Episode 36 // Resound Remarkabook

Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s time for Phoenix Business Radio, spotlighting the city’s best businesses and the people who lead them.

Chris Stadler : What’s up everybody? Hey Mike.

Mike Jones: Hey Chris.

Chris Stadler : Welcome everybody to the AZ Brandcasts where we talked to all sorts of awesome people about the power of brand and how to build great brands in our remarkable state of Arizona. We’re the hosts Mike Jones and Chris Stadler and we are Easy Brand Cast. Yay. All right. So [crosstalk 00:00:00:38]. Yes. And we have a bunch of guests too.

Mike Jones: We do?

Chris Stadler : We have a ton of guests today, and by a ton. I mean two. Yeah. Which is a ton for us twice our normal guest payload, right?

Mike Jones: [inaudible 00:00:52] have a guest payload.

Chris Stadler : So you know our metrics. Speaking of our guests. Speaking of-

Mike Jones: Yeah, who are our guests, Chris?

Chris Stadler : Resound Creative.

Mike Jones: What? Wait, what? Who?

Chris Stadler : It’s like, I don’t know if this is Metta or like irony or what. I don’t really know, but Resound Creative is a branding and marketing company in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2009 Resound has been building authentic brands and experiences that resonate with your audience, whoever you are, your audience. We have two guests. And one is my favorite to say is Dr. Watson.

Mike Jones: Dr. Watson.

Chris Stadler : Dr. Jeffrey Watson is a member of the advisory board at Resound Creative Media. He holds a PhD in philosophy and currently teaches courses in metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind at ASU, that’s Arizona State University.

Mike Jones: Works up.

Chris Stadler : He has any interest in understanding the nature of both individual and collective identity as they apply to an organization’s brand identity. Super interested in to talk to, try to corner him at a party. It’ll be worth it.

Mike Jones: Yeah, and this is our second show with Jeff on.

Chris Stadler : Yeah.

Mike Jones: That’s awesome.

Chris Stadler : Yeah. Last time we talked about … we got really deep last time with the boat. Forgot to correct this on my-

Mike Jones: [crosstalk 00:02:15] the ship of Theseus.

Chris Stadler : The ship of Theseus. yeah, dude, that was amazing, mind blowing. Do you have mind blowing sound effects?

Kendra: I’ll find them.

Chris Stadler : Okay. That was a sound [crosstalk 00:02:26].

Mike Jones: We’ll do it in post.

Chris Stadler : [inaudible 00:02:29] post. David Cosand is also a board member as an advisory board members and Resound Creative. He specializes in building digital experiences using personalization, relevant content and UX design principles. He’s served as our product manager on the marketing tech space and as a consultant for clients such as Wells Fargo, Dell, UnitedHealthcare, and MGM Resorts International. David brings a practical approach ensuring that the branding rubber meets the branding road and we’re going to talk with these guys. But first a message from our sponsors.

Chris Stadler : So wonderful friends at Conscious Capitalism, Arizona. This local association is on a mission to share with the whole world how doing good in your business is just good business. This local chapter of Conscious Capitalism hosts tons of local events and provides resources for business leaders to instill a higher purpose in their company and engage all of their stakeholders through their business. So if you want to be more conscious in your business, we recommend that you check out Conscious Capitalism, Arizona local chapter of Conscious Capitalism.

Chris Stadler : You can check them out at ccarizona.org online. Got tons of events coming up that are worth checking out, probably one in your neighborhood. So that’s our plug for Conscious Capitalism. We want to thank them for being sponsors of our show and making sure it happens every single month.

Mike Jones: Yes, totally love those guys.

Chris Stadler : Yep. So guests, I would like to start out with a welcome you guys. Hi.

David Cosand: Hey.

Jeffrey Watson: Hey.

Chris Stadler : So glad. This day I feel like it’s like Christmas. Like can it come faster?

Jeffrey Watson: Well, we’re here.

Chris Stadler : I do have an icebreaker question for you though. All right, so elephant in the room. You guys are writing a book. Real quick, let’s talk about that for just a second before we get to the icebreaker. You’re writing a book. Wow.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, it’s in process.

Chris Stadler : Cool. All right, so the ice breaker [inaudible 00:00:04:34]. All right, we’ll get to that. Let’s talk about the icebreaker. So I want you guys to tell me you are a company this successful. Like it makes money. It hires people. It’s like people are like, “Hey, I know that company. They’re kind of successful.” But maybe they’re not living out their brand every day in every way. Maybe it’s not so consistent. They’re making money. What’s your favorite example of that?

David Cosand: Yeah, you mind if I go first?

Jeffrey Watson: Go ahead.

David Cosand: All right. I don’t want to pick on particular brands-

Mike Jones: Do it.

David Cosand: … but pick on an industry and that is healthcare, and I’m thinking specifically from the digital experience perspective, like trying to make things easy for people to do business online or on their phone. When you’re in healthcare, you’re trying to make people feel better like they’re sick or they’re hurt or there’s something going on and they need some help and we want to help them get better physically. But then think of all of the experiences around that. So I think a lot of what I’ve experienced is a lot of healthcare companies don’t prioritize their brand in terms of how you experience it throughout the customer experience, the patient experience.

David Cosand: I want to pick on those healthcare guys. I know that there’s probably some attention now being put towards that because they’re saying that that’s how you do business. Whether you’re a hospital, whether you’re a doctor’s office or if you’re a massive insurance carrier, but you’re trying to make people feel better and make it easier for them to pay their bills or find a doctor or talk to somebody. Like, “I don’t know who to talk to you and I need to feel better.” Helped me with that.

Chris Stadler : Like understand their coverage and I’d be stressed out on top of it.

David Cosand: Right? Yeah, exactly. So I know that they are starting to invest in user experience design and that sort of thing, but in terms of your brand too, like your brand should be about, we’d assume you value wellbeing and making people feel good and active. And so let’s live that out. Let’s show that we care about that by the experiences we provide for people.

Chris Stadler : But in the meantime, maybe you also send an excellent explanation of benefits for mental health coverage. Just in the meantime, right?

David Cosand: Yeah.

Chris Stadler : Just how people deal with stuff.

David Cosand: Well and a lot of it … I do understand-

Chris Stadler : My two counselor. It’s not worth it.

