relatively speaking, we can no longer repair nor replace this. So the only thing we can do is give you a new receiver. I'm like, okay, cool. So what does Sony do? They send me a brand spanking new flagship receiver that is probably more than the one I paid for, has more features. And they're like, that's yours. I'm like, okay. I like this. People who stand behind their product, no matter what, and they don't get into, well, you know, it's too old or you're out of warranty. It's not really our problem. I think that's the thing that plagues a lot of companies and organizations today where they stick to the level of the law and they are, it's not our problem. And you keep saying that long enough and you have a different problem. You have no customers. And so what am I doing right now? I'm advertising for Oli's, the fishing lodge, for Volvo and for Sony because it took care of us. One last little example, we're staying in a seaside resort in Vietnam somewhere. I forget the name of it. is a beautiful high -end hotel. My wife, she rents the villa. It's quite expensive to be there. We go out for the day. We come back. There's two things they said. We'll do your laundry. So just leave your laundry here and we'll take care of that. And we'll bring it back same day. I'm like, that's service. I like that. But it's this little touch that they did, which was my children have laptops, iPads, all kinds of stuff. They put a little Velcro strap and cleaned up all the cables and left it there for us. And any advice that was out, they left a microphone. in Vietnam somewhere. I forget the name of it. is a beautiful high -end hotel. My wife, she rents the villa. It's quite expensive to be there. We go out for the day. We come back. There's two things they said. We'll do your laundry. So just leave your laundry here and we'll take care of that. And we'll bring it back same day. I'm like, that's service. I like that. But it's this little touch that they did, which was my children have laptops, iPads, all kinds of stuff. They put a little Velcro strap and cleaned up all the cables and left it there for us. And any advice that was out, they left a microfiber cloth so we can wipe off the surfaces. And my wife's like, hey, where's mine? I'm like, I don't know where yours is, honey, but leave mine alone because you did not leave a laptop or a phone out for them to take care of. But the boys, it's everywhere. And so, of course, they got this little surprise. The total cost of the Velcro strap and the microfiber cloth, I think, is by like 35 cents. But the feeling is, this is a great place and we're going to have a memory and an experience to share with other people. So I'm 100 % in on this. Okay. All right. What's the next one? There's one thing we all do. We each have ideas. Some ideas go inward. Some go in all directions. Others go outward. Ideas going outward, benefiting the most people, are the things worth feeding. Pay attention to the direction others offer you in the way of ideas. Some ideas are built on growth. Some are built on destruction, relying on the failure of others to win. Others are built on conservation, which is built on the idea that creation is a scarce commodity. That is false and destructive. Trust me. No matter what, remember, ideas have direction. The rich brand knows the true power that results from the quality of ideas and how much they are shared outwardly. Like handing out sunshine on a cloudy day, the more we extend outward, the more everyone feels the warmth. The poor brand has long forgotten the power of an idea, replacing rays of sunshine with cynicism, which I call the energy drink of doom. It only looks at what's coming inward and has lost sight of the importance of giving outwardly. Okay. I get that. There's a, one of my favorite lines in the book, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, and there's a Latin quote, which I'm not going to try to say, but the rough translation is, there's nobility in doing humble things well. And you and I as creatives, as artists possibly, can appreciate that. And I think humans can see that when you are so good at your craft, it becomes transcendental and it becomes artful where they're stepping back and looking at the plates, the fork, the distance between the edge, between each other. And there's just a level of attention to detail. And I always describe it to folks that when you see someone love what they do so much, it gives you goosebumps, especially if you're the recipient of this love. Right? Like if you go to, I think the reason why massages or spas or cost as much as they do are places that people talk about in affectionate tones is because you've never been so pampered in your life. They take your feet and they gently ease it into a warm bath of water with rose petals, lemongrass, and ginger or whatever they're putting in there, and they gently scrub your feet. And that's just the beginning of the experience. While you're sipping on a cup of tea or something like that, you have a little biscuit, and you're like, wow, I can get used to this life. And people really care, and they show you that they care. And I think the internet has been a great place to see this demonstrated, that we can see accounts where there's a guy who's like folding pizza boxes. Have you seen this? And he's doing it