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[00:00:00] Dave Polykoff: Welcome to another episode of personal brand blueprint. I'm Dave Poliakoff, CEO and co founder of Zen post. com, your branding and content partner, helping you become the best known and go to expert in your industry. If you're struggling with. Finding the right messaging that resonates with your audience and creating consistent content around that messaging, then check out Zen post.
[00:00:21] com to learn more about our monthly done for you branding and content services, where we will craft your brand messaging and create monthly content around that to attract, convince, and convert your Your ideal client online on today's episode, we have Garrett daily CEO and co founder of lucid consulting today.
[00:00:40] We're chatting with Garrett about how to the importance of keeping your content and messaging consistent and brand message to help us grow and monetize our personal brands. So Garrett, welcome to the show
[00:00:51] Garrett Dailey: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:53] Dave Polykoff: for sure. So let's start off with just getting an idea of who you are and what you do. So let's, let's ask [00:01:00] the dreaded question of what do you do?
[00:01:03] Garrett Dailey: Yeah. Um, it's hard to grow your brand when you don't know how to talk about it. My company lucid helps you talk about your brand with clarity so you can close more deals. Um, what that means in practice. A lot of what we do is, uh, pitch decks, sales, collateral, uh, messaging, branding, uh, stuff like that. We typically, we focus on more, um, technical sorts of subjects.
[00:01:27] So a lot of deep tech founders. A lot of, um, hard tech, um, emerging industries, crypto, quantum, stuff like that. Um, but really that all stems from, uh, being able to simplify down and communicate the value of, uh, sometimes more abstract stuff. And that really, for me, came from my background in, uh, writing philosophy.
[00:01:52] I wrote philosophy for a really long time. And Trying to explain, uh, abstract philosophy like [00:02:00] metaphysics or epistemology is like very similar somehow to explaining, um, how quantum algorithms work or how, what, you know, what the blockchain does and, um, it just kind of naturally segued from that, um, into working on pitches, working on messaging for brands, um, because there's not a lot else to do with that skill of explaining complicated stuff.
[00:02:24] And the most useful place to put that is in helping people tell their story.
[00:02:29] Dave Polykoff: Sure. So who would you say then is like. The ideal person who would get the most value. From working with someone like you.
[00:02:36] Garrett Dailey: Uh, typically they're going to be a, um, technical founder or co founder of some sort. Um, usually they have a background in engineering, um, but they can be, you know, doing physical stuff as well. Um, you know, one of our, uh, clients is a guy who has a company that, uh, makes oil and gas wells, zero methane and self powered.
[00:02:59] So while [00:03:00] he's not, uh, he doesn't have an engineering background, that still is a similar kind of thing that requires a lot of, um, simplifying. Um, but usually, yeah, it's, it's going to be people on the technical side. And I find that we spent a lot of time in, uh, a lot of time focused on people doing really straightforward stuff like B, uh, B2C So if you ever notice when, um, anyone gives you an example of like great marketing stories from history, thanks. like 99 out of 100 times some B2C thing like Apple, Nike, Sony, whatever. Um, and people rarely focus on the B2B founders who typically, you know, when you're solving business problems, a lot of times those are more complicated.
[00:03:42] So I think there's, uh, I think there's a lot of alpha that's undiscovered in helping B2B founders communicate better, build their personal brands, because actually the most interesting problems that you solve are on the B2B. side And I think they're more applicable than, you know, Oh, [00:04:00] here's what Apple did with their 400 million ad budget to salt.
[00:04:04] Like that doesn't apply to normal people, you know?
[00:04:08] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. I love that idea of when we think about marketing, we typically think of like the products we use every day, but then some of the more complicated, uh, tools and softwares of the world that keep the world running on a daily basis that no one could really explain easily. Um, that's, that's the real challenge for marketing.
[00:04:30] Um, so what's typically the problem with those companies? Have they, have they tried to simplify their messaging in the past? Like, why are they coming to you at that time? What, what are they going through at that time? That makes sense for them to finally reach out to you.
