How & Why you should go from "Me to We"

Jeffro (00:01.037)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Today, we’re diving into branding with a twist through the lens of athletics, personal values, and leadership. Joining me is Zachary Coleman, a web strategy consultant who works with athletic driven brands through his company, Creative. And no, I did not stutter. That’s how it’s pronounced. Zach has built a personal brand where he shares insights on using personal development principles to shape powerful brands. So we’re going to talk about how service businesses can apply these same principles to build authentic value -driven brands that truly connect with their audience. So Zach, thanks for joining us.

Zach Colman (00:35.648)
Thanks for having me on, I appreciate it.

Jeffro (00:37.891)
Yeah, definitely. I mean, you and I first met at the B2B Marketing Expo in Los Angeles last year. We’ve been trying to coordinate and make this happen. I loved your booth. I loved all the things you were doing with your company. And since then, you’ve given a TEDx talk to further bolster your brand, which is awesome. So just to give the listeners some context, your consultancy focuses on athletic -driven brands, like I mentioned. But the thing that drove you to start Creative in the first place was kind of the lack of customer -centric focus in many companies.

Can you tell us about that a little bit and how that’s kind of guided you?

Zach Colman (01:11.712)
Yeah, feel, you know, as I’ve kind of, you know, I was in the corporate world for, I don’t even remember how long, seven, eight years, moved up the corporate ladder quite fast, jumped up, jumped popped a lot. And, know, when I finally went out on my own, there was this, there was this sense of as companies get bigger, they tend to lose that. You know, personal interaction and that personal community building thing. And that’s really what branding is at its core, right? Is community. And so I just saw a lack of it, you know, and with social media and digital marketing, I saw a trend where a lot of companies were starting to utilize it to transactionally and set it less so than community. And so just the combination of those two things, kind of together made me really push out and kind of say, hey, there has to be a way that we can work with other companies or clients and have that be more of a community centric style environment. And that’s kind of what I thrive for. I think our main vision for the company is we help people find their communities no matter if it a gym, no matter if it’s

you know, just going to get their car redone or they’re going to, you know, go buy an athletic product at a store. Like, you know, it’s trying to find those communities of people where it’s less so like just this, hey, buy our product. And it’s like, hey, you match our values. You come here and you continue to buy our product. We continue to send you products. We continue to have you come in and service us. And our team is the same way.

Right? They’re all kind of culminate. And so I try to really drive the growth of our business and the brands that we work with much more towards like, Hey, let’s try to help build you a community of people that match your values and your vision for what you’re trying to achieve for the company.

Jeffro (03:22.861)
So what about, you know, that sounds nice in theory, and I think for some brands, it’s a little easier to make that mental leap to accept that and put it into practice. What about, you know, a service -based business owner, maybe like a plumber or something? How do you translate that and say, build a community around, you know, plumbing business? How do you translate the personal beliefs and values into the brand to create that stronger connection and community?

Zach Colman (03:47.54)
Yeah, well, I would say first and foremost, I think that a problem that like we’ll say like a plumber, like a small plumber usually has is, know, they usually start off doing it themselves, right? They’re in it. They do the plumbing probably, you know, we’ll just say five years and then they decide, hey, I can do it better. I’m going to go out and do it on my own.

That’s really starting for them to build that personal brand. That’s the perfect opportunity for them to build that personal brand. There will come a time when you get to a point, you know, and I don’t necessarily work with Plumber, so I don’t know the exact numbers, but there will come a time when I went through this, you know, where it’s like, like, I’m doing all the work.

I’m making all the money. have a 40 to 50 % profit margin, but I’m burnt out. need to start delegating and hiring. and you know, 99 % of the time when they first start doing that, they just hire it, which is fine. It’s a figure it out stage. It’s, know, I would say roughly it’s around two 50 to 500 K year mark when they start realizing, Hey, something’s missing here. Something’s going on.

