IAM2802 – Branding Specialist Creates Customized Approach to Brand Development

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Transcription:

Robyn Young 00:00
You know, I've put a lot of emphasis and work and investment myself into mindset. And I'll be honest that I was really skeptical at the beginning of, you know, with how important and how much I should value my mindset and knowing my value and like and working regularly on gratitude.

Gresham Harkless 00:50
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the IM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Robin Young of Robin Young Backhoe. And that's Robin with a Y. Robin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Robyn Young 00:59
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:01
No problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Robin so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing and. Robin Young is a brand specialist for startups and small businesses with a vision to make branding and marketing more effective, efficient, and lean. Through her namesake agency, Robin hand selects her creative team from a pipeline of freelancers and creates a customized approach to brand development. Her intention with each brand is to create a sustainable relationship between brand and customer by meticulously curating every touch point and, and testing at each phase of development. Armed with a full service team of graphic designers, copywriters, photographers, videographers, event designers, illustrators, and the like, her team can expand and contract depending on the needs of each and every client. Robin, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Robyn Young 01:40
Yeah, I sure am.

Gresham Harkless 01:42
Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to get started with your business.

Robyn Young 01:48
Sure. Oh, it's a, it's a long story, so I'm going to keep you. I'm going to try and keep it kind of Reader's Digest version here. So I've, I've been working in branding and marketing for the better part of 12, so I'm not. I don't look that good for my age. I just started when I was 15. I started out working for this market research company called Gallup and Robinson. And at the time it wasn't like a career move. I just, it was a great way for me to make a little side cash while I was going to school. So I was one of those, you know, interviewers. This is back in the 90s, before Internet was really taken off. I was one of those interviewers that would stand outside of the Nike store, Target or whatever and I would ask questions about the in store experience and essentially the brand. So I learned and got a really good foundational understanding of what, what does a customer, you know, what resonates with the customer? Why are they appealed to one brand and not the other? Why they appeal to a certain visual language or even a, you know, a story or tagline more than another. So I took that. I had a fine arts background. I studied visual arts at ucsd and then from there I had mostly creative positions in every facet of branding and marketing you could possibly imagine. So everything from working on set, creative direction and styling, putting, you know, story together through imagery, to brand managing for influencers. So I worked with like Tricialis Ross and, and Harry Shum Jr. From Glee. Also worked a bit on Lauren Conrad's channel. So I understood how to brand even like an influencer, and how to build like personal brands through content and through, you know, partnerships and whatnot. And then I worked on the client side. I worked for UCLA in their branding marketing department. So now we're talking about 100-year-old company who's got a very great reputation. And that was more like how bring this into, you know, the 21st century. Do we appeal to these newer, you know, these newer students coming in, like, how do we speak their language? How do we make this feel like it's still cool and relevant? Because as much as, you know, you say it doesn't really have a problem bringing in students now. They're all buying for these positions. But how do we keep the university feeling cool, relevant, you know, optimistic. Optimism is, you know, deep into their brand story. And then I capped my professional experience off at General assembly, which is a tech school. They actually have campuses worldwide. And for them I was overseeing their digital marketing, user experience, design and product management courses in the Los Angeles area. And that's really where I learned about tech and the, you know, the lean startup methodology. And just how are, you know, how are people that have, that are in a very saturated market? How do they stand out? How do they create a really lean product and test it and make sure it's viable before they enter this market and potentially lose money if they're wrong? Right. So that was the last piece I feel that I needed before I recognized the space within the market to take that same methodology and apply it to branding. So we target our bread and butter. Customers are small businesses and startups. We've virtually created a service that specifically speaks to them and has additional value that a bigger agency does it. Right. Because they're working with bigger brand is completely different landscape. They have bigger budgets, they have more opportunity to make, you know, mistakes and you know, be wrong about things. Like a startup, a small business doesn't really have the, the luxury of, you know, spending a lot of money on their marketing and being wrong about it. Right. That can mean that the depth of their business. Right. So the idea was how can I take this and apply it to branding? And so that's what I did. I now have this business for three years and we've worked with almost 50 brands in that time.

Gresham Harkless 05:19
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that and definitely from hearing your story, kind of hear like I hear sometimes startups or smaller businesses say, you know, I don't have a brand or brand's not important. But hearing, you know, your background and how you worked with brands on so many different aspects, whether it be like a large university or influencers and everybody in between and all around, it seems like everybody kind of has that brand that they can develop and kind of speak to their clients through that.

Robyn Young 05:40
Yes. I think the really important part is to explain what a brand actually is. For people who have not grown up in the marketing and branding world, there's still, still this perception that your brand is a logo. Right. I'm like, that is low hanging fruit. I mean it's, it's like a smaller piece of the pie, like your name, your logo. That's like saying, oh this, like all that there is to this person is their name. It's not, it's, that's not your brand. That's part of your brand. It's a representation of your brand. But your brand is everything. It's what you say in a sales call, it's who you're marketing to. It's, you know, how you explain what you do, how you explain the value, knowing your value, knowing the vision, how you treat your customers, how you, how you manage internal culture, the look and feel, the vibe you put out, how you're differentiating yourself, what kind of content you put out. All of that is branding. So essentially branding and thought of in that larger landscape is what sets the efficiency for your marketing. So a lot of times where people think they're, they're not, you know, their marketing isn't performing, it's Actually a branding problem. They haven't been, they haven't done a strong enough, a good enough job differentiating or getting very clear as to what their value prop is or who their audience is and they're getting lost in the white noise. So it's never been more important than it is right now to have a really strong brand regardless of what you're selling.

Gresham Harkless 07:09
That makes perfect sense. And it kind of makes sense and definitely correct me if I'm wrong. I kind of visualize while you were explaining that you, you know, talking to those people that were outside about what kind of experience they have and didn't have, why they like one brand over another. But a lot of that kind of speaks to what's happening. Although it's kind of in a different way when somebody maybe sees, you know, something that represents your company and what you, you were doing or not doing. So a lot of times they'll make that split second decision based off of certain things that they see or your brand evokes certain messaging that you have. But definitely correct me if I go wrong, if I'm wrong about that.

Robyn Young 07:38
No, it's right. But that's like saying, you know, it's not, it's not that those tangible pieces aren't important, but they're led by the intangible. So if you think about what I work on, on to a large degree or where we start with clients is brand strategy. And that's the, that's the understanding what, you know, who your audience is, getting very, very clear on who that person is. This is another problem that I see a lot of startups make is that they're trying to pull, they think that they're going to make themselves more, more applicable to more people by trying to, trying to market wide of an audience. Yeah, testing too wide of a net is never going to serve you, especially at this place in your, in your entrepreneurial journey. You need to find your niche, pick a lane and then, you know, answer the problem, the questions, the, you know, really tail yourself to that audience first, that market first. And then you can start thinking about, okay, now how can I make myself, you know, how can I look a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right? Right. You gotta start with this audience. So in answer to your question, it's not that those things aren't important, but they should be led by strategy. Think of it as, think of strategy as like a primer. Right? You may not see it, it may not feel tangible when it goes on, but by the time you put the paint on you can tell when it's not there. All of a sudden the paint looks really uneven. It's a little all over the place. You can tell the quality is not good. That's what strategy is. Strategy is the primer. It makes everything smooth, clear rounds out those edges, makes everything really consistent before you start getting to the tangible stuff. And the tangible stuff is like your log or your visual identity, the content, all the sexy stuff that we like doing, it's important, it's part of your brand, but it's a sliver of the brand. It's not the whole pie.

Gresham Harkless 09:19
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I'm glad you broke that down because a lot of times, you know, like the sexy stuff as you talked about, like might be a Facebook ad and somebody sees a Facebook ad and they see your company and they're like, I didn't even know you did that because there's some type of misalignment with what you're. That that primer that you didn't put in place or maybe it wasn't put in place correctly. So I appreciate you for breaking that down. So I wanted to hear, I know you touched a little bit upon like how you're working with clients. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? And I wanted to hear also about what I call your secret sauce and what you feel kind of sets you and your organization apart.

Robyn Young 09:46
Yeah, yeah. So I mean our process, part of our process is our secret sauce. So the way that we go about branding is we work with clients and over the course of a six month period, so we're never just taking a piece of the pie. Like we work on a full 360 brand because designing a logo once again is not designing a brand. Right. That's one piece of the pot. So we don't even do that, we don't even offer it. When we work with clients, it's on the full brand development. That means copy messaging, strategy, a visual identity, photography, a website, packaging. You know, obviously this changes depending on what the product is. And we're industry agnostic, so we work with, you know, we work with lots of cpg, lots of health, wellness, fashion, some CBD companies, you know, a lot of service based companies, like I don't. Whatever it is your product is like, that's not the problem. We know how to do the research needed to create a strong positioning and brand. But the value prop is that because we know how to work with startups and small businesses, we know their specific problems, their specific needs and that's how we've positioned ourselves and the value that we bring is that we tackle brand development in a really lean and efficient way. So this is where my part of the story kind of comes back to, comes back in because I came from that tech world, I understand the concept of agile and lean methodology and I took that, applied it to branding. So now we tackle branding in phases and in each phase we'll create some kind of lo fi testable piece and we'll actually test the brand with your key customer group to make sure that it's resonating. So it's an extra little element that we do that I've never seen another agency doing. You're certainly not going to find at one of these bigger agencies. So that's our, I mean it goes our process and how we like to work people as well as part of our secret.