[00:04:45] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, so usually our clients are somewhere between seed and series A. Uh, the way that I usually explain this, like if you're, um, if you have a fundraising, people give you pre seed based on you, the person. [00:05:00] Um, they give you seed money based on the idea they give you series A based on, um, I wanna say traction.
[00:05:06] And then everything after that is a lot about like, finances and like very, it's very much like are you growing at the rate you're supposed to be growing or not for us to give you more money. So if you're in that super early stage and you have a problem fundraising, like you're, nobody expects a pre-seed company to have a well articulated concept at that point.
[00:05:24] Um, it's, it's better if it is, but they're really investing in you, the person. But when you're in that seed series, a stage, it's a lot about explaining it simply because they're really looking at, is this a good idea? Is this seem like this is a worthwhile thing to invest in? Um, so what people tend to run into is because most of the time you have what I would call sales co founder, who's usually your CEO.
[00:05:51] Um, sales co founder is usually somebody that's really good at explaining stuff. But sometimes if you have a super technical company, so like one of our [00:06:00] clients, BQP, uh, their sales co founder is also an engineer, right? He, he's actually a good salesman, but, um, he's an engineer, right? And so what the real problem that we're solving is what we call the engineer's fallacy, which is, um, if I keep explaining it, then people will buy it, which is not how people buy things, um, come to find out.
[00:06:23] So, um, That, um, what makes people buy stuff is really communicating that you solve a problem that is causing them pain. Um, and you do this in a way that's like financially viable. So you think like negotiating is around, is this financially viable, like setting the price. But, um, when you explain how it works, what you do is you start engaging the rational mind, which is up here.
[00:06:46] Um, the rational mind is much, much younger than the, uh, monkey and lizard parts of the brain. And it does not get a say when you make decisions. We almost never make rational decisions. [00:07:00] Um, which is a weird thing to think about. Really, we make emotional and authority based decisions. Right? So, to move away from this is how it works, here's a technical brief that's like 400 pages long about, you know, biomechanics of something, to, hey, you, you have a problem, That I have authority and experience to help you solve, right?
[00:07:24] Then people are like, oh my god, where do I sign up? So, I, I think that's a big thing. It's just moving away, like, the, the founders and, and people we work with are in love with what they're doing. And that blinds them to the fact that their baby is often ugly. And that's not the best way to, uh, to sell your baby.
[00:07:43] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. That's the, uh, the difficult part about being a builder is that you do fall in love with your baby a little bit too much. And then there's that issue of, okay, I've built it. That means people will come, but 99 times out of a hundred, that's not the case. You need to understand how to [00:08:00] then promote it and market it and speak to your target target market.
[00:08:04] So it sounds like you've had a really, you have a really great understanding of brand messaging, being able to conceptualize a concept down to its core emotional elements. Give us the origin story of like, how did you learn all this? What's the, what's the origin story of you being able to come and become this, uh, you know, this branding expert.
[00:08:25] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, let's see. So, I'll, uh, go super fast because I've, uh, Before I was even doing startups, I think I had like 20 jobs or something, so. Um, so I was a kid that grew up not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. And people always ask, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I never had a good answer for that.
[00:08:40] So I tried a lot of stuff out, really never had anything stick. Um, I was two years late to go to college, and I was only there for three semesters. I really hated it, but it was the only way to get out of my small town in rural North Carolina. Um, after, you know, I had had a, um, two sales jobs before that.
[00:08:58] And when I [00:09:00] was dropping out of school, a guy I used to sell hair straighteners and mall kiosk with hit me up and said, Hey, do you want to start a business? We're going to do it. And I was like, okay, cool. I have nothing else going for me right now. So, uh, so we spent a year doing a valet trash, uh, for multifamily housing company called freedom way waste valet.
[00:09:16] Um, I had no idea what we were doing at that point. I had no experience, but honestly we did pretty good. I think, um, we never closed any deals, But three years after we quit, someone that we had been targeting hit us up, and that, if we had signed said contract, that would have been like a 700, 000 contract or something like that.
