Business Builders Podcast

How brand can improve your performance

August 01, 2021 Brenton Gowland & Ron Tomlian Season 1 Episode 9
Business Builders Podcast
How brand can improve your performance
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In today's episode our hosts Brenton Gowland and Ron Tomlian talk about the role that brand, both personal and corporate, plays in improving your performance in the marketplace.

Some of the topics covered include: 

  • Why should we as business people bother with branding?
  • Why is branding so important?
  • Why do businesses re-brand?
  • So how does a brand help me to increase the value of my business?
  • Brand helps you get uptake in the marketplace
  • Brand helps you put a premium on your product
  • Brand can help create steady cashflow
  • Brand helps you build a larger customer base
  • Your brand is not your logo
  • Every interaction you have with the marketplace increases or decreases the value of your business
  • Tip 1 - Don't neglect your brand
  • Tip 2 - Understand your customers perception of your brand
  • Tip 3 - You brand is more than just your logo
  • Tip 4 - Educate your staff about your brand
  • Tip 5 - Recognise that your brand is alive
  • Tip 6 - Include brand as an agenda item in board meetings

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Helping businesses find their new shape.

SA Business Builders
Business leaders social group based in South Australia

Nucleus – Creative Agency
Specialising in growing business through brand, digital, video, web, print, campaigns and marketing.

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Brenton Gowland:

Today on the Business Builders podcast, we're discussing the importance of branding and how brand can help increase the value of your business. Ron talks about the fact that branding is far too important to leave in the hands of the marketing people. And he identifies CEOs as the real chief branding officers and I provide a comparison between dating and branding that gives insights into the role that your brand plays in sales. Well, welcome to the Business Builders Podcast. I am Brenton Gowland, one of your hosts.

Ron Tomlian:

And I'm Ron Tomlian, your other host,

Brenton Gowland:

and it's great to be here. It's been a little while hasn't it? Ron, it seems like COVID has stopped us from doing our last podcast,

Ron Tomlian:

Well we finally understand the meaning of lockdown here in South Australia.

Brenton Gowland:

And luckily we're out of lockdown now. I think we've done quite a good job in SA.

Ron Tomlian:

Yes, I think everyone thinks the way that people have handled themselves and handled the situation is admirable for South Australia. We we seem to be doing a pretty good job.

Brenton Gowland:

I agree. And thankfully, we are now back out and about. So we are able to be here with you today. We were going to do it via phone. But we thought we'd do it in person because it's better to do a podcast when we're face to face talking to you.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, and the interaction is always better. face to face. I find love zoom, and what it's done for us. But it me face to face every time.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, I agree. I'm thankful for zoom, but I really enjoy talking to people face to face, you get a lot out of it. We're here to talk with you today about the importance of branding. Ron and I have been discussing this for a while. And it's just such an important part of not only the businesses that we run, but also our individual networks that we create, and the way we interact with people in the way we're known because your network is based on what people think of you and your ability to get things done in that Ron comes down to brand.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah. And the problem is I think branding is such a misunderstood area of business endeavour that, yeah, hopefully we can clear some of that up today.

Brenton Gowland:

Okay, so let's start with this question. Why should we as business people bother with branding?

Ron Tomlian:

It is the fundamental question of branding. I think the problem that people have in looking at this concept of branding is they know it's part of marketing. And they think there's so many other things I need to do in marketing, get my message out there, increase sales, get people to look at me, that it, there's so many other distractions, that branding sort of falls by the wayside because quite frankly, it's something that big businesses do, I don't understand it. I know I've gotta pour lots of money in to it or that's what I perceive. And people think that well, I can, I can just put this to one side. And when I get to it, then I'll put some effort and time into branding. Not realising that, quite frankly, you have a brand, whether you like it or not, it's whether you're managing that brand, and whether it's an asset for you or becoming a liability. That's the question.

