Deb Gabor:
Well, good. I can perfect my story.
Amy Vaughn:
Alright. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly power lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn, and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. You can learn more about us and join the movement together on digital.com. And today, we are diving deep into the psychology of brand loyalty with the brilliant Deb Gabor. She has recently led our masterclass on this exact topic about how to turn casual customers into devoted brand evangelists. And Deb is more than a brand consultant.
Amy Vaughn:
She is also a 3 time best selling author whose innovative frameworks like the brand value pyramid and ideal customer archetypes have helped to revolutionize how companies connect with their audiences. Her recent insights on hacking Maslow’s hierarchy for brand growth have already helped countless organizations build deeper, more meaningful customer relationships. And today, we’re going to explore that even more on how to create that coveted irrational loyalty to the kind that transforms customers into passionate advocates who couldn’t imagine life without your brand. So whether you are an entrepreneur, marketer, or business leader, you’re in for a treat in learning how to build brands that matter. So very excited to have all of you here with us today. Our live listening audience, we would love it if you have questions. Please share them in the chat. Deb, it is great to have you here with us again.
Amy Vaughn:
Thank you for joining us.
Deb Gabor:
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Amy Vaughn:
Fantastic. Fantastic. So I know some of our members and folks have met you within the community. But for those who haven’t, I’d love for you to share a little bit more about your backstory before we dive into the fun topic of branding, a little bit about how you got into this area, and what it before you became a 3 time best selling author and brand evangelist, how did you how did you get here?
Deb Gabor:
I, you know, I like to tell people that I grew up in basically a brandless existence. So when I was a little kid, my whole family was from different parts of Eastern Europe, and so very, very practical, down to earth, pragmatic people who didn’t feel like we needed a brand name at all when we were growing up. So no brand name clothing. All my friends were wearing their Levi’s jeans and their Jordache jeans, and playing with Barbies and, you know, Fisher Price things and whatever. And my parents were buying whatever was the cheapest, so I haven’t really been exposed to brands, and actually really didn’t understand what what brands were or what brands meant until I was 16 years old and got a driver’s license and was able to go to McDonald’s for the first time and have a McDonald’s hamburger cross my lips for the very, very first time. And, you know, always was sort of fascinated by, you know, what does this mean? How, you know, how could a brand command more money than something that was unbranded or generic, and was always sort of fascinated by that. And then, I grew I think I told you this before that I started my career in journalism, like a lot of marketers do, and I worked in television, television news, ran an assignment desk and was a reporter, you know, did things like that. And I was really involved in telling stories that were designed not just to inform people, but truly to move people.
Deb Gabor:
And there’s a strong intersection between storytelling and branding, and there’s, you know, actual brain science behind it. And so fast forward a little bit to, you know, the point in my life at which I couldn’t make enough money to support myself as a journalist, which is very often the case. I ended up moving to a corporate job. And my first job, I worked in a super, super high-tech business. My first real job was at AT and T Bell Labs, where I was the lone marketer in a sea of scientists and technologists, tasked with the idea of trying to move people’s heart, mind, and wallet to care about technological innovations that were coming out of the labs. And, really, that’s when I kind of got bit by this marketing and branding bug. And so, yeah, I grew up in the technology industry for the first half of my career. I worked in a house, as we say, like people who are agency people.
Deb Gabor:
We talk about being agency people or being in house people. I was an in-house person doing sort of brand leadership, brand marketing jobs, product marketing jobs, a variety of things like that. I had the I had the pleasure and, you know, the great experience of working at a tech startup that really is credited with being the first company to help consumers get on the Internet with 9,600 bond modems at US Robotics and did marketing and branding jobs there, and then ended up on the agency side of the business. And when I was on the agency side of the business, I had an incredible experience working for a really, really great mentor who inspired me to think about brands in a different way. And she was, she was one of the people who helped Steve Jobs launch the Macintosh. And we go back and look at, you know, these documentaries and movies and stories about that when that happened. She’s a pivotal figure in that whole story. And so I worked with her.
Deb Gabor:
It was a PR company for technology companies, and I was a publicist. And so my job again was telling stories, but she had such a unique approach to it, which instead of telling stories about bits and bytes and, and how many hops to a tier one network and throughputs and things like that, she was able to turn those stories into unique stories of how people’s lives could be transformed through the use of technology. And, you know, I learned right alongside her, and that’s what it wasn’t really I wouldn’t call it branding, but that’s sort of what inspired me to pursue the whole practice more. Branding.
Amy Vaughn:
So somewhere between the big Mac and the woman who helped launch Apple.
Deb Gabor:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So the big Mac was my first big Mac at 16 and then sometime in my early thirties working for this person who launched the Macintosh. And then, you know, frankly, for me, like, working on the launch of a lot of, like, really exciting technology products, which, you know, in the go go days of the technology industry, when you were when you were bringing new technology to market, often the stories that you were telling were about, like, technology. Right? You were telling stories about, I call it the 80s, reliability, availability, scalability, manageability, flexibility, which is all comparative. We weren’t really telling stories about how technology would impact humans and change their lives, which you know really is more emotionally bonding. And so, you know, I really sort of cultivated this practice of changing the way stories are told in the way that they connect with human beings, which, you know, later on informs the whole methodology that I use and I talk about and I write about for branding.
Amy Vaughn:
Excited to get to some of that later for sure. What was the moment that sort of changed though how you approach branding, would you say?