David Cosand: There’s probably a lot of legal ease. We got to just cross check the box and dot our I’s, cross our T’s and that sort of thing. So we’ll send you this statement in like 30 language just to make sure that we got our message across, which isn’t user friendly either and it probably is wasting paper and printer ink and all that kind of stuff.

Chris Stadler : That’s why you just use pictograms like Ikea.

David Cosand: Like Ikea. I was just thinking that. Yeah, genius. We could do that in healthcare, perhaps [crosstalk 00:07:38] the lawyers would love that.

Mike Jones: From what you just like, yeah your insurance claim the EOB has got like a bandage across the leg or like that’s the logo.

Chris Stadler : Or like you can’t show it to your kids cause it’s too anatomically correct.

David Cosand: Imagine being the iconographer for that. [inaudible 00:07:59] whole font.

Chris Stadler : Oh, where would you hire them?

Mike Jones: Don’t go there, Chris.

Chris Stadler : Jeff.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah. So I’ll go ahead and pick on a particular company.

Chris Stadler : Okay, just go on for it.

Jeffrey Watson: Every country has a flagship carrier, right? British Airways, Air Canada, Turkish Airways, Finnair, Air Japan. And these are flagship carriers means they’re sort of like the big airline for that. That country, they represent its values, they represent what it means to be a member of that country. And they’re sort of like showcasing that country to the world. So you’re fly in Air Canada and it’s like a really upgraded experience compared to WestJet. No offense to WestJet, but it’s just a different expectation because this is Air Canada.

Jeffrey Watson: Now I don’t want to offend someone in particular, but the United States has what you might think is a flagship carrier. It’s technically not, but it might look like it. And that’s American Airlines. And so you might think, “Oh, American Airlines.” Now that’s like the American airlines. That represents American values, American approaches towards things, and Americans something.

Mike Jones: Which America? Are we talking in South America?

Jeffrey Watson: United States of America, [crosstalk 00:09:17].

Mike Jones: [crosstalk 00:09:15] the values [crosstalk 00:09:19].

Jeffrey Watson: American airlines went through this sort of marketing, very odd marketing choice maybe a year ago where they did a bunch of little ads on how passengers should be nice to each other because flying is really a miserable experience. But if passengers were just nice people and just nice to each other and nice to their flight attendants, that could be so much better.

Chris Stadler : I think I see where this is going.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, it was a little hypocritical because why is flying such a miserable experience? Well, it’s probably because the airline makes the seats this tiny in this small and you’re kind of crammed in a little … Who has more control over whether the flight’s a nice experience? The passenger who you’re lecturing on how they should be nice, or the members of the crew who actually have to live out those values.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, or maybe instead they should try a different tactic. Like, “Hey, be thankful that you’re not sitting next to a chicken or [crosstalk 00:10:16].

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, it’s better than … can be worse. It’s better than the bumpy roads.

Mike Jones: Better than the boats.

Chris Stadler : [crosstalk 00:10:23]. Could be worse.

Jeffrey Watson: Could be worse.

Chris Stadler : You could be not flying right now.

Jeffrey Watson: Right, [inaudible 00:10:30]. Now maybe that’s a authentic expression of their genuine attitude, but it seems out of line with what [crosstalk 00:10:38].

Chris Stadler : They’re genuinely a lecturing brands. Yeeah, it’s part of their core value.

Jeffrey Watson: Maybe.

Chris Stadler : They do what I say, not as I do.

Mike Jones: Can I go, Chris?

Chris Stadler : That’s a really good one.

Mike Jones: I have one.

Chris Stadler : Yes.

Mike Jones: It took me all … Everyone already talking to finally come up with one.

Jeffrey Watson: You picked a really hard question this time. Thank you. This is a good one.

Mike Jones: So I’m going with everyone’s favorite. The Golden Arches, McDonald’s, right?

Chris Stadler : Ooh, yeah.

Mike Jones: So there’s multiple layers of hypocrisy at McDonald’s. So the first is why does my food never look like what it looked like in the ad? It’s not even what it looks like on the menu. It just looks dumpy and lame when I pull it open.

David Cosand: It looks uninspired like [crosstalk 00:11:19]. Uninspired like it gave up. Maybe it was aspiring to one those, but then.

Jeffrey Watson: It’s like American Airlines is like, “Well, it could be worse,” and McDonald’s is like, “Well, it’s food.” Maybe.

David Cosand: Technically, I want to say we can say that. FDA said [crosstalk 00:11:35]. That’s my first issue. That’s probably a common one with a lot of food brands though. I guess you could probably say that a lot of fast food restaurants, like that’s not what it looks like, but my second is like everything is so put together up until you have to actually deal with a person. The experience of McDonald’s is like one of the most inconsistent I’ve ever had with a restaurant or like everything from when is the food going to actually show up when I go through the drive through? Well, it might be ready when I get up to the window or it might be like 15 minutes or am I actually going to get the ketchup packets? I don’t know. It’s like a drinking game in and of itself.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, it’s like a game of chess. Let’s roll the dice and then [crosstalk 00:12:21].

David Cosand: And then just like what kind of personality to get. I would expect from like the outward kind of the way that I think they’ve tried to position themselves, it’s happy. I mean they have classic the happy meal. They’re kid friendly and all their commercials are super upbeat and happy, I’m loving it.

Chris Stadler : I’m loving it.

David Cosand: I’m loving it, right? And yet I don’t know that I’ve ever actually met someone who loves work who was loving it. and there’s just this like real deep disconnect at the service level or like the brand is one thing from a marketing perspective, but from a service standpoint it’s like totally different.

Chris Stadler : Yeah. That’s interesting because I think what made the fast food industry works so well early on was because you … It’s like consistency. Like you’re expecting the same thing that you get on that stop on Route 66 that you’d get on the interstate in the middle of the country where …

David Cosand: Yeah. Adrian and I now expect inconsistency. I mean that’s how we’ve dealt with it where we go, “Oh, are you going to McDonald’s? All right, we’ll ask five times for the ketchup because you might still get it.”

Chris Stadler : A magic eight ball.

David Cosand: But at least we know we never know. We know we’ll never know. So I don’t know. That’s my hypocritical brand of the day.

Jeffrey Watson: That’s a good one mine’s a, have you has ever heard of a podcast called the Art of Charm?