Brenton Gowland:

That's true, and some people don't understand it will see the value in it at all. Thus, when things get tough in the money markets, as we've seen with COVID, people start doing one of two things; they'll either stop spending money on their branding, and marketing and other activities that they see as not being so critical to business, and they'll spend money on the things that they think are critical to business. Now, I would argue in line with what you're saying that branding is massively important to business. When people ask me, you know, why is why is branding. so important? I often use this line marketing is like asking people out on a date. And branding is why people say yes, because it kind of encapsulates what kind of a business you are, what kind of person you are, how you're perceived, etc, etc. So it's so very important if because you were talking about, you know, sales earlier, obviously, if you want to sell something, you need to have trust, if you're going to get trust, you have to have some sort of reputation in the market and that brand is critical in actually helping build a perception of you and your products in order to be able to sell in order to be able to function in the business community.

Ron Tomlian:

Look, we think about our own personal reputation as being something we jealously guard. And really a brand is nothing more than your corporate representation, our corporate reputation, and everything that goes into making that reputation. So the brand is not the end result, which is the reputation. The brand is everything you do to create that. And it's not when you think about your reputation, where does that exist, it doesn't exist in your head it exists in the heads of all the people.....

Brenton Gowland:

That's actually a really good point. I like it.

Ron Tomlian:

....that you have a reputation with. Your brand exists in the minds of the audience that you're directing that brand towards and that I have to say is mainly understood to be customers. But the truth of the matter is, that's only one facet of the brand that you have. There are many facets because there are many audiences for your reputation and it could it could be suppliers. It could be employees, so there's an internal brand.

Brenton Gowland:

Yes.

Ron Tomlian:

It could be the regulator. In the government, there's a whole gamut of audiences that you direct your brand towards. And you might, they might have slight nuances depending on the audience you're directing it towards. But at the end of the day, it's still the reputation of your organisation, your product or service. Think of it in that way, it becomes a lot more a lot easier to understand.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah. So brand is basically built in on every single interaction that you have with any other person anywhere.

Ron Tomlian:

That's right. And so you know that that's a that's an incredibly important point about branding, because and we'll talk about this in tips later on. It's not just about the logo. And you know, the first thing that that I'd like to dispel in this discussion is when people talk about rebranding, they're really talking about rebadging, to a large extent rebranding comes down to a different look or feel to the physical manifestations of how I represent myself.

Brenton Gowland:

And it's really interesting, how do you think people get to that and actually know that it's time to rebrand?

Ron Tomlian:

Well, sometimes, I think it's just boredom on their part.

Brenton Gowland:

Do you think?

Ron Tomlian:

Oh, I think a lot of times people say, you know, we've had this brand for a while, I think I need something new and modern. It's a feeling that they have.

Brenton Gowland:

Look, I think that happens sometimes. But because from the work I've done in the past, I experienced this a lot, the business changes. The business....

Ron Tomlian:

That's a good point.

Brenton Gowland:

.....develops in some fashion, because I my interpretation and way of explaining this is, and I think you've done this really already is to explain that a brand is much like a person. So when you know, you meet somebody, they So it's about evolving. have an impression on you the way they talk, the way they dress, the way they hold themselves, the way they smell the whole gamut. And sometimes, you know, when you meet someone, you've already heard about them from other people, because people talk, so you'll have potentially formed an impression. So sometimes you won't have met them. So it comes down again to the way they look and interact and talk with you. Sometimes you have a pre existing kind of impression. And I think businesses that have moved on and particularly whe 100%. salespeople kind of start comin back to the office in the light we really need to update and ge our messaging right to help me

Ron Tomlian:

And the brand needs to evolve with you. I think one be able to sell it starts to become self evident within a business. And I know already some of the tips we're going to talk about. So it'll make that clearer but it's when when omething changes, or when the usiness begins to mature, the ook needs to keep up. It's like child growing, you know, you eed to redress them, you need o buy new clothes for them as hey grow because they outgrow hat they're in. of the problems with branding and a lack of understanding of branding comes from the fact that we all know we want to increase the value of our business.