[00:09:35] So, lessons I learned from that was A, do something you're passionate about, which is not valet trash. And B, uh, the next time I do something seriously, just stick with it, because if we had been able to hold out for three years, we would have had, you know, over a half a million dollar company. So, From there, um, me and my co founder at the time moved out west.
[00:09:55] Um, we then had a falling out. So I was in Colorado working in a microchip [00:10:00] factory. Um, the guy who's training me there was like, Hey, just go to, uh, go to the Tesla factory in Reno. It's better. And it's not full of like people who are 60. I was like, okay, fair enough. So applied, went out there. The only way I got the job, but the only way I could live there, because I was making so little money, was to, uh, take my last 200 bucks.
[00:10:19] Uh, buy a tent and a sleeping bag and sleep in the desert outside the Tesla factory for like a month before my first check hit. Um, so I did that and my job at Tesla honestly was very boring. I loved working there but it was horribly dull. And so I pretty much had time because my job was very slow to like tweet all day.
[00:10:37] And on the weekends, because we worked a staggered schedule, I had three days on, four days off, four days on, three days off, right? Um, I would just write all the time. And so I was running this small like media company. Uh, and through there, we actually wrote a book with a couple of people and put on like a 32 speaker, uh, digital conference and that kind of blew up right around COVID time.
[00:10:59] [00:11:00] Um, I had moved back to Raleigh at this point, and while I was there, I ended up getting a job as, uh, what became director of ops for a boutique design firm there. So I, you know, I had been doing graphic design since I was in high school. And for all of the companies I worked at, I did all our branding and stuff.
[00:11:15] And, uh, So that was the thing that really transformed me from being like, I'm a mediocre freelance graphic designer to like, I'm pretty good at this. And by the end of it, I was doing like, you know, running 10 accounts and I was hiring and training designers and managing client stuff. And while I was there, nobody could ever figure out how to sell except for the founder.
[00:11:33] But I figured it out and I really didn't like working there very much because the founders, uh, not the most ethical person in the world. So I started my own agency, uh, Ion Enterprises. And basically had the idea of like, okay, I'm going to try and combine like philosophy with branding and do that. So I did that for three years.
[00:11:52] Midway through there, I was also chief of staff for a crypto startup called idea market. And I was raising for my own startup called [00:12:00] gravity, which is a web two and a half social media platform. Um, when I was at idea market, that was the first time I worked on a deck. So we raised 600 K. Um, and I was like, Ooh, I'm pretty good at this.
[00:12:10] You know? Uh, when we went and did, uh, Gravity, we got, uh, an offer on our fifth pitch. It wasn't a good offer, and around this time the market, this is like mid 2022, so the market was kind of like shitting the bed. All the VCs had run to the hills, and they left for like a year and a half. So, we also, that was when Elon bought Twitter, and that was very relevant, uh, like, relevant to what we were trying to do.
[00:12:31] So it was like, we're probably, I don't want to compete with him. Uh, so we wrapped it up. But I realized it was like, okay, I got, I got an offer in five pitches. Like I'm pretty good at pitch decks. Like this is unusual. Um, so I started, I made that a core service for my agency. And then at the beginning of this year, I converted the agency into the consultancy we have today, brought on my co founder, Brian, uh, Brian Schuster.
[00:12:52] And now we've kind of like really honed in on helping people get clarity, making their pitch or their sales or their personal [00:13:00] brand messaging a lot simpler. Um, and here we are.
[00:13:05] Dave Polykoff: So it sounds like you have a, a deep. ingrained branding and messaging element to that story and specifically your involvement in even being in companies and doing the work for your own companies to, uh, to, to raise capital for your own companies. But on that journey, what was kind of the number one thing that you think helped grow your personal brand to help people?
[00:13:32] Know that you were the go to person for branding and, um, you know, pitch deck creation.