David Cosand: No.

Chris Stadler : So it’s kind of human hacking, but it’s just kind of like you listen to it and you get tips and there’s some good things in there, but it’s roots are help guys kind of hook up. And so there’s a little bit of that still in, so there are talking [crosstalk 00:14:01].

David Cosand: So many questions now Chris, so many questions.

Chris Stadler : But it’s like they help awkward guys who maybe they’re like super awesome, but they’re socially awkward to be able to have relationships and stuff, but a lot of it surrounds that. But at the very end of the show, I’m like, “Okay, I get it.” There’s nothing inconsistent now. But I’ve gotten my tidbits out of it. You take what’s good and you leave the reest.” But at the end of the show, they’re like their tagline, they say, “Do this, do this, and always leave everyone in everything better than you found it.” And I’m just like, “That’s super inconsistent to me,” because I could figure you’re like nothing to do with your show [crosstalk 00:14:42] with a lot of people. And now it’s like you’re trying to present like you have the moral high ground. It didn’t work for me.

Chris Stadler : And so for me it actually hurt their [inaudible 00:14:52] brain. It caused me to lose respect for their thinking and who they were. I might still listen to the show. I haven’t in a long time, but it’s not because their brand has lost equity in my mind just because it’s just like so inconsistent now. Yeah. That’s crazy. So you/we are writing a book. It’s been an interesting process. I want to hear more from you guys, kind of what are your thoughts on that? We started that process, I don’t know, nine months, six months ago.

David Cosand: Yeah. It’s been a-

Chris Stadler : [inaudible 00:15:30] really restart at what? Like 10 years.

David Cosand: Well, yeah. So a lot of what we’re writing about has been in our brains or documented in various places for years.

Chris Stadler : And so what is that real quick just to …

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, like what’s in our brain?

Chris Stadler : What is the book about? Also what’s in your way, yeah. So what are you guys writing about?

Jeffrey Watson: The book’s about authentic identity. So the idea is that every organization has some kind of authentic, real identity that makes it what it is. And that when it expresses that identity authentically real and instead of in a sort of superficial way or arbitrary way or attacked on way, then that’s ultimately going to resonate with the audience who sees it and observes it. And so that’s what we want to encourage with the book. It’s sort of an encouragement to brands to come to know and express their authentic identity.

Chris Stadler : Nice. And then so why you guys writing? Why? What was the impetus?

David Cosand: Well, we want others to know who they are and what makes them unique and what makes them special. And that sounds very individualistic, but it’s also for brands and companies. Like if you see yourself as a part of something bigger than yourself, as something that has meaning and purpose, you’re going to be motivated to perform. You’re going to be motivated to get out of bed in the morning.

David Cosand: You have reasons to keep going and it’s more inspiring. It’s more interesting, it’s more fun. It keeps driving you forward and it helps you also stay focused on a specific goal, to serve a customer in a specific way. It builds comradery with your teammates. So we want others to understand that and experience that and have the tools to equip them as well. It’s not very much like a how to book necessarily. I mean, we might get into that a little bit.

Chris Stadler : It’s not mostly a how to book, it’s more of a perspective. Right?

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, the goal is ultimately to help organizations under understand themselves better. And I guess recognize that really on some level they may not feel this way. They may not come across this way to people, but they are remarkable. The fact that they’ve continued to exist is remarkable and there’s some kind of underlying purpose they may not recognize yet. They may need to come to understand, but some purpose that holds people together because otherwise people don’t stick together. People naturally fly apart, right? Centrifical force pulling people apart is much stronger than anything that might hold them together.

Jeffrey Watson: So if people are sticking together over a period of time, learn something doing that work and that work is whatever that core purpose is behind that organization. And organization could be a company, it could be a business, it could be a nonprofit, but something that’s keeping people together. And so in understanding what that core purpose is that keeps them together, then you have an understanding of what your values are and ultimately you have an understanding of kind of your brand story and what makes you the kind of organization you are.

Jeffrey Watson: And so you can communicate that identity more effectively to two people. So ultimately it gets expressed through marketing. So the goal is to try to head off bad marketing at the very beginning where it gets started, which is in misunderstandings of your own brand or just complete ignorance of your own brand.

Chris Stadler : That’s awesome. Can I tell the audience the secret that Mike is a coauthor of the brand?

Mike Jones: Yeah. So this is … the three of us from Resound are writing the book together. We’ve been working on it for a little while. Jeff is in the thick of it right now.

Chris Stadler : You two started it.

Mike Jones: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:19:20]. It was weird. I walked in and I’m like, “So am I the host or am I the guest today?” And I think I’m both, I don’t know. I’m still confused, but I’m going to ask you a question and ask things I want people to hear about because I think they’re really interesting. So one of them is kind of what’s been our approach to writing the book. Because I’m like, whenever I talk about it, people were like, “There’s three people writing a book together? How does that work?” I go, “Funny, you should ask.” It’s like everything we’ve done together. It’s interesting.

Jeffrey Watson: We started … I mean if I could tell a [crosstalk 00:19:54] story of how we’ve done it. So we started with an outline that David wrote, so David was actually the initiator. David came up with a outline and then I expanded on the outline and turned it into a series of questions and then David and Mike YouTube did a bunch of podcasts, hours and hours and hours worth of podcasts and those got transcribed and then I’m reading the transcripts and I’m deleting most of them. And then with what’s left, I’m writing a book. So I’m using the transcripts of the podcasts you guys recorded to put together based on this outline. Something that hopefully makes sense.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, so far it has what I’ve read.

Jeffrey Watson: That’s reassuring from the back to the front. And we’re also reading it backwards because the danger is especially when you’re talking in a conversational format, you’re going to repeat the same thing multiple times. And so the thought was, ‘Well, if we started at the back and work to the front, we’re not going to get as redundant because we know that something’s going to come up near the end. So don’t hit it again at the front.” It kind of helps the book not sound too repetitive, but yeah. And the back was easier to write anyway. We’re in the, sorry, I’m in the midst of the second chapter. Right now it’s seven chapters, but that’s pretty far cause we’re working backwards and I should get closer to the front. That gets harder.