Brenton Gowland:

Yes.

Ron Tomlian:

So how does a brand help me to increase the value of my business? The answer is, if it helps me perform better in my marketplace, it can increase the value of my business.

Brenton Gowland:

Precisely.

Ron Tomlian:

Now, I'm not going to I won't go into what the accountants will tell you in terms of how do you increase the value of your business. But suffice to say that if I can increase the performance in the marketplace, then I can increase the value of my business. How does a brand help you do that? Well, number one, it gets you It allows you to put your mark your products into the marketplace and have people take them up more quickly. Example, XYZ Corporation comes up with a new piece of software, puts it out into the marketplace, nobody takes it up.

Brenton Gowland:

Or it's a hard slog to get into market.

Ron Tomlian:

Oh, absolutely. Just ask any developers about that. Take the same piece of software and put the Microsoft label on it. And suddenly it goes off.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, because there's a saying, no one got fired for buying IBM, right! No one got fired for buying Microsoft either.

Ron Tomlian:

Absolutely. So there is already an understanding and an expectation of what that means.

Brenton Gowland:

And just think about that too, though, because those companies have done years and years and spent millions and millions in establishing their brand.

Ron Tomlian:

And that's that's the whole point. They have done the hard work to get people to understand who they are and what to expect when something comes out from them.

Brenton Gowland:

Yes.

Ron Tomlian:

Okay. So number one, you can already see that having a brand makes a difference between getting a product into the marketplace and getting market acceptance of that. Yes. Secondly, you can you can put a premium on your product, right? I can go and buy a shirt that came by business sure to came out or what 20 bucks.

Brenton Gowland:

Yep.

Ron Tomlian:

I can go up the road to David Jones and buy a shirt that's probably made the same factory, same material, same quality, but as a little polo player on it.

Brenton Gowland:

Yes.

Ron Tomlian:

I'll pay $135 for the same shirt.

Brenton Gowland:

Yep.

Ron Tomlian:

Why would I pay$135? Well, from the perspective of the marketer, fantastic. They're willing to pay a premium, what value is there for the customer? The value is in what that polo player says on behalf of them.

Brenton Gowland:

Yes, social status fitting in with the right crowd projecting something about yourself.

Ron Tomlian:

So theres social value associated with that brand.

Brenton Gowland:

100 percent.

Ron Tomlian:

Okay, so why would that be? Unless I'm a, you know, really egotistical sort of person? Why is there social value? Because and what is the value to the individual, the value is the fact that they don't have to say something about themselves, the polo player is saying it.

Brenton Gowland:

And the interesting thing is that those people are aligning with that brand. That's an important point to remember as well.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, there's that association,

Brenton Gowland:

Their brand values align with that person, how they see themselves or how they want to be seen.

Ron Tomlian:

How they want to be seen.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah.

Ron Tomlian:

And that association is, is clearly important, they can only do that, because there's an established brand that has already been developed.

Brenton Gowland:

So if we can do that with our business, obviously, that'll increase the value because people will want to associate with us yep.

Ron Tomlian:

The other thing that brand does is every business person does you don't want to have ups and downs in terms of can cash flow. Yeah, the ideal is have a steady cash flow the whole way through.

Brenton Gowland:

Wouldn't that be wonderful.

Ron Tomlian:

That would be fantastic. A brand allows you to do that, because there's less volatility, as a result of having a brand, people will come to you more often. And they'll come to you regularly, as opposed to people who don't have the brands available, or a brand available to them. And finally, the size of your customer base. If you've got a bigger customer base and a brand helps you develop a bigger customer base, you have greatest residual value in in, in your business. So, you know, think about the hard work that people like Optus and Vodafone are doing to try and build the value of their brand build of the offering of their brand when they're up against a massive brand already in the form of Telstra. Yeah, now you can you have your own opinions of Telstra, some are good, some are bad. But at the end of the day, one of the things they things they have on their side is that they have this massive customer base that they've taken years to develop.

