Ep43 - Featuring Bryan Lifshitz Talking About Branding

[00:00:00] Greg Mills: Our guest today has over 25 years experiences of marketing branding and visual communication expert. He's performed live on stage at gestures, improv and been honored by the mayor of Phoenix is most valuable Phoenician for her Roca actions taken. He's an entrepreneur and inventor homes, businesses and marketing logistics, and product development.

[00:00:23] Greg Mills: He's an e-commerce seller and has three private label brands. One of which went viral a few times, totaling over 101 million video views. He co-founded Alomar media in 2010 as a brand driven creative agency, helping your brand be seen, heard, and remembered. They're all about drawing attention to brands.

[00:00:44] Greg Mills: He resides in Phoenix, Arizona and is married to his college. Sweetheart has two amazing daughters and a Scotty rescue dog without further ado, Brian lift shits. 

[00:00:57] Bryan Lifshitz: All right. How you doing today?

[00:00:59] Greg Mills: I'm doing well. Brian, can you take a few moments and fill in the gaps from that intro and bring us up to speed with what's going on in your world today. 

[00:01:08] Bryan Lifshitz: Yeah. Um, my whole life, uh, I'm all about creativity, ideas. And ultimately it's led to branding, uh, back in the eighties and nineties, I didn't know much about branding. I didn't know much about marketing and advertising. Um, but something drew me to brands. Coca-Cola Nike Adidas, Reebok, and you know, some of the local brands from Southern California, where I grew up a lot of the surf wear.

[00:01:36] Bryan Lifshitz: And I don't know, I guess it's just something that's naturally, uh, uh, born into me and ever since I was a young kid, it's something I've just absolutely loved, uh, watching commercials. You know, anybody kind of doing guerrilla marketing or anything about their brand to draw attention. And it wasn't until kind of my professional life where I kind of went, oh, okay.

[00:02:01] Bryan Lifshitz: This is what I know. This is what I like. This is my passion. Um, and when I talk to people about it, it seems to be so easy to talk that, you know, they can see the passion in me. Um, I grew up in Southern California, as I said, um, I'm actually, I'm from South Africa. I was born there. I came to the states in 1980.

[00:02:22] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, my father was in the diamond industry. And with that, um, you know, we learned a lot about what I call the old school business mentality, shaking hands. Um, and actually I talk about that all the time with my family. Um, you know, how we do deals these days and watching my father doing deals across the desk, shaking a hand, uh, with wads of money and, and, uh, you know, trading diamonds and, um, The rest is really history.

[00:02:51] Bryan Lifshitz: It's a lot to do with my dad in the sense that he's always loved computers since the seventies. And he bought us our first computers back in the day. And that's where I used to dabble. Um, I used to dabble on a program called print shop pro, um, before I knew what a graphic artist was, again, before I knew about marketing and advertising.

[00:03:10] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, that's where I started dabbling in design and kind of learning about computers and understanding them and playing and having fun. Um, went off to college, got a degree in graphic design and visual communication from the university of Arizona. Um, spent the first, I guess maybe 5, 6, 7 years of my career in the corporate life.

[00:03:34] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, in a number of different industries, always doing marketing and advertising. And then ultimately in 2007 and nine got laid off two times in Phoenix due to the housing market. And I always knew I wanted to own my own business. I just didn't know what, when and where. And in 2009 is when we kind of came up with the idea that, Hey, let's take everything that I know and see what we can do with it.

[00:03:59] Bryan Lifshitz: And that's when Alomar iMedia was born and we've been in business now, 12, 13 years, we worked with over 400 brands. We've developed over 50 different brands and continue to do that today.

[00:04:13] Greg Mills: Now Ella Mari media, did that predate the piggyback rider or was that after, 

[00:04:19] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, so kind of around the same time. So I formed Alomar Emedia, my brothers and I, um, we, we had kids, we had eight kids between the three of us. The two of them are older than me, so they had their kids first. And the piggyback writer is, uh, an invention. My brothers and I created to carry toddlers. So prior to me starting my business, we were dabbling.

[00:04:43] Bryan Lifshitz: We were talking about the idea, talking about what do we want to do. And then kind of in the time where we decided we wanted to do something with it and bring it to market, um, Mari was around. And so Al Omari was the creative driving force behind piggyback rider

[00:04:58] Greg Mills: Now, was that your first brand that you brought to life? So. 

[00:05:03] Bryan Lifshitz: my own. Yes, like our own brand. Uh, when I worked in corporate life, I worked for a company where we had, you know, different brands that we did and, um, brands within brands, within brands. So I understood it. I didn't know everything, but again, kind of that leap of faith of, um, my brothers and I being a bit competitive and kind of saying, well, um, I think I know better than you.

[00:05:27] Bryan Lifshitz: And so even, even in the prototyping phase, uh, one of my brothers made the prototype and then the other two of us try to make it. Right. And so we kind of kept going back and forth, uh, and, and working together remotely, you know, w we were in three different time zones in three different states. And that was for the first five years of that business.

[00:05:46] Bryan Lifshitz: So, um, you know, that's the closest we got to where the closest I got to, to working on our own brand. 

[00:05:53] Bryan Lifshitz: But actually before that, a quick, funny story here, uh, or I find it interesting, uh, about the year before we launched piggyback writer and we knew we wanted to do that. My older brother and I were working on another product, uh, which was predating kind of the cell phones.

[00:06:08] Bryan Lifshitz: You could take notes on it. Um, a magnetic, uh, re uh, rewriteable reusable list that you put on your refrigerator, or wherever that allows it to be branded by other companies. Thus, when you write your grocery list, Um, you know, you take it with you, you know what it is, it can snap to the cart, your purse or your wrist kind of funny, but we were having fun with it.

[00:06:31] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, why I say this is we went to a trade show in Vegas and who was at the trade show? Um, uh, Billy Mays and Danny Sullivan from the pitch guys. And they actually, we, we got to pitch to them, uh, and they talked to us about the product, which was kind of that first time, my brother and I took our own brand, our own product and got to talk to somebody about it.

[00:06:53] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, at the same time, actually the Jay Leno show was there filming one of his segments. I believe it was called, made in America. And he, you know, he asks the audience thumbs up or down, whether you like the product. And, um, so ultimately we got on the Jay Leno show because of being at that show at that event, Jay Leno actually set our name on TV, along with our product.

[00:07:16] Bryan Lifshitz: And at that same time is when we kind of were working on the piggyback ride. So my older brother and I, my eldest brother, and I, excuse me, we, we looked at the piggyback rider and we looked at the risk list and we said, which one should we spend our time on? And we kind of went, man, let's go to the piggyback writer.

[00:07:33] Bryan Lifshitz: We feel like that one's a little bit better. And so that's where we dumped this, this one product. So that maybe was the first product. Um, piggyback writer was the second one that we brought to market.

[00:07:43] Greg Mills: You said that you had a, a background in branding, but how did you know, or you and your brothers know how to make a product and take the next step per se? 

