How To Get Really Good At Branding: A Branding Masterclass With José Pablo | AOAB Ep. 27

25:26Chris Cruz:Yeah, I don't know this to be true. So I'm going on a hunch here, okay? So I have no idea if this is true. We're doing a live conversation on this. I also noticed there's two other accounts that you curate alongside your account that have, it appeals to this wide audience of brand designers and people who love brand, whether they're founders or they love visuals. They love seeing what brands are doing. And you've curated this, but it's not directly attached to you. But then there is enough of a common, like whether they're collaborations or there's posts. What's that strategy for you? Like what's that about?

26:00So cross-post. So it's called We Love Daily. Yeah. So We Love Daily is like the mother account, we can say it like that. Yeah. And then we have We Love Branding, We Love Illustration, We Love Web Design, We Love Animations. We have one called We Love AI Design, but that one doesn't work. And then we have one called the Global Archive Photography. I forgot the name. Yeah. But yeah, so we have those accounts that we create. It is a lot of work. So my team helped me and everyone likes to create things. But how we use them is, yeah, exactly, to cross-posting things, right? So if I'm going to talk about branding and it's relevant to share with everyone else, we use We Love Branding.

26:42If I'm going to talk about illustrations, I'll use We Love Illustrations. I'm going to talk about something else. Like we can find what are the common things with those accounts. And that really helps us amplify the message.

26:53Chris Cruz:And it's almost like if a restaurant created a separate account for just food critiquing almost. Exactly. And kept, but how do you tie that back to you somehow? Like is it in just seeing the collaboration as between these two people? Is that your touch point to it? Because I found it naturally to go, oh, these two are connected. But how did you intend for those to be connected? It's something we are working on right now. Like, we haven't really found the right way to do it or the perfect way to do it. We don't even have a website for We Love Daily, for example. Okay. So we are working on that.

27:28We are doing a rebranding of We Love Daily to make it more like a creative platform that more people can share things on.

27:35Chris Cruz:I mean, it's like, I think what, either We Love Daily or We Love Branding is like almost half a million followers. Yeah, I think combined of all the accounts is like 1.5 million. Yeah. And the cross-pollination, like, you see it, and I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I'm seeing this strategy. But it's not like when you go to the We Love Branding. It's your face and your team's face. It's its own separate thing that's living and breathing. It's on media, for sure. It's like its own media company. It feels like it's part of us, for sure. But it's on universe, right? We are working on it. We want to expand it.

28:08We want to have more things. We're going to bring more people.

28:10Chris Cruz:Do you consider it like marketing? Do you consider it like marketing for what you're doing? Yes, for sure. Okay. I don't know if it brings me any customers directly. Like, I haven't been able to try to say, hey, someone saw this post on We Love Daily, and they came directly back to me. But I think it's part of building this as a media company, right? I think that's another one. Like, you're a hospitality company, and you're a media company, right? You have to be able to come in. People hate that. Like, some of these small businesses are like, I don't want to be a media company. And like. Do it.

28:41you don't have another option right like of course you have more options right uh this is media company being a media company is one of the ways to grow right maybe you want to grow through paid ads i love that you said it like that though i really do love that you said like

28:58Chris Cruz:that because you tied it not just to the idea of a media company for a media company's sake you're tying it to growth you're tying it to some kind of initiative that they really value but they may not immediately tie media to that. Right. Yeah. And we all know the best example, Red Bull, right? Right. They have so many things. They have built this amazing media company with soccer teams, two Formula One teams, and then they sell Red Bull. Totally. And I think that's the idea. That's why we think about Will of Dahlia, how we think it is. It's like, okay, how can we build a bigger media company that it helps us bring more leads?

29:40It is one of the purposes for sure. Yeah, 100%. But we also want to have a good channel to people to share more stuff, to people to learn about branding, design. So it's building those two at the same time. And this is where it's so fun to have you on the podcast because there's so much continuity between how you're approaching your stuff and how we're approaching stuff.

