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Impact Driven Marketing – a conversation with author Rich Kozak
14 Plays13 days ago
The focus of marketing activities needs to change
Rich Kozak has worked in marketing for almost fifty years. Now he is the founder and CEO of RichBrands, a company that helps individuals and businesses create clear brands that deliver increased impact.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Rich explains to host Michael Millward the seven steps that ensure a brand will impact people’s lives.
Their conversation covers
- What a brand is
- The two questions that define what your brand is
- Define the impact you want your brand to have
- How brands evolve
- The role of perception in branding
- Importance of consistency
- The language of your brand
- The three dimensions of a brand
- The characteristics of a brand
- The role of content
- The importance of competitive comparisons
This is the podcast for anyone who wants to build an impactful brand.
Discover more about Rich and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
Audience Offers – listings include links that may create a small commission for The Independent Minds
Books that Rich has contributed to
ELEVATE : Raise Your Life And Business To A Higher Level: A TEAM Referral Network Collaborative Book
Impact: Where Passion and Purpose Makes a Difference
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because as the all-in-one podcasting platform, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
Travel – With discounted membership of the Ultimate Travel Club, you can travel anywhere at trade prices.
Fit For Work We recommend The Annual Health Test from York Test; a 39-health marker Annual Health Test conducted by an experienced phlebotomist with hospital standard tests carried out in a UKAS-accredited and CQC-compliant laboratory.
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Being a Guest
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We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.
Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
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Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy.
00:00:18
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Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:33
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I'm your host, Michael Millward.
Rich Kozak's Heart-Centered Branding Approach
00:00:36
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In this episode of The Independent Minds, I'm learning about impact branding driven from the heart from Rich Kozak.
00:00:44
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Rich is an expert in brand languaging and a marketing strategist for heart centered and faith inspired entrepreneurs. He is a regular speaker at business events and an author.
00:00:57
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There are details of his many books in the description. Rich is based in Los Angeles, California. i have visited. if I get the opportunity to visit again, i will make use of my membership of the Ultimate Travel Club to make my travel arrangements.
00:01:14
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That is because membership of the Ultimate Travel Club gives me access to trade prices on every form of travel.
Benefits of the Ultimate Travel Club
00:01:21
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So I end up saving a lot of money. I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club as well and travel at trade prices just like I do.
00:01:34
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Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to and probably good enough to share with friends, family and work colleagues as well.
00:01:49
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As with every episode of The Independent Minds, We will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, Rich. Good morning, Michael. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:02:01
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Thank you very much. What we should do is hear about your career to
Rich Kozak's Career in Branding
00:02:05
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date. how How did you end up launching Rich Brands? Well, thank you for asking. For 49 years now, I'm going on my 50th year, I've been defining and languaging brands and launching them.
00:02:23
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For about 20 of those years, I served as an exec VP and head of business development for a global market. branding agency with partners in 21 countries.
00:02:36
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And I sat on global brand teams on a certified global branding consultant, but that doesn't really mean much to the individual. For the last 10 years, I have been working only with individuals.
00:02:49
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individuals who know there's more. They want to make bigger impacts or higher level impacts. They know they're not done. Many times they have decades of experience, but they know they're not finished and they want to get to another level, higher levels, more impacts, maybe broader media, broader geography, different target audiences.
00:03:14
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but they don't know how to evolve the way they're known, the way they say what they do to make sure they're successful at it.
Heart-Centered Branding Process
00:03:23
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And branding is not well understood.
00:03:27
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It's not taught and many people are intimidated by it or just don't trust it. So... What I spend most of my time doing now when I speak and when I write, when I coach, when I run events, is literally opening people's eyes with straight talk about what brand, your brand, actually is.
00:03:52
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What it means and how to manage it so that the branding is done right and it's authentic to you because it comes from your heart. That's an interesting expression which can probably be interpreted in many ways.
00:04:07
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What do you mean by that word heart? I can be very specific. if If I ask you two questions and give you several minutes to answer each, the first question being, hey, close your eyes and imagine what you can clearly see doing and the impacts you clearly see making being really successful.