[00:07:53] Bryan Lifshitz: We didn't, we had no idea what we were doing. Um, I had the most experience just based on my, uh, professional background and the, uh, corporate jobs that I had in working with other people. Um, who were bringing products to market and we were doing a small portion of that project for them, whether it was creating a brand or doing manuals or websites, or what have you.

[00:08:18] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and so that really was the first, uh, foray into it. Um, but yeah, I'll end there. I don't want to go into deep.

[00:08:29] Greg Mills: Well, I'll say this with 101 million video views of the piggyback rider. You did something right. 

[00:08:36] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, yeah, so the piggyback writer is the world's first and only standing child carrier. Uh, my brothers and I had eight kids between us and we wanted to do more with them. Um, and more being yard work housework. It wasn't even really hiking, ultimately based on my brothers being competitive with each other, we realized this was a year round go everywhere type of product.

[00:09:00] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, thus the piggyback rider was born. Um, when we launched the product, I think it was in year 3, 4, 5, uh, thanks to Facebook. I'm about seven photos of ours went viral on a, on a specific page on Facebook. However, they never tagged us. So we got, you know, we got visibility, but we didn't get any profitability off of that.

[00:09:23] Bryan Lifshitz: That's when I kind of had this gut feeling, uh, over the next year and a half. And I said, Hey, I feel like we're going to go viral. I feel like something's going to happen. I don't know when I don't know how, and I don't even know why I was thinking that. And, um, all of a sudden in 2017, uh, excuse me, 2016 is when my dad and I were working on the business and I said, Hey, let's get everything, you know, short up on the back end.

[00:09:48] Bryan Lifshitz: In case we have lots of orders come in, I've got a gut feeling. Um, and in 2017 is when we partnered with a page on Facebook that has to do with inventions. They had about 1.8 million followers, um, at the time. Uh, the big conglomerate that owns them as business insider. And so they reached out and said, Hey, we saw your product.

[00:10:09] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, can we make a video about it so we can put it on our page? And, you know, I'm, I'm old enough to say that, you know, I, I I've been around before the internet. And so I don't need social media in my life, but I also understand the benefits of social media. And so I just said, Hey, something's going to happen.

[00:10:25] Bryan Lifshitz: At some point, we gotta be ready. And we partnered with this company. They took my home videos. I'm still old enough to say home videos, but my cell phone videos of me and my kids at the Phoenix zoo. Um, and they spliced it together and they made about a 45 second video and they put it on their Facebook page, May 12th, 2017.

[00:10:47] Bryan Lifshitz: And I got 10 million views on day one. 

[00:10:50] Greg Mills: Wow. 

[00:10:51] Bryan Lifshitz: It got another 10 million views on day two, another 10 million views on day three. So that was Friday, Saturday, Sunday, uh, by the end of the weekend. Uh, we already excuse me, by the end of like that Wednesday, we had already sold out of all the products. We had an Amazon in our warehouse.

[00:11:08] Bryan Lifshitz: We had to air freight product from China. Uh, and we were chickens with our heads cut off. We didn't know what was happening. We didn't know what was going on. Um, it was amazing. It was awesome. It was a little bit of luck, but it's the right product on the right channel on the right day at the right time.

[00:11:26] Bryan Lifshitz: And there's no way, there's no way to plan that out. And when I said I knew we were going viral, I didn't know how I just kind of had this feeling that every time we posted stuff, it was interesting to see what people were saying about our product and that's where, when it went viral. Fortunately, unfortunately, uh, in the videos, my daughters and my nephew, that I was carrying actually a little bit bigger than what we would want a user to do with our.

[00:11:55] Bryan Lifshitz: And I think that's actually what got it over the, the edge, because there was, if I remember correctly, there were 1 million shares on that video. Okay. Which is crazy over a hundred thousand comments. And what it was was all the people who love inventions were sharing it with their friends and family. It didn't mean they were buying our product.

[00:12:17] Bryan Lifshitz: They were sharing it. And, uh, at the end of the day, we now have over 61 million views on that one video, that video led about 70 other partners, uh, internet partners to say, Hey, we want to make videos. We see this viral videos thing happening. Um, and so then they made videos and then they put them out. And that's what got us about another 40 million views, which equals the over a hundred million video views on the product today.

[00:12:45] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and that's not everything that I told you cause we went viral on Instagram a year later. Uh, and then other crazy stuff happened. We can fill that in, in a minute or two. I don't want to give away all the magic.

[00:12:56] Greg Mills: It sounds like your family is really important to you. Not only your immediate family or your, excuse me, your wife and daughters, but also your brothers. And it sounds like your dad is really helped you a lot. 

[00:13:10] Bryan Lifshitz: Oh yes. 100%.

[00:13:12] Greg Mills: What's some of the best advice that he has given you. 

[00:13:16] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, I guess the best, the best one that definitely I have used in the last 13 years of owning my own businesses, you know, I can only offer customers three things, price, quality, and service. Right. And you can only choose two. And so, uh, back in the day after the diamond life that my dad spent most of his early career doing, he got into computers and then we own some computer stores in Southern California.

[00:13:41] Bryan Lifshitz: And so a lot of that w you know, was that, that's where I learned how to build computers. I learned how to do customer service. I worked in the computer store every Saturday. Um, and I guess just his work ethic, watching him literally wake up six in the morning, go to work, come home seven at night. He drove to LA hour and a half each way every day for 15 years.

[00:14:03] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, he and my mom, I have to give my mom credit. They've been married a very, very long time. Uh, and together they've done an amazing job by providing my brothers and I, what we've needed. And one of those things was a making a decision to leave their family and friends in South Africa and make a new life for us in the United States.

[00:14:23] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and then watch my dad basically grow an entire business from nothing and not knowing anybody. And again, I know this is hard to imagine no internet, no cell phones, no social media, you know, just meeting one or two people at a time. And then just watching the way my dad has run his businesses. He's been an entrepreneur, my whole.

[00:14:44] Bryan Lifshitz: And he's segwayed from diamonds to computer stores, network computers, um, and then ultimately into kind of it consulting. And that's where I got more of that entrepreneurial bug from him. And I would go out on jobs with him and, you know, we, we we'd put in computers and lay lines and wires and cat five.

[00:15:05] Bryan Lifshitz: And so just watching him, you know, invoice clients and you sort of ask him, why did you do it this way? And, uh, one thing he would always tell me was, you know, anytime you could get, you know, even a $20 order just to get a company, to be able to be on your books so that the next time they want to order, you don't have to set them up.

[00:15:27] Bryan Lifshitz: You could just accept the order and go. And so that's really helped me in the last 13 years of running my own business. And some of those nuances of being an entrepreneur, uh, and not having, you know, a bunch of people to do all the different things that you need to do as an entrepreneur.

[00:15:41] Greg Mills: I imagine that works both ways too, in that, once you're a preferred vendor. Oh, well, we'll, we'll try them again. 

[00:15:49] Bryan Lifshitz: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything to, I mean, it's still comes down to capturing attention, right? I'm even doing it in the sense of somebody's already been referred to us to help them and support them. And you know, now I'm, I'm kind of doing everything that I can to make sure that, you know, we're, uh, Al Omari and Brian Lipchitz are, are kind of a living rent-free in your head.