29:59Chris Cruz:it's like you and I were sitting in the same room coming up with things because I'm like we do the same thing even with anatomy of a brand it's not our agency it's not what we it's not what we're called and it's like but it's all the stuff we're building for this content ecosystem that is like a media company that is developing all this stuff like even this space it's a big show of that right uh all of that building into something big right into making sure the brand is able to communicate in so many places and to create a lot of things. I think if you as a brand and a founder are able to create to others, it's gonna bring you a lot of people, it's gonna bring a lot of attention because it shows you that you care about what else is happening.

30:42You'll see many restaurants and hotels are using that strategy. They want to be the creator of their city of where I based, they want to say, hey, if you are coming to Mexico City, you also have to go to these restaurants. I want you to come to my restaurant, of course, but don't miss this too. And I think that's what many people are doing. And I think it's a great strategy, like to bring more people to you, but also to people around you.

31:09Chris Cruz:I heard somebody say one time, if you were a hotel in a remote part of like Iceland, the first thing you should do is start a We Love Iceland account. exactly not create an account for your space is actually to create this spot of like hey we're going to curate all this and then we'll be inside of that but there's going to be a lot of people benefiting from yeah there is an account called mr w okay uh they own airbnb's in mexico city they have i don't know how many airbnb's okay probably like 150 or even more i don't know wow uh but their whole strategy is about creating mexico city right they talk about best coffee shops, very taco places, museums in Mexico City.

31:50And then they show their B &Bs sometimes. But I think that's what you should do. What else can you show others, right? It's not only the product. And I insist on that. The product is the less important thing on branding, right? It is all the other things you can bring to the table.

32:08Chris Cruz:Dude. One, it's refreshing because we're taking bets on stuff that we're not seeing these huge numbers of tractions on things that we do. Like we have some shows like Field Trip. That is where we go and experience brands in real life in Nashville. We'll go to restaurants, retail spaces, and they'll perform well on social media to a certain extent, right, in the metrics that we want. Like they're not hitting these massive viral numbers, but they're effective for what we want. And I think that's one of the things people get lost in the media conversation about is they try to measure what effectiveness is.

32:41Chris Cruz:Is our account going viral? Is it getting all of these? I'm like, sometimes that matters and sometimes it doesn't. And for us, would we like more eyes on what we're doing? Yes, absolutely. But at the same time, we're not looking at what we're doing as it's failing because it's not having these massive eyes on it yet. So that I think media company kind of perspectives, we know we're in it for the long haul. A lot of small brands or small businesses or medium sized businesses want that return like immediately. and they're like i can't spend this amount of time doing this and it not immediately change my business and i'm going if you don't invest the time now like it's like the idea of when's the right time to plant a tree yesterday the second best time today right like yeah yeah it's like that and it takes a lot of time and i also understand the owners and founders in that sense like yeah if you need to make money by tomorrow well maybe you have to try something else for sure Right.

33:44Yeah.

33:44Chris Cruz:Content may not be the best suggestion. Exactly. Exactly. But the long game, the long term content might be the solution. Right. For many things. Right. Yeah. But if you need clients by tomorrow morning, go out in the street and you're knocking on doors. Right. Exactly. That's what I told that to a friend the other day. He owns an Airbnb and he was just starting out and said, hey, hey, what do I do? I didn't make content. And I told him, I told you to make content like two years ago when you started building this place. and then what can we do so I told him like go and knock on doors dude right like I don't know send DMs to whatever you see send people say hey please come and then you're gonna start focusing on content again right I think that's a great distinction if you're in the spot where you're like I need cash tomorrow to do this you're I mean you don't give up content you just got to get something that's going to move the needle right now yes in that process that's a great call out because you're not gonna be able to go viral tomorrow morning that's the honest truth like maybe maybe you are able because you were lucky or whatever mm-hmm but there is not a way to do it to say hey I'm gonna go by all tomorrow and I'm gonna sell out my new t-shirts or whatever because it doesn't see what revenue right away my reality doesn't equal they converted and bought from you exactly yeah yeah sometimes it's useless to go viral right mm-hmm What's the sense if you go viral and everyone in the U.S.