[00:13:38] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, I think, um, almost all of my work until more recently because I've, uh, started networking more has come through referrals. And I think specifically, um, there's somewhere, something about the number of times that I've done this thing [00:14:00] made me a lot better at it than other people. Cause like most people have, you know, most people are working on their first startup.
[00:14:06] You know, if anyone's working on a startup, it's their first one, right? Statistically, most people haven't done it a, you know, a dozen times. And having worked in so many weird businesses, um, you know, I was a roofing inspector for three days. One time I, you know, just like I've done crazy weird stuff, having worked in so many places and seen so many different like management styles, like types of industries, all kinds of stuff.
[00:14:29] You start to see these commonalities that I think you only find from having seen tons of stuff. And I think that kind of amplified in having the agency and the consultancy where I've worked out, you know, with hundreds of people, um, I think being able to see the broader patterns and stuff that comes out of that has made me very, very good at very quickly figuring out like, what's the hook?
[00:14:49] What's the way that we, we make this simple. Um, and it's unfortunate because, you know, like as somebody who's a diehard generalist, um, I, I look at [00:15:00] specialists and envy them because I could never be a specialist, I don't have it in me. But there's a lot of upside to that, when you can sit down and just do one thing for, you know, 40 years, you're the best in the world at it.
[00:15:10] But on the other hand, those are the people that are my clients, and the people that I help, because I got to live this kind of insane, haphazard life, and now I got something out of that that's useful to them, you know.
[00:15:24] Dave Polykoff: Yeah. Now you mentioned there the idea of being able to simplify a message, which is like the core of really what you do, can you kind of walk us through one, what are, when clients are coming to you, what's typically. Their approach to messaging. That is usually the wrong way to do it. What's the things that we should be avoiding when it comes to like our messaging and, and being non specific
[00:15:51] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, the, um, the best, this is something, um, my co founder Brian does a lot of cold outreach, and helps people with [00:16:00] that, So something that we've, uh, kind of made a game out of is whenever you get cold outreach, uh, you can test this yourself. It, most people will say, I, I, I, me, my, I, me, or something like that, right?
[00:16:15] They only talk about themselves. They said, Hey, I was looking at your profile and I thought it was really cool that you did this. So we should do this and you should talk to me. Right? And that's like. No one cares about you. That is the, that's the easiest way to fix it. We all are narcissistic. We, we all want to talk about ourselves.
[00:16:37] Our favorite word is our own name. But when we talk to other people we apply the same logic, we still talk about ourselves. And when you can be selfless in the sense of stop talking about yourself until you have addressed them and their needs, then you're messaging immediately. It's better. So if you notice, when you asked me about me at [00:17:00] the beginning of this, the first thing I said, it's hard to grow your brand when you don't know how to talk about it.
[00:17:05] And so as a really easy takeaway from this, whenever you introduce yourself, the first thing you should talk about should be the person that you're selling to, right? You have to resist the urge because you want to say, I'm Garrett and I do blah, blah, blah. And you have to stop. Like it's very hard to do this.
[00:17:23] It feels wrong because you're so compelled to do it. But I think just getting to a place where all of your messaging is, have you ever struggled with this? Is it hard when you have this problem? Right? And it starts to sound like an infomercial, but then you realize that infomercials work right. And most people's messaging doesn't.
[00:17:40] So, um, that's, that's probably the simplest thing you can fix right now is just stop saying I,
[00:17:51] Dave Polykoff: now you've, you focus mostly on pitch decks. I know you do a lot of other things too, which we'll get to, but pitch decks. The [00:18:00] main goal for that is. To persuade and get people to sign really large checks. So a lot of persuasion needs to go into that. What are some of the key elements that you see that you incorporate into pitch decks that maybe we can think about even if we're not trying to raise money, but maybe we could take and apply to things like video, you know, video sales letters or just our social content.
[00:18:22] Like, what are some of the strategies we can use to persuade?
[00:18:24] Garrett Dailey: yeah. So the, the biggest trick with pitch decks, uh, is. Actually, I think it's very applicable to, let's say you're doing a VSL, right? Um, in a pitch deck that we, we have something that I call slide zero, which is all of the stuff that you say when you're sitting on the title slide waiting to start. And so people think the pitch starts when you move to slide one, but not really.
