0:00

Welcome, um, to the living the dream

0:02

podcast with curveball. Um, if

0:05

you believe you can achieve

0:08

Chee Chee.

0:20

Welcome to the Living train with Curveball

0:22

podcast, a show where I

0:25

am, um, interview guests that teach,

0:28

motivate, inspire. Today,

0:31

we're going to talk about setting up your

0:34

brand to make it do the most for

0:36

you, as I am joined by author,

0:39

speaker, former rock

0:41

musician, and is also a

0:44

brand strategist, Barry Lavov.

0:47

Barry is a real, uh, big

0:50

entrepreneur. He's won awards, and

0:53

he's going to be talking about branding day and

0:56

his book and everything that he's up to. So, Barry,

0:59

thank you so much for joining me today.

1:02

Herbal, it is a pleasure. I'm a big fan.

1:04

I've listened to your podcasts, and I think

1:07

you're doing a great job. So throw, uh,

1:10

anything at me, I'm ready.

1:12

Oh, I appreciate it. Uh, first thing I want to throw at you is

1:15

start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

1:19

My background is pretty standard. I grew

1:22

up, uh, in the east part of the United

1:24

States, and my love

1:27

was, uh, baseball and

1:29

also music. So I grew up dreaming to be a

1:32

baseball player, but, um, I wasn't

1:35

able to have that kind of talent. So then I focused

1:38

most of my teen years and my early twenties

1:41

on music, writing songs, being in

1:44

a rock band, putting together some

1:47

videos that were on MTV and VH

1:50

one, and also a song that was on the Billboard

1:52

charts and American Bandstand.

1:56

Now, it was fun to do all of this curveball,

1:59

but I have to always say, my music

2:02

sold well under 1 million

2:04

copies. So it was fun,

2:07

but I would say it was not financially

2:10

lucrative. And I looked at other

2:12

areas, other things I could do, and I had a

2:15

client come out of the blue and just say, look, I want you

2:18

to take over all of our marketing. And

2:21

after about a year of saying no, I finally

2:24

said, okay, I'll take on, um, all your

2:27

marketing for your company. And all

2:30

of a sudden, I became an advertising

2:33

marketing entrepreneur. That was

2:36

40 years ago, and I've never looked back.

2:39

I've enjoyed it. And what I found was it

2:42

was not so much music that I loved. It was being

2:44

creative. So this company, for 40 years, has

2:47

been my creative outlet.

2:50

Okay, well, that's amazing. You

2:53

went from rock musician to entrepreneur of, uh,

2:56

the year. So kind of tell us about that award and

2:59

how you won that.

3:01

I was named entrepreneur of the year,

3:04

actually, two different times, which is really

3:07

kind of cool. The

3:09

situation was a company called North American

3:12

Van Lines, which is a moving company, great

3:15

company. Had approached me to take on all

3:18

of their marketing and I alluded to them earlier

3:21

and what happened was I

3:24

was able to help them. My team, I grew

3:27

my team. And we received a lot of

3:30

accolades. And Ernst and Young holds

3:33

an annual award in

3:35

each state of the union. And in

3:38

Indiana I was named the small

3:41

business entrepreneur of the year.

3:43

What was interesting was the first time I won it,

3:46

the national award show

3:49

was in California. I went out there, it was a lot

3:52

of fun. But I met one of my

3:55

future clients that to this day I still

3:58

work with. And that is Volkswagen. So Volkswagen was

4:01

out there as a sponsor. I connected with

4:04

some people there and they then got a hold of

4:07

me after it said, hey, we think you're a pretty good

4:10

guy, we trust you, why don't you do

4:13

our work? So I've worked with Volkswagen and some of

4:16

their other brands now for all those years.

4:19

Okay, speaking of brands, talk about why

4:22

brand differentiation, if I got that

4:25

right. It's so important, more important

4:28

than ever to today.

4:30

The book I have coming out, curveball, is called

4:33

the power of differentiation.

4:36

Its subtitle is win

4:39

parts, minds and

4:42

market share. And that subtitle kind of

4:45

tells what is so important, which is

4:47

its very, very critical today

4:50

for a brand. And a ah, brand could be a

4:53

small company, a two person company, a brand could

4:56

be a personal brand. But let's say it's a

4:59

large brand like Harley Davidson or some other

5:02

clients that we work with. It's very

5:04

important today to

5:07

identify what makes your brand unique.

5:10

And that does not mean you're superior in

5:13

every way. It just means there are a couple of

5:16

areas where you do something that's

5:19

distinctive, something that's

5:22

unique, something that's different and

5:25

that you promote that. The next step

5:27

in all of that though, is the most

5:30

inspirational. And that is before

5:33

you share that information with the world,

5:36

before you promote it to everybody else,

5:39

you celebrate it. And I mean celebrate

5:42

it with the most important people in

5:45

your world. And that would include your

5:48

employees. It could uh, involve

5:51

some of your suppliers. The most

5:53

important people in the world need to

5:56

understand what they're doing and why. Because

5:59

curveball today, many

6:01

of us are going, look, I just work for a living. It doesn't

6:04

really matter. I'm um, just making some money. And

6:07

what we must do if we're leading a

6:10

group of people is we have to let them

6:13

know what they're doing is significant.

