10 Things I Wish I Knew About Brand Marketing… 10 Years Ago

If your Facility Service Company is not focused on Brand Marketing, then you’re missing out on an opportunity to establish your business (and your personal brand) as the leader in the IFM or Property Management space.

In this episode I share 10 things I wish I knew (or did) with branding…. 10 years ago. And, keep in mind, I only started the “brand play” about 4+ years ago. And, boy am I happy I did.

I’ve made connections and gained business because I built up my personal brand, which rubbed off into the brand for my current CMO role.

Transcript

So, you're probably asking yourself how to successfully grow a facility management company in today's digital age while still remaining profitable. You know that marketing should probably be in the mix, but you may not know the best approach, the newest strategies, or which digital platforms to market on. So, how do you use marketing to grow your effort business today? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers.

My name is Javier Lozano Jr., and welcome to the Facility Management Marketing Podcast. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Facility Management Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Javier.

And so, this episode, we're going to be talking about brand. And as my career has really kind of grown over the past four years, since I kind of got into corporate again, from being out of corporate for over 10 years, what I started getting into more is brand and brand marketing and all this stuff. And so, the people that I tend to kind of follow on LinkedIn and whatnot are more like brand people, and that stuff just kind of intrigues me quite a bit. And so, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to go over 10 things that I wish that I knew about brand 10 years ago, all right?

And this is not all my stuff, but this has been inspired by other people. But what I want to do is I kind of want to share kind of these 10 things that I thought was really cool that I was looking at from just other folks, and also looking on LinkedIn from other leaders as well, too. So the number one thing is that consistency is the key to unlocking true brand and consumer connection. And so, the thing is that when you're working on your brand, you've got to be consistent.

You've got to show up every single time. So there are channels that I'm very good at doing that, and other channels that I'm not as good. So like podcast channel, I'm very good at showing up every single time. I'm consistent, all right?

And this is something that I wish I was doing 10 years ago. I wish I started a podcast 10 years ago. I regret it, okay? Another one that I regret is not taking social media as serious as I probably should have 10 years ago.

10 years ago in 2012, I was very hesitant on even connecting with the folks on Facebook. And the reason is because I wanted to keep my life private to myself. And then I had a former business coach that was like, dude, you are in a role of people looking up to you. You need to be active in your community.

People need to see you out there. And so you need to start connecting with folks on Facebook and other social channels. I'm like, man, this is crazy. But the thing is, is that I wish I...

I've been very consistent at one point on posting on LinkedIn, and then it's just taken a backseat. And so that is something I keep talking about. But it's hard to balance all these things. Sometimes you just got to go all in on one channel and just be like, all right, I'm going all in on one channel.

And truly, I've gone all in on podcasting. Now that I'm getting really good at this stuff, I need to start going a little bit more all in on LinkedIn posting and start sharing my content and repurposing my podcast and stuff like that. All right? Number two is distribution offers the ability to accelerate your brand reach.

And so don't create a distribution strategy that is going to isolate you from just your marketing plan. So when you are distributing your content, you need to find a plan how it's going to go into different channels. And then you're going to need to find ways on how you can accelerate the distribution of this so that your brand gets out there a lot quicker, a lot faster. And so these are things that, I'll be quite frank, I was not very good at before.

I'm getting way better at it now. And I have a lot to improve on. So if you can distribute your content correctly, and you can find a way to accelerate it, your brand is going to grow faster. So if you're a CEO and you have a PR agency posting for you, that is not going to help accelerate your brand.

I can tell you that because it's not authentic. You're just posting whatever your PR agency posted. That's it. Okay?

You should be collaborating and talking with your audience. You should be putting stuff out there that is fresh from your perspective, not from the PR agency's perspective. So if you're that person that has a PR agency, and essentially you're having them write your content for you because you don't have any time to do that, I'm not knocking you. Okay?

I'm guilty. I'm a CMO. I'm a CEO. I'm guilty of not writing my own content, but I don't hire a PR agency to write it for me and just be like, at least I'm putting something out there.

No. I produce my own stuff. I'll put my own stuff out there. This podcast, I produce it myself.

Literally everything from beginning to end. Okay? Number three is storytelling is possible no matter the industry. So this is huge.

This industry, the facility and property management industry, they all lean on this, like, we've been around since 1974. No one gives a fuck when you started. No one cares that your dad started this company. And I know that puts people off, be like, well, my dad started my company and I inherited this company after he passed away or after he was just too old to kind of keep running it.

