Jacob Cass / Brand Consultant. Blogger. Founder JUST Creative

It was a huge catapult. So I was, when from a design student to working for brands like Disney and that was just like crazy. I was like, how is this real? Literally on the other side of the world now working for these huge brands. I was like, the dream come true. But it came crashing down very quickly after about six months. So I lost the job and had to leave the country within two weeks. So. Welcome to the head smack podcast where we have canned conversations with misfits and the cameras. Those not afraid to stand up and stand down. The dreamers and the doers, the ones who've stumbled, fumbled and then saw it. Here we delve into the inspiring journeys and pivotal aha moments that have shaped their worlds. And maybe through sharing their adventures we get hit with the head smack that'll change your destiny. Hey, welcome to the head smack podcast. My name is Paul Paballani. So excited to have you come along as I talked to another misfit. And I'm so excited to have Jacob cast with me all the way from Siddy Australia. Jacob, how are you doing, man? I keep all I've never been called a misfit. I don't know how I feel about it. It's like, well, let's find out how much of a misfit because I've enjoyed calling it conversations with misfits. But I found also that it's mavericks and trailblazers and people that are standing out in their space. And you stand out, definitely. I've paid attention to the stuff that you're doing. You found a way to stand down in the marketplace in a busy marketplace of business strategists and branding strategists. And so yeah, I think you're a little bit of a misfit. All right. I don't mind. I can't lie with standout. That's definitely very much to lie with our even slogan of our brand, using the Mingo. That's definitely stands out. Well, stands the flock out. How that's down. Well, then I want to talk about that journey to the flamingo. But I want to also talk about a little bit about your origin story. You know, I'm a fan of superheroes and I love origin stories. And I like talking to folks and finding out what there's. You know, right now your brand strategist and an educator produce a lot of content online and you have a lot of stuff available for folks as well. But let's talk about a little bit about, you know, Jacob Kass pre brand strategist, pre flamingo. Like where did you get your start? And you can go as early as you want. But what was early, early Jacob? I'd say zero to 16 was I was definitely in the creative RT world. You know, I was always drawn to those sorts of subjects versus maths and science. So within my DNA, I was always a creative person. I believe that just because I naturally went that way. It was around when I was 16 or so, I was doing a lot of drawing and graphic design, terrible work. I cannot draw stick figures and things like that. But I also, I also, I'm also, you know, using some versions of Photoshop, early versions of Photoshop around that time as well. And that's when I heard of graphic design. But I never really knew like what that was. I was just like mixing people's faces together and morph in face, my friends faces and stuff. Yeah. I did a couple of, well, I did a logo for a death metal band terrible. And then I got, well, my, what I made there, I'm used a little bit about web design and he kind of got me into that world as well. So it was around my teenage years when I, you know, fell into this design kind of world. But it was only when I saw my career's advisor that I realized that was actually a career. And you could take that path and go, go towards it. And that's what I did. Yeah. It was like my first Ted Hitznack moment was like, okay, this is it. I went up to uni. I got to went to uni when there for about three years and studied visual communication, engineering, graphic design. So I'm at heart, I'm a creative and I'm classically trained in graphic design. So that's where my origin starts. And throughout that time studying, I started a blog and it was called just creative design back then. It's now called just creative. And I use that as a place to share my work, my studies, my design work. And that's, that was just like a side project. It was just a way for me to document my studies and to share with others. Through that process, I learned about blogging. And blogging was very different to what it is today. It was very tight knit, very small communities. It was kind of like you're definitely a nerd if you blogged. That kind of thing. Yeah. So totally different world. But that was the second aha moment or head smack moment because it opened up my eyes to making money online through blogging and through websites. So there was a whole community around how to make money blogging. And through that, I learned SEO and a little bit more about web design as well. And it was through this process of studying graphic design, running a blog and you know, sharing my work that it got the attention of an agency in New York City. So I was in Sydney at the time. I hadn't had a, now I didn't have a job. They offered me a job through Twitter. So this was when Twitter was just starting. Yeah. It would be big on Twitter at that time. I even got onto our local newspaper being the top Twitter in an hour. Yeah. Now, what would you be called now the top ex? Yeah. We can talk about that brand. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it had a few jack around and then me on the front page of this newspaper was a nice top to be nice. So that was a hard, I wait a moment. Anyway, so this agency offered the job. We got head hunted. I left Sydney six months later after I graduated. They waited for me, which was nice. And I packed up. I didn't have any way to stay the day before I left. I found somewhere on Craigslist and Frib to New York, not knowing anyone. Wow. Or anything. So it was like a huge, huge leap of faith. Yeah. I bloody loved it in New York. It was, you know, big learning curve. Didn't know anyone, didn't know the culture. I spoke very fast. No one understood me back then. I've written my slow down. Right. I was in a lot to talk to clients. So that was really, yeah. I just knew you were an accountant. You know, but recently graduate. What was that? Boy, they didn't want you to talk to clients because you were angry and they just, yeah, they couldn't, they couldn't understand me. It was like, right, right now it's like, it definitely have turned it down. Most of my clients in the US and after living there, it's like, it's definitely turned down. Yeah. Well, I love that. Now before you continue about the New York experience, I do want to circle back to a couple of things that you talked about. It's, I find it fascinating that your early story is very similar to mine in that I couldn't really draw that well. You know, but I knew I was creative and I knew, you know, I love doodling. I mean, I could draw, but not like fantastic and like hands and faces were always a challenge. You know, I'm so like that. And so, you know, for me, it was, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do as a creative like how am I going to make money doodling or being creative like what exists for somebody like me? Well, you kind of at that place as well, like of what am I going to do with my life with this? I wish I could say I was looking for that, but at that time I was really just in school and didn't really know what I wanted to do. And it was, it was just about exploration. I did know that I loved design. So all my focus was around like my subjects at school was like design a tech. And you know, whenever I had a project, it would be like a digital project. So I knew it was something digital and I knew it was in design, but I didn't know how about work as a career or like even the jobs available. I'd never heard of things like creative directors or right, definitely not strategists. So when did you become aware of design as a creative? Because that's a young kid. Like you didn't have to do that. Yeah, I was doing graphic design as a subject and design and tech as subjects, but they didn't really mention that that's like a career or that, you know, you could do that for a living and they didn't really share that. So I wish that did happen earlier, but you know, my career's advisor, that's their job. And that's what they, you know, they asked what are you interested in. It's like, oh, did you know this? And it's like, ah, of course, of course. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it was very similar to that, but I was, you know, I'm a few years older than you. And so for me, it was a very different world when I was, you know, coming up. And so for me as a creative kid, like I couldn't draw like I, you know, like I love creativity. And so I did wonder like what I didn't like the word design and graphic design, or used to be called commercial art back in the day. I really didn't know what that meant and what that was all about. And so for me, it was a teacher that introduced me to design. I'm like, oh, I don't have to be able to draw. I can have use other people's drawings. I can use other people's, you know, imagery and photography. And, but I can creatively bring it all together. And for me, that was a revelation. And so that's why I kind of wanted to see if you had a similar moment of that. I think it came a little bit later through in university of, you know, what I didn't, didn't like. So the art side, I really didn't enjoy. So we have to do art as one of the compulsory subjects as the degree. And I just really didn't like show it up for it. Like to get in hands on and doing, they're just thinking outside the box a little bit in terms of like abstract and like different mediums. I just like, I knew that the physical world wasn't for me. So yeah, that moment I knew that digital was. And that's where I focused and I loved. Brand, I found out that I loved typography and I loved web and digital. So it's no wonder that I kind of went in that direction and like came a UI UX designer. Yeah. And yeah, it was just through that exploration by then like forcing you to do certain things and you come to find what you're passionate. Right, right. Right. It's amazing how sometimes the tool appears that brings it all together as well. You know, and it's like, oh, you know, the Photoshop and I can, I don't like working with my hands. I don't like sketching with charcoal. I don't, I don't like figure drawing. I don't, you know, I don't like that. But the tool kind of brought about the, oh, this, this and me are meant to be together. Totally. They're the right match. Yeah. I pulled like I drew a lot, but it was mostly copying things. It was like I'd have every single South Park character drawn my wall and paste it up. But it was just really about, you know, copying and it was nothing original. But that kind of just evolved into design and then Photoshop and Illustrator kind of just bubbled up through school and that time and that's where I was dabbling and I did things on the side as a hobby like creating logos and websites and that that is evolved. You know, friend, yeah, was working in web web and he showed me some of the things behind the scenes of, you know, Dreamweaver and yeah, it was so exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And flash like there's some amazing websites built with flashback then that would just like line ball clean. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, those are some of the tools that expose me to the digital side of design. Yeah. And honestly, I think even the tools for me, I don't think I could have been a designer free computer. I don't think my, he wouldn't have a choice. Yeah, you wouldn't have a choice. But I think I think I was, I was born in the right time because I entered the space just as computers were becoming a part of this. Yeah. So he's quarked, express, yeah, free hand. You know, I mean, I was that, that was my toolbox. And I, but I was in the transition time where people were still doing the bromide and machines and the, the, I mean, I, and I thought I could not have done the design with that. And so I, you know, like, you know, like, you know, type set in each set of, yeah, let's go. Rouse down letters, man. Yeah, rub down letters. We have to do those and, yeah, we help. Yeah, exactly. And so, it's, you know, it's, it's amazing how, you know, sometimes you could also just find you're placed by finding the tool that can be the catalyst for you generating the creativity and the expression that is within you, that it's just, it just works like that. And so, so, you know, you came at a time when that was evolving and saying with me. And so I think that's pretty amazing. And so, and so the next, and so for you, you know, you went to uni, got a job right out of the uni, often New York. What was that like? What was that entering right into the agency space? So I was, when from a design student to working for brands like Disney and like our backstarts to all of Disney's database and like, they're super high res files that you can like zoom in forever to circus. And that was just like, crazy. Literally on the other side of the world now working with these huge brands. So it was like a dream come true. So I've actually found a job within those two weeks, but you have to submit paperwork and this, they submitted wrong twice. Which made it have to leave. Yeah. So I had to go home to Australia and I figured I saw a lawyer and figured out some other options because I wanted to get back and I wanted to find a different job. But I couldn't because, you know, when you don't have a sponsor to back get back in the country, you can't go over there unless you go as a tourist, but then you can't get work. And I ain't right. I saw a lawyer. I found out that I just happened to qualify for this certain visa. That's for recent graduates within one year. So I went on this one. These are went back to New York and I went through about four different, you know, startups and agencies to find the right one. And then I found one and stayed with them for another four years. So I was in New York for about five years. Really cut my teeth into the industry, our agency world. I worked as a UI UX designer for lots of different brands. I made a lot of websites for Nintendo, a lot of gaming websites. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that was a really fun side of things. And Jerry Seinfeld was another big project I worked with his show, Creebs and Cars, getting coffee, working on the branded for that and their website and even created a custom type face. So throughout that time, I was also run and just created. So I should have mentioned this before. I was working at an ad in the digital sector, but at the same time, I was continuing to blog and also run my design business or freelance design business on the site. Yeah. So I was definitely burning the candle at both ends. I was much younger back then working hard. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to be a little older now." Right. You can do those late nights. Yes, exactly. Late nights, late mornings, everything. And yeah, the point of that is that I was building up the business and it was a slow growth for my business. I started in 2007, I was to run it today. But it was over that time that I worked in the industry, but built up my client base, built up my skills, built up my portfolio. And that's when I left New York. There's an automata around. Well, did I go home and renew my visa for two years? This was after five years? Or do I go traveling? Yeah, I was a huge traveler. Like I love travel. I was always traveling every moment I had spent a moment I had I was traveling. So I left New York, didn't renew the visa. The plan was to travel for a year around Europe and a few other places. A year turned into three years, where we went to about 88 countries, did the Jetton Go mad thing. It was crazy. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy. Did you travel around the United States? Yes, I did the bottom about 25 states. Like the sunsets didn't get to the north too much. Did a LA to New York kind of road trip. So I was, yeah, nice. And so this whole time, you're still running just creative. Now with the blog was the content, had the content changed or was the blog still pretty much the same kind of content? It definitely changed. So early years was she didn't work in my process. Throughout that time, it was definitely sharing my work and portfolio, but also other types of articles. Creativity, running a business, logo design was a huge focus of mine. That was my kind of niche. Yeah, and that's what a, that's how I managed to travel. I had a great system, heavily SEO, search optimized websites. I had a lot of traffic coming in. The thing has changed a lot now. But yeah, I didn't even get on phone calls for three years. Everything was through email. Well, so it was, yeah, it was great. And I worked four hours a day. That was our system, four hours in the morning and then took the travel stuff for me afternoon. So yeah, it was, yeah, it was a really great system. The true digital and their life style. Yeah. It literally was. So I read the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss. And that was like, another like head smack, but I was like, this is, this is what I'm going to do. It was four hours a week, but it was four hours a day. Yeah. So nearly a day. Yeah, the four in there. So that was pretty good. That's more than most people would do. And so what's interesting about designers and, and I think, I think now maybe it's the, it's a little less than maybe it was in the past. The transition from being a designer to strategy. And I know you spend a lot of time in strategy now and, and you have resources around it and everything. Well, I'd love to share that at the end of how people can get some of that. But when, when did that transition happen for you that went from simply designer to, to focusing on strategy as well? Was that always a part of how you did stuff? Yeah, as I think, I think, you know, it used to be that we used to do brand strategy, but we didn't really label a brand strategy. It was kind of part of marketing, part of what we did, but we never made it a line item. What did that transition happen for you? Yeah. So I'll, I'll explain how I did do things and how it evolved. So throughout that travel time, I had a questionnaire on, on site and I focused mainly on logos and a little bit of identity. Mainly, maybe the visual identity, not the whole brand identity. And it's, yeah, it was questionnaires and it was, it was basically you got the client to fill in the data. So there was no real research or thinking going into it. It's like, Hey, who's your target audience? What, what personality should this evoke? Who are you competitors? And you'd use that data set and go and create the logo or visual identity. So that's how I did things. I didn't even get on the call. So terrible, terrible. I was, I, in hindsight, they're so, so bad and I lost, I really lost so much business because of like extended business. Yeah. But a lot of people still do that. That's, that's the interesting thing is that for a lot of immature or new, nervous or new designers, that's what I'm going to do. that's pretty much their process still. And so I love that you're sharing that. And so continue it with how they evolve. - Yep, so that is an old touch on that too. So went from the questionnaire to then learning about sales and business and talking to customers and asking them a lot of questions to get to the recourse of what they're trying to do. Why do you need a logo? What are you trying to target? What makes you different? And how are we gonna position our brand? What's our message? What's our story? What are we trying to evoke here? And those sorts of questions, when you talk to them, you'll realize that most clients don't necessarily always know those answers. And that's when something clicked is like, well, I need to help them with this. And then this idea of brand strategy came along, which I don't know when it was maybe 2019 or 18. It started getting a little bit more popular, at least online. And I transitioned from doing maybe logo, well, logo and I visual identity work to more brand identity. So get a little bit deeper into the messaging, the storytelling and the personality, and the voice of the brand. And then a little bit later, I went deep dove into brand strategy. I took like a thousand different courses. And I loved it. I was like, I thought I knew brand, but I didn't know she did. I was like, I'll just scratch in the surface on doing logos and identity, which I loved, I loved it. It was very passionate, which was fine for the time. But then eventually you grow out of it. It's like, well, am I gonna keep doing this forever? Like, how can I provide more value? How can I help my rates? How can I get to the next level? And brand strategy was the way. And I was excited about that. I just talked to so many different people, learned the ropes. And yeah, I love the cross section of business, marketing, design, and problem solving. And this wide set of skills that you have to have to tell businesses thrive. And that's my approach now. It's a get on the phone. I have hour long conversations with my clients to understand their business, who their customer is, to know the category, how we should actually position them. What are we trying to, what message are we trying to send? So those are the conversations I have now. Much deeper, much longer processes, much more value and greater success. So yeah. And for the person that fully doesn't understand, what brand strategy is in their mind, you're talking about marketing, right? Well, it's no, no, no, it's actually different. So how do you, if somebody isn't sure why they need brand strategy, they think they're doing brand strategy, but they're probably doing marketing. How would you separate the two and how would you explain it to the client? Yeah, most often clients, they'll come and say, "I need a logo or I need a website." And it's like they're going through a checklist of things they need. But when you ask them certain questions about the things I just mentioned, like their customer are they category, or even their company, like deeper questions around their company, often they draw a blank. And then you ask, "Well, why should a customer choose you?" There's so many other options out there, and it's like, just blank. So that's like, "Okay, well, you need some strategy here." Like, how are we going to create a logo or website that we don't know these things? And then it clicks. So you don't actually have to just say we're doing strategy. It's like, you ask questions and they come to that realization themselves. Right. And that's how the whole sales process works, really. It's like, "Well, if you ask the right questions, they identify the problem, and then you can put a solution in front of them." It's like, "Well, you're here now, and you want to get over here. This is what we have to do." Yeah. And they get it. But you're not selling, you're helping them get them from A to B. And that's how I see it. That's how I think about, you know, a brand strategy. Yeah. And so when they come to you and you've had a conversation, do they ever ask you, "Well, how is doing brand strategy, or how is doing design going to make me money? Like, why should I care about it?" Do they ever ask you to pitch them or sell them? Oh, I have a question. What's the cost of not doing this? Yeah. Yeah. So let's say we don't know all of those things. What's that going to cost you? How many lost customers are going to have over the next X, yes? And then they're like, "Okay, I get it." Yes, it's simple. It's simple. Yeah. And so with the designer that is, you know, they're just starting off. They realize they're creative. They realize that branding and design and doing all that is important. How would you encourage them to grow as a designer to get into a space where they provide more value for their customer? Yeah. You don't have to be a brand strategist, but you can become more strategic. And by that, I mean, you can understand how those mechanics work, you know, how brand strategy works. You have to go into as much detail as a brand strategist. So I mentioned before about that question here around, you know, asking questions around the personality and, you know, what they want to evoke and their client, their customers and their competitors. You can get that data, but you can do some of your own research and come up with strategic ideas of your own and run them by them without these vast, you know, frameworks and depth that strategists go into. So I do want to make that clear. Don't be, you know, a burden by this idea of becoming a strategist. You can do design and you can do a little bit of strategy to help inform your design process. And I do both. I do strategy to design, to growth and, you know, marketing and, you know, everything between. So yeah, don't be intimidated by it, but you will definitely become a better designer by knowing those things. And your job will become easier because you'll have less revisions and you'll have less, you know, back and forth of the client because, hey, you have a very strong brief and you know what you're working towards. And it's based on some strategic thinking and some insights. It's going to make your designs better and less, you know, less work on yourself. You could even do, you know, move into one's concept presentations as well, which is another discussion. Yeah. So let's talk about that. Yeah. So why concept, the one concept approach, you know, often, you know, earlier in my career, I'd send like 10 logos as, you know, here's a couple of different type of direction. And there's a couple of different logos. It's like, and I picked the best. And it's like, that's terrible. Like you're the expert here. You're meant to suggest and then what is right. If you have a strong strategic direction in the beginning that you're aligned with, now you have a very strong direction to go after. What attributes should this identity convey? What are we trying to, what message are we trying to send here? And if you have that in writing and you agreed upon that and it's based on some insights, then your work is going to be much more dialed in. So when you present, you can share your thinking, you know, your, the margin mission, the vision and the values. What is our position? How does that translate to design? So how are we bridging the gap between strategy and design? So the one concept approach, you share your thinking, you know, based on the insights with them and conversations and maybe some workshops, you share your thinking and share how it translates from strategy to design. Now, how is it a vote in this attribute? Yeah. And, you know, how does that work with the logo? Why this typeface? Why this art direction? You know, why this illustration style? And you talk through your design decisions and how they relate back to the strategy. And it's that explanation and how it works altogether as a cohesive identity and brand. That's really how you do the one concept approach. You share one logo, you share it with mockups, you share the whole identity and how it relates back to the brief, which basically talks to the customer, it's sending the right message that you, you know, agreed upon and so forth. So he will often, if you've done your job right, you know, you get approval and it's a lot of low, low revisions after that because you've thoroughly thought about the brand holistically, not just the logo, which they will probably rubber stamp everywhere if you just, yeah, look, so the logos are the brand, the clients love it, but you have to think about the brand holistically. So that's their one concept approach. And I don't do that every time. I definitely explore a lot of logos if I'm doing logo work and I'll share it a couple of different options. I use a frame I call soft hard spiky. Actually, here's a, you know, another word would be square, no circle, square or hexagon. There's different words for this, but the idea is that soft is like, you know, soft is a circle is rounded. It could be a more, you know, you know, comfortable approach. Square is a little bit more hard edged and it's, you know, a little bit more off kilter. And then spiky is definitely weird and wacky. It's the least safe option, but it's the most different. Right. So if you have a safe, a middle ground and an extreme option, then you're going to, you going to cover the gun and you can actually, it's actually good for your process because it helps you think in different ways. Like, what if this was a generic brand that kind of fitting with everything? What if this was the crazy, like I was going to say, mother, and brand. There it is. I'm not sure if we're going to swear on here, but, yeah, the idea is that, yeah, you can, you know, explore different options. - Exactly. - I love that. - I love that. And when I worked in the agency, well, I worked for a company called MadGee, and we'd do that. We'd have different options, and the final one was called a MadOption. - Yeah. - Like if we would have like really pushed and kind of take this in a direction that we wanted to go in and just kind of push the idea like really out there, this is what it would look like. And we always offer a MadOption. And a lot of times that climate actually choose it because we kind of broke out of the box of where their mind was. And then we just weeks, we created a new playground, and suddenly that became, oh, absolutely, I love that. So I love both the single concept, solution, and I love also that three with the round squares. Like I love that. Absolutely awesome. And so for the, you know, one of the things that you mentioned, and this now goes to the client side of questions, you said a logo is not a brand. So what is a brand? - What is a brand? So there's many different, there's many different definitions. And I run a podcast called Just Branding, which is just out in Branding. Everyone that we have on the show we ask this question, like what's your definition of brand? And we've got a lot of definitions. - Yeah. - For me, probably because I hear it every single time we talk about all that podcast, my co-host Matt Davies talks about it as the management of meaning. And I align with that. I also align with my demimized definition around it, being it got feeling of someone has about your brand or product or service. Basically, it's, you don't own your brand, but the customer does. It's formed in their mind. Based on all the experiences, it's the reputation of the brand as well. Jeff Bezos says it's, you know, it's what people say when you're not in a room. - Right. - And those are a few different definitions, but it could also be about the perception of your brand or product or service. You wanna craft that perception. And that's what branding is about. You have to meaningly, meaningly. You have to create that meaning and create that perception. And that's done through the process of branding. - Yeah. And I'm just saying, well, I've heard so many different definitions. And I've wrestled with my version as well of what it might be. And it is definitely reputation for me. Your brand is, you know, what people think and feel about what you're saying and do. You know, it's what they, that's essentially it, it's what they think and feel about what you're saying and do. And branding is everything you say and do. You know, not pretty much it is. Because, yeah, and in today's culture and in the exposure that we can get, it's pretty much everything you say and do. It's from their experience with on the telephone, on your website, when they walk through the door, when they drive into your parking lot, you know, how you smell, how you lock, I mean, it's, or everything you say and do. - It was. - Branding in today's culture. And so, you know, people need to be mindful of that when it comes to your brand. So when they say, I have a brand, what do you have? I have a logo. - Yeah. - No, it's like, and you don't have, you have maybe a segment of branding, but you don't have a brand yet. And so, you know, I love what you do and the stuff that you're sharing is super valuable. So how is your brand evolved? - How is my brand involved? What's on the improv? Just being just creative to where it's at now? Like, is that what you said? - Evolved, yeah. - Evolved, okay. All right, how's it evolved? So originally it was called just creative design. I asked the design part in a couple of years later, bought the domain, and that's how it evolved. But I've, I kind of mentioned this before, it went from like a logo design agency to a visual identity agency to a brand identity focused design agency. And then more recently, moving into brand strategy, identity design, marketing, a few websites, and so forth. I should mention that a lot of that time I was doing web design work. So in New York, I was a UX UI designer. So I was heavily involved in interactive design and digital products, but I still did a lot of branding projects on with my business. So that's how it's evolved. We haven't really talked about the other arm of my business, which was the blog. That was a, has been a huge part of my brand and business for many years. It's been the backbone of our business through getting clients and affiliate revenue. Back we grew that into a seven figure business back a few years ago and that came crashing down. That's another, it's a microwave, which we can talk about. - Yeah, absolutely. - That was, yeah, so it's, just creative has a few arms. It's a brand design agency. It is a community. It is a platform that helps other creatives and entrepreneurs grow their brands. So there's a branding podcast attached to it. There is a, did I say community? - Yeah. - Yeah, there's a ton of resources on there. But yeah, it's basically split into two sections. One, the blog, which is focused for designers and creatives and techies. And then my brand design agency, which is more focused on entrepreneurs and business owners. So I serve two audiences, creatives and entrepreneurs, sometimes I crossover, but that's how, that's my type of audience. And I don't think that's necessary change over the years. It's been both a blessing and a curse because I have two audiences, but it's allowed me to have my hand in different pies and do different things. And I love variety and that's my brand. So yeah, yeah. Now, one way you want to take that, well, you talked about the crash. And then I do have another follow up question of, you know, in the, you know, doing your own branding is the toughest thing. And so I want to hear about how you evolved even your branding and your visuals and all that. But let's talk about the crash that happened. What was that about? - Yeah, before I talk about the crash, I'll talk about the rise because what it is. So the blog, just creative, is, it's a blog for designers and creatives. And back in around 2018, I started making some money through Amazon affiliate marketing. I dabbled in a little bit like I registered my Amazon affiliate account like 2012, but for like, I don't know, it's eight years. It was like earning cents. So yeah, I didn't really know much about affiliate marketing, but I eventually had a few posts on our site get a lot of traction through search. And I was like, well, how is this post making, you know, hundreds of dollars, why is this? And I kind of researched and learned some of the keywords and what was making that particular post rank well and convert well. And by reverse engineering that post, we scaled up and I, okay, well, I'm gonna reply a few writers to write similar posts and see how it works out and it worked out. And I just, I kept doing it. And from 2018 to 2020, I've hired a bunch of different writers, maybe four writers and kept doing it. And then in 2020 to 22, I scaled about to about 10 people around the world and I'm gonna now at the peak, probably like 20, 20 articles a week. So it was a lot of content and whatever we posted, like 70% of it would convert and rank well. So we had a lot of cloud with Google, because we have a lot of links back to our site because we had been around since 2007. So the absolute outside was ranking and really was full-served in the creative community, right? - Yes, still serve in the creative community. So what a affiliate marketing is just, I didn't mention this is if you share a link, so I'll click on the link and buy something, I get a cut of that. So I had a post, let's say best laptops for designers. So I come to my page, clicks on the best laptop that we recommend for, let's say travel, they go to the Amazon and buy it, I'll get like a commission, maybe like 50 bucks from a $3,000 laptop. So the interesting thing about Amazon is if you click a link through Amazon and they buy the laptop, but then they go and buy a diamond ring in the same purchase, you're gonna get a commission on that whole cart. So you're doing this at scale, you can actually get quite a good commission from Amazon. So we did this at scale, we had hundreds, maybe thousands of articles, all different tech-related articles. And it worked really well. We branched out there to tech, we went into fonts, we went into like pro-create resources, everything for designers and cleaners and things were ranking well. And we grew to like a million page views a month and that was our out, over about two years. We ran from 200,000 a month, which was pretty good. And then two years later, like a million a month. And that didn't last too long. People changed their algorithm. So they were thinking back the other way. Yeah. And it was a slow, it was a fast end slowed burn. So it's like, oh man, we lost half our visitors and we're like, oh that was bad. And then three months later, they bring out another update. Oh, we lost half again. And then six months later, they bring out another update. And then just slowly weeding out publishers like our site from search results. And I get the reasons why. There's definitely debate around is for the better, for the user, they're prioritizing ad revenue and certain big publishers instead of small publishers. We were getting to that, but the point is, the, you know, there's a huge rise. We know it will grow so well. We went up, you know, we got to a seven figure figure. We will. on that path and then it came crashing down very quickly. Well, I'll cut back the team and everything. And the heads back moment here is that nothing's forever. I was heavily into search for so many years. It was the backbone of our business and nothing is forever. We still rank for certain phrases, but none of the, you know, feeling a poster anywhere near what they were. So I've had to rethink, repivot, ask strategy because I had this passive income coming in which meant I could be pretty flexible with what I worked on and I didn't have to, like, I could do client work, I could do just creative work, I could do side projects and I didn't have to worry too much about the finances and all of that because I've that layout. Yeah. So that was a cool passive income, but it was kind of a primary income. Like it was your. It definitely turned into a primary income. It's outpriced out. And that's why I focused on that. I loved, I didn't know this, but like when things are working, you dive into the data and I just loved working with data. So I went from like being doing someone designed to work on like keywords and data diving and analytics and optimization and, you know, plugins and speed and all like backend stuff. So it was like, you know, there was a needed shift for me because I've been doing blogging for so long, but it was, it was, yeah, it was just, it worked. So we doubled down on it, I guess, and then it didn't work. And then we moved on. We moved on. So, yeah, what would you have done differently? What would you have done differently? What would you have done? We can't change it. So the algorithm is the algorithm and you can try beat it and you can try reverse engineer it. And that's what we did. For a while now it's getting increasingly more difficult and more competitive, not just from other websites, but Google itself pushes it, pushes it there in products and, you know, the search result, like the shopping results and then, you know, the ads, you know, that, like even if you're number one, you're really number one, you're like five. So the two, you be clicked and then they have snippets and rich snippets, like you're just right. And the results again, worse and worse and soon they're going to bring in SGE, which is search generative experience, basically AI results within Google