[00:16:13] Bryan Lifshitz: So when people start saying, oh, amazing brand that we love what you're doing. Do you know anybody creative immediately? They're thinking of me. And I guess I should say it's worked because for 13 years, I've never actually advertised my own business anywhere. Everything has been word of mouth and referrals.

[00:16:31] Bryan Lifshitz: And still to this day, even through the pandemic, we got hit pretty hard. We sustained. We're growing. We're trying to add some, not trying. We are adding employees. We are scaling and, you know, that's the conversations that we're having is how can we take what we're doing successfully in helping others, uh, expand their awareness about their brand?

[00:16:53] Greg Mills: What were some of the early problems that you faced when you started Alomar and media? 

[00:16:58] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, what I see still happening today with a lot of people and I'm guilty of it every once in a while. Cause you get excited. It's the S this, uh, machine gun approach to telling people what you do. And what I mean by that is we've all understood. You know, they, they, everybody talks about, um, have a niche, right?

[00:17:16] Bryan Lifshitz: If you have a niche, you have a much better opportunity to get your point and your message and potentially the sale. Uh, whereas if you're just trying to please everybody, then you're basically pleasing nobody. And so that needs. When I first marketed my company, uh, when I was doing network marketing and talking to people and you know, they'd say, Hey, who are you?

[00:17:36] Bryan Lifshitz: What do you do? And I'm like, I'm in marketing. And then I would tell them I do everything right. I do everything, whatever you need I'll do. And the reality is I don't, I don't do websites and I don't do social media and I don't do photography and I don't do videography. And so at the end of the day, you know, uh, even though I told people, yes, I do these things, then of course they would always ask me and want me to do the thing at the bottom of my list.

[00:18:01] Bryan Lifshitz: The thing that I didn't really want to do, but it was kind of my net to catch the opportunity. Uh, and websites, you know, 13 years ago, obviously still a big player. It's something everybody needed and what everybody was talking about, even more so, or kind of like social media is today. So for me, it was, I offer everything and, and I realized now, Hey, that's not the best choice.

[00:18:26] Bryan Lifshitz: And so the lesson learned. We're all about branding, right? And we're all about drawing attention to your brand. That's what Alomar he does. That's who we are. And if we can work with you and consult and figure out creative ideas that will draw attention to your brand, big, small, whatever, that's what we do.

[00:18:45] Bryan Lifshitz: And the funny thing is, as I've done a better job of niching, I'm getting better clients, better opportunities, getting to work with the people that I want. And, uh, and I'm not kind of going, oh, I shouldn't have accepted that job type of thing. So that's something still today when I'm out marketing myself and hearing from other business owners, people kind of have that a freebie for everybody listening.

[00:19:11] Bryan Lifshitz: We have that thinking that everybody has to hear everything that I do right here right now. But I promise you if we flipped the roles and I told you about everything that I do right now, you would not hear half of the things that I say, because. You're thinking about your next podcast and what you're going to have for dinner later.

[00:19:30] Bryan Lifshitz: And you know, what time you got to go to the gym and all the other things going on in your life. So, um, that is something that I think is super important. When you can niche down what you need to do, you will be a thousand times better and more successful.

[00:19:46] Greg Mills: Now have you found yourself niching down to a specific industry or are there specific industries that are more apt to come to You 

[00:19:55] Bryan Lifshitz: You know, I've been trying to work on that and the answer is not really, um, meaning that us to be passionate about working with our, um, our, our collaborators and our customers or clients, we like to collaborate with them. Um, we've got, uh, we've got a feel. We are, we've got to have emotion and what they're investing in.

[00:20:18] Bryan Lifshitz: They're investing in us. We have to invest back in. So I've had people come to me as an e-commerce seller. I love working with people that want to bring products to market because it's so much fun. But at the end of the day, if you bring me a product that I have zero interest in, and it's not, you know, getting me excited and I can feel my creative juices aren't flowing for you, then I'm going to basically say, look, here's an idea to, uh, here's what, maybe you can, you know, suggestion, but we're not the right fit.

[00:20:48] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, on, on the side of who we work with, I mean, we've worked with a lot of professionals, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of, um, small businesses that don't have big teams, right? Generally that's where we work with. We work with the owner operators, uh, managers, or the people that owners put in charge to say, Hey, uh, you know, we're going to go do an event next week.

[00:21:13] Bryan Lifshitz: We need to, uh, make sure we're there and we need a tent and a backdrop and a tablecloth, and we need to make sure our brand is referenced. Then that might be the office manager who we're working with. Right. But ultimately it's, it's the owner operators and, and, and the business itself doesn't really make a difference.

[00:21:32] Bryan Lifshitz: It's the, uh, it's the people within the business. And then, you know, uh, obviously if there's a specific product, like I said, that we can't get into, then we're not going to be as creative as we want to. Um, but w we've helped a lot. I mean, as I said, solar Panora is entrepreneurs. I'm looking at my board over here.

[00:21:50] Bryan Lifshitz: You know, we've got some big, big real estate companies we're working with right now down to commercial and, uh, real estate brokers, um, lawyers, I've got a lawyer after 40 years that his passion is chocolate. And so I spent about a year and a half working with him to create a whole chocolate brand revolved around what he wants to do, kind of as he retires from the legal world.

[00:22:17] Greg Mills: I was afraid you were going to say something like he was going after the chocolate companies. 

[00:22:22] Bryan Lifshitz: No, no, no, no, no. He grew up on a farm in Iowa. He's he grew up baking. He's grew up with chocolate and he's, this is his passion, right? Law is what he does for a career and makes money. But what he wants to do in the future, as he retires all about chocolate. So, you know, he's somebody we've worked with that.

[00:22:40] Bryan Lifshitz: A matter of fact, we're on the third brand for him because I redid his, his legal brand first. Then he came to me and said, I've got this new idea. I want to do this thing. So we redid that. He just came to me four months ago and said, my son, you know, is now in the working world. And he wants a personal brand to help him promote what he does.

[00:23:03] Bryan Lifshitz: So the three of us got on a call and we had a conversation and figured out, you know, who are you? What do you do? Why do you do what you do? And then let's break it down and make sense of what everything you're saying. So. Sometimes it's just a matter of, I love getting referrals. Give me 30 minutes to chat with you and we'll determine, you know, if we're a right fit or not, otherwise I'll refer you to somebody.

[00:23:25] Greg Mills: When you first started out and you were, LMR media I think you were doing graphic design and probably printing and signage, but were you also doing the product development and creative consulting as well? Or did that just sort of evolve. 

[00:23:39] Bryan Lifshitz: yeah. That, I think that definitely evolved. Um, I mean, as, as we started developing piggyback rider more, you know, and, and especially as it became viral and people learned about the product, you know, people started asking questions, but I wasn't quite ready to really give knowledge and advice. I'd give some tidbits, you know, little things here and there.