seven times faster than everyone else, and he's just throwing it over, or they just keep laying it. I'm like, what? There's repetition of motion here that he's mastered muscle memory, and he can just do this blindfolded. And it's a thing of beauty to see. we see some kind of Chinese pottery master, who's like making a little tea kettle. care and they show you that they care and i think the internet has been a great place to see this demonstrated that we can see accounts where there's a guy who's like folding pizza boxes have you seen this and he's doing it seven times faster than everyone else and he's just throwing it over and they or they just keep landing i'm like what there's repetition of motion here that he's mastered muscle memory then he can just do this blindfolded and it's a it's the thing of beauty to see or conversely we see some kind of chinese pottery master potter who's like making a little tea kettle and just slowly building the layers the handle and firing in it's like wow it's just so soothing to watch we appreciate that we can see that okay all right so is this how we start to love on our customers oh yeah this yeah this see i mean this is like you know this goes into so many awesome little examples it's basically it basically goes over the the value of others and here it's like it's how larry david and jerry seinfeld tapped into each other's comedic genius and used it to fuel the talents of julia lewis dreyfus jason alexander and michael richards it's how spielberg scorsese lucas and coppola formed the close -knit group in the 1970s and 80s frequently collaborating and sharing ideas and supporting each other's ideas and it goes on to it goes on to motown and all these other legendary things that change the landscape of culture and so that's so that's the element with regard to that okay so there's two parts to this which is one if you're the brand instead of waiting to reciprocate you could just take that first act of generosity but if you're a human you could do that and we can get a sense of the culture the people as to how they also want to lift you up i think a lot of the ideas that you're writing about are intermeshed with each other it's not like this is a separate idea because this calls back some of the other points you already brought up so yes i mean one so obviously there's there's the outward growth concept there's the there's the destruction the lessening concept but the bottom line is is ideas ideas are three in terms of direction so there are ones that go outward that actually is that's that's that's being that's basically creating space that's that's a granting you know recognition to what's out there there's there are those that are inward and i will tell you on that particular point to give clarity on that it was when i had one client of mine who will remain nameless but a client of mine we went out to lunch after some years after we did a rebrand for them he sat me down we're sitting over eating some nice japanese food and he goes david by the way thank you i said for what he goes for making it possible for for me to do what i did i i just donated 50 million dollars to causes that i support and i'm not done he goes i'm not i didn't do that now i'm like okay i'm done i'm just i'm not gonna no and he's continuing but he was not able to do that without having helped him build up what he built up and it was at that moment i was like wow i had a whole new framework of what i did and the amount of pride that i felt that i knew that i had helped him flip side i have helped entrepreneurs founders who only cared about how many commas and zeros they had in their bank account i mean it's very narcissistic it's like they're only it's like okay how much money did i make from that how much money it's totally and that's inward so the thing about that that that is the most dissatisfying and i could help someone make millions or billions of dollars but with that kind of mentality that is the most dissatisfied unsatisfying experience because it goes nowhere it doesn't benefit it doesn't it doesn't enrich what's the third one was there a third one or did i only cared about how many commas and zeros they had in their bank account. I mean, it's very narcissistic. It's like, they're only, it's like, okay, how much money did I make from that? How much money, it's totally, and that's inward. So the thing about that, that is the most dissatisfying, and I could help someone make millions or billions of dollars, but with that kind of mentality, that is the most dissatisfying, unsatisfying experience because it goes nowhere. It doesn't benefit, it doesn't enrich. What's the third one? Was there a third one, or did I mishear that? Yeah, there's the inward, the outward. There's a third one, which is basically, it could just be like sort of all over the place, sort of like dispersing, and that's just like, that's not productive at all. He's it. College football is back. So Hilton called a meet, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Ooh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake -up call at 5 .55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. The outward idea is how you can give to others. The inward idea is how can they take from others. And then what is the one that dissipates? That's being busy without anyone being the beneficiary of any of that busy activity. It's just kind of like random busyness. All right. So I think, unfortunately, a lot of corporate America is stuck in busy work. Yeah, without question. And they're chasing the next shiny item as far as tools. Yeah. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. The confusion that sometimes my team will get into is, Chris, we've done all this stuff. I'm like, I know you've done all this stuff. I don't discredit or discount how many hours you put into this, but where are the click -throughs? Where's the revenue? You've done things, but I have nothing positive to show for what you've done. So I don't want to manage people's time. I don't even want to manage the energy. I just want to look at the outcomes together and say, look, is this what we're working towards? Then empower you to make all the decisions so that you don't come back and say, well, you told me to do this. I didn't tell you to do anything. I told you, let's get more views on this video. Or let's increase our sub rate. We want that. And how you want to get there is up to you. But people are very uncomfortable with that kind of responsibility and accountability. They're used to saying, you tell me what to do, so I don't have to have any accountability. Which is the worst scenario. Because like you said, there's no accountability. There's no responsibility. There's no ownership. Yeah. And they're basically, oh, okay. Because the worst scenario is for, it was kind of like, let's even put it in the context of rich brand, poor brand. The company that you and I, this is you and me being a customer of a company. The company that you and I, that we have to convince a company through a call or two or three or text or whatever, because of our demand and insistence, and then they finally do the right thing, is not as rewarding, nor will it create any kind of loyalty on our part, as if they, that company, actually had the initiative coming from them outward. Right? And so that's like the difference there. It's like, what's the level of ownership? If you're in that space where you're used to being busy, not giving, maybe not taking, what is the remedy to that? You're just dissipating. You're spending a lot of energy and you're using a lot of resources. You know, this is a very cruel and judging statement. It's like, you're not worth the oxygen in the room or something like that, but you're just wasting energy, fuel that could be used for something much more productive. How do we get out of that mindset or that pattern of behavior? Well, I mean, I think it's, if one is, if one is the leader, the founder or the manager or whatever like that, one has to basically look and go, wait a second. What, you know, what kind of environment am I creating that actually nobody wants to take any ownership? You know, if one is, energy and you're using a lot of resources hot you know this is a very cruel and judging statement to say like you're not worth the oxygen in the room or something like that you're just wasting energy fuel that could be used for something much more productive how do we get out of that mindset or that pattern of behavior well i mean i think it's if one is if one is the leader the founder or the manager or whatever like that one has to basically look and go wait a second what you know what kind of environment am i creating that actually nobody wants to take any ownership you know um if one is in the position in a junior position where they're in that environment you sit down and i mean let me ask you this i know that i've i know that i've probably retired probably about three three or four clients during my career you probably retired some right okay so the thing is is that they weren't willing to adapt to actually have the proper kind of healthy interaction and accountability and might be finger pointing or whatever it kind of shows up in different ways but i don't care about the symptoms and how it shows up i'm looking at is there a foundation to create so that to me if someone's in a junior position like this i would say what you know sit down with the manager or ideally the owner and just go here's what i'm running into it it's and here here are the problems that i see it's causing here are the symptoms of how it's showing up here's how i actually propose to make it to to actually remedy it now hopefully that that remedy that third point would include you know your own accountability the everyone starts being accountable if we all rise up in accountability it's kind of like that great line from from al pacino i think it's like you know if we don't make it as individuals we die as a team no if we don't make it as a team we die as individuals right um that's the kind of mentality and i would present it and if that was met with resist with resistance like no no no no you know you're in the wrong place that is not the culture and you just say okay you know i wish you success thank you very much and there's the door because our greatest power and our greatest freedom is the ability to know when to end the game that just is not working and walk out and say no okay i've had to fire a few clients before you you say very politely retire i'd like to know how you retired them i'll share a story i think this is a great way to end up this conversation