Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm so excited to have Jason Clark
here, the Chief Marketing Officer of Tectonic.
And this guy's got a musical background, which
I almost always bring genius with it. We're going
to be talking about moving from mixed messages,
which, guys, let's face it, 99 % of the world
is there, and all of us can get better, to actually
building market confidence with your audience
and the leadership shift that allows us to do
just that. Jason Clark, thanks for being here
again with us on Vision Pros. Great to be here,
Jackson. Thanks. Absolutely. And where are you
based out of? Let's start physically. I'm in
Louisville, Kentucky, but hope to be entirely
remote nomadic next year. So wish me luck. Oh,
man. Yeah, for sure. Come join me in Ecuador.
That'll be awesome. So my friends, Jason Clark
and Tectonic have built a phenomenal. brand um
and and these are leaders who've come together
to make sure that what they're doing um you know
they're able to bridge each other's gaps you
know you you can't i don't see too many solopreneurs
out there doing very well um there's a hidden
elite market that kind of calls them entrepreneurs
my hope is that this inspires you to help to
work with others on your vision and see what's
possible. And so we're just going to take a little
bit of a deep dive into Jason's brand. My team
of the last couple of weeks, Jason has been bought
like down my throat, like Jackson, we need to
be more like tectonic Jackson. Look at what tectonic
is doing to this Jackson. And I put them on as
a guys, this website's beautiful like this. They
have so many amazing elements built into this.
And this is not because. of AI. I'm sure y 'all
know how to use AI too, but this is a representation
of a brand that truly knows how they serve people.
So please take your notepads out. Let's dive
in deep to our listening skills and be real present
with what Jason's about to unveil for us because
him and his team, they're doing things so, so
right. So Jason, where do you want to start?
I guess we can start at maybe my arrival and
the the rebranding of our different divisions
and companies into Tectonic, if that makes sense.
I actually, so I owned, and I owned my agency,
which is called Via Studio for 20 something years.
And in 2023, we merged with a company called
eResources. eResources is a larger digital services
firm. It's got IT services and MSP. They've got
a couple of SAS products. They've got a dev team
in Indonesia. And they were looking for a marketing
and branding company to acquire to add that essentially
that package of services into their offerings
instead of farming it out like they used to do.
So I sold my company. merged it into eResources
and over the past two years we have rebranded
as Tectonic and it's been my job since that merger
to package all of our services and offerings
up into this bigger brand, rename us, give us
a new identity, give us positioning that makes
sense to the world and to our potential customers.
And oh, wow, does it ever. Jason, like you crushed
it, man. It is absolutely genius. We studied
your brand several times and they keep studying
it because they keep bringing it up. So visionaries,
this is not a common reality. Most visions, we
think we have clarity, but. when we actually
take it in front of the market we don't get people's
crystal clear buy -in for what it is that we
want so um let's go back to that concept of mixed
messaging and moving to market confidence a bit
jason um one of the things we promise you as
we talk about is why unclear messaging creates
hesitation i'd love to add in how do we move
away from it yeah sure uh so i am i used to think
i was the creative guy And I think over the course
of my career and kind of my evolution as a professional,
I've become the structure guy. I think that structure
helps creativity. Right. There are, you know,
that old phrase, think outside the box. Most
people need a box. This is helpful. You know,
you can ask any designer if you get a client
that says, do whatever you want. That's not really
good direction. So. So, yeah, you know, early
in my career when the agency was mostly doing
websites and we were a lot smaller, I would hear
from our clients, you know, we would get hired
to build a website. And what we didn't realize
yet and what the client didn't realize is we
were building their brand strategy as we were
building the websites. And it was just a recipe
for disaster. Right. Failed project after failed
project. So. My focus, because web development
became a somewhat codified industry with clear
roles and processes and whatnot, is I started
to back up into brand strategy a little bit more
heavily. And we developed this framework that
we call the North Star Framework now that helps
teams, organizations, lots of nonprofits get
aligned as to their audience. their value propositions,
their differentiation in the market, all the
way leading up to the creative, the voice and
visual assets that define their brand and help
people bond to them. So long answer to a short
question, but did that make sense? Well, no,
absolutely. And it's a helpful path. The brand
strategy aspect, I used to call back when I didn't.