Brenton Gowland:

Correct. And I might just add a point of clarity. And this is not to say anything that you've said is is not right. But it's the difference. You said that having a brand right is the catalyst for those things that we were talking about, or contributes to them. It's actually everyone has got a brand Oh, no, this is a small point. So you got to brand whether you want it or not.

Ron Tomlian:

Absolutely.

Brenton Gowland:

And it's about what that brand says about you and says in market because you know Telstra is a good example, because it was a few years back that everyone hated hating Telstra. And that was a customer service issue and a bunch of other things because as you know, when you get on the phone to them, you can be there for Yonks and Yonks. And that reputation started to spread even though they said different things, you get the idea. But the brand itself, we went to Telstra because we had to not because we wanted to. So you really need to focus on developing your brand. And your brand extends to actually the things you physically do and the way you interact with people.

Ron Tomlian:

And this is one of the things I said before one that I find incredibly annoying is the brand is not the logo, the brand is everything you do in the marketplace, every interaction you have with a customer is what the brand is.

Brenton Gowland:

And that will be associated with the name and associated with the logo and so forth.

Ron Tomlian:

So thinking about how how you build a brand, it's not just about having a clever logo or having a sexy name. It's about everything you do to interact with the target audience....

Brenton Gowland:

That's right.

Ron Tomlian:

....we're talking about.

Brenton Gowland:

And so for those people who are not marketers or not you communicators in businesses, they might be CEOs or accountants, as you said, or staff or frontline workers or whatever it is it the parts that you play in actually helping develop that brand are every interaction that you have.

Ron Tomlian:

Absolutely. And and it's not just even the people interaction, you know, how do I experience as a customer? Or how do I experience as a supplier? Let's not just limited to customer interaction? How do I experience that organisation in the way they bill me? How do I experience that organisation? In the credit, they often add or experience that organisation in terms of the policies they have. How do I experienced that organisation in in terms of their products and services and their customer service?

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah. 100%. So yeah, brand is something that everyone is involved with, and business owners can get more involved with. And we'll talk about the tips in a minute. But it's important to understand that it's not just the logo like we talked about earlier, but it's every part of your business's representation in the market.

Ron Tomlian:

And look that is most clearly manifest in the marketing communications you have your advertisements, your collateral material, I'm starting to use marketing jargon here too. You know, your public relations, all that sort of stuff. Other Stories that people tell but more important quite frankly, are the stories people tell at the barbie about their interactions with. No matter how much you say we're fantastic. If what people hear from your customers, is they're a dog to deal with which do you think they're going to, unfortunately.

Brenton Gowland:

They are going to believe the people at the barbecue aren't they?

Ron Tomlian:

Unfortunately, because they've established a relationship they have a reputation with an individual that's the person.

Brenton Gowland:

That why, that's why online reviews and so forth are so important. And people try to fiddle those as well.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah. And And again, that's that's part of your brand is what people are saying about you out in the marketplace,

Brenton Gowland:

Every interaction, remember that. So the points that we're establishing is that every physical interaction or even just verbal or communication that anyone has with your business is part of how your brand is going to be perceived. I bring it back to that ending I said earlier, marketing is like asking someone on a date, brand is why people say yes.

Ron Tomlian:

And is it is it, is that interaction helping to increase the value? In other words, is it building an asset? Or is it decreasing the value, creating a liability, and...

Brenton Gowland:

That's why people spend time on their brand. That's why people employ people to help them with their brand.

