Protect The Asset E11 - Martin Sully - Building A Reputable Brand

A slightly different show today instead of talking to a personal trainer or a coach. My guest today is Martin Sully, a brand strategist and owner of Snapper Studio - Brand Strategy and Graphic Design Studio. So Martin is empowering thoughtful brands with strategy and design. So, branding is a lot more than meets the eye. We often think of our logo.

Our images and maybe our colour palette are the elements that make up our brand. However, the visual aspects of branding are only at the surface level. So, in today's episode, Martin and I talk about how your business, vision, values and goals impact your brand. We talk about the importance of knowing the why behind what your business stands for.

We also go into talking about whether personal trainers should be using a business name to grow their brand or should be using their name, their personal name, to grow their brand. When and why you might choose one or the other? What is branding? How far does branding go? We look at the culture. We look at the implications for our staff.

We look at how it affects the clients, our client niche, and all these. Fundamental aspects of your business are in this conversation today. There's a lot of helpful information in this episode that'll help personal trainers build and grow their brands. 

So I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's get stuck in.

[00:02:49] Martin Sully: I spent a four, five years working in large format publishing and I worked with like some crazy big brands were amazing. And I learned a lot from that. And then that took me kind of straight into working with an in-house marketing team working on one band specifically. 


[00:03:11] And I did that for two years and, I learned a huge amount, but I didn't want to just stick to looking after one brand. So it was kind of using all that knowledge and then pushing myself out into the world and then freelance around Auckland for a year working for a couple of different branding agencies. 


[00:03:29] It was kind of what kind of triggered it all for me really. 


[00:03:32] Stretch: Awesome, man. How many years have you been doing this sort of stuff for now? 


[00:03:35] Martin Sully: I graduated in 2008 and yeah, we're now 2022, so 14 years or so just end at 14 years now. 


[00:03:44] So that's been yeah, six years, six or seven years on my own now. . 


[00:03:48] Stretch: I wanna get stuck into sort of talking, talking about niche, you know, client nicheing and stuff later in the conversation. Yeah. But do you have a client niche yourself? And if so, like who are the ideal clients that you work with? 


[00:04:00] Martin Sully: I have more experience working in the sort of health and fitness lifestyle brands. 


[00:04:08] Bringing them to life only because it's just been something that is, I like my wife's a physio and it's just part of my living and being healthy and yeah. Taking care of myself has kind of, yeah. Impacted, I guess, some of the clients that I work with and specifically I love working as well with brands that are kind of looking at being ethical. 


[00:04:33] So having those major sort of impacts on the world and people's lives, I guess. Yeah. I'm always sort of drawn to drawn to those, you know, Instagram accounts and that sort of, sways my knowledge and my sort of, yeah. Looking on it. 


[00:04:49] Stretch: I didn't, I didn't even, it didn't even know that they were your that they were your clients. 


[00:04:53] When I invited you on the show, I was just really interested to hear about, hear about branding, but it's the perfect, it's the perfect fit. So I think, you know, when most people hear the term branding, they think about. Their logo. They think about images. Maybe they think about a color palette. 


[00:05:11] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:05:11] Stretch: Do you find that a lot of your clients think this way and if so, like how do you talk them through the bigger picture of branding and maybe what is branding? 


[00:05:20] If you can 


[00:05:21] answer that for us. 


[00:05:21] Martin Sully: Yeah. So yeah, naturally I think because it's the, it's the sexy part of branding is the, you know. Looking at the logos and deciding on your color palettes and like all the, you know, taking into consideration all your fonts and all the sort of psychological choices that you make. To get your brand looking how you want your customers to see it. Those, yeah, it's it's a huge, it's a huge area. But definitely there's a lot of coaching around starting off at the kind of back end strategy parcels. I, you know, I don't want to describe it as the boring part, but it's kind of like the, the nuts and bolts of your brand. 


[00:06:05] Before you start making all the, all the fun, sexy decisions. So you have to kind of do the do the technical technical work in the background. It's really a long game of making those little decisions that have a big overall impact. So when you're looking at, you know, your your, why, that sort of thing, your, your values, they all start driving the content. 


[00:06:30] You eventually start creating when you've got all the visual assets ready. Mm. That's I guess that's the, the one main thing. 


[00:06:38] Stretch: So I think you're right there. A lot of people see branding and they think about the visual components first, like the visual stuff. Yeah. The fun and sexy stuff that you talk about. 


[00:06:47] Yeah. But behind the scenes, like, you know, there's the values, the why behind the business and really sort of suppose creating the language that we're gonna use for developing our message and maybe guiding our marketing. 


[00:07:00] Martin Sully: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. The, the biggest impacts of the things like, yeah, your tone of voice that you are you're making, but that all gets led from your kind of discovering of what makes you unique as opposed to your competitors. 


[00:07:16] So when you you've gotta have full understanding of who your competitors are to kind of set yourself apart and understand why you're different. What your message is. Who your buyer personas are. Once you've worked on all those little bits and pieces, you can kind of then fill in the gaps and build that visual identity that people will then go. 