Deb Gabor:
I think that it was, I mean, I’d like to say it was the McDonald’s hamburger. Like, since the first McDonald’s hamburger I had when I was 16 years old, I haven’t had another one because it’s disgusting. But the pitch the pivotal moment, I I think was probably the first time I actually in that in in that publicist job where I was pitching something, and was able to to get the attention of a journalist, and it was a journalist at Fortune Magazine about like a really, really interesting aviation story that that ended up not being a story about aviation, but being a story of of transformation, a story of, like, being able to completely change the way people view and use air travel, featuring the human beings behind it. Like, that was the moment that I was like, okay, this is what wins. This is what gets people’s attention, that there truly is a story behind it. And the story takes the reader, the consumer of that story on this journey of self discovery. And I was like, this is not just a plane, this is not just a, this is not just like an aviation business. This is a movement that truly has the power to help people envision a different way to travel.
Deb Gabor:
And I think that that was what my huge was like when I really, really you know when you land a cover story for Fortune Magazine about something in a technology driven marketplace, like that, it turns your head around. It really gets your attention.
Amy Vaughn:
Well, I wonder if that sort of started to open your eyes to that methodology that you’ve begun to introduce, unlocking and hacking Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for brand building?
Deb Gabor:
100%. 100%. So yeah. So, you know, when I talk about Maslow’s hierarchy, I talk about it in a couple of ways in how it is related to branding. And so, you know, those of us who are familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy, we know that, you know, the basic premise here is that we are all on a path to self actualization. Self actualization being the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy or the top of, you know, that pyramid construct. The idea that when we get there, we’re fulfilling our highest best value to the world. We are, you know, sort of levitating on a better plane where we are free of judgment for ourselves, free of judgment for others.
Deb Gabor:
We are fully accepting who we are, and the idea is that, you know, being a fully self actualized individual, is something that we all strive for. And so what we eat, what we wear, what we drink, the airlines that we use to travel, the cars that we drive, the technology that we buy for ourselves and for our businesses and things like that are all part of our Ascension, Maslow’s hierarchy. Right? And so out of that, like really trying to understand what is the process that people are going through when they’re making decisions about what they buy. Without Maslow’s hierarchy, things like Gucci shoes and handbags wouldn’t exist. Right? You know when you know full well that you can get a plastic sack from Walmart to carry your personal things versus paying $25100 for a Gucci handbag. For me, it was really like I had to peel back the layers of the onion and try to understand, like, why is this even possible? Like, what is it about that? And so the hacking of Mazel’s hierarchy has been my life’s work for probably 25 years now.
Amy Vaughn:
Mhmm. And there’s so much of our identity that gets caught up into that. Right? It’s like we’re walking around, and that’s like our internal how we identify internally is, like, how we’re projecting, like, externally with the things that we buy Sure. Where.
Deb Gabor:
Yeah. You mentioned earlier this notion of irrational loyalty, and I define irrational loyalty as this idea that people are so indelibly bonded to a brand. They’d feel like they were cheating on it if they were to choose something else. That’s very, very powerful. Right? Irrational loyalty is the thing that allows brands to grow rapidly and more profitably, charge more for products and services, attract and retain wildly loyal fans and really sort of stand out in a sea of sameness. Like, there is nothing today that you can buy that isn’t an imitation of it. Right? And branding is the thing that, you know, creates these huge companies where the contribution of the value of the brand is worth more than the the products that they sell. Right? And so, you know, this has always been really fascinating to me.
Deb Gabor:
And this notion of irrational loyalty really sort of, you know, you talk about identity brands becoming part of who you are. Irrational loyalty, the research that we do, we learned that the underpinnings, the psychological underpinnings of this are to create that condition of irrational loyalty. The brand has to become part of the person’s identity. It has to become part of who they are, and it has to be indispensable to them. Meaning it’s irreplaceable that you can’t trade it out for something else. Right? And so, you know, there’s so much psychology there. Yeah. People wanna get up Maslow’s hierarchy, but at the end of the day, brands that get to the top of their own Maslow’s hierarchy, the ones that are fully self actualized, they become part of the people who use them and they become irreplaceable to them.
Amy Vaughn:
Right? I love it. There’s so much good stuff to kind of unpack there. I have kind of like a follow-up question to that then. Like, as is when what’s in what ways for people who are trying to who maybe don’t feel like they have, you know, they they have a a brand or a product that or service that that that meets a need, and they’re not they don’t feel like they’re elevated, but they want to to to kind of maybe increase their pricing or to elevate their brand. What are some ways in which they could do that, by kind of using this hack?
Deb Gabor:
Yeah. I, you know, I break it down to, like, 4 basic things, like and I’ll share that with everybody here. I just give this methodology away for free. Really what you’re talking about, Amy, is helping people who have a business, a product, a service, maybe even themselves that they’re trying to brand and they want to create more sort of financial goodness for themselves. Open up new financial territory, open up new conceptual territory. What they need to do is act like the best brands in the world. And the best brands in the world, they do 4 things. Number 1, they aim their brand at a singular ideal archetypal customer.
Deb Gabor:
And that is the person who is most highly predictive of their success. Right? The one who is going to pay the most for what you are bringing to the table, right? So aiming your brand at one person, an archetypal human being for whom your brand is made and being very, very focused on that person, knowing everything about them, their values, their beliefs, you know, what keeps them up at night, what are their attitudes, their behaviors, what are their challenges, what makes them feel sexy, all of those kinds of things. So that’s number 1. Number 2, they become part of that, that person’s self expression, part of their identity. And they understand how they become part of that person. Number 3, you know, if you have a, if you have a business and you want to elevate that and you really want to create a brand that creates a rational loyalty, you’re not just different. You’re unique. You’re singular.