Ron Tomlian:

Best example I can have that is that years ago, when when Nike had built his wonderful brand about performance, and just do it and so on. And then there was this fantastic story about, you know, they use sweatshops in Indonesia, their brand assets when plummeting became a liability for them in the marketplace. And unfortunately, that is incredibly true is that you can you can spend a lot of money building an asset, if you let if you allow that asset to be devalued by bad stories by something getting out. And in this case, it was true. You have years and years of work to do to rebuild the trust in that brand. You have to rebuild the asset

Brenton Gowland:

is your brand. So basically, you know what we're kind of saying is every single thing that you do funnels into what's called brand perception or brand salience, while brand salience is a buzz term for is your brand actually known in market. So we mentioned Microsoft earlier, obviously, they have a massively high brand salience, because they've spent a lot of money getting there. And then there's the brand perception, which is, you know, all of those interactions over time, and how have they made people feel about you how they made people perceive you. So there's a question, Ron, it's all well and good if you've got millions of dollars to spend on your brand, but what if you're a normal business owner, and you know, brand, you understand is important, but you know, you need to start getting some traction in the market, you need to start getting some sallys you need to work on your brand perception. How do you do it?

Ron Tomlian:

Well, let's let's go to our six tips.

Brenton Gowland:

I agree, we want to we want to get to the useful part. So Ron, why don't you give us your three tips.

Ron Tomlian:

Okay, number one, don't neglect it. Understand that you have a brand? And you're either building it, yes. Or being a victim of it?

Brenton Gowland:

Yes.

Ron Tomlian:

So that's number one, spend time thinking about your brand.

Brenton Gowland:

So even if you're the CEO of a business or the CFO, etc, etc. And you think there's, you know, other things that are important you still think how do you how do you....

Ron Tomlian:

Well, I just...

Brenton Gowland:

...talk to these people.

Ron Tomlian:

That this is no denigration to the marketers. But Jack Welsh years ago and not that his brand is so fantastic anymore. Jack Welsh, years ago said marketing is far too important to leave the hands of the marketing department.

Brenton Gowland:

I agree with that completely.

Ron Tomlian:

The CEO is the chief marketing officer....

Brenton Gowland:

I agree with that completely.

Ron Tomlian:

....and certainly the chief reputation officer, and you know that the opposite can be true. Look at Jeff Bezos as at the at the moment, he's trying to rebuild the brand of Amazon because of the damage that he has done to that brand.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, correct.

Ron Tomlian:

As the chief executive.

Brenton Gowland:

So advice to CEOs, then I think, and even to boards, let's go one level up. Some companies will just have, you know, a managing director, but some will have CEOs and boards. Put in in the board notes, make it a reportable item every month, you know, make it part of your general communications, if you don't want to neglect it,

Ron Tomlian:

Quite frankly, the board will look at the balance sheet on a continual basis and look at how the assets are accurring, or declining. Brand should be just as important if not more important, in some cases than the physical assets, because it's about your performance in the marketplace, and how it adds to that.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, and I think the real skill of being able to get that kind of a discussion into the board and make it important to them is to turn the brand conversation into a conversation about numbers. And it is possible to do that, particularly nowadays in our digital world to see how brand actually is relating exactly to what you're talking about building the value of the organisation. And of course, there's all sorts of different levels, you can do that at. But we'll talk about that another time. Because I think that bears a whole podcast actually. So what's your next one?

Ron Tomlian:

When we talk about brands, we're talking about what's in the heads of your customer? Okay, so you need to spend time effort, and you need to see the value in actively finding out what the brand is in the minds of your customers. It's like the difference between I have a desire for my brain to be something Yes, but until I find out what that something is actually, I don't really know. So if I go and put a coat on and think this is going to make me look better, then it's not until I look into the mirror. So it's the identity is what I hope for the image is what I actually see. Yes, I look in the mirror. So you've got to spend time actively looking in the mirror for your organisation, go out and find out What's in your customer's heads, ask them questions, talk about the interactions, you're having build the picture of how our brand is perceived in the marketplace, you've got to spend time, money and effort doing that. And it doesn't come from just from market research, or that that's a way of getting a pilot of the picture. It's about what your people are telling you customers are talking about in their perceptions of you

Brenton Gowland:

100%, as we were saying earlier, that then can filter up to the board level or at the CEO level, etc, etc, then you've got something tangible you can work with. And to your point, you know, there's often advice, if you want to improve yourself, you go out and talk to other people and find out about what they think. And you're doing exactly that with your business. And you can also do that, again, you can pay people to do that. But you can also arm your staff with questions. So if you've got business development people out in market or sales people or service people, you can load them up with, you know, every client, you see, ask them these two questions, and we want to report on that. And that's a good way to start getting interactions, you know, depending on what those questions are

Ron Tomlian:

engaging your own staff. But yeah, quite frankly, your brand is not just about what the customer says the branch is about what your client, your employees say, Well, I

Brenton Gowland:

have an employer, But to your point earlier, it's every interaction, right? So it's what everyone says about your brand. So what's what's your next point? That's two.

Ron Tomlian:

Okay. Third one is make sure that you understand that the brand is more than just your logo. Yeah, 100%. It's not just the rebrand, you know, the rebranding I talked about before, it's not just the pretty pictures, it's about every interaction. It's about everything that you do, and having a mindfulness about how is this going to be perceived? Or how is this going to influence people's perceptions, whatever the audience is, and like I say, it could be supplies, it could be regulators, it could be your own employees, because as I said, you have an employer brand. How do people talk about you in terms of your reputation as an employer? That's part of your brand?

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more on because that's like saying, the way someone looks is the whole picture. You know, they often say don't judge a book by the cover, it's what's on the inside. So the logo and the branding is just the cover that it should reveal if it's done correctly, it should reveal part of what's on the inside. Because you know, there's truth in brand. And that truth, because regardless of what you say, if you if your marketing and advertising project one thing, and people find something different on the inside, it destroys your brand in seconds. So what's in market that logo that the way things look should be a representation of, you know, preview of coming attractions, this is what you're going to find when you deal with us. That's right. That's right.

Ron Tomlian:

It's it's the the opening invitation to experience what we say we're going to do. So it sets the expectations sets the expectation. That's great. I love that.

Brenton Gowland:

Okay, so

Ron Tomlian:

it's over to your three now.

Brenton Gowland:

Excellent. Well, I might have pretty much just building on what we've already said, One, I believe is you really need to educate all the staff within your business, about your brand and what you stand for. So we often talk about vision and values, and so forth. And that might be business strategy. But communicating those values and what the brand means how we should interact with people is a really important part of actually getting your brand to be experienced by your customers, because all the staff should be on the same page. I've worked with different companies where we've done brand updates, and so forth. We've done roadshows all around Australia, educating all their staff, giving them materials, talking to them even about, you know, this is how we speak on the phone. These are the kinds of things we're gonna say, this is a question, this is the way we answer it. So some companies really take that to the nth degree. And I think companies that do it really well keep an open conversation with staff and keep talking about brand in terms of educating them so that everyone's on the same page. So that's tip number one.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah. And again, I couldn't agree with you more. Because it's, it's like breathing, you breathe out and you breathe in. Yeah, you have the experience the customer has, you bring that into the organisation you modify so that the experience the next time is more authentic. I hate to use that word authentic, because it's been bandied around. But the truth of error is your brand should be about who you really are, and then only comes from making sure customers, your employees interact with the various audiences that I talked about before. In a consistent Yep.

Brenton Gowland:

And look, that really brings me to my next tip, which is actually recognising that your brand is alive. You know, he said, Don't neglect it earlier. If you neglect it, it's like neglecting any kind of creature, animal person, whatever else you neglect them, they become malnourished, they start to act up, they they're not getting what they need. So therefore they go looking for it, your brand, whether you do something about it or not exists, and you need to actually give it the attention that is due you need to be aware that it's alive so when you're aware something's alive and that it's active and that it's doing something you actually then take more notice of it and you help it grow particularly if it's close to you, you know, you're part of your family or whatever you take care of things. So your brand is living and active. Be aware of that and I understand that you need to give it attention. Yeah.