[00:07:39] Okay. I understand why, you know, Martin's picked a, a green color palette or a red color palette for, for my product. And then looking at, you know, the fonts can have a big impact on how people perceive you. But it's yeah, it's really just making sure you think and question all those little decisions that you make. 


[00:08:01] Stretch: I'd like to maybe start. The start, like if, if a client was to come to you, let's say a personal trainer or someone in the fitness industry and they wanna work on their brand, like what's the starting place. Like where would you consider starting with a client? Let's say, you know, they've got a logo and they've got some colors that they have been using, but they've got no real concrete brand. 


[00:08:21] And they're a bit like, well, you know, I wanna tie this all in. I wanna make it look professional. Where, where do we start? 


[00:08:27] Martin Sully: Yeah. So I typically. For me, yeah. Starting with a consultation and getting a full understanding of the business. Looking at the foundations of, you know, what makes you unique and whether, you know, what are your, your values? 


[00:08:42] What feelings are you trying to communicate to your customers then really breaking that down into what your target markets are, it's just kind of filling in the little gaps to we get to a point where, yeah, it's it's clear what direction you need to. 


[00:09:00] Kind of adjust to, to get to where you want to go from your, you know, your brand goals. What do you, what's your long term vision? For for your brand, I guess. 


[00:09:10] Stretch: You've mentioned values a couple of times there in the conversation. Yeah. So let's say, you know, I'm a personal trainer and I've got values of health and I've got values of being strong and I've got values of, you know taking care of my body or whatever you sort of see, maybe it's the freedom. 


[00:09:25] How do, how does that impact brand? Like when we start to define those values, what's the downstream effect of. How that, how that impacts brand. 


[00:09:32] Martin Sully: So I guess the the biggest one for me is when you're, when you've got your values and they could be personal values, especially if you are a personal trainer, your personal values, are gonna have a big impact on how you, how you communicate and what you kind of communicate to people. 


[00:09:51] Yeah, gradually. So let's just, I'm just trying to think one off the top of my head for me. I have I'm always hands on. So that for me is I'm hands on. Like how many ways can you be hands on with a business? You can be hands on in a physical sense. You can be hands on in a kind of. A way of looking at it, you know, from an external position. 


[00:10:17] So you are, you might not necessarily be doing a job for them, but you are, your, your mind is always ticking about, what's the next thing we need to do to get to where that brand wants to be? And yeah, I guess taking, taking a look at those things is, yeah, it's really, really important. 


[00:10:36] Stretch: Do the values drive like, okay, the values are obviously personal values or maybe business values, depending on you know, who you're working with and that client do those values, drive the decisions in the logo design and the color and the language and all those sort of things. Like how do we link our values into the, into the branding style? 


[00:10:56] Martin Sully: Absolutely. 


[00:10:57] They they absolutely, yeah, they can, they can definitely affect the the logo yeah, color palettes. I mean, if you're looking at, you know, if you are an ethical brand, like you're instantly, might be seeing yourself as slightly organic, so you're gonna be led by more green tones. 


[00:11:12] And it could be. Your wording that can affect your wording and for the, so the messaging, your tone of voice, you might always have a set a list of words that you always include, or your tone of voice that you always want to kind of stick to. And there's, there's a whole, there's a whole range of things that it's really. 


[00:11:31] It's difficult to kind of put it into one little snippet of just how many little bits and pieces it can be affecting . 


[00:11:39] Yeah, I totally get it, mate. I think it's such a big thing and it's just so confusing to, you know, a lot of people. 


[00:11:45] Absolutely. 


[00:11:45] Stretch: Who don't work in branding and just sort of see it as the logo on color. 


[00:11:49] But I like the way that you say, you know, if you. If you're environmentally minded, it's gotta be more organic and it might be more earth for colors or nature or natural colors. Yeah. And I suppose if you're a coach or trainer and you're all about the energy and being energetic and enjoyment and the fun factor. 


[00:12:05] Yeah. Then it might be like brighter, like reds and orange. 


[00:12:08] Martin Sully: Yeah. Absolutely more fast paced kind of, yeah, you might be, yeah. Look looking at more reds, blacks, oranges, and you can kind of see that with a lot of. With a lot of personal trainers. They quite often use black and white photos, you know, might have a bit of slight, slight blurring of photos, all those sorts of little indicators of action and you driving, driving movement. 


[00:12:32] Stretch: That's a cool way to think about it as well. I hadn't really thought about. You know, blurring images or, you know, the style of those images that you put. 


[00:12:38] Martin Sully: I was gonna say as all those little things that are, are another big kind of area that can definitely quite quickly shift how people see you. 


[00:12:51] Same as videos, like videos are an amazing one. Cause you can make them kind of, as you know, if you are a yoga studio, you're probably not gonna be going down the root of having really fast paced, but you can kind of slowly pace a video. You can, you can, the same goes for photos. They can kind of look slow pace even though they're not moving by. 


[00:13:12] Being slightly out of focus or slightly blurry. Whereas yeah, if you want fast pace, you might want to have them really sharp. 