6:16

It has a meaning so that the

6:19

person feels better about themselves. They are more

6:22

likely to be retained in that job and they'll do

6:25

a better job every single

6:27

day. So not only do we want to

6:30

differentiate what we offer,

6:33

we want to make sure our people, our

6:36

team, our employees, our

6:38

enterprise understand the

6:41

significance behind what they are doing.

6:44

Well, you work with some of the most famous

6:47

brands. Tell us about some of those brands that you

6:50

work with, and why do you feel like they picked you to, uh, work with

6:52

them?

6:54

We work with brands that include

6:56

McAllen, Scotch Stole Vodka,

6:59

uh, Audi, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz.

7:05

I could go on and on carrier H Vac,

7:07

Ingersoll, Rand. Lots of wonderful,

7:10

wonderful brands out there. We

7:13

are not guiding them every step of

7:16

the way. We are part of their team.

7:19

You know, we're there to support them, and we play

7:22

different roles with these different companies.

7:25

But, for instance, in the case of Harley

7:27

Davidson, they felt that

7:30

we had that entrepreneurial energy

7:33

and spirit that could help them

7:35

tackle some very big launches that

7:38

they were going to put on in the United States and

7:41

throughout the world. So they approached us,

7:44

and we created a

7:46

launch campaign to help them promote

7:49

their very first electric motorcycle, as well

7:52

as other motorcycles after that. So,

7:55

Kurt Ball, I think what they do, the clients we

7:58

have, they look at us and they feel

8:01

that will bring humanity

8:04

to what they do. Because they're so large, when you have

8:06

thousands and thousands and thousands of

8:09

employees, it's very, very easy

8:12

for it to become impersonal.

8:14

So they look at us as a small company, a group

8:17

of entrepreneurs, as people that will

8:20

humanize, people that will have

8:22

passion to help them

8:25

succeed in the challenges they have. So

8:27

we take it personally. We are

8:30

the people behind the great brands and the great

8:33

people. And our clients seem to feel

8:36

that we bring value to them doing that.

8:40

Well, what role, uh, the customer experience play

8:43

in brand imaging?

8:46

I'm glad you brought that up. One thing I think is very,

8:49

very interesting, and this is all of us as

8:52

people, we do not

8:54

realize how important

8:57

the brand experience is.

9:00

I'll give you an example. If you walk into a car

9:03

dealership and you're looking to

9:05

buy a brand, and let's say that the experience is

9:08

not good, let's say you're not, uh, treated with respect,

9:11

let's say you're not

9:13

shown the attention you

9:16

feel you deserve, you'll walk out

9:19

and you'll not only say, hey, I'm not going back to that

9:22

dealer again, you're more likely also to say,

9:25

I'll never buy that brand. They don't care about

9:28

me. And the sad truth

9:30

is, that brand, which may have produced

9:33

a great car that you were excited

9:35

with, doesn't even know that you had that

9:38

bad experience. And that's because all of us

9:41

do not distinguish the difference between

9:45

a brand experience and the

9:48

brand itself. One example I'll, uh,

9:50

share with you is when Harley approached us,

9:53

they said, you know what we need to do? We need

9:56

to be more inclusive

9:59

with our brand because our dealers are

10:02

very used to the same type of person

10:05

coming in and buying our motorcycles

10:08

and it's very comfortable for them. But

10:11

there are people of all races, people of

10:14

all ages who could be

10:17

riding our motorcycles and we need to embrace

10:19

them. So, as an example, we worked with

10:22

them on their brand experience at the

10:25

dealership level and we helped

10:27

educate their dealers all throughout the

10:30

nation on stepping

10:33

out and offering their time and

10:36

their suggestions to anyone who

10:39

walks in. Not assume that if somebody walks in and

10:42

doesn't look like their normal customer, that that

10:44

person's just, you know, you know, hanging around and looking

10:47

at things. Instead treating each

10:50

individual as a unique person and meeting

10:53

them where they are, that's an

10:56

example of brand experience. So the more inviting

10:59

they are at that dealership, the more

11:02

likely we will buy the Harley Davidson

11:04

product.

11:06

What do you feel like makes your branding

11:09

process unique from any other branding

11:12

strategies out there?

11:13

We have two differentiators ourselves.

11:16

So when we work with a

11:18

brand, we do many of the

11:21

things that other marketing and agencies will do.

11:24

So, uh, as an example, we'll

11:27

interview people at the company, we'll

11:29

interview customers. Lots of brands do

11:32

that. Lots of companies in my field do that.

