Purpose Is Motivational, Impact Is Measurable with Kevin Finn (some explicit language)

Brands become Brands when society says so not when the business does not when the business says hey we're a brand that's it great no matter what stage in in their Journey they're in if they claim they're a brand I question that it's like when someone says hey I'm cool and you just know that cool people don't say that they don't need to because they're like yeah we say you're cool that makes you cool and that's why I try and distinguish between whether you're a business which is the same kind of definition or a brand that's different to branding which is all the kind of tools that we use and the Frameworks and the visuals in the language and it's it's done at a certain point in time where a brand or a business is over a long period of time all right welcome back everybody we've been talking to Kevin he's given this amazing dissertation about his thoughts on branding as a person who's lived at the intersection of many different things as a traditionally trained graphic designer with his thoughts and interests and research on where design intersects with business with use it's social political economic intersection you're a super curious person we agree on lots and lots of things we we might disagree on a couple things and I'm just interested in getting into that part of the conversation so if you haven't done so stop right now go back and watch that episode we'll include a link to that right here somewhere watch that okay and come back so Kevin I I love that in your presentation your talk you don't pull any punches shots are fired and you're calling people out and the thing that's going to be very unsettling for some of the listeners or viewers of this is they identify so strongly with the things that they make and many of them work in the visual identity space and it became sexy or on Trend or whatever it was to start describing what they do as branding into things they create as Brands I think it's because they thought they could charge more they felt more important more valuable but so many people miss this so for the people who missed this whole dissertation that you just gave sum up this idea that you have about why what you do is in branding there's two sides to this the first is what we as designers in in this sort of identity space do is is branding is Communications it is logos it is websites it's and that's all great and that's fantastic we can't call it a brand because a brand evolves and deepens over time and we are not part of that process unfortunately in some cases we can be I've given three kind of examples in the presentation but we need to realize acknowledge and that's a responsibility to the businesses that we work with to say that we're going to do branding for you it's your job as the business to build the brand using the tools we've given you and the tools we've given you is the framework it's the roadmap it's the blueprint it's all of the things you're going to need to build your brand the other side of what I'm talking about is we've left too much on the table as designers where we think that if we do the identity in the communications then we're done great and I'm saying that no we should be having long-term interactions with these organizations to help guide them as the businesses evolve so we can I feel expand or offer and expand our income and expand or or value if we're talking to businesses in a way that isn't stopping short of you know we do logos and we do websites and we do this stuff we should be saying we want to partner with you as advisors to help you over time to help you and your team build your brand in a consistent way and the start of that could be the logos and the communications and the websites but over time we need to help you see where that goes and what I'm saying that I'm not seeing that at the moment but I'm hearing that's what people are saying and not doing so out of curiosity when you do client work and you're meeting a prospect a new client how to describe what you do a couple of things first of all I don't call them clients and I tell them that straight up and I know this is a bit semantic but I think it's an interesting mindset when I use the word client I did for most of my career then we automatically set up there in the power position they're the client and we're the supplier so they tell us what to do and we can argue it but they're paying us and they tell us what to do so I literally when I'm talking to to these I call them businesses that I work with and when I'm talking to them from from the get-go I tell them that I say you you are not a client because I'm not in that relationship you're a business that I work with and we're working together there's an old phrase that says I don't work for you I work with you it kind of sums it up but I'll go further than that and I say to them my role is an advisor to you my role is to come into look at your business and your organization assess it from an objective in the independent point of view and then challenge your assumptions that's my job my job is to chat because you're not challenging internally because you live it every day you've got to use me to come in and challenge you and see if these assumptions can get validated and then I say um I know we're having this conversation you're wondering if you want to choose me over somebody else you're talking to I don't care about that I tell them I'm not interested in getting another job I'm also interviewing you and I think maybe we have a good fit maybe we don't we gotta assess that because I'm not interested in working with people for the sake of it I want to work with people who are nice who are decent who are doing meaningful things and are interested in having a positive impact and if that's not you I'm fine I will walk away from that and I'll put a little caveat there and I even tell them I said I can't afford to do that I'm not in some privileged I've got money coming out of my ears I can do it it's a deliberate choice that I make and I'll find let's say this final thing on on this and it was advice that I was given when I was at Sachi and sachis um and it was from an incredible guy called Bobby Sherwood who at the time was a worldwide