[00:24:00] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and the same thing with the consulting, I knew it's something that I always wanted to do. A matter of fact, it took me probably eight years to kind of learn. Uh, or understand what the heck a consultant is because I would always, even in my corporate life, when we hired consultants, I was like, why, why are we not just doing the work?

[00:24:18] Bryan Lifshitz: Why do we have to hire a consultant? Like we're already being paid to do the work. And so that's where, uh, in my business, uh, professional life I've been, I've been fortunate enough to be in some communities where there's really great business professionals, consultants, and that's where I get to ask them like, okay, what do you do?

[00:24:35] Bryan Lifshitz: And how do you do it? And why do you do it that way? And so, you know, over the years there's been one or two opportunities to consult for people. And over the last, maybe four years that starting to pick up a lot more because now I really have the knowledge. Now I really have the understanding. We've had so many fun things happen with, with all the different brands that I've worked with, um, that, you know, there's always something I can add.

[00:25:01] Bryan Lifshitz: There's some, there's an idea I've got, I call them. Um, I get visions. I kind of go, you know, it comes across my face. Uh, I've got a clear vision. I gotta get it out and you know, then we talk about it and see if there's something there. But I definitely didn't know any of that. And it's something that I'm even continuing to hone, uh, today to, to, to be better, a better consultant and help brand owners be seen, be heard and ultimately be remembered.

[00:25:28] Greg Mills: I was going to ask how are people ultimately finding Alomar Emedia, but mainly through word of mouth and referral. It sounds like. 

[00:25:36] Bryan Lifshitz: Yeah. You know, I just hired a young guy about a year and a half ago, and I've been training him to learn everything that I know because he wants to understand marketing. Um, and I said to him, Hey, we need a better presence online. Like our Instagram and Facebook. Again, I don't really do that. I've got. Uh, I post, you know, very, very infrequently.

[00:26:01] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, but I said to him, Hey, this is where you can help us. Let's build up our social media following as well as what we've been able to accomplish with piggyback writer. Uh, you know, we work with a ton of influencers through there, and that's where we've gotten this understanding of how to bring brands, bring brands, attention.

[00:26:21] Bryan Lifshitz: So working with, uh, with my employee to do this, this is where we're starting to gear up and do more. We're doing more outreach. We are posting more, uh, we're looking to get into tech talk. Um, you know, my team is pressuring me to start doing kind of CEO, founder videos, you know, cause they're always telling me, people want to hear what you have to say, even though, you know, you talk too much.

[00:26:44] Bryan Lifshitz: And I, and I love talking, not a problem, but putting together some of these sound bites of the reality check, right? Like I live in this real world. You know, we all watch TV commercials and when you're done watching it, you scratch your head. And you're like, who approved that? Who was in the room that everybody said they, everybody looked around and raised their hand and said, yeah, I agree.

[00:27:06] Bryan Lifshitz: That's what that should be. Because the audience we're scratching our heads saying I don't get it. What, what was the intent? The purpose. Um, and so, you know, that's ultimately what it comes down to. It's, it's the why. Right? Why do you do what you do? So, um, yeah, that's it.

[00:27:27] Greg Mills: So when somebody discovers Alomar media, they come in, they talk with you. They may be a fledgling company. They want to start. They have a product, but they want to build their brand. What kind of budget do they need and what kind of, and by budget, I'm talking both time and, and money and material as well, 

[00:27:51] Bryan Lifshitz: sure. I like to approach what I do a little differently. I really, and maybe it's wrong, but that's probably why I stick kind of in that small business, uh, world entrepreneurs and inventors, because I really care at the end of the day, I would still give away all of my knowledge and information. If you know, I had a bucket full of money that constantly refilled itself.

[00:28:16] Bryan Lifshitz: So to my own detriment, I love, love, love, helping people bring their stuff to market. So with that, every single project is different. Meaning that we have people coming to us. I have somebody I'm working with right now, um, who we, we had some conversations and she said, look, you know, we've been around for, I think two years, our product is out there.

[00:28:36] Bryan Lifshitz: What we do, but like, Nope, we're not engaging with anybody. Right. Nobody is kind of sharing our stuff. Nobody's talking about us. And so that's where we're having that conversation. All right. Well, let's go back and do a brand audit. Let me go back and review what you've been doing. And let me put my thumb on it to say, well, I wouldn't like any of these posts either because there's nothing that engages me.

[00:29:01] Bryan Lifshitz: There's nothing that resonates with me. You know, you're showing me a picture of something that's complete and done, but I don't know what's happening here. Right? So the budgets, I mean, reality, you know, as low as 2,500 bucks, if you're looking for, you know, consulting and brand audit, um, but they can go upwards of $10,000 or more, depending on if you want us to come in and like build a whole brand for you.

[00:29:27] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and so why I say this is a lot of our clients are kind of on the smaller side. Um, you know, they're kind of coming out of corporate life and starting a new business, um, or maybe they're splitting from a partner, uh, and, and doing something new and different. Maybe they bought into a new. And so now they're coming to us to say, I want to make it my business, right.

[00:29:50] Bryan Lifshitz: Obviously, if it's not a franchise, that's not what I'm talking about. Cause the franchise is, they can't really make it their business, but you know, however, we can make it there. So, um, when, when you come in and talk to us, it's all about a conversation first. You know, generally I like to have at least a 30 minute conversation with everybody to get to know you so I can at least say, look, let's not have any more conversations.

[00:30:11] Bryan Lifshitz: This is not worth either of our time or, Hey, I'm not the right person. Let me refer you. Or, oh my God, I want to work with you. And here are all the crazy ideas I have, but let's take it slow, right? If you don't want to spend $10,000 a month and make it all happen today, then let's spread it out. And over the next four to six months, you know, we'll do something every month.

[00:30:34] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and that's the way to break it down a little bit. And I think. I come to, I come to the table with this understanding of being an owner operator, right. I've got my own brands as well as I'm helping people with their brands. And I think that's where the last three people I talked to, they said, Brian, you're down to earth.

[00:30:54] Bryan Lifshitz: You just, you're so relaxed. You don't talk to me. You don't talk down to me. You're, you're telling me exactly the things I need to understand. And here's a great example. Okay. Why I can't answer these questions. Somebody comes to me and says, Hey, here's my product. We've already developed the product. We want you to, uh, help promote it.

[00:31:14] Bryan Lifshitz: So it can be seen and purchased. And I say, okay, great. But food for thought your products really big. Right. And right now to ship it, what are you shipping it in? And how big is the box coming in and all of these nuances. And so I, you know, I'd educate them because as being an e-commerce seller myself, I would say.

[00:31:35] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, you know, look at your packaging and if you can reduce the packaging, you could actually save a ton of money by taking so here's stuff people may not want to know, but on Amazon, if you saw on Amazon, they have a computer machine that scans your product when it comes into their warehouse to determine how big it is.