I needed to honor my design friends more. I used
to say they're glorified tattoo artists, you
know, and they didn't understand the strategy.
They would take orders from an entrepreneur,
but not actually know how to think through is
this, does this make sense for the market or
not? So I'm grateful for the shift you made too.
I also know the pain of providing something to
an entrepreneur where they've given you that
out of the box opportunity. Yeah. But then you
come back and they're like, what is this? Right.
So, right. Yeah. Well, there is a part. And in
the process that we have, you have to bring people
along step by step. You can't get from no codified
strategy or articulate version of your brand
to something that is useful and true and creative
and mind blowing. You can't get there in just
one jump. Especially when you've got lots of
stakeholders, maybe a bigger leadership team.
We've worked with nonprofits that we're essentially
presenting to the board of 30 or 40 people at
a time and they've all got a voice. So you have
to bring them along. So it's sometimes the process
can take longer when you do that. But if you
say, OK, last week you approved this because
of this, we're going to do this. OK. now we've
got your approval there because of this, we're
going to do this. And that all ladders up to
the creative hook that we developed at the end
of the process when everybody says, oh my God,
we did it. And that's just a great feeling when,
you know, when a whole team or, or board gives
you a round of applause because nobody thought
it was possible. Right. We've got, we did one.
I think you showed it when you skimmed through
some of our work, but one of our clients Bernheim
Forest and Arboretum they told us I'm paraphrasing
but they told us they had been trying to redesign
their identity for about 40 years and they couldn't
get that momentum and alignment to get to something
really stunning because it there was no structure
to the process ever so we installed that process
early on And again, we took them step by step.
And when we got finished and revealed the brand,
everybody knew it was true. Everybody saw that
it aligned with their vision and what their audience
thought the park was. And yeah, it was just everyone
was thrilled. And they continue to be thrilled.
Well, I love that. And so the neat thing, there's
a couple of hidden messages in there, visionaries.
These people were like Moses, lost in the desert
for 40 years, so to speak. But they had a business
that made it past the 10 -year mark, which is
the one that kills 96%. And so there's elements
of success that existed in there, but there's
still opportunity for that entrepreneur and for
the team members as well and the people involved
to find more fulfillment and more success, right?
There's always an opportunity to lean into greater
abundance. And so that story reminds me of a
client I'm working with right now. And I thought
we were cool because they've been at it for like
eight years, you know, trying to get. that type
of clarity and now it looks like we've unpacked
what's necessary for at least the founders to
be like holy crap we can finally see our vision
coming to reality and it's such a neat centering
feeling to have and what's most important guys
it's actually not about that internal feeling
it's because what's going to happen with the
clients and the prospects as they can trust the
brand more on the front end and so that's going
to be a huge opportunity to help so many other
lives the products and services of what this
brand actually provides so jason we're going
to look at that video from bernheim in just a
minute as well um i'd love for you guys to see
some of just a small fraction of the clarity
that jason and his team have been able to open
for these individuals because my friends one
of the big questions that we want to answer for
ourselves and what we do is Why do some brands
inspire trust instantly while others struggle
to be understood? And how can we help you as
a visionary get your brand into that position
for you inspire trust? So we're going to take
a quick break. We're going to come back and look
at that. And then Jason, we're going to try to
dive into how do we help you guys get that instant
clarity for your own brands as fast as possible?
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live. With
Jackson Callum, I'm your show host. We'll be
doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there. Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live. I'm so excited
to have you here. And Jason Clark is joining
me today. I had a good chuckle when I saw our
post on LinkedIn. And you look at our pictures
like, wow, we look kind of like brothers. You
know, I'm so happy to have somebody else who's
got hair like mine. on the show that's fun but
now let's dive into some serious stuff again
this is your visions are super important to me
i want you to succeed and those of you who want
to scale it i want you to be able to scale it
we've got a legend a living legend who understands
the value and the ability of helping people articulate
what is your brand messaging how do you pull
that together and so we're going to come right
we're going to come in we're going to talk about
that i'm going to show you some proof of his
work too we just talked about bernheim we're
going to watch a video related to that but before
we do that I also want to, of course, give you
guys as much background and resource as possible
so that you guys can have success. So here at
First Class Business, we love to work with brands
that are collaborative and lift others. And Journey
to Wellness is one of those brands. My friends,
I bet you know somebody who's struggling with
their health. I highly recommend talking to Dr.
Shannon and Dr. Justin Pierce. I've known them
for just over eight years. These two doctors,
they're people that I've sent three of my friends
and family members to. And these are people who
did not know where to turn for medical advice.
They'd already tried. They'd already gone to
different doctors. And one of them, for instance,
was struggling with Crohn's disease. I know that
Shannon knows things about that disease and Hashimoto's
syndrome as well, that she's been able to help
people have success that no other doctors have
been able to have. She doesn't wage the magic
wand. It's not anything frou -frou. She just
does the right testing. And she's also had life
-threatening illnesses herself. So it's really
neat to work with a professional who... has the
same type of negative experience that her patients
do and that can empathize with that in addition
to make sure she's doing the studies to uplift
their lives. So I'm super impressed with them.
I hope that if you know somebody who needs some
serious help from medical perspectives, I'm not
the doctor. I don't know the doctor stuff. I
just know what she's been able to do for my friends
and family. And I hope that helps you as well.
Then there's Practice Makes Permanent with Jennifer
Reed. I've seen so many businesses that have
great promise struggle with the aspect of making
sure their team members are inspired and you
can. feel it. It's palpable when you walk in
environments like that. And so understanding
how to bridge your cultural gaps. Sometimes a
coach can be the best option. Sometimes a facilitator.
That's what Jennifer Reed is. And sometimes it's
a program or a book or a seminar, but I prefer
to lean into this as heavily as possible because.
If my team feels well and is performing well
and they're working well together, guess what?
That's going to rub off on everybody that we
serve. And so I lean into this as heavily as
possible. I look for people who have personal
stories that showcase their commitment to things
like emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence
and making sure that relationships are solid.
Bring a tissue box when you talk to Jennifer
Reed. Her vision, her mission, her why. that
it's about as powerful as it gets. I highly recommend
checking out what she can do to help you with
growth as well. And then there's the water project.
We're not affiliated with the water project,
but we do believe in it. And I support it every
single month. We send a little bit of money to
the water project because when I found out that
there's people who don't have access to clean
drinking water, it kind of, it didn't strike
me at first, but I started to meditate on it.
I was like, well. wait a second i've never been
thirsty in my life i wonder why i can't relate
to this but there are millions of people who
don't have access to clean drinking water and
i look at these kids on these pictures i'm like
man what would it be like if my kids had to get
their water out of a well like this um or a circumstance
where it's like you don't know what's going to
happen i don't mean to go too far off the deep
end of the darkness but my friends we've got
millions of people that we can help just by contributing
a small amount and if you don't have the finances
to be able to contribute to a project like this
my hope is that you'll bring it up over dinner
with somebody that you'll show people what they're
building because they show you the community
projects and what i love about it is when i commit
a monetary value to a community project they
send me the social proof they send me videos
or or pictures and they tell us exactly what
they're building whether it's a sand dam or a
borehole well i know more about how to how to
drill water than i could have ever possibly imagined
before this but this picture that comes up next
these are kids celebrating water like our kids
celebrate christmas day That's a humbling reality.
And again, I hope that we all lean in. There's
8 billion people to help in this world. And I
hope we join forces in doing just that. If you've
got a project, by the way, or a crowdfunding
going on for your own life or for somebody else's,
do us a favor, drop that link in the comments.
Let us know about it so we can also explore it.
I might talk about it here on the show and you
never know how many people might end up contributing.
So again, let's always go about trying to raise
awareness for the good things in life, just like
we're doing right now for how to build out your
visions. And so without further ado, we're going
to dive right into. jason clark's video of bernheimer
and how they helped this company build out and
we're going to dive right back into talking how
do we create this type of instant clarity for
your brands as well we'll see on the other side
Boom. Jason Clark. Man, I wanted to keep playing.
I was like, but I want to dive into this element
of how do we create stuff like that? We got you
here. Let's dive into that, guys. You can catch
the rest of the video later, but we need to dive
right into Jason's brain that's not on that website.
So go ahead, Jason. Good. Well, all of that work,
it's stunning. It's beautiful. It catches people's
imagination and attention. It works. But none
of it was done from... from zero to creative
before the strategy was the strategy was in place
um and again that's that's the stop gap to make
sure uh you talked about indecision at the beginning
of our conversation right like i know a lot of
people i talk to a lot of marketing managers
cmos it's not uncommon for people to not really
know how to get there you know it's you've got
your daily you got your daily responsibilities
in front of you so it's hard to take that time
to uh to do the strategy work before you start
so let me share um a little bit of our framework
here so While you do that, Jason, while you do
that, you mentioned structure earlier. My friends,
all of us value crossing bridges. All of us value
crossing bridges. It's an entirely different
reality to know how to build the bridge. And
that's what Jason's talking about. It's kind
of the thing we take for granted. We never celebrate
the person who's building the bridge. We're always
like, when are they going to finish? And then
we never celebrate once they're done with it
either. We always just drive across it and forget
that somebody actually did it. So Jason's talking
about unlocking that type of clarity. the branding
the the prettiness of it that's not the whole
piece we've got to understand these parts that
he's about to show on the screen and let me see
here i think i can pull it can you pull that
up jason or do i have to do that part i think
you have to do it okay i got you are we good
yeah perfect yeah that's good okay we're charting
new territory we need a guide so that is our
uh our hook for this process is the north star
framework so It's five phases, right? Diagnosing
the needs of the business, mapping the obstacles
in the competition, uncovering the reality of
the audience and their needs and how your offerings
match to their needs. Then defining the truth
of the brand. And this is where the creative,
before you see the creative, you can start to
feel what it's going to be because you've done
all this pre -work before. And then the end of
this process is creating the hook. I also want
to show this this brand and marketing pyramid.
So I developed this a long time ago to help people
understand that the foundation of all of their
marketing work and branding work is that bottom
layer, your brand strategy, your identity, your
core positioning. If you don't have that well
mapped and well articulated, none of the other
stuff is going to work that well. And whether
you're a solopreneur or a small business or a
nonprofit or even a giant business, this pertains
to everyone. So you don't have to hire us to
do that work, but you do need to do the work
yourself. It's worth it to take that time. You
guys might use synonyms that are a little bit
different than what Jason talked about. We use
vision, culture, and leadership. But every single
one of those words that were on the last... frame
the brand strategy the positioning exactly align
with what i've seen with the companies that we've
been building whether it's dr eric berg who's
got 14 million subscribers um you know or lewis
house who's got millions as well these are brands
that did these components really well and the
byproduct was the rest of what they built was
was was congruent as they, as they continued
to build it out. So again, I love it. That was
awesome. That's great. So yeah, we needed a frame
of a memorable framework and this really fits
right. We can, we can go through this easily
and people understand the step -by -step process
that we're going through. So at the end of each
one of these phases, there's, there's a gut check,
right? So we don't need to spend too much time
on this, but we can. There's a question and an
answer from each of these phases, right? The
needs. What do we need to achieve? How are we
going to do that work to define what we're achieving,
right? And I think the biggest mistake I see
some people make is that the CEO or the founder
thinks that they are articulating it well, but
it is not codified in any way except for what
comes out of their mouth. that is one of the
things that we try to do is extract it from a
person and attach it more to the brand the so
um the obstacles right so what stands in our
way um and this one's kind of fun um you know
you can call this competitive analysis but a
lot of times just from a visual standpoint we'll
do a color analysis on their on a brand's main
competition and you'll you can see where the
opportunities start to present themselves right
if everybody's in that safe blue space where
where can we be right do we have to be safe in
blue um and uh not to pick on your vision pros
uh here right but they're like blues is the safest
brand color you can get but it also means that
there's it's everywhere so if you're if you're
trying to stand out from from the competition
a color analysis might be something that helps
you get there Interesting. You know, so analyzing
the competition, trying to understand what they're
doing and why the why is really important. Right.
You know, you can see Drizzly tried to have a
mascot and Drizzly is a failed brand at this
point. I don't think they exist anymore. But
but you can see how these these services and
these apps are trying to present themselves.
Yeah. Next phase of the process is the reality.
So what is the reality of our buyers needs or
your audience? You might want to say audience
instead of buyer if you're something like a nonprofit
or mission based organization. Persona work is,
you know, it's a fundamental it's a foundational
kind of part of brand strategy. But doing this
work can uncover hidden. Hidden audiences. And
I'll give you an example here. We did a we did
a brand process for a K through 12 private school
once. And the the obvious personas are the mom
and the dad. Right. So the dad. OK, if I'm going
to pay thirty thousand dollars a year for my
kid to go to to school, what am I getting for
that? Right. That's the question that that that
that guy needs answered. And you talk to that
audience a different way, right? Like that might
be the person that you see the least, but has
the most impact on the pocketbook. So you have
to get right to the ROI of this decision. Right.
The mom persona, right? You can switch genders
here. It doesn't have to be a man and a woman,
but the persona of the mom is the nurturer. And
like, okay, if I'm going to send my kid to your
school, what are they getting out of it? Are
they going to have a fulfilling, enriching education?
Are they going to be around diverse voices? That
kind of thing. What we what we discovered when
we were when we were uncovering these personas.
So this being a K through 12 private school,
they had a lot of attrition from eighth to ninth
grade with the students. And they were wondering
why that was happening. So the thing that we.
The persona that we added that they hadn't considered
was the student themselves. Right. Their marketing
material was all geared towards the parents.
And, you know, when you've got Alex here and
he anyone that has kids that has matriculated
from eighth to ninth grade or middle school to
high school knows that that kid has a voice in
those decisions now. Right. And so there's you
know, there was a whole swath of marketing materials
that like could be tuned to those kids to make
them more excited about them where they were
already. So a lot of that branding work was tuned
towards them. And that was just, you know, it
seems simple in hindsight. But at the time, it
was really mind blowing for the client. It's
like, oh, oh, yeah, that's we need to do that.
and i would agree that almost every visionary
is going to blow this by themselves i did this
for years and raving fans by ken blanchard was
the greatest resource to open my eyes to the
reality you're talking about and what's cool
my friends is you can now take any ai and you
can say okay um borrow ken blanchard from raving
fans jason clark from tectonic and help me create
an assessment to understand who my buyers and
influencers are All right. And that can help
you so much with getting the foundation laid
for yourself on what you're what you're probably
overlooking and and start leaning into that.
Keep going, Jason. Right. Right. Well, and you're
right. Having a model there again for for folks
that don't want to or can't engage an agency
for this work. Right. Asking a model for what
am I missing? What might I be missing is super
helpful. So the next phase of this, the next
to last phase is the truth. So what is the truth
that we can own that solves this problem or helps
us get to better alignment between the brand,
the positioning and the audience? And so one
of the exercises we have is called brand pillars.
And what this becomes, you know, it's slightly
related to mission, vision, values, but it's
more who we are, how we work, what we do, sometimes
why. And this usually starts with a whiteboarding
exercise with the client where we take all of
the meeting notes and we take all of the learnings.
At this point in the process, we might be two
months in. So we've learned a lot. And we'll
throw all these words and identifiers up on a
whiteboard and you'll start to see that they
naturally fall into different categories. And
when they do that, what happens there is that
becomes a matrix for your branding and your copywriting.
So you can go back and look at this, and it is
a way for people to be consistent in how they
communicate, right? Do we need to communicate
who we are, how we work, what we do, any of that?
You've got an infinite number of variations here
that can help with copywriting, with collateral
development, for helping onboard new team members
that do marketing that need to understand the
brand. It's a simple exercise, but getting to
simple can be a lot of work. Absolutely. The
brand statement's pretty straightforward, right?
It's your elevator pitch. um but can you get
to a simple sentence that articulates your value
um as as articulately and as easy as possible
so um a lot of times this was a internal exercise
for them to be able to communicate internally
but sometimes this becomes such a strong statement
that they adopt this as almost their mission
statement. So that was the work that we did for
Kentucky Refugee Ministries turned into something
that they use all the time everywhere because
it resonated so well. This is the fun part. All
right. The semantic differential. So what we
do here, and again, I encourage anyone to copy
this process if they find it useful. But what
we'll do is we'll take brand attributes into
a 15 to 30 deck slide deck with different types
of attributes of your brand's personality. Okay.
So this is one that we can, that we use for some
brands again, that we, we tune this based on
what we've learned so far, but But having a group
of people in the room and to get consensus on
what is the personality of your brand. Right.
Are you playful or are you serious? And where
are you on that spectrum? Right. So if number
one, you're throwing beanbag chairs and having
Nerf gun fights. Right. That's that's your brand.
That's OK. On the flip side, all the way to six,
like you, you could be very data driven and very
serious and you don't need a bunch of whimsy
in the brand. And Google versus IBM, my friends.
We've had that on a slide before. Yeah. So it's
not wrong. You can run on both both ways. And
so it's really like figuring out how do you want
to show up? What do you want to feel on a daily
basis? Yeah. And so it turns into this is a simplified
version, but you'll see the slashes are. This
was our own semantic differential that we did
for ourselves. Where did we think we were on
these spectrums and how did we want to move?
Right. So we've always leaned toward casual and
we're going to stay there. We don't the brand
didn't need to move more towards professional
or more towards casual. We liked where it was.
At one point, we were very, very playful. We
focused more on talking about our culture and,
you know, hey, we're going out to get drinks
after work and that kind of thing. Right. And
it wasn't really helpful to our audience. Right.
So we wanted to move more serious. Same thing
with approachable and authoritative. Like I'm
kind of a goofy guy. I'm easy to talk to. I'm
very approachable. But a lot of people. They
will. they they they align being approachable
with being cheap so we wanted to be more authoritative
we wanted to be more data driven we wanted to
be more serious in that regard um and so yeah
that was so you just go down the spectrum and
you can see how things need to shift with your
voice and tone and with the visual assets of
your brand so interesting Is that something that
you define once or is that something that you
feel something that's kind of like a quarterly
or annual evaluation? Oh, that needs to stick
around. If that's part of your brand strategy,
it's lasting a few years. If you change it too
much, no one will understand you because you're
not being consistent in your messaging, right?
So now you can change an ad campaign and kind
of the... You can experiment a little bit there
because ad campaigns are meant to be kind of
short bursts of messaging that don't last that
long. But that's giving you a core consistency
for some time while you're completing the journey.
Right. Absolutely. So the hook is the last part
of the process and it's the big idea. And it's
the culmination of all this work. before it heads
off to the creative team to to turn into identity
art and copy um and i'll just uh we'll just we'll
stick on this one example for a second so we
did a rebrand for the performing arts uh the
big performing arts organization in kentucky
and we we went through this process and we came
up with this theme for them called moments of
impact and that's their that's the concept that
they hang their brand on now It starts with a
bank of copy. Can you feel it? Can you hear it?
There it is, thrumming through every building,
street, lane, and alleyway, the restless, boundless,
joyous, artistic spirit in our community, right?
We want to be inspiring. This turns into headlines
and positioning statements and kind of a mood
board of where we're headed. And then the next
piece is is copy headlines and core positioning.
And then you see how that comes together. So
this is just a mood board of a headline with
the type of stock photo that that brings that
out. Right. Like so if you interact and you go
to an event at the Performing Arts Center, this
is how you're going to feel. And this is how
we want you to feel. We're not over explaining.
We're not getting into. you know the seats or
what the theater looks like we're getting into
the emotion that we want you to feel if you come
to a show there huge and then that again that
turns into the collateral and the the art and
copy and the ads and the messaging um that we
do for them so works really well um i've got
a few other examples here but um I think we could
probably get back to the conversation now. Well,
I'm glad you did that because there's a lot of
opportunity to pull that into any type of strategic
environment where people are planning out what
their vision is going to do. So we talked, I
would say we covered a lot too with how alignment
strengthens brand credibility. And I think most
of us understand that concept too. Let's move
into what leaders must shift in order to build.
market confidence so you you hit that really
well too in the side deck oh i can add to that
let's so the the mistake that i see a lot of
c level and director level um initiatives is
ego right like a new marketing manager gets hired
somewhere a new cmo comes in a new ceo comes
in And they want to destroy everything that's
been done before without understanding why it
is where it is. And so a lot of new creative
and a lot of new brand is driven by their bias.