[00:13:19] Stretch: As you say that to me, I'm sort of thinking, okay. Videos. And the music and the imagery and all that sort of stuff gives a representation of, you know, who we are, who the business is. 


[00:13:30] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:13:31] Stretch: You know, the values and potentially even the goals of where we're heading in that direction. 


[00:13:34] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:13:35] Stretch: I think off the back of that, I wanna sort of talk about it's like how important is consistency in the brand? Cuz we see a lot of people that might, you know, post some videos and they're all go, go, go, go, go. 


[00:13:43] And then they post some videos that are really slow or it's images. You know, action and list of stuff happening and then different images, like if we're chopping and changing and there's no sort of consistency in the brand, does that have an impact? 


[00:13:54] Martin Sully: Yeah, absolutely. So that's like your one key indicator that brand doesn't necessarily know which direction it's going or is a little bit confused is when they're chopping and it can have a massive impact on whether you are targeting market. They actually trust you in that you're going to start delivering all the things you're saying. Cuz if they're seeing you one week and then they're thinking, oh yeah. Okay. I can, I can get on board with that. That's yeah, that looks cool. That looks fun. And then the next week it's like slow pace. 


[00:14:28] I can't, I'm just confused. It's the, and that is that's the one thing is just confusing for people. So I've done presentations on the past to businesses just for you know, having consistency in the visual side of things and that's, yeah, that's a huge, that's a huge area that, you know, often goes completely out the way and it's you see it a lot on Instagram where people. 


[00:14:52] We'll be posting one thing one week. It may not be the messaging, but it might be just the look of it that the following week it's another slightly different look to it. They might be testing out our new color palette. Yeah, you need to get all those things kind of fixed up first and then just be confident with it and just yeah. 


[00:15:14] Run with it and keep going and keep going and keep going. 


[00:15:17] Stretch: It's like a lot of stuff. Isn't it, mate. It's all about that consistency and repeatability and just being able to build a certain image or allow people to sort of get connected with, okay. What does this brand stand for or what does this personal trainer stand for? 


[00:15:31] Martin Sully: You gotta be confident with it. You gotta be comfortable selling what you are selling through your brand. You gotta love it as well. You gotta love your brand. It just makes, it makes things a whole lot easier to, to work with. You'll feel more confident. 


[00:15:47] Yeah, just makes things easier. 


[00:15:49] Stretch: Is, is brand something that's static. Like, you know, you talked about before that you are working with an organization and you are part of their branding team. So I get this idea that branding obviously changes, cuz if it was static and you just sat down and you made your brand and then you go, okay, now it's done. 


[00:16:02] I just continue on with this. 


[00:16:04] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:16:05] Stretch: If it is dynamic, then how often I'll be revisiting it and looking at it. 


[00:16:10] Martin Sully: Yeah. Okay. So I guess typically if you're looking at it from a an external perspective, a big brand, like McDonald's like they rarely change their brand. 


[00:16:23] In the sense that, you know, it's always fairly consistent, but every couple of years they'll start bringing out a new campaign, an advertising campaign that is, it takes all that kind of look and feel and value that's being built up and just takes it to a new level. And that is not changing the brand. 


[00:16:45] It's just changing the kind of the communication method. So they're not necessarily looking at shifting the brand entirely. They might add new elements, but those elements are so carefully kind of planned in that, you don't notice them jumping from McDonald's being spelled out completely to, they jump to just using the M. 


[00:17:06] And I, interestingly I saw the other day, Doritos , had started doing campaigns with no logos.. But you knew from. The shape of the chip and the tone of voice and the message itself. You knew that it was Doritos and they didn't need to say anymore. 


[00:17:23] Hmm. But that sticks with you. So you remember that. 


[00:17:26] Stretch: Yeah. That's a strong, like a strong brand identity. I suppose you can take certain elements out of it, but still recognize the brand from the other elements that do. 


[00:17:33] Martin Sully: Absolutely. 


[00:17:34] Yeah. But at the same time, they've, they've built up so much trust and reputation with audiences that people know who they are without them needing to do that. 


[00:17:45] And, but that's very hard. For businesses that are for small businesses that are kind of working with limited budgets, like their budgets to be in the millions and billions for, for advertising as small businesses, can't do that. 


[00:18:01] Stretch: I think it's maybe easy to overlook the impact of brand. And then when we try to put a value on it, like, let's say, you know, I'm a coach and personal trainer and I'm thinking, okay, why do I need a logo? Why do I need a. Brand. And like the importance of that when we invest in our brand and we start to build something that , does have strong brand identity, I think, you know, really does help build trust. 


[00:18:21] And it does help build a certain level of suppose, rapport with our clients or away for them to go, okay, I know that brand, or I know that personal trainer and I know what they do because the message has been very consistent. And absolutely. 


[00:18:33] Martin Sully: Yeah, yeah. 


[00:18:35] Stretch: But branding and marketing are two different things. Like marketing is an aspect of business, but branding oversees a lot more than just marketing. 


[00:18:43] Correct? 