Deb Gabor:
This is where brands get into trouble. We always want to compare what we’re selling to everything else, and that’s the eighties and the ers. It’s smaller, it’s faster, it’s bigger, it’s thinner, it’s thicker, it’s taller, all of those kinds of things. That just opens you up to be compared to everyone else, meaning that your best features are immutable. When you really focus on building a brand that’s unique, then you can get to the top of Maslow’s pyramid for brands, right? You can become fully self actualized as a brand. So number 1, aim at an ideal archetypal customer. Number 2, become part of that person’s self-concept. Number 3, don’t just be different, but be unique.
Deb Gabor:
That’s the thing that makes a Porsche a Porsche and not a Mazda, even though both things fulfill the same basic functional benefits. Right? And then finally the best brands in the world, they do this essential thing. They make their brand about their customer and not about them. Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Yep.
Deb Gabor:
I do this diagnostic with brands all the time. I say, you know what? Go to your, go to your mobile phone and open up your company website. And if the first word on the website is the company name or the word we, you’re doing it totally wrong. Right? Right. Think of your brand as being heroic to another hero. Like the customer gets to be the hero in this scenario, not you. So, so, you know, when people are trying to open up more territory for their brand, financial, conceptual, attract more customers, it’s about that relentless focus, but then also really taking on the characteristics of the best brands in the world. And those are the four things right there.
Amy Vaughn:
I love it. And the reason why I threw that question is because I know we have a lot of our listening audience who are women who own and run their own small businesses and in companies, and they tend to undercharge for what they do and or the products and the services they sell. And it’s like, how do we encourage them to position themselves in such a way that they can sell to their highest, you know, most ideal client?
Deb Gabor:
So the ideal clients are the ones who are going to pay what you’re charging. Right? So if you have a small services based business, if you find yourself over servicing clients, it is probably because they are probably not the ideal clients. Right? Ideal clients are people who appreciate what you are doing. They need and can use what you are doing. When you do this profile of the ideal customer archetype, you should be able to see as they come towards your business, you should be able to see, you know, that they exhibit at least 75% of the characteristics of clients who are most ideal. Like, I can see it from miles away. Most importantly, I can see who is not my ideal customer. And when I know what I like, sometimes we consciously take business from someone who’s not our ideal customer.
Deb Gabor:
I run a services business. Sometimes you gotta keep the lights on. Right? You’re like, this is not ideal. At least I’m conscious about it. I understand it, and can I mitigate the risk? Right? But it gives me the ability to have choice, and choice is so important when you’re running your own business. Otherwise, why do it? Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Why do this? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Love it so much. Thank you, Deb. Also in your masterclass, you mentioned 3 key questions that brands should ask themselves. I would love it if you could walk our podcast audience through those as well.
Deb Gabor:
Oh, absolutely. So like I just gave you the explanation of the four things that the best brands in the world do. Number 2, 3, and 4 can be summed up in these three questions. I call them the brand swagger questions. And I always tell people if you want to just get started in branding, try to answer these questions. Right? And the other hint about this is that through answering these questions you are formulating the foundation of your strategic brand messaging. The first question, which is the becoming part of someone’s self image, becoming part of their identity, is to answer this question. What does it say about my customer or my client that they use my brand? Not what does it say about them that they use these widgets, but what does it say about them that they use me? Right? So for instance, I have a research strategy and marketing firm for b two b technology and professional services companies.
Deb Gabor:
What it says about them is that they are no nonsense innovative thoughtful marketing leaders who don’t have time for BS. Who wants to be pushed not just to do the best they can, but whatever it takes for them to win. It says that they have a short runway and a lot of attention is on them to get things right. That’s what it says about them that they work with me and the company that I represent. So it’s really important that it’s, you know, not what does it say about them that they use an outside marketing firm, but what does it say about them that they use me? So that’s question number 1. Right? So what does it say about me if you knew that I drove here today in a Ford F150 truck? You’ve already made up a story about me. Right? Right? I’m reliable. I, you know, I like to help my friends move.
Deb Gabor:
I may be a little bit affected. You know, I got a dog. I, you know, I’m from Texas. Right? Like you, you have a story about me. Right? So that’s question number 1. Question number 2 is that question about uniqueness. And that question is so simple to ask, but the hardest one to answer. This is where I earn all my money.
Deb Gabor:
Right? What is the one thing that people get from my brand, they get from me, they get from my company, they get from my product? What’s the one thing they get from me that they don’t get from anyone else? And so back to the example where I was explaining about the company that I run, the one thing they get from us, yeah, they can get marketing services anywhere. Right? They can get research, brand strategy, and marketing services. I always joke around and say you can’t swing a cat over your head and not hit 150 other people who do exactly what we do. Right? They can hire anyone for those things. But the one thing they get from us they don’t get from anyone else is the proverbial kick in the ass. They get a kick in the pants. They get propelled to do whatever it takes. Right? They come to us specifically for the kick in the pants.
Deb Gabor:
We are not for everyone. Believe me. I’ve never gone through a brand strategy engagement that didn’t make people really, really uncomfortable and make people feel like they wanna quit sometimes. Right? Because the work of branding is hard. And my goal with my organization, like our b hag, is to take a disruptive dark horse brand and turn them into a top 5 most valuable global brand. So that’s Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Tencent. Those are your top most valuable global brands. My goal is to take someone that no one knows and make them one of those.
Deb Gabor:
Right? I’m not looking to be everybody’s favorite marketing agency. Right? So the one thing you get from us is the kick in the pants. So really, really getting into that singularity is super important. And then that third question, the third of those brain swagger questions, it’s this simple. How do I make my customer the hero in their own story? They’re the ones who get to stand on the top of the hill. They plant the flag. They make the declaration. They get the medal.