it's like with a lot of positivity let's just enter on a little negative note everybody will lift you up or stab you on the way down go ahead give us one um well one was so one was um we did a rebrand i thought i thought it was a very very successful rebrand we did i knew we did all the right steps that we would normally do and it would absolutely in the right hands be successful i i'm looking at the facts so that i i don't want to throw anyone under the bus here so i'm yeah extract the parts that are hurt right all right that's fine i'm just curious how you handled this a conversation how i had how i how i handled it was well basically what ended up happening was i was called and by the by the owner who said you know um we're not exactly getting the kind of like you know you know expected like in a new client they were getting this that the other they just weren't getting they weren't getting the outcomes that they were hopefully gonna get and i said well tell me what you're doing because i never one thing that i've learned is i never take another person's conclusion as fact i verified facts for myself and so um i said to tell me tell me what you're doing you know blah blah blah well i'm doing everything everything you told us to do you know this is how we're implementing da da da da da and da da da da da da i said okay i'm taking notes i then go and inspect for myself and i find none of that to be true and i know and now there are some clients who are malicious this is i didn't consider this malicious i considered that take another person's conclusion as fact i verified the facts for myself and so um i said to tell me tell me what you're doing you know blah blah blah blah well i'm doing everything everything you told us to do you know this is how we're implementing da da da da da and da da da da da i said okay i'm taking notes i then go and inspect for myself and i find none of that to be true and i know and now there are some clients who are malicious this is i didn't consider this malicious i consider this absent -minded and highly unaware and so at that point i just sent an email and i said you know i'd recommend doing xyz and i think that that will work and i kind of left it at that and i just i didn't try and go we're over we're done cut the cymbal cord i mean i just kind of was like i just get i just left it with a nice little send -off and and then that was it i let it die its own death that's very gentle yeah okay i'm gonna bring some violence to this conversation this is a quentin tarantino segment well this is fair because you said retire and that was kind of an easy retirement i said fire and i had to fire somebody so i was working with the founder co -owner of a visual effects company they were one of the odd shops in town and they told me they wanted this big dreaming thing like i said oh okay our reference point is dreamworks the theatrical animated logo of dreamworks do you remember this do you know the dreamworks logo i think you see like the word dreamworks and then you see a ripple and then you pan up and it's a boy sitting on a crescent moon fishing and then the dreamworks logo appears inside that d and we pull back so there's several reveals and misdirections which is a pretty like smart conceptual thing to do this mini story there's this other one it's like bahala pictures or something and there's this viking boat that goes across the clouds there's nobody in it but it's like and then it ends on the sail and it's like the boat i'm like yeah that's so these are epic these are things and he's like i want something like that i'm like right i'm gonna make you that so we go away and we do all these storyboards and this is pre -ai it's not so easy to paint photorealistic compositions in a sequence to show these different ideas presented a bunch of ideas to me because oh oh i need some time to think about this i'm like okay so he comes back and we meet again and he says hey chris yeah i'm curious do you have other ideas like what are you looking for because i don't know but you know like when i hired my interior designer she just pulled sheets and she showed me a bunch of things and i was just able to say i like this i don't like that i thought maybe it was going to be more like that each one of these frames was carefully crafted to tell a very specific story i'm not just pulling random things from a book and saying which one of these would you like me to make for you hey right right and i said to him i can see that we have two different ideas as to what we want to do here and i just don't think we're a good fit for you so i'm going to go back to my office and we're going to send you your money back and i wish you the best of luck he goes wait wait wait wait i'm not saying that you should go away i said well why don't you think about it okay and then get a message or a text message from him saying hey i thought about it i'm happy to take the money back and we sent we refunded their deposit everything was cool and then i see what they did and i kid you not i don't know if you remember a foundry i forget what the foundry is called but they had a bunch of like weird typefaces they would have things like crack house and it was like hevetica but it's broken you know distressed his whole identity was a font poorly designed with some cracks