creative director and he said only promote what you want to get more of now we have a sort of a knee-jerk reaction to put onto our websites every piece of work we do because we've done it and we're going to show we did it and we work with this organization and we did these things but his advice was if you do that and there's no real pattern all you're going to do is more logo stuff just produce stuff whereas if you make a deliberate decision and say I will only work with meaningful people doing meaningful things and that's all I'm going to promote and that's all I'm going to take on over time that becomes all you do so I have these conversations um up front and I even tell them I'm going to be honest with you we don't have time to [ __ ] around I tell them that straight up I use that language I use that language because it's abrasive it's it's a bit sort of challenging and most of the time the beginning of my conversations with these businesses starts in the usual space and finishes in a completely different engaging humble all walls down let's just talk real people to people let's see what we can do changes everything this is fascinating because when people hear you say that they automatically assume Kevin you're in a great place financially you can afford to tell people to take a long walk off short Bridge you're like no no I can't but I still do this and and that has even more meaning to me and it resonates even more this is fantastic so I like the language that you pick and you're very intentional by describing this if you are a business in their business then it's two businesses choosing and electing who they want to work with there's no power Dynamic here you're arriving at the same place you also described yourself as an objective advisor who is going to challenge assumptions because it's hard to read the label from inside the jar that you don't need another job yep but if you were pushed to and they'd be like great I love your attitude I love that you're just right in it and you're just super Direct but what is it that you make do you make something for us or is it mostly advice no um I will say to them that my first stage will be to challenge the assumptions and I have a set of questions that I've designed over a number of years where I will talk to everyone a selection of people in the business from all roles and all levels and there will be individual confidential one-on-one conversations then I'll do the same with this separate set of questions with customers ex-customers business partners board members whomever outside the business so inside outside the business and I pull all of the question all the responses together in a kind of an aggregated no one's no one knows who said what and it's written specifically so it's a report that says here's a snapshot of where you are today I call it perception research here is what people's perception of you is now we have a tangible means to assess where your assumptions of yourself line up with everyone else's perceptions of you and we can see how far close you are of that and that to me is is an amazing um foundational position to start from and what I've heard from businesses is they find that incredibly valuable because they don't have that information they can't ask the same questions to their staff or because they'll think they're going to get fired or promoted they can't ask the same questions to their clients or customers some of them might have an ax to grind some might not really want to answer it someone independent outside objective can ask that privately I've had people say to me at the end of those interviews this was like therapy I'm not kidding you so that goes in and I produce a report but from that report I can then say to the organization the deliverables if you like are once we've got that information what might be your strategic positioning what is that core Central organizing idea that sits the center of your business where all communication comes from well this report and these conversations help me get there way quicker and with much more accuracy and then we've got that sentence of that positioning and I say well now does that message that we've all agreed on does your identity reflect that so for example if the positioning was that there are progressive and and uh Innovative and challenging organization but they look like they're conservative and traditional and quite dated well you need to redo your identity because it's not adding up and then I can do the identity and then they'll say well how does this work across other Communications well we have to look at that and see let's see if anything needs to get done if it does we do it so my whole kind of approach and it's probably you laugh at me Chris it's probably the worst business advice I can give myself to anybody else I designed myself out of the equation unless they need ongoing advice this is what I said earlier about I don't try and leave anything on the table once all of the usual traditional graphic design itself is done my job's done I've designed myself out of the equation traditionally but as an advisor that can continue so the graphic design stuff I designed myself out of the equation the advisor stuff could be ongoing could you give us some sample samples of the kinds of questions you might ask the one-on-one conversations you're talking about because I'm sure people are like this sounds fantastic yeah I need to do this but maybe I'm asking the wrong questions yeah you have to give it all away just a couple like you know appetite there are there are six questions that I sort of Center all of the other questions around um and I have probably about 24 25 questions in in the full range and they will come from what's your role how long have you been there you know the very practical things just so we can get a sense of when they're reading the report we can say somebody who just you know who hasn't been in the business long might have said this so we've got some practical questions but the six questions that I do ask um peppered throughout and this is something that I think your listeners and viewers would probably benefit from first question um and these questions need to be asked in order first question what value do you provide we're not