[00:18:44] Martin Sully: Yeah. It's that one in itself is a really hard one to explain. Because I've been in both I'm kind of fairly blended. And some of the stuff that I do would be touching on a marketing kind of toes. 


[00:18:58] But definitely more from the brand perspective, if you are looking at it separately branding is the reason why you buy the product. Marketing is how you buy the product. So it's like, why are you running, going to the shops a bit, branding is more kind of convincing you that you need that product in your life. 


[00:19:22] Hmm. Yeah, I think that's probably the simplest way to explain. 


[00:19:26] Stretch: Yeah. Yeah, no, I, no, it's, it's, like I said, it's such a complex sort of thing to put together the blocks and sort of see, see how it works. 


[00:19:33] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:19:33] Stretch: But I think if, if you've got a strong brand identity that can really flow into your marketing, like you get good clarity. 


[00:19:41] Martin Sully: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, you need that clarity of, you know, what your product is and why you're selling it first before you start expanding and sort of venturing into different sort of areas of marketing. So whether you're, you know, you're building a website, you're you know, putting together a podcast or you are using your Instagram accounts Facebook, all these different areas, you know, whether people would, you know, trainers would use LinkedIn. 


[00:20:09] I doubt it. It's more, you know it's definitely more of a. More business side of things, but at the same time, people in business do still go and do training keep themselves fit. 


[00:20:20] Stretch: Mentioned earlier like that the visions, the long term visions and maybe the goals of the business. 


[00:20:26] So if we're sitting down sort of thinking about, okay, as a personal trainer, maybe I've got a goal of building an online community, or maybe I'm trying to build a reputation as a, a specialist in, you know, my niche industry, maybe I've got financial goals or I've got certain lifestyle goals with, with my business. 


[00:20:44] Can you speak to any of those or do you have examples of maybe how visions and goals yeah. Might affect the brand any way? 


[00:20:52] Martin Sully: So I guess the most recent example of this one. Is I've been working with a psychologist who's really high level working on EMDR stuff. Like she's one of 34 people in the world trained up to be able to teach other people to do all this. 


[00:21:13] And her main goal is to train enough people. That she can start to affect world peace and like that's a huge, huge goal. And obviously whilst it's, whilst it's slightly unrealistic, you've gotta have those big goals. Like you wanna affect the world positively to be able to break it down into like little ones that you can actually start ticking off and using that as a, as a way to, yeah. I guess focus your brand. 


[00:21:50] Stretch: I suppose those goals, like, they start to give you a language to speak from, like, if you've got that goal, let's say world peace is the goal. You're gonna use, that language, maybe those colors, maybe those fonts, whatever it is that support that vision. 


[00:22:04] Martin Sully: From a, from an impact perspective for her, all those little decisions that we made early on, where she set out her, her kind of goals, her vision, they then fed back into soft muted, color palette. We've got carefully chosen fonts. We were picking, you know, we considered whether, you know, does she need, does she want to include the word doctor? 


[00:22:29] Cause like we were, she came to me and initially she was like, ah, people were just a bit afraid of me. I don't seem very approachable. How do we make me more approachable? And I'm like, okay, there's a few ways to do it. You know, we put you front and center and have you been approachable using a soft color palette and yeah, I guess made her seem like it's not, she's not some scary person to come and talk to she's just a human at the end of the day. 


[00:22:58] Stretch: yeah, I could definitely relate to that. Like the wording and how you present yourself has a huge impact on, you know, client's abilities to be able to engage with you as a coach or you as a business. 


[00:23:11] Like there was a time when we were in the gym and, you know, we, we had a CrossFit gym and. I was writing all the programming and were a couple years in and you know, we've got new members walking in the door that have probably never touched a barbell before. And then you've got members that have been weightlifting for a couple of years now. 


[00:23:26] So you've got this huge diversity in client ability. And what we were doing is we were trying to break the programming up. So let's say Monday was a squat day. Everyone was, everyone was squatting, but you've got, okay. The advanced guys are doing, you know, seven sets of three it's heavy work. And you know, the beginners coming into the gym and doing four sets of 10 it's light work, more repetition, blah, blah, blah, with the reasons behind that. 


[00:23:47] But we'd gone and named the programming, like athlete, you know, sport and then like, life or something like that. Yeah. But everyone wants to be an. Everyone comes into the gym. And because you've chosen that word to describe the program, even though they need to be doing the beginner stuff, they jump to the I'm an athlete because , that's the image that everybody wants. 


[00:24:09] Yeah. So like just the wording and like you say, how you present yourself or how you choose to speak about different elements of your business can just have a such big impact on the kind of the customer. 


[00:24:19] Martin Sully: Yeah. Yeah. And, and also attracting. New customers through the doors, they might be like put off. So an example for this one, I worked with a movement in yoga studio here in Newcastle, and there we debated for a long time, the wording around how they attracted their over fifties classes and their general any ages groups. 