[00:31:55] Bryan Lifshitz: And if, um, if your product is 11 by 17, but you have like a quarter inch of packaging. So the plastic bag that it comes in is a quarter inch bigger on, on one side. And there's that little flap that you didn't fold over and taped down. Then Amazon will charge you for an 11, 11 and a half by 17 instead of the 1117.

[00:32:21] Bryan Lifshitz: What does that mean? That could kick you up another dollar 50 in fees when Amazon sends out your product. A lot of people don't know that they're just creating products and they're putting it into whatever package they want to put it in, or they're putting it in whatever the manufacturer says is easiest for them.

[00:32:41] Bryan Lifshitz: What I'm coming to them and saying, Hey, just food for thought. If we're going to work with you to design your packaging, my recommendation is let's look at your product before we even get to the packaging, because if we can reduce it and save you money on fees, right? What most people do with packaging, we're tearing it open.

[00:32:58] Bryan Lifshitz: We're throwing it away anyway. Right? And if you don't have an expensive product, people don't expect expensive packaging, thus these little mistakes, cause a lot of headache and a lot of money. So that's where some of the, you know, going back to what we talked about earlier, my knowledge is so vast when it comes to e-commerce and Amazon.

[00:33:21] Bryan Lifshitz: And these, some of these nuances that when we talk about branding and somebody says, Hey, here's my widget. I want to sell it. Help me create packaging and all of that. You know, I would say, well, what sort of help do you need? Do you literally just want us to design a template, create it? Cause we understand e-commerce and what has to happen with barcodes and labeling and all of that?

[00:33:41] Bryan Lifshitz: Or do you want to sit down and have a conversation about it? So you understand why we're doing what we're doing? Because my piggyback writer product, um, we packaged it in a plastic bag. The bar that the kid stands on is metal. So that's the heaviest part in there. We ship it in a polybag well, what we would find in, and I actually found this out because I was the guy that was receiving the product like five years ago into the warehouse and I physically was taking it in and checking it in.

[00:34:16] Bryan Lifshitz: And it, this was allowing me to learn about my own product of what people were doing with it, how it was being sent back to me. But in some of the cases, what I found was the metal bar being so heavy that. Ups or FedEx ups dropped it on people's doorsteps. It popped through the packaging, right? And immediately people would then call us and say, Hey, this packaging looks open or whatever.

[00:34:38] Bryan Lifshitz: I'm not accepting it. I want a new one. And of course that would cause headache. So because we were monitoring our own returns, I was able to make that change. You know, that's the type of thing that I bring to the table. When we're talking about packaging is, Hey, uh, when we're creating this packaging, how are you shipping it again?

[00:34:56] Bryan Lifshitz: Right. Let's make sure that once you've done all the effort in marketing and the sales and you got people's money and now you ship their product that you don't really, you don't hear from them again. Right. Other than when they want to reorder or come back and buy another product. But if they call back and say, Hey, I didn't, you know, the box was open or something happened.

[00:35:15] Bryan Lifshitz: Now it's a headache. So this was a budget talk. It's it's about conversation, right? Minimum, you're looking at 2,500 bucks to do stuff. Um, and, and the sky's the limit, you know, a lot of people want to spread their, their dollars out where I work with all of my owner operators in our, in our collaborators clients is I say, Hey, who do you have available on your team?

[00:35:40] Bryan Lifshitz: What can you do a part of the process? So when we're doing like a new brand, you know, we'll work with the team to say, here's some homework you've got to go do. And if you go do some of this homework, well, then I don't have to charge you for the time for us to kind of go do the homework as well as if I don't have to spend time asking you these questions, you can basically answer these questions and give us feedback ahead of time, then that will save you money.

[00:36:07] Bryan Lifshitz: So all of that goes into consideration on everything we do. I don't have price lists. Um, you know, we, we have an hourly rate and we kind of base everything off of that. Um, but ultimately. Business owners want to know exactly how much something is going to cost specifically, if it's reoccurring, you know, am I paying $5,000 every month?

[00:36:30] Bryan Lifshitz: And again, going back to my father's something, he taught me. You want to be happy. You want your customers to be happy, writing that check every month and not holding the check for three, four or five more days, because they're not sure what you're really doing for them. Right? You want them to, as soon as that invoice comes in, they pay the bill because they're so happy.

[00:36:52] Bryan Lifshitz: Right. They know they can, they know exactly what you're doing.

[00:36:56] Greg Mills: What are some of the more interesting. Brands that you've helped develop and you don't have to name names, but what are some of the interesting stories or that you could talk about? 

[00:37:10] Bryan Lifshitz: One of the best brands I did and I got to give a shout out to Adrian Hart of Moda escapes, interior design here in Scottsdale, Arizona. Uh, her and I have been friends for, I don't know, eight or 10 years. And we both kind of grew our businesses together and she's a designer, she's a creative.

[00:37:30] Bryan Lifshitz: And she came to me and finally said, Hey, I want you to help me create my brand. I want you to rebrand. You know, I'm finally, I know who I am and the rest is history. And so she, she and I worked together for about a month and we both agreed when we were done with the brand, that it was like a Friday. And she said, all right, let me think about it.

[00:37:51] Bryan Lifshitz: Let me think about it over the weekend. And she called me on Sunday night crying and she said, Hey, this is it. And I said, what are we talking about again? And she said, I, I I'm settled on the design. I love it. Let's make it happen. And she's like, I just, every time I look at it, I it's me. Uh, I see all the elements that are me.

[00:38:12] Bryan Lifshitz: It's perfect. I love it. I love it. I've been crying. And she said, Brian, honestly, she said, this was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. And we both agreed because we're both creatives. You know, it was like, we were kind of fighting with each other, but not really, you know, but when I work with non creatives, they tend to kind of say, all right, if that's what you think, then I'll.

[00:38:34] Bryan Lifshitz: And I'm like, well, but what's your opinion, your, the person that has to market and promote your business. And so I always think about, or her, you know, when, when we talk about brands and when I do brands and you know, I want people to love their brand, that they get so emotional about it. So those are some memorable, uh, brands and times that I can remember.

[00:38:54] Greg Mills: That's gotta be very satisfying to have helped your friend and to help other people, , to focus on their brands, and to better themselves. So to speak. 

[00:39:06] Bryan Lifshitz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, you know what, it's the concise understanding of who you are. So other people can understand who you are, right? Because our intelligence levels, aren't all the same. Our comprehension levels, aren't all the same. And for that matter, we've learned it with social media. We now know if you can't capture somebody's attention in three seconds.

[00:39:29] Bryan Lifshitz: You better move on. Right. And so now it's trying to work to that attention span is what I'm trying to figure out.

[00:39:36] Greg Mills: What provides you inspiration when you're either doing graphic design, designing a new product, helping somebody with a brand?

[00:39:45] Bryan Lifshitz: What provides me inspiration.

[00:39:48] Bryan Lifshitz: It, you know what I, I mentioned a little bit earlier. I get these visions, you know, sometimes I kind of just close my eyes or even if my eyes are open, I almost see graphics. I'm a visual communicator. Everything in my life is visual. Whether my eyes are open or closed, I suppose. And I can see it right now.