talking about value for money we're not talking about um you know if you get a discount or some kind of offer the value that you provide what is that second question who are you talking to who are your customers most of the time people will say oh everyone I say fantastic so we're talking to three-year-olds and 96 year olds no and of course not because so who are you talking to um and I tend to try and say don't talk to a demographic talk to a type of person doesn't matter their age their socioeconomic background the kind of person you're talking to third question is what are you saying to them this comes down to the traditional kind of communications graphic designing stuff what's your core message what's your what do you what are you saying to them so if you know your value and you know who you're talking to and what is what are you saying to them the fourth question then is if you know them what channels are you using are you just doing channels that you're comfortable with like edms and social media or whatever it might be or have you asked them what channels they would rather hear from you through you know don't just fall back on the default find out what channels resonate with them the most fifth question then is can you live up to what you say most of them like of course you can yes you go no no seriously can you live up if you've got a message that you're sending out can you live up to it and if so where's the proof so if we're in these conversations with their the staff or with external people we would say um do you think the business can live up to what it does and if so have you seen proof and the sixth question is the hardest one do you matter why should anybody care if you shut down tomorrow would you be missed and the beauty of that is and I'll go through those six questions very quickly because it shows how this works the beauty of that is question one what value do you provide question two who are you talking to question three what are you saying question four what channels are you using question five can you live up to it question six why should anybody care they should care because the answer to question one the value that you provide is the only reason they're engaging with you and all the questions in between should align neatly with them caring that you're in existence because of the value you provide to them so I ask those questions sort of scattered through the other questions that are more practical but those six questions are a really good basis for understanding where you sit and then you go test that validate with other people so what you're doing in this initial uh what are we calling this here perception research or perception research is you're establishing a baseline into which you can compare what we what we think of ourselves versus what people really think of us yeah and so what is the percentage of companies that you work with where those things are the same versus they're really far apart yeah obviously it varies but um I think on average on average um people are organizations are relatively close like maybe 50 50 you would say 50 50 that they were like we thought this and well didn't think that but majority of it is right I see and and for you listeners and your viewers this is this is important if you do this whatever research that you do your sales or the kind of stuff I'm doing or those six questions that I offered and the organization gets back to you and they say geez Chris this is exactly where we knew this is a waste of time why are we paying you this is just I don't know I'm gonna pay you this is just totally like it feels like it's been snake oil and you go no what this has done is absolutely validate your assumptions concretely not because you just think it because they've told you so yes you will pay me yes this is valuable and yes we can now move forward because everything had before was assumption everything from here on in is validated that's valuable so it's good news that you do have an accurate finger on the pulse of what's going on and I just confirmed it with you by doing this independent research talking to different levels of stakeholders and different time within and without the company and yes you're on target you should be thrilled that we're able to confirm this for you right independently objectively confirmed well no yeah so so that that is is because I've had a bit of pushback on this stuff and that's how you know you just push back to them is there an occasion for when your bypasses perception research and get straight into the design work yeah there is uh in fact I'm kind of doing that right now with a incredible um sort of small I wouldn't call them a startup they call themselves a startup I don't um it's an incredible little impact business but I'm dealing directly with the owners the two Founders and they've given me a lot of information and some of it has been already validated there's testimonials from from other people and also I've had extensive conversations with them and I have said I think because their team's small enough I don't need to talk to them all so I I've said based on on my experience of doing this stuff all the time based on on just my Maybe experience in the field for only 30 years I've been able to distill and synthesize my view my opinion really quick and I put it back to them and they say wow okay we didn't think we needed those words because we've been hearing them for years but we can't fault them because they're exactly what we do um they then put that through their staff and their staff said we've thrown rocks of this but we can't knock it over it's yeah this is this is right and we are now going into um doing an extension of that messaging into an investor invitation deck um to see if if that is validated in real time at the coal face raising capital so they've got a very truncated time frame as well so we're like let's just do it as a test run it's a test balloon let's just see but so far it's hitting all the right notes I rather not do that because I'm still assuming but it feels it feels like there's enough information been shared there's enough observations that I think were in the right space okay so there are exceptions and if if they were to say we actually just worked with consulting