[00:24:49] And we spent a long time. I was like between us, we were all fairly adamant over fifties had a negative impact cuz people were already feeling a little bit seen now. They're going to the classes, but feeling a little bit ridiculed by the fact that they're over 50 and like, it it's, yeah, it's a number, but there's so many people would feel uncomfortable doing that. Which we switched it around to include longevity. So longevity being sort of length of life and, and like, it was then opened up to anybody and people with injuries that were just looking rehabbing themselves could go to the classes. So it started to break down those barriers. Just a little change in a word and you know, it's... 


[00:25:36] Stretch: it's powerful, isn't it? I think people don't like to necessarily be categorized. If you push people into certain groups, , they put up their boundaries in their walls. 


[00:25:43] They say it's a deterrent, not an attraction, but by using the right words and understanding your audience and who they are. We can help move people in the right direction or, you know, get them to the right program or the right class or whatever it is in that context. It's cool. Cause it starts to open up the idea of like you know, I speak to a lot of coaches about their niche and the idea about choosing a niche and you know, to me, a broad niche is like someone will come to me and go, okay, I want to help women get strong. 


[00:26:09] And I'm like, yeah, that's cool. Okay. Women want to get strong? But who are these women? Because if you are working with women in their twenties and thirties, the reason why a woman in their twenties and thirties might want to get strong is different to a reason why a woman in her forties and fifties might want to get strong. 


[00:26:26] Martin Sully: Yeah. Yeah. 


[00:26:27] Stretch: So then if your marketing and your branding is, is, is just trying to speak to women and it's not really honing in on the specifics of you. Why they want to get strong. Yeah. Then again, the message is very, very confusing and you don't really target a specific audience. 


[00:26:42] Martin Sully: Absolutely. 


[00:26:42] Stretch: Yeah. That clarity's really important off the back of that. 


[00:26:45] Like why do you think it is certain clients and customers choose one brand over another brand? 


[00:26:52] Martin Sully: Hmm. Yeah, I think that's. A lot of it is psych psychological sort of impact and the how you've kind of been perceived. It might be, you've got a long term reputation. It could be that people are talking about you and talking about you and saying things that you don't know about. 


[00:27:13] So it could be. Somebody who's had a negative experience and they've, they've gone to their friends, told them about it and they, they're not picking you because you know, you've got this negative reputation. Yeah, there's a whole host of factors. It could just be that, you know, the messaging. It could be the tone of voice. They just liked it. You know, you kept it chippy, you kept it, you know, happy and it could be anything like that. There's a, there's a whole factor of there's a whole range of ideas. 


[00:27:40] Stretch: Yeah. Yeah. I get that. It's, it's such a tricky, Chucky, tricky business to put your finger on, isn't it? 


[00:27:45] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:27:46] Yeah. A lot of it, you can glean a lot from actually just talking to your talking to your ideal people and. Finding out what they love. If you are picking, you know, customers that you want to work with as well, finding out what they love and things they enjoy doing is a good way to then be able to kind of focus your marketing towards those people as well. 


[00:28:09] My last couple of podcasts have been along those lines as well of you know, repelling repelling customers you don't want to work with. So by, you know, you can set the expectations of what people come to expect from you. Mm. Uh, Standing, standing for different things, standing for something you believe in are all gonna start rejecting and repelling people. 


[00:28:28] You don't wanna work with to find the people that you do wanna work with you as well. 


[00:28:33] Stretch: That's a very important point you make. Cause I think a lot of businesses out there are, are just like, I want as many clients as I possibly can. Like, you know, there's a reluctancy to choose a niche because people are like, oh, I don't wanna be turning away clients. 


[00:28:44] Yeah. Can you speak to like, why? I think you already said a little bit, it's important to turn away certain clients, because if they don't align with your values and your business, they could give you a bad review and that's gonna impact your brand and business. 


[00:28:56] Martin Sully: Absolutely. 


[00:28:57] Stretch: But why else do you think it's important to turn away? 


[00:29:01] You know an audience, that's not your audience. 


[00:29:03] Martin Sully: I guess one thing could be time constraints. If they expect more from you, then you can physically give them, or they're expecting, you know, you are keeping it fairly loose, how much time you spend together. And they kind of want you more than you can physically give them. 


[00:29:21] All those sorts of things are gonna start having an impact on your on your health as much as it theirs. Yeah, I think that's a good thing to set expectations in a way to make sure that you are working with people you, you love working with, and that will talk to other people. To help, help build your brand as much as you know, it's the same as you know, if you work with, if you've got employees getting them to share your brand is another advocate. You know, somebody else believes in it just as much as you do. 


[00:29:53] Stretch: I like that. Cuz in, in one of my earlier podcasts, I was chatting with Ed Hayes and he'd really sat down and done a lot of work on his business in terms of figuring out his why and figuring out his values. Yeah. And one of the big things he, he said was really beneficial from that is, is his staff and how he hired his staff. 


[00:30:10] He always had this thing where some staff he really clicked with and, you know, he really felt that they were doing a good job for the business and they were aligned and other staff, he didn't understand why, but they butt heads often. And then when he found clarity in his why, and he found clarity in his values, he was like, well, that's why you and I don't get along because we don't have the same values. 