Chris Stadler : Yeah. I think there’s a strategy there. I mean there’s people who write fictional books and it’s sometimes easiest when you start with the end in mind.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, like a mystery novel. You want to write the end first before you write the beginning.

Chris Stadler : Yeah. So what we’re saying is we’re writing a business mystery novel.

Jeffrey Watson: Right. It’s a business detective stories.

Chris Stadler : And to work on that title, [crosstalk 00:00:21:39].

Jeffrey Watson: Well, if my name is going to be on there, it’s got to be who dominated [crosstalk 00:21:44].

David Cosand: [crosstalk 00:21:44] lots of brand work. Sherlock Jones.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, [inaudible 00:21:50] did you just come up with that [inaudible 00:21:52]?

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, that actually works. But then where does David fit in?

Chris Stadler : He’s Moriarity.

David Cosand: Oh, that’s awesome. I don’t know these characters. Moriarity [crosstalk 00:22:02] bad guy.

Jeffrey Watson: Is he?

David Cosand: Just Sherlock Holmes? Yeah.

Mike Jones: Wasn’t there like a mouse cartoon that was like the Sherlock?

David Cosand: Yeah, it was The Great Mouse Detective. Yeah. That was a spin on … Oh yeah, it was. Yeah, I watched it within the last three weeks. So yeah, I’ve seen it like a gazillion times because [crosstalk 00:00:22:20].

Chris Stadler : Probably helps with your book writing, right?

David Cosand: Not really. Okay. So I want to comment on the process a little bit too. It’s really cool working with you guys, like the way this business started. So for the listeners, your listeners who may not know our company was … I kind of sort of founded the company and I was like, “Jeff come co-found with me,” because I remember sketching out some ideas for a business in the middle of when I was supposed to be listening to a lecture, which is what your students are probably doing right now.

Chris Stadler : Probably.

David Cosand: And I was like, “Man it’d be really cool to start this business and to do design work and then do branding, and man I want to do this, I’m going to call it Resound and blah blah blah.” So I had all this in my head and then now fast forward 10, 12 whatever years later, actually it’s more like 16 to be honest. Jezz world. To see a book and a business and clients and websites and things actually be happening is really awesome. But the process, the way the three of us are doing the book, it’s also similar to how we ran the business where it’s like I go out and go crazy with ideas and then you guys somehow make it … like you’ll riff on it with me. Mike will be like, “Yes [anding 00:23:28] and we’ll be bouncing ideas off each other and then Jeff will synthesize and make sense of it for everyone.

David Cosand: And then Chris will be like, “That’s great, here’s the action plan.” But that’s kind of what we’re doing with the book too. Because I didn’t plan on writing an outline or initiating the book, but I was like, “Well, I guess it should follow kind of how we started things at the company a long time ago.” So pull things out of my head. You riff on it, make it better. And then Jeff makes it make sense.

Chris Stadler : Yep. And that it’s funny how that’s kind of followed even the pattern of 2009 when we were kind of sitting down together and you already have the idea and you kind of have the paperwork’s done for Resound, but there’s still this like, “Well, what is this?” and we were like, “I don’t know. Nobody knows what it is.” And we’re sitting around and I think in your house, in that back bedroom. And that wasn’t quite right at the beginning, but I remember riffing on what’s our tagline? We came up with your remarkable. And so all the stuff in the book is stuff we’ve been talking about for 10 years now.

David Cosand: Yeah.

Chris Stadler : And I think that’s what got me really excited too. Is just like, we’re finally packaging some things that we’ve talked about, things we’ve written about in blogs and we’ve talked about on podcasts and we’ve certainly done lots of work with clients on, but kind of finally saying, “All right, this is our viewpoint of how the world should work from a brand perspective.”

David Cosand: And it’s a way that … Yeah, I like that it’s a package that people can digest it and get a good chunk of it in one sitting instead of bits and pieces of it. Well, if you only do a little bit of this with Resound or if you only listen to this podcast or whatever, see this blog post. So that’s really exciting.

Chris Stadler : Yeah. So all right, let’s talk about the book. Let’s talk about some of the principles that you guys cover in the book. So what are some of the more like either more interesting to you principles, surprising or counterintuitive principles or just things that you think most brands miss in the book.

Jeffrey Watson: I’ll take a stab. So counterintuitive from a point like when you think of brand, you think of the mark, the logo, you think of what you can see, the presentation layer, but what we start with in the book, and you probably haven’t gotten there yet because we’re working from the back to the front, is that the purpose, the values, what we call the roots of a brand, what you can’t see, what’s underneath it all is really where it all starts. That’s really the most important part. Like you need to understand that part.

Jeffrey Watson: And that also like when we’re talking about individual or a person, it’s like what you believe in, what really motivates you, what makes you unique, what makes you special, it’s figuring out those things, it’s really a lot of soul searching first before you can start to get anywhere close to a logo, to what color palette, what font. I don’t like that font. I want this one. So I think that’s counterintuitive. I think it’s like, “Okay, stop thinking about the presentation layer.” And maybe you go, okay, “Well what do you mean? What’s next?”

David Cosand: You mean like our tagline?

Jeffrey Watson: Nope, that’s still presentation layer. Well, you mean like the tone. Okay, you’re getting a little closer, but you got to go deeper. It’s so much deeper than that. It’s your values. Why are you in business in the first place? To make money. No, no, no. Go even deeper than that.

Chris Stadler : That’s Mike’s favorite wrong answer [inaudible 00:26:54].

Mike Jones: Wrong.

David Cosand: He’s basically like …

Chris Stadler : In the workshops, he was just like, “Just say, you know … ” Profit is not the right answer. To make money is not the right answer. Not what we’re looking for here. Yeah.

David Cosand: That’s counterintuitive, but I don’t know.

Chris Stadler : Do you have anything else?

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, you might think that with individuals. There’s some kind of core thing that makes me that person, and so with individuals you can think about someone being fake or being authentic, but when you start dealing with groups of people, for some reason our minds tend to think, “Well, it’s not like there’s such a thing as being fake or being authentic with a group.” As an organization, you’re just some piece of paper and then some story you make up. And you make up whatever story is going to get your customers to think, “Oh yeah, I’d buy into that.”