Deb Gabor:
They get the trophy. They get the girl, they get the boy. Whatever it is that they want at the end, they win. How do I get them there? And so when you take those three questions, what does it say about a person that they use my brand? What’s the one thing they get from me that they don’t get from anyone else? And how do I make them a hero? Can you imagine that the answers to those three questions formulate, like, the strategic underpinnings of your entire brand story? Right? They’re very, very powerful, and I, you know, it’s taken me a long time to really refine this methodology. But if you go through that, it helps you humanize the brand, and it helps you tap into those deep emotional connections that get you up above the fray of bits and bytes and speeds and feeds and it is in ers.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. I agree. I agree. I did this little piece a while back about so many brands and branding. It was always about, and it would always kinda, honestly, piss me off. It was just like, oh, branding is, guidelines and fonts and colors and, you know, tone of voice. And I was like, no, it’s not tov. It’s POV.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s a point of view. What point of view do you have
Deb Gabor:
about the whole point of view? Inclusive of your customer. Right? And it’s I always tell people that it is the sum total of all of the emotional connections that you make with everyone all around your brand. And it’s a construct that’s made up of 2 big pieces. 1 is the brand identity. That’s a piece that you own and you drive and you control. And Right. Tone of voice and fonts and colors is the articulation of that. But it isn’t that right.
Deb Gabor:
And then brand image is the part that’s reflected back to you by your audience. And it’s a relationship between brand identity and brand image. If those two things are disconnected, then you don’t have
Amy Vaughn:
a, you
Deb Gabor:
have a, you have a broken brand. So you’re 100%. Right? But, you know, it, it is the, it is every point of emotional connection between you and, and anyone that you want to move your heart, mind and wallet.
Amy Vaughn:
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. So much so much good stuff into there, but I’ll keep us moving. Oh, goodness. Because I did a talk earlier this year too on brand reputation and customer perception and all those things too, and how all that consistency is such a necessity. It’s like, yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff in there.
Amy Vaughn:
But you were also talking about that swift kick in the pants, and I love it because again, like, again, it was something I love about your style and you have a book titled, branding is sex.
Deb Gabor:
I do. So, yeah. This Like, you know,
Amy Vaughn:
we just go straight for it. So it definitely obviously turns some heads, catches some attention. I’m kind of curious, like, what inspired that comparison and, yeah, divulge a little bit about that book and what people can expect from
Deb Gabor:
from that book. Yeah. Yeah. 1st, I’ll tell you, like, what’s the meaning of that, and then I’ll tell you where it originated because it’s a really funny story. So, you know, we were talking about Maslow’s hierarchy. Right? And when one time I was, like, really trying to break this down for somebody, this idea of what it feels like to be fully self actualized. And in order to sort of, like, permeate this person’s, like, thick skull, I was like, do you know what it feels like to have a day so great that all you wanna do is take a roll in the hay? Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Deb Gabor:
You know, like that feeling that you have the world on a string, you’ve got life by the proverbial cojones, whatever. Like, you’ve got this you have this incredible powerful feeling. Right? Like, that nothing can go wrong. That’s the moment in which you really, really feel fully self actualized and, you know, you kind of want to go for it. Right? You know? And I told this story. It was like, yeah. It’s like you get in your car and you’re on your way to work. You make every you make every light.
Deb Gabor:
Right? You have green lights all the way. You arrive at the office. You get the front parking space. You walk in the door, you get to your desk and your 9 o’clock meeting is canceled. So you finally have time to get through all of those backed up emails and clear your desk and maybe read a little bit of the newspaper and whatever. Then, you know, you win a big deal. You’re you, you have a great lunch where somebody else picks up the tab. Then on the way home, you make all the lights.
Deb Gabor:
You get home. Your spouse has prepared dinner for you, and the kids have the feast day already. You could spend time with the whole family, and they’re all clean. Right? And the kids go to bed, and then you’re like, I’m all chicka. Wow. Wow. Right? So everybody, like, understands what that feeling is like. Well, that’s the role of branding, is to give people that feeling.
Deb Gabor:
Right? Yeah. It truly is to give people that feeling. And, you know, people ask me, I’ve been interviewed literally hundreds of times about this book. Right? And people ask me, they’re like, oh, okay. So are you saying that that sex sells? No. No. No. I’m not talking about I’m not talking about being sexy or or making brands sexy.
Deb Gabor:
I’m talking about making people wanna feel like they wanna have sex. Right? Does that make sense? So all branding boils down to, like, making people have that great feeling, whether it’s through the purchase of a new iPhone or, you know, it’s these, like, really cute eyeglasses that I like. You know what I mean? It’s like making people wanna have that feeling. Right? So that’s the meaning of branding as sex. And, you know, my publisher for that book was the one who encouraged me to name it that. I can’t remember what the working title was, but he was like, you absolutely need to call it that. Now it’s been problematic. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I’ve been asked to speak at places like, you just call that book branding.
Deb Gabor:
I’m like, no. I cannot call that book branding. Right? But I’m a little bit, you know, sort of like an in your face kind of person. So that’s really what the meaning is. It really is about giving people that feeling that they wanna take a role in the hay. The second part of that is the story of where this came from. So I told you I grew up in the technology industry and that great job that I had where I worked for this incredible mentor who, you know, ran the PR company for technology companies. One of our clients, a very, very, very well known leader at a very, very well known, very famous technology company, was launching a server operating system, which frankly is not very sexy right.
Deb Gabor:
And the server operating system was being launched to the financial services industry and government. 2 very unsexy industries. And all he wanted to talk about, all the CEO wanted to talk about was like bits and bytes and speeds and feeds and how many hops to a tier one network and, you know, how many ones and zeros and, you know, like the ities and the ers or what they used to call this company RASM. RASM, r a s m, reliability, availability, scalability, manageability. You’re glazing over
Amy Vaughn:
not really.