They’re probably still going out and just doing transactional based situations to try to bring in new clients and new things. And there come the time when it’s like, there has to be something more here to grow this business. And there has to be something more that I can do to not have the burnout because I’m still feeling like I’m, you know, not saying doing all the employees work, but

you know, it’s just not working for them. You know, they don’t have a lot of A players in or a lot of, people within the business that have the same vision as them. so long story short, what I’m trying to get out here is for a plumber, for instance, you want to go from a me to a we, right? And so you, you can delegate before you become to a, a we, but there comes a time when vision is really going to take precedence vision and values and 99 % of the time, a brand is a person is really going to be what evolves the business and where the business goes and where you can take that business. mean, a good example of this is, you you have someone who’s a complete not nice person and a person that is a nice person and watch both of them grow a business and you’re going to see one just continue to

not have great retention with employees, not have great retention with clients, probably might do as well. And you have these people over here that are like, hey, we’re hiring people that we value and that value us. And so there comes a time with a mind shift when it starts to be like, this is no longer about me making 40 to 50 % profit margins. I need to start, which is usually called the value death period, which is like, I have to start spending more and bringing more people in.

actually have a very similar vision that I do. And the best way to do that and to find those people is to understand who you are, right? Because if you looked at yourself and you were like, hey, I very much, I, I’ll use me as an example, I very much, drive on, you know, connection. Connection is a huge, a huge value of mine, which I lost, which is a complete different story. But,

You know, that is now one of my values. Personally, I value that connection. And so every time we hire people, I make sure they match that similar value. You know, like how do you connect with clients? How do you connect with other employees? What drives you during the day? Like what helps you, what motivates you? And that really is kind of like a guide. It’s kind of a guide, right? To find those right people. Is there other metrics involved?

Yeah, you’re going to have to focus on personality types and hiring is always a 50 -50 no matter how much onboarding you have. there are guides that you can start building this sense of what the types of people that come into your company. And there’s nothing wrong and there’s nothing right, but guiding them. And so that’s when.

Jeffro (08:22.825)
Mm -hmm.

Zach Colman (08:28.908)
Also, the vision comes into play when it’s like, huh, I’m making 500 K a year, making 50 % profit margins. And we’ll just use the 500 K as an example, because it’s usually a good teetering point within business and on any level where they kind of have to make this shift. or they’re like, wow, like I have to spend more money on marketing and my employees, basically not being cheap. Right. And, you have to have this.

Jeffro (08:56.201)
Mm

Zach Colman (08:58.686)
mentality shift where you realize it’s not about me, it’s about us. And so that vision of where you want to take the company comes into a huge play because now you can start, one, not having that burnout because you have this mentality, but two, you start setting that vision with those people that have similar values as you. And that’s what starts driving the people in the organization to want to further help you develop the brand, the company as a whole. And that’s what goes from a me to a we now going from a we to an us is now customer centric, right? It’s like, all right, how do we take these similar values and how do we display these to our audience? You know, when prospects come to me and they’re like, you know, I’m making a hundred a year. We need to create a logo. I’ll be the first to say, go create a logo right now. You’re only making a hundred year. Like that’s not.

Jeffro (09:35.017)
Mm

Zach Colman (09:56.192)
That’s not what branding is, you know? So you don’t really need it yet because you need to start focusing on you and building that message yourself, leading by example, understanding what that is. And then once you get to a certain point where you focus on the employees and the customers, those values now take frame in external stuff, not just internal. So you’re looking at, you know, really having your, the, colors, the fonts, the location, the experience, all still match that vision and those values that you’re trying to portray. And that’s really branding. I’m not gonna say branding at its core, because there’s so much more to it than that, but really kind of trying to emphasize that message of your vision and your values to your customer. And that will actually start allowing you to be like, how do we market? What do my customers?

but do my customers value because we know our values. know where we know who they are now. Like how do we find them? And so that kind of is what takes them to a, a, a we to an us is you’ll start building that advocacy of customers that are like, man, they created this offer. They created, they, did this plumbing service that really matched around a theme of what I like. And that could be from anything to the way they onboard to the way they do customer.

Jeffro (10:58.822)
Yeah.

Zach Colman (11:19.148)
service to the way they do their digital stuff. And so those are all those 1 % things that you have to think about that actually make a true difference in the growth of a business. But you can’t really get there until you’re at a point where you’re like, hey, like, I know who I am. I know what my message is. And I always like to relay that because I think there’s a taboo in the industry right now where it’s like, personal branding is all about me. It’s all about me and who I am. And it’s like,

Well, yeah, it somewhat is. But that personal brand is just you with the head controlling certain things. And that personal brand will turn into much more of a community brand once you start to emphasize those similar traits. And then you basically keep them consistent amongst your employees and your clients.