[00:40:07] Bryan Lifshitz: It's the same way somebody would storyboard a movie or a TV show or a commercial. Right. We have to understand what's happening. And so that's the way it is for me. It's kind of that, that visual communication, I think. Um, and, and that's really what I work with as well as being a graphic artist. Oftentimes, um, what do I, how do I want to say this mistakes in the way, the computer almost, um, I'm working faster than the computer sometimes.

[00:40:43] Bryan Lifshitz: And so the way that the image is fuzzy or some sort of weird technical thing happens with the computer, like a glitch. And I, and I catch it before, let's say it goes away and I'm like, whoa, that looked really cool. Like, what was that? Let me go back and figure out, let me re let me see if I can recreate that.

[00:41:04] Bryan Lifshitz: And so, you know, that happens often when I it's unintended con consequences, excuse me, it's unintended actions. And when I'm creating what I'm doing, that it's again, get a little vision of, uh, while I'm designing something. Ooh, let me quickly create another design off to the side. And I suppose, uh, that's where I'm not an, an artist with a pen and a pad because I like the idea of undoing things, right.

[00:41:30] Bryan Lifshitz: Being able to go back. And I liked the idea in my, in my design programs to when I'm working and playing, I can just take everything I'm doing and copy it over right next to it. And quickly tweak something to see if that idea works. And if it doesn't, I can scratch it, delete it and move on. Um, other than that, you know, a lot of, a lot of, uh, what I get is from what big brands are doing, you know, what, what the big brands around the world, they're the ones that are spending billions of dollars on marketing.

[00:41:59] Bryan Lifshitz: So, you know, that's why I tell my clients, well, let's, let's see what they're doing and let's figure out how we can mimic. I like to call it ethically, swipe that idea, right? We're not stealing their idea. We're Hey, look, there's a commercial where they're talking about this and they have a family doing that.

[00:42:17] Bryan Lifshitz: We could replace whatever that product or service. And essentially do the same thing for your business on a much smaller scale and feed it out to your audience. Right? So some of that and the internet, I mean, you know, we have access to Google. I'm a Google guy, you know, when I need to see something, I go to Google and I type it in and I look at the first page and kind of just start scrolling.

[00:42:41] Bryan Lifshitz: And it's very much like people's Pinterest boards, right? It's this, this way of getting ideas. And you're kind of seeing what other people are doing. Cause a lot of times you want to make sure you're not doing the same thing. You know, there's, there's a lot of, most stuff hasn't been done. Um, and so that's, that's where I get inspiration from.

[00:42:57] Greg Mills: How do your ideas flow to you and how do you capture them for later? And I'm talking, it could be ideas for design, or it could be a design idea for a new product, 

[00:43:08] Bryan Lifshitz: I I'm the guy that. If, if some idea comes through my head, I got to write it down immediately because I'll think too hard on it. And by the time I'm thinking on it, I kind of have already forgotten what I was doing. And then I'm thinking about 19 other angles off of that one. Uh, if you could see my office right now, I've got post-it notes everywhere.

[00:43:31] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, I've got, you know, I actually just like to grab copy paper blank, copy paper, and I'm folding it in half and kind of writing and sketching and doing, um, but ultimately my cell phone and applications like slack, Google notes are two big ones that I use. Um, and I've got like slack channels that are only my channel that my team doesn't see.

[00:43:55] Bryan Lifshitz: And it's basically called Brian's bright ideas. And when I get an idea, like literally my wife and I were talking last night, um, And I can't say what we were talking about, but it was really, really funny. And she said something and I said, oh my God, that should be a part of my comedy. Right. One day I'm going to do a comedy routine.

[00:44:14] Bryan Lifshitz: I've been writing jokes for 10 years. Right. And eventually I'll have enough to do like 10 minutes. Um, but it was one of those that I did something, she did something, I did something. And then what she did kind of close the joke. And I was like, oh my God, I got to write that down. And so I immediately got into slack and was like trying to write down what happened in order to make sure when I go back and read it later, I actually understand it and can rewrite it into something and then actually put it into my comedy notes.

[00:44:47] Greg Mills: Okay. That's something that I think I do a, a poor job of I've got, I do have a lot of, uh, post-it notes.

[00:44:56] Greg Mills: and I'll I'll use notebook paper. I'll use copy paper, like you said, but the actual storing it somewhere and reviewing it is what kills me. 

[00:45:08] Bryan Lifshitz: You know, I I've during this pandemic, I've actually switched a lot more over to Google products. Um, Google docs, Google sheets, and Google notes. And the reason I do that is it allows my team and I, without saving files anywhere. Um, because I hate doing stuff twice. I hate having duplicates of, you know, my team's got a file and I've got a file, but then they updated their file.

[00:45:34] Bryan Lifshitz: And then I got to save it back on my dry. And so I've, I've been getting my team to say, look, let's all work in Google. It's accessible from our cell phones. We all work somewhat remotely. And that allows us wherever we go, wherever we're at. Right. We can write it down. And I, and I, you know, essentially tell my team, look, part of working here is you gotta be creative 24, 7, 360.

[00:45:57] Bryan Lifshitz: You know, I, I'm not asking you to work, but if you get great ideas while you're fishing, while you're bowling, you're at a concert, write it down. Like let's utilize that the Google notes, uh, have been phenomenal because it allows us to kind of sort everything. Uh, the Google docs have been great because it's allowed, I'm actually using it now as a, as kind of my mind dump as well as I accidentally realized that there isn't an add-on in Google docs called voice typing.

[00:46:28] Bryan Lifshitz: Right. Which basically you can just click the button and I've actually interviewed my father. I'm in the process of interviewing my father about his life. And I have Google docs open and I have that thing going and it's picking up what he's saying while I'm listening. I'm also taking some notes at the same time.

[00:46:46] Bryan Lifshitz: So I do that for myself where I'll open up Google docs and, you know, the, the. That we're doing right now. That's something that, you know, I didn't know how we were doing what we're doing. And so I was basically just talking into Google, all of my ideas and thoughts, and then it's, it's way better than writing them down.

[00:47:06] Bryan Lifshitz: You click stop. Then you go back, you take a break, you come back next day or whatever, and you edit it. Right. And now that document, now I share it with my team and now we've got this live doc that I literally didn't really even type anything. So it's, it's very quick. Um, and the last thing I'll say is, uh, voice to text, obviously from the cell phone.

[00:47:27] Bryan Lifshitz: That's why I try to do a lot for my phone because I've got the ability in all of these applications to do voice to text. Um, and generally I can get it out a lot quicker without making a mistake, uh, voice detects, but, um, yeah, the Google docs, I'm a proponent of them. That's what helps us.

[00:47:45] Greg Mills: Yeah, I'm not, I wasn't aware of Google notes. I'll have to look that up. 

[00:47:49] Bryan Lifshitz: You know, Google's got so many products that most of us don't know about any of them. Um, and I have to thank my brother for Google notes. That's something that he was using. I was using Evernote. And then I just kind of found that it just wasn't as easy. Um, you know, I don't know I've got all the Google tabs up so I can click it.

