You work hard, make your brand work harder. Guest starring professional brand strategist, Debbie O’Connor

Debbie
Thanks guys for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Ange
Fabulous, and we’ve got so much to cover today because most trade business owners would never have interacted with a professional brand strategist ever before.

Andy
Yeah. Honestly, most trade business owners just make it up as we go along. We are just really winging it, aren’t we? For someone like you, Debbie, it must just make you cringe, right?

Debbie
Oh look, you know what? I come across tradies all the time and they’re so good at what they do, right? Yes, they do so well. But when it comes to the business aspect, man, that’s the challenging part. And building a brand is just so far from what they know on their everyday staff that it seems to be a bit pie in the sky. It’s something that you know only really, really big businesses do. But today we’re gonna discuss how, regardless of how big or small you are, no matter what kind of business you’re in, branding can really help your business.

Ange
Exactly, and I love the fact that we’re gonna get straight into this subject. Before we do, I’m curious to know what actually is a brand strategist and why would this benefit a small business?

Debbie
Okay, so think of a brand strategist. Similar to an architect, if you are going to build a house. You would never build it without really good plans. And so what you use a brand strategist for is to create that archetype for your business, like the architectural style. Like where you gonna put the windows, the the doors? How’s it going to flow? How are you gonna welcome people into your house? You know, you don’t just make people walk straight into a bathroom when you walk into a house. So what you wanna do is when you’re building your brand or building your business, you use a brand strategist to really come up with that plan. And then you know that the foundations, the brand itself are your foundations. The strategy side is the plans and the layout, and then the brand itself are your foundations.

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. And I think a lot of us go, a lot of tradies out there are listening down, I know what brand means, but brand is a lot more than really just having a logo. So can you break down branding a little bit more and how it will help us business owners out there?

Debbie
Okay. I am so glad you asked that question because I tell you what, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said, oh, I’ve built my brand here. Have a look at my logo. Yes. I really wanna emphasize the fact that your logo is not your brand. Yes, it is a piece of it because we are very visual creatures, and so being so visual, we do want something that we can see something that’s a little bit more tangible, but when it comes to branding, there is so much more to it. It’s got to do with, you know, what do you promise your customers? How do you pitch up every day? How do you make people feel both in your business as your team, as well as your clients? What do you stand for or what do you stand against? So some businesses are very much aligned against, you know, domestic violence or maybe they might stand for, you know, building up positive people focused businesses. So there are so many things that you can align with your brand and having a really good brand culture and then looking at a brand experience. So as you can see, there’s so many different things to a brand other than simply your logo and your colors and your thoughts. It’s the first place we tend to go because it’s so tangible and it’s so visual and you know, once you’ve got a logo you think, oh, well I’ll slap it on everything and then I’m done. But it’s not branding.

Andy
I would almost say, I’d say less than 1%, but it’s even smaller than 0.0001 of anyone that starts a business would look at the branding in that way. That is get out there and throw all these things, get a friend to do a logo up, get someone else to, you know, hook up a website and it’s just always a scatter gun. But you’re right, like everything in business and like what we teach, it all starts with getting the foundations right. So I love that.

Ange
Okay, so now that we understand what branding is, where would we start as a trade business owner, how do we actually go about branding our business?

Debbie
Well, I think the first thing that you want to look at is what do you wanna become famous for? Because so many tradies have a bit of a bad reputation for either not pitching up to quote on jobs. That’s, I’m not pitching up to do the job, you know, saying that they’ll be there at eight o’clock and they arrive at 12 o’clock. So, you know, tradies do get a little bit of a bad rap that way, right? Yes. So if you wanna look at it and think, okay, well what can I be famous for? Maybe it’s the fact that you wanna be famous for turning up when you say you’re going to each and every time. Do you wanna become famous for excellence in service? Do you wanna become famous for being that person that people can rely on? Do you wanna become famous for the tradie who cleans up after themselves? Like there’s so many different areas that you really could focus on. Now, what I would suggest is don’t try and do all of it, because the reality is you’re probably gonna fall on your face in one of those things, and that then makes you unreliable. But if you focus on one thing and you make sure that you, your entire team from people who are booking the jobs all the way through to doing the jobs, to invoicing the jobs, everybody in the business is focused on achieving that one purpose each and every day. You start to build a reputation. What we want here is for you to start building a good reputation. So your brand is about that. It’s about building that reputation. So if you can focus on that one thing you wanna be really, really good at, and then you work from there, that’s an excellent starting point.

Ange
I imagine that that kind of transcends to the language you have and the way you write your website and the way that, um, the person that answers the phone would communicate to the customer. Well, good. The tradies on site. It’d be so easy just to talk about this single focused idea when you explain it exactly that way.

Andy
Well, let’s talk about that. Good friends of ours, their business, it’s a plumbing business as well. It’s on time or it’s free. Now, you know, if someone’s had bad experiences with tradies turning up on time, and you are looking on a website and it says on time or it’s free and time’s worth a lot to you, yes, you’re gonna pick that person over someone else. Aren’t you?

Debbie
100%. And that is an amazing positioning point to have because what they’re doing is they’re finding out what their client’s pinpoint is, and that is that they have time for, and they’re addressing it both in their name and their promise, right? And so then what they have to do each and every day is just make sure they deliver on that. That’s their key focus each and every time. And they’ll build a reputation for people who are time poor. They’re gonna go, listen, there’s only one place you can go to.

Andy
So if you’re out there listening right now, I want you to think about your trade business and go, you know, have we done branding? Have we gone about it the right way? And I know a lot of you sitting there stretching your heads going, aha, nah, we certainly haven’t done it the right way. So Deb, what is the right way and is there like a formula or a process you can determine to see if your branding is on point or not?

Debbie
Yeah, look, I always like to start with understanding what your brand personality is. Once you know what your brand personality is, as Andrew was saying, your, the language, the tone, how you answer your phone, how you respond to emails, how you pitch up every day. What do your tradies look like? What do the vans look like? How do they behave when they are in somebody else’s home? I mean, you guys, you get the privilege really of going into people’s homes, into their businesses. These are their private spaces. And there’s a whole lot of respect that needs to happen around that as well. And so if you think about those things, it can make and break a business.

Ange
Yes, it can.

Andy
And all tradies out there. I mean, I just came to meet them like some of the stories when I was an apprentice back in the good old days of people being in people’s houses and what they found and all this kind of stuff. I’m like, oh my God, you just, it was crazy, crazy. I’m telling you, don’t look at me like I was crazy, crazy stuff. A lot of people don’t realize or people do realize and they’re really worried. So it’s about making sure you’re giving them the confidence of who you are. Cuz sometimes tradies do go into people’s houses when there’s no one there.

Ange
Absolutely. Debbie, you, you touched on this point about brand personality, so I’d love to go a little bit deeper on that one. What is a brand personality and what are the different kinds of brand personalities?

Debbie
Yeah, thanks for touching on that. Um, I’ll go into that into a little bit more detail. So when we look at brand personalities, we actually use a psychology based system. So there was a psychologist and a philosopher back in the early 1900. His name was Carl. And he studied hundreds and thousands of people, and he determined that there were these 12 key personalities that kept popping up. And the amazing thing about these personalities is that we don’t actually have to learn them. We already unconsciously know and understand them. So if I were to give you an example, if I were to say to you an innocent maiden, A heroic prince, a ruler over all the land and a wise old woman. I bet you’ve conjured up in your mind not only what they look like, but how they behave. Yes. And I’ll bet you a million dollars that that innocent maiden does not have short, black, spiky hair covered in tattoos, walking down the street, kicking over, benza swearing at people, right? No, your brain is going, no, no. That’s not the innocent maiden. However, if I said to you, that is the rebel, you go, oh yeah, I totally get that. So there are 12 different personalities and they all range very differently. So for example, if you were the caregiver personality, it means that you come across as being supportive and nurturing and kind and gentle, right? And so your colors and your font. The language and tone you would use would all be put together in a way to bring across those caregiver attributes so that you start to unconsciously connect with your customer. However, if you were, for example, the hero, suddenly the tone and the energy would increase, the language would be more motivating and inspiring. The colors and the fonts that you would use would be totally different. So can you hear how even just in the tone of my voice, I’ve been able to change the atmosphere around my personality. Now they’re 12 of these. They’re all amazing. I’ve had people say to me, well, what if I get a dut? The reality is , they are all fantastic, and with the right designer or brand strategist in your corner, you can really create a personality and a brand. That your brand just oozes that personality, right? And so when it comes to posting up on social media, you don’t have to try and figure out what adjectives to use. You just go straight to your personality piece and you use the same language and tone each and every time because consistency is key when it comes to branding.

Ange
So, like you’ve said before, I’ve heard you say, imagine your brand as a person, so therefore visualize that person standing in front of you and what do they look like? How do they speak? What are their values, what’s important to them? And therefore, literally put that right through absolutely everything you do from a marketing perspective.

Debbie
Absolutely that’s true, that’s so true. And if you’re okay for me to tell a little story. Yes. I’d like to tell you a story about Jeff who’s in pest control, right? Yeah. And so Jeff came to me many, many years ago and he said, look, Deb, I really wanna build a brand where I’m, I’m just a little bit different to most of the pest control people. And I said to him, look, what is the most important thing to you? And he said, We’ve just had a baby. My wife and I have just had a baby and it’s made me so much more aware of women at home with their children feeling quite vulnerable. And what I really wanna bring is this feeling of kindness and empathy and caring. So as you can hear, he’s sitting around the caregiver brand personality with that. So we looked at every single touchpoint, and one of the biggest things was when he actually goes to somebody’s home. So what we did, We got him some really nice tradie clothes, as in a collared white shirt. He had really nice chinos, nice shoes. He pictures up at the door, he knocks on the door. He speaks to whoever’s at home and lets them know exactly what the process is going to be. He then goes back to his van. He puts on his entire PPE kit, right? Full on white overalls. He had booties because he didn’t want to mess somebody’s house up when he walked in. He doesn’t wanna go in after spraying around the outside of their house. So he explains everything to the person at home, asks the question, do you have any children? Do you have any pets? Really understanding the environment that he’s about to walk into. And so he explains the fact that all of his spray is, you know, pet friendly, et cetera, et cetera, non-toxic, whatever he’s got. So he then goes and sprays around the house. He then knocks on the door again. He sprays inside the house. He asks the question, is there a baby sleeping? I’ll be quiet. So he’s really showing the customer that he is aware of everything that’s going around. Once he’s finished, he goes back to his van. He takes everything back off. So he is all, all of his white kit hazmat suit comes off. Yes. He then washes his hands and goes back to the door, and then he explains exactly what he’s done, tells whoever it is, gives him the invoice, and off he goes. Now, that entire experience has been thought about from start to finish, and let me tell you, Jeff’s business is booming. He never ever leaves his suburb because everybody in the suburb refers to him, to their neighbors, their friends, the whole work. So his travel time from job to job is so minimal he can actually fit in more jobs than a day and is now only working a four day week.

Andy
Yeah, Jeff’s an absolute super, not that I know Jeff, but he sounds like a superstar. And when you, when you think about pest control, you don’t think about that, do you? You know, they’re pretty scruffy and it’s pretty, it’s a tough gig at times under floors and on roofs and doing all that. And, and that’s what it’s about. And I think. You know, that just really explains to everyone what branding is about. But there’s just so many trade businesses out there these days that everyone doesn’t really know what to do and they may not spend the time and effort on their branding. So they sort of tend to copy each other. You know, I remember we, Dr. Drip, you know, we didn’t do branding to what you are saying, but in a way we, there was parts of what we did that was, I didn’t really probably call it branding back then, but that we’ve talked about and what Jeff has done as well. We had someone come back and call themselves Dr. Drip Plumbing and Maintenance. So we went to all the work of building this incredible business up, and then someone just came along and tried to copy it. Now, we were lucky we had a trademark and that covered us. But in your opinion, Debbie, what should we do if someone has a similar name, brand or logo or color scheme and they’re sort of copying our business?

Debbie
Yeah, it’s a very common occurrence, isn’t it? Especially when there are only so many plumbers, so many electricians that you can have with, with similar names. And unfortunately, ASIC doesn’t help with this situation. They don’t prevent people from changing things just by about 10%. So one of the best things you can do is absolutely trademark. But where we would actually start is making sure that your brand is so unique, that if anyone else tries to come into your space, that they’re just not even gonna be able to hack it. So what I would look at is, I mean, if I had a dollar for every tradie whose logo is blue, Um, to work. Yes. And, and you know the reason why?

Andy
Because orange?

Debbie
Yeah. Because people go, ah, you know, water is blue, right? And so they immediately think that secondly, for men, their favorite color is blue and they’re making a decision. So they go, yeah, my favorite color is blue. I’ll just make it blue. Whether it’s light blue or dark blue, they don’t really care. Yeah. But you know, however, if they really looked at their brand and their personality and they looked at who their audience is, So, for example, when it comes to women, if women are your main audience, yes. Women actually love the color green. Mm. So maybe green is a good color to have because green can still be fresh and you know, environmentally friendly, et cetera, et cetera. However, when it’s based on your personality, I always like to work with that and say, this is your audience, this is your personality, and then you start to develop your brand. There is a great book by a guy called Seth Goding and he wrote it, it’s called Purple Cow. And the whole premise of that is if you’re driving along the road and you see a whole field of cars and they’re black cars, brown cars and white cars, and then you suddenly see a purple car. What do you do?

Andy
Oh my God, what’s going on?

Ange
Take photos, post social.

Debbie
That’s it. You know? Oh my God. Share it with everyone. I saw a purple cow. So it’s looking at it and going, well, how can you be the purple cow in your industry? And it’s not about looking the same, sounding the same. It’s about looking a bit different, sounding a bit different. Being able to push through those boundaries and authentically deliver something that is unique to you.

Ange
I totally hear your comment about once you have embraced who your true avatar is and connected and overlaid that about the personality of your brand, how that runs through your entire business, because it does truthfully ensure that you stand head and shoulders above everybody else because they just know everything about you. Which takes me back to if that is, so how can a trade business choose which personality they wanna be? Or are there brand personality quizzes that tradies could take? Where do they start?

Debbie
Yeah, so I have this happen a lot. We’ve got a website, it’s called brandpersonalities.com.au. So not hard to forget.

Andy
Go check it out.

Debbie
People hop on the website. Thank you for that. And people hop on the website. They have a look at the 12 personalities and they go, Ooh, yes, I’m the Explorer. Now, what they mean by that is I am the explorer as me personally, not my business. Right? Yes. And so they tend to choose personality archetypes that they feel aligned with. Now, this is the hard part because it’s not about you, it’s actually about your brand. You need to separate yourself from that a little bit and say, as a brand, how do we wanna make people feel as a brand, how do we want to do things that are different to our competitors? So this is the thing, every plumber does the same thing. Every electrician does the same thing. Every pest control guard does the same thing. It’s how you do it that makes you unique. And it’s that piece that we wanna tap into. Cuz that is what the personality piece is about. If you are authentically, you love fun, and doing things in a fun, lighthearted way, you’re still very good at your job. You might be the entertainer brand personality where you infuse humor into everything you do. You make your customers laugh, your team have a good fun time. When they do things together, can you hear how the personality of the brand?

Andy
Definitely.

Debbie
Then starts to come through? So if you hop on the website, brandpersonalities.com.au, we do have a quiz that you can do and it asks pertinent questions. Now the trick is don’t run through it in five minutes flat because this is something you really need to take time to think about and answer those questions very, very carefully. Because you can have one personality or two, more than two are schizophrenic. Yes. And no one wants to deal with a schizo, right?

Ange
I could totally imagine how someone could see these 12 personality styles and attach it to themselves. So if someone was a joker by nature, I imagine that they would just normally just lean to that, you know, that personality style and then run that through their entire brand. But you’re telling me that that’s bad.

Debbie
Well, what I’m saying is that if you are a one man band, for example, that could be absolutely fine. However, what happens if you start to take on an apprentice? If you take on other staff, now suddenly they have to be you. They, they can’t be you. Whereas if the brand has its own personality, then when they come on board, you can then say to them, right, we are a fun business. This is how we like to do things. And if you can’t get on board with that, then you’re not the right kinda person for us.

Andy
And there’s some pretty quirky tradies out there that are like, oh, hang on, I, I’ve gotta set my business up in a bit of a different light. And I think you’re right when you’ve got a team of five, 10, 20. You gotta do what’s the whole team? What’s the brand personality of your company? So you know, and if that connects with who you are, great. But if you’re a lunatic, then you don’t want that.

Debbie
100%. And you know what? For example, you might actually want to be the rebel brand personality in your industry. Maybe you see that the way things are currently working is not the way it should be. They’re more efficient ways of doing it. You wanna shake up the status. You wanna push the boundaries and do something that is so entirely different that people haven’t seen before. Very liberating, right? It doesn’t mean that you now have to pitch up at the door looking like you’ve been driving a Harley. You’ve been covered in tattoos, right?

Andy
It doesn’t bang outside of the mouth.

Debbie
That’s exactly it. But it’s more about the how. How do you do things? How do you want to make people feel, is what we really want to tap into.

Ange
Ooh. How they make them feel. That’s a great sentence. I understand that the layering of this personality, as you said, is not just visual, it is around tone. It’s around what we’ve written, perhaps even on our website, for instance, and if that were to be so trade business owners, as you can imagine, are not copywriters. But they do tend to write their own social posts. They even write their own website copy. So how do we know if our language is correct and on brand? If we’ve chosen a personality style for our business. Can we check it?

Debbie
Yeah, look and, and what happens is if you were to do the quiz, for example, you get access to, uh, unlock pages on the website, which gives you a lot more information about the personality archetype. When it comes to copy, copy is challenging, like for any industry, and it’s not just tradies, you know, it’s for everyone finding that right language. Now what happens is you will then get a set of words. So as I mentioned before, I’ve just thrown out some words with the caregiver being, you know, gentle and kind and supportive. So what you do is in your copy, you use those kind of words you know you would use if you are wanting to have somebody come into your house who is kind and gentle and respects your space, then we are the tradie for you. So you can see how the language, you just need to use some of those simple adjectives to explain that personality. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. You don’t have to look at it and go, why can’t I come up with something so unique and different? Branding is about consistency, and if you take it too far and you start smattering, all different types of words in there. The language and tone’s not gonna come across authentically. So it’s about being consistent and really, it doesn’t have to be hard if you just use the similar types of words each and every time. People will start to get a message coming across.

Ange
Andy Debbie said, use adjectives. Do you know what they are?

Andy
I don’t even know what an adjective is. And you know what? You just freaking rolled me then, you knew I saw this big grin come on your face. Sorry guys. Yeah, I’m a bit of a dumbass. I left here 10. I get it. I get it. Adjectives. It’s got something to do with English, doesn’t it? . Oh, seriously. I do not know. I do not know.

Debbie
Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Describing words.

Andy
Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh yeah. Okay. I sort of get that. I sort of get that. Thanks, Ange. You make me feel so good about myself. So Deb, you know the language and tone isn’t just for writing content, it’s how you interact with your customers as well. So do you have any tips on how we can transfer our on-brand language and tone and take that to when we answer the phones? Because really that’s the first time we talk to the customers and, and also for customers on sites as well. But what tips do you have around that?

Debbie
Look, I’m actually so glad you asked that question cuz this is a bug bearer of mine, right? Yes. And it’s one of the things that I do when I do have tradie clients is I, I’ll phone them and the amount of tradies that answer their phone, look, hello? Or you know, James, and I’m like, okay, so

Andy
I’m on a bloody roof. What do you want mate?

Debbie
Yeah. And so the thing is, I wanna know that I’ve reached the right company. Yes. I wanna know who I’m speaking to, so I don’t wanna have to ask 3, 4, 5 questions to even figure out if I’ve got the right place. So here are a couple of tips. Always greet somebody. So whether or not you’re gonna be a Good-day mate kind of person or a hi or good morning, as you can tell, I mean, I’ve just used three ways of answering. Yes. You know, you could then say, good morning or hi. Then you say the name of your business, A B, ABC Plumbing, hi ABC Plumbing, and then you go, this is James or this is, and you say your name. Don’t say, this is James speaking, because if you say, this is James speaking, the last thing they hear is the word speaking and they’ve forgotten your name already. Whereas if you go, hi, ABC Plumbing, this is James, you are now making a connection with that person and the first thing they’re probably likely to say is, oh, hi James. Can you help me with X, Y, and Z? You have now connected with that customer and it’s such a simple little thing to do. And the amount of tradies that don’t answer their phone properly is criminal. So if you simply answer your phone properly, I’ll tell you what, it’s gonna change how people interact with your business.

Andy
A hundred percent. There’s no doubt about it. We teach that a lot, don’t we? And still so many people don’t do it. So Debbie, we played a little game with our guests. It’s three rapid fire questions. You know, you have up to 30 seconds to answer it all less. Do you wanna play this game?

Debbie
Yeah, for sure. I love games.

Andy
So it’s creating a brand story important for trade business owners? Because you know, you have the likes of these massive companies like Google and Apple and they do it. But what about us Tradies?

Debbie
Uh, 100%. I bet you will remember the story of Jeff for a long time to come. Yes, and that is just the proof and the pudding. If you tell your story, it sets you apart from your competitor. And if your competitor is not telling stories, people are not gonna remember facts and figures. They’re going to remember the stories that you tell them. So tell stories.

Andy
That is so true. So once you have this incredible brand story, how do you share that with your potential customers?

Debbie
Well, this is the perfect time to let people know how you do things on social media, on your website, face-to-face, on the phone. Let them know the how, not just the what.

Andy
Yeah, that’s so true, so true. So I’m gonna change tact a little bit, you know, but what are your top three business tips for trade business owners out there listening today?

Debbie
Alright. I’d say first and foremost, find out what that brand personality is. Yes, it’ll make your life so much easier when looking at how you’re gonna make people feel, what you’re gonna say, everything around that. Secondly, you can build a fantastic brand culture. When you know what your brand personality is, look after the people that work for you, because I’ll tell you what, they’re the people that are going to make you a hell of a lot of money along the way, right? Yes. And the third thing is don’t be afraid to be a bit different. If you are different, people will remember you. If you are same, same, you just get lost amongst everything else.

Andy
I a hundred percent love that. That is absolute gold.

Ange
Absolutely. This isn’t just about your business and about how you’re communicating with customers. It’s incorporating how you deal with your team and therefore how you’re employing them, onboarding them, and holding onto them for the future because it’s still, this language goes across absolutely everything, and they need to understand how to do it too. Loved it. Great episode. Debbie, thanks so much for coming on the show today and sharing such a detailed insight into brand strategy. It’s been awesome.

Andy
Yeah, it’s been truly great and we just want to thank you again. I know everyone out there listening would’ve got a hell a lot out of it, and there’s a lot of things that they probably haven’t thought about either, so it’s opening the mind, so get out there and start doing it. Thanks very much.

Debbie
Thanks for having me guys.

Andy
Okay, guess what? It’s Quitting time. Yeah, it’s quitting time. Should we hit the road Ange?

Ange
Sounds like a plan. Catch you next week, crew.

Andy
Catch you!