B Scar TV Podcast
Hi-Quality conversations with your favorite athletes, entertainers, thought leaders, and cultural tastemakers - hosted by NFL Linebacker Brennan Scarlett.
B Scar TV Podcast
Brand Building: Knowing You and Your Audience | Hi-Quality Quickie
NFL Veteran and Entrepreneur Brennan Scarlett debunks common misconceptions surrounding brand building and delves into the essential elements of creating authentic relationships with your audience.
Join us as we challenge the notion that brand building is solely about flashy logos and catchy slogans. We'll explore the true essence of branding, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, consistency, and relevance in today's dynamic marketplace. We'll also discuss the crucial role of understanding both yourself and your audience in building a successful brand. By gaining insights into your own values, mission, and unique selling proposition, you'll be better equipped to craft a brand identity that truly resonates with your target audience.
Full-length video episodes are available on YouTube.
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Created and Produced by Scarlett Creative.
scarlettcreative.co
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’Til next time... Peace ✌️
Even the things that you don't pick up, that you don't inevitably agree with or get to like or get to find an interest in, the quirks that you feel like are totally off the wall. I have a friend, matt Collins, who puts Skittles in his water or something like that. It's weird, like something I'd never do. It's a high quality quickie by Beast Guard TV, and we're back with another high quality quickie by Beast Guard TV and I am your host, brennan Scarlett, and today we're talking about brand building. Yes, brand building. My work with Scarlett Creative has taken me down, oh boy, it's taken me down a rabbit hole, understanding brand building and development at a much deeper level Thinking about the perception of the public of an individual, of an athlete, of a company, of a team, and thinking about the ways to portray those individuals and or organizations in a way that's most impactful by building a strong, most impactful by building a strong, honest and authentic brand. And one thing that's come up time and time again that I now realize is a mistake is a misconception. A misperception is that brand building starts with the strategy. How am I posting on Instagram? How am I writing my captions or my copy on LinkedIn, or what is my cadence of posting on X? How am I writing my captions or my copy on LinkedIn? What is my cadence of posting on X? What's my website look like? What's my logo look like? What are my colors? What's the look and feel of my brand? All these things super important, no doubt super important. But it doesn't start there. It actually starts with not how the public perceives you and how the public perceives or understands who you are and what you do and why you do it, but rather it's actually you understanding for yourself who you are, what you do, how you do it and, most importantly, why you do it. And you know. If you're an athlete, it's not just understanding who you are on the basketball court or the football field or the soccer pitch. If you're a company, it's not just understanding your product mix, not just understanding your service strategy. If you're a team, it's not just understanding you know who's coming to the games and what your roster looks like. No, it's understanding every aspect of yourself, not just one facet of that. It's not just what you're doing from nine to five. To make it a little bit more broad, it's not just what you're doing from nine to five. It's also what you're doing from five to nine Holistically. Who are you? And it's coming to understand that which gives you the foundation of then building your brand to help the public understand exactly who you are. And what I've come to realize in my research, in my action, in my experience over the past few years, is that building a brand is much like building and fostering a relationship.
Speaker 1:I want you to think back. Think back to your first day of school. Maybe it was kindergarten, maybe it was elementary school, high school, depending on your age here and you know how long it's been, the memory might be a little bit clearer for some of us than others. Maybe it was high school, maybe it was the first day of college, or even, you know, a few little later along. Maybe it was high school, maybe it was, maybe it was the the first day of college. Or even, you know, a few little later along, maybe it's your first day at work.
Speaker 1:Right at your new job, the night before, if you're anything like me, lay your clothes out on the bed, make sure you got the right outfit. Get your shoes you know you try it on, try on the whole fit. Put your shoes on. See, okay, do I like these shoes? I like that, those shoes. You know I a hat guy so I get my hats out. You know I got my options and I land it right, because the next day when you show up to school, you want to make a good first impression. You want that first impression to be, oh, this guy's clean. Well, maybe you don't care, but for me, you know, I was trying to hit those halls shining, styling and profiling Right. And then the next day when you show up to school, you show up to your first day of work, you don't know anybody. There's a lot of classmates or coworkers around you, but you haven't connected with any of them yet.
Speaker 1:Right, you are seeking to begin creating relationships and trying to figure out who in this new space, you will connect with and more often than not, the folks who become your friends, the individuals that you spark up conversations with and ultimately create relationships with, it typically will start because there was some type of common ground. Maybe you guys met on the basketball court. You know you guys were hooping together at recess. Or maybe it was in the library. You know you in there reading the book and your classmate next to you grabs the same book. Or maybe you're at work and you're in the coffee room You're getting a hot cup of joe, and then old Shirley walks in and she gets a hot cup of joe too. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:The point is that common ground right can help to establish a relationship and then the relationship grows from there, typically based on the more that you share right and the more that you are honest about who you are right. It's like there are so many options at school or in the workplace that it really doesn't make sense to try to be anyone outside of who you actually are. And if you met the person that you're dealing with, you met them based on some shared values or shared interests or common ground. If you guys both have the same opinion about the shitty coffee, then there's already been established like hey, we got this connection here, so there's no need for either side to feel like they got to fake it. Did I make it? They already made it. You know, we got a common ground here. Like we're shaking hands, we're drinking this coffee, it's all good.
Speaker 1:But from there as the relationship deepens, it's a byproduct of the more that you guys share. So maybe it started with the coffee, or it started with the harry potter book, or it started with basketball but then it grew into oh you, you guys both love thai food, that pad thai up the street. Have you had that yet? Oh man, that pad see you bussing, right. Or maybe it's from school. It's like did you watch that dragon ball z last night? It's dope, dope, right, it's cool.