[00:18:48] So what I typically have clients do is start with a story about yourself. But start from the perspective of a problem that you had. So one of my clients, Taylor Capito, uh, her company is [00:19:00] Generate. Um, this is, she was the client that we discovered this rule together with. But, um, it's a genomic and life science data platform.
[00:19:07] So Taylor starts out her pitch by saying, You know, I was, um, reporting to the CIO at, um, uh, Palo Alto Networks. And while I was working there, I realized I had these serious health problems. I had low energy. I felt really sick. And, I tried everything until I finally took a genetic test and turned out that I had a single gene mutation.
[00:19:30] And I was able to change some basic stuff and immediately improve my quality of life by 100%. Why aren't we doing this? So I looked into it and it turns out that The, um, while the price of genomic sequencing has gone down and the amount of data that we have has gone up, we actually don't know how to deal with any of that data.
[00:19:52] And so our company Generate helps you deal with the massive amounts of genomic data that exists in the world so people can get healthier more simply, [00:20:00] right? And so this is a really, like, I'm going to break that down and explain, like, why that's a really great way to pitch. So the first thing we do is we drop some spiciness on Taylor, which is, Oh, I used to report to the CIO, right?
[00:20:13] This is like big company. Um, but I had a problem and it's a relatable problem. It's a personal problem, not like a universal problem. Um, I figured out how to solve this problem, which makes me a subject matter expert. But in the process I discovered something that people don't necessarily think about.
[00:20:30] Right. And it turns out that, uh, If we could just fix this one thing, it would apply to everyone in the world and solve a lot of people's problems. So what did we just like lay out? We laid out, hey, I have some authority. I have some empathy. Um, I'm solving a problem that many people have. I'm able to do that at scale, which that is the kind of opportunity that VCs really want to hear, right?
[00:20:53] But that is the same kind of pitch. If you were pitching, like, the only difference you would do if you're pitching generate, [00:21:00] uh, to a user, to a customer, and thus the way you would pitch it if you were pitching your personal brand is you would say, and that's why I'm here to help you do genetic testing and manage your genetic data, right?
[00:21:12] Um, so you can see that, that format of basically introducing the problem that the user has, introducing yourself as someone who had this problem and overcame it, and then introducing the solution, right? That really sets people up for success because it empathizes with the person before you introduce yourself.
[00:21:33] You lead yourself in only as someone that knows about the problem, not before that.
[00:21:40] Dave Polykoff: Now you help create branding assets, even beyond pitch decks. And a lot of that, as you mentioned, is like graphic design and visuals as well. What type of role does visuals play into the persuasion element to it? You know, there's when we're creating content, you know, there's [00:22:00] video, text, infographic style of things.
[00:22:03] Like, do you find that one format speaks a certain language better than a different one?
[00:22:10] Garrett Dailey: Uh, all things being equal, video is probably the best. Um, usually you can't, you don't have the luxury of getting to use video in a pitch most of the time. And as a side note, if you're ever doing a PowerPoint, do not put videos in it. They never work. Do not do it. Nothing animated, nothing moving. It is the worst mistake, because then you look like an idiot.
[00:22:30] Um, but, if you're not pitching, if video beats everything. The conversion rate's a lot higher. There's a lot of studies, um, that, that evidence here. Um, but it depends, because it's kind of relative to your audience. So me, as a a person, I almost never watch video. I really hate watching video. I'd much rather read it.
[00:22:48] Um, I'm a weirdo in that regard. Don't use that. That's n equals one. That's just me. Um, but like personally, yeah, I don't want to watch somebody's video series, I want to read the book, you know. Um, and if, [00:23:00] if it's, if I'm trying to learn something for video, I want to put it out in the background and do something else.
[00:23:03] Uh, but I think, you know, the, the role of design is ultimately first creating legitimacy. So, if you, um, let's say you and I both were pitching and I have a terrible template PowerPoint deck and you have this super clean and crisp. This is my first deck, right? We're pitching the same thing. While the content isn't changed, yours immediately puts them at ease, right?