Jeffro (12:11.462)
All right, let me jump in here. So, I mean, you covered a lot of things all at once right there. So, let me kind of consolidate and summarize here what I’m hearing. So, if you start out you’re doing all this stuff by yourself, you know, there’s a reason people like you and hire you refer to you, right? You may realize that consciously or not, but once you start getting to that point where you are bringing someone else in, you need to, at that point, be intentional, do some reflecting, figure out, okay, what…

Zach Colman (12:14.762)
I did.

Jeffro (12:39.504)
makes me different. Why do people like me? Is it because I show up on time? Is it because I put on the shoe covers when I come in their house? Is it because I’m not just like, all right, where’s the bathroom? me fix it. Do I talk to them and remember them from last time? Like, yeah, how’s Johnny doing in college? What is it that people like? And then not just hiring, because everybody’s different. They got their different methods and styles, right? Because that first phase that you’re saying, with turning into the we, you’re bringing people in. These are different people. So naturally,

what defined you and what people liked about you is going to get lost unless you articulate that and train your people to value the same things you value. So actually putting it in writing, putting it in your trainings, making checks in your metrics or whatever you do to make sure you’re ensuring quality with customers on your surveys and everything, making sure that stuff is part of that culture that you’re creating. And only then will it bleed out into the us where the people that find you now start hearing that and seeing that that, okay, this company is doing those things. It wasn’t just John anymore. Now it’s his company. And so there’s kind of that tiered approach of being intentional and figuring out this is why I’m different. This is what I like. I only buy high quality parts. You got to figure it out, define it, teach your team, and it will go out from there. Because if you don’t, then like you said, it’s going to be transactional. I’m just going to hire people. They’re to do the tasks and we’re just going to be another company out there doing the same thing as anybody else. We’re going to compete on price and we’re just going to be spinning our wheels.

Zach Colman (14:15.648)
Well, here’s the funny thing you said there, because I was actually going to relate to this. But yes, you’re exactly right. But there’s a part in there you said where we have to teach our employees. I think there’s a huge thing. in our industry, for instance, where companies will come to us and they’ll be like, just develop me a website, just develop me a brand package, whatever it may be.

And I think the problem is, is they’re not leading by example at that point. They’re not putting themselves in a position where they’re like, Hey, I need to learn this enough. Just like I learned plumbing. I’m not, I’m not saying they’re going to do all the branding for their company in the future or all their marketing, but I need to understand it enough that I can teach my team our vision or our values and understand those processes. So anytime we’re working with clients.

That’s it. And you know, goes back to my Ted talk. When it comes out, I’ll send you a link. You can put it down in the description, but, where I talk about how branding helps develop you as a person, because at the end of the day, you’re going to need to figure these things out, and have someone like you are like me help them do that. So they understand it enough so that when they have to evolve or rebrand or make it to the next  a situation that yeah, they could still hire someone else, but they understand themselves enough at that point that it’s a lot, not to say a lot easier, but they’re leading their team. They’re utilizing the projects to actually build better confidence in their team because now their team’s like, man, yeah, this really matches the vision. I like how this is going. I like how this is working. And so, they do, they need to lead by example. And that’s the best way for me to put it with.

anything in their business, especially when they’re smaller and they are wearing multiple hats.

Jeffro (16:16.036)
Yeah. And I’ll give an example too. Like if you don’t take the time to figure this out, then you’re just going to hire somebody. You’re going to, after a while, you’re going be frustrated with them. Like, man, they just, they don’t do it right. they never do XYZ. It’s like, well, did you train them on that? Did you teach them on that? Do they know that’s what you’re looking for? And other, cause if you don’t do that, they’re just going to, they didn’t work out and fire them, find somebody else. And maybe eventually you get lucky and find someone with the same values, but it’s so much easier if you front load that process, figure it out.

stated up front, like this is what we’re looking for, this is what I expect for someone from my team. And then of course, yeah, you can give them feedback and they can live up to those guidelines because now they exist, right? If they don’t exist, how can you expect them to actually follow them?