[00:30:32] So I don't think you're a good fit for the team. Yeah. And then now when he hires his staff, you know, he hasn't got it perfect. But he really tries to align, you know, that hiring process with the values of the business. So again, it's like branding so much bigger because it's even like coming down to the culture and it's coming down to the, to the hiring of the staff. 


[00:30:52] Martin Sully: Massively. 


[00:30:53] If you've got people that believe in you and they're just so helpful in sharing the message, but also making your day to day running to the business easy. It can even take the load off you from jobs to actually allow you to kind of concentrate on the rest of building your business and doing the stuff that pushes the brand further forward. 


[00:31:16] And allows you to achieve your goals long term. Cuz you could wanna have a business of 20 staff working with you and then start working towards your next thing. Whether you start branching out into a slightly different sector that kind of falls underneath your current brand. So it could be just an expansion. Yeah, you've gotta have the sort of the space and the capacity to be able to do that. And whether that's, you take on somebody that's like your, you know, somebody gets promoted within the team to, to take on some of your responsibilities that you just can't do anymore. 


[00:31:51] Stretch: Mm, that's a nice way to look at it too. And I think, you know, you're on the money there. Like if we're, if we know our values and we're aligning our staff and our team, we're creating an environment that supports our values, like how quickly the business can grow and obviously moving to other areas if we want to. 


[00:32:05] But then also if the clients and the customers and the people we serve, align with our values and align with our brand. Again, it's a more enjoyable workplace to be in like you, you are helping the people you want to help. They, they appreciate you for who you are. You're being authentic, they're being authentic and it's just the energy of the business. 


[00:32:23] I can see how that's a positive energy, whereas the negatives or the aligned clients or the unaligned staff, they can be draining or they put on so much more stress on the plate. 


[00:32:35] Martin Sully: Yeah, the likelihood is that eventually those, the people that just don't quite fit will probably leave anyway. But in, in that is not necessarily a bad thing that, yeah, you've, you've lost a few people here and there. 


[00:32:49] But what you will gain is far more kind of unified unified business and unified culture that people will love and tell all their friends about and that's yeah. Building those little super fans. That's like, one of the, like your dream goals for, you know, for me is a brand strategist, brand coach, brand designer, building a brand that has people raving about it. It's like, yeah. One of my number one goals . Mm, 


[00:33:17] Stretch: I can't remember who said it, but there's an author or there's a, there's a a business sort of coach out there that says that, you know, you'd rather have a thousand loyal followers who are passionate about your brand then to have a million followers that just don't really resonate with who you are or what your brand is. 


[00:33:34] Martin Sully: Absolutely. 


[00:33:34] Stretch: Because it's not those metrics that drive the success of your business. It's about the quality of your audience, not the quantity necessarily of your audience. 


[00:33:44] Martin Sully: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's the, the same goes for companies like Coca-Cola they spent, I think something, I'm sure I've read a status, something like 6 billion every year on their marketing, but they're just going for mass audiences. They don't really have a particular niche. They just need to sell that product. Mm-hmm and it's by, you know, any means. 


[00:34:06] Any means possible. And so that's how they end up spending so much money. But whereas a little business has to kind of focus all that attention to one little area that you can really start building traction with. It's yeah, it's important. It's important not to waste your money, 


[00:34:23] Stretch: It is a good realization. 


[00:34:24] Cause like I say, big brands have got like a war cheast of marketing and branding money. They can spend so much money. Yeah. And we see them and we see how they grow their business and we think, oh, well, that's what I have to do. I've gotta spend money to better get this out there. But. For a big company, like you say, for a McDonald's to refer a Coca-Cola to change. 


[00:34:42] That's that's huge. Like their brand is like so strict and so tight, but the benefit of a small business is we can adapt quickly. We can change stuff fast, but also when we claim our territory, when we know who we are, we know our niche nation. We can claim that territory. I think it's a lot easier for us to organically grow and build, you know, something quite valuable and quite niche specific. 


[00:35:05] And branding's a good part of that. We talked a little bit there about some sort of metrics we talked about, the, the followers and likes or the quality of your crowd and stuff like that. Yeah. When we, we start to work with branding, is there metrics that we can use to determine if the branding is working? 


[00:35:21] Martin Sully: Yeah. And that is a lot more tricky to measure. I guess you, your ultimate sort of metrics are looking at whether there's been an increase in revenue across the kind of 12 months preceding that because. As you can quickly change things. It is, again, it is a long, it's a long game. 


[00:35:42] It could be. Yeah, it could be 12 months in lots of tweaking before you start seeing some real kind of results from it. So yeah, it is difficult to measure, which makes it tricky in some ways to, to sell the kind of benefits from that. But yeah, I guess a long term experience and yeah. 


[00:36:01] Doing, doing the right things and testing new ideas is the is the. The one takeaway. 


[00:36:05] Stretch: And that's a very valuable point that you make, like, you know, we can work on our brand and we can make changes, but it's not instantaneous. Like, you know, the idea of brand is to, is to build an image and to, yeah. For people to recognize us, which obviously takes time. 