Deb Gabor:
Can you imagine an audience of analysts and media at a launch, like, salivating over reliability, availability, scalability, manageability. No. So it was my job to change his perception and his storytelling to really put their customer in the center of the story. And boy is this guy thick headed. He was really, really, really thick headed. And I was at my wit’s end. And, you know, this was during the media training. Right? I was really at my wit’s end, and he was sitting in a rolling chair like what I’m sitting in right here.
Deb Gabor:
And I took another rolling chair, and I got up real close to him. We were knee to knee. And I was like, listen. We have to tell the story in a different way. We have to put that IT guy, that government IT guy who sits in a windowless office with, like, no one to talk to all day except for all the people who are calling him to let him know that the server’s down, that their PCs aren’t working, that their workstations aren’t functioning, whatever. We have to get that guy laid. How does this service server operating system get that guy laid? And he pushed his chair back and he rolled like halfway across the room, And then he told me a story. He was like, this happens and then this happens and this happens.
Deb Gabor:
And I said, this is what we need to say to the media and those analysts. Right? And in that moment, like, when I asked him, like and it was in a moment of frustration. I was like, how does this server operating system get this guy laid? When everything opened up to him, I was like, I was compelled to share that with the world because I had had my big and I thought for all of these people who don’t understand the power of story, the power of connection, the power of emotions in moving people to take action, I can make this so easy for them. So that’s where branding as sex was born.
Amy Vaughn:
That’s so funny. Well and what I as you were kind of sharing earlier, there’s a story of going through the day in those moments and those little moments. To me, what I was hearing too was just satisfaction. Right? That little sense of satisfaction throughout the day, and that sense of, like, peace and things are going my way and and and trust.
Deb Gabor:
And in the IT world, like, that totally makes sense. Now, you know, one of the brands that I’m working with right now is really about indulgence and decadence. Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Deb Gabor:
And so it’s more than a moment of satisfaction, but understanding those, like, micro levers that you need to pull. Right. What’s the difference between satisfaction and indulgence? Right? What is the difference between being satisfied or feeling deserving and discerning? Right? Yes. That is the essence of branding is like getting to them they are like little micro levers. Right? And so you picked up from the story. Yeah. Like that’s satisfaction. That’s for a brand about satisfaction, being satisfied.
Deb Gabor:
Some brands are about elation. Some brands are about making people feel confident or feeling powerful or feeling like they’re in control. Understanding those things and really the magic is understanding specifically for your brand. What is it that you do unlike any other brand in the category? That’s where your magic is.
Amy Vaughn:
Well, and I and I love it that you always take it up a notch. You kick it up a notch too, because I think we’ve become, as a society, a bit desensitized. So I think it’s not enough to just say, like, it’s about satisfaction. You have to elevate it. Right? You because it’s like, it wasn’t enough for you in that moment to go do a need for him and be like, how do we make people feel satisfied? No. It’s gotta be. How do we get this guy linked?
Deb Gabor:
Competitor in that space is trying to make that guy feel satisfied. They’re Yeah. Everyone is trying to make them feel, you know, confident, accomplished, satisfied, say, secure. Right? So this is the thing. So Maslow’s hierarchy for brands, it’s, you know, it’s a pyramid. It has 3 parts. At the bottom are what is the ante to get into the game? What does the brand need to bring to the table in order to be considered in that category. If we’re talking about server server operating systems, we’re talking about reliability, availability, scalability, manageability, flexibility, uptime, security, safety, all of those kinds of things.
Deb Gabor:
Right? You don’t differentiate on the basis of that. That’s like selling ice cream by saying it’s cold and it’s sweet. We don’t do that. Right? In the middle of that pyramid are emotional benefits. Emotional benefits are things that make him feel secure, makes him feel accomplished, makes him feel smart, makes him feel savvy, makes him feel, you know, secure and all of these different things, safe, etcetera. Emotional benefits are not enough because, like, I would say any server operating system should make people feel that way. Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Yep.
Deb Gabor:
If we want to really permeate someone’s heart and move them and bond with them emotionally, we need to make them feel exhilarated. We need to make them feel Yes, you have to
Amy Vaughn:
go beyond
Deb Gabor:
that. Exactly. And so the best friends in the world are the ones that push through that to truly differentiate themselves on characteristics that can’t be imitated by anyone else. And it’s only those emotional things, a server operating system that makes people feel exhilarated. Is there such a thing? Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Right. I wanna find it now. Yeah. It’s out there somewhere.
Deb Gabor:
Interestingly, this company has been bought and sold so many times. Like, I don’t even I don’t even know what it’s bought or not. Yeah. You know? And in the day, it was like one of the big theories. So yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
Oh, goodness. Alright. Let’s look a little bit about the ideal customer archetype. I love all your frameworks. I think they are truly helpful and powerful. And, again, it’s something you can take and start to use right away. Yep. What about this framework makes it so powerful?
Deb Gabor:
So, you know, every business strategy methodology talks about something like the core customer. Right? You know, they’re like, okay, who is your core customer? And you’re like, oh, I work with medium sized businesses with revenues between $10,000,000 and $100,000,000. I am here to tell you that businesses at $10,000,000 of revenue and $100,000,000 of revenue, have different kinds of prop problems. Right? The ideal customer archetype is about honing in on the exact human being who your brand is made for. It is a branding exercise, not a marketing exercise. And this is really, really important because I get a lot of pushback on this. But you build your brand for the ideal archetypal customer. That’s why it’s an archetype.