00:04:29
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Just imagine it. Everything is working. What are you doing? And you answer, well, I love to speak. I'm speaking. Oh, I love to write. I'm writing. Oh, I love to coach one-on-one. I'm coaching. Oh, I love to speak to big groups. Oh, whatever you see yourself doing when your work, your calling, your gift, your brand is thriving. That's the first question. Second question is, ask your heart, whom? Do you clearly see impacting and you really want to impact through your work?
00:05:01
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Give me one heart. And the heart says, oh, you know what? It's that couple that hasn't prepared for retirement. It's the single mom with a special needs child and she's in her 40s. It's the person deciding on their career. It's the people that just had their first baby. Whomever your heart hands you that you clearly see impacting and really want to impact. I'll get business to business on it. It's that law firm. I'm going to change the culture of that law firm. It's this industry. I'm going to impact this industry.
00:05:39
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It could be an individual, it could be a couple, it could be an industry, it could be a country. whom does your heart clearly see you impacting and you really want to impact them?
00:05:51
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When you start there and you end up writing the types of impacts you clearly see making, the process is defining the brand you must become to make those impacts.
00:06:02
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Everything the brand says and does after that is congruent. It's aligned with those impacts that you clearly see making and really want to make.
Impact-Driven Branding Explained
00:06:14
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That's what it means. Impact-driven branding is the process. It's the steps. of ensuring that what the brand says, how it says it's expert at what it is, what it does, the things it presents, the products and services, weekend retreats, it's whatever it does, is all congruent. It's all aligned with the impacts it clearly sees making and really wants to make.
00:06:41
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It's almost about forgetting about the amount of money you might make or not make and think much more about why you need. It's not what you want to do, it's what you what you need to do in order to fulfill your purpose, I suppose. You remind me when I started Abbasidra and I was going on to all the different events that business support organizations ran and meeting other people who were setting their businesses and meet people who saying like, yeah, I'm going to drive a Bentley.
00:07:10
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And then you'd meet them a couple of years later and they weren't talking about driving Bentleys, but they were much more talking about why they wanted to do the business in the first place and why they wanted to do it differently. It's almost as if people need to go on some sort of learning curve to get to that point sometimes. People don't see branding as steps.
00:07:33
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They see it as whatever the world has trained them to see it as, ah a look and a line, a logo, colors, you know, fancy talk, ah mascots, you know, whatever they see it as. but That's not what it is.
00:07:48
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Golly, Michael, ask me what is a brand. Ask me that. I was just about to. What is a brand? Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you asked. Your brand is a perception, but it's not your perception.
00:08:04
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Your brand is a perception, but it's not your perception. It is the perception in the mind of your most important target audiences whom you really clearly see impacting through your work and really want to impact.
00:08:25
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It's their minds and the perception in their minds. We're not talking about everyone else in the world. We're talking about your most important target audiences whom you clearly see impacting and want to impact.
00:08:43
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It's their perception. So here's what branding is.
Seven Steps to Impact-Driven Branding
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If your brand is a perception, branding is everything you do that shapes a consistent, and please write that word down, consistent perception.
00:09:00
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in the minds of your most important target audiences whom you clearly see impacting and really want to impact. It's shaping a consistent perception. That means if it's shaping a consistent perception, you can't say the same thing six ways.
00:09:19
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You just stepped on your own foot. Okay. You must be consistent. Okay. And it goes beyond that. You must use language that transfers energy. If you don't transfer energy and people go, oh, that's nice, you lose. They lose. The world loses.
00:09:36
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But if you say, our expertise is, or we're known for, or we specialize in, and you say something and they go, whoa, whoa, you've transferred energy.
00:09:47
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Branding is a steps. It's a process. And just like any process, building a building, ah laying a pipeline to a jungle, ah you know, creating a new book, if you leave steps out, it's not going to come out well.
00:10:04
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You must do all the steps, but people don't, A, think of branding as steps. They don't know the steps. They don't, you know, nobody's ever trained them in the steps. But literally, that's that's why I'm writing the book, The Impact-Driven Branding, seven steps to ensure your brand impacts people's lives and the world. It says, look, here, take this, use it, do all of these. Okay.
00:10:30
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And when you do them and nothing's left out, it works. Why does it work? It works because you start with your heart, what you clearly see and doing. And all you're doing is accelerating yourself, your brand, your work, your calling to the impacts.
00:10:48
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And Michael, you talk about, you know, don't think about the money. You'll get to the money faster. If you accelerate your impacts, you'll you're going to accelerate your path to the money.
00:10:59
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But the focus is on the impacts, not on the money. Okay? Yes. You mentioned the seven steps there. What are the seven steps? They all have a name.
00:11:10
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The easiest way to explain that is the first two I already mentioned. You close your eyes and picture everything working. When you're thriving, everything is working. You write a book, it changes people's lives. You have a weekend retreat. People flock there. You make a lot money. You you you get no, everything's working.
00:11:29
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What are you doing? You write down what you're doing, what you clearly see yourself doing that you would love doing. You don't write down the things you think you have to do. You write down the things you see yourself doing and really enjoying what you're doing.
00:11:42
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while you're making those impacts. And the second
Accelerating Branding Success
00:11:44
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step is asking your heart, heart, hand me a person, a type of person, a type of target audience. Maybe it's a company, maybe maybe it's an industry, but usually it starts with people, a person or a couple that you clearly see impacting and really want to impact.
00:12:00
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You do that two or three times. You don't have to do, you could have lots of target audiences, but you don't have to do a lot. You you do it maybe two or three times. Okay. And write down the impact, the levels of impacts.
00:12:14
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gives That makes the clarity into the brand. It's amazing. Right. If we just list off the seven steps, and then we'll talk about one or two of them more specifically. The seven steps, there's the one of the visioning of picturing everything working.
00:12:28
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then there's the who are you actually going to impact with the thing that you do and make their life better. That's two. What are the other five? Just one, two, three, four, five. The third step, think the number three. Think of triangle. It is literally defining the brands in three dimensions.
00:12:48
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One is your milestones that you see the brand achieving. One is characteristics that you must become... and get known for and third is who gets what it's statements of competence who gets what from the brand's very very target audience focus so that three-dimensional triangle is step three step four is actually the characteristics and the ways in which you must become them
00:13:22
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Literally, if you write down the, describe the target that you have in the and the levels of impacts for each of those impacts, the question can be asked, what characteristic must the brand become and get credit for to make that impact on that target audience?
00:13:42
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Those explanations, those sentences that are very clear, which talk about the aspects of the ways in which the brand must be those characteristics.
00:13:53
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If you must become an empathetic listener, and you probably already are, but if you must be known, get credit for empathetic listening in order to make the impact or being technology-centric or being a ability ah projecting results,
00:14:11
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If there are certain things that you must become and get credit for, credit turns into marketing. Prioritizing what you must get credit for literally sets you so up to make sure your marketing, which is outreach to to reach the target audience, gets you credit more quickly because the question was in order to make your impacts, it speeds everything up.
00:14:38
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So it's, it's not like, Ooh, that's a good word. Let's use that. And that's what people think about our brain. Oh, you know what? That's such a great headline. It's backwards. Yes. forwards done right is focusing on the impacts and then unwrapping it in a step-by-step process so that there is no way it can't work.
00:15:02
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It's no way it can't be aligned and get you to your impacts faster. So step four is the all the characteristic words and the aspects of them. Step five is categories of expertise.
00:15:17
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So imagine if I said, hey, in order to be, you know, this, to reach that picture of everything is working, ah you're going to need these expertises. And we write them all down. And then we ask, what's the first area that you need to get credit for to speed the process. And so we create columns, you like, well, let's put these over in column one, cause they all kind of the same. And now we get to craft, how do we say it
00:15:49
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I'm give you an example. gentleman comes to me and says, you know, I lost my wife from a disease. I started redoing my health. I started training on things like brain training, you know, how to strengthen your brain and and and and how to change your health. And then I trained on mushrooms and trained on some alternative medical modalities, things that are all natural and not pharmaceutical. And I did all the, and it's like, wow, who is this guy and what does he really do?
00:16:18
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His number one category of expertise that he had to get known for first became, and I'll do it in the way we test it, the man speaking at the Higher Level Body Conference next year is an expert at mindful longevity, experiencing a younger brain as you age.