35:12knows you, but you're only selling bread to someone in a small community, right? And maybe in a small community, they don't even care about your content. Yes. Just thinking about those things. Yes.

35:23Chris Cruz:And I think that's where a lot of, I see these small to medium-sized businesses. They're looking at content and they go, well, we've got to get viral. But like you're saying, you serve a small community. And in that small community, virality does not matter for you to actually succeed in your business. What you might be posting is when your bread is fresh and what time it hits the shelf. Exactly. Versus like trying to make these trendy pieces of content. People need to know when do you open and when does the fresh bread come out each day and what are the flavors of that. There's a local donut brand that only does pop-ups right now.

35:56Right.

35:57Chris Cruz:They were going to do a brick and mortar at some point and they only do these pop-up donuts and they're called Connie and Johnny. Okay. And their flavor, they have four flavors only. And they pop up at coffee shops around the city. They're incredible donuts. I like I am hunting to when I can go get one. Right. Because I missed the pop up on Saturday, last Saturday. I'm waiting for them to do the open for pre-order for this Saturday, wherever they're popping up this Saturday. They may open a brick and mortar. I have no idea. Like I know them loosely. So it's like I don't know if that's in the plans.

36:29Chris Cruz:So I want to be honest. Like I don't know if that's in the plans or not. but I know that the buzz that they're creating locally isn't about, can I create a donut brand that's nationwide? They're like, I'm selling every week in Nashville. So you need to know where I am in Nashville and how to engage with us. And so I think that's a really important call out in the content world when you're trying to think about content for your business to move the needle. I love that. I love it. Let's unpack positioning a little bit. Let's unpack your take, your thoughts on positioning, how a brand looks at positioning or shouldn't look at positioning.

37:00Chris Cruz:Like, how do you think about that stuff? Oh, definitely. I think it's very important to look at it. It's very important to think how other things about me. You have to be judgy about what people think about you. Even if you're a founder, if you are a brand, whatever, it is very important to understand what people think about you. And I know everyone's like, you shouldn't care about other things about you, whatever. But I think it is a line to see if you are doing the correct thing or not with your brand. Okay. Right? To understand if people like it, if they don't like it. Maybe they like something that you didn't know they like, and you're focusing on the wrong thing.

37:38So I think it's very important to do positioning through listening to your customers, right? Like to really listen to them to say, hey, why are you coming back? Or why are you not coming back? Like really understanding those points is the first thing for me through positioning. And then you're going to start working into it. Okay, maybe you'll, I don't know, you understand that your customers love your notebooks and they don't love your books uh so focus on the notebooks right and i think it's just listening and responding to that listening

38:09Chris Cruz:and responding do you ever do positioning before the product or before the customers are even engaging with this brand is that a stage where you're like hey or if it's a rebrand and they're like we're we're rethinking which would be that listening category but is there a spot where you're going man you guys haven't even thought about how you want to be perceived right is Is there anything that you do in that stage? Yeah. I always ask this. Who are you attracting and who do you want to attract? Because that's a big difference, right? And it happened to me with a hotel owner the other day. No, I don't want to do that because that's a little bit tacky and it doesn't go with me.

38:45And I was like, it doesn't matter if it goes with you or not. Your customers love it and you should keep doing that, right? Because that's the important thing. You have to find those two things. Okay, I want to sell to these people, but the people who are buying from me are these other people. So talk to them. You don't have to talk to the ones that don't care about you.

39:05Chris Cruz:And so that leads into something you've said before, which is, I don't know if you said it exactly like this, but there's something in this vicinity. Brand guidelines are dead. Yeah. Because I think people would have died on the hill if that doesn't fit within our brand. But you're going, I don't know if that really matters as much anymore. They're very important. I'll be honest about it. They are very important, and I do deliver them. And I do tell the founders or CMOs, like, hey, you need the brand guidelines. You have to use them. You have to be very insistent to them, especially when you are growing a team, right?