[00:36:19] You can't just make a brand popular or make a brand, so appealing instantly. Yeah. In your experience, like, what is that, what is that time like, how is there a sort of idea or a range of time that it takes to build recognition with a brand or that's just very independent? 


[00:36:35] Martin Sully: Yeah, it's really, it is really independent on uh, a few factors. 


[00:36:39] Friendship bases have a big impact. It's such a tight knit community. And if you've got a big friendship base, you can launch a brand and have quick success within a matter of weeks. And if you've got the right idea, it can be, it can quickly, it can quickly build it's it's it can be really fast. 


[00:37:01] But it also depends on a few things like who you're targeting. So if you are targeting, you know, something nationally that's gonna take a bit longer. You gotta have all the structures in place and all the systems in place to be able to kind of handle all the, all the change that's gonna need to be made. 


[00:37:21] And. Yeah. Hmm. It's a lot. it's a lot of elements. 


[00:37:25] Stretch: Yeah. It's get, get a tricky one to put your, put your finger on. Isn't it like? And I like the way you sort of said there, like obviously the local community, the word of mouth, it's that building trust and building rapport that helps the brand spread by the sounds of it. 


[00:37:40] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:37:40] Stretch: A bricks and mortar business in a local sort of geographical location. The branding, there could be very different to, let's say a coach trying to build an online business. That's obviously got a bigger reach and connecting with, you know, the people that you wanna serve. That's an interesting way to look at it. 


[00:37:56] To switch gears a little bit, like I know a lot of personal trainers and coaches when they talk about their brand, like it's more of a personal brand. Like they use their name as the brand and they try to grow their, their brand from this sort of personal perspective. 


[00:38:10] And then there are business and fitness companies that, you know, make a brand is in terms of a business brand. Are there pros and cons to either way of that? Or would you suggest. So a personal trainer that, you know, the personal brand, their name is the best way to go forward. 


[00:38:25] Martin Sully: I think that's very much dependent on your long term plans. Are you building the business to eventually sell it? If your plans is to build up something and sell the business, then using your name is isn't gonna, isn't gonna work. You are gonna build up a lot of collateral for yourself once you are gone, that's it. 


[00:38:50] You sold the business. You are no longer working in it and yeah, so from that perspective, if that's your long term goal, just go with brand name not your personal name. 


[00:39:00] But, if you have no intention on ever selling it, you just wanna get a really cool basis of, you know, working with your PT business, your online business and building up a comfortable wage then going with your name is yeah. And build, start building that reputation. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but likewise, if you don't want, if you just, you don't wanna put your name out there and at all, and you just wanna build a brand that's okay, too. Just there's no shame in not wanting to put your name out there you can just be, you know, co-founder or founder of the business. I have other people working with you. 


[00:39:46] Stretch: Very good points there. I like that, that approach, like if you're gonna scale the business and the long term vision is let's say to have staff working for you or to sell the business and cause you know that long term vision, then the choice of your business name might not be your name. 


[00:40:00] Whereas if you are a personal trainer, that's trying to build maybe status and, and be recognized as a specialist in a specific area with no intention of a team, or selling the business then, you know, your personal name or personal brand could be a great way to elevate that status. Yeah. And become that specialist. 


[00:40:18] Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a clever way to look at you know, that choice. And I think, like you said before, it just comes back to have you done the work, you know, your why, and you have the vision of where, where the business works . 


[00:40:30] Martin Sully: And that's quite, it all works out. And I just, yeah, it all works out being really important work to do. 


[00:40:36] Whilst it's not the sexy stuff. It's really, it really helps you formulate plans and kind of get your systems and your structure in place. And we haven't even talked about, you know, kind of that roadmap of, what happens when somebody comes to you and you make this, you know, you're looking at make, help them make a sale. 


[00:40:56] What happens at the end of that trip? Do you know, do they leave your review? Is it a positive one? Do they go back to the start and, you know, buy something new? Yeah. All those sort of things you take. You've gotta take into consideration first. Before you start working on like the brand appearance and it's the visual identity that comes as like step nine. 


[00:41:17] Stretch: So many different aspects that we don't think of. Like, you know, the visual stuff jumps to mind early, but yeah. We can start to see how the values, the vision, the direction of the company. All these little aspects can have a huge impact on, on the brand and how you get it out there. 


[00:41:32] Once you have clarity. So if you sit down with a coach and you build all this clarity about visions and values, and we start to build the colors and the logos and all this sort of stuff, how do we then start to build brand awareness? Is there any tips that you can give us around that? 


[00:41:45] Martin Sully: Yeah. I think a lot of that will come down from the kind of the early work that you're putting in. So when you've outlined your market and you're positioning of the business and all those sort of things, what makes you unique? Those little indicators will start finding your people . I guess, sharing your business around. And start making, yeah, I guess start making that, that name, more known to other people that might have similar interests. Why you do the work up front and then you can start snowballing that those effects and those results afterwards. 


[00:42:19] Stretch: How important do you think it is to talk about your visions and your values and your direction in terms of your brand, and if it's in, if it is important, like what sort of channels, what sort of channels are we using to get that information out there? 


