IAM978- Principal Helps Businesses Compete With Name Brands

Andy Brenits is the Principal of Phoenix-based Brenits Creative, a branding, marketing, and creative strategy firm that helps growing businesses and business owners working (mostly) by themselves compete with name brands by creating a consistent way to look, communicate, and act.

He's a creative professional with 25+ years of experience running creative businesses specializing in branding, marketing, and design. Before founding Brenits Creative, Andy led in-house creative teams at Fortune 500 brands such as Banana Republic, The Gap, National Football League, KPMG, and Arizona Public Service.

An experienced mentor and teacher, Andy has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at Pratt Institute, Rowan University, The Art Institute of Phoenix, Sessions.edu, Columbia University, Grand Canyon University, and Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). He earned his Master’s Degree in Design Management from Pratt Institute and has a BFA in Graphic Design from the School of Visual Arts.

• CEO Hack: Getting things done effectively and efficiently
• CEO Nugget: Identifying the biggest time sucks and delegating it
• CEO Defined: Wearing lots of different hats

Website: https://brenits.com/

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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[/restrict][00:00:14.09] –  Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

[00:00:43.29] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Andy Burnett of Burnett's Creative. Andy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:51.60] – Andy Brenits

Hey, Gresh. Thanks for having me. This is a lot of fun.

[00:00:54.70] – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on and it definitely will be a lot of fun. And Andy's doing so many phenomenal things. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about all those awesome things that he's doing. Andy is the principal of Phoenix-based Brandit's Creative, a branding, marketing, and creative strategy firm that helps growing businesses and business owners working mostly by themselves compete with the name brands by creating a consistent way to look, communicate, and act. He's a creative professional with twenty-five-plus years of experience running creative businesses specializing in branding, marketing, and design.

Before founding BrandIt's Creative, Andy led in-house creative teams at Fortune five hundred brands such as Banana Republic, The Gap, National Football League, KPMG, and Arizona Public Service. An experienced mentor and teacher, and he has taught undergraduate and graduate classes at Pratt Pratt Institute, Rowan University, the Art Institute of Phoenix, Sessions dot e d u, Columbia University, Grand Canyon University, and Maryland Institute of College of Art. He earned his master's degree in design management from Pratt Institute and has a BFA in graphic design from the School of Visual Arts. Andy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[restrict paid=”true”]

[00:01:59.70] – Andy Brenits

I think I need a shorter version of that bio. Yeah. But you memorized it well.

[00:02:06.70] – Gresham Harkless

I did. This one is one of my talents, but I'll say, you're doing so many phenomenal things. It's hard to be to make it shorter if you're doing and creating so much impact in the world. So I appreciate you for for taking some time out to speak with us.

[00:02:18.19] – Andy Brenits

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm ready. Go shoot. Let's go.

[00:02:21.80] – Gresham Harkless

Alright. Let's do it. So let's rewind the clock a little bit and hop in that time machine. Tell us a little bit more about how you got started with all the awesome work that you're doing in your CEO story.

[00:02:29.30] – Andy Brenits

So I'm one of the fortunate ones. This has been my whole career. I knew very early on in my life when I was a little kid that I wanted to be an artist. I thought I was gonna design houses or cars or motorboats or something cool.

[00:02:43.19] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

[00:02:43.50] – Andy Brenits

And, then I realized you have to know a lot of science and understand polymers and construction and tensile strength. Then I realized that's not that's a little no. I'd like to draw. I can do that pretty well. So, I just have been lucky. You know? I've been doing this my whole career. My first paid gig was actually when I was fifteen. Started freelancing because when I was in high school, I took art classes naturally. I'm old enough to remember having painted the back of denim jackets.

All of you eighties kids will know what that's like. You know, Asia albums and Yes albums. You just gotta paint those. Put it on denim. It looks cool. But, Yeah. I've been doing this since I was fifteen. I thought maybe I'd go into advertising once I realized architecture and things that required a lot more math and science weren't up my alley. But I decided once I went to the school of visual arts that being an ad man wasn't my thing. I enjoy corporate identity and branding and those topics, and that's what I what I've done ever since I graduated college.

[00:03:45.59] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate that. And I think so many times, what came to mind was, I don't know if you've heard of Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, and how he talks about the ten thousand hours concept. And it kinda brought to mind, like, all the great work that you do. I think so many times we think that somebody wakes up and decides that they wanna start their business and do all those things, but it's the collective kind of hacking, I guess, against their craft, the thing that they love to do, and things that eventually build into something phenomenal. Sounds like you've had that experience.