[00:23:31] So you can think about the role of design in creating legitimacy is not raising red flags, like specifically not raising the red flags. Whereas if I go and see somebody pitch a really ugly deck, I've immediately got flags up, and it's harder for me to just engage with the content because I'm like looking at this glaring issue.
[00:23:49] So I was a painter. This is my. Second job, uh, like a house painter. We, uh, were painting on a government base, on an Air Force base in North Carolina. And the trick [00:24:00] was, if the, there's a, like a, I forget what it's called. There's like a main wall in the house, in the living room. If that wall was perfect, when they walked in to do their inspections, they would not look that hard at the rest of the house.
[00:24:12] But if that wall was messed up, you would get absolutely reamed, right? And so that kind of translates into, Don't give them things to ding you on and then it puts them at ease because once you put them you raise the red flag Now they're in defense mode and they don't they're they're not receptive, so Legitimacy is so important, but it's kind of like the prerequisite for getting anything actual done It's not looking legitimate Increases the difficulty by a huge amount.
[00:24:42] It's like wearing a t shirt to a job interview unless it's that kind of job You know the person that It's an investment banker that doesn't wear a suit should make you uncomfortable because they all wear suits, right?
[00:24:54] Dave Polykoff: It's the initial sniff test, which, you know, we're a large advocate for if [00:25:00] you are trying to attract leads on LinkedIn or attract business opportunities on LinkedIn to invest into branding your, your profile, being that that is kind of like your cover sheet on your, um, your investment deck where have somewhat of a branded profile.
[00:25:16] Banner have a legitimate headline, have a featured section show that you've like put energy and time into presenting yourself. That is like your, your suit to the interview, if you will. And with that, you know, investing into a brand identity and then remaining consistent with that, whether it be a visual identity or the messaging behind that.
[00:25:39] I feel like a lot of people struggle, you know, they may, they may craft a really good profile, but then maybe they start a YouTube channel and the branding just falls apart. Can you kind of speak to like the importance of staying on brand and consistency with your brand across multiple channels?
[00:25:56] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, the um What I usually tell clients is [00:26:00] like You can do whatever kind of content you want, but not everyone is good at every kind of content I did in when at the end of my agency I did I did 50 short form videos right vertical TIKTOK style and And it turns out that I just hate short form video like the plague, like it's the worst.
[00:26:19] Um, I am a long form talker. If you noticed listening to this, I ramble a little bit. Uh, and that does not lend itself to short form. So for me, that's torture. Trying to think and like write a script or whatever is just not going to happen. Um, so for me, that's a non starter. However, things like podcasts, which I've done, you know, tons and tons and tons of podcasts over the years, Um, Are way better or like live events.
[00:26:43] So Brian and I do a, uh, like live hour long event once a week on LinkedIn. We've been off for a little bit cause I've been out of the country. But, um, that lends itself a lot more to what I do and thus it can be more authentic because I'm not trying to do something that's a a natural fit. So I [00:27:00] think that's the easiest thing for people is knowing like even writing, you know, someone that wrote about super abstract philosophy, I in two years was able to get like 100, 000 hits on my website.
[00:27:10] And that was about the most, like, the most abstract possible thing you could talk about. So if you're talking about something normal, you can still make an audience in a living writing, or making videos, or making some other form of content, you know, podcasts. So I think, just do the smallest number of things that you can do great at.
[00:27:28] Don't try and be on every platform, you don't have to do everything. But only do things that you can do very well. And even if it's not good when you start, it should be fun enough that you're willing to do it For a long time. So like with a podcast, um, you know, cause we had a podcasting company said like the number of people I've seen start podcasts is crazy.