[00:42:33] Martin Sully: Yeah, I think I think they are really good to share, even just across Instagram. 


[00:42:37] Yeah, the number of ways you can kind of look at, look at talking about them and sharing them out there. What's gonna have the most impact is really gonna be a, a bit of trial and error. It's also what, what you are comfortable with. What, you know, are you more comfortable using Instagram or you're more likely to use Facebook or, you know, it's a personal decision of which one you you love and which one you can kind of utilise to s hare share content with, but yeah, definitely talking about all the your vision and values and things is is not a bad idea. 


[00:43:13] Stretch: We see a lot of businesses like bricks and mortar will paint their values on the walls and stuff like that. 


[00:43:17] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:43:18] Stretch: And obviously that the members walking through can see that. But I think, you know, in the online world, it's important to really voice those values and to, to voice the why behind the business and what you're doing through social media, through podcast, if you've got podcasts through your YouTube videos, through your lives, like, you know, all that sort of content if you're running workshops, talk about your values, you know, if you're running webinars, like if the more of the brand or the more of, you know, the personalities that you can get in there, probably the better and the long run. 


[00:43:45] Martin Sully: Yeah. And start, you know, yeah. Start focusing on building your email lists and you know, if you used, if YouTubes really has starts having an impact, you would use YouTube. It's, there's, there's a number of different ways and yeah, it's a lot of trial and error and finding out what works and what doesn't work. 


[00:44:04] You know, some people have really good success, you know, spending money on Google ads. But that's a whole nother. Another area of, you know, Whether you, you know, wanna spend the money on that side of things. 


[00:44:15] Stretch: It's been awesome, mate. I've learned so much in, you know, this short time that we've just sort of sat down, had a talk about brand, makes me wanna go back and think about my own brand and where I'm, where I'm maybe doing well and maybe areas that I need to work on. Is there anything you think you feel that we haven't spoken about that, you know, personal trainers should know about? 


[00:44:32] Or do you think we've pretty much covered the good spectrum of what branding is and why it's important? 


[00:44:36] Martin Sully: Yeah, we're fairly well covered for, for a lot of it. I think the only thing, if, you know, if anybody was keen to, I guess, learn a little more there's my podcast, you can jump on, which is hot metal brand. 


[00:44:48] It's only just started it, but slowly running through eight sort of sections that you need to kind of look at. For building, building a brand and yeah that's, that's a good place to start. 


[00:44:59] Stretch: Right, hot, hot metal brand is where we've gotta go metal brand. 


[00:45:02] Listen, listen to the podcast and hear more about the steps in terms of our branding off the back of that Martin. Like where can people find out more about you and more about what you do? 


[00:45:12] Martin Sully: Yeah. So my website, snapper.studio, and the same goes for, for Instagram snapper.studio. If you search for search for that, I'm around there. 


[00:45:21] You can, you know, yeah. Jump in my inbox and say, Hey. 


[00:45:25] Stretch: Awesome mate. 


[00:45:25] Awesome. And, and you run, you run like branding workshops and webinars and stuff like that. 


[00:45:30] Yeah. 


[00:45:31] Martin Sully: Yeah. So workshops, I do regular sort of, yeah. Branding workshop. I've got one coming up next week. Next Tuesday. Just look over the sort of foundations you get a big workbook to kind of work through and start thinking about your brand from, from scratch. It's a useful and sort of introduction To my work as well. 


[00:45:50] Stretch: Listeners, if you're keen to work on your brand, then, you know, jump on to Martin's website and check out his workshops and stuff like that. I've actually done a workshop with Martin and got, you know ideas about my brand as well. So loads of useful information there, then loads of stuff that will carry over. 


[00:46:04] More than just your brand. I think, you know, the visions, the values, the why love the stuff that we've sort of, you know, spoken about today. So, yeah. Yeah. Is there any other resources that you would recommend Martin to personal trainers who are having trouble with their brand? 


[00:46:17] Martin Sully: Do you know what, if there's a quick, a quick one, you can just jump onto my website , I've got a download on there called the field sign. 


[00:46:25] And that's really useful to just start looking at the feelings that you want to sell, as opposed to yeah. Yeah, you're not selling coaching. You are selling the results of coaching, I guess. 


[00:46:38] Stretch: I love that because I think we, a lot of coaches and you just look at the industry, we, we push the physical transformation. 


[00:46:45] There's a lot of talk about the physical, but there's not very much talk about the emotional transformation. and people buy the emotional transformation more than they buy the physical. 


[00:46:55] Martin Sully: Yeah. 


[00:46:56] That's yeah's a, that's a big one. It's always the first thing I work with with people and probably the, the biggest, like, ah, really 


[00:47:04] All right. I've been doing it wrong. 


[00:47:06] Stretch: Don't give away too many of your secrets with it. We're starting to 


[00:47:09] Oh, wicked. Alright Martin, thank you very much for your time today. Greatly appreciate it. And I look forward to our, you know catching up with you in the future and talking about maybe branding and other stuff again. 


[00:47:20] Cheers, mate. Catch you soon. 


[00:47:22]