Zach Colman (17:01.878)
Well, and I think it’s safe to say very similar because we both develop websites for clients. I’ll go through a web development phase. And yeah, we’ll have some templatized, I like to call semi -template things in place already for our clients. But we’ll go through that discovery with them because we want them to know, hey, this is why we are doing this, not just like, hey, like,

we’re going from A to just show me what it looks like and then I’ll approve it or not. No, you need to know why. You need to understand why. If we want to get to the outcome that you want, the only way we can do that is a team. And the only way that we can do that as a team is if we sit down and we go over, this is what the site map is going to look like. This is why the flow is going to be this way or why it’s going to be this way. So they understand it enough that

Now, when those leads are coming in, they can go, aha, like, I know that my leads are somewhat coming from here or they’re coming from here. I think there’s, especially on the marketing. And I think you saw me kind of write a post about this yesterday and you liked it, but it’s the whole concept of, you know, and I think we’ve all had those nightmare clients or those nightmare agencies that we worked with. I always think it’s, you know, a communication issue first and foremost, but no one’s right or no one’s wrong, but it’s usually like.

Hey, bring us 10X leads. That’s what we want. We want you to bring us 100 leads. And the hard part with that is it’s like, well, how do know you can one handle 100 new clients? you have the employees? Do you have enough employees in place? Do you have enough structure? Do you have the retention in place that you can handle those employees? I mean, those clients. And then what usually happens is the campaign goes sour.

because they expect these high results, but at the same time, that due diligence of understanding the vision and the values and the stuff isn’t done first, and it makes everyone’s lives harder.

Jeffro (19:09.773)
Yeah. Well, paying for a high quality business website is kind of a forcing function to go through this process, right? Because if you hire, you know, a freelancer on Fiverr, they’re not going to do this. They’re going to spit out their template and say, have a nice day. Whereas if you hire an experienced agency like this, like I’m sure you’ve got onboarding questions, right? To figure out, okay, who’s their target customer? What are their core services? What do these things care about? And like, that’s so that our writers can understand what we’re putting on this website. We’re not just going to say,

Zach Colman (19:15.936)
Mm -hmm.

Jeffro (19:39.788)
We offer XYZ services. Call us today. No, like you could have done that yourself. If you’re hiring us, like we’re going to force you, we’re going to draw this out of you, right? To make, not just to make you interesting, but to make you compelling so we can understand those values and share them with the world, right? That’s how it’s going to expand the brand and the community.

Zach Colman (19:50.794)
Yeah.

Zach Colman (20:03.158)
Yeah, I think it’s a, I think it’s a funny thing that’s happened because you know, what, what could end up happening is it’s just like, just build me a website and they go in, they build it. The client doesn’t like it. The client wastes the money on the, on the web development agency, go somewhere else, spends more money, goes to the same mistake over and over. They don’t learn from their mistake on vice versa. The agency spending more of the money that they’re bringing in from the company and.

I’ll be the first to say like, yeah, we’re companies. We want the best ROI possible and profit margin on the project we’re giving you because we have to pay our people, right? So there’s this concept of like, why can’t it just be a win -win? Why can’t we just both look at each other and say, hey, you’re gonna get the best solution possible and you’re gonna make our lives easier to give you the results that you want.

If we were a partner and we actually worked this out and figure this out together instead of you.

both sides following those same mistakes of just creating a, creating, you could call it a product if you wanted to. I like to call it a service because it’s more of a service than a product in my mind.

Jeffro (21:22.422)
Yeah, one, and I think it’s important for the business owner to understand the website is an important piece of the marketing puzzle, but it’s not the end all be all. Like once the website’s done, you don’t just walk away and say, all right, now I get all these clients coming in. Like sure, you’ll get some, but you probably want to be optimizing that site for the search engines over time. You probably want to be running campaigns to drive traffic to that page, right? Whether that’s paid ads or networking, going to chamber events, like all of that.

Like you need a place to send people that looks good that’s going to convert those people into prospects and customers, but it’s not all going to happen by itself just because you have a good website now.