[00:27:46] The rule that I discovered is if you can get through 20 episodes, then you can figure out what the format of the podcast is, but most people will not make it to 20 episodes, right? So I think giving yourself the [00:28:00] grace to say, Hey, I don't necessarily, it doesn't have to be perfect when I start. But I'm just gonna keep doing it and it will naturally get better and I'll figure out what my voice is or the way It's supposed to sound It's different I would say to there's like the way to bootstrap this we don't have the patience to do all that stuff is get someone else To do it for you.
[00:28:16] You know, if you have someone like I have a buddy who's a Like what you would call a showrunner in TV But he does this for like a lot of YouTube creators and stuff like that He used to do content for Elliot Hulse. He's a big fitness influencer Um He can do, like, all the research and script writing and pull stuff out of you, right?
[00:28:37] Um, and there's another guy who actually did our headshots, um, who's here in Austin, uh, Rami from Black Ops Agency. Rami, the whole time we, uh, the VSL that's on our website, he was there and pulled that out of us. We didn't walk in with a script, because if I had to sit down and write a VSL, it would take me, like, eight hours.
[00:28:55] I'm a very slow writer. Um, so, um, So finding somebody that can get that out of you, [00:29:00] I think is so valuable because you just most of the time won't have the time or the patience or whatever to do it yourself. You can always do it yourself, but you know, if you have the budget, save yourself the time.
[00:29:12] Dave Polykoff: Uh, trust me, that's a quick plug on Zen posts. That's why we have a do it yourself and And done for you offer. And we see that many people usually go for the done for you just because they've tried to do it yourself and they struggle with that on the topic. Then of messaging as well. I always kind of joke about the number one dreaded question we always get asked is what do you do?
[00:29:35] And it's important to have a solid answer for that. That really. Defines what you do in a way that your audience can understand specifically who you're telling it to. Are there any like tips or tricks that we should be keeping in mind when we're trying to craft our, what do you do response that will help it resonate with the audience where we won't confuse them or ramble on and give too much detail and all that.
[00:29:58] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, the, [00:30:00] um, the best format comes from, um, Donald Miller, who wrote, uh, Building a Story Brand, as well as a lot of other really great books. He's phenomenal. He's the man. Um, he has a format called the One Liner, where you say, basically, uh, problem, uh, problem, pain, solution, benefit, is what we would call it.
[00:30:20] I think he said problem, solution, benefit, but, yeah. Um, so if you notice what I said at the beginning, it's hard to grow your brand when you don't know how to talk about it. Lucid helps you talk about your brand with clarity so you can close more deals. That is, it's hard to grow your brand problem when you don't know how to talk about it.
[00:30:35] Paying. Lucid helps you talk about your business with clarity or your brand, uh, solution so you can close more deals. Benefit. Right? Um, and that stops you, if you memorize and say exactly that, stops you from rambling. Um, and because you're saying something about the other person before you introduce yourself, they now have a context in their head to understand why they should care about you.
[00:30:57] And I think that immediately sets you up for [00:31:00] success. Uh, I think I got like five times more leads after I got the one liner that is our, our normal one is, um, slightly different. I say business instead of brand, but I was trying to, you know, uh, adjust it to the audience and that's something you can do depending on your ICPs is use different one liners.
[00:31:19] But I got, that was, that, that one liner actually led to the development of Lucid because I realized that I had branded my agency wrong and had to re brand when I figured out how to explain it really simply. Right? Um, so I think, yeah, just get it tight. Uh, Uh, Donald Miller has many videos on, online explaining the one liner.
[00:31:39] Um, use his format. I think he's the best. Anything he says, do it. Um, and then, memorize it and only ever say that. And if you notice, if you look at my LinkedIn, if you look at my business cards, if you look on anything, my bio, whatever, they all say some variation of that line. Um, they all [00:32:00] say actually exactly that line.
[00:32:01] I've started playing with different variations of it, um, but really it's just like that works so well because it is their problem and pain and a clear solution to it. Um,
[00:32:16] Dave Polykoff: identifying. The pain the problem early on, you're also helping qualify who you work with so that the person, if they don't resonate with that pain or problem, if they don't have it, they go, Oh, okay. Like that's not for me, but I have a friend who was just talking about how much they were, you know, they had that problem.
