Dear Bunker,
When I first started my entrepreneurial journey, I didn’t know the first thing about how to convey my value to the world, let alone that of my organization IRONBOUND Boxing.
Although I knew how to organize a pitch deck, I didn’t know the first thing about positioning myself and my brand in the eyes of my ideal donor. I’m passionate, purpose-driven, and very energetic, which got me a lot of eyes in the media, but not necessarily consistent revenue to adequately fund our operations. It wasn’t until after countless hours of podcasts, reading books, and eventually getting a business coach, that I learned how to build a brand that channels through the noise, stands out from crowd, and engages with your ideal audience.
To help you avoid the mistakes I made early on and build a brand the right way, for my next two newsletters, I’m going to walk through how build to your own brand.
***Full transparency, this newsletter is a meal, not a snack. So you might need to revisit it from time time and take some notes. This newsletter is a lot longer than my previous ones, so be warned! This is only for those of you who are serious about their entrepreneurial journey and willing to do the work. If that’s not you, feel free to stop reading here!
In the summer of 2020, I made a hard pivot into podcast production services on the for-profit front, launching IRONBOUND Media.
We were profitable out the gate and the first thing I did when I made the pivot, was go through the following brand building process, that I’m taking you through over the next two weeks. So make sure you get on some pin and paper.
For PT.1 of “How To Build A Brand, we’ll be going over the following key concepts for designing and positioning your brand:
Core Purpose
Core Values
Bold Beliefs
Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG)
Hedgehog Strategy
X-Factor
Profit Per X
If you’re unfamiliar with any of the terms, don’t worry about it. I’m going to due my best to break them down grunt style for you. I learned this process of brand building from my own business coach Bill Watkins, at The Lions Pride.
1. The first thing to understand is that building your brand starts with understanding and conveying your core company’s purpose.
Why do you exist as company? What aspiration or change are you trying to make in the world? This should be a vision you can rally your troops around, because when times get rough, this is going to serve as your brands north star. At IRONBOUND Boxing, our core purpose is to “Build champions in and out of the ring.” We do this by providing free amateur boxing training, entrepreneur education, and employment opportunities for Newark youth and young adults. At IRONBOUND Media, our core purpose is to “Give brands a voice they can be proud of.”
Think about your own core, what is your why and what inspires you and your team?
2. If your core purpose is a stool, your core values are the legs that keep up.
Core values are the foundation that hold everything together. Core values represent the personality and behaviors of you and your team. Even if you’re a solopreneur, there are certain aspects of behavior that you bring to your work.
In the military, our core values were honor, courage, and commitment. The military is a large organization, which is their core values may come across as so generic. As you start to develop your own core values, I want you to add some personality to them. They should speak to who you and your team are. Just make sure you live up to them. Below are the core values for my podcast agency IRONBOUND Media. You can use them as a guiding star.
1 Don't be afraid to start ugly:(Mastery is built through countless hours of constant practice and repetition. In order to achieve mastery, we have to start, with the understanding that we’ll get better over time. Embrace growth mindset, and understand we all start ugly sometimes.
2 Never Stop Learning: (We are masters of our craft, we may not have all the answers, but we know where to find them. We’re open to receiving and constantly seeking feedback. We read books and articles, listen to podcasts & audiobooks, and are always looking for new opportunities to grow and learn. We are subject matter experts, which requires us to stay up to date on all relevant podcast trends, as well as processes and systems for constantly improving our performance. )
3 Protect the Asset: We believe that in order to reach our fullest potential, we need to ensure we're cultivating our mental, physical, and spiritual self. This means getting rest, taking care of bodies through exercise, nutrition, and sleep, and nurturing our soul through reading, writing, or whatever you need to to cultivate the spirit. You are the asset, and you must ensure you're taking care of yourself at all times.
4 Discipline Equals Freedom: In order to avoid stress and burnout, we have to embrace a culture of discipline thought, and disciplined action. Rather than focus on executing a lot of things poorly, we strive to focus on a few things and execute them exceptional well with discipline.
5 Lift As We Climb: (We don’t want to live in a world where we’re the only ones on the mountain top. We’re constantly helping others learn and grow alongside us. Whether we're giving back to the community, veterans, or our industry, we embrace a mindset of helping others)
I include our core values on all our internal and external communication, including consulting engagements, etc. I challenge you to do the same. I also recommend you keep your core values between 3-5, and strive for you and your team to learn them by heart. I currently have a small team, but even as I type this out newsletter, I’m reminded we need to revisit them ourselves.
Your bold beliefs represent your opportunity to stand on the mountain top and shout to the rest of the world, who you are and what you stand for.