And like, this is us. Like, okay, look, that's not a story to lean on. That's not a story that people are like, I like that. I can relate to that story.

No one can relate to a story about being in business since 1974, especially if you're a new up and coming facility manager that is born in, you know, the nineties, you cannot relate to the dude that has a facility company that's been around since 1974 that was given to the current CEO from the dad. You can't relate to that. You can't tell me that you do relate to that. But if you can tell a story that is relatable to a lot of your audience, now that's different and you can do that with any industry, any industry, and I'm doing it in this industry as we speak.

I tell stories all the time. I wish I told more stories and I can tell you right now what made me successful running my business for 10 plus years before I sold it for multi six figures, which it was more, but you know what? I at least exited a company. Is this, I told a crap ton of stories while I was running that business and people bought into it.

And as I started learning about storytelling, like, man, people really buy these stories. They love it. They eat this shit up and it is amazing. Okay.

Tell more stories. All right. Number four, branding doesn't need to be boring, but it does, doesn't need to be flashy either over the top. All right.

This is something that I, I will get in debates with this all day long. Sometimes your brand doesn't have to be this like sparkly, amazing looking thing. Sometimes you just showing up and you just speaking your mind is brand enough. Okay.

So don't go overboard, but also don't go like, you know, cheap and just like, you know, ghetto or whatever. But like be you show up, be consistent, like I mentioned earlier. All right. The biggest value of brand is what people say behind your back.

And this is huge. All right. I remember Grant Cardone saying something along this line, right? Is that if people aren't, you know, if people aren't complaining about you, you're not loud enough.

Okay. Grant Cardone, who is considered one of the best salespeople of our generation right now. He's got like, you know, a lot of sales training. The dude's a billionaire.

He's super smart or maybe not a billionaire. He's definitely multi-millionaire anyways. Grant Cardone is, is brilliant, but he's always like, if, if, if people aren't complaining about you, you're not loud enough. And I remember sending out a bunch of emails, you know, to grow my business and getting hate mail and, and then essentially like, you know, I'd like, you know, Nick, who was my business coach at the time, like, dude, I'm getting all this hate mail.

He's like, that's good. That means that you're talking loud enough that people now hate you. Okay. And he's like, this is good.

And this is normal. He's like, I get stuff like this all day long. I get emails from people saying, you know, go F yourself or I hope you fall and die or something like that. I'm like, dang dude.

He goes, yeah, I get it on a daily basis. And so where I'm coming from is, is that I'm not saying you want to have like a bad reputation, but what I'm getting to is that you know, that your value is big when people are still talking about you in the positive or in the negative light. Okay. So yes, you want to share good stuff, but you're not going to make everybody happy.

You're not going to be like, well, you know, I've got to present myself as this really good person and everyone has to like me. No, I don't care if you don't like me. All I care about is you're like, you know what? This guy is blunt, calls it how it is, but his strategies are fucking good.

Like they actually work. I've implemented them and they actually work. Like I can tell you right now we have conversations that work. There are times whenever my team is like, you know, I don't really like this or this does not make me happy.

I'm like, it doesn't matter. The numbers don't lie. And they're like, you're right. The numbers don't lie.

Okay. And I'm not rude, but I'm very spirited on how I express myself on what direction we're going to be going in. And I have a very strong hypothesis about it. So that's kind of what I'm getting to.

All right. Number, what are we on? One, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, six. Number six, remixing your greatest hits is a form of brand brilliance.

This is huge. So if you have been publishing, you know, great content, like say you're putting out great podcasts and you have a spin on something that was a big hit. Like one of my big, one of my big episodes that I had was about brand and guess what I'm doing here. I'm talking about brand.

And so for some reason, brand seems to be something that's very popular right now. And some of my episodes now, do I not talk, why don't I talk about it as much? It's not that I don't want to. It's just like, there's so much to talk about.

But what I'm getting to is that if you can spin it and you can find another way to spin it and like people like, oh wow, that was great. I got some more gold out of this. Like you talked about this piece about brand and now you talk about this piece about brand. Spinning and remixing is huge.

If you can remix something, you are a great DJ. Okay. You are a great brand expert, right? Number seven, brand building is like investing.