in it so we went from this big epic story fantasy making make -believe to all lowercase jacked a peg face and that's what he paid for so i'm pretty sure I kid you not. I don't know if you remember a foundry. I forget what the foundry is called, but they had a bunch of like weird typefaces. They would have things like crack house and it was like Helvetica, but it's broken, you know, distressed. His whole identity was a font poorly designed with some cracks in it. So we went from this big epic story, fantasy making, make believe to all lowercase, jacked a peg face, and that's what we paid for. So I'm pretty sure some designer, I was going to use different words, some designer showed a bunch of different outputs from a computer and said, here's your logo. He goes, that one. Excellent. Now I will tell you this, this story is kind of dark. I'm not holding grudges. I don't care. I just don't want small -minded people as part of my client base. It's not worth the agony that they're going to put me through, the aggravation. I'll tell you something. Years later, this person developed a brain tumor and passed away. I'm not saying that anybody deserves this from rejecting a logo from Christo. No, but yeah. You reminded me of probably there were earlier in my career, probably like the first 15 years, I had a few more of these. And I think it was just where my, how I presented stuff that opened the door to that. But I'll know, I'm not sure what I want, but I'll know it when I see it, which is about, that is the number, that is like the worst possible client you could ever have. Oh, so this is a, so this is a telepathic exercise. I'm supposed to tap into some reserve. There's something that you don't quite know or have awareness of, but it's somewhere buried deep into somewhere. And that is about, for those that are listening, if you ever have someone tell you that, say, say, thank you, but no thank you. I think that's beyond telepathy. Because in telepathy, you could read their mind, you'll know what the, their mind has nothing. They're saying, I'm indecisive. I have no idea what good or bad is. And until I see enough and feel like I've had enough, I'll know. I'm going to taste every item in the buffet and I'll tell you which is good. But I have no conception, no history, no experience. So we want to only work with discerning buyers of creative services. People who are like so particular, it was like, you know what? That's not the right shade of white. I'm like, I agree. I'm glad you caught that. That's who I want to work with. It's not like, oh, any shade of white will do. I'm not so sure. So let's paint this 55 times. And, and the, and the other side of it is people might be not up to that level of being that decisive, but are they trainable? Are they coachable? To help give them, here's the criteria by which we're going to do this. is, because otherwise, if we don't establish, if we don't basically set the framework for, here's the criteria that it, then it falls into the land of, do I like this lipstick? Does it, how does it make me look in the mirror? Hmm. It's like, it's, it's just crazy. But to that point, and your whole trainable coachable thing is, I do have clients who are not discerning buyers of creative services, but what they do have is that they know what they don't know. Exactly. So when they say, Chris, I don't know how to respond to this. I'm like, okay, so you don't know which one to pick. I'll pick for you. This is the one. And they're like, that's the one then. Right. Because I trust you. And I know I hired the right person. I said, excellent. That's right. Let's move forward. That's fine. So they know what they don't know. It's like, wow, you see things in ways that I've never seen. I'm like, that's why I do what I do. And that's why you do what you do. That's, that's why, that's why I'm hired. That's why you hired me. David Breyer is the author of Brand Intervention and Rich Brand, Poor Brand. He's been my guest today, holding up the book. David, if people want to find out more about you, where should we send them? If they, I would say, go to risingabovethenoise .com, R -I -S -I -N -G. And you will find plenty there, including more information about both Rich Brand, Poor Brand, and Brand Intervention. They don't know. It's like, wow, you see things in ways that I've never seen. I'm like, that's why I do what I do. And that's why you do what you do. That's, that's why, that's why I'm hired. That's why you hired me. David Breyer is the author of Brand Intervention and Rich Brand, Poor Brand. He's been my guest today, holding up the book. David, if people want to find out more about you, where should we send them? I would say go to risingabovethenoise .com, R -I -S -I -N -G. And you will find plenty there, including more information about both Rich Brand, Poor Brand, and Brand Intervention, and other, other little freebies that you can get that are actually just there. Wonderful. Thank you very much for being my guest today. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

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“But people are very uncomfortable with that kind of responsibility and accountability.”

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Topic: BRAND STRATEGY

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