11:35

Where we're different is, number one, if it's

11:38

a factory or a plant or a manufacturing

11:41

facility, my team will go

11:43

in and we will actually get

11:46

involved with what they are doing. From a technical

11:49

standpoint, we look for their technical

11:51

uniqueness. So we get immersed

11:54

inside their plant, their manufacturing

11:56

facility. Now, we do the same thing for

11:59

service companies, but it's not quite as

12:02

graphic as that, diving in and looking at machinery,

12:05

but we do that. So, number one, we find what is

12:08

unique in the process, the

12:11

product or the experience that they offer. So

12:14

that's number one, which is a far more

12:16

technical approach than other agencies do.

12:19

And the second one is when

12:22

we have now created that new

12:25

branding and it's reflecting what that

12:28

company is all about, we guide them to that

12:31

first step that's so important, which is

12:34

celebrating it and launching it

12:36

internally with their people. What

12:39

ends up happening, Curtis, is not only are

12:42

their people excited, but their people

12:45

are now ambassadors for that brand

12:48

moving forward after they are

12:51

worked with and celebrated and

12:53

engaged and trained in what makes what

12:56

they do so unique, we then launch it to the

12:59

world. So it's the two different areas we dive into the

13:02

technical aspect that nobody normally

13:04

does, and we make sure it's

13:07

celebrated with their employees first.

13:11

Well, tell the listeners about your notebook. Tell

13:13

us what we can expect when we can read it and where to get it

13:16

from.

13:17

Well, thank you. My new book, which is the

13:20

power of differentiation, will be

13:22

distributed by Simon and Schuster.

13:25

Its launch date is in June.

13:28

The book will be not a memoir,

13:31

but it will be a series of stories and I believe

13:34

very interesting insights and

13:37

journeys of how people at, ah, great

13:40

companies, big and small, found the

13:43

differentiation, discovered the

13:45

uniqueness of what they did, and were

13:48

able to transform their organizations.

13:51

So it's filled with great stories of people.

13:54

I'm not in the book very much. I don't talk about

13:57

me. It's about my clients. It's about the

14:00

great things they did. The best way for anybody

14:03

to learn more about it is to go to

14:06

my website, which is

14:08

barrylabove.com. So it's b

14:11

a r r y, Labove,

14:14

labov.com. And

14:18

ah, I have some gifts for

14:20

anybody that's listened to me on podcast.

14:23

Some free PDF's that you don't have to sign up for.

14:26

You just can go download. Plus you can leave me a

14:29

message to either talk or suggest that I

14:32

can let you know when the book will be released and we'll let

14:35

you know. So those, those are really the things I can

14:38

offer anybody that wants to talk. I get dozens of

14:41

emails every week. It's great. A lot of times

14:44

it has nothing to do with business transactions, but if I can

14:47

help, I love it. And then on top of it, you

14:49

can download some free

14:52

documents and sign up to learn more about

14:55

the book launch.

14:58

Are there any upcoming projects that you're working

15:01

on that people need to know about?

15:03

I'm working with. It's

15:06

a very exciting project. I'm working with a, uh,

15:09

healthcare company that has

15:12

16,000 employees throughout a

15:14

region here in the United States. And we're meeting

15:17

with 29 of their locations

15:20

in person to talk with their people

15:23

and learn what they're most proud of and what they

15:26

do not want that organization to

15:29

change, as well as some of their suggestions for the

15:32

future. And our goal is to help

15:34

transform 100% of those people that

15:39

are in that organization. So that's 16,305

15:43

people we want to transform in the next

15:46

four months. So we're very excited about that project.

15:50

Okay, so we got your website, barrylabov.com. Um, so close us out

15:55

with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to touch on, that you

15:58

would like to talk about it. Just any final thoughts you have for the

16:00

listeners?

16:02

My final thought is this, is that no matter

16:05

if you're a solopreneur or

16:08

you run a 30,000

16:10

employee organization, no

16:13

matter if you are a startup

16:16

or you have been in business for 200

16:18

years, there is something you're doing

16:21

that is unique and valuable or

16:24

you would not be succeeding. First,

16:29

identify what it is. Don't try to discover

16:32

or, uh, don't try to create brand new things

16:35

that may not be who you are. Discover

16:38

what you're doing that is unique.

16:40

Celebrate it with those closest to you.

16:43

Give them significance, and in so

16:46

doing, it will help propel your success

16:49

as well.

16:50

All right, ladies and gentlemen, marylabove.com

16:53

dot. Please be sure to follow rate review share

16:56

this episode to as many people as possible.

16:58

If you have any guests or, uh, suggestion topics, see Jackson

17:01

10 two Ah Net is the place to send them.

17:05

Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And

17:07

Barry, thank you for joining us and sharing your expertise.

17:11

Curtis, thank you so much. I loved it. I hope

17:14

I did a good job for you.

17:16

For more information on the living the Dream

17:18

podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com.

17:24

Until next time, stay focused

17:27

on living the dream.

17:29

Dream.