The more you put in, the more it grows. And this is so true. Okay. And this is why I was trying to prove a point to myself that when I was building this podcast back in January of 2011, I'm 2011, January of 2021, all right, it was January 11th, 2021 is when I launched, I think my first podcast episode.

When I was, when I first launched this, it was more of like, I'm investing in my brand. Now you might be thinking, Javier, but you have a full time job. You're a SEMA, a rap mate, you know, you're, you're looking at growing that and doing some great, amazing things. I totally am.

But at the end of the day, I am still branding Javier. Okay. Guess what I talk about a lot? I talk about facility management, I talk about property management, and I also talk about my experience right now at Ratmate.

And guess what's relatable? I'm telling you real-life experiences as we speak, whether it's a few days ago, whether it's a few months ago, but I'm telling you exactly what it is. And I'm helping applying that stuff, right? I'm investing into the future.

But where I'm coming from is that even though I have a full-time job that I'm ecstatic about, I've been here for 10 months, and I'm like, man, this is just getting crazier and crazier and crazier. It's tough, don't get me wrong. In a few days, we're making a pitch to 3M, okay? Huge pitch to 3M, all right?

Really flipping cool. I'll just leave it at that, all right? But where I'm coming from on this is that my brand is who I am. And so as I build my brand bigger, this is gonna help my current company and the role that I play in right now.

So this is gonna be big, okay? But invest in your brand. It's gonna carry on to business to business because this is how I'm starting to see this play out. And I wish I would've been doing this 10 years ago.

People that invest in their brand today are gonna be like professional players in sports, but you get to play longer. The professional players in sports, like Shaquille O'Neal that invested in his brand early on, okay, and then continued to do that. Look at him now. People still talk about him.

Not just because of his basketball, because of his business IQ, okay? He's invested in his brand. And that carries into everything else. That carries into his basketball analysis.

That carries into his businesses. That carries into everything. And that's what you should be doing yourself, all right? Number eight is authentic is one of the biggest drivers of string brands.

If you constantly fake it, you simply won't make it. And so this is very big too, is being authentic and being real is it. I've had a lot of people tell me this on a regular basis. They're like, dude, you are real.

You are authentic. You are you. You don't bend for anybody else. And at least that's me, okay?

I don't fake something. I call it how it is. I, it's black or white. I, you know, like it's just very straightforward.

And there are times whenever I know I'm sucking it, okay? And it's just, I own it. And other times where I'm like, hey, listen, man, this is it. This is how it is.

This isn't something that I know for me. I've always been authentic to myself. And I've always been told that since the get-go. So yeah, I mean, like it's, could I be more?

And could I have applied this more like 10 years ago? Yeah, maybe. But it's, I can tell you this right now. People buy into authenticity for sure.

Number nine, the best and yet most difficult brand building efforts are the interactions you have with people one-to-one. You need to care about your customers and be intentional in helping them succeed. So this is something that I did not do well starting off in my career, starting my own business, all right? So I started my first business in 2008.

I sold it in 2018. And I was not very good at one-to-one at times. Like I always try to keep a very big distance between me and the customer. Eventually I started getting closer and closer to these people, realizing that like, you know what?

It probably makes sense to do this. So I guess what I'm trying to say here is, is that like, in order to grow your brand, spending time one-to-one is actually more valuable. When people get to know you on a heart-to-heart basis, they're like, man, this person really has a big heart. And I know that there were times that I had customers that were trying to do that with me.

And I was just very, not put off by any means. I was just like, ah, yeah, sure. And it was just difficult for me, you know? But at the end of the day, like I learned.

Can you build off of this and not make the same mistake? You totally can. And I would recommend you doing it, all right? And then number 10 is brand is a competitive advantage.

This is so flippin' true. If you can build a strong brand that people trust and adore, you have an edge over your competition. Because think about this. No one can beat you, okay?

If you have a brand that people are like, man, this dude, I love him, he's amazing. Like, think Apple. When you think Apple, you don't think like, you don't think of the current CEO, Tim Cook. You think Steve Jobs.

He built a brand of himself that people adored or hated, okay? And it was so strong. People had a brand affiliation to Apple because of Steve or to Steve because of Apple. You know, whatever it is, it was like a one-to-one.

Like, you think Steve, you thought Apple. When you think Apple, you think Steve. Like, it was one-to-one. And so it was his competitive advantage.

Totally was, okay? And a lot of people, that is your competitive advantage. If you build your brand, that's your competitive advantage. That's what people buy, okay?