Zach Colman (22:00.532)
Yeah, it’s a funny thing because I get so many, I mean, you probably dealt with it too. I mean, at the end of the day, who said that I’ve seen, you know, I’ve had mentors and worked with people that have multimillion dollar brands. And in the service industry, that’s off topic. I’ll talk about that in a sec. But in the service industry itself, you know,

You have this spectrum of clients that want to develop this website and they think it’s all about leads when there’s different types of websites. You know, like there’s different types of companies for a service based industry, for instance. Yeah, you’re going to have this website that’s going to be focused much more probably around local Legion, you know, and the website could take a huge factor into it.

but then you’re going to have possibly a local B2B company where positioning takes it’s much more for positioning. Maybe they’re not bringing in the leads per se, but they’re hiring your position. And so what I’m trying to go after here is a website can have so many different angles. It’s not all about, Hey, let’s just build this website and get lit business from it. It’s like, Hey, how do you position yourself in the market with your website? Show your values, show that stuff so that.

You know, I’m a big component of, of what we, when we focus on our local businesses or is the Google business profiles, right? And I’m a very big component of, your website is actually the last thing we want people to see. You know, I’m a big component on you want it to position yourself in a way. So when people find you on Google.

They look at your Google My Business, your Google Business profile, and your positioning is already there. It already shows your team, your website, your services, and they more likely call you through that. And then the website’s just for those people that are like, I need a little bit more trust. Let me go to their website and see their positioning, right? And then comes the advocacy, you know? And that goes back to my community building aspect. Like, I don’t look at digital marketing as a…

Zach Colman (24:23.296)
I don’t look at digital marketing as a transactional type system. I look at as a community type system. Like reviews are huge. And I teach my clients, for the most part, like, no, you have to send those review requests. Like we want you to send five a day lead by example, get to know your customers, and get them to leave you a review, even possibly throw up an offer in there. If they bring someone, let them be your advocates. Cause then it does two things. It you’re building a community.

And then you’re also allowing the search engines to bring in new clients. And so it’s kind of a win -win overall, but it’s, I look at it as much more of a community type digital marketing campaign, similar with our blog content, right? One of our really large clients who’s less so of a service and much more, well, they’re a service, but they have like, you know, hundreds of locations. We look at our blog content is like, this is a retention play. Like, yeah, you’re going to raise in the ranking. You’re going to bring on new people.

but you’re teaching your existing members the value no matter what location they’re coming from. so utilize your blog from that perspective, because then it’s going to hire your retention rate. You’re going to get people keeping you on top of mind. And then most likely what’s going to happen is you’re still going to get leads from it, but you’re also going to build advocacy. And the part that I love, which is community. A lot of our packages include community building efforts for our service -based businesses alongside the digital marketing, because I’m like,

You need to, you’re, especially if you’re a one man show and you only have one location, you’re let’s say at around a million or under, which I highly recommend you don’t open a second location until you’re at that point. But.

It’s all about community. Like you have enough business in a three mile radius. Stop thinking about the world. I know you want to leave a huge legacy, but start small. Start with your three mile radius.

Jeffro (26:20.555)
Crawl before you can walk, before you can run. Well, I think you’ve given us kind of a great overview of how this works. And I think it’s really helpful for people. So hopefully you guys have been taking notes. Thank you for joining me today, Zach. I love the focus that you have with your business. And I think this has all been a really great reminder for us to get specific, know our target customers, know our values, and articulate those so that we can actually create these brands that are meaningful and that people can connect with.

Zach Colman (26:23.083)
Yeah.

Jeffro (26:48.961)
For those of guys listening, can use the links in the show notes to connect with Zach, go watch his TEDx talk, and I have one last question for you, Zach. What’s one piece of advice you’d like to leave with the service -based business owners in the audience?

Jeffro (27:06.891)
hard to pick just one.

Zach Colman (27:08.18)
I would say, yeah, I would say stop focusing on lead generation and start focusing on sustainability, sustainable lead flow. That’s something that comes a lot harder to do. And I think that it’s also something that’s actually gonna help your business trend forward. And I know that a lot of people don’t know what that means, but it’s much more focus on steady growth.

instead of these one hit wonder things where you’re going to bring in like 50 clients at once. And then, you know, not do it. Yeah. Take the long -term view. Yeah.

Jeffro (27:45.3)
Take the long -term view, right? Awesome. Well, Zach, thanks again for being here and spending time with us. Thanks to all of you guys for listening. Please make sure to leave a review for the show and I’ll see you back here for the next episode of Digital Dominance.