Gresham Harkless 11:34
Nice. I definitely appreciate that and appreciate how everything, you know, comes back to that, that methodology that you, that you were introduced to and then you, you know, brought it to the branding world. Because I think, you know, somebody might be listening to this and they're like, oh, I have to change my, my logo, I have to learn what I want to do that's off of my logo, my pictures, my content and all that stuff could be very, very overwhelming. But I definitely appreciate how you talked about it's broken down according to phases. So that for one is not overwhelming, but for two, it's also tried, tested and true as you continue on to each phase of. Sounds like I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Robyn Young 12:07
Yeah, so because I'm, I'm something of a team of one. So, so I grew my own business really lean, meaning that all of the, all of the creative team that I work with are freelance. So they, they sign on to a project and they're there for the length of the project. But, but I'm running a lot of the day to day on the business side, so time management is one of the biggest things for me.

Gresham Harkless 12:32
Absolutely. No, that definitely makes perfect sense. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Robyn Young 12:42
You know, I put a lot of emphasis and work and investment myself into mindset and I'll Be honest that I was really skeptical at the beginning of, you know, with. With how important and how much I should value my mindset and knowing my value and, like. And working regularly on gratitude.

Gresham Harkless 13:03
Exactly. Yeah, it makes sense. And success is definitely a team sport. So that brings me to my next question, which is the. My favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on this show. So, Robin, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Robyn Young 13:15
What does it mean to me? I mean, I think a large part of my own story and some of the, you know, some of the kernels that I'm using for this upcoming podcast are, you know, the shifts that you have to make from being an employee to an entrepreneur. And I think a lot of times we, you know, we were pie in the sky about it. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of great aspects about being a CEO. The freedom, you know, financially, your time, where I could go, where I can be working. Like, nobody tells me what to do. Right. On the flip side of things, nobody tells me what to do. I'm accountable. I don't necessarily always know the right answer. So a lot of times it's trial and error, and it's. And it's prioritization, and it's, you know, and it's learning and evolving and. And being really agile and keeping things afloat and, you know, knowing when to take, you know, time off and, you know, and to really prioritize your mental health and whatnot. So I think, to me, CEOs are innovators. They're optimists. They're people who see something and think, I can do this better. I know that I can. I think I'm also somebody who's a champion about using business for good and, you know, recognizing an audience and constantly asking yourself, how can I better serve this audience? I'm never not innovating. I'm not, you know, I'm never not thinking about how can I take this to that next level? How can I create a better service, a better experience, a better product for this audience? And I think that that's something you have to do as a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 14:43
So I like that, and I definitely appreciate that perspective. And especially, you know, you kind of touched on it before, too, just having a really strong why for why you're doing everything. And I think a lot of times things will fall into alignment. Like we talked about. Definitely your brand or not just your personal brand, but why your Business, why you started a business, why you started an organization is incredibly important and those things will definitely help you on. So I definitely appreciate that perspective and I appreciate your time even more. Robin. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know and then of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you're doing and find out about, you know, your podcast that you're launching and all those great things.

Robyn Young 15:18
Yeah, absolutely. So probably one of the best ways to keep in touch with me is through Instagram. I'm pretty active. I post almost every day and I do a lot more on the personal side. So I really speak to kind of the behind the scenes of what running my company looks like and also doing this while trying to be a mom. And so there's a lot of my like, personal side of the story. So I'm obinyoung co on on Instagram and then also I have a brand planning worksheet and a series of resources that I can give to folks through my email newsletter and I have a really easy way to enter that. So you're just going to text to the number 345345. You'll text Robin Young and it's all one word and it's Robin with a Y. And then you'll get a text back asking for your email address. Just put your email address in and then you'll be added to my email funnel. And through that you'll receive both brand planning worksheet as well as some resources that will help you to build a stronger brand positioning. So it'll go through you know how to, how to position your mission statement, you know how to create an audience profile, things like that.

Gresham Harkless 16:18
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Robin. We will make sure to have the links and that information in the show notes so that everybody can follow you on Instagram. And of course sign up for all the awesome brand information you're providing. But again, I appreciate you, appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.