and that's even going to push everything further down the page. So, well, I think that then I'm just more about your business model. Like, well, you know, if you look back at the way your business model was at that point, for somebody else that might be in a similar type of place is, what would you have done differently that the crash would not have been as hard for you? Well, the crash only really affected the blog inside of it, but also it was my way of getting clients at that time. So a lot of my traffic for my eight, so a lot of my leads for my agency came through search. It was, they had a lot of articles on things like logo design or identity design strategy and so forth and people would find it through that way. But how the update happened was that the Google classifies your host searches helpful and not helpful in a nutshell. And because of all those other articles, our regular rankings for other terms like brand strategy or design also went down. So we couldn't really control that. We're going through a major prune of articles and trying to re-optimize things and yada yada. But the point is the business model doesn't necessarily change. Like I still have the blog, I still have the agency. What does change is how I go about marketing. What's the strategy for getting, what what of tactics are going to use to get clients in the door leads and where we're focusing? Before, I used to be able to run a community, do design, run a side project, run a team of 10 and all of that at once. But now, because I have to actively market, I have less time because you can almost pass it. I had everything organically, organically, it's no cold outreach or anything like that, no marketing. So yeah, the model hasn't changed, but how a market changed and that affects the time as well. So those are the things that have kind of shifted in recent years. Yeah. And that was the reset after the crash ride is looking at how our leads coming in now, how are we going to pivot, how are we going to make sure that we have things coming in that is maybe even not even leaning into one source as much as you did into the blogs as maybe well before the crash is heavily leaning into that. But started off as passive became primary in generating income as well as generating leads. And now you have diversified that into other ways instead of leaning into one direct should I. I've always diversified. So I have digital products. I have a typeface. We have downloads. We have the agency work. We have a community. And we have lots of different social profiles. So my eggs were definitely scattered in different baskets. So that's why I've been able to adapt. But the, yeah, it's the marketing side of it has really been affected. So changing up where rather than search, I went more into LinkedIn, for example, this year and focused there and that worked. And I also reworked on my branding when I was a bit of a quieter period like Christmas jam. It's like naturally quieter. I reworked my brand and refreshed it, launched that, got the attention of a few people on LinkedIn and I got a few clients from that. So it's just like this kind of ebb and flow of our last hours, creative and designers. Yeah, I'm sure everyone at EGOS. Yeah. And so with your own brand, with your own visuals, you said you did a rebrand. What was that like? What did you? Where were you and what did you either add, take away or all the men to make better? Yeah, I wouldn't go as far as saying rebrand. It was more of a refreshed identity. So what I mean by that is we updated some of the typefaces to be bigger, bolder. We added two new typefaces and we doubled down on this full-lingo idea. And what did that come from? Yeah. Pink has always been a part of our brand since 2007. It's definitely stood out in the marketplace, especially back then. There was no other, especially male graphic designer in the creative digital space using pink. So it stood out white and pink. The full-lingo idea came probably about five years ago. I did a pro bono project for my mate's gym and they had this huge mural on the wall of the lion. So for me, the project was creating different slogans and messaging for their gym to go around the walls and the theme. So there was the Dan and there was like core marks and there would be a feelers, be courageous, never give up because it's kind of stuff like positive messaging. And that had this theme and I was like man, just creative does not have a theme like that. And there was a couple of legs in terms of theme like that. And I was like well, what mascot or animal would represent our brand? And obviously the full-lingo came up, not just because it's pink, which works perfectly. Right. You know, that ball they created, they stand, stand the fuck out and they represent our brand spirit and of creativity and joy and it just works so perfectly. So I shared this idea of the full-lingo and I created a poster, a pan-tone pink poster of the full-lingo and I hung it up in my wall. And then I shared it on the socials and it got the tension a lot of other people and whenever I was dabbling with a new project of just like experimenting with like AI or anything, I often just use a full-lingo because that's what I did and I share that. And then I started getting gifts of like full-lingo related hints or people taking photos of like this reminded me of you. So I've got like unease and socks and shirts and like figurines and like gin or full-lingo related and nice. It's definitely, it's ingrained in people's heads. Like I guess some of me photos are like this reminded of you when I saw the full-lingo. So it worked really well. That's the way I'm like how do we double down on this idea? I wanted to create a mascot that we could use in our marketing material and I had to find something that worked but I went through like using stock, I tried more recently AI, then I hired someone on Fiverr and they're all okay. And I'm like I don't want to really bring us up a notch and I was just throughout this process I was sharing this flamingo and this idea and then someone slid into my DMs and it's like we do 3D mascot design. Let's have a chat and I was like, "Oh, let's see where this goes." And then I got up into them, I shared my vision and recreated this animated mascot called Pinky and we've just nearly finished it. Now it looks really awesome. It's this like low poly style cut-ed sleek digital looking flamingo and it now animates. We have this animation over the opening of its wings which time with our slogan of dare to flare. It's got sunglasses on and so he's got this cool attitudes. It's really resonating with people and we have a few tag lines that go along with it like stand the flock out, dare to flare, flock ordinary and those sorts of things. So it has a lot of legs and legs. just definitely me go legs, but they're I'd make that - Yeah, that quids, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, no, I'd hear is there. And that sort of theme is what I was looking for and we found out and it resonated really, really well. And it was a natural progression. - Yeah. - That's what branding often is. It's like, what are the things that evolve? Some things come into things, your brand naturally. Others fabricated, which is okay as well. - Right. - And math gods, they're very memorable. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Apart from the product and perhaps a logo, mascots are the most memorable item all of a brand? - Yeah, yeah. And I love that. And for the listeners, of course we're gonna have designers listening to this as well as people that are business owners and things like that. How would you apply that head smack moment of the mascot creation? How would you apply that to the business owner that is wondering, do I need something like that? Why would it benefit me? What would you tell them? - Why would it benefit you? - Yeah, as a debtor. - A whole group of business owners. - Yeah. It's hard to say, like if it's gonna benefit you or not a mascot, it's some of your different variables. I can't say it's gonna work for every business. You have to look at the pros and cons, like what's your category, how are the brands standing out? Are they using a mascot or is this an opportunity here? Does it make sense for our brand? - Right. - People I see doing it, it's like they actually stand out and they're memorable. - Right. - You know, like there's a few people online that are using like a purple monster or like a pigeon or even if it's a personal brand, you can become a mascot yourself. So I have another mate that he dresses in pink, he's a creative and everything he has is pink. It's got an included, in beanie, pink earphones, like pink shoes, he becomes a mascot. So there's different ways about it, but you have to figure out there's a right for your brand and there's a lot of different variables to consider for that. - Yeah. - Yeah, I love what you said there. I think there are several things there that we can highlight is, you know, you created, when you came up with this mascot, when you came up with this flamingo, is suddenly it gave you a language, it gave you visual voice, it gave you a voice, it gave you a personality, like it brought a lot with it, that I think is valuable for a brand. If you can find a way to create, you know, like even liquid death, the drink, you know, can, you know, they created an attitude, they created a personality that then influenced everything that they did moving forward. And I think that's a way to build a powerful brand is to create something that then creates the language around it, that creates the personality around it, that dictates visuals and things like that. - I will share that it generally stems from the company's soul or essence or DNA. So what do these brands actually stand for, and how are they translating this to, you know, their message in their story? So for, you know, liquid death, it's, you know, the whole idea of, you know, the environment is there, but it's also doing things differently, and it's got like a death metal vibe, and it has an uncertain aesthetic that stands out of the whole marketplace, and it relates back to their values, and the customer as well, like, you know, that people are drinking water at a, you know, a concert, for example, they want to be seen as cool, and this has this can, like, that's a great idea, and it works. - Right. - For us, for the flamingo, like it makes sense about standing out, I've been different in the marketplaces, what we do as a service, and get behind this idea of starting the flock out, daring to flare, and that theme kind of naturally comes from the essence of your brand. So, right. Before we get into the personality or voice of your brand, you have to consider, well, what are our values? Like, what's authentic to us? What do we believe in? And that's gonna help dictate personality and voice if you're brand. - Yeah, yeah, that is so good, man. That is so, so good. Well, man, this has been an amazing conversation, and I appreciate you coming on. If people wanted to get a hold of you, first of all, who do you want to get a hold of you, and how can you help them, and how do they get a hold of you? - Yep, so I serve two audiences, creatives and designers, and people that want to become more strategic. I also serve business owners and entrepreneurs, helping them with their strategy, and their branding, everything from strategy to design, to growth and marketing. That's all done through me, at justcreative.com. And, yeah, interested in connected with anyone, really. Anyone that wants to learn about brand design marketing, and I have a ton of resources on my side, as you briefly mentioned before. You can go to brandinbriefcase.com and download it all there for free. There is strategy workbooks, there's logo inspiration, e-books, there's strategic documents, there's sales, calls, documents, to help you with your process. There's so much like my custom GPs that I've created for chatGbD+. - And it's all free. - In exchange for a lovely email address, and there's no spam internet, it's pure value. You get a lot of value in the world of branding. So, yeah. Resonates head over to justcreative.com. - Awesome, and yeah, if you were a designer, if you were creative, I'd definitely recommend you follow Jacob on all the socials on all everywhere he's at. Definitely provides a lot of high value. Download that briefcase. You know, you've recently previously presented for Adobe Live. I loved it, the presentation on everyone. The San Francisco logo was amazing. And I just even that, if you were a designer, definitely go check that out. Research set out. Jacob shared the whole process of redesigning a logo or designing a logo for a city San Francisco and talked about that entire process. And so if you're a designer, whether you're a mature designer or a startup designer, just joining the marker as a creative, definitely go look that up as well. Thank you, Jacob. This has been awesome. I appreciate your presentation. - Thank you. - Yeah, great questions. And I'd love to chat about this and connect with others as well. So thank you. - Thank you for joining us on the Hetzmag podcast. We've shared some candid stories and life-changing ideas. And now it's your time to act. First, take bold action on just one idea and see how your life can radically change. Secondly, whatever platform you'll listen to this on, please rate it, share it, and leave a comment. Let us know where this episode impacted you. I appreciate you giving me your time. And don't forget to join us for our next misfit conversation.