firm who did validate this here's 74 pages of data can you take that can you review it if it's good for you can we move on to the next step and you're probably okay with that right absolutely yeah again worst business advice I do not try and get a hook in and and increase my my deliverables if I I'm I try and work efficiently I try and work honestly and I try and work um transparently and if I get 74 pages of research I'll go great I'll use that I'll come back and I'll I'll dig if I've got questions I'll ask but I'm not trying to say no no no no no my process is I have to do this for me and you've got to pay double you know it's not no I'm not interested in any of that I'm going to make an assumption here but I assume there's a different fee for the perception research and a different fee for the different additional services like the Identity Design or the communication design that you do afterwards right yeah I I stage everything and I say the first day ages the perception research and depending on the size of the organization how many people I'm needing to talk to I kind of way that up value versus head hours because it's just quite labor intensive and just time to do it and I say that's stage one and then I do a stage two which is other deliverables positioning or identity and then we talk about those stages are stop gaps if they're not happy we just don't go the other stuff if they want to add something in or they want to tweak something we talk about it so I'm very adaptable and very flexible and I try and put in many stop gaps in for them and for me I've had situations where I've done work and I thought these guys are not who they said they were or who they pretended to be and that's a stopcut I can get out now we're done it protects you and it protects them so you're professional you deliver on what you said you're going to do but you both can elect now to say for whatever reason no harm no foul it's not a good fit for either of us let's go our separate ways perfect the phrase that I use and I've used this is think the best way I can help you is if I get out of your way because I think I'm actually hindering this so I'm going to do the professional thing I'm going to get out of your way so you can move on with somebody else I'm going to give you everything you need to do that but I think I'm going to make a professional call I need to get out of your way I like that that's non-violent it's non-judging and it's a very graceful way to get out and it's helping them it's like saying I I respect you enough to not stay in your way yeah I'm gonna take a hit financially to move out but also I'm not going to use all of the money I make for headache tablets you know it's like oh God just gotta get out of the way you know so everyone wins yeah it's gonna go straight to your therapist afterwards yeah I like that that's very smooth you're a smooth guy with words for a designer you're just a really smooth guy and designers who are going to listen to those creative people even if you're not in the quote-unquote traditional creative space because we do get an audience that's quite diverse people in different trades like electricians and plumbers who can listen to this and you might get emotionally really charged but it's a beautiful way to say uh in your best interest I'm going to get out of your way yeah I don't need to make more money on this and it seems like you'll be better served by pursuing other options right and in my head yeah I'm saying my little internal conversation is I would rather spend the time not working for this group finding somebody else for the better fit rather than just finishing out for the sake of it and getting the money at the end and not liking it and probably not doing my best work and probably not going to promote it and show it and it feels like back to this we don't have time to [ __ ] around we've got to do the work we want to do where does your confidence and your courage come from to be able to be this direct and to say I have my boundaries I have my own filters as to who I'm going to work with where does this come from and when did you develop this in the lifetime of your career um I'd say it's probably in the last seven years to the last decade um it's come from personal experiences losing mum and dad making that deliberate choice it's come from the frustrations of always feeling like I was being servile rather than being in service and the confidence has come from one the alternative is hell you know you know keep keep doing it it's like I can't do that uh but the it came from needing to have the language to allow me to move on and you said earlier you know your your language card Kevin but it is I've spent many years trying to get the right language that allows me to either change the circumstances or change my circumstances in a way where everyone's sort of winning um so it's all down to language and once I had the language I didn't feel like I needed to be courageous I just need to say it it was like the language is now my my sort of um protection for the frustrations I was having previously that I just couldn't get out of because I didn't know how to get out I didn't know how to explain my way out of it now I've got the language I like that you bring that up because when I struggled before in the and I used the word client vendor relationship right and I struggled with I need to say something but I know how to say it in my mind it sounds really combative it's it feels very stressful and I'm not going to be happy with myself and the clients aren't going to be happy with me either so what do I do as most creatives I just bury it and I eat it I show up and I get uh passive aggressive maybe throw out a little sarcastic comment which I've done not proud of when if I had the language I would have said it differently so when I started working with my business coach every time I ran into a problem he'd say here's a couple ways of saying what you're thinking and that seemed not nearly as toxic and as aggressive as what I had imagined my mind so language is the key or The Shield so that you don't have to be super courageous it's not about getting into a fight it's just about saying the right things to be clear so that there isn't a fight yeah and and