Think of your bold beliefs as a “Dog Whistle” for your tribe, including future employees and perfects customers. Ask your self what you believe about your industry, what is wrong your it, and what future you hope to create. Below are some of our bold beliefs at IRONBOUND Media:
1 Brands deserve a voice
2 There are no rules with audio.
3 Business relationships don't have to be purely transactional.
Start with “We believe…” to help you get going. Then you can remove the “we” later and state it as a fact. Your bold beliefs are like brand flag that you are planting into the ground. Not everyone will believe what you believe, but thats ok! We are creating a Dog Whistle for our perfect customer and our tribe, remember that!
What’s your “Big Hairy Audacious Goal or BHAG?
BHAG was first coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Think of this as your moonshot goal that aligns your team around a aspirational mission. Think "A computer on every desk in every home" like Bill Gates. To be honest, I still struggle with articulating a strong BHAG, which might be worth a whole newsletter in itself! With that said, I’ll still share some of mine.
IRONBOUND Media: Become the premiere publishing company for veteran business leaders and nonprofit executives.
IRONBOUND Boxing: 1,000 True Fans
I know they need some work, but I hope you get the picture. I’ve been toying around with the idea of “A podcast network to replace your book shelf,” but I’m worried it’s not quantifiable. That’s the goal of the BHAG, it should be measurable so that you know you’ve hit it. I know an apparel company whose BHAG is to receive 10,000 smiley faces from customers, and they have a board to track them.
Your hedgehog strategy is how you’ll monetize your brand.
Ask yourself the following three questions:
What are you passionate about?
What are you the best in the world at?
And what drives your economic engine?
When I quit my full-time the summer of 2018, I was passionate about boxing, I believed I was the best in the world at teaching it, and I created a business model teaching boxing to companies in the NYC Metro area. I charged anywhere between $100-300 per class to companies such as WeWork, Spotify, and Next Jump. Below was my hedgehog strategy:
“On-site boxing services delivered to repeatable high-margin clients.”
This was my strategy up until the summer of 2020, when I shifted into podcast production services. With it, I was able to build a successful lifestyle business that paid my bills and allowed me the freedom and flexibility to work on our nonprofit. The hedgehog strategy for IRONBOUND Boxing’s nonprofit arm is:
Create social impact through grassroots boxing and entrepreneurial education programs in low-income communities, supported by powerful story driven marketing delivered to high net worth individuals and institutions.
The key to understanding your hedgehog strategy is being able to monetize your passion and expertise, in a way that’s clearly articulated.
Your X-Factor is your secret sauce, it’s your formula for delivering value to your clients.
If you have Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) company, like Charlynda Scales from Mutt Sauce, your X-Factor would be the family recipe. If you’re a service company, your X-Factor is your repeatable process for delivering value to your clients. For example, at IRONBOUND Media, our X-factor is that we “Podcast Like A Platinum Album, a platinum album is good 10,20, 30 years later, why not a podcast?” Our step-by-step process for helping our clients create their “podcast album,” is our X-Factor.
Your Profit Per X is the value placed on your secret sauce.
Think of profit per x is how you monetize your expertise with either a product or service. If it’s a product, try tying it to the value of an individual product, such as a healing balm, hot sauce, or apparel. If you’re a service based company, tie into your business frameworks and the value that you give clients.
For example, during my corporate wellness days my profit per x was as follows:
One Client = 20k + in yearly revenue.
Today for IRONBOUND Media, our profit per x is tied to our podcast series ranging between 10-20k per client. So profit per x is as follows
One Client = 15k + per podcast series.
Again, profit per x represents the opportunity to monetize your value.
Here are some more examples of Profit Per X
Profit/customer experience or customer visit.
Profit/customer.
Profit/employee.
Profit/location.
Profit/geographic region.
Profit/part manufactured.
Profit/division.
Profit/sale.
However, if you are an early stage founder, I strongly encourage you to tie your profit per x to a particular product or service.
I warned you that today’s newsletter was going to be a meal, and I’m sure your heads are spinning if this is your first time thinking of brand building like this.
I’m exhausted just from writing this newsletter, but I knew I had to get this information to you because it works. Next week, we’re going to define and go over the following topics:
Brand Challenge
Brand Spark
Brand Promise
Kept Promise Indicators
Brand Guarantee
In the meantime, make sure you listen to my podcast episode of the Transition, “How To Build A Brand,” where I go over everything I’m covering in this newsletter series.
If you’ve made it this far, feel free to shoot me a text at 832-284-1045 or message on instagram @Ironmikesteadman, and let me know what you think of either the newsletter or podcast episode.
I’d love for you to also comment below if you have any questions or are stuck on any particular part of the brand building process. My goal is to build a community here where can learn and grow together.
How-To Build A Brand PT.1