Jeffrey Watson: And so it really is the intuition a lot of people have is that your definition as an organization should be defined by the people you want out there. What is it that they want me to look like? What is it they want me to sound like, what is it they want me to be? Okay. I’ll be that. And that comes off as fake, just like it does when a person does that. We all know when a person does that, that doesn’t work great. But it comes across as fake. And the very same way when an organization tries to do that and it’s much better if the organization … maybe they aren’t exactly what they think people want, but what people really want is honesty. And honesty comes only when you really know yourself as a brand.

Chris Stadler : When you know the truth.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, right. So how are you honest if you don’t even know what’s true? So the thing that might be surprising, it would be surprising that there really is such a thing as an authentic brand identity. Something that could be discovered and not invented. Even when you talk about branding, because it’s sort of a creative area and people think of creativity and they think of kind of making stuff up.

David Cosand: Inventing.

Jeffrey Watson: Inventing. A brand is not actually something you invent or make up. A brand is something you discover and discovering it means there’s an actual truth out there to be discovered. And so I think that would be pretty surprising, but I think it’s true.

David Cosand: Yeah. Like it’s objective more than you would think. You have to find it and it’s not something that you, “Oh well, we’re going to soul search and then we’re going to invent it after we figure out what we feel.”

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah. It could be accurate. It could be inaccurate, you could get it wrong. You can get it right. And when you get it right, you’ll know it, but if you get it wrong and you just sort of make it up your own … not just your customers, but your own team, your own employees are going to kind of barf at it and say, “Well, that’s not really who we are.” And they’re not going to live it out and they’re not going to express that. And then five years later you’re going to be back at the drawing board and do it all over again. So that there’s something that you could get right or wrong about branding might be surprising because it’s a very creative stuff we associate with art and art, we associate with subjectivity.

Jeffrey Watson: And it’s true there’s a lot of creativity and a lot of subjectivity, but that’s not all there is. There’s something you’re trying to represent.

David Cosand: And also there’s maybe a sense that it’s being revealed to you, like you said discover. That doesn’t mean you’re going to necessarily get it right the first or second or third time, but you’re getting closer and closer as you figure … because you said earlier that what keeps people going, like there’s something that, I can’t remember exactly what you said, but it’s like it’s driving everybody forward and someone comes in and says, “Well, this is the new brand or this is what we’re all about,” and the company goes, “No, that’s not us. That’s not what we feel like.” And we’re going to resist it and we’re going to keep going in the direction we were already going because we know that’s right and so we’re going to have to keep coming back to this eventually and figure it out. That’s interesting to me. It’s like the people know what’s right. They’re going to keep doing it even if the brand agency or the new marketing, the UCML come in.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, well, if something doesn’t fit, people aren’t going to wear it, and they’re not going to own it. They’re going to do what they have to do in order to appease whoever it is that said that this is the thing we’re doing. But they know it’s going to die off because it’s not actually part of what the core purpose of that company is. And there really is something that has to keep those people together. There’s something it’s doing, there’s someone that’s serving. If you’re not serving someone, well, you’re not around. Options.

Jeffrey Watson: If you live in a non-market economy, then you can have a company that exists purely for show. So North Korea has several fake companies. Aside from that, if you exist, you’re serving somebody. There’s some purpose you have. It may not be the best purpose in the world. Maybe you should think about that, but you are serving somebody. So knowing really what that is, what your role is, and the bigger story is more valuable than … I think people like red this year.

David Cosand: Yeah, and I mean …

Chris Stadler : You’re like read every year.

Jeffrey Watson: Oh, okay.

David Cosand: That’s right [crosstalk 00:32:04].

Jeffrey Watson: But like you’d be in a company for 20 years working with the same people for 20 years and you all feel it, but you can’t articulate it or you never have articulated it. No one has articulated well. They may have had an attempt or two along the way, but I like that. But just because it doesn’t fit doesn’t mean you’re not going to keep wearing clothes. It’s like you still have to wear clothes every day. Go through the jacket. I’m not going to just be like, “I’m not going out in public now because I’m going to freeze or something.” [crosstalk 00:32:40], sorry.

Chris Stadler : Mike, can I throw that question at you too and just see if you have any thoughts on some of the principles.

Mike Jones: I think those are really, really good ones. Kind of surprises or maybe counterintuitive lessons in the book. I think the other one that I get really excited about is this idea that every organization actually is remarkable. That that’s an intrinsic trait. It’s an intrinsic quality to the organization whether they realize it or not. We spent a lot of the first part of the book really unpacking that and going, “Hey, if organizations really are made up of people, and we have a fundamental belief that people are intrinsically remarkable, why is it that we then don’t believe that organizations are remarkable?” If organizations are really just groups of people on a common mission or purpose holding to a similar set of values, why is that organization not remarkable?

Mike Jones: And then we kind of spend a lot of time figuring out, well why is that? And then how can it live up to its remarkableness and kind of act on it in a more consistent, compelling kind of truthful way? So I think that’s one that I’m really excited about. And when I talk to people they get excited about too. And I think there’s a little bit of drawing a line in the sand with that because I think there’s people out there who would say, “I don’t agree with that. I don’t think organizations can be remarkable.” So I’m excited to have those conversations with them.

David Cosand: So organizations can be as remarkable as individual people?

Mike Jones: Sure. I don’t know how much we unpack this in the book or not. So I’m going to ref reel me back in when I get too far. I think it’s harder. So we do talk about that. Like understanding yourself is somewhat difficult because we have depth of understanding and we have a lot of perception of our own selves. But I think there’s a reason why there’s behavioral and personality assessments for people but not for organizations. And it’s because, well, there’s only one person taking the test, versus an organization requires a group of people to come to an understanding of who they are as an organization together. And that’s a much harder exercise to get through.

Mike Jones: And so yes, back to the original question, can the organization be as remarkable as an individual? Sure. And I think we can think about … there’re organizations we know that are like, “Wow.” Like they really know themselves, they really know who they are and they act on it in nearly every situation consistently. And we see that that has power in their relationships. It gives them, at the very least, a sense of confidence, but all that much more so like a sense of real, true, authentic relationship building when you can serve a customer incredibly well, when you know exactly who you are, what you can do for them, how you can do that well and that they’re the right person to do that for.