[00:48:08] Bryan Lifshitz: Google notes is right here on the home screen, on my phone. So if I'm looking for some sort of a, uh, information, if somebody needs to know our, our sales tax number for the business, right, it's very accessible. It's very easy. Um, you know, obviously the things like passwords and stuff, you don't want to put it in there.

[00:48:27] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, you want to lock that up, but you know, it's all about ease of use. So the whole team can get access very quickly, very easily, and we can communicate in our own environments really. And that's what I, you know, that's what I like. I like being able to do it that way.

[00:48:42] Greg Mills: Let's talk about your workshop that you've got. I believe it was Brian on branding 

[00:48:47] Bryan Lifshitz: Other way round branding with Brian. 

[00:48:50] Greg Mills: branding with Brian. 

[00:48:51] Bryan Lifshitz: Yes. So the, the idea with, with branding with Brian is for the last 13 years in the quote unquote network marketing world that I've been in, I've heard thousands upon thousands of pitches and presentations and commercials, whatever you want to call them anywhere between 20 seconds and 60 seconds.

[00:49:16] Bryan Lifshitz: And oftentimes I don't understand what people are saying because their messaging sucks. They are telling me what they want. They are telling me what they think I want to hear versus what I need to hear and through other opportunities that allowed me to start seeing this clarity. I went, man, this is really frustrating.

[00:49:38] Bryan Lifshitz: And so that's when I started helping people, I would say, Hey, you know, you did a good presentation today, but maybe if you change this a little bit, then you know, maybe be a little bit better. And so that kind of led into more opportunities, which led into this workshop, uh, that we did a few years ago before the pandemic, it was in person.

[00:49:58] Bryan Lifshitz: It was a lengthy three-hour workshop, kind of intensive tips and tricks and all that. Well over the pandemic we all got online. We got, you know, a lot more people went on zoom a lot more small businesses said, oh, look, now I can go do I can go promote my business. Matter of fact, there were a lot of people that had side businesses or got laid off and had to create something new.

[00:50:20] Bryan Lifshitz: So now they're looking for networking opportunities. Well, again, when you come into a networking place, unless you've done due diligence of, you know, kind of what to expect, people just kind of again, say what they think needs to be said. But it doesn't resonate. And I saw it when, in some of my other organizations and communities, when members came to me and said, I don't think I'm going to renew my membership.

[00:50:44] Bryan Lifshitz: And I'd say why I'm not getting enough work. Why? And I would say, well, maybe your messaging sucks. Maybe people don't understand what you're saying, and maybe you need to meet more people. So what we ended up doing is we converted the workshop in person three hours to virtual on zoom in just a little over an hour.

[00:51:05] Bryan Lifshitz: And the idea behind it is very much like an athlete. Doesn't come to the playing field and starts playing, right. You don't come to the super bowl and start playing football. Uh, you don't come to the NBA championships and just start playing some B ball. You've been practicing. Obviously you've been practicing all season, but you even practiced the day before the day of that game.

[00:51:27] Bryan Lifshitz: Well, what I'm finding is, and, and the truth is when people won't say it out loud, but when I do one-on-one. They don't prepare and they don't practice business owners do not practice what they're going to say at these events when they're given an opportunity to speak about their business. And so I say to them, well, that's stupid because now you're wasting not only your time, but my time and probably some of your money and you're going to get nothing out of this.

[00:51:54] Bryan Lifshitz: So branding with Brian is the practice field. This is where business owners and entrepreneurs get to come and practice presenting to a group of peers that essentially like when I went through art school and all of our art had to be critiqued, well, this is real world, real time, real life feedback, right then and there in the meeting of what are people understanding about again, who you are, what you do and what you say.

[00:52:24] Bryan Lifshitz: And then it becomes a bit of a mastermind workshop of let's help this individual, uh, the workshop we just had yesterday. There was an individual she's here in Phoenix. Uh, maybe Glendale, she sells cakes. She got a phenomenal tagline. The tagline we've heard before I roll over. It's so funny. It's such a great tagline, but I've heard her not say it for the last couple of months and I don't know why.

[00:52:53] Bryan Lifshitz: And so she came to the workshop and, you know, she workshopped it a little bit. And the consensus in the group was she should bring it back because everybody loved it. And what she was worried about is she was worried about this tagline was offending people. And I said, well, but it's what you like. And I'm not offended by it.

[00:53:13] Bryan Lifshitz: And here are five other people saying they're not offended by it. And I've heard everybody in the room laugh when you talk about this. And so we gave her this peace of mind in this meeting where she actually shed a tear for a moment and said, I literally was not going to use this anymore because whoever else she was talking to.

[00:53:31] Bryan Lifshitz: It's not politically correct. It's not right. You shouldn't do it. You're going to make enemies. And I say, BS, do it. Right. She's got ways of, of, of making sure that it's not over the edge or over the top. And so that was one of these aha moments for her that she kind of was able to say, huh, I'm actually getting real feedback right now from real human beings.

[00:53:52] Bryan Lifshitz: That love what I'm saying. And so now she's able to leave the meeting and now she, you know, when she goes to present in the future, she knows she's going to nail it. And this, this humorous tagline is actually going to work for her. Even if somebody is offended, they're going to talk to her. Cause they're going to go, you know what?

[00:54:11] Bryan Lifshitz: I was offended by that. And then she should say, yeah, you know what, let me send you a cake, right? Let me send you a piece of cake or something and build that relationship. So branding with Brian is the place to come practice. It's the place where we will help you be specific to be. your messaging, about who you are, what you do and why you do it.

[00:54:33] Bryan Lifshitz: And so when you go to the playing field, you're going to hit it out of the park. Everybody's going to get you, and you're gonna be able to move forward, build, you know, last full relationships and, and great collaborations and ultimately get that cash.

[00:54:45] Greg Mills: Okay. Specific to be terrific. 

[00:54:49] Bryan Lifshitz: I didn't coin it. So if somebody out there is listening, it's not my phrase. I didn't coin it, but it's one that I love because it's makes such sense in what we're talking about. Um, and, and in that messaging, when you have a broad message, again, you know, that's where you're not going to get any engagement, but if you're very specific, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm looking for Greg, you know, of the entrepreneur podcast, then I can go, Hey, I was on that podcast.

[00:55:18] Bryan Lifshitz: I know him. Let me introduce you to him, you know, versus saying, do you know someone who has. Well I'm yeah, I know like a thousand people who have podcasts. Right. So what does that do for me? I stopped thinking about you immediately, but if this other person who said, do you know Greg from the entrepreneur 40 podcasts, I can be like, oh my God, I know that person.

[00:55:39] Bryan Lifshitz: Here's the referral. Right. Very specific. And everybody's happy.

[00:55:44] Greg Mills: Now you mentioned the word resonate several times. How can somebody resonate? How can they develop a brand that resonates with the. 