Deb Gabor:
Right? And it really goes beyond demographic and firmographic characteristics to help you identify, like, who is the exact human being that you are made for and who is made for you. I make my clients draw this. Right? We drew a picture. Right? And we, we really hone in on if you’re selling to other businesses, who is the decision maker within the business that is the most important domino that you need to knock down. You build the brand for the people who use it, right? And figure out who that human being is? What is their job title? What does their day look like? What are their challenges like? What do they wear to work? Are they wearing gym shoes? Are they wearing work boots? Are they wearing wingtips? Are they wearing heels? Where do they go on vacation? What makes them feel sexy? What makes them sit upright in bed and sweat ice cubes? What are their goals, their values, and beliefs? It’s knowing everything about it. And so when I make clients draw it, if they have a big heart, you draw them with a big red heart in the middle of it. If they have a big fat brain and they’re very intellectual, draw them with a big brain. They have a lot of money under their control.
Deb Gabor:
Show them holding a big bag of money. But when you go through this exercise, the most important thing it does is it shows you who you are not for. Right? So we talked about, you know, people who are running their own small businesses, the people who are maybe listening to this right now. You can probably look across your business and think about who is the person that I would love to serve over and over and over again. When you create the archetype of who that person is and you memorialize this for you and your team, and you bring that person to your meetings, you use that person when you’re thinking about, alright, my marketing or my sales efforts and things like that, you get this relentless focus almost to the exclusion of everyone else. I’d like to give this little case study. I worked with a mortgage broker actually here in Salt Lake City before I moved here. They’re a very, very large company.
Deb Gabor:
I think that they’re one of the top mortgage brokers in all of the United States, and they only operate in about 5 states. And they’re headquartered here in Utah. And we were going through an ideal customer archetype issue. They were finding that they were, like, seriously over servicing people, and think, you know, their team was ready to quit. They also had a very, very unique business model that instead of commissioned loan officers, their loan officers were on salary. And this was really important because their loan officers were incentivized by different things than like pure play sales oriented loan officers. So when you have sales oriented loan officers, this was an interesting nuance that I knew nothing about, when you have sales oriented loan officers, they’re incentivized. They’re incentivized by money.
Deb Gabor:
They’re incentivized to make the cost of those loans more so that they make more money. Right? Which adds time and complexity to the home loan process. These guys were like, we can shorten the home loan process by 10 days and save the average family buying like a $500,000 house, $7,000 on their mortgage. Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Deb Gabor:
So who is the ideal customer for this? We have a conversation about this because they’re like, we’re having a real hard time connecting in the marketing process. And their messaging was muddy, and they didn’t, like, they had a real value proposition, and they didn’t know who their ideal customer was. And I said, who’s your ideal customer? And they said, it’s a couple. I’m like, alright, tell me about this couple. Right? They’re like, well it’s a man and a woman, and they’re buying a house that’s about $500,000 in the Salt Lake Valley. And, we really probed into this. And I, you know, looking at their business model, this idea that they have this unique model that can save 1,000 of dollars and days on the home loan cycle, which saves real human beings a lot of money and a lot of consternation. I was like, within this couple who do you need to influence? So then, you know, I asked questions about the home buying process, who’s in charge? Right? And, you know, they said largely that the woman of these traditional relationships is the one who’s driving the home buying process.
Deb Gabor:
Right? She determines where you live, how you live, what the house looks like, the location, you know, those kinds of things. She has a sacred bond with the real estate agent, right? And you know I I remember the first time I bought a home. I asked my real estate agent for a referral to a mortgage loan broker. My real estate agent gave me a business card and I went directly to that person. I didn’t do any shopping around. I didn’t have any second opinions. Right? And so when we deeply probed into this relationship to understand the process and who needed to be influenced, we identified that the man in these and these were very traditional man, woman relationships, right? The man in this scenario, who we named Brian, was the ideal customer archetype because he was the one person who could break the sacred bond between the woman in the relationship and the real estate agent who hands over the business card of the mortgage broker. We anointed Brian the family CFO.
Deb Gabor:
We made him the ideal archetypal customer who could change the whole trajectory of the home buying process by suggesting they get a second opinion. Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Oh, okay.
Deb Gabor:
And this opened up so much financial territory for them. I drive around here on I15 in Salt Lake City. I see their billboards. The billboards are targeted right at Bryan, and they say, get a second opinion. You get a second opinion for a medical thing. You get a second opinion for, you know, a part of repair. Get a second opinion on your mortgage. And they are aimed directly at this smart
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Deb Gabor:
Homegrown family CFO. Right? And so this is where that ideal customer archetype is so powerful because it brings you relentless focus. If you’re marketing to a couple, who are you talking to?
Amy Vaughn:
It’s too broad.
Deb Gabor:
Right? So going all the way back to the first time that maybe you were in the school play in 4th or 5th grade. Right? You know? And, if you have someone that you’re supposed to be talking to, and the director of the school play or the school drama teacher says, what’s your motivation? You know, you have to focus on that person. What’s their motivation? What are they trying to get? What are you trying to get? So that’s where the ideal customer archetype can open up all kinds of new financial territory. And I’m telling you, drawing a picture of it, being able to visualize it, being able to close your eyes and see it in your 3rd eye is magical. I know it when I see it. More importantly, I know when I don’t see it.
Amy Vaughn:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That’s always a way to get a marketer to flip a table is tell them to, you know, for we’re for everybody.
Deb Gabor:
It’s my favorite. Like when I go into a new business scenario and they’re like, I asked them, I’m like, who are you selling this to? Who is this for? And they’re like, well, really anyone can use this. Alright. I mean, those of us who are marketers, like how much, how, how effective are you going to be at marketing? You know? So, I try to get people to think about it. Their audience is like a series of concentric circles or even like it’s a fried egg on a plate.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah.
