What if everything you thought you knew about branding was wrong?
For starters, Seth Godin is proof enough to dispel the myth that “no video means no brand.” Yet, plenty of folks still believe if you don’t have a video presence, you’re as good as invisible.
That’s just one of the branding myths shattered by this week’s BrandEd guest, Sharran Srivatsaa. Tune in as the President of Real joins host Brad McCallum for a conversation on branding that every real estate agent should watch at least once.
Here are just a few of the most memorable highlights:
- Sharran’s branding strategy for the Anaheim Ducks
- The two phases of building a great brand—and why you can’t skip the first
- Why the “how” of your brand comes before the “what”
Read on for some of our favorite takeaways. Then make some time to watch the whole conversation.
Debunking the Myth: “If You Don’t Have Video, You Don’t Have a Brand”
It’s unfortunate (though not surprising) that people have gotten the impression that, unless you have videos out there for people to watch, you don’t have a brand.
Not true. Sharran and Brad start off debunking this myth, using Seth Godin as a textbook example.
Brad talked about the pressure he gets from people saying he should be making listing videos—something that’s been in and out of fashion about five times since he’s started.
Sharran encouraged him to keep doing what’s working for his brand. Because ultimately, what works for you is not about what’s trending (at the moment). Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about what’s trending. It wouldn’t be trending if it didn’t work for anyone.
The important thing is to keep it as part of the overall picture—not your primary focus.
Take it where you want because I’ll tell you, one of the biggest things that people misunderstand right now is they think if you don’t have video, you don’t have a brand. That is wrong. It’s not even remotely right…Like, Seth Godin has no videos. He has a blog… He’s not doing any [videos] for personal branding, but he writes a blog every day. And for him, cadence is brand.
Sharran’s Branding Strategy for the Anaheim Ducks
From there, they transitioned to Sharran’s branding story of the Anaheim Ducks—a story he hasn’t told anywhere else.
I didn’t grow up a hockey fan. And I am obsessed with the Ducks. And I’ve never shared this before publicly, but it is my dream to buy the Anaheim Ducks. Most people, when they think about a dream to buy a hockey team or a football team or sports franchise…there’s a story behind it. And it generally has one of three things…
Sharran presented those three foundational reasons:
- Someone important to you made something related to a particular sports team (e.g., Gary Vaynerchuk)
- You have the money, you have an affinity for a particular sports franchise, and you have a vision for it (e.g., Mark Cuban)
- You have a dream to create something that hasn’t been created before (e.g., Sharran Srivatsaa)
Sharran then asked Brad what came to mind when he said the words, “America’s team for football,” or “America’s team for baseball.”
I think ‘America’s team’ is so powerful…but when you think ‘America’s team for hockey,’ there is no America’s team. So, what I would like to do is I would like to make the Anaheim Ducks America’s team for hockey. And there’s a working strategy to make that happen…
My idea is to take 100 of the top influencers that I advise and I’m connected with and have all of them, along with me, crowdfund to buy the Anaheim Ducks. So, now you have the Alex Hormozis of the world—who, by the way, if Alex is watching, he will attest to this—he’s in. And, so, you will have, on Alex Hormozi’s profile ‘Alex Hormozi, Owner at Anaheim Ducks.’ So, now, think about this. Think about the top influencers of the world making the Anaheim Ducks America’s team. It is the quintessential branding play of our generation…And the best part about this is it has a great America’s backing story, which is the Ducks were owned by Disney. It was originally the ‘Mighty Ducks.’ And so, what is more quintessentially American than Disney? …So my goal is to create and build and brand the Anaheim Ducks as America’s team.
And in case you were wondering, yes, Brad is on that influencer list, too.
The Two Phases of Building a Great Brand
So, what can you as a real estate agent take away from Sharran’s dream for the Anaheim Ducks?
When you don’t have a strategy, everything looks like an opportunity, right? So, it’s important to have some strategy as you get going. But here’s the hard part: no idea comes out fully formed.
Strategy doesn’t come out of nowhere, either. Sharran had his reasons for taking a particular interest in the Anaheim Ducks and developing a branding strategy for it.
At the root of that strategy is the first of two phases to building a great brand.
I believe there are two phases to building a great brand. The first phase is the exploration phase because ideas don’t come out fully formed. And most people get stuck there because they don’t see a lot of progress there. They’re like, ‘I’m not getting anywhere.’ But if you know, and you can label, that is the phase you’re in. You’re in the exploration phase. And what you do there is you experiment. And people don’t believe in the power of exploration—because you don’t get to the thing that you want to build…
Makes sense, right? At the end of each phase of development, we want to see some kind of progress toward realizing the vision we have. But while exploration is critical to developing a brand with the power to stand out and inspire others, its payoff is personal to you.
It’s critical to develop something people will take notice of. But it’s not, in itself, something anyone but you is likely to get excited about.
Because until you build on it, there’s nothing to see.
The ‘How’ vs. ‘What’ of Your Brand
Sharran pointed out that “the key to personal brand is the first word: personal.” And this is why the exploration phase IS personal.
If you don’t know what makes your content uniquely yours, no one else will, either.
When it comes to that personal exploration, how long it takes is also personal. For some, it can take days, for others, weeks or months. Sharran admits, without hesitation or shame, that for him, it took years.
I struggled for so many years, Brad, trying to figure out what this brand was. And I still haven’t figured it out, but I will tell you I have a strategy of sorts. And that strategy—I was working with my coach on this, and she said, ‘Hey, why do you feel so disconnected? Why do you feel tired and resentful working so hard in this exploration phase?’ And that’s when it clicked for me: ‘Oh, I’m in this exploration phase. I should understand it and feel good about it’…
She said something amazing to me. She said, ‘We need to not figure out what your brand is. We need to figure out how your brand is…because how you show up, how you share, how you contribute, that is really important.’ I go, ‘I don’t understand,’ and she says, ‘Yes, that’s the problem. Because if you showed up, and you knew your “how,” then you’d figure out the “what.” So, we spent a few weeks figuring out how my brand was, and we came up with two words: tactically inspirational. So if you share that with someone that knows me, they’re like, ‘Okay. That’s very aligned.’
So, that was the how. That was the beginning of everything for me….
Watch the full conversation for more.
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