[00:55:54] Bryan Lifshitz: Well, you have to understand the consumer. You have to understand kind of the need behind it. Um, you know, w why did you, why are you doing this product? Why are you doing the service? Uh, You know, if you, if you go back and time and you look at a lot of, kind of what people would say, that's silly and I can't believe, you know, you did it, there was the pet rock, right.

[00:56:15] Bryan Lifshitz: So I'm sure, you know, plenty of people turned down that individual, uh, and ultimately the pet rock went somewhere. So, you 

[00:56:22] Greg Mills: threw mine through a window. 

[00:56:24] Bryan Lifshitz: exactly. So when you want to resonate, it's, it's, uh, the way that I liken it, social media, okay. When somebody posts something on social media that comes across your feed, you have the option to like it comment or share.

[00:56:40] Bryan Lifshitz: And each one of those three things has a kind of a different level of engagement. In my opinion, uh, obviously liking, you know, I agree with what Greg is saying. Commenting is I agree more or less just based on what the comment is, but knowing that my community is going to see both of these things that I do.

[00:56:58] Bryan Lifshitz: And then ultimately sharing is that, you know, I'm really distributing Greg's content to my whole community. Which means I've blessed, whatever it is that, you know, Greg has said. So what resonates is like my viral video within a day that got 10 million views right there that resonated with all of these people, because one way or another, they either loved us or hated us.

[00:57:22] Bryan Lifshitz: And we were told both, so to resonate, you know, sometimes talk about it in PR you know, all P all press is good, press good or bad. Um, you know, you want to be politically correct to the best of your ability and not hurt people's feelings. But also if you want to hurt people's feelings because you don't care, well, then you have the right to do that.

[00:57:44] Bryan Lifshitz: It's your business. And just know that, you know, you might not get all of the clients and opportunities that you want, but resonating. I think it also, it comes down to making sure, you know, your audience, right? You, you, you know who you're attracting, you know, what they want. So when you put out a message that says.

[00:58:04] Bryan Lifshitz: Everybody on your list says how high, right? And then, you know, that you're resonating. There are plenty of brands out there. If you go through social, they have a million followers go on their Instagram page, they've got a million followers, but then go average out the last 10 posts. Right? And look at how many likes maybe each of those posts have divided.

[00:58:26] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, and you can kind of get what's called the engagement rate. And, and that percentage actually tells you, even though they've got a million followers, they have less than 1% of engagement of those followers, which means their followers don't give two detailees of what they say. But if you have somebody who's got 5,000 followers and every on the end, the average of the last 10 posts, you have a thousand people liking, right.

[00:58:57] Bryan Lifshitz: Or even a, you know, whatever the number is. I'm not a mathematician, let's say even a hundred. You know, that percentage is probably a much greater, uh, engagement rate than of the million. But of course we all get excited. I did this as well. I made the mistake. I paid somebody 1500 bucks to promote, you know, on a Facebook page that had a million followers and it didn't do anything for us.

[00:59:18] Bryan Lifshitz: And I went over to another one that was much more engaging with their audience. She had 250,000 followers on Instagram. She didn't charge me a dime. We gave her one of our products and we sold a bunch and we got visibility. Right. And it all resonated with people because it was the right audience, the right engagement.

[00:59:37] Bryan Lifshitz: So that's where you could kind of look and say, if I want to see what works, go to your favorite pages and see what's happening. And if you can see that people are liking, commenting and sharing on almost everything that's happening with that brand, then try to look at it and say, well, I wonder what's happening here.

[00:59:54] Bryan Lifshitz: Are they doing some good storytelling? Are they asking a lot of questions? Are they being funny? Are they education? Right. If it's the same crap every day, all day, right? Then your audience goes down, your engagement goes down and it's not going to resonate. So, um, you know, look to what's happening out there already and do some of your own analysis, right?

[01:00:14] Bryan Lifshitz: So when you come to the table, whether you're working with us or anybody else, you have a good understanding of your opportunity. So that if somebody comes to you with a 5,000 versus a million, you can actually make a good decision.

[01:00:28] Bryan Lifshitz: If anybody out there wants to talk about influencer marketing, if you've got a product happy to chat, that's, that's how we, a lot of our marketing for piggyback.

[01:00:37] Bryan Lifshitz: Uh, w you know, we scour the internet for influencers and they're called nano and micro influencers, meaning that they're generally about, uh, 50,000 followers in less, but most of them are about 25,000 and less, and we get phenomenal, phenomenal engagement. Um, we just had a tick talker. Uh, we're starting to get into tech talk and blow that up.

[01:00:59] Bryan Lifshitz: But one of our videos on Tik TOK, we worked with an influencer. I believe now it's got over, I think 150,000, 200,000 views. And again, we're engaging with her audience. I think she has 200,000 followers on Instagram, or excuse me, I'll tick tock. So, um, you know, we're utilizing her community, her audience, right.

[01:01:22] Bryan Lifshitz: And she needs us because we have the product. And so now she's able to make more content and that's something that I want to make a point that. Where we flourish here is trying to set people up with this idea to say, Hey, influencer, you need content because you're boring after awhile. So let's work with these brands over here and collaborate, and now you can push your kid in a stroller.

[01:01:44] Bryan Lifshitz: You can carry them in a piggyback writer. You can wear this apparel, and now you can talk about it on your channels and get more engagement.

[01:01:53] Greg Mills: I was just getting ready to ask what the best way for someone to contact you with, or to check you out. 

[01:01:58] Bryan Lifshitz: Yeah. Um, you know, as long as you can spell my name, Bryan with a Y and lift shits, you all heard that correctly. Uh, you can find me all over the web. I'm on LinkedIn. If you want to reach me there, that's where a lot of business professionals and I chat. Uh, you can reach out through Facebook. I'm not really on Instagram.

[01:02:17] Bryan Lifshitz: Um, but ultimately, you know, email brian@alomaremedia.com or if you are interested in learning more about the workshops and want to, uh, expand on your messaging and do a better job, um, we try to make it easy, but that's a buy tickets period at so 80 forward slash Alomar Emedia. So buy tickets dot letters, 80 Ford slash Alan Mari media, um, and, uh, you know, Search for me online one way or another, you'll find me,

[01:02:54] Greg Mills: Okay, well, so number one piece of advice that you can give for our listeners, Brian. 

[01:03:03] Bryan Lifshitz: um, you know, this, something that it's kind of like the implement in perfectly. I don't know if I said that yet today, but it's the understanding of, uh, my wife brought me one very similar version done is better than version none. And you know, some people refer to the 80 20 rule. I'm a perfectionist and sometimes stuff doesn't get done because I want it to be perfect.

[01:03:30] Bryan Lifshitz: And I think we live in a world where things aren't perfect. And even though we want them to be, they're not. So just know that things don't have to be perfect. Get it out, get people to know about what's going on. You can always modify and update and change. It's PR you know, you're not a big corporation.

[01:03:48] Bryan Lifshitz: You know, ultimately implement in perfectly, uh, in order to, uh, move forward.

[01:03:55] Greg Mills: All right. Well, that's a wrap. Thank you, Ryan, for being a guest on entrepreneurs over 40.