Deb Gabor:
The yolk, like this very, very dense, rich portion of the egg here is your ideal archetypal customer who the brand is made for. You’re gonna still get the white.
Amy Vaughn:
Oh, yeah.
Deb Gabor:
Right? They’re interested. They’re inspired. Their aspiration, you know, they’re aspiring to be like that idea. Don’t market to the people who are the plate.
Amy Vaughn:
Right. Yeah. No. Exactly.
Deb Gabor:
You can’t eat the plate. I always tell people this. You can’t eat the plate. So
Amy Vaughn:
You can’t eat the plate. And you’re not gonna get, like you said, the irrational loyalty from the plate. You’re not gonna get the irrational loyalty and love from the people that it’s like there , it’s just not the ideal customer. Yeah. I agree. Yep. I love this so much. Alright.
Amy Vaughn:
Let’s talk about an example of a brand that really nails the emotional connections that we’re talking about here.
Deb Gabor:
Yeah. So interestingly, a brand that I have recently become obsessed with, which I am not the target audience for, but I’ve kind of become obsessed with it just because I’ve been doing some research for another client where this brand was sort of involved. It is a streetwear brand called Lonely Ghost. And so the younger people among us might know what this brand is. But I, you know, I was like, I need to understand what is the fascination for this brand. This brand completely nails it. And they create rational loyalty. Like, they charge for I. I went to one of their stores the other day, here in Utah.
Deb Gabor:
They can charge $35 for a t- shirt and nobody even gives it a second look because it has, like, the little lonely ghost logo on it. And, you know, it is they do such a good job of, like, becoming part of the person who uses it. So this is a brand that was started by an influencer. Right? She was, like, sort of making her own streetwear kinds of things. She got big. She’s, you know, she’s a mad sensation on TikTok, on Instagram, then that expands into stores and things like that. So what I love about this brand and the reason that I feel like it does such a good job of creating a rational loyalty is that the brand experience is consistent and meaningful 360 degrees around the brand. So whether you you consume this brand by going to their e commerce site, you consume this brand, via shoppable Instagram, for instance, or, you know, TikTok posts or whatever, or you go physically into a retail store, which their retail store, it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
Deb Gabor:
And I’m like, I’m clearly not the brand for this. I’m not the ideal customer for this. It’s like somebody my daughter’s age. Right? But I’m just fascinated by it. You go into their retail store, which is a converted grocery store, and they call it a lonely ghost grocery. And it’s and it’s set up almost like Meow Wolf style. Like it’s super, super cool, but it’s a destination and it’s a 360 degree experience. This tiny little brand out of Provo, Utah has turned into an international phenomenon that has been able to do collaborations with Ferrari, with Wendy’s, with Jennings ice cream.
Deb Gabor:
They have, like, all of these incredible they have a cult following. It is, like, literally a cult following. And whenever a brand has been able to engender that, like, cult-like following, like, that really attracts me. On the other side, another brand that I’ve become really obsessed with and it’s sort of like a joke between me and my partner. Like I, I love the Bobcat brand and I’m talking about like the, you know, Bobcats, like those little tiny bulldozers that you can get to, you know, level your backyard and
Amy Vaughn:
all
Deb Gabor:
that kind of stuff and whatever. You know, I have this idea that I wanna have a bobcatting business where I teach women to drive bobcats. And I want bobcats to, like, do a collaboration with me and give me bobcats that I can paint pink and put little cat ears on and whatever. But I did a deeper dive to really understand like what is it about this? What is it about this brand? And they’re very, very clear. They’re like, they are for people who want to create change, who want to power through things. And it’s really interesting because you have John Deere, right, which is all about being the envy of your neighbors, which is a competitor to that. They make a similar product. You have Caterpillars, which are like, you know, use stuff for your backyard.
Deb Gabor:
That’s just like what the big guys are using, you know, out on the out on the interstate right now and whatever. But Bobcat is, like, in this category of construction equipment, they are very firmly focused on that individual guy who is, like, ruggedly changing the way things look, the way things feel, making change. They do a great job. They have wonderful case studies on their website. Like one of them that I watched the other day, it was the construction company that was serving this home building organization. And the home building organization, their mission was to build affordable homes for real people. And they sort of followed the path. They let their customers tell the story of how Bobcat enabled us to make housing more affordable for these people.
Deb Gabor:
Right? Like truly like that through line. So, this idea of creating these conditions of irrational loyalty exists for consumer brands, like streetwear brands, like lonely ghost, but also for industrial brands like Bobcat. And there they are, you know and so brands that are able to execute at that level where the brand exists in 360 degrees, those are the ones that I’m obsessed with right now.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. Yeah. Again, and I love that you brought it back to consistency. It’s so, so key, you know, again, because that expectation is there with consumers that experience from beginning to end. It is your brand promise.
Deb Gabor:
And I, you know, I always talk about, like, the brand promise of the Ritz Carlton. Right? We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. Like, that is true of every single touch point you have with the brand. They are sort of like the people of, like, the most perfectly constructed and delivered brand promise. Like, we can all take that into every aspect of our businesses.
Amy Vaughn:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, this has been so much fun. We are coming up on time, so I just wanna go through our power round questions really quickly because we have some fun ones that I really think our listeners would be interested in hearing from you. Hopefully, they’re not too challenging because, you know, it’s this one especially, it’s gonna be hard to pick, Deb. So let’s hear it. What is your favorite brand of all time?
