Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise
but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success. Thank you for joining us today on another episode
of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. Today, my special guest is Henry Wong. He is
President and Brand Strategist of Vue, a branding and content company he founded that focuses on
impact companies. Henry's roots span over 25 years in the advertising and branding industry,
including being an Executive VP, Creative Director for the global ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi.
He is the author of the recently published book, Telling Your Story, Building Your Brand,
a book on personal branding for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and people just looking to advance
their careers. Welcome to the show, Henry. Sheila, thank you very much for having me. I am super
happy to be talking to you today. Can you tell us about a specific milestone moment or an experience
that sparked your passion for brand strategy? You know, I think it really began in my roots in
advertising, but much, much before that, I sometimes I share this very interesting story in
which I grew up in the back of a Chinese restaurant and I did not speak a word of English. And as I
became of age, my parents pushed me to the front of house to act as a translator. So I became this
little person at the front taking change from customers and learning all about their life and
interacting with them. And I realized that the sort of stories and jokes I told would connect
better with them. And in the end, it helped me with the tip jar quite a bit more. So I realized
at a very young age, the power of being able to shape stories to connect with people. And as I
advanced my career, I found that was a terrific way to present things because often, you know,
I come from the roots of advertising and creative and often you're set to present ideas to clients.
And it's very easy just to simply hold up the idea and maybe rely on it or, you know, talk about it
rationally. But if you can build a story around it, that becomes the essence of what you are as a
brand. And that's really how I began formulating a lot of my ideas around creating brands using
stories. So you have a book and in that book, you mentioned the significance of condensing
a message to just six words like a billboard. Can you expand on that? Share an example of how
we can use that approach to create a powerful brand message? Sure. You know, if you've ever
met somebody at a networking event, or you're sitting down with someone often, you know,
tough question arises, tell me a little bit about yourself or tell you know, what's your story,
Henry, and inevitably that person, particularly company leaders, I find tend to go to a very long
length of resume of sorts, or their entire life history. And in that short of long short moment,
you can very much lose your audience or lose the person you're talking to, you see their eyes
glazing over, they're starting to look to the other side of the room. And it's because not really
interested in what perhaps what you're having to say, the idea of the six words is really a
discipline. Because if you think of a billboard, as you're driving by on the freeway, and you see a
billboard sign, you really only have seconds to take in that message. So in the days of advertising,
we learned that using six words, seven words, or a short amount of words can be the limit to how
much someone can take as they go by. Now applying that discipline towards your brand, if you're able
to express what you're all about, or your story in six words, or less, then you really have the
understanding of what your key messages. And you can build on that, of course, but be by using that
discipline, you can fully understand how to articulate what you're all about in a few key
words. I'll give you an example of you know, where this came from, it was inspired by a story,
another story I heard, and it was from Ernest Hemingway. Apparently, he was in a bar in Havana,
and he was getting drunk. And he said to the guy next to him that I could tell you a story in six
words. And the guy next to him said, I'll bet you can't. And so on a napkin, apparently, Ernest
Hemingway wrote, baby shoes for sale, never worn, and slid it across the table. And I guess he
wanted a shot of tequila because it was just such a beautifully articulated story. And what it does,
if you think about it, it builds in a lot of the theater of the mind. So baby shoes for sale,
never worn, you begin to add your own elements into it by boiling it down to a one key message,
you're able to maybe build a connection with people. So that's the idea of doing six words
like a billboard for your own brand, being able to express what you're all about in those few
key words so that you can build upon it because later on, you can add more to the story. So begin
with something short to understand what your key messages and then build from that. And that's
really the discipline behind that exercise. So like on the website, should we put those words
right at the top, like on that main banner? I think so. Yeah, if you could, if you have the
discipline to bring it down to that key message, then you have your proposition well articulated.
The rest of the site builds upon it, but it's really that front loading set of words that
you're looking to hook someone or tell them the story in those few words as possible.
Easier said than done. Six words. It is. Oh boy. Yeah. So we do that exercise with many of our
clients, but how you get to it really is you be, it's very much like a piece of sculpture. You
begin with a lot of words or a long story and you look for the essence of it. So often the exercises
we do is let's say it's for whether it's a company or a person, it's really determining what those
keywords are that might describe you, what those key benefits are to people. You long list it,
you put it up on a board or on giant post-it notes, and you begin circling or identifying what those
keywords are. From that, you're able to boil it down to a few. Now, what can I do with those words
to tell a little bit of a proposition or a story? So from that, that's how you get to those six words.
Yeah. Very useful. So you've helped companies like Toyota and Johnson and Johnson build their
brands. What are some of the key challenges you see businesses facing today when it comes to building
their brands? No, quite often we live in a world in which there is just so much messaging out there.
It's very difficult to stand out amongst the many competitors that you have. So the challenge always
is to first find, determine how you're positioned in the market. What sets you apart from everybody
else? What differentiates you from the rest of the pack? So there's no shortage of, you take any
business category, cars for example, Tesla used to be the premier electric company. Now there's
dozens of others that have come into the market. How do you begin to distinguish yourself?
And that often comes from the brand or the story or how you shape that connection to people.
Because in essence, the product may be the same, but how you connect with people will help you
separate yourself from the pack of course. In your book, Tell Your Story, Build Your Brand,
you share your methods for creating a strong personal brand. Can you walk us through some
of those key steps? You know, first and foremost, it's taking stock of yourself. So the beginning
exercises, as I outlined in the book is really to firmly assess who you are as a person. So quite
often, if I ask you to describe yourself, it's really from your point of view, and it may not
be the most objective one, because we, we often will slant at one way or another, or perhaps we
undersell ourselves in another way. What we try to do in whether it's a person brand or a product or
service, you go to market and try to get an essence of what people think of you. So quite often that
may involve interviewing people or sending a set of questions to people you know, your friends,
your colleagues, people you've worked with in the past to get a little bit of a read on you. There
may be another exercise you do where you take a personality test or an assessment of some sorts,
you get a bit of a read. So right now, then you have other people's views, you have hopefully,
what is an objective view from the tests, let's say that you've done, and then your own interpretation
of that. All of that you put together, or you begin to formulate perhaps what you're all about
with the help of a professional. And this is what I often do is we cut through all that and try to
get to the essence of what that person is. But if you're doing it on yourself, you really do have
to take an objective view and really get to what your persona is, what you are as a person. So
by first understanding who you are, now you can determine how you might sit in the marketplace,
how you might compete against other people, whether it's as a head of a company or whether
you're navigating your way through your career, what sets you apart from everybody else. That's
your main position. From that, what you're hoping to do is to articulate how that position can be
as a business proposition. How can I benefit someone with these skills or this essence that
I've described? And this is where really it gets back to that six word exercise of being able to
articulate it in those few words. And by doing that, now I have really what I stand for. There's
a further exercise in the book where I even boil it down to a single word. So if I said to you,
let's say, you know, what does Volvo stand for? We've always thought it's a car that stands for
safety, one word. You know, Apple just stands for innovation, Nike, winning. So these are the things
that you're looking to do to attach to yourself. What is the one word out of the six or out of all
these words that I might be able to stand for? So now you have a little bit of that essence of who
you are as a person. So from there, you begin to do longer length. It doesn't have to be six words
now. These six words are really to lead you to that single word. But if I stand for, let's say,
I'm a very caring individual. So my keyword is caring. So how do I begin to articulate that
story, tell that story and share it with people? And that's how you begin to build it out through
either, you know, sharing stories, case studies, examples, ads, and so forth that help to bring
that essence of what you stand for in the marketplace to life. So other people can go,
yeah, that's really the type of person or the type of company I want to associate with.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani So when it comes to personal branding, right, because we talked
about products and we talked about services in the personal brand, for example, like in LinkedIn,
I see some titles where I'm like, I have no idea what they do, right, because they get so creative.
And then you just put like consultant, well, that's too broad. So what tip can you give
those trying to brand themselves? Dr. Michael O'Neill
You know, you've underscored the essence of what it means to communicate to the world out there. So,
you know, we went through a trend where many companies and many people as a creative way of
suggesting innovation within the company, a lot of people to come up with their own job titles. So
you had like, you know, chief comedian within a company. So other sort of funny, enlightened
type of words, that works really well within the company, because that's your audience. But what
you were talking about, Sheila, was you looking at it, not really understanding what they're all
about. When you're communicating with people, you really have to understand who your audience is,
who you're communicating with, because they're in the end, are your customers, even if it is
someone looking to potentially hire you, think of them in a way as a customer. So how do I best
position myself or write those words that would appeal to them, not necessarily to me. In marketing,
we often refer to it as talking to yourself, because nobody else understands what you're saying,
you really have to take into account your audience so that you can communicate best with them. And
that's the first and foremost, understand that you're not going to be everything to everyone,
and you're not going to communicate everything to everybody. But what you do need to do is
understand who the most important people are within your customer base, within, let's say,
potential candidate companies that may hire you, or people you simply want to connect with, whether
it's dating or within an impression of life, what you're looking to do is find the right words to
connect well with those people. And that's, again, part of the exercise of getting you to that point.
Understand your audience, of course. And the book is a step by step. So you actually break
it down in the book. I do. Yeah. So, you know, it is a little bit of a self help. You know,
I found that there were quite a few people who came to me who simply couldn't afford my fees. So
that was probably part of the impetus in terms of creating the book so other people could maybe take
some of this insight and, you know, that a knowledge I have to offer that hopefully they
get applied to themselves. Well, you've had a very successful career. Thank you, author, a book. What
is your next milestone? As you described in the beginning, I really enjoy working with companies
that have a positive impact on society. So my next milestone is hopefully to be, you know, continue
to be part of companies, I've been, you know, fortunate enough to be invited to sit on board.
So to be part of companies, and I'd love to find that, you know, sort of next thing that would help
change society. And I don't have that milestone. Yet the goal in itself is to try to find something
that we can help continue to change and better the world. What advice would you give to someone
interested in making an impact? You know, I think it begins with the personal purpose that someone
has in life, you know, many entrepreneurs out there, you know, have started a company, and it's
often based on their passion to try to create something that in which they are looking to
change an element within the industry or, you know, on a grander scale of the world, I think,
always focus on your purpose, the reason why, you know, people talk about the why I like to think
of it as a purpose, what is the purpose for why you're doing what you're doing. And with that,
if you hang on to it, I think that always maintains the passion because so often we get into business,
or we get into a job, we begin to lose our sense of passion, you know, if you're not aligning to
what your purpose is, and what you're setting out in life, and maybe change it so you can be happy
and align it better to your beliefs again, advice in the end, find your purpose, stay to it and bring
it to life. So where can my audience find you and your book? A book is available at Barnes and Noble,
it's available on Amazon, of course, I have my own website, and lists of some of the retailers
that can get the book if you're interested or simply reach out to me, I'm very happy to always
connect with people and that's at Henry Wong dot co. Well, thank you so much for your time today.
Sheila, I really enjoyed hanging out with you and talking.
And thank you all for listening today on another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and
Leadership.