Mike Jones: And you look at brands that we would go, “Oh, they’re not remarkable.” Well, why is that? Is it because they’re intrinsically not remarkable? Or is it because they haven’t dug deep? They haven’t figured out who they are and they’re chasing every customer on the planet. Every person is a customer. We all know those brands, right? And that’s confusing.

David Cosand: What if someone’s like, “What’s all this hippy talk? You don’t need to find yourself. You just get out there and work. What are you? Some kind of college dreamer?”

Mike Jones: Yes. So go out there and work. So what are you doing when you’re working? You’re working towards some goal. So why do you have that goal? Well, you must have that goal either because you just arbitrarily picked it on a map, which is a terrible idea or because it serves some purpose. Well, if that goal serves some purpose, then what in the world is that? Okay, now we’re back at having to figure out what your purpose is as an organization. So yeah, I mean work, but work towards something. You can dig ditches. You can keep going there. It’s pretty big. Ultimately you’re doing it for some end, for some purpose.

Chris Stadler : I’m thinking this would be a hard question.

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Chris Stadler : Which is like boom. Done. [crosstalk 00:37:17].

David Cosand: I think the sentiment by that question though is lik a person should get to work and stop soul searching and stop navel gazing. And I don’t disagree with that. I think it’s getting to work. I think it’s good to find … Like we use the Uber driver. I think it’s like when we talked about it as like a person trying to find who they are. We’re like, “Oh, well, I don’t know what to do. I think I’ll just go be an Uber driver.” Well, there’s nothing wrong with being an Uber driver. That’s great. That’s a great way to make some money and stay busy and interact with people. But then we started talking about, well how do you do it differently than somebody else? But how that?

David Cosand: That’s where we start going, which is how do you start differentiating you from someone else? What personality traits do you bring into that car than some other Uber driver? How do you get those five stars and that other Uber driver got three and a half or whatever it is. I don’t know.

Jeffrey Watson: Can you get half stars on Uber? Probably not. I don’t think so. Probably not.

David Cosand: But the point is dad.

Jeffrey Watson: Okay, boomer. Do it all stars [crosstalk 00:00:38:22].

David Cosand: The point is there’s something special about me when I’m an Uber driver or when I’m digging ditches and that’s okay. I’m not saying I’m a snowflake. You work, but then you can discover what it is that makes you special, what it is that sets you apart from somebody else-

Mike Jones: Yeah, but I mean even [crosstalk 00:38:43].

David Cosand: … [crosstalk 00:38:44] individual as a business as well.

Mike Jones: Yeah, and then even at that question or that statement, that idea of like, “Okay, you’re an individual, just get to work.” And how there’s, there’s benefits to that. Yeah. But what’s the sustaining power of that drive? I labor because I labor. That as we’ve found typically doesn’t keep people going for super long. You have to find some other deeper purpose even as an individual to keep you going. Even people who say like, “Hey, I work. I get up, I go to work and I come home and I do it for 40 years with the same company.” I would put money that that person has discovered some other thing that keeps them going through that process.

Mike Jones: Now there might be an aspect of their work that they love. There’s an aspect of expertise that they get to deliver on day in and day out, or there’s a family that they have to feed and cloth and put in their home or other goals that they have with the salary that they bring home. But I don’t know anyone who just like, “I get up and I go to work and I come home and I go to work.”

David Cosand: Like a robot.

Mike Jones: Without becoming depressed. Honestly. Now maybe there’s somebody out there. There’s some exception to every rule maybe, but how much more so if you do that as a group?

Jeffrey Watson: Well, I want to emphasize … I like what David said about the how. And so how you do things is part of what makes you distinct. And we’re thinking right now about individuals, but if we’re trying to think about an organization or a company, particularly one that’s in an industry where lots of others do the same thing, and you start to think, “Well, we’re not that unique. We’ll get something done. There you go.” That’s producing our thing. Acme Widgets.

Mike Jones: Yeah, Acme Widgets or something, right?

Jeffrey Watson: It could be worse.

Mike Jones: Right, but that’s not true. That’s not true. There’s something that makes you distinct and what makes you distinct is the way you do things. The how you do things. And the how you do things is going to be informed by something distinctive about your identity. So even if you’re like, “Yes, get to work. Good,” but how you work that’s going to be impacted by who you are.

Mike Jones: And that’s true for an organization just like it is for an individual. So I think there’s value in particular in starting to distinguish yourselves from others in the same industry who produce the same widget or service or whatever it is by having a sense of how you do things and the values that inform that. So having an awareness of your values ultimately builds value to the brand and builds value in the work you do.

Mike Jones: So if you just think of it in terms of individuals working, the less specialized and focused your work is, the more competition you have from other people in the same arena because it doesn’t really stand out. The more specialized what you do is the less competition is and therefore the more value it has. and so the same is true with an organization. If it wants to boost the value of what it does, it needs to boost the distinctiveness of who it is. And that means understanding how it distinctly does things and the values that motivate that.

David Cosand: Right. There might be a love … I don’t know if it’s articulated very well yet, but you get specialized and then you find that soon you’re not very special anymore so you have to get even more specialized. I don’t know. The thing that comes to mind is like you’re the gluten free brand and then gluten free now is like this massive … well [crosstalk 00:42:16].

Mike Jones: And that’s a good point about how you specialize in particularly with a brand. So one way you can try to define a brand that seems very special is when you define it by something short term. We call this in the book accidental branding. So you define it by something that just so happens to be true here right now. Like this year, our goal is to be blank. Go green.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, we’re going to go green, so we’re going to be the green company. Everything is going to be green. Or is the Goth year.

David Cosand: Sure. We’re the Goth company. There are no other Goths in our industry. It’s like teenager think [crosstalk 00:42:48].

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah, I’ll be the Goth for this year.

David Cosand: All the fingernails on our website are black.

Jeffrey Watson: That’s right. David knows what your [inaudible 00:42:55].

David Cosand: I do know [crosstalk 00:42:56].

Jeffrey Watson: We’re going to do pink next year.

Mike Jones: So you do that. It lasts for a little while. It makes you distinct for a little while and then it fades because it’s not the gluten free year anymore. The Goth year anymore. That doesn’t fit anymore. Or your company changes. You define yourself by where you’re at and where you’re at is not the same as who you are. So if you really want a lasting brand, you need to define yourself by something that’s deeper than just, “Hey, we’re going to do this year, or this is our current strategy or our current goal.” You’ve got to define yourself by something that’s lasting that’s driving you as an organization.