Deb Gabor:
My favorite brand of all time, probably believe it or not, is Salesforce. My daughter, but yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. Yep. Salesforce. I just
Deb Gabor:
I just brand and they’re a legendary brand and they went to market, you know, as a disruptor, they went to market with disruptive tech CEOs. And I think that that’s legendary.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. I just, was it a sales blazer? Is that or was that the new project they just launched for, like, all of their education and training?
Deb Gabor:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
I just met the young woman who helped launch that project at Content Marketing World. Awesome. She’s gonna be a guest here soon on the podcast too.
Deb Gabor:
Awesome. Very good.
Amy Vaughn:
Most overrated branding trend?
Deb Gabor:
Most overrated branding trend. I’m going to say, publicity stunts.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. One book every marketer should have to read of course, besides your own.
Deb Gabor:
Yeah. You can read any of my 3 books. But, a book that I recommend to people, it’s called Pink Goldfish. It’s written by my friend Dave Rendell and his partner, Stan Phelps. And really the idea is that what makes you weird makes you wonderful. I love that. What makes you weird makes you wonderful. So, like, leaning very far into the stuff that is unique to you.
Deb Gabor:
I talk about uniqueness all the time. Just one quick example from that book that’s really inspiring. Are you familiar with this brand, Buckman’s cough syrup? It’s a brand in Canada. I don’t think we have it here in the US, but Sounds
Amy Vaughn:
kind of familiar, but Yeah.
Deb Gabor:
So the one characteristic that Buckman’s has is that it tastes like butter crap. Right? So, you know, you have kids. If you have to buy your kids, like, Robituss and the Cryogenic, like, one of the standard features is it has to like, it’s red or it’s purple, and it tastes like bubblegum, cherry, or grape. Right? It has to have a flavor. Basically, they’ve said, you know what? Like, that stuff doesn’t matter. What really matters is that it works. And so if you ask anyone in Canada what’s the most effective cough syrup, they’ll tell you it’s Buckman’s and it tastes like crap. Right? And so he gives that example.
Deb Gabor:
He gives, like, tons and tons of examples of brands that lean really hard into places where they have sort of gone against what is standard equipment for their category to really, really stand out. So I love that book and it’s and it’s a book that a lot of people don’t expect in marketing. But, top line of inspiring examples. Pink Goldfish, it’s called.
Amy Vaughn:
Pink Goldfish. I love it. And the weird is wonderful. That’s a very popular saying in our household. So I love
Deb Gabor:
Well, so the guy who wrote the book, he is I wanna say he’s like 6 foot 5. And, in his I met him on the speaking circuit and in his speaking engagements, he wears bright pink pants and pink glasses and everything is pink and all this kind of stuff. You know, he’s he’s, he always tells the story. He wrote another really good book, which is more for humans than it is for brands and businesses, but it’s called the freak factor, and it’s kind of the same thing. And he always tells the story about how when he was growing up, he was a kid, you know, his report cards coming home from school. I said, Dave, Dave talks too much and he distracts and entertains the people in the classroom. And so, you know, he leaned really hard into that and he’s like, well, I’m going to have a career as a professional speaker then.
Amy Vaughn:
So,
Deb Gabor:
Yeah, these ideas of like, what makes you a freak as a brand, as a human are the things that you should lean really hard into, because that really points to this idea of like, what’s the one thing people get from me that they don’t get from anyone else. So that’s the reason why I love his stuff so much.
Amy Vaughn:
Sounds like my kind of guy. I said that when I announced my podcast here, I was like, Hey, to all those teachers that said Amy talks too much, guess what? I’ve been on the podcast and I get paid to be, to speak. Exactly.
Deb Gabor:
Hear me both.
Amy Vaughn:
Oh, you love it. I love it. I love it. Alright. Last one. And then we’ll wrap it up best because you have had an amazing career too. I would love to hear. And you’ve had some great mentors, as we mentioned earlier in the episode, what was the best career advice you’ve ever been given?
Deb Gabor:
The best career advice I’d ever been given was don’t sell your time. And, I mean that like really, really transformed the trajectory of my career and really got me to think about selling, selling results, selling value, selling possibility. You know, I started out and, you know, I think I told you before I was an accidental entrepreneur, I started out like just doing consulting. Right? And I was selling my time. Now I made a buttload of money selling my time, but it wasn’t until I realized that I could sell a vision. I could sell against the vision of what the world could look like when I solve the problem. And that was worth far more money than selling my time for 250 or $300 an hour. And, it really is, it’s super, super transformative.
Deb Gabor:
So I don’t like this is not a knock on employees. There are some people who just don’t have the risk tolerance or the profile to be entrepreneurial. For me, it was manifest destiny because you know what? I make a really, really shitty employee. I don’t like authority. I don’t listen. I talk to them.
Amy Vaughn:
Unemployable, basically.
Deb Gabor:
I am hardcore unemployed. Yes. We go around, you know, that I’m gonna go and find a job down at the UPS store. I can’t think of a single UPS store that would hire me. Right. But this idea, like, for me, for anybody who has a who anybody who has a services business or does consulting, like, you know, when when I started to think about what I was doing in terms of its value to the person who was buying it and how it was gonna be transformative to them. I like it, it just created a better world, like, a better world for everybody.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. That’s great advice. I love it. All of this has been so great. Thank you again, Deb, for being with us here this week and for always being so generous with your knowledge and your wisdom and all of your smarts on branding. I hope all of you have really taken a lot away today. I know I took a lot of notes as I always do, even though I’ve sat and talked with you so many times. I always take away so many great things.
Amy Vaughn:
So thanks again for being with us today. We hope to see you all next week. Until then, everyone, keep asking, keep giving, and keep growing. We’ll see you soon. Thanks.