with language you can do that efficiently you can do that with respect and you can either get out or move on quickly whereas previously like you I just get bitter yeah it's not a good place no you talked about clients that drive you crazy and then you can now drive yourself crazy because you didn't develop those skills so the natural follow-up for me is how did Kevin develop these verbal skills how did you find the language is anything practical you can share with us two key Things One You're gonna laugh at effort just just effort put your mind to it and deliberately try to write the language that suits you so everything I've talked about was languages suits me so that's the first effort right but the second I think is probably an outcome of my publication of Manifesto where I was interviewing some of the top designers in the world or they were writing for me but I was also interviewing or talking to some of this really most influential thinkers in the world like Noam Chomsky or Edward de Bono so I had this really wide reaching engagement with a diverse number of people and by default I had to learn to write I had to learn to write questions that were going to get the best out of the engagement but also to learn how to write My Views because every publication I did I would do the introductory piece because I thought yeah it sounds like it's a bit egotistical oh I'm going to put my name in here too because these amazing people are are there and I can be Associated really it was me saying if I ask them to do this I need to be able to front up and do myself first I can ask some of the dude if I can't do it so that gave me the the impetus the pressure to teach myself over time how to write and then from that I got to really understand this is about articulating our thoughts with words not images which is obvious I know but from that how can I um put into practice what I say to myself regularly is words have meaning everyone out there will have an understanding of the majority of words that we use so I'm very selective with the words that I use because I know they're already pre-loaded with meaning and through writing for open Manifesto through writing interview questions and just through engaging with a much bigger resource outside of the graphic design or design world that was probably the the other aspect of how I got to where I am with with with writing and being very comfortable with writing to the point I wrote a book okay a couple things I just wanted to repeat back what I heard the way you got better with your language skills is you put yourself in situations where you're surrounded by really brilliant people and you have to level up you not only have to meet them where they're at you have to develop the questions the language and be able to tell those stories but you're also picking up on their Vibe their energy their word selection and I'm super impressed with people who are very articulate who can say with great degrees of precision what they mean and it's just English is such a beautiful language because it's so nuanced there's 300 ways of saying the same thing but they mean something different and so being able to wield your words as a Wordsmith is super admirable to me and then making the deliberate practice of showing up and writing because then you get that Clarity of thought David C Baker writes in his book The Business of expertise you gain clarity through articulation and most of us articulate through abstract images colors shape textures but it seems ironic the two graphic designers admire so much words and the power of language and I have to admit I can't into this appreciation relatively late in the game I'm 50 years old I didn't I didn't even think of myself as a person who writes and then I also wrote a book like oh my gosh I could do this and the words do really matter I've always admired people who could do it it's just I didn't see myself capable of doing that so it's really refreshing and reaffirming to hear that we're not that different in that way yep and I read in in Ronald J Baker's book these are the two Bakers in his book value implementing value pricing in in the beginning he quoted somebody who said all transformation is linguistic if you want to change the culture you have to change the conversation and we have to really think about this there's the language that you use with others but more importantly the language that you use with yourself how you describe what you're doing how you think of yourself and those words really really do matter so bravel to you really appreciate it thank you and also those words after a while when you use them they become your default way of engaging so you're not Reinventing the wheel you've got an arsenal of of things you can draw from in situations calmly professionally because you've got everything to pull from so it becomes a toolbox really and I agree that you know language can change culture because one of the big things about the Brian princel's book that I wrote and it was very Central was it's about a mindset so all of the language we talk about has to hardwire into our mindset which then manifests behavior and then how we behave people respond so it's all like dominoes um but you've got to get the mindset right and I think the mindset comes from the language that helps us articulate a toolbox that we can use on demand and the rest flows I'd like that description I've always admired and enjoyed my conversations with writers people who've actually either write prolifically on a blog post any kind of long format or in a book because it's the summation of a lot of years of experience and work and thought process and so you can usually tell when someone's speaking on stage or at a dinner Sushi something like that where you can connect with them you're like this person's read a lot they thought a lot about the things they think about so when they say something lean in listen shut up and learn something and I love that hard pivot here I gotta ask you a really personal question if you don't like it tell me and we'll get out of it okay you shared this on stage and I felt what must be feelings bubbling up in my chest and you shared that you lost your mom and your dad relatively in short time span relatively young people by today's standards yep um I gotta ask you a couple questions because both my parents are still alive I've not really had anyone close to me die that I didn't already expect was going to die like my grandmother was like 99 years old every day is a blessing so when she passed I'm like she lived a great glorious life okay so I felt sad but I felt it was complete yep I can ask you because you said about seven years ago you started to find this confidence and maybe not the courage but the confidence and realize the preciousness of time that we don't know when our time's up how did this impact you the passing of both your parents and do you think about your own mortality because a cancer I think genetics has something to do with this do you think about that yourself every day yeah every day am I sound like a cliche but one of the greatest influences in my life was my mum um how humble and incredibly smart she was how caring she was um I grew up in a bed and breakfast house so we she was always looking after people and always with absolute joy and we were very very close we used to watch Formula One together she was in Ireland I was in Sydney and we'd be texting each other watching out on the same you know same different time zones so we were so close um when I lost when we lost mum um I think I went into a two-year depression definitely a two-year grief and it it shattered me in a way but it it made me also say every day we have as you pointed out as a gift every day um cancer or covert or getting hit by a bus we could be gone tomorrow so it's it's really made me feel the past is a really good way to reflect on some things but don't dwell the future is something that we can ponder and try and influence but we can't control today present is where we are so for me um mum passing was um just heartbreaking dad passing again with cancer scared the [ __ ] out of me because as you say genetic cancer so I try and give myself the best chance I can to have a healthy life I go to the gym regularly I work out and I try and eat good but also eat bad stuff I gotta you know enjoy living that can't be a prescribed living um but I take every day as I get it and the irony is my days are incredibly long like I when I was a a traditional graphic designer kind of person and the society we live in we had to do do do eight eight hours a day Nana we had to be doing because that's how we measure progress what we're doing we're billing we're doing and for for us for at least for how I was brought up in in this industry doing was produce produce produce do do I now work about four or five hours a day but the other doing is going to the gym the other doing is dropping my son to school and picking him up and hanging out with them the other doing is talking to incredible people like you and the other that doing to me has expanded from having to produce and I think mum and Dad's passing has reminded me that 'll live our life in its fullest and work as part of that and the other weird irony is that in the shorter amount of time I work I'm much faster I'm much better I'm more confident in my decisions and I feel like my days are slower and longer better but I get scared I do I get scared the reason why I got emotional when you share that upstage because I put myself where you are and I'm not sure because sometimes I talk about challenges with uh like when whenever people talk about their relationship with their parents or with their children as a parent myself it hits me so hard because I I put myself right there I'm like oh my gosh what's happening and I feel that and how do you have this conversation and I applaud you for doing it on a stage in front of hundreds of people and not emotionally break down what are you telling yourself in that moment when when we were at that conference where you heard me um doing that presentation I actually did get choked up a little bit which surprised me because I've been sharing this so many times with people you sort of it becomes a bit automated and you go yep there's a message here and I can share it and that's okay and I've sort of come to terms with things but there are times it creeps up behind you and just catches you and that was one of the times where um the emotion just came out okay so it's always there yeah it might be just sort of suppressed a little bit um and in your case we're pretty much the same age about a year off you know I'm I'm about to turn 50 so I try and see myself in your shoes as well you've got both your parents and and the reason I share this message is you have your parents enjoy them they're amazing yes they might be a bit frustrating sometimes and generational issues but they're with you the other reason I share that story is because it's a very Central story to who I've become to understand every day we have to deliberately decide what it is we want to do we have to have meaning in our day whether it's with our work and the kind of work we do whether it's either family or our friends or just with yourself um and I think we don't hear that enough we we hear on stage all of the highlights and all of the show reels and all of the success and all the and that only comes with the struggle and with the reasoning and with the the stuff that gets right into your soul and says this is who you are and for me um as as absolutely distressing and upsetting as it is that I've lost my parents it's a part of who I am um and it is a legacy that they have bestowed upon me um and I have to bring that to as many people as I can as a reminder of where you are or that you can get through this and we need to just take every day as we get it I'm curious because you're a very deliberate International person have you thought about telling that story up front just to begin there I did um and that was also whether that should be structured in the book and that story should be up front uh because it's at the back of the book and I actually I think that telling that story up front put your thumb on the scale for how people are going to respond to what you're trying to get across and I again you know quite deliberately thought no I need to say here here's Here's My Views here's here's what I think could be valuable here's where I think my story could show up in your story whomever it might be listening or watching um and then I have to say there's another purpose to this that's personal um and it's an important part of it but it comes at the end and you can judge for yourself whether that is an important part or not because I don't want to put my thumb on the scale for people going gee now I'm all emotional and and now my mindset is is is in that zone for what he's telling me and that colors it so yeah it's just it's just a very deliberate way to say yeah it's important but it comes at the end I'll say this as a person who's relatively new to you and your thoughts and your ideas I find that your story with your parents passing to be so heartfelt but not overly like I'm I'm seeking sympathy from the audience like it's a giant pity party on stage but it informs so much of what you talk about and here's what I imagined in my mind and just hear me out and then you're like nope Chris I'm just keeping exactly this way and that's that like if you walked up on stage and said you know I have some thoughts on branding and how it's used and how how loose we use it in our over inflation and self-aggrandizement of what our role is in a client's business and I want to share with you some of these thoughts before I do I want to tell you about a personal event that's happened to me that shaped my thinking and why I have such a strong conviction as to why I speak about the things I speak about and why you might feel a sense of urgency from me and you tell the story yeah and then everybody's like this is the why Kevin cares about branding and this shaped him and then you just do it you pick it right back up but that's just a thought because I think that will hook people yeah it's it's um it's the it's a very um smart traditional way of doing talk and also um and I I'm I think you can probably guess I weighed this up many many times sorry the last Edition I made so where where does this go and and actually to be honest with you the first chapter in the book is called the premise and the premise came from my frustration that we are self-gramasizing and and we are sort of misleading and I thought I need to lead with where it started and then I need to back it up the two bookends with the why um because if I swap them around and put the premise at the end it's like this is why I wrote it because I was frustrated or if I put the the personal story up front I know it's different on stage but a personal story up front and then said and here's the premise so me logically I was like ah I'm not comfortable but I get I totally get you I love how you even phrased everything you said um so who knows I could end up on a stage and I go shout out to Chris this is what's happening like oh my gosh something I said actually affected another human being of your stature this is totally well as you put on I was like yeah that makes absolute sense my only thing is I wonder if I could actually pull that off I don't know if I could I need I need to just play the video of you saying it and then go now I'm gonna carry on okay because I've been listening to this and you say um what is it we don't have effing time but like there's an F-bomb in there what is the phrase we don't have time to [ __ ] around okay we don't have time now for around I don't swear so but then I know something sorry I apologize no it's all good it's all good I respect you're right to swear but on the other side of that is this really beautiful statement which is every day is a gift yeah and and that's just I think been a theme of some of the things you've been talking about yeah and and look I I will address the language because I'm more of a kind of a person that's like every day is a gift that's how I would phrase it yeah but in this situation I personally needed something to jar myself and I also needed something to deliberately jar when I'm saying this to people even to clients I tell them this is a deliberate use of this language because it's a bit like purposes motivational impact is measurable Life as a gift to me is purpose it's like it's softer it's like moderate whereas impact is weird I'm trying to [ __ ] around it's like this is it so I use that language intentionally and I use that so that I sit up and go whoa okay this is abrasive for a reason and you know to me it has a whole bunch of other meanings that can motivate me into doing things not just meaningful work it can motivate me to do anything whereas life is a gift is like I'll go for a walk today or I'll you know if it is a gift and it's like yeah it's wonderful but the other sentence makes me go what am I going to do not in a rush I have this little phrase that go I'm in a rush but I'm not in a hurry you know and and that's it we've got to do things but we can't just 20 years and I go oh my God where did that time go and I'm now at this point in my life and oh no mortality you know so it's a it's a balance it's a balancing act I appreciate your time I have one more question and maybe it's the controversial question that we're gonna head into maybe maybe yeah I was taking Fierce notes as you were speaking the second time I've been taking notes on your talk a brand is who you are it's the promise that some of all the Expressions the feelings The Impressions you can control it like we're on the same page on the definition of our brand but then the next thing you say is not every business is a brand but you have a brand mindset I like that because that's empowering but if a brand is who you are and you and and no matter how big or small you are there's promises that you make all the time the sum of all the experiences and the feelings and Impressions that you create for people how is it that that not every business is a brand well my my view as a really good question my view is Brands become Brands when society says so not when the business does not when the business says hey we're a brand that's it great no matter what stage in in their Journey they're in if they claim they're a brand I question that it's like when someone says hey I'm cool and you just know that the cool people don't say that they don't need to because they're like yeah we say you're cool that makes you cool and that's why I try and distinguish between whether you're a business which is the same kind of definition or a brand that's different to branding which is all the kind of tools that we use and the Frameworks and the visuals in the language and it's it's um done at a certain point in time where a brand or a business is over a long period of time so you are right that you could use that definition of a business and say isn't it a brand and my view is only if we in the world say you are then we're in agreement there yeah because if you show up in different ways to lots of different people there's not this cohesive feeling from people outside but when enough people agree that this is what you stand for sometimes it's bad things yeah you know you said there are Brands out there that you know very well that you don't like think are evil and would never buy from them or support them anyway yeah they have a brand it's not a good one but they have one and that's valid you know it's and that's why I say impact equals relevance equals Revenue if you have a negative impact your relevance drops and solve your Revenue if you get positive impact your relevance increases in your revenue does as well so Brands the same you could be a really bad toxic brand and you're still a brand but how many people are actually going to be showing up for you in you know over time and I also say that there are toxic Brands out there who are very successful and people say so how does that work Kevin and I genuinely say that's probably because either one there isn't a viable alternative because if one did everyone will just move Camp immediately or number two they're either hooked in with some kind of an incentivized systemized way that the value that they get out of it the cost is well you're toxic but I get this and I'm willing to wear that and that's individual that's a personal thing um people might just decide that but um I think most of the time is that if you get an a replacement equivalent to a toxic brand or business people will jump ship in a second our relationship with Brands whether positive or toxic isn't that different than our relationship with ourselves many of us participate in behaviors and activities that we know are not good for us like many of us will binge eat many of us don't get out many of us aren't using non-violent language or kind words and giving people Grace and for some reason that serves some darker part of us and we're not quite ready to change so if we can have that with ourselves I imagine we could have it with other kinds of companies exactly and and where the difference is is if that bad behavior whatever you want to call it becomes an everyday patterned Behavior over a long period of time then that's who you become yep and then you know you're an a-hole whereas if you're a brand that sometimes trips up but for the most part is doing you know reasonable ethical whatever we want to call it work they go okay you can forgive the trip-ups and that's a choice that we make and goes back to analepe every dollar that we spend is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in and the toxic brands have to really look at that very carefully because when we as people in society use our money as a vote and we jump ship to somebody else they disappear they die so therefore they have to change because it's the right thing to do or business survival and that's the power we have as individuals as consumers and as designers who are in there challenging those organizations telling them this is where the signals are heading if you're not aware of it our job as advisors as well is to tell you you will not be around where to help you it's not a criticism you're not trying to be all righteous we're trying to do you a service by telling you you've got to change or you will disappear and there's a beautiful little phrase um for those organizations that don't like change and for listeners who might get pushback on that oh we don't want to change is transformational it's difficult it's a wonderful phrase kangaroo is from but it's a retired army General from the US Army uh who said if you don't like change you're going to like irrelevance less hmm I like that I think we're living in a wonderful time in that the power has shifted from companies and corporations to people it used to be that companies owned their brands they can control how you feel they can repeat messages enough and you'll be convinced that this must be true but with internet social media the conversation is happening now between us not between the corporations and us and we get to determine what the brands are as you've said and so companies or corporations don't own Brands anymore people like you and me do and so we need to use that new power responsibly not only in the where we spend it to to shape the world we want to live in but also to be very vocal about the kinds of things we agree with and disagree with because we have seen now that our voice does matter and whether you're a venture capitalist hedge fund manager or the CEO of a corporation the people pretty much determine your fate now yeah and so if you're not going to step up and show up and do the right thing and create that kind of positive impact we're talking about your time is limited and Kevin you know this we don't have time to F around Kevin if people want to learn more about you what you do if they want to read your books can you tell us where to find out more information sure uh you can go to the website which is www.thesumov.com or you can go to for international orders of uh the Brian principles book you can get it on Book Depository and for Australian New Zealand you can get it on booktopia thank you so much you've been so generous with your time and I do really appreciate you sharing that presentation because there was a couple hundred people in attendance but now I hope to get this to thousands of people and you talked about this in that you have to use your voice this Legacy that you've been given to try to impact and hopefully influence positive change in the world and thank you for doing that I'll do my part now and get this out to the world and make sure your voice your ideas are shared and heard and hopefully change the course of a couple of people and that would be hugely impactful so thank you very much Kevin thank you foreign