Chris Stadler : I have an example.

Mike Jones: Yeah.

Chris Stadler : So are you guys familiar with Allbirds the shoe company?

Mike Jones: No.

David Cosand: They make these?

Mike Jones: Well, that’s a nice shoes.

Chris Stadler : Very comfy, very sustainable. It’s an all wool top of their shoe and the bottom is made, I think from sorghum. It’s some sustainable renewable resource.

Mike Jones: Well, sorghum is very tasty.

Chris Stadler : I’ve not tried to eat my shoes so I wouldn’t know.

Jeffrey Watson: That’s good.

Chris Stadler : Anyway, so their big issue is that Amazon has basically replicated the shoe design with their own brand and has put it out into the marketplace at half the cost. And there’s this, their founder of Allbirds is kind of publicly whining about it a little bit and I was thinking about it and I was like, “Well, that seems like kind of the wrong answer. Why is this an issue?” And it’s interesting because Allbirds really is founded on this idea of like comfortable yet sustainable shoes.

Chris Stadler : So that’s their purpose, right? That’s part of their set of values. But they’ve positioned on a particular style of shoe, all wool with a particular kind of soul with no overt branding on the shoe, which is tactical. And so that kind of speaks back to like, yeah, we can have these kind of … we can build our brand around something very tactical, but that it’s specialized for sure. It was super special.

Mike Jones: It was when they launched.

Chris Stadler : It was, but it’s very replicatable. Versus when we … if I would say like, “Hey Allbirds go back to your roots.” What are your roots? Your roots are a core set of values and a purpose that’s not defined by a single product. And that’s what makes them a brand or could make them a really compelling brand is when they go, “How do we replicate this set of core values and purpose in other types of products?”

David Cosand: How do you take something like that, and … all right, going back to the, I’m not going to pay for college for six years, undergrad kind of thing. So you could look at your navel and go to India or whatever and record an album.

Mike Jones: We can build a pretty good backstory for this one.

David Cosand: Yeah, we could.

Chris Stadler : Sounds like the Beatles. It did. All right. It sounds like an undergrad maybe, sorry. Undergrads are awesome. I love undergrads. The question was how do you make this not like a six year college, like 10 year for you just to get your undergrad. How do you make it not this … I mean it just sounds like it takes forever, right? Like all this discovery. How many people you have to talk to, feelings. I mean dude. Is that what it’s looks like? This whole process of branding. I mean is it just like this black hole company, I’m going to throw through thousands and thousands and millions dollars.

David Cosand: Mike’s the practitioner. Just wait three months about the book.

Chris Stadler : That’ll be good. All right, cool. Fair enough. Yeah. I mean it’s as complex as you want to make it and it’s as complex as your business is. So does it have to take six years and lots of naval-gazing trips, India? Probably not. No, I don’t think you have to. I think the trips to India are definitely optional. Yeah. That’s an add on. It comes up. That’s a follow up book that we’re reading trips to India for the low low price of 1999. You can get that added to your package. While it’s a complex philosophy or maybe … I don’t know if complex is the right word, it’s deep, right? There’s a depth to your brand and your identity. I don’t think the process has to be overly complicated. You start with where you’re at.

Mike Jones: Yeah. I mean I might emphasize talk about naval-gazing, but this is not the actual process you’d build for an organization. So for an individual, maybe I’m like, “How do I know myself?” That’s a deep question. I teach a class on that. But for an organization that you’re not really looking inside yourself cause you don’t have your multiple people. So what you’re really doing is studying the people that are part of you. in particular the employees and the leadership and the team and then also customers.

Mike Jones: And so it’s using information about what people say, what you have said, what your history is, what choices you’ve made, what’s been guiding those choices, how you’d respond to different kinds of questions that you can use to start to evaluate maybe some of those questions about who you are, what you’re like or what your personality is. I don’t like the word naval-gazing for an organization because it doesn’t have a naval, literally.

Jeffrey Watson: Literally there’s no naval. It is …

Mike Jones: Unless you’re selling oranges.

Chris Stadler : Fair enough. Then you’ve lost your navels.

David Cosand: [inaudible 00:48:38] that joke.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, for sure.

Jeffrey Watson: Okay, boomer.

Chris Stadler : But there’s research you can do, there’s stuff you can do. And I also don’t think it has to take a long time. It depends on the kind of organization you are and what you need at this point in time. So like David said, and I said earlier, this is discovery. Sometimes you need to know a lot about yourself. Sometimes you need to discover what’s necessary right now. And so how much help you need in that process is going to change, how much time it takes is going to change. It does take some time. It does take some energy. It does take some thinking about things, but it’s not a six year process by any means.

David Cosand: Yeah. Where, do companies come from though?

Chris Stadler : That’s the navel-gazing question. Where did I come from? What about [crosstalk 00:49:26].

David Cosand: Well, when two other companies fall in love.

Chris Stadler : So where does the company come from?

David Cosand: Wait, do you have to go off live with this talk? Well, so I don’t know. A lot of it sometimes has to do with this. You just mentioned the guy at Allbirds, right?

Chris Stadler : Yeah.

David Cosand: The CEO. It’s on our notes here to your right. The CEO or the founder or whoever was responsible for getting this thing go in in the first place. They had an idea. They had a vision. Hopefully, maybe they didn’t, but typically that’s where some of that research is going to take you, some of that analysis that you’re doing. You’re going to study the relationships between the people that are already a part of this brand.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, so just like people, companies come from people and they come from relationships between people, so that’s not bad.

Mike Jones: But you didn’t hear there was Jeff’s like, so there you go. It’s that easy. That was the look that he gave. He’s right, yes.

Chris Stadler : But so to David’s point, going back to those founding people or current people in those kind of founder roles is going to help you understand that brand. And that’s a place to go.

David Cosand: But asking those reflective questions, right? Like getting into the core and then finding that thread and that thread is your umbilical cord.

Jeffrey Watson: There you go. Navel-gazing.

Chris Stadler : Yes. Oh, I see. Okay.