Speaker 1:The point is, the more that you share about yourself, the deeper the relationship will grow with whomever you're dealing with. And the beautiful thing is that, whoever you're creating that relationship with, they actually don't need to agree or like all of the same things that you believe in or the things that you like. It doesn't have to be the same. When you think about some of your best friends, like, yes, there are the similarities, you know, you guys both like coffee and you love that pad thai up the street, you know. Or you hoop and you watch Dragon Ball Z, like, there are the similarities, right, like you know, that's what makes relationships happen. It's typically it's that common ground in the beginning. Maybe your personalities they just, they just mesh, right, but at the same time, the differences are there too.
Speaker 1:Inevitably no one is 100 percent the same, right, and you think about some of your best friends over the years, they actually might be very different than you in some aspects. They actually might be very different than you in some aspects, you know, maybe you know at their house their family eats dinner around in the TV room. Maybe your family, if it was like mine, eats at the dinner table and pops tells them to shut off the TV. Like you don't need to agree with each other every time, like you don't need to agree with each other every time. But those quirks about your friend actually make you appreciate them more and in some cases you might actually be influenced by the things that that friend introduced you to. Maybe it was a new genre of music, maybe it was jazz.
Speaker 1:Before you met Shirley you didn't know anything about jazz. But then Shirley put you on to some Miles Davis or some Duke Ellington or some Coltrane Check out in a sentimental mood if you haven't. Or maybe it was a song, maybe it's a song that that Shirley put you on to, and every time you listen to it now it reminds you of her or whoever your friend is. You didn't have those things before you had that relationship and before there was that difference of opinion or taste or interest or passion or what have you. But because the relationship was established. It allowed you to be influenced, to listen and to be open about the things that your friend is into, about the person that you're building a relationship with, and to go even deeper.
Speaker 1:It maybe is the case that even the things that you don't pick up, that you don't inevitably agree with or get to like or get to find an interest in, the quirks that you feel like are totally off the wall. I have a friend, matt Collins, who puts Skittles in his water. What. Something like that is weird, like something I'd never do, but I actually like I appreciate Mac more because of that quirk, like I'll always think of that, and so that's something about Mac that's unique to him. We appreciate people for their quirks, for their uniqueness and actually the willingness for a person to share those things that might make them a little bit different and make them unique or might express a difference of opinion or belief or interest. Those things have the potential to deepen. A relationship has been forged and common ground has been shared, has been an expression of shared interests or hobbies or passions or aligned values, come to agree. Like I like this person and this person likes me, we're we're friends. Once that is established, the more that you discover about that person and the more that person discovers about you, the deeper the connection grows. That's actually how I think about brand development.
Speaker 1:Your brand, in essence, is your relationship with your audience. Whether you're an athlete, whether you're a professional sports team, whether you're a Fortune 500 company, whether you're a professional sports team, whether you're a Fortune 500 company, what you do, how you do it, who you are at your core and how it's, and how that is presented to the world, is a dialogue. It's a constant dialogue between your family and friends, between your fans or between your consumers or your customer base. And sharing who you are outside of your main thing right, sharing the other areas of interest, your other points of view that maybe have nothing to do with your main thing, and showing up as yourself consistently. These are the things that help to potentially deepen the connection that your audience might have with you. And, let's be honest, not everyone will love you for it. But that's okay. You know, just like at school there's other classmates. Just like at work, you got other coworkers. It's a big world out there, johnny. It's a big world.
Speaker 1:If you're an athlete, not everyone will care about where you went shopping to put that tunnel fit from last night's game that you strutted in and pregame. Not every fan is going to care. Not every fan is going to care that you've been nurturing a Monstera plant in your living room and it's got some great new growth and that you've been it's been a relationship that you've created over the last six years. Not everybody's going to care about that, but some will. If you're a women's soccer team, not every fan will care that you're on Kendrick's side. There actually might be some Drizzy fans that actually dislike that opinion, and fans also might not care about that community service project that some of your athletes were at. Or they might not care about one of your athletes painting in her off time. But that's okay. Just like in the coffee break room, every person that you talk to is going to be like Shirley. Not everybody's going to strike a chord with you. It's probably a minor. Not every relationship is meant to be or is meant to last forever. But the ones who matter, they'll hear you and they'll listen and they'll appreciate that you've shared this additional facet of yourself, this additional aspect of yourself or your team or your company, and in return they might share back their agreement they might share back that you've actually turned them on to this new thing or not, but either way, the best case scenario is that they'll appreciate you and they'll follow you even closer than they did before. And so, before you get down to building your brand strategy right, your marketing strategy, developing what that personal brand is going to be, is so important, so important that you come to understand yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to keep the quickies quick, so I'm going to wrap it on this one. About twice a year, I do a personal self-assessment test. I wouldn't even call it a test. I just, you know, kind of outline who I am, how I am and why I am, just to keep a finger on the pulse of myself, because you know, over time we change and I want to ensure that whatever that pulse is, that it's in synchrony with how I am presenting myself to the world. On our next high quality quickie, I plan to dig in to this self-assessment, but I'm going to get into that next time.
Speaker 1:Personally, I think Kendrick did his thing. Slaughterhouse, it's a rap. Don't even respond to the hard part six. I think that he did a great job and I'm a Drake fan, but salute K-Dot lyrical mastery. Till next time, y'all Peace. This episode of Beast Guard TV has been brought to you by Scarlet Creative. For the full length video episode and more content, find us on Instagram, youtube and TikTok at Beast Guard TV, and please leave us a review. Drop a comment. What do you want to see? What do you want to hear? Who do you want to hear from? We would love to hear from you. This is your host, with the most Brennan Scarlett signing off Peace.