And I wish I knew this 10 years ago because I wasn't trying to build my brand 10 years ago. I was just trying to run a business. Had I been building my brand 10 years ago, doing a podcast, publishing stuff that was like just brand-based things as opposed to just like, I need to enroll 10 more students this month, that kind of stuff, things would have been different. Completely different.

So there you go, there you have it. 10 things I wish I knew about brand 10 years ago. And I can tell you right now that like, right now in my career, a lot of the content and a lot of the strategy that we're building is based around branding. Now, you might be thinking like, are you talking about like design?

Are you talking about like things make looking, like looking, you know, looking and feeling cool? No, no. So what I'm talking about is like brand positioning. So like right now, for instance, in my current role at Wrapmate, I am trying to position Wrapmate as the authority for vehicle wraps, okay?

Now, we're doing this in different ways. We're doing this with like paid social. We're doing this with paid search, okay? We're doing this with creating content on our blog.

And then we're gonna be doing this with publishing content on our social channels about different aspects about this stuff, right? We're going to be doing this in different ways. But like, I did this exercise on creating a brand script for our company. And this brand script essentially told our story.

And so like, we're doing this big pitch on Monday, okay? To 3M and I've designed this deck that my CEO and I are gonna sit down and refine it some more over the next few days. And essentially it's telling the story, okay? And like, it's positioning us to like, look like not the hero, but look like the guide to move the industry forward.

And that's kind of what we're trying to do is when you position your business and you tell the right story, and all this like branding becomes really fun. And it's not about like the logo or the color or like where you put a button or you know, that sort of stuff. Branding is your reputation. And so I'm trying to build the strongest reputation possible for rat mate.

And the only way to do that is to position yourself with really good critical stories that show that you're solving this really amazing, big, challenging problem. And you're doing it by a certain way. If you can do that with your IFM, with your property management company, if you can position yourself as a guide and tell this story that people are like, I'm compelled, I'm on like, and it makes them and it moves them, you're onto something. And that's something that's not being done right now in this space.

No one is branding and positioning themselves in a way that's like, that's really cool. I wanna get on that wagon. Okay, when you're able to do that, changes everything. So brand positioning is huge.

And so over the past three or four years, I've really been jumping into this whole branding thing. I was kind of doing it a little bit when I was self-employed, but it was a little different. And I really wish I was more into it before then. But you know, it is what it is.

I became a better marketer for what I am right now. But I can tell you right now, I'm finding where I fit. I'm the person that writes all of our copy on our website. I tell the story the way it should be told.

Like, okay, this is it. And this is the problem we're gonna have. This is how we're gonna say this. And this is the verbiage we're gonna say.

And we're gonna do this. And all of that stuff, I do that. Same thing with our emails. Same thing with just our ad copy.

All that stuff, I work on all those things. And it's all about positioning, okay? And then we expand on those sort of stuff even more so. But what I wanna share here is that invest in your branding, okay?

You as a CEO, or you as a C-suite exec, or you as a director, or you as just like, you know, marketing coordinator. Like, you, you should be investing in your branding. Like, put yourself out there. There's never been a time better than today than to invest in your brand, all right?

I hope you found this episode very valuable. Again, my name's Javier, and this is Facility Management Marketing Podcast. You probably already know that, but I'm just gonna say it at the end. If you can do three things for me at the end, I always ask these.

Number one, if you can please share this podcast. Either DM it to somebody or send it in a text message or something like that, that'd be really awesome. Number two is connect with me on LinkedIn. You can connect with me on linkedin.com slash in slash Javier Lozano Jr.

And then number three, if you can give us a five-star review on this podcast on either Spotify or Apple Podcast. One of those three things would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful day. All right, guys.

Thanks for taking a listen to our Facility Management Marketing Podcast secrets. This is your host, Javier Lozano Jr. One other ask I've got for you guys is to subscribe to our email list. You can go to bouldermediasolutions.com slash email.

And that way you can get updates on some marketing trends that I'm seeing, some strategies that I'm executing. And more importantly, I'll be actually launching some webinars and training that's gonna help your company use marketing strategies to essentially grow your business. We'll be doing some training, offering some courses, that sort of stuff. So you can always unsubscribe to that email list.

It's no big deal. It's not gonna hurt my feelings. This is more for facility managers, I'm sorry, facility management companies that want to grow their business by using marketing. All right, guys.

Thanks a lot. Have a great one.