39:36At that moment, I think they are very important.

39:39Chris Cruz:So why would you say they're important for growing a team or at the beginning stages? Let's start there, and then we'll pack one. Yeah, because you'll bring three interns, five designers, whatever, into your house, and they're going to start to do whatever they want. And they are going to get creative. and they shouldn't be as creative as they want. Especially at the beginning, when you're building the brand, when you're building that consistent thing to say, hey, I need to look the same every single day. You don't want someone to come and say, oh my God, I love this new typography, I'll try it.

40:08You have to avoid that, especially at the beginning.

40:10Chris Cruz:You have to be very, very strict. Because you're still trying to own something in people's minds. Right. It's like if Home Depot decided to change the orange after like the first week, and they're like, all right, we're going to change it up. Yeah, because the new summer intern decided to change it, right? I love the specific call out, the summer intern. Yeah, well, that happens with the small businesses, right? Because they change social media guys constantly, or they sometimes do their content on Canva, and then someone else comes and does it in a different thing, and they do whatever they want.

40:41But this is just going to help them not be creative in the good way, just to keep following that along. because when you are building that consistency of making your own brand, making your own universe, you have to be very careful of that.

40:57Chris Cruz:So there's a couple. Now, so I love what you're saying there because I think that's true. I've also watched some stuff that you've put out and some other questions I have around, but there becomes a point where they become shackles and even the millennial polishedness, you've got to try to stay away from how clean everything looks all the time and on brand. There's people who take the brand guides and it almost imprisons the brand. and it makes it like there's no personality anymore. It's just these guidelines. What do you do in that process? How do you consult them to think a little bit differently about brand guidelines?

41:29And I think that's where the brand guidelines are useless now. I think your job as a founder or a CMO, whatever, is to go outside those guidelines and to find what are the things you can break from the guidelines that are going to make you a little bit different, that are going to let you experiment, that are going to let you respond to trends because if I follow the guidelines, I'm not going to be able to respond to trends. I'm not going to be able to talk about the social change that maybe matters. And that's where they don't matter as much. They matter to follow colors and typography and things like that, but they are not going to tell you how to respond to the everyday basis, right?

42:09I'm sure no one had what to do in case of a global pandemic as a brand, right? For example. So that's where they are useless and you have to be able to respond and you have to be able to be, if you are going to be a social active brand and you are going to respond to whatever is happening in the country, you have to be able to do that. And that's, I think those are the things that brand guidelines will never be able to get, right?

42:34Chris Cruz:Yeah. So as you see brands evolving, what are you seeing them do or that you're even advising them to do, whether they take it or not, what are some of the things you're like, hey, you should be starting to think like this. Like, what's some of the stuff, if we were just having a conversation around what brands need to be thinking about going forward, what's some of the stuff you're pulling out? So there are two. One that I always said, creating. As a brand, you have to be a creator of other things, even if it's other restaurants, other products, whatever, right? Why is it important? Because it lets you do better partnerships with other people.

43:10it shows you as an authority to say hey these guys are telling what to do are telling what what are the guide to egg city or whatever right but it's also the collaborations part and not many people do that but i think more they should do it for example restaurants to have a item for another restaurant in your restaurant things like that i think is going to give you the possibility to do it so collaboration will bring partnerships And the second one that I'm sure you have seen him on social media, Alex Garcia, he talks a lot about the content series, right, and the social shows. I think if you are able to do it and if you have the budget, I know people will say, hey, you can do it just without an iPhone.

43:54Maybe that's not true. You do need to have a team. You need to edit. It takes a lot of time, right?

44:01Chris Cruz:A social show is a lot harder to do if you're just pulling out your iPhone and it's just you. Right. Right. But I think doing a social show can be game changing for everyone. Right. Those two things. They're hard to they're hard to do. Yeