Episode 104 - The Art of Branding with Drew Reilley: Strategy, Storytelling & Style

#104 | Drew Reilley | Slash Creative | The Art of Branding: Strategy, Storytelling & Style

Get ready for a high-energy conversation on branding, business, and creative thinking with Mark Williams and special guest Drew Reilley of Slash Creative. They cover everything from the importance of brand strategy to why some logos become iconic while others fade into the background. If you’ve ever wondered what goes into making a brand unforgettable, this episode is a must-listen.

Listen to the full episode:

About Andrew Reilley

Andrew Reilley is a father, husband, entrepreneur, branding specialist, graphic designer, musician, and semi-pro pickle maker based in Lafayette, Louisiana. He is the Founder and Creative Director of Slash Creative, a branding and design agency, specializing in brand strategy, web and identity design.

Andrew began his design career in Los Angeles (and in the back of a tour bus), writing and recording music, and travelling the world as a Universal Records recording artist. He began developing branding and design for fellow touring acts and other artists on the label. Working with Grammy nominated producers and A&R executives at labels such as Geffen, Universal and Atlantic Records, he developed a passion for crafting creative identities and designs that were unique and memorable.

Reilley received a BFA in Digital Art and Communications from LSU in 2012. After working in the agency world, he took his unique brand building experience from his music career and the technical knowledge learned from the traditional approach and built something different. In 2014, he founded Slash, which has grown to be an award-winning, internationally published creative agency working with clients like Indian Motorcycles, Coca-Cola, Nascar, MLB, Budweiser, LPB and more.

He has hosted a successful, bi-annual design conference, spoken and judged at Adobe events, and has directed a community growth project that has raised funds and painted 144 murals across the city with local artists.

Resources:

Find Slash Creative’s Website here

Follow Slash Creative on Instagram

Connect with Slash Creative on LinkedIn

• Transcript

  Drew Reilley  00:02

  what is cool is typically not popular, and then it becomes popular, and then it's no longer cool. So someone has to innovate, right to me, like innovation and creativity is all like that's what excites me about brands, not when they just do really good, clean, forgettable work. That's a David Carson quote. It takes those of us willing to, like try something crazy, to actually change the world, you know, and I've always just identified with that

  Mark D. Williams  00:37

  didn't get drew Riley on from slash creative, and we had an amazing conversation. If you don't like ADHD conversations, this episode may not be for you. There should be an extreme warning label on this episode, because we get a lot of topics, you will not be able to speed this up times too, because we're talking fast. We cover a lot of ground. And if brand is your baby, well, tune up, because this is going to be a good one. Without further ado, here's drew Riley, welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today. I'm joined with the creative mind and talent behind slash creative on the East Coast. We've got drew Riley on the podcast. Welcome Drew. 

  Drew Reilley  01:04

  Hey, what's up, Mark? 

  Mark D. Williams  01:05

  Yeah, we got to meet in person. I've been aware of your work for quite a while, but we got to meet in person at the Boston contractor coalition. And you are the creative savant, may I say, genius behind the modern craftsman, both the old version and the rebrand, as well as NS builder and all the stuff Nick's up to, plus 1000s of others. So welcome to the show. 

  Drew Reilley  01:33

  Thanks, man. I'm excited. I remember the one like little back and forth that we had sitting at the desk in the way back of the room, and it was like, someone was talking, and we probably shouldn't have been talking. And I was like, Man, I could talk to this dude forever about nothing.

  Mark D. Williams  01:48

   That's, well, I think I booked you right then and there. I said, let's just do it. Because that an email, like, 10 minutes later, yeah, because that's the ADHD breeder. Man, like, it's like, if I can solve it right now, I don't have to think about it later. But I thought the same thing, we're sitting in the back, which is it's either I'm sitting in the front, raising my hand, but because, since that was, like, my fifth contractor coalition, I was in the back, I guess this time, sure, I'm used to being in the back, because my last name is Williams, my kids very much now lament the fact that they're always last to be called. I remember that feeling when I was a kid. It's like, I wish my last name, sort of like an A or maybe a Riley. That's kind of far back there too, back all the way back as nothing. But you were saying before we started recording that you sometimes your brain can't keep up with how fast you're like, trying to process and speak and communicate. And we were just laughing, because I have the exact same problem. You know what I mean? My wife is like, I don't understand what you're trying to say. Like, just find the meaning within the words, because I'm already on the next 15 thoughts. You know, I mean, honestly, chat GPT is amazing because I can just, like, blob it all out there. And it's like, you just hit enter and it, like, organizes, it makes it sound beautiful. It's like, oh, that's what I was trying to say. Because, like, so I don't know if you're like, this, like, I find half the reason I talk or have a discussion of someone, but much to their chagrin, is like, I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to say. And it's like, I have to say it out loud to see how you react to it. Like, oh, okay, that's a real idea. Yeah, we're beta testing the conversation live. Thank you, my person. Okay, well, this is going to be a self help episode for those out of curiosity. Do you have ADHD? Oh, I'm sure

  Drew Reilley  03:19

  you're sure of it. I'm designing a website on the other screen. I'm writing a song in my head to the story my three year old is telling the neighbor

  Drew Reilley  03:27

  as well. You should actually, it was interesting. This would actually be really interesting. Poll. I don't know very many owners of businesses that don't have some form of Attention Deficit Disorder. What percent Do you think I'm accurate that? Because a lot of them have a lot of energy and they have a lot of ideas, and not that that means you're full on ADHD, but you kind of get what I'm saying. I think

  Drew Reilley  03:51

  it's a spectrum, you know what I mean, and we all land somewhere on the spectrum, you know what I mean. Some of us are, like, more hyperactive and have a lot more energy, and some of us have two speeds, which is, I've always said that's how I am. It's either a billion miles an hour or absolute slug. You know what I mean? Oh, interesting.

  Drew Reilley  04:11

  I have absolute all out or sleeping. The Slug is really get older.

  Drew Reilley  04:17

  Slug mode has become basically napping, right?

  Drew Reilley  04:21

  I'm, I'm a world class Napper, which would probably surprise a lot of people. My dad, actually, this is well before internet and all that stuff and cell phones and whatnot. We had a, my dad was a home builder, and we had a, I didn't find this out till years later, and now, as an adult, as a parent, I'm like, oh, man, this would be he was way ahead of his time. And so we had a about three acres, and that was the time when you would meet people at night, because people don't have cell phones or emails or any of that stuff, websites and so, but we was eating together as a family was the number one priority, so we always had dinner together. I don't remember ever my dad not being there, but then he must have left and, you know, walked 100 yards. He had a nice office detached from the house, and he'd meet people after hours and that kind of thing, which. Was normal in that time, and but I found out years later that he would come home every day after lunch and he would take like, a 45 minute nap. And his office manager, Secretary at the time, Margaret used to always be like, David can't come right to a meeting. Right now he's in a meeting. And way before, like, we all knew what that meant. And now I'm like, Ah, dude, if I could take a 45 minute nap every day, like, Oh, that would be fire. I could totally do that. Yes,

  Drew Reilley  05:23

  I think the ADHD mindset is really it's a superpower. And I've always said that I have superpowers that are both my biggest strength and my biggest weaknesses. Right? The speed at which my brain can can come to a decision or a solution on something is a superpower sometimes, but sometimes I overlook the details. But that's what's great about having a team, is you have people to, like, keep you in check. And so I've always hired to my weaknesses in that regard. That's

  Drew Reilley  05:51

  so that's so smart. We did a personality assessment, the DISC assessment, or a version of that, you know, the red, yellow, green, blue, and it was interesting completely by accident. But at the time, I think we had four employees. Or five, but as an office, we actually balanced out all of it. I was, No way, yeah, which is weird. So I was all red yellow, which, if drivers, typically, the owners are typically those two colors. Red, for those that haven't taken are all driver that kind of thing. Yellow is visionary. I don't know. I have zero green and blue like, almost like it doesn't exist on my radar. And so I laugh, like I don't need any more red and yellows on my team, because I got enough for the whole company. And then so, oh yeah. And but anyway, you do need a healthy balance. Because, to your point, if you're in the visionary seat, you still need the the nuts and bolts of it. And so anyway, a complimentary team. I think, too, I do agree with your statement that I think every every pro is a con. Every strength is a weakness, depending on his life. Think about, I'm just thinking about the animal kingdom right now, because my kids are super into animals. But if you are really, really strong, and it's unlikely that you're also really, really fast, and if you're really, really fast, it's unlikely, like a cheetah, right? You know, it's cheats, the balance

  Drew Reilley  06:55

  of light and dark. It's Star Wars, right? Like there has to be a universal balance, and in your head, really, I think it's the superpower becomes being able to be introspective enough to notice when those things are happen, and catch it early enough on in life, which I unfortunately did not, to develop a tool set to like overcome those challenges mentally granted, because I'm like you. I did finally start to develop that tool set. I just didn't do it till much later, and I didn't do the traditional path. But I'm also, like, I heard a quote the other day, if you're gonna miss the bus, do it running.

  Mark D. Williams  07:29

  I love that so much. That's a good thing, right?

  Drew Reilley  07:31

  Man, my brain, I'm with you. I'm going all over the place, but no,

  Drew Reilley  07:36

  that's perfect. Well, let's give the audience a chance to get to know you. I really want to talk you know, you're a brand creator, and I'd love so many questions. I've pretty much become a complete like, if, if brand was like a, you know, like a music group in the 60s, like, I would be a groupie, like I am so on board the brand trade. Like, it's scary. I could talk about brand all the time. In fact, I talk about it so much. I think people think I probably can do it. I can't do it. I'm just like, an Uber fan, yeah. So I'm in awe of what I've worked with a number of brand companies. I'm the middle of working with one right now, and so I just, I can never get enough of it, but I haven't always been that way. I'll maybe throw in some antidotes as we go through. But why don't we start with your journey? How'd you get into it? You have a business. It sounds like it's even sort of changed a little bit recently. Why don't you give us a little 411 on what's

  Drew Reilley  08:19

  going on? Sure I can give you the TLDR. So because I think the value I had for our conversation is what

  Mark D. Williams  08:25

  dldr mean, the too

  Drew Reilley  08:28

  long didn't read. So here's a superpower tool, right? If I'm going in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which I have a tendency to do the people closest to me know that they can press the TLDR button and, oh, this was the problem. This is how I solved it, right? And okay, I'll give them the memo. I call it the thread. I need the thread of how you're mentally connecting this thought to the other one before you tell me all the other stuff. Anyways, there's ADHD for you asking,

  Mark D. Williams  09:00

  well, this is going to be a wild ride. Wild Ride, people that have issue, you take your Xanax, pop your pill and relax, because this one's going to stress you out, or this is finally the episode that you don't have to speed up. I had a lady come up to me one time, which very and she goes, I listened to your podcast, and I'm like, Oh, great. And she goes, and I want to thank you, because I can only speed you up to 1.25 normally I have to speed up 2x I'm like, that's a high compliment, because I know exactly what you're talking about. Exactly.

  Drew Reilley  09:28

  That's my wife. She's like, I listen to everything at 2x and every once a while it's, you know, whatever bumps it down my so my background is in music. Actually, I grew up. I feel like I've probably devoted my entire adult life to creativity in one way, shape or form, avoided the traditional path as much as possible, with, like, a very anxie youth punk rock anti status quo mindset, which I feel like I still have. I'm just a little bit smarter about it now, but more tactical. So I was in the music industry to and I wasn't making. Any money I'm assigned to a major label doing like, 280 shows. 285 shows a year for like three years straight, still not making money. What kind of music were you created? Was rock and roll. It's like aggressive, passionate, heartfelt, sometimes chaotic. Was a bunch of kids from southern Louisiana, from towns in the bayou that have one stoplight you've never heard of and we were crazy dude. We had incredible chemistry off the rib, and none of us really knew each other. We kind of got into a room where, like, Okay, this works. And that's how I feel. Like I can tell that if I sat, like, when I sat next year, was like, Okay, this works. I got this right. We can basically start a band that's like, Okay, I have a good gut check, right? So I started designing T shirts and album artwork and packaging and posters and stickers and stuff like that, because we couldn't afford to hire anybody to do it, and I could draw. And I messed around on a laptop before figure it out, and the red and yellow version of me is I'm just gonna push through and figure it out. And no matter what it takes. And I was 20, I actually started designing when I was like 17, and so I had spunk and I had energy, and sleep didn't matter, and the world was my oyster. And I fell in love with just creativity, creating things like I said, as even as a kid, our class was where I but I just figured out a way to turn that into something that can make a little bit of money on the side. And then we were on tour with Papa Roach, and we were the first band of four bands on that tour for about two and a half months. And it started up in Boston, and we had never seen snow or ice or anything like that. We were getting paid about 100 bucks a night, plus whatever we could sell in merch, but they made you match their merch prices. So you had to sell your shirts for the same price as Papa Roach shirts. But we sold more than they did because our shirts looked better because

  Mark D. Williams  11:47

  they were so cool. And the counterculture, there's something about like, isn't it funny? Like, a lot of these bands become counterculture. They're like, gonna literally say band's name and like, Rage Against the Machine. Like, basically, you don't want to be part of that thing. So you create something that it becomes so popular, it becomes part of the thing, the anti establishment and but it's really the one offs. I'm a small little company, right? I have, we make, you know, these Hydro Flask water bottles if you're watching right now, right? They got a little cool little guy on them. I give these away only if you're a guest. I can't tell you how many people like the kids like it's funny, because I'll give them to the parents, because they're the ones on that podcast, and their kids steal them immediately, and then the parents will ask me, Hey, can I get another one? Because my kid, like, my joke with my building company is I'll finally be effective marketing when I'm retired, because all the, all the like, 12 and 16 year olds will be old enough and rich enough to build a house with me, but I'll be done by that. Because, like, I'm a huge hit in middle school. I'm, like, I am Middle School designed for my clothing and stuff.

  Drew Reilley  12:41

  There you go. There you go. I mean, it's it's cyclical. What is cool is typically not popular, and then it becomes popular, and then it's no longer cool. So someone has to innovate, right to me, like innovation and creativity is all like, that's what excites me about brands, not when they just do really good, clean, forgettable work. That's a David Carson quote. It takes those of us willing to, like, try something crazy, to actually change the world, you know, and I've always just identified with that. Now, I think you have to have a really solid understanding of the rules. And I didn't go the traditional path of understanding the rules of design. I learned it the hard way. I got into internships and junior designer roles, and just failed until I figured it out. So, yeah, non traditional path forward. I had a couple of business partners that were like, Hey, man, your talents are, like, bigger than what you're doing here. We could support you in doing that. Let's give it a shot, and I'm not risk averse one bit. I had a full scholarship to LSU and quit to live in a van with three guys for five years, essentially. But I wouldn't change that for the world, right? Because I think that it puts me and my ability to bring passion and energy to inspire a team to do their most creative thinking to the net something that's really simple, memorable and distinguishable is non traditional, but very effective. Because I think people really are wanting something different. They want a different path. But I'm not saying it's the best. I'm just saying, hey, this exists. If that's, I think

  Mark D. Williams  14:17

  what's I think one thing is like a consumer of brands, and I guess we all are, because we're all constantly being branded too. We'll talk a little bit about that storytelling arc later, which is so popular right now. But I think, like, I have a hard time creating. Like, I'm kind of off the talents of you creating, but like, I know it when I see it. Like, when I see something like, I'd be curious to know like, on the spectrum of like, how many people? How many like other percentage? And this is probably impossible to answer this question, but what percentage of people can actually create that brand you sync to? Then what people can actually like? I can't create it, but I can recognize one. I'm like, Oh, yes. And then how many people are just sort of oblivious to brand, like, just completely is there? Is there a segment that, like, just has no idea what's happening, and they're just like, zombie. 90s totally.

  Drew Reilley  15:00

  And we call it the undesigned world. It's the food carts in New York City where they're selling fish and rice. And it's literally a picture of rice with the goldfish that they Photoshopped on top of it, you know. But it's so effective, and it works.

  Mark D. Williams  15:13

  But if it's if it's super pixelated, like Nintendo, like, eight bit pixelated, now it's cool again, because it's cool again. So it's so bad that it's cool. Yeah,

  Drew Reilley  15:22

  there I had a we had a partner, this designer, at one point, a guy named Matt Dawson, incredible designer. He started a crop design conference. He was a partner of ours for a while, and he introduced me to a designer named Alvin Deitch, and he's this guy from Georgia, and it's like he has honed the the undesigned world so well that, like, he can design a Piggly Wiggly t shirt that you're like, That's dope. I want that Piggly Wiggly t shirt. That's cool. Actually, like that type of thing. And it's really exciting to see what he does. And that's the things, those are the things, branding wise, that excite me. I think there are people who can learn, can be taught to use any Adobe Creative Suite application, but just will never inherently develop the taste that it requires to say, or the competence in their own taste to say, Hey, I like this. I think that's what it should look like, and really that's what my role is at slash. I've been the Creative Director for about six years now. Started I was the designer, the only designer, the web developer, the creative director, the art director. I was everything. And I had two business partners. One got sick really early on and had to leave. He was like the business development guy. So my other partner, Lance, and I had to just pivot and we he and I can fail really well together. My other partner is guy named Destin. He Dustin, sorry, he and I actually started a high school streaming platform during COVID. So we reconnected there,

  Drew Reilley  16:56

  and it was really cool, like, a Napster kind of thing, or, like, what era No, no, like

  Drew Reilley  17:00

  high school sports, right? So when you couldn't go to games and things like that, we had another partner. He's a, he is a podcast host, but he's a, he's a professor, professor of religious studies at somewhere on the West Coast. Big Guy, Brad onisha, he wrote this whole thesis about how sports are in the United States, very close to religion because of things like traditions and rituals and kind of, I

  Drew Reilley  17:27

  could be kind of, that's actually makes me sort of want to read that. That actually sounds really interesting. Yeah,

  Drew Reilley  17:32

  actually, you should talk to Brad, because he both. It would be very, very interesting.

  Mark D. Williams  17:36

  I'll make a note to reach out to Africa. Ian. This episode is brought to you by Pella Northland. For 20 years, I've been using Pella windows, and I couldn't be happier to call them as a business partner, a trade partner, and someone that really supports us in our quality builds. You know, we use wood windows and doors on every single one of our homes, and 98% of every home that I've ever built has been a Pella window. I've gotten to know their team here, locally as well as nationally, and the way that they support us as a craftsman as well as they support our homeowners with their lifelong guarantee. It's actually been a game changer for me. So when people ask me who I use, I recommend Pella. If you want to hear more about Pella story, you can listen to episode one, Ryan interview Peter and Ed from Pell Northland about their journey into the pellet ownership. So were you a founder of slash, or did you get hired?

  Drew Reilley  18:29

  Yeah, so I was a founder of slash. We at, I think our biggest we're like seven or eight employees right now. We're myself, my business partner, Lance. We've got a lead designer, this guy Justin Barnett, who's been with us for about seven or eight years. We have a brand strategist, this guy, Hunter Morgan, who's been with us the same amount of time. And then we have kind of a new guy, this kid Mason fry, who's like, he's a carbon copy of me, just 15 years younger, like we went to the same high school, same college, same degree. He He plays guitar in a band. I think he's just got a better head on his shoulders at 25 than I did, and it's really cool to see, like the creative approach that he has on certain things, that's the build out of slash for the we made 10 years last week.

  Drew Reilley  19:12

  That's amazing. That's incredible. Congratulations. Thank you. A decade, how would you come up? I'd be remiss if I didn't ask how you came up with the name. Where did slack? Where did the slash come from? Because it seems very fitting. Having met you, it just seems like it's very fitting.

  Drew Reilley  19:25

  Yeah, so the the name kind of came from, like, I was having lunch with my partner, Dustin, and we were talking about these, and this is where you're gonna love it. We're like, why couldn't Lamborghini partner with an architecture firm and build a Lamborghini building and then host some big event to launch some new Lamborghini product line, or something like that. We're like, what was what would the brand look like? What's the activation look like for that? Who do you need to kind. Necked and talked to to say, hey, we have this really crazy idea. Because my business partner Dustin, he told me, like money exists almost infinitely in the world we live in. Unfortunately, not everybody has it right. But what doesn't exist infinitely is really cool, creative ideas. And so he would challenge me all the time. I would say, Oh, dude, I had this idea the other night. I wanted to make sculptures of guitars, but get my old guitar tech spud to actually turn them into working guitars, but then I want to put them in like an art gallery. And as people walk by the guitar would they could play it, and they would have a speaker, and it would have sounds, and they could it would be connected to an emotion, and the design of the guitar would be about an emotion. So there'd be fear. What does a fear guitar look like? And I'm like, Am I crazy? He's like, No, I'd go to that. Oh,

  Drew Reilley  20:49

  for sure. That sounds actually reminds me of we walked by it in Seattle. I think it is, is like, there was a guitar Museum, and I remember, like, there's this giant spiral of, like, 1000s of guitars going up the middle. It's right, if you bet I have you been in it? Yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's there you go. There's your someone took the idea from the course. But that's

  Drew Reilley  21:08

  one of those things. Is, like, really interesting, creative ideas, I think, is the human input that AI can never generate, and the execution of that is what I fell in love with through slashes like, how could I take a crazy idea that would actually add value for a custom home builder? Slash was

  Drew Reilley  21:26

  just like the abbreviation of it, like this and that, and just keep on adding to it,

  Drew Reilley  21:30

  yeah. So it was slash this. We could do this slash, this slash, this, slash, this, yeah. But we fell into a trap early on where we were like masters of none. We could do all this stuff, but we weren't hyper focusing. And I read a book called Hunter. Turn me on to it, the win without pitching manifesto. And it was like, about not necessarily creating a niche, but like hyper focusing on your on your strengths, right? Brilliant book, probably one of the most influential books that I've ever read, and it's TV I'm writing it right now. The win without pitching. Win without pitching manifesto, it's so empowering as a business owner and as a creative I urge anybody to check it out. But we ended up, at that point, kind of pulling out of like, doing marketing and SEO and digital this and digital that, and Google AdWords and Google search and stuff, because that landscape is so volatile and it changes so often that, like, I couldn't keep up with it. But the bigger piece was, like, our core values as a company, which pretty much comes straight from me, right, is like, if I'm not helping someone or adding value, I don't really feel comfortable taking money from them, because I've worked at places that the Butcher was pushing his thumb on the scale behind the piece of meat. You know what I mean? That's

  Mark D. Williams  22:44

  Old Testament, man, right there. I love that, yeah. And

  Drew Reilley  22:47

  I just it felt icky. And a lot of the traditional path is very competitive and cutthroat, and there's so many snakes in the grass. And I'm like, Man, I don't have it in me to be that kind of person. So what? So

  Drew Reilley  22:59

  how old are you when you started? Slash, geez, you were 30. Okay, so I just turned 40. You can obviously go to school for design. You could, obviously you went through the school of hard knocks and but I think what I would imagine that you have in spades is you are, you are creating, and you're getting reaction from your clients, and so in some ways, you're creating. And I'm sure there's multiple paths to do stuff, like there's for anything, but I from an organic approach, you're using me. If I'm your client, how am I reacting? And I would imagine you're one of the reasons why your instincts, in gut instinct, is probably so good, is you've also it's probably a lot of it is innate, but I imagine a lot of it is honed through practice. Because if you're constantly iterating on whatever ideas and seeing how clients react to it. I've always sort of been in awe of artists that draw right in front of people. I have worked with a few sketch artists that do architectural design, and there's very few, actually, I can only think of one that will literally draw right in front of the client, because it takes a certain amount of bravado and courage and strength, but also just intuition to be able to do that. And it's remarkable. And watching the client like sometimes I watch the the Home Designer do this, but oftentimes I watch the client's face, because that it tells you so much. Yeah, it's in the non verbal. It's really cool. It's

  Drew Reilley  24:16

  interesting. You know, slash, we were founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and we were headquarters there. Headquartered there until 2020 we had a little remote office in Nashville for a while, which we called slashville. We were just like, You should stay with that one. That's I know we were doing, like little packages for our friends bands. Hey, you need a t shirt and a poster. I know you don't got any money. Let us at least hook you up so you stand a fighting chance out there against the people who

  Drew Reilley  24:42

  do nothing else. You can sell better shirts than Tim McGraw, yes, exactly, exactly.

  Drew Reilley  24:45

  Tim. Shout out Clint English, who's a designer from Louisiana, who is probably, like, one of the biggest music industry t shirt designers that there is, like, you name it, he's he's designed a t shirt for him, even if they're not even alive. Queen Beatles. Wow. Michael Jackson, he's designed for all of them. It's crazy. What were we talking about?

  Drew Reilley  25:06

  Just the talent, evidently, out of Louisiana is next. Ian here, Louisiana

  Drew Reilley  25:09

  is one of the most talented places in the world. It's because we don't have anything else to do, and we kind of have to come up from from the rust and the mud. You know what? I mean? Yeah.

  Drew Reilley  25:20

  Well, just snow 10 inches there. So you got kids doing snow angels in the streets, and people are wigging out. You

  Drew Reilley  25:25

  can't even see out there also, because my office is pitch black.

  Drew Reilley  25:29

  Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, that's mainly just and usually, a lot of times we do dive deep on the stories. And you do, everyone has an interesting story. But I think what's so interesting about what you do is now this where I want to shift. Why should people care about branding? And this could really be for any, any industry, but I feel like building in particular, like the bar is so low, and I don't know why that is, and maybe I'm being hyper critical only because I'm just now, and I wasn't this obsessed with branding when I started. I mean, I liked, and a lot of people think branding is just a logo. It's so much more than that, the story that, you know, it's really everything. And I was just maybe I'll just leave it with this and let you react to some of this. But I was thinking, in thinking about this episode, like, what we're going to talk about, because I could just fanboy brand all day long, and people get bored with it. But I was thinking about, really, branding has been around. I mean, I'm, I mean, I guess you could say beginning of the time. But I was thinking about, like, what are some of the oldest brands I can think of, but I was thinking it actually went a lot further back than I thought, because, like, family crests have been around way before. There was countries. It's portrayed in movies and far beyond, you know. But like, let's say, my grandpa, you go to the dry cleaners and they would have their initials on their sleeve or up on their collar. That's branding, that's branding, and personal branding. That was way they would make a

  Drew Reilley  26:40

  choice between script or serif or sans serif and color.

  Drew Reilley  26:44

  And like the in your your cufflinks had your initials. I saw my grandpa's cufflinks. That's branding or but even, like the Scottish I just was talking. I had coffee this morning with the past client. She just got back from Scott and literally, while we're talking, I'm like, I'm interviewing. Drew in a little bit. I said, I gotta bring it. So I wrote down Scottish tartan. It's your family name, the your brand is your family name, and I think the in your family, crowns, countries, flags, it just keeps going on and on. These are all brands, iconography,

  Drew Reilley  27:10

  symbology. They all have to be designed and drawn, but there has to be consistency across the communication platform that at that point was worldwide, and no one had the internet. So how are you supposed to say that this castle or this night on a flying lion means this? And somebody across the world know that? Yeah, it's crazy, right? I

  Drew Reilley  27:30

  mean, even in Olympics, I saw and I planks on the other country, so I forgive me, but it was like, there's only three flags in the world that don't have red, white and blue in them, and one of them is Jamaica, and I can't remember the other one, I think is an African country is got green and yellow and whatever. But I did. I only bring that up from just some like obscure thing I heard during the Olympics, but that's branding on how many flags have red, white and blue and different the French flag, the Russian flag, there's so many different flags that have similar colors. But to your point, you had to identify friend and foe as far away and as early as possible, and colors was really the only way to do it. Anyway. We've gone down the

  Drew Reilley  28:06

  Fed here, but that's right. So imagine at this point, 10 years in i I was hired. Two years before I started slash, I was working at a web design agency called designs interactive for oran McMillan, who's one of the most beautiful people on the face of this earth. And I'd done a big campaign for a jeweler, and one of the jewelers buddies said, Hey, congrats. It was, like, nominated for national Addy Awards and stuff like that. One of his buddies was like, Hey, you gotta hook me up with your dudes, and so I get a call, Hey, we're gonna do this guy's like, building sheds, and he wants to start doing, like, remodeling and things like that. Doesn't have a logo, doesn't have anything, just has a name. And I was like, Cool. I don't even need to talk to him. Can I just do my thing and, like, make it look as cool as I think it should look. And they're like, Yeah. And I don't even think I talked to the guy beforehand, but I was like, I like how these super simple nails when they're crossed, creates this, like, little iconography, and it's industrial, but when it's small, white on black, it feels really high end for some reason. Let me lean into that. And there was the tagline that was just working, build Design, Design Build repeat, or whatever, you know what I mean. And then I did the website, and then that guy starts saying, Hey, man, people keep taking my stuff, like, What do you mean? He's like, like, they're literally, like, their name or their their logo, and then they put design build repeat, or they're taking, like, the cross nails and then putting their name under I was like, Well, it's because your shits badass. And when I left that agency, that guy was like, hey, I want to, like, change. I want to whatever. And I went through, I'm a loyal, honest guy. So I called my old boss. I was like, Hey, this is what's going on. You cool. He's like, Yeah, man, go ahead. Go ahead. And 10 years later, now to this day, I. You know, still working with them, building that brand, and it's become one of the biggest, I think, brands in in you guys' industry, and it's one of those simple brands. But the challenge that we have is like, imagine designing the NS builders brand 12 years ago, and I'd say 60% of slashes work as built, as builders. And it wasn't ever intended to be that, because I like doing packaging and fitness and music and entertainment and lifestyle and things like that too restaurants. But it was just like, hey, it connected. And so the challenge that we have is, how do you then, through brand, differentiate the hundreds of builders that we've worked with over the last 12 years because, and I think I said this in Boston, it all starts with strategy. You have to know yourself before you can explain to someone else what matters to you, right? Let's identify those things. Because when Hunter does brand strategy, it's like you want craftsmanship, you want trust, you want loyalty. You want empathy, communication, collaboration, pride, right? Cool, all of those. None of those can be in your shit. Now we had to throw all of those words out and find what makes you as a builder you, because branding isn't and this was the whole talk, and I this is from a guy named Blake. He's the Creative Director at matchstick, big agency. He said that branding is it's not your logo and it's not your website or the homes that you build or your face or you and your personality. It's the sum total experience that people have with every single one of those things, right? So when you take a meeting, when, when your dad took a meeting with somebody in the evening, right? He was saying, this is how much I'm willing to put into this relationship, to meet after hours, when my family is, you know, just finished eating, or, like our grandfathers, who had the the embroidery, they're saying, like, this is, this is who I am, and I don't want to through subtle things show the world. That's why Pinterest is so incredible. Because everybody is on Pinterest saying, I identify with that, I identify with that. I like that. That's me, that's me, that's me, you know what I mean? And they're, they're Pinterest honestly, is one of the most under utilized. Like, here's, here's the the trade secret. Ask Your Client for access to their Pinterest board. That's it, and you'll know everything about them

  Drew Reilley  32:29

  if they use it. If they use it, it'd be interesting to know the demographics. Yeah, plenty of men, obviously do. I do for the company, but I don't post it. I have someone that does our Pinterest strategy, and I my wife, had it. A lot of my clients have it, but predominantly it was my women clients that had it. And I found out the other day that it is second only to Google in search power Pinterest is a behemoth, yeah, and the amount of hits that we get to our website and our strategy, and I was just because I'm not a user. I think that sometimes I'm not gonna call it the owner fallacy, but let's call it as a user fallacy. Just because we don't use it doesn't mean it's not popular, and just because we do something or use something doesn't also make it popular. It could be or it couldn't be, but you do need some secondary or tertiary points, like a team, like you said before. You kind of need your team to be, like, if nobody is doing it, that might be a red flag if everybody's doing it, like, oh, okay, this is on to something. And we, I think for a while, part of us a budgetary thing. And if you have endless budget, do everything. But for me, it was like, I never really did much for blogging. A couple years ago. Now, we push out a ton of blogs. So we're, we're doing for the curious builder. We're because we have so much going on. We have one a week for Mark Williams Custom Homes, my building company, we do two, two a month. Sorry, and but when I what we found is it took a while to ramp it up, but then once it ramped up, along with Pinterest, there's a back end strategy, because you obviously, you're pinning the blogs and you're it's very great. It's this very, yeah, it's very mesh system where they all this ecosystem. It's like the ocean. You need big fish, small fish, small fish, but healthy ocean has a little bit of everything in it. It can't just be one thing. And anyway, so I we, anyway, we pulled back on Pinterest for budgetary reasons last year, and then we saw a significant drop on our website traffic. And I had commented on it to the person that does our Pinteresting and blogging, and she said, Well, we remember we pulled that back. And I said, Well, let's put it back in we put in. We put it back in. But she's like, Well, keep in mind, it's gonna take a couple months to get it back to what it was. It was just an eye opener to me, persistence. You actually, I was gonna mention this quote earlier because it applied to you specifically, as well as I think most entrepreneurs, and I'm gonna butcher the quote. But essentially, the river doesn't carve through rock because of its power. It carves through rock because of its persistence, and what's in, just even, like a dripping, drip, drip, 100 years, 1000 years, whatever, eventually that water is going to go through that rock. Yeah, and we think about the arc here you are creating stickers and posters and a lot of the that's your was it Hamburg? Wasn't that? The Beatles journey that they played like an insane amount of. Hours when they were like teenagers, and then the whole 10,000 hour thing, right? They came back to England, and they're like 19. They already played so much music, they knew everything, but that was your 1917, 1819, 20. That was a lot of iteration for you to learn, act and react. And I think one of the things that has come out a lot in not just design books, but just in general, is if the feedback loop gives you instantaneous feedback, you learn so much faster. And I think again, this was Malcolm Gladwell when he wrote about this. I'm not sure which one of his 18 books I read, but it was, it was the surgeons have. So they talked about doctors, a lot of doctors, actually, once they reach a certain point, don't keep progressing in their knowledge. And it's not because they're not reading. It's not because, but, like, if you're a general like diabetes, type two or whatever, like, if it takes a decade for you to manifest type two diabetes or whatever, the feedback loop is not long enough, or, sorry, not short enough that you can iterate quickly enough to gain knowledge on it. But like, a surgery, like, if I cut you open to do open our surgery, and that didn't work, and you died, like I found out. I know exactly that's a really bad way to do it, but if you come back and it's like, successful, you know, they get a lot of practice, and it was just really interesting, this constant feedback. And if you in an industry where you get a lot of client feedback or a lot of interaction with your if your brand touches and feels a lot of things, you're gonna find out what works and what doesn't, I guess, the second question is, Are you paying attention? And are you willing? I think sometimes the brand becomes your baby, and I would imagine you have a lot of stories where people are unwilling to to looks like I hit a note there. Tell me a story about that. That sounds okay.

  Drew Reilley  36:33

  It's the same. It's also one of the reasons why I love working with builders and architects and interior designers, is the process, the of ideation, talking to a client, understanding what they like, what their wishes are, what is their dream, and then using your skill set to get as close to that, but also telling them along the way, like as a guide, what you think is the best choice, and things like that. It's the same thing that you guys do, right? So it's probably the same number of times that you've had a client say, No, I don't like that finish. And be like, that's going to look bad if you want this finish, or if you want me to do this to this room, it's not going to function very well. They're like, nah. And then you're like, okay, at least I said it, right? You said about your kids before we started recording that they're like, really into animals, right? You know that animal planet, shermeier, God Haviv. Sagi Haviv is the partner that I took a course from at Adobe MAX. He did the logo. They had two presidents. One president said no blue, and the other president said, no elephants. Do you know what the animal planet logo is?

  37:44

  Blue, blue elephant.

  Drew Reilley  37:47

  That dude was told specifically from the two presidents of Animal Planet. No blue from one and no elephant from the other. His whole, his whole workshop was the client is always wrong. That was the title of it. Oh, man,

  Mark D. Williams  38:01

  I want to watch. Is that exist somewhere where you could watch it? Oh, I don't know.

  Drew Reilley  38:04

  I'm sure that they he's got it somewhere. But if you, if you I mean listeners, just Google or YouTube or Instagram, search, soggy Haviv, S, A, G, I, H, A, V, I, V, I pull so much inspiration from him. And it's interesting though, because he does like the US Open logo and all states logo, like big, big, big fortune, 500 brands like that. And I'm not trying to do that, you know what? I mean? I just want to make like 45 white oak logo look sick, right?

  Drew Reilley  38:42

  This episode is brought to you by adaptive. For over two years now, I've been using adaptive. It's an incredible game changer. It's AI technology based. It helps you with Bill Pay and as a builder, there's very few things that Angular subs more than not being paid on time. Well, those days are gone. Not only do you know exactly where you are, but you can pay people through your ACH channels, making draws extremely quick with one click of a button, which used to take hours, my office staff is now able to generate a draw to the bank or to the client in literally seconds. The thing that I appreciate the most about adaptive is their ability to keep changing. We've given them three or four feedbacks on things that we need as builders, and within just a few months, those they're rolling those things out. This is saving us hours per week and days per month in terms of our efficiency. If you're looking to upgrade your business, I'd highly recommend adaptive. You can reach out to them@adaptive.com or listen to the curious builder podcast episode 15 or episode 80, where we dive into their origin story. Hard part about being a creator, and you can be a creator without being able to like I assemble the team, and I have this idea and this vision, and you guys are so talented and be bringing it out, making it so much better. The team approach is just, I don't know how you it's just a winning formula, because everyone gets a little say in it, right? And it becomes better. But seeing the vision all the way to the end, I think it's chicken and egg a little bit. But without the idea, it doesn't matter how much drive you have, but if you have an idea with no drive, it's just an idea in the world is full of bars. If that was the case, bars would be the best laboratory on the planet, because the amount of ideas that are generated between buddies and friends, not saying they're bad. I'm just saying, like most of those ideas, just stay there, and the real magic is the drive, then that happens behind it anyway. No, it's

  Drew Reilley  40:26

  funny. You say that when I don't drink, having drink in almost 10 years, but when I did, I did, and there's a guy, a buddy of mine, is an owner of an agency from back home, and in our 20s, that's what we did. We just go to the bar and come up with ideas, but we'd go execute them. Every once in a while they were like, executable. You know what I mean? But, yeah, no, I think that we've had times where people are like, I don't like this or, you know, you've got to steer them in the wrong direction. So that book that I was telling you about, the one without pitching manifesto, that's a really great story example, we were working on the Pythian market in New Orleans, which is a historical building downtown New Orleans, on the Poitras and it's like four and a half stories, and this development company came in, they're like, we're going to turn the top three or the top or the two middle stories into residential. The top floor is going to be an event space. The bottom floor is going to be a food hall. And then the second floor is like a blues bar, jazz club type thing. So we went in there. We did naming, we did branding, we did strategy, we did way finding signage, interior, exterior signage, all I mean, it was a two year long project, and a lot of which that we couldn't really share. But there were the developers were from New York, the team, like you're talking about, that they had put together to run different touch points within the ecosystem of that were from Los Angeles. And then you had the people in New Orleans that were like the feet on the ground, you know. And everybody had such a big ego, they all wanted to have their own finger on these decisions. We talked about color palette for three and a half months mark well, and it was, Oh, I think we should do that. I think we should do this. And I was so exhausted by it, and I was so like, green at the time. Pun intended that I was, I was just like, Yo, look, y'all just tell me what colors you want it to be. And then I read that book, The win without pitching manifesto that Hunter was like, Hey, you got to read this. And the second I put it down, I picked my phone up and I called the team. I said, the colors are this, this, this, and this, this is why the colors are this. I'm going to send you the color codes and everything over the weekend, and then next week, we're going to talk about strategy for what next steps are, as far as implementing those colors. Implementing those colors of the signage, way, finding uniforms, everything. And they were like, okay, they just needed someone to confidently step in there. Instead of saying, this is my opinion, this is what it needs to be, and this is the reasoning. Why. So I've found with home builders, it's really like websites, right? We get a ton of positive feedback about the NS builders website, right? And here's the secret about the NS builders website. The back end of the NS builders website is a nightmare, right? Because we've been building it and adding and tweaking for years, and technology changes, and it's it's so difficult to keep up with, but that's what excites me, is like, okay, let's overcome this challenge. What's the creative solution here? And how can I say, okay, when someone comes to me and says, Hey, I saw in a spillers website, I want you to build me a website. Just like, there's like, I can't do that. You know what I mean. That website was developed over 10 like, designed after 10 years of strategy and changes and like you're saying, like we we refreshed his brand only three years in, not a ton changed. We just took a bunch out, and then we did another refresh a couple years ago. You know, I think brands are a living, breathing thing. They grow and they change, and the the why you rebrand? I mean, I could give you the list of why big brands rebrand, and it all makes sense, you know, but there's just, like, what you guys do. There's like, a trust factor, like, you have to trust your builder. You guys have to trust us, that we're going to make the right decision, and we're not just going to give you what everybody else wants. I've had clients in the past like, fire us halfway through, and they're like, we're just gonna make our website look exactly like these guys site, and we're gonna do it on Wix. Y'all are, y'all are. We're just gonna do it ourselves. Okay? And it's a challenge, but Hunter always talks about the enclosed cognition piece, like, you have to be super confident in your brand when you wear it. That's why people who don't drive Harleys wear Harley shirts because they say identify with that. But how are you going to feel confident something that you ripped off of somebody else just because they're successful? And there's and that maybe is those people, that one group that you were talking about earlier, that don't care blind to brand? Yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  44:57

  maybe they're blind to brand. I have. But the thing is, is, if you felt, if you I think your brand, and this is going to be a little I mean, I know I get an amen from you, but I think maybe some people might think this is too I think brand is as important as your last name. And if people that are really proud of their last name, like their lineage or their family or their members, like, that's you, and what I'd be kind of curious to ask you about, so like family. I mean, a lot of, I think one of I think one of the reasons why builders are probably a lot of your client is a lot of them. Nobody tells you when I'm when you're 23 like, I wish I hadn't named my company Mark Williams custom homes. For one thing, it just takes up a ton of space, so it's super annoying. I always wish. In fact, we went through I've done three, three or four brand refreshes, one when I met my wife, she needed to remodel her husband's company. I guess she was she was not wrong, she was right. And this funny thing is, I had just, I felt like I just did it. And then years go by, and I think maybe it might just be a me thing, but let's just call it a man thing, too. And it's like, my wife was like, you need to do it. Do it again. I'm like, I just did it 10 years ago. And I'm sure you get that a lot. And her comment, she's very good. She said, If she hadn't been a physician, she would have been a designer, and she would be good at She's really good. But she said, she said, your brand is who you were. It's not who you are to your point about living. And so I did it again. I was like, Oh, wow. And the the reaction of my past clients, of new clients, the clients that didn't know who you were, take notice, because it's something different, and the clients who already knew who you were and recognize that you've changed. Ultimately, for me is I used to, I always built really high quality homes, but now I build 2 million to $6 million homes, and five years ago, I built million to it doesn't matter the number, but they're just, they're more detailed, they're more sophisticated, they're higher end, and like the brand and what I'm interested in the clients that we were gravitating is we had, we out punched our coverage. We were just we were playing a different game, and the brand needs to reflect that to your point of it growing. And I couldn't be more happy. It was interesting, because I really thought about re the reason I wanted to rebrand was I'm like, I'm 20 years in. If I'm ever gonna have a shot at selling my company, I got to get rid of Mark Williams custom homes. Just too much. It's not quick, it's not it's not simple. The logo is too big. Blah, blah, blah, blah. We went through this whole brand exercise. We came up with, we got it down to one company name, did the whole and I just, I couldn't do it. And then I remember talking to a few people outside the company, and I said, then here's the deal. Whether your brand is your name or not your name, your company's not sellable either way right now, because, and I've talked about this elsewhere on the podcast, that if you, if you can't leave your business and it succeeds, you have a job, you don't have a business. And that's a real eye opener for most entrepreneurs. It was for me, because I have a job, I don't have a business. I have a job right now. I'm a company of three, soon to be four, but if I leave, there is no Mark Williams customers. There's no whatever I want to call it, the company just collapses. It doesn't exist. And oddly enough, it was during that brand exercise that I went on Brad Levitt's podcast. And I didn't even know what a podcast was. This was just, well, two years, three years I listen. I'm in the time warp. Here I went on. I'm like, people talk to other people, and just have a just talk about business. And this is like 30 days later. I started the podcast with no plan, but I was in the middle. I was so lucky, because I was in the middle of branding, and I had a shout out to Kim, sun and sun and suns all my all the word framing, all my curiosity was my number one trait when they did the brand discovery on me. And because the podcast is representative who I was at builder bought this all going i i had such a clear vision of what I wanted the podcast to be. I did not have a clear vision of what I wanted the building home, the thing I had for 20 years that I still have, and I it just this new thing was so much clearer. And it's interesting to me, like it was going through that exercise just at the right place at the right time. And I'll look back and be like, Wow, was that, you know, wow, it's just a fortuitous set of circumstances that that all happened at the same time.

  Drew Reilley  48:44

  Well, the stars align, right? I think that's what happened with me and Nick, and why. You know, over the last 12 years, I've built multiple brands alongside him, and that we have trust. And I'm not perfect dude, if anything, he'll tell you, then I take longer than anybody else on Earth. But my stuff's always awesome when it's done. So

  Mark D. Williams  49:02

  I was going to ask you about that on the Creator side. Do you get when I look at the stuff you put out? Nobody gets to see all the hard work behind I guess that's not even any other business. You see a finished home that Nick builds, but you don't see two years he spent in the trenches, in the mud, doing it all. So brand bill, no business is probably they're all kind of similar. This way nobody sees all the real work except the people on the inside, where I'm going with this is like, you come forward with, you show, like, your brand presentation, you're maybe showing a couple ideas, or be the central logo, and they'll be, like, a couple sister logos, or whatever the nameology is in that whole thing. You know what I'm talking about, but I don't, and, and, but like, all the work, all the all the failed designs, all the stuff that didn't work, how do you as a creator do that? And, like, how do you know when it's the right one? How does it click? And second, well, I'll let you answer that question before I confuse you.

  Drew Reilley  49:46

  No, no, I think that's a really great question, because it's different for everybody. Just like, it's different for every builder or every architect. Like, when they say, Hey, this is done. And there's a lot of ways that we challenge ourselves and check ourselves at slash, and I think it comes. Comes from probably a lot of my anxiety as like, someone who's a perfectionist and a people pleaser, but like, while those are character defects, I think those are superpowers as well. So Justin and I have been working together for eight years. At this point, when he came in, he was a college student doing it for credits, and his portfolio is ballpoint pen sketches of like giant noses with basketball basketball shoes on. It was wild, and now he can design circles around me. He's a brilliant, brilliant designer, but he and I, and even when, like Matt Dawson, was with us and my partner Lance. My partner Lance isn't a designer, but he's got taste, just like you do, right? We just have open discussions internally, and we have hard conversations, well internally, and we challenge each other. Hunter, the reason why he's been so instrumental to our business is that the first day, maybe it wasn't the first day, but the first week, Hunter was here, he did the same thing that Justin was doing. He was 2221 doing an internship. And he was like, Why did you design that logo like that? Logo like that? I was like, well, the name of the company is this. Had a 30 minute call with the owner. They were talking about something, and it just an idea popped in my head, and I executed it. And he's like, so then you put together, like, an entire pitch deck. I went on that idea. It's like, yeah. He's like, how do you know that's the right answer? Like, what do you mean? That's just like, it's my gut. So I've been functioning for the better part of 25 years, at that point, 30 almost, with just gut, you know? And he said, Well, what if I asked you a couple of questions? Or what if I could ask them a couple of questions, just to due diligence, his brain is not he's the opposite of my brain. He's the analytical thinker and things like that. So what we do is our process changed Hunter introduced brand strategy to slash, and it's the very, very first thing that we do, and it's a non negotiable as part of our process, because I can't objectively say that this logo design is successfully checking off the boxes we said it has to while defending the art that I've sprinkled onto it.

  Mark D. Williams  52:06

  Is it easier to design for a person whose company they represent, because you can take all these non verbal cues, or is it easier to design for a company that's like this non living thing that has core values? I think the thing about core and I get that are important, but what's about core values is, I could just go to chat GP, be like, top, send me the five best core values. It's just unless you actually are them, unless they're you to your point. That's why you can't take works for Nick or for me or like, it is you. So how do you do it when there's not a person like, I understand, because I don't know if this is a I think this is appropriate analogy. Like, I actually have a hard time building a house without a client. I've actually, I It's been 16 years interesting. I'm doing one right now because I do really good work when I have like, if I'm building your house, I get to know you, your family, your lifestyle, your goals. I'm my favorite quote last year was, boundaries create freedom. Well, what I mean by that is, you're telling me it might be budget, it might be it might be your family size. Might be your taste, it might be you, whatever it is, I'm able to then take all that and put that, you know, in here, in 20 years of experience and work with partners and blah, we build you this beautiful home anyway. How do you do that when you don't have a subject to to base it around, because you've heard of shaking your head like it's actually,

  Drew Reilley  53:19

  I think they're both difficult, right? Because there's a lot of times when, like a sole proprietor, like a single owner, or it's a personal brand for somebody, whatever it is, they've got a lot on the line, right? This is their baby. This is sink or swim for them. Oftentimes, they are a little bit more critical with with certain details. And really it is the challenge there starts from a strategy perspective. And it is, how do you get them to understand they have to disconnect themselves from the business, right in order to create something that speaks to the client effectively, without sub and without like subjectively causing the client to be upset about it, right? Does that make sense? It's like they still have to be competent in it. But I can't tell you how many times C suite exec or just single owner has said, I don't like that, and I've said, Well, it's not for you to like, that's for your client. I get it. You're going to print this on a shirt, and you want to feel like a badass when you walk into the room with that on. And that's my goal, but you have to meet me in the middle somewhere, and that's just conversation. So how do you we don't have a person you have more conversations on the strategy. You talk to every stakeholder. You talk to anybody you possibly can. Now, budget constraint has always been the issue there, because what I'd like to do, and what big brands do, is these focus groups, and they go talk to 100 past clients, or 100 past, you know, people who purchased a product or something like that. They research and pull all this stuff together, and then they create the brand strategy. And yes, you can do that on chat. GPT. Me, but Hunter is an avid refuser to use chat GPT at slash. And I think that's wonderful, because his job is to is to bring the human nature out of a brand. Because if you think of a brand as a person, like, like we were talking about earlier, how do you identify that person? Oh, they're fun. That's not really identifying a person. So it's, I

  Drew Reilley  55:23

  mean, it's our imperfections, it's the, you know, the humanity of the connections with people. I'm reading book, reading this book right now, called 4000 weeks. Have you ever heard of it? It's pretty wild. It's any it says, basically, your mortality, the average person lives 4000 weeks.

  Drew Reilley  55:40

  What's crazy about that? What's that I don't have the sweat I was wearing a 1612 sweatshirt earlier. One of my best friends started a lifestyle coaching group initially called 1612 weeks he had left when his dad died. So he was like, Okay, I have 1612 weeks left if I die when my dad died, and he has a big Kentwood I don't know if y'all have Kent wood. What is that water company? Oh, they just bring the big like, oh, it's ours. Is coloring, yeah. So he's got a big Kentwood water jug, and he puts a marble in it at the end of every week and asks himself, did I make that week count?

  Drew Reilley  56:16

  It's pretty baller. I That's interesting. The buddy who turned me on to it, uh, shout out to Tony kakanda. He listens to the podcast, and I run with him a lot, so I do a lot of Ultra and trail stuff, and he's just an absolute badass, yeah, but he's also probably become one of my best friends, because I spend so much time exercising with him. And you're talking about life and, you know, all this stuff. Anyway, he I'm fine with, you know, more actually, I was on the modern craftsman recently. Tyler was asking me about death and mortality and all these things. And it was a great conversation, and I think it's needed. But where I'm going with this was they actually make a calendar. That's an inverted calendar. So it starts with 4000 so that's when you're 4000 weeks. Is 80 years. You can get one for 100 years or 120 and basically every week you it's reverse. Rather than building up, you go down like the sand is running out on their time. I know I don't either. I like the concept of it. I'm aware of it, but I don't need to look every so you can get a poster. I don't need to sit down every day and look at I'm gonna die, because I definitely believe called placebo effect. Like, if you think it, it will happen, or if you believe it, like I believe in that. So to me, I would get the 120 year one, because I'm like, you know, I got lots more time, but and I get, like, the urgent, I think everyone has to deal with this with the personality side. I like your buddies, like I'm, did I have like, I'm adding, I like that that's adding. I think it's a healthy approach. I think if you're taking away, I think that's a negative. I think that's a very it's a dangerous mindset. In my totally

  Drew Reilley  57:38

  agree with that, because it puts you in this scarcity mindset eventually, and then anxiety becomes the and fear of the inevitability becomes the driving force versus inspiring yourself to be the best version of yourself, which when he started his clothing brand, it was around the same time Nick started NS builders, and so I've been working with him pretty much ever since. There was a couple years where he went and did a he did a rebrand and things like that himself, but he's a three time world champion in the Highland Games. He's an author. He's a absolute monster. You know what I mean? His his name's Matt Vincent. He's been on stone cold podcast. Joe Rogan talks about him. He's an absolute monster of a human being, and one of my greatest, if not my closest, friend, and he and I. He said that when I was doing the band thing, I inspired him to, like, just go do what you want to do with life. And now he teaches. He we're about to take over the clothing brand and run it for him, because he has, he rebranded from hate brand goods to not dead yet. Oh, I was just

  Drew Reilley  58:38

  going to guess that it was not dead yet. And that's based on the 1216 that's based on his dad, the based on his dad, then, isn't it? Yeah, 16, that makes way more sense. You know, it's a quick side note on that is just because you have a grand, great brand, sorry to rip on. This doesn't mean they fit great. So you posted the pink shorts with the or, sorry, the green with the pink shorts with the green alligators. It's blue. It's like a blue alligator. And I just love color, because, you know, during my business days, like, I have to be a professional but like outside, but like, outside of that, like, my running shirts are, like, fuchsia, like, I want the loudest, most annoying color, because I just like color.

  Drew Reilley  59:08

  And I can you volt, yellow is my favorite color. Vault yellow, just the

  Mark D. Williams  59:12

  name vault makes me want to get up and run right now. See you later. Guys podcast over. But anyway, so I got those shorts. I didn't realize. I didn't read the notes, the it seems like three inches. Like, I can't wear those anywhere, because it's like the boys are coming out. So they're my they're when I saw alone shorts, but they're super cool. But it's,

  Drew Reilley  59:31

  you know, Matt has a podcast. You should talk to Matt on the podcast too. His business stories are really, really great, too. And, I mean, it's obviously

  Drew Reilley  59:40

  he sounds, I want to hear. Like, was he also from Louisiana? Yeah, he's from from sulfur. We got like poet warriors down there. You got this guy in my mind. He's like six foot idea, like the boxing intro, like weighing in at 317

  Drew Reilley  59:56

  pounds of chiseled marble out of chisel. Cool. Yeah, talk about brand. You'll love this. All right, yeah. So this dude starts, he's always a big guy. LSU, track athlete, big and

  Mark D. Williams  1:00:10

  fast. See, that's a we were just talking about. You can't be good at both. This guy's the he's in uniform. No, no, no. He threw heavy things. Oh, okay, yeah, that makes way more sense. I thought he was going to be a sprinter on top.

  Drew Reilley  1:00:20

  No, no, and mass moves mass. He's a big dude, right? Well, he's not anymore. He's chiseled now. He looks he's in the best shape of his, excuse me, of his life. He's, I think, a year older than me. It's unreal. It's seven something, knee surgeries or some crazy stuff. But so he starts doing the Highland Games, and he's like, I'm actually good at this, and I'm beating all these guys who are bigger than me and me and him are just kind of jokesters we always have been. That's why we liked each other. He won the highlight. I don't know if he won it wearing it, but most of the time he would wear a bright pink, bright pink kilt, pink knee high socks, a fake mustache, aviator sunglasses, a big trucker hat, and go compete in the High Line, and then beat everybody. And he was loud, and he'd scream when he'd throw, and then he'd laugh. And it was this character, like we always had these characters, and that's brand you know what I mean? He stood out. People were like, oh my goodness, you know, I'm thinking, I'll teach you how I threw things. I'm

  Mark D. Williams  1:01:18

  thinking of macho man, Randy, Savage, right, exactly. And Hulk Ho, like those glasses I might the little whatevers, and the man brand is everywhere, right? We didn't even, obviously, every conversation is unique and fun, and this podcast makes you just want to do another back to back one, because I've got, like, 1000 more brand. This is what's so cool about brand now, is storytelling. And I we didn't get into it in this episode. And that's fine in terms of, I don't care if you're starting your company, if you are, and you listen to this episode or you're aware of it, invest in it. It's worth it. Because your brand, there's the term the silent salesman, people that are selling your company when you're not awake or not on your team, not on your payroll, your brand is all of those things. And it's your story. It's your it is so powerful. And I also think because it's a huge they mentioned, like the herd is going one way, you went another by going a different direction with brand help and making sure you're smart. Targeted here is because you still have to do a good thing. You still just because. But the thing is, if you have a good brand, I mean, I'm thinking about like clothing lines, like if a clothing line has a bad brand, but it's just great, you'll buy it if you if you have a So, so material, but your brand is amazing, people will still buy it. And hopefully you're good at both. Because if you're good at both doing Nike, yeah, you're Nike, you're all because they spend, all of them spend so much money on their brand, and their image, brand ambassadors is such a popular term, Shoe Dog and Jordan and all now. Yeah, anyway, that we could talk forever about brand, I'm

  Drew Reilley  1:02:46

  down. Let me know I'm available this time next week. Next time

  Mark D. Williams  1:02:49

  available at 24/7 I'm also available for hire. People hire me, yeah?

  Drew Reilley  1:02:53

  Well, I'm actually, I've moved into a fractional creative director role at slash, kind of doing that like you mentioned earlier, like, if you left, you have a business right now, right? No, I have a job. I have a job, a business. Yep, and that's how I've been functioning for the last 10 years. And finally, over the break, we kind of made the change to where, like, I'm gonna go do some fractional creative director work at a couple of other brands and try to add and drive as much value with just a handful of brands. While the team that I've been talking about most of this podcast, I feel like, because they're just incredible, you know, they got it. And I'm still gonna like creative direct projects, and I'm still gonna approve things before they go out and stuff like, you know

  Mark D. Williams  1:03:31

  what this reminds me of? This, actually, here's a good analogy for you you can use on your new brand pitch deck. So, you know how, like in soccer, or football as the rest of the world calls it, you know how they loan like a player to like, you know, hey, Real Madrid is going to get so and so for, like, I don't know enough about three matches, yeah, but you never hear about people trading coaches. What if it was like, what it was like the middle of the NFL season and like, oh, Bill Belichick is going to go coach them, the Vikings for three games in the middle of the season, as part

  Drew Reilley  1:03:55

  of their context, offense doesn't need any help, no. Well,

  Mark D. Williams  1:03:59

  our Yeah. Well, we had a rough playoff exit, but so did the whole NFC North between the lions and us. I was really hoping we'd

  Drew Reilley  1:04:05

  go farther this I got to see your star wide receiver play in college. Oh, LSU, dude, him

  Mark D. Williams  1:04:10

  and chase and Burroughs on the same team. How did you guys not win four national championships? Well,

  Drew Reilley  1:04:16

  because burrow was only the starting quarterback that one year. Oh, wow,

  Mark D. Williams  1:04:19

  that would make sense. Hold on, wow. Those guys, the talent between Chase,

  Drew Reilley  1:04:23

  well, that was around. That was, that was, like, it's snowing nine inches in Louisiana, right? That'll happen once every 150 years. That's that was that. That

  Drew Reilley  1:04:31

  was a good point. Jefferson. He's pretty bothered funny, because my kids are all doing the gritty all the time, down the hall all day. Everybody in the United you talk about a good brand, there you go. That's a good brand. Absolutely

  Drew Reilley  1:04:40

  his. He's a terrible actor. His commercials are awful, but he's young. He'll get there, but Nick Saban or aka Alabama Jones, his his commercials aren't very good either. Oh, it's

  Drew Reilley  1:04:51

  funny. I mean, he can't be good at everything. I appreciate you. Come on, we'll have everything in the show notes. Obviously, if anyone wants to reach out to you, they certainly can. I've got a super talented team. You're a great person. And I yeah, I don't even know why you're gonna see it next but now it makes me want to just sit in the back of a classroom and I'll tell you what next time I don't even I think I have your cell phone next time in the back of a classroom, I'm just gonna FaceTime you're like, our inside joke. Be like, Hey, what are you doing? I'm like, in the back of the class,

  Drew Reilley  1:05:13

  and I'll show you what I'm like, crazy designing on the screen that's never gonna see the light of day. We should do something with that. That's

  Drew Reilley  1:05:20

  the hard part. Is, as the company, once you have a brand, obviously you want to do stuff with it, and you're you're continuing to work on it and evolve it. But I can see why create. Creativity on the business side kind of begets more creativity, because it's like the process is so enjoyable and the clientele, and I think there's a lot of opportunity besides just your main brand. Well, we're not going to talk about this episode like the white oak project I'm taking I'm just so obsessed with story. We're doing something called Misa whose, which is Swedish for cozy. So we're creating a whole brand. It's Misa whose by Mark Williams, custom homes. You're gonna see it. I'll send you a link. The branding stage has done all the logos. I'll tell you what. I'll send you the brand packet

  Drew Reilley  1:05:55

  that I'm developing right now. I won't audit it. No, don't give me feedback.

  Drew Reilley  1:06:00

  I'm just letting you know what it is because my poor design poor designer would have a heart, heart attack. But no, your stuff

  Drew Reilley  1:06:05

  is incredible. By the way, whoever your designer is, if they're listening really, great job. They're amazing.

  Drew Reilley  1:06:09

  And so I think what's so cool is just they're we're telling stories and people I just like Nick. I'm sure we could talk about, I actually offered to go out to Boston and interview Nick in white oak to do an episode about his whole experience. It have to be honestly. I actually talked to him about doing, like, a live event where I'd have three hours, we'd invite people in, and he's so he's up to his neck in it right now. He can't he can't see beyond tomorrow. Poor guy. He's really in it. I told him, I was like, I know when he's really quiet, like he's in it, and he's been quiet for, like, a long

  Drew Reilley  1:06:41

  you know when he's in it is when I was sending him the new 45 white oak landing page design yesterday, and I had it password protected, and I sent it to him, and I went outside to, like, build a snowman. He's like, it's private. That's all I got. It's private. Okay, I'll get you, I'll get you a little login. Let me finish this snowman real quick. It's private, like, I get one words from that's what he's

  Drew Reilley  1:07:05

  in. It's so funny. I mean, he is a character. He's a character. I'm on himself. He's so funny because I like, David crap, because it's like, as you get to know people, I mean, I think of again, brand is so personal. And I think, like, when I see ns, like, yes, a lot of people think it is NS builders, but obviously it's, I mean, there's so much more to it when you know a person, and I think that's kind of what's rewarding about a brand, is like, it's not at face value, like there's more and more and more and like, the deeper you go, the more time you spend on you mentioned 10 years on the website, like, you know that evolution that that kind of goes all the way through. And it's really, I would imagine as a client. Like, if you're spending this much time on your brand, and I would encourage anyone listening to do this. Yes, it incurs a lot of time. It can cost money to a certain degree. It's not cheap. But the value, I don't even know how you put a number on that. I mean the actual value

  Drew Reilley  1:07:54

  brand there's there's a there is a term brand value, and I'm not exactly how they calculate it, but I know what the top, what company has the highest brand value in the world? It's Coca Cola. Like, the red, Coca Cola red, you can see a square that's that red. Like, that's Coca Cola. You know what I mean? Like, it's whatever it is. It's extremely valuable, and it doesn't have to take a ton of money. It just really depends. Like, what the best solution is for you or your business is, find a freelancer, find a small team, just start the process. Just look into it. You know what I mean? I think you and guys like Nick and Vincent appel from possible so many folks like you guys are very good stewards of your brand, where I typically can create the systems and like this, the identity system and all of your infrastructure internally, and all the creative around it, like, you still have to have someone be a good steward. And I've been in Brandon, like a brand guardian for Nick for the last 10 years, and we're at that point now where, like, he's become such a good steward of his brand, he doesn't need a brand guardian.

  Drew Reilley  1:08:55

  You know, it's interesting elsewhere. I think it's probably more challenging because I don't Nick doesn't strike me as someone who has a lot of ADHD, like I do. He's a lot of energy, but it's he is very like, focused. He's like, a bunch of laser beams coming at you. He's like, and it but like, my wife has been a grand guard brand guardian for me, because she manages our Instagram, and she said, I'll do it, but if you post one time, it's over, I won't do it anymore. And it was interesting, because I appreciate sometimes you need someone. I can be a little Jim Carrey. And we have to also be aware that we're building three to four or five, $6 million homes. And people want you to be serious, but, and ultimately, someone's not going to build with me if they want a stiff engineer experience of just, I'm not a robot, I'm a human being. And like I try to make it enjoyable. You feel color and like you have to be who you are. I think the other thing brand integrity. I mean, if you if you are your brand, or if you represent your brand, like be you don't be somebody else. And I think that goes back to your comment about don't try. I mean, sure you can be inspired, like Nick's stuff is inspiring. I hope what we put out there is inspiring, but at the end of the day, everyone is inspiring. Just be you, and that's inspiring. And you know, everyone's best brand is. Themselves. Just be real.

  Drew Reilley  1:10:01

  I'll leave you with this because I heard, I read this on LinkedIn a couple days ago, a designer, he has a solo brand called made by James, and he does some other stuff, but he he's from the UK. Really great designer. He posted the other day this, this one line, it stuck with me so hard. And it was, people don't work with portfolios. They work with people. I think there's a very small percentage of people in the world that don't care who they work with. They just want whatever. Here's the the check. But by the when you're working with those people, it doesn't matter anymore, right? So that's a

  Drew Reilley  1:10:36

  that's a good that's a mic drop right there. Thanks people. Thanks for joining the curious builder podcast, and thanks again for coming on. Drew appreciate it. Thanks

  Drew Reilley  1:10:43

  so much, Mark. I was I'm like, I have adrenaline. I have creative adrenaline going now. I love it.

  Mark Williams  1:10:51

  We're excited to announce that the curious builder collectives are going into three other states. For those not familiar with what the collective is, it lives between what the contractor coalition is and a builder 20 group. What we do in each state is we have a group of 25 to 30 builders that get in a room, and you break up into groups of nine. You spend 45 minutes talking about a set topic, whether it's branding, marketing, contracts, whatever that set topic is for that day. And then you talk for 45 minutes. You get up, you mix up the groups, and you do it again, and you're out of there. You'll be out in under three hours. We're going to be going to Phoenix, Arizona. Brad Levitt is going to be leading a curious collective in Phoenix, Arizona. We are going to San Antonio. We've got David and Angela Penske from Penske homes, leading a group down there. And we have Brad Robinson and Vince Longo in Atlanta, Georgia, also leading a collective as well as obviously me in Minnesota as well for our second annual collective. So if you're interested in collaborating with other builders, if you really want to dive deep on your business in a person to person relationship, ask a lot of questions. The collectives are for you. We also have in Minnesota interior design collective as well as the architect collective. Check out the Events page at the cures builder podcast.com thanks for tuning in to cures builder podcast. If you liked this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in. You.

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