[00:32:36] And so, you know, I'm, I'm, I was part of, uh, the BNI network, um, where it's a, you know, business networking initiative. And largely what they, what they teach us is. Speak to the pain that you solve because and then listen for when someone is complaining about that [00:33:00] pain. Maybe it's a friend, colleague, family member.
[00:33:02] And if that should be the trigger for you to go, Oh, you know what? I have someone in my network that solves that exact pain. So the more you speak to the pain that you solve. That's how people, you know, talk and communicate is that everyone's always talking about their pain points. And so if you can use that as kind of like your, uh, your catalyst for people to go, Oh, all right.
[00:33:21] I know the exact person then. Yeah. It's good to incorporate that into your, what you do statement. Um, so for those who are interested in working with you or someone like you, what's important for them to have. In place prior to coming on to an intro call with you.
[00:33:39] Garrett Dailey: um, I think the biggest, well, I, I'm pretty happy to talk to anyone. You know, I, I don't mind half an hour is worth, um, meeting someone new. I don't, I network a lot and I'm happy to talk to whoever, but if you were coming on seriously and you didn't just have like questions you wanted to chat about, um, my ideal kind of set of [00:34:00] circumstances would be, um, you've got some degree of traction.
[00:34:04] You're maybe, uh, maybe you don't have sales yet, but you have like. Uh, LOIs or, you know, like you have established some sort of pipeline and you're in conversations with people. Um, and your primary issue is that you find yourself explaining and you get a lot of people that say, Oh, that sounds cool. And then they never engage with you.
[00:34:27] Or they say, I don't really get it. It's worse if they say they don't get it. People are usually too polite to say that and they'll say, Oh, wow, that's really interesting. Uh huh. And then you just get dead responses, right? So if you find, uh, and whether that's VCs, if that's prospects, uh, if you're, if it's your digital content, whatever, um, you find somebody, um, really just reacting with like dead eyes because you're not explaining things correctly, then I would love to chat.
[00:34:56] That would really precede anything else we would do.[00:35:00]
[00:35:01] Dave Polykoff: And if so, and then did want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to learn more about you and to reach out and have that conversation?
[00:35:10] Garrett Dailey: Yeah, um. There's several ways. So, um, the easiest would be, um, you go to lucid consult dot I N G. That's our website. If you go to lucid consult dot I N G slash G, that's my calendar. Uh, feel free to grab a 30 minute meeting. Um, yeah, more than happy to chat with whatever you're working on. I also have a massive network of service providers.
[00:35:32] So if I can't help you, I probably have someone that can. Um, but I, you know, I, I'm a super, as someone that pitches all day for a living, like. I am a very low pressure salesperson. I don't like, uh, persuading people. If it's not a good fit, you won't enjoy the rest of the process. So I, you will not be sold if you come on a call with me.
[00:35:52] Um, I just don't have the energy to do it. So, um, yeah, no, I, that, that's the easiest way. Other than that, um, you [00:36:00] know, follow me on LinkedIn. Um, we, I haven't been for a little bit cause I've been out of the country, but I will be posting content that talks about stuff like this. And. You know, we do our our weekly office hours where you can come and get your questions answered by at least me and Brian But usually we have a guest as well.
[00:36:14] So different successful entrepreneurs Yeah
[00:36:19] Dave Polykoff: I love it. Well, I appreciate that, Garrett. That's all for today's episode of personal brand blueprint. A big thank you to Garrett for being on today's show and walking us through the importance of staying on brand. And how to simplify our message to learn more about how you can launch, grow, and monetize your personal brand.
[00:36:34] Make sure to subscribe to the personal brand blueprint podcast. Uh, follow me, Dave Polykoff on LinkedIn, as well as Garrett and check out Zen post. com for details on how we can work together directly links to all that will be in the show notes below. Thanks again. And I'll see you on the next episode of the personal brand blueprint podcast.
[00:36:53] Garrett Dailey: Thank you for having me