Jeffrey Watson: I like it. I like it. So I was just surprised. I mean, so just from my experience seeing like Mike work when I first got here and saw the the branding process, this sounds like a super long thing, like tedious and why do companies ever sign up for this like what I imagined to be this long drawn out process. And then I go to a workshop and it’s like a day. And does Mike make you make them work hard? Yeah. There’s lunch, there’s breaks. Yeah.

David Cosand: Maybe, if you’re good.

Mike Jones: [inaudible 00:51:26].

Jeffrey Watson: I think that was just kind something I just said. I don’t want our listeners to be a too intimidated by this process because there really is kind of a method.

Mike Jones: And it’s also like you get what you put into it, right? So like if you put a day of work into it, you get a days worth of output. Yeah. And if you spend three months in it, you’re going to get three months worth of output.

Jeffrey Watson: Yeah. And again, it’s like if you liken the company to a person again, the age of a person tells you how much life experience and context you need to dig through in order to understand yourself. When you’re five you don’t have a whole lot of life experience to have to sift through. You also don’t have a whole lot of complex understanding of how the world works. So you don’t need to understand yourself at this really complex like 40 year old level versus when you’re 40 well, now you’ve got 40 years of life experience and a whole bunch of relationships and successes and failures to sift through and then you go buy a red sports car to help you through that process.

Jeffrey Watson: I think companies are similar in that. It’s like if you’re one years old as a company, you only have one year of people, relationships, experience, products and customers to kind of have to sift through and so yeah, you might be able to just get the leadership team in a room, answer some of these fundamental questions, be real with one another and you come out the other end with like, “Oh, this is the roots of our brand.”

Jeffrey Watson: It’s not going to get you a logo. It’s not going to get you a tagline. It’s not going to get you the presentation level that we talked about earlier. There’s still more work, versus a company that’s been around for 60 years, has been through leadership changes. Probably an ownership change somewhere in there, has multiple generations of employees and customers and has probably a set of products and services that is too long, honestly. Now you have context you have to sift through and that is going to take a little bit longer. You can do it and it’s not something you have to do overnight.

Chris Stadler : And organizations vary pretty drastically in complexity, right? So in an organization that’s led by one person is very different from an organization that has multiple groups that are sometimes at odds with each other in different locations. Those are very different situations. So a lot of the time it’s the complexity of an organization that’s driving the complexity of [inaudible 00:53:58].

Jeffrey Watson: Going back to your question though, Chris, about the process and how do I get started and is this practical? I think the biggest thing is that mental block, perhaps that it’s not about the presentation layer and that it’s more about how authentic I am, that is going to make me successful. It’s not about whether you got the coolest logo for $5 or $5,000 or $50,000. It’s how authentic is that logo. It’s not like what the designers are talking about on their blogs or Twitter or whatever. It’s like, does that feel like you? Are you proud of that? Does it resonate with you and your audience? Does it feel right?

Chris Stadler : Yeah, [crosstalk 00:54:38] want to walk to like make phone calls, send emails, and my signature line, is it something that I feel like comports with who I am as an individual, as a part of this company?

David Cosand: Yeah, does it authentically reflect who we are? [crosstalk 00:54:54] well.

Chris Stadler : Beautiful. So I don’t know how it got so late, so fast you guys. Such an interesting conversation. We probably don’t have time for too many more questions, but do we want to talk a little bit about how about the book? A lot of times we’ll have like here’s how to get ahold of you know, so and so. Well, is there anything you guys want to talk about? Anything you guys want to mention about the book? Anything you guys want to … Nope.

Jeffrey Watson: We don’t want to talk about the book. We just spent 60 minutes talking about the book.

David Cosand: That was the last straw. Why would we want to do more?

Jeffrey Watson: Stay tuned.

Mike Jones: I’ll be that guy. Yeah, so we are ready in the book. It is in process. It will launch not quite sure exactly when. I think hopefully in the next like three ish months we should have it ready to go. For anyone that’s interested, you can go to for a marketbook.com and you can get signed up on the newsletter that we’ve got set up there. We’re going to be tripping out updates as we get more of it developed and as we have some more kind of things going on around the launch of the book. But that’s a great place to get started. We talked about how this isn’t new, this isn’t new information that like the three of us I’ve never talked about before.

Mike Jones: I think there’s pieces of this book that are throughout like everything we’ve ever published. Like you can kind of get a sneak peek just signing up for our general newsletter at resoundcreative.com or going on the blog there. Yeah, I mean even Chris and I and our team have been kind of using stuff that’s come out of our planning and outlining and podcasting content to get ready for the book as inspiration this whole year for content we’ve been putting out. So hopefully it’s not something where people are like, “Oh my goodness, this is totally different than anything you’ve ever been talking about before.” You’re like, “Oh no, you finally packaged it. Thank you.”

Chris Stadler : Yeah, it deepens it and ties everything together I think. Cool. Well Jeff and David, thanks for joining us.

David Cosand: Yeah, thank you guys.

Chris Stadler : So this is it [crosstalk 00:57:03].

Jeffrey Watson: [crosstalk 00:57:03] another hour.

Chris Stadler : Yeah, I know. We got some Baker’s market with her too. So this is it for another episode of the AZ Brandcast where we delve into the makings of remarkable brands here in the state of Arizona. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you’d like more information on the AZ Brandcasts, you can subscribe to all our episodes on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or wherever you prefer.

Mike Jones: Spotify.

Chris Stadler : Plus Spotify to get your podcasts feeds from. And to contact Chris or to contact me or Mike, we’re going to do next episode all in third person. Yes, Mike likes this idea. Okay.

Chris Stadler : All right. Like Chris sock, check out our website at remarkablecast.com. There you can also get on our newsletter list and make sure you never miss another episode or update from us. So a special thanks to our producer. Normally Karen, but we have a special producer today, Kendra do you want to say, hi Kendra? Hi. Kendra waves. She’s not really a-

Kendra: Hi Kendra if you third person. Kendra says hi.

Chris Stadler : Normally it’s like this, like God ex Machina, her whatever thing, where she likes to condescends from the soundboard, but doesn’t actually say anything. So she’s actually kind of like a … yeah, I’m sorry. I started going into weird theological territory there. Thank you so much, Kendra. The Phoenix Business RadioX, and our gracious hosts here at MAC 6 and don’t forget, you are remarkable.

Mike Jones: You are remarkable.