The Discipline of Doing Hard Things - My1Brand

Welcome to an agency story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments and everything in between. I'm your host Russell Dubri, former eight-figure agency owner, turn business coach, sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today everyone. I have Benjamin Bevruz with My One Brand. Thank you so much for joining us here today Ben. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure Russell. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you. Let's just get right to it. Tell us what My One Brand does and who do you do it for? My One Brand has been in existence since 2007. Very humble beginnings. HQ was in Los Angeles an hour and every major metropolitan city across America and we're storytellers. With all of the noise in the world we're able to make something that's impactful with our clients that allows them to have longevity and be able to withstand the storm. If you have a good brand you're able to go up and down and work with what the environment gives you. Well we're gonna get more to how you actually affect that and make that happen for your clients and everywhere else but let's go back earlier in the story and I want to hear how young Benjamin came up in the world and what that looked like. Really humble beginnings. I was able to create a company just out of inspiration to want to be able to do more. I was lucky enough to be able to go to UCLA. From that means I was able to have exposure to some amazing teachers that really were able to kind of give me a different perspective on life and I think that's what college is supposed to do and being able to kind of see things differently and through that component I was working with Sony Music. I worked for the vice president of Sony A&R. The gentleman that I worked for was able to sell ice to an Eskimo and through that it was humble beginnings of just having long nights trying to make it as an intern and making my bones and through that process I was able to work in a space before YouTube was profitable and trying to figure out how we're going to premiere the next Britney Spears video and all these amazing things that I was fortunate enough to do and I had an amazing group of people that were on my shoulders helping me and supporting me which really did help and I was able to start my love affair with media and content and understanding that giving a voice to people is so utterly important and through this process I was able to be brought on to a company called Truth Thig.com. Truth Thig is similar to a Huffington Post. We're a sister website to them and I was able to be working under Robert Sheer. He was the editor and chief of the LA Times so having these amazing inspirations around me kind of pushed me to be able to do more and through this process I was able to work within Truth Thig, find my love, find my understanding and then my company was coming about and through this process we were able to bring on clients that needed local digital marketing help. I think when we started initially we were web developers that was our term and my background was I do know coding as well so that's something I started with but our company as our company and kind of transitioned we grew and we've been growing and we become a more sustainable voice in the market and it's been an amazing course that we've kind of had and I think finding where we can serve people the most and enjoy what we do that's I think the balance that now I'm trying to kind of fulfill for myself as well as myself. Alright so you know just picking apart a few aspects of your story you're right in the heart you're going to UCLA you're working for Sony starting out as an intern I can just kind of hear some of the great experience what do you think that taught you when that may be particular experience working at Sony? So the best way I can say it is you have to suffer before it actually becomes something a substance and it's hard to see the sunlight when you're in the fog and you're in the dark but you have to push through. Right now when I think back and I'm smiling right now and I'm thinking about those overnights and I'm thinking about how we were able to find a Britain Spears video before it was even launched and be able to segue it making it to Reddit homepage a couple times all these little things that kind of play in the back of my mind of like how and what we did and I'm so thankful for that hardship because it allows me to manage and conquer and be able to do what I can do now so whatever hardship you face just know you have to deal with it be welcoming of it and I think David Goggins says it embrace the suck and if you're able to embrace the suck and be okay with suffering and it takes a different kind of animal to be able to be wanting to suffer and wanting to go through that hardship because you know that there's something amazing going to come from the other end. I think that is I don't want to say common theme that naturally comes up in a lot of these conversations but something we do talk about that you know our definition of what is hard is only a relative comparison to the hardest thing we've ever done and so I think if right to your point if we can find ways to embrace more uncomfortability then when we do encounter hard things they just might not quite feel as hard and make it easier to get through inherently so throw yourself in hard situations to sharpen that edge for yourself. The personality building situations you're thrown into something and you're having to scale about wall and be able to figure out how to do it. When you look down it looks wow that was so easy to do you don't know if you don't try. All my failures have led to my successes and I'm like proud to say that. Well as I like to tell folks I don't know that anyone's failed worse than I did in the same business. I always really enjoyed that experience because when we did find a right and better way to do things it's like well I know this is it because I've seen all the ways not to do it and that proved that all the more true. You kind of started to share where the business is at today but was there any critical turning points in your journey that really defined or I guess nothing short of critical to being to where you're at today? I think the understanding and this is just kind of taking me back I'll try to kind of dig in my mind and the biggest thing I kind of understood I was able to consistently do was make sacrifices to help the company grow so if it was me not getting a paycheck for six months it was not me getting paid for one year but we were able to add a new department. If it was me having to in this is an exact example of moving to New York for a year and a half be able to go establish a new HQ and be able to create that new funnel. I think it definitely is the idea of being able to sacrifice for growth and definitely the understanding that having people that are amazing with you you have endless power and your reach becomes something else. So I definitely think my understanding about creating opportunity for others and how I was able to bring on some amazing people on our team to be able to give our company flight. That's probably one of the biggest things as our company grew you can only do so much as one but as you have amazing creatives and people that are able to make amazing decisions for the company and our clients I was really able to see the scale of creating more with amazing people that are on my sides. We had an internship program this was a while ago this is when I initially started the business. That internship program really helped me do what I love which is educate and work with people and help them kind of find their passions and through that we were able to really find people that meshed with us allowed us to be able to work with people. So when I look back on my LinkedIn I can look at my past staffers and they're working in amazing positions they're living their best lives and it's something that I don't know why but it's very fulfilling to be able to help contribute to someone's success and then finding their passion and believing in people at the beginning of their careers I'm sure you were faced with this as well because you're working with people there and that is something probably that I've had to really understand and embrace which is we need to believe in the people that we work with we need to be able to give them the ability to grow and lead them in a place where they're successful and if it's not with you that's okay. I love that that was our mantra it's like once you come into our sphere I want you to be successful and I realize I know that is not always gonna be here but I think it's that mentality in of itself that's going to do a lot of the things that you talk about of investing in people and helping them see a better version of themselves because if you assume the opposite or don't treat it that way then it might be inherently a self-fulfilling prophecy as well. I guess I'm a part of the old guard I've been here for a little bit and the reality of being righteous to people and being able to give them a platform that is the spotlight is on them and they're able to grow and become who they are. There it really is this ecosystem that I'm so proud of that I've been able to create. I'm thinking back right now I just had one of my first graphic designers I was with me she just messaged me she works for a huge company writer and she's about to take a step into a new direction and she may hey is it okay if I put you down as a reference I'm like I just sent her like a hundred heart emojis and I'm just like of course and she's like you believed in me when no one else did I'm thankful for every day we got together it's just that embrace for me now is amazing and I'm able to see the people that I was able to help and I did what I did but it was all of them all I did was give them a platform give them the ability to find their ambitions and everything else so it's really amazing and the more I understand those people you have around me the opportunities that you give others and the payoff is immense and really it just boils down to you get what you give but I think that is a agencies that do grow well do have talent that takes ownership and is empowered have embraced that investment that culture of learning I think the reality of what you get with staff members you have people that come to fill a position but no one is the same shape and size everyone's a little bit different that strength different places and understanding how each team member is able to learn or contribute and have that become a cycle so there's a constant growth that we have as a company on the technology side and we have specific people that will manage I'm constantly creating one-on-ones group sessions where one is able to teach the other and for me my biggest issues and I told my son if you're not asking questions there's a problem so for us we're very much so embracing the questions so I will let my team members fail there but they'll learn from that side and I'm okay with it for me I look at the philosophy work like what are we gonna really lose if this happens so give people the ability to work not telling them what to do you don't need a mule there's enough mules in this work you need someone that's able to make a good decision for you your client and for it to come from a basis of knowledge that you give them I know my years in the ring that I've had I have so much back data in my brain I can think of a situation to pull up on my team members don't know until I tell them and I think that's been the major thing of just communication amongst my team to be able to educate each other I one of my team members yesterday she was legitimately jumping she's like I broke the AI checker I broke the AI checker and she's like I went home I told my husband I broke AI he's like I have no idea what you're saying it's okay I did good and she just kept walking so for us we really enjoy the wins and I think I'm a nerd and I think a lot of my staff is too we really geek out over hacking certain things you're figuring out how to reverse engineer things so it's fun we enjoy what we do and I think that's the main thing yeah that's great and just to kind of the bins cliff notes of some core concepts there behind that of one understanding people's learning styles and adapting to that in the process and not just having one way of training and meeting people embracing this aspect of teaching each other what can we all learn from each other in that shared collective experience and part of that is embracing questions and then this one and I think is often the hardest one is let them fail and maybe be willing and focus on breaking stuff in the process which is interesting right and I think any founder would agree with this as you are who you are because you had to show up in situations and you are naturally going to fail as you've been about your journey but the team they get to come in whenever they might come in they get to come at different points when it's already been solved for them but they still need that same experience that same understanding of failure so how can you give that to them and not screw up the clients in the process I think that can be a tough thing for owners to be willing to do or even help facilitate you said it Russell I think I'm not always right and I know that and as a as an agency owner we have to understand that the variety of our team members their way of thinking their ability to be able to solve problems it really is important to listen to people because something that was working for X amount of time might not be working for the remainder of time and because with us we have such a hyper focus on certain industries we can adapt and understand much faster so I have had this understanding of let's try what will we lose on the back end and because we have so many doors that we manage across America we can mitigate the issues we can mitigate the catastrophes so just our liabilities where they lie and if they're how we can test things actually have a deploy so definitely giving our team the ability to create new ways for us to be better I'm always always asking for that well I mean we know I mean just thinking since you started your business I started mine and you know last 20 25 years in the digital space and how how fast and rapid that has grown it's unlike the world has ever seen in any short time period or really maybe collectively across time periods and so it sounds like you know you cannot let the learning process be serendipitous in your business relative to that pace of change that you have to embrace it and sometimes you have to slow down and let that learning happen let that failure happen so that you can go as fast as you need to or faster as this is all happening around us I mean it's a good reminder you know it's so funny some of those things might sound like simple concepts at face value but I'm I'm sure as you well know it takes a lot of discipline it takes a lot of intention to show up and do that in a meaningful way and right we live in a business where it's just easy to just always want to focus on getting the work done and really the discipline it takes to you know step back and make sure you take time for this you know the people that are a part of your team they're representing who you are and over time you're able to understand people's characteristics and understand who and what you need for what job I'm my stop's biggest cheerleader and this is something I've just really understood because empowering people allowing them to be their best there is no downside to this if they're just upside and I don't know if it came up earlier and can I where you're describing you know a little bit about where the agency is today but you went from a what it sounded like a one-man show to a pretty decent sized staff today obviously you're probably not able to have as closest touch points with everyone on the team as you once were so what has that been like to make sure that these philosophies that you're sharing are shared and filtered down by like you're saying your other leaders in the business I think what we've been able to do is to be able to understand who best communicates with who this world this ethos system that we're creating is ushering in more creatives and better people that want to work with a similar mining group I think anyone that is certainly done any sort of former sports say there's a lot of inspiration to be taken from the concept and things that are inherently baked into sports team but something I do think is important to hit on because I think in the agency space everyone wants the team the talent and I think that's a learning process to really understand what that is but you know just the aspects that you were talking about how important it is one to just have this culture that you're talking about but putting that out there into the world so that can be seen and known and felt just as much as the culture if you will that you're trying to showcase to your potential clients that like attracts like and that's how you you know bring on the A players and it's almost effectively recruiting so what things have you done to have I guess call it a recruiting brand recruiting market out there in the world so that you can continue to add to that team so for you to be able to find good talent is insanely difficult but having a culture like I mentioned and really helpful and understanding that you do need to play the game with running in the dads and doing these different things you do need to do it but see if a I open on who needs the job verse who wants to fulfill a prophecy or whatever it may be that oh I want to be the marketing does because when you have someone that is in charge of someone's their family's ability to pay their mortgage their kids to go to college there for me I understand the realities of our job of we're allowing others to live their happiness their lives to be able to pay their rent let their kids go to school so the responsibility level for us is very high and for us to bring people in that are within those means and understand and they're selfless and want to give back it really creates an amazing ecosystem of people why you give back to our clients and truth be told I put my stop first before the client so if I have a cancer client snip snip so there definitely is this understanding of putting your stop first and having this ethos that allows for people to come and it's very interesting man we've got a lot of amazing staff members I still have I'm looking out right now they show up at our door they knocked on the door they came to our beach day cleanup they came to our toy drive that we have there's things that I've seen pay attention to the people that show up not the people that are showing off it doesn't end well when they show off never does so the people that show up the people that have a selflessness those are the characteristics well I think this is a space that doesn't suffer looking good it only rewards actually being good and certainly at least in the long run that was an ethos that we often said or at least I think back to a fundamental key to our success and in our shift in growing was one just figuring out all the ways to attract good talent but right starting with having a good culture first but then that's becomes again a fortuitous cycle if you're gonna spend a lot of effort to get good talent you need to have an environment where you retain and keep them and invest in them as they're going back to our earlier conversation so always good lessons and reminders that we can't not no indifferent for going to go back to our sports team right you got to take care of the players you got to heal them up when they're injured from a tough game and continue to work on new plays new ways of working so very cool well again so many topics I want to open up but there was a really cool word that you used in our previous conversation and this is very resonant as this week I hosted a workshop that was about agency strategy planning and building out a long-term vision and plan for the business and the term you used and I just want you to kind of shed more light on his future casting and talk to us just a little bit about that what that means to you and what that looks like in your business what's been happening with us is the people that we work with we're dealing with Fortune 500 companies we're dealing with people that have a lot of liability in place and we are able to kind of help step in and figure out if the investment is worth the reward and a lot of ways with us future cast and we're able to kind of take a deeper look to understand where the conversation is happening how are the methods in which people are getting to your brand or product chip go is this Amazon proof all these things that we know are realities of being able to look at your business be able to make good decisions and have an actual strategy and plan something that's been happening and I like to use this term value meals don't work so if you try to get the exact same thing as thousand other people and you feel oh I just saved duh duh duh duh duh yeah but how much did you actually lose because you didn't make that one so there definitely is this mentality of being able to look at is it worth investing for something to be able to get that revenue back as well as having an understanding that you have your front door you have your storefront companies don't necessarily make their main money on the products they have that are on the windows it may be one of the offerings in the fact that they able to serve because that have the foundation so with us we're able to really shake out the business and be able to look at competitors be able to look at data be able to do focus groups and then be able to come out with an actual strategy that a board can kind of look at and say yes I want to do this because people think oh I'm gonna run Instagram that's better ads gonna solve my problem that's not the case you know one little algorithm changing your bubble pops so we're more so in a place of creating stability and foundation for our clients you know for us we're not that match and because the same way they're gonna probably do a charge back for that company and whatever they're gonna deal with and they're like you guys didn't do anything but it makes sense usually on the first page of Google for $500 or $300 it's not real and it's too good to be true it probably is not gonna work for you so for us I think it's really the future casting is being able to do research quantify with actual data give the people that are running the company a sober view of what they're doing sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't yeah I think that was literally another conversation and if it looks too good to be true it probably is we've heard that saying since we were the smallest of kids yeah yeah that just seems like so human nature to always want to seek that out but yeah just just a couple takeaways from what you were sharing there there's no cheap investing and any significant return is gonna come from a significant investment but the plan is to do the work the discovery process said to essentially measure twice cut once which is ultimately an important part of the process to get the buy-in to make that huge investment and it sounds like you've spent a lot of your own investment in that process so that it gives more confidence to this idea of what the future could look like and that sounds like that's worked out well for you it has and luckily we've been able to kind of help with this transitions that take in place through COVID through AI through all these things and it's been really amazing for the people that are seeking a path forward instead of trying to do the same thing hoping it lasts so we're definitely seeing that and we're definitely like stepping in constantly to be able to help with those types of discoveries and kind of doing pathways for people one other thing that I know is something that you've just spent a lot of time and it seems like we've weaved it in through different parts of this conversation is just a significant going back to investment and learning in just human psychology and behavior why was that important to you and what are just some of the hot takes based upon all that research and investment you've done we're a marketing company but it's all psychology it's being able to create something to be able to give an emotional response to the people that are looking at it and the more you're able to do that the more you're able to move the needle and this is our little spiel we get someone on the phone I'm like where is the last three places you ate whereas the last two places your wife shopped and what was this and it's because we've been able to be a part of those every single step from the place you ordered food from some of the biggest chains in America to where people are buying their ammunition for their weapons to where they're going to the hospital to take care of their young ones so all these different places where we've been able to be a part of and be able to be a part of the story there really isn't a hot take for that but it's an amazing feeling of being able to actually be on the ground because you have a lot of marketing companies that are in Philippines Brazil all these different places they don't understand what veterans they actually is like they use the word Metro when their people don't know these bus and they're just certain disconnection for us to be locally going to the local events because our staff members go there well and you know it seems like going back to I think again how we started the conversation of just all the noise that exists today broad strokes don't work anymore and again some of these high-level talking points or initiatives or aspects in the business don't sound complicated at face value but it takes a significant again investment and learning to do those well and you know it's interesting I think sometimes in the work I do again it goes back to this idea that people are looking for the quick fix or maybe even sometimes the hot take and how important is to go through the journey of those subjects and those aspects because you have to craft your own solution otherwise it will always fall short so maybe that just comes back to again go full circle with this doing hard things and getting comfortable doing those hard things David Goggins baby yeah if I'm too comfortable I'm not doing enough I can't say like I'm a huge David Goggins follower but I know enough of the crazy stuff he does to know that that's insanity you know it's kind of funny because I had a couple trips out of the country to some difficult places and that's what I'm listening to before I go into the nitty-gritty of India or wherever it may be that's just a little bit tougher for us Americans to kind of handle so he's like my coat of armor at ties where I'm walking get to bad situation I've actually met him I saw him in the streets running I was able to speak with him and everything also it's amazing yeah yeah power of living in LA but I think even maybe at a smaller scale when I'm sure everyone out there listening right you've got that agency or that other business that you know maybe you know makes you feel like you're not performing well enough or something like that but we're just another person to that may be a little further along in their journey or just a little step differently so yeah focus on yourself keep on keeping on well I'm gonna have to stop opening cans of worms here and start to wind this down I guess maybe just be curious to hear how are you looking at the future of this business what are you trying to achieve truthfully make a bunch of money make things that help a lot of people and have a lot of fun and as simple as that because when everything comes full circle guys enjoying what you do and being able to help people that's what we should all be doing on a big scale and that's it I think those are my main things and happiness as at the top of everything else and trying to work on projects that actually inspire me and inspire my team because our company as this has been what's been happening we don't work on easy projects we get contacted for the more difficult when 10 companies say no this is not possible like there's a way and we're able to kind of facilitate things and that's what's been at our core and constantly having projects we're able to scale and take on uncomfortable things but they're able to make people's lives better I think that this point in the conversation that's not a surprise to say and totally makes sense given given everything you've shared already well very cool can't wait to see how that continues to shake out for you finding new levels of hard things to do so one last big question for you are entrepreneurs born are they made entrepreneurs are made it's in your own hands whatever you do you live by the rope and that's what I say it's my meetings my managers whenever they join me and I make the manager you get a rope you can use that rope to climb up the mountain if you use that rope to hang yourself it's in your own hands but we're very much so in a place motivating and pushing and letting people be who they are whatever your dream is add five six more zeros to it because that's where you'll be able to see your greatness never think small anything is possible when ten other people here know that no is you have 30% chance of still doing it keep pushing us all right one of the more confident made answers I hear on the show so I'm here for it well if people want to know more about my one brand and everything else you're doing where can they go look us up guys look up my one brand calm we are doing volunteer events across America we do Earth Day Beach cleanup in Los Angeles we're working with NYPD our Poy Drive towards Christmas time we have different events happening in Hawaii we are working with different vendors that we have in Texas to be able to do an amazing toy drive at all the doors we have in Texas so be a part of what we're doing we're doing something great well thank you so much man for taking the time out of your schedule today to share so many insights from really embracing and doing hard things and how that can impact for the power of learning and building a culture around that and just another remembrance of the idea that there's no easy money no cheap investments and goes back to doing hard things to make good things happen and you're as you said near the end in charge of your own rope and what you use that for really appreciate you taking the time to share that with us today amazing along with how one person it's all worth it so that we will thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps write your own subscribe share and join us again for more real stories lessons learned and breakthroughs ahead what's next you'll want to visit an agency story comm slash podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates because of where we are and because we serve a certain community we are intertwined in things that go trending things that break the internet probably the craziest stuff has to be is the craziness of the internet when something goes viral and who comes out of the woodwork so for us the one thing we get to see some of those wild messages that come in and I definitely have a very different understanding what the world is for people's inner thoughts are because of those things so I think for our where we sit and what we have a vantage point to we really are able to see the wildness and the wild wild less of what the internet is and what people think and what is possible so without without having to beep stuff out I think that's the best way I can share it seems like some days you might need the men in black mind erase tool if we're going to some of those places it sounds like you know it's we are the men in black man we are the people hitting the button and things disappear so we are the main block and many times ourselves well it's probably really needed that's a I can't even imagine that's awesome