Ron Tomlian:

And it goes back to that, but boy don't neglect.

Brenton Gowland:

Yes. And look, again, you know, when people think about brands, they often think, well, that's the marketing department or I got to play expensive people to talk about this. Well, you don't actually, my last tip is pretty much related to what we were talking about with the CEO and boards and really having that brand as a conversation that's on the table. Good companies really, you know, they might monthly have, you know, an all in or a conversation or in their teams, depending on how big they are, where they can actually talk about brand, and you make brand part of the conversation, because if you keep something as part of the conversation, then it actually gets the attention it deserves. And brand doesn't need to be a scary thing for people who don't understand it. Let's think about it in terms we've been talking about. It's about perception. It's about the way we interact with people, it's about the experience we give people. So we can talk about those things in a tangible sense, by getting information from people and then like from our staff, and then talking to our staff about the kind of experiences we want to give and how we want to build that in our interactions with our customers and suppliers and so forth. So again, the last tip is make brand a regular part of the conversation in your business.

Ron Tomlian:

And you're not going to neglect something that you're talking about all the time.

Brenton Gowland:

That's correct. Well Ron that pretty much brings us to the end. I think we've been talking quite a while and this is a big topic, obviously.

Ron Tomlian:

And it brings up all sorts of other things that we should be talking about, like communication within our organisation.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah. 100%.

Ron Tomlian:

So I think we've we've uncovered a couple of other topics for our podcast in the future.

Brenton Gowland:

Correct.

Ron Tomlian:

But we'd like to hear from other people about what they think.

Brenton Gowland:

We always want to hear from other people. And we've been getting some people talking to us about the podcast, which has been quite good. So the one thing we need to also make people aware of this show has a couple of sponsors Ron.

Ron Tomlian:

Yes, it does. So tell us a little bit about those sponsors.

Brenton Gowland:

Well, we've got SA Business Builders. Now, we luckily had our last SA Business Builders just before the lockdown here in Adelaide. That was good. It was fantastic event. Yeah, it was actually everyone saw it as a bit of a last bastion because lockdown was announced later that waste day, the next day. Yeah, well, we we've got the team at Nucleus. They've been kindly supporting us for, since the beginning of the podcast really. And we've got Adapt_CO which is my new business.

Ron Tomlian:

And how's it going?

Brenton Gowland:

Well, interestingly, I've been extremely busy or busier than I thought I would have been. So I'm pretty pleased with that. And I haven't had time to work on my brand Ron.

Ron Tomlian:

I didn't want tell you, I didn't want to say I told you so but I told you so.

Brenton Gowland:

I know this podcast was for me that I have to spend some time and attention on on the brand. Right!

Ron Tomlian:

and let's make sure we don't leave it too long before the neck.

Brenton Gowland:

No, we won't. We're gonna do this every fortnight. COVID willing, I think.

Ron Tomlian:

Well, we do have to be aware of that as well. So it's goodbye from me.

Brenton Gowland:

And it's goodbye for me, Ron. We will see everyone next time. As Ron said, if you want to raise a topic that you'd like us to speak about, please just reach out to us on LinkedIn. You can direct message Ron Tomlian or Brenton Gowland, and until next time, bye for now.

Ron Tomlian:

Bye for now.

Introduction
About our topic
Why should we as business people bother with branding?
Why is branding so important?
Why do businesses re-brand?
So how does a brand help me to increase the value of my business?
Brand helps you get uptake in the marketplace
Brand helps you put a premium on your product
Brand can help create steady cashflow
Brand helps you build a larger customer base
Your brand is not your logo
Every interaction you have with the marketplace increases or decreases the value of your business
Tip 1 - Don't neglect your brand
Tip 2 - Understand your customers perception of your brand
Tip 3 - You brand is more than just your logo
Tip 4 - Educate your staff about your brand
Tip 5 - Recognise that your brand is alive
Tip 6 - Make brand part of the conversation
Wrapping up
About our sponsors
Final thoughts