00:16:42
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interesting That statement is a crafted statement that transfers energy. It has an intangible brand promise. Younger brand as you age. Oh my God, I want that. What is that?
00:16:53
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When you do it that way, Now you have unique language. Wasn't tricky. It's regular English words, unique language that transfers energy and you get credit faster and no one else says
The Role of Content in Brand Recognition
00:17:09
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it that way. And so literally you set yourself apart.
00:17:12
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Doing that is the first step of the foundation of positioning you, your brand, your entity, whatever it is, it's you personally or your company in a way that stands apart.
00:17:26
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That's what's necessary to speed up the attraction to your target audience. So step five is crafting the categories of expertise.
00:17:39
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The brand must be known for first. then second, then third. As you do that, things happen. Like, here's a moment that's common. Oh my gosh, that would be a great book title. right And that one goes in column two because you can't do that book until you get the stories for the book from what you're getting credit for in column one, but then you can put the book put them in the book. And so now it's like, by the time you get to step five, the roadmap of the brand's
00:18:12
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entering, you know, raising the curtain saying, hey, the brand's here and it's here for you on launch day or relaunch And what it does for the next year, two years, three years, 10 years, and where it goes, that roadmap starts to naturally evolve.
00:18:31
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And it might include the creation of assets like a book or a podcast or a signature speech or things that the individual wants to do, will really enjoy doing, and will successfully move the brand strategically in the direction that it gets to go and knows it wants to go.
00:18:55
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think Step six is is the, once you have a category of expertise crafted, Then you got to get credit for it. And the way you get credit for the expertise is content.
00:19:10
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So step six is, is creating titles and subtitles of content that, to get credit for the categories of expertise.
00:19:23
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So brainstorming of topics, for example, the younger brain as you age, you know ah how long does it take? Can anyone do it?
00:19:33
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Am I too young? Am I too old? ah Does it require so taking certain food? well All these questions come to mind when you hear the category of expertise.
00:19:44
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Every one of them can be baked into a title and subtitle of content. with a hook, start with this first step to pull people into the content so that it gets the brand credit for what's at the top of the column, which is the category of expertise.
Crafting Unique Brand Positioning
00:20:01
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So steps five and six work beautifully together. And frankly, it gives titles and subtitles of content for the brand could use it for years. I mean, three, four, five years or longer.
00:20:15
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Every one of those titles and subtitles think could be used for 20 different kinds of content. And step seven is the marketing readiness checklist. There are seven areas.
00:20:26
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or is Are they complete? Are they prioritized? um Have they been done? Are they thorough? And they include competitor assessment. You have to craft a competitive positioning statement.
00:20:41
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That's at the end of step seven. But you cannot do that unless you look at what you're up against. Competitive positioning statements are comparative.
00:20:54
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So you have to search as if you're looking for your brand. You're looking for your results and find out what it shows up. Internet's worldwide. so And if you find a search that really is fruitful, then you do it locally, regionally.
00:21:11
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like you're doing business in the United States and you you search on a particular kind of result and it seems pretty fruitful, then you run the search again in New York and Los Angeles and Denver and, you know, and and Seattle and Akron, Ohio, you know, to see what's out there, who positions themselves, what they're claiming to do.
00:21:33
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And because your positioning statement, needs to set you apart. And we've just defined all the aspects of you and what you need to get credit for.
00:21:44
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Now we get to craft a positioning statement that is unique and defensible, but nobody can take it away. The way you do that, and you might think, oh, shit, that sounds like a lot of work. Yeah, well, hey, life's a lot of work.
00:22:00
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Branding done right absolutely requires competitive, comparative, positioning statements because you have to stand apart. If you don't, if you sound like everybody else or you're using somebody else's lines, like, yeah that sorry, that doesn't work.
00:22:19
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Positioning needs to be unique and defensible. So, look, yeah you know, you you got you got me started on this. Normally I don't go into this kind of detail, but by the time you've done step seven, you're also – writing messaging hierarchy. It's the very final step. You've named the brand.
00:22:37
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You've named the umbrella brand, which is the brand that that reflects your highest level impacts. So you thought you were a doctor that reduces stress in people's lives.