Yeah, exactly. And we've done a lot of great
work. And I want that work to be informed by
what the audience wants and not anybody on my
team. or the leadership team of the organization
that we work with. I think it is better informed
by them and not by your own ego. This is huge
for visual areas that are in that scale phase.
I'm going to lean into Dr. Peter Drucker for
a minute and the effective executive because
I see so few companies following this. And I
believe it is one of the greatest things that
kills companies is the company leans into what
I call a transactional relationship, even if
they think they're being transformational. But
Dr. Peter Drucker says when you're working with
new executives, you don't measure them based
on days. You don't measure them based on weeks.
You don't measure them based on months. You measure
them based on quarters. We're building long term
here. And so what I see happens is you bring
in a new CEO, a CMR CEO. We create these incredible
expectations on you've got to perform. You've
got to make changes. You've got to do this. And
so what do they do? Naturally, they come in ready
to make as many changes as possible so they can
showcase their value. Because we forgot that
Patrick Lincione in Five Dysfunctions of a Team,
those of you who've read it and listened to it,
oh, great, we'll start creating trust and healthy
conflict, et cetera. No, no, no. The lady who
he writes about in that does nothing for two
weeks. That's the key on the book. She waits
and she watches for two weeks. What is actually
happening? So she can understand the environment
as it is and respect that and then start assessing
the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats. And then bringing it to attention. So
that waiting period is something I see so many
brands take for granted, overlook, and they think
they're not get -rich -quicking. But that's exactly
what we're doing when we don't slow down. So
Jason, continue. Yeah, I guess to riff on that,
with the Bernheim project, we didn't even start
that work until we had been doing and running
their existing ads and marketing for a year.
They did not. We did not. We, we got to know
them before we even started on that branding
project. Because again, that's like, I have enough
trust in the process to know that we will come
up with something great, but I don't need it
to be, I don't need to be the hero in the conversation
anytime soon. Right? Like the work, the work
is the hero. Yeah. That is brilliant leadership
right there. And that's something that I I'm
learning to discipline myself towards more because
it's. it's hard when you've you've got a desire
to make the impact you can see perhaps for yourself
but um you know whatever we see is still limited
through a pinhole um and we don't necessarily
know until we've evaluated further and and so
i just i wish more of us as as leaders of brands
would slow down and make room for that and celebrate
that reality wow i got somebody who's not going
to just be excited to turn the lamborghini on
and press the gas pedal as fast as possible without
checking the map and seeing where we're going.
So super well said on that. Jason, with other
aspects of market confidence, what are some of
your thought processes on like what else drives
market confidence? What elements can help people
gravitate towards somebody's vision with more
certainty? Yeah. Being like providing some figuring
out what value you can bring and giving it away,
I think, is huge. I know the people that are
the subject matter experts in my world, the ones
that have the most successful businesses are
the ones that will tell you every single thing
that they do. I've got a friend that owns an
SEO company in Philly and. His newsletter and
his YouTube channel and his LinkedIn presence,
he is telling you everything he is learning.
And he owns the company, but he's an R &D guy.
And he'll come back from trying to get his clients'
information into the large language model so
they get surfaced when somebody asks, what's
the best X? And he'll tell you exactly how he
does it. And he still owns the biggest SEO company
that I know. and it's you know most people have
their own subject matter expertise and the ones
that you want to work with want you to focus
on what you're good at and so so again i think
being an educator and a mentor is is hugely it's
an underrated skill set and you know a lot of
people think well i shouldn't give away what
i know uh because that that you're right that
gets rid of that's one of the greatest scarcity
mindsets Well, that's, yeah, I mean, I've got,
you know, I'll share this slide deck with our
brand strategy framework with anybody. It's not,
you know, it's, you can probably find a few different
versions of this with people that do similar
work. So it's not, you know, I am proud of the
work that we do inside this framework and that
we developed it. But the secret is in the experience
of our team. right the the thought leadership
there and and you know if you want to try to
do this on your own go for it if you want to
call me up and get some help and you know i can
mentor you a little bit to do it yourself that's
great because maybe one day you'll refer some
business my way or maybe exactly you know we'll
just have another contact so there was a great
ted talk that i can no longer find in fact i
don't think it exists anymore um but it proved
that the entertainment industry is strangled
by all the copyright challenges that exist and
how you can't use riffs and you can't use lines
and all that meanwhile the retail industry of
clothing um thrives and grows and continues to
be on a trajectory for for movement and there's
tons of brands that rip off um you know i'll
give you an example i'm down here in ecuador
And I bought this coat because I needed a coat.
And it happens to be, oh, it's Columbia. Okay,
so you can buy that at Walmart. But my other
coat is North Face. And it's not actually North
Face, but the branding and awareness and exposure
that North Face gets out of that, they actually
benefit financially because their brand messaging
is being spread for free by people in Ecuador
who could never afford ever a coat from North
Face. That's like six months worth of rent for
them. Or more. That's not happening. The reality
of giving to gain, nowadays it's a little easier
to convince people of it. 10 years ago, almost
nobody wanted to hear it, but I'll give you guys
an example. My friends, Google top 50 companies
in the world. The only companies to have cracked
that list in the last 50 years, every single
one of them follows the freemium business model.
Tesla, even Tesla. Tesla has a freemium business
model. People are arguing about that one, but
it does. Facebook, Amazon, Google, all of those
companies understand the value of giving as much
as possible. And there's a business model around
it. Nowadays, AI can reveal everything that took
me 10 years to figure out. But you guys have
it all in your hands. Use it. It's the law of
abundance, law of scarcity. It will hold you
back. Jason, what else, Jason? We're going to
end on this next one. Jason, if this is the last
opportunity you had to share with people, you
know, visionaries about how to move their life,
their vision, their brand forward, what would
it be? What do you got for us? I would say do
everything with curiosity and no fear. I'm you
know, I it's and it sounds easy, but it's not.
But there's so many tools. There's so many resources.
There's so much knowledge out there now. you
know, the, the, the danger and being too curious
might be, um, uh, analysis paralysis, but, um,
but yeah, there's, there's just, um, I also don't
be afraid to let go of what no longer works.
Um, we had a previous conversation, right. And
I had grown my business to a certain size and
I realized I wasn't going to be the person to
grow it bigger. So I sold it and, you know, I
went from CEO to CMO and, but now I'm, was part
of a two to three million dollar company and
now i'm part of a 16 million dollar company and
um i still think that that is a a good lesson
for people to realize that you've got a network
you've got abundance around you you don't have
to do this alone um you know again like i know
i know a lot of people that are kind of bought
into the hustle hustle culture um and it's not
working for them so I would also, you know, don't
bang your head up against a wall. Keep doing
the same thing because there are there are other
options. So lean on your network. Lean on your
people. I feel really, really bad for those who
the hustle culture works for. That's what I feel
worse for. Yeah. The ones who get stuck and trapped
because they can't escape the hustle and the
grind. My friends. Enjoy the journey of livestock.
Smell the roses. Like Jason's done, he's gone
from entrepreneur to intrapreneur. He's still
got entrepreneurial ventures and things, and
the titles don't matter. At the end of the day,
it's not about the titles. Are we enjoying our
life? Are we producing great results? Are we
purposeful? Do we feel peace? Are we doing good
in the world? There's so many elements that I
see Jason emulating as a leader and the leadership,
the leadership and the vision. You guys get those
things hand in hand together. You bring people
in who can help you build. Many hands make light
work. There's so many opportunities on this.
Jason, thank you for being a North Star for us,
providing the North Star solution as well. And
my friends, if you guys want to know more, go
to Tectonic, go to Jason Clark, find him on LinkedIn,
reach out, and we'll see you guys all on the
next episode. Thanks for always joining us. We'll
see you soon. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.