this is why we are here

Summary

branding isn’t logos and mission statements. branding is making it mean something. let me tell you what made that obvious to me.

1. I was at a meeting for my son’s soccer team. parents arguing over which kid got jersey number 10. apparently number 10 is the prestige number in soccer. I didn’t know that. I don’t really care. but the parents were genuinely fighting over it.

2. I talked with Graham, my son, after. you’re number 2. you go make number 2 mean something. when you step on the field, you play in a way that other teams remember number 2 specifically. so the next time they line up against you they go “cover number 2, he ate our lunch last time.” that’s the only thing that matters.

3. that’s how to think about a business. if your company vanished tomorrow, the marketplace would replace you in an instant. 10,000 people would step into the void. that’s true for everyone, including me. accept it. and then make your company mean something anyway. logo, name, mission, all of it. you make them mean something through the work, not the brand book.

4. a few years ago I sold a leather patch with E03 stamped on it. my dad makes them. USA sourced. when I launched it I had no idea how many we’d sell. we sold hundreds in minutes. it’s a brown leather patch with three characters on it. I had spent a decade making those three characters mean something to people, and they wanted in.

5. so logo and color palette aren’t where branding lives. branding lives in whether your actions match your words 100% of the time. the soft side is the hard side. money side matters and people should be well compensated for building better humans. but if you wake up and aren’t fired up about what you’re doing, this is what should fire you up. you get to make this mean something to your family, your team, every customer, and yourself. that’s why we’re here. try harder.

Transcript

the soccer jersey number 10

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. Welcome to the Better Human Business Podcast. I am Jerred Moon and today we are talking about branding and why it’s important. So I’m going to start with a story. This happened last week. I was at a meeting for my son’s soccer team.

He’s on a select soccer team and all the parents and the coaches meet occasionally, talk about things, talk about the new season, tournaments, those kind of things. And we got some new kids on the team and what they were doing was picking out numbers, right? Pretty standard thing on a team. What number do you want?

What number? What numbers do you want if your number is not available? All that kind of stuff. My son’s already on the team, so he already has the numbers. I wasn’t really, I didn’t really care. I didn’t really care about the conversation. They were, they’re all talking about it. And I also don’t know a lot about soccer.

go make number 2 mean something

Okay. So I’m just, I love watching my son play soccer, but until he started playing soccer when he was three years old, I didn’t know nothing about soccer. Now, the last time I had played soccer was when I was probably that same age or five years old or something. So anyway, this conversation comes up about one person wanting number 10 on the soccer team.

And then the coach was like, Oh, I don’t know. We have to reserve number 10. And then some other parents chime in that they want their son to have number 10. And I was like, what? This is weird. What’s going on? I don’t know anything about soccer. You might know who number 10 is. Maybe it’s a person or maybe it’s just a status symbol.

I have no idea. I didn’t even look it up because still, I don’t care. But I thought the idea of these parents fighting over number 10 was weird. It was just unusual to me because why do you care what number your kid is? Like why does that really matter? Because ultimately what it shows in the soccer community is that if you are number 10 and the coach has given you number 10, that really means something and it’s important.

But to me that’s such a wrong mentality because I talked with Graham, my son, about this after the fact and I was like, dude, he’s number two. I was like, you go make number two mean something. That’s why we’re here. I don’t care what number you are. I don’t care if you’re 99, double zero, 11, 2, 10.

the market will replace you instantly

Does not matter. What does matter is that you’re going to step onto the field and you are going to make other teams remember who number two is. So when you play them again, they’re like, oh crap, you better cover number two because you ate our lunch last time. That’s my mentality. Give me whatever number you freaking want.

I will make something of this number. People will want this number when I’m done with it. And that’s my thoughts on branding or how you should run your company. Okay, whatever you’re doing, there are literally a thousand, if not 10,000, if not a million people who will step up and fulfill or fill your void in the marketplace.

If you leave or die tomorrow, the world’s not really going to care that much when we’re talking about in a marketplace standpoint. If you sell workout programs, you sell widgets, you sell service, whatever. If it’s gone tomorrow, the community’s not crying about it. Okay? Someone else will fill that void in an instant and the world will move on, okay?

That’s just the truth. If you think about that too much, it can cheapen your idea about your company. Oh, what I’m doing is not important, just anybody can do it. But that’s where branding comes in. You have to make your company mean something to people. You have to make your logo mean something. You have to make your mission statement mean something.

the e03 leather patch

That is what’s most important. And all we can do when we’re creating businesses is focus on that thing. Getting results for people, being an amazing person, building better humans. So ultimately, when we leave this world, we can say that we left it better than we found it. Because the fact of the matter is, if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably will not be Jeff Bezos, who creates the next Amazon.

All of us, most of us, are just improving on what’s in the existing marketplace. We’re doing it in a more ethical way, like I’ve been trying to do in the fitness space. We’re doing it in a way that means something, that means more than just the service that they’re getting. So people want to come back, and it’s important to them.

But that is where branding comes in. It doesn’t matter what you called your business. It could be Mongoose Grasscutter, and people are like, that’s a weird name. But if you do the best work, you take care of your clients, you take care of your customers, you are meticulous about everything that happens, you have a great service, good price, or maybe it’s the highest price because of how amazing your service is, you make it mean something.

You have to put in that work every day, and I really feel like that’s why we’re actually here. There’s the money side of this. I think everyone should be very well compensated for building better humans in the entrepreneurial space, but ultimately, if you’re struggling to wake up in the morning and get fired up for what you do, this is what should fire you up.

branding is making it mean something

I’m going to go make this thing mean something to other people. It’s going to mean something to my employees. It’s going to mean something to my family. It’s going to mean something to me, and it’s going to mean something to all the customers and people that I impact because that’s all we really have.

That’s branding. That’s what we need to focus on. There’s the money side, but then there’s this side. It’s the soft side, and making sure that everything you do lines up 100% of the time. Whatever you say, it lines up with your actions. That’s so important, and it will get you so far. Now as far as logos and mission statements and all that branding colors, I’m not good with that kind of stuff, but what I do feel like I’m good at is making my brand mean something.

A few years ago, I sold a leather patch that had the letters E03 on it. My dad was making leather patches. Everything was sourced in Texas. My dad was doing it. He was doing USA, all that kind of stuff, but ultimately, who wants a leather patch with E03 on it? When I launched it, I didn’t know how many I would sell.

We sold hundreds of these patches in a few minutes after launching it, and I had no idea. To me, that was the biggest epiphany brand moment I ever had was like, this is just a brown leather patch with an E, an O, and a three on it. I had, over a decade, made that mean something to people, and so they wanted to be a part of it.

I still have to work on making people want to be a part of that thing. I have to stand up for what’s right, for what I believe in, the impact I want to have, and it’s a lot of hard work, but that is what’s most important, and that’s why we’re here. If this does not fire you up to do what you’re doing, then my only suggestion to you is try