00:22:49
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And you come out of brand Accelerator Mastery, and now you're the founder of the Institute of Life Mastery, teaching children the language and process of life mastery for generations. Where did that come from? That was one of our clients about three years ago. He came as a stress stress reducer, anger doctor for 40 years, 20 And now his umbrella brand has him founding an institute teaching children life mastery, which begins with emotions mastery.
00:23:21
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It's like there's always an umbrella. So by the time you're finished up seven, you're not only sharpened your business so that it's more effective and more successful and attracts your target audiences faster because you've done the steps correctly, but you've answered the question, what's the umbrella?
Aligning Branding with Personal Purpose
00:23:43
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You see, branding done right like this creates more success in the business and in the work, but it also creates a platform that makes it much easier to step into why,
00:23:58
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we're really here. And all of us were born perfect children of God with unlimited power. We gave it away. Someone took it away. Maybe we got it back, whatever, whatever. But we also have gifts.
00:24:12
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And every one of us has the opportunity to make the most significant impacts using the gifts we've been given or not. And when you do it this way, you not only are more successful in your work, which might be your vehicle, but not your purpose, but you set yourself up to answer the question, what's that umbrella? What's my highest level impacts that I'm made?
00:24:35
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It all comes down to really understanding yourself, doesn't it? If you can understand yourself and you can understand what your gifts are and your talents, Yeah. When you begin with yourself, but that's why the impacts are so marvelous because look, maybe we create our own desire for impacts, but my opinion is that's the hand of God. When there's impacts that we really want to make, I think that's our creator's way of telling us that has a lot to do with why we're here.
00:25:07
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Very interesting. the More information about impact driven marketing in your book. It's been really very interesting, you know, Rich. It makes you think. It really makes you think.
00:25:19
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And I appreciate that. Well, we get a chance to, you know. People misperceive what, you know, they um we're I mean, I was raised in the United States, and and our education system and our business system makes business sound like it's all about money.
Cultural Shift from Profit to Impact
00:25:39
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but But what if it's about impact? What if the reason we're here is to share love and praise God and everything else is man-made? If we don't get the love part right and the praise God part right, we got to go back to the love part and start again.
00:25:54
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All of us, you share love by having by doing what you're doing right now. I share love by helping, guiding people on on a clear path to stepping into their purpose. Other people share love by coaching or by writing books or by poetry or by music or by by leading companies with vision.
00:26:12
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yes People share love in different ways. We've been given different skill sets. Very much so. I think you're probably right. Back in the 20th century, when you can remember films like Wall Street, where it was Show Me the...
00:26:26
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we done I cannot remember the name of the Tom Cruise film now, but where the expression, show me. the Jerry Maguire. Jerry Maguire. Tom Cruise film.
00:26:36
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and Ray Maguire. Wall Street had that great line, lunch is for wimps. I'm really sitting there going, you want to go to lunch? Lunch is for wimps. Precisely. You're talking about a time when people were more interested in the money,
00:26:51
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than actually in the value that they were adding into their clients and their own organizations. We have seen a cultural shift and it's really probably that now people are more interested in the value.
00:27:04
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And so all of the work that you're doing is very timely and I do appreciate you talking about it with me today. It's been very interesting and I do thank you your time. Michael, you mentioned before that everyone seems to be on their own. You didn't use the words, but you used the thought, their own path of enlightenment. And as they get older, you know, they've been on the path longer. and and the enlightenment maybe starts to come, you know.
00:27:31
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And so, you know, maybe it's a cultural shift or maybe it's just the aging of a generation that finally is, you know, stepping into realizing they get to do this once and what's it really for?
00:27:46
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So yeah, we all get to i'll get to ask ourselves, you know, what is it all about? What's it all about? and what What are we leaving that's more valuable than we you know than we, you know, that makes the world a better place before we leave it?
00:28:00
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Yeah, great. Thank you very much. Or sharing love in a way that imbues value into other people or lightens their burdens or clears their hurdles, yeah. Brilliant. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida, and I have been having a conversation with Rich Kozak, the founder of Rich Brands and Impact Driven
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:28:21
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Publishing.
00:28:21
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You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. I am sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Rich and I have enjoyed making it.
00:28:33
Speaker
So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You'll probably want to share the link with your friends and family as well.
00:28:45
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.