[00:04:11.00] – Andy Brenits

And I'm still learning. I'm looking. I'm fifty years old. I've been doing this for thirty years thirty years. I'm still learning every day. There's always a new technique. There's a new strategy, a new tactic, a new app. There's always something new going on in this and any other industry that can keep you, you know, relevant and moving forward. And you know what? You learn something and you think, hey. Maybe I can use that myself, or I can help a client use that whatever it is. Think about how we're both in marketing. Think about all the different mediums there are way back when print advertising was new and way back when like a hundred years ago. Right?

So somebody said, well, maybe I should learn how to do this and write headlines and imagery. Well, then the camera became accessible and it replaced illustrations, with photographs in ads. And then people thought, well, maybe we learn lighting and better photography and how we can get a message across with fewer words. And then you had headlines, and you let the picture tell a thousand. And then there was radio, and then there was TV, and social media, and all these new things require that we learn and figure out a way to use them for ourselves in our own business and even for clients. So it's ongoing constantly.

[00:05:22.39] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. You continue to have to, sharpen that saw and to continue to get better. But I love and I don't know if you find this experience where so many times I feel like it especially in I think all industries are kinda creative because that's where that opportunity comes in when you look at things differently. But I think when you specifically can take an industry and have that different perspective and have those different things you can place into an industry or move this here, move this there, whatever that might be. That's sometimes where those great opportunities and those breakthroughs come across.

[00:05:49.60] – Andy Brenits

The objectivity and perspectives that come from all kinds of fields are what help everybody move forward. You know, you have to there's a great book by by Tim Ferriss called The Tribe of Mentors. And I love that book because of the idea of it, even though it's interviews or things that he collected from other people who he's spoken to, And I think that's the one.

And there's just a tribe of mentors and tools of titans, both of which I love and highly recommend, especially if you're you're self-employed or a small business owner. But the idea of the, of the mentors is there's multiple people that you learn from and get guidance from Some little nugget of something that they're doing can influence you and help move you forward. And that is true.

[00:06:29.69] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I think there's a quote along the lines of the way to be successful is standing on the shoulders of giants, and those books are basically giant words of wisdom and advice from some of the most successful people, and you can learn so much without having to go through all the experiences and the trials and tribulations that to make that happen.

[00:06:47.19] – Andy Brenits

And so learn from the mistakes and successes of others rather than just figuring out yourself, and it's a great lesson in many ways. You know, one, it reminds you you're not alone. There are a lot of other people who have done what you're doing and been through what you're going through. So ask questions. Find a group. Find a find a network. Find one colleague, someone you can bounce ideas off of. And to that point, you know, there's something when I teach, I show it's kind of a dated video at this point, but it's IDEO's deep dive. I think Nightline showed it. It's almost twenty years old. I'm embarrassed at how old it is that I still show it in class.

But the reason I show it is that the initial market research around the final project, which if you haven't seen it, they're given an idea of given one week to redesign shopping carts. And in the focus group is a whole bunch of people, and I always ask my design students, to tell me who is in that folk who's in that group. Who's doing this research? A biologist, a med student who hasn't come back to school, a safety engineer, all kinds of people. No designers, no marketers.

And I tell them that that's that's on purpose. IDEO is a design firm, but they've got people from a variety of backgrounds who see things through quite literally a different lens. And because of that, it gives us creative people a whole lot of input that we might not have gotten otherwise. Right? We cut we sometimes creative people, we limit ourselves because we think we know the solution before we've undiscovered or uncovered the full problem. So I love watching that for that for that purpose. It's a good illustration of how all these different views of other people who have lived there and who've done their ten thousand hours, they all look through things with different objectivity, and that helps us come up with creative solutions.

[00:08:33.70] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that one of the beauties is to be able to kinda tap into each of those creatives. I have not seen that, so I definitely will, you know, hopefully, look that up and get to see that a little bit more. But I know part of, you know, what you do and how you help support your clients is using those ten thousand hours, all that experience that you have in terms of helping people with their branding and being able to kind of, I guess, come down or understand their message so that the clients can do that as well. Can you take us through a little bit more on that, how you do that, and a little bit of what you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique, what I call your secret sauce?

[00:09:02.89] – Andy Brenits

Sure. So a lot of times, a client will come and ask, you know, where there's a few things. Right? So they see me as a designer or as a branding firm, and one question will be, should I be on social media? Should I be marketing or advertising on social media? And, you know, if they want they want a simple answer. Right? Unfortunately, that's not how I work. I'm not gonna give the simple answer. My answer will be, I don't know. It depends. Is that where your target audience is? Can you tell me about your target audience? Where are they? What are they looking for? Are they are they using social, or are there some other means?

And that sometimes throws them for a loop because they don't know their target audience. Well, I don't I don't know. Well, then I don't know if you should be on social media. I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm saying we need to understand who you are, what you do, and what you offer to your clientele. You need to know your target audience well. What do they like? What don't they like? What do they want? What are they willing to spend? And depending on the answers to those questions and several more, that's when you can say, here's where we should market, how we should market, and what and how we need to say it.

And that's where my answer would then be. Yes. But here's how you need to be on social or print or billboards or content marketing. You know, any of those things that all start for me with a strategic understanding. So I'm I'm a designer. I love designing logos. I love that back in the day, we called it corporate identity. That's what I studied, but now we call it visual branding. It changes every twenty years. They'll change what we call what we do. But even back then, we always knew you have to do some research and you have to develop a strategy because that will inform a better design, a better marketing output, or a tactic. It'll be more successful if you do this work upfront.

[00:10:56.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Then that makes so much sense, and I appreciate you. I wanted to switch gears a little bit. Sure. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be something you already touched on, but this could be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

[00:11:09.70] – Andy Brenits

Well, I'm a I'm a GTD guy. David Allen's getting things done. So my business owner CEO hack would just manage to get all your stuff done efficiently and effectively. You know, I've talked about this before. I did not go out on my own to give myself another job. I went out on my own to have a successful, thriving, more than sustainable business, but I have my work. I have a ton of clients. I so I have all that to manage.

[00:11:35.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's huge. And I was gonna ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, which is kind of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, but that might have been your nugget. Is it that, you know and it could be around branding or business in general, but is it that ability to be able to delegate to do the one thing so that you don't get bogged down in kind of the other things that sometimes can keep us away from why we even started our business in the first place.

[00:11:57.20] – Andy Brenits

Yeah. I would say let's not talk about marketing and branding because there are plenty of people who can talk about that. From a business owner's standpoint, there will come a day when you do have to be able to identify that. So that that would be my next nugget. And that's the harder skill, I think, is being able to identify what things you should be giving up or can give up, or let's take the productivity approach. What are the biggest time stocks in your day? Right?

And then evaluating, is my time well spent on this, or should I have somebody who's perhaps charging less per hour? If you know your hourly rate, even if you don't bill hourly, you should know your general hourly rate. If I work for one hour, I should be making x amount of money. Well, is that task something you can ask somebody else to do for less money, which would give you free time to go and do something else more valuable? If the answer is yes, then, yeah, you should probably outsource that work until such time you have so much that you have to hire an employee.

But being able to even identify that is hard for people, especially if you already feel overwhelmed just trying to get it all done and keep it moving forward. Right? That's why sometimes you need a coach. Right? Business coaches exist for this reason, and there are many kinds of business coaches or marketing coaches or, you know, whatever. But they'll help you identify those kind of things.

And that's identifying the problem, and then you figure out the solution. That's a good thing to do. At some business point, we all reach that point. I have too much. Something's got to give, but I can't do any of these things. So how's it going to get done? Identify what you keep and what you can send out, then identify who can help you with it.

[00:13:43.39] – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping that different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So, Andy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:52.79] – Andy Brenits

Well, I'll take it from the angle of being a self-employed one-person business. Right? Not managing a big business with dozens or hundreds of people that I think would be a different definition. But a CEO definition, if you're a one-person business, means wearing lots of different hats or at least understanding that there are different hats to wear and which one you need to wear today or tomorrow or even go by your calendar. Which 1 AM am I wearing at one? Which one when am I wearing at three? Right now, I'm wearing the company spokesman hat because I'm talking to you.

As soon as we're off, I'm I'm wearing my production manager project manager hat, which is a slightly worn out beat-up baseball cap. It's different the one I'm wearing right now is swanky. I'm wearing a cool hat that I, you know, look good on in in a in a press photo. So I think I think it's understanding those roles. Right? The hats mean the different roles you have to play at any given time and during the day. And it's not like Monday or one thing and Tuesday or another. We do all these things all the time, but being able to seamlessly shift from one role to another is pretty important.

[00:15:01.29] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Andy, truly appreciate that definition and the analogy, with the hats as well too. What I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get all of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

[00:15:16.29] – Andy Brenits

I would say one great thing to know, and I'll put my brand marketing hat on again, is just knowing how to be consistent with your message. Your audience will appreciate it, and you'll probably have a full pipeline of customers or clients if you can be consistent about your message, who you are, what you do, and how to speak about it.

And if you can reach them where they are, not where you think they are, you'll be able to grow your business. The best way to find me I'm lucky. There are there are only like seven Brennitzes in the country. Our name was changed a hundred years ago, so if you just Google Andy Brennitz, you'll find my LinkedIn page, my Twitter, or just go to my website, which is brenitz.com. It gets con transcribed all the time. My family. We have a running list of misspellings. It's pretty funny. But it's just brenitz.com, and you'll find me.

[00:16:04.89] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate that, Andy. To make it even easier, we will have the links and information in the show notes as well just so that everybody can follow up with you. But truly appreciate all the awesome work that you do. Appreciate the time you took today and the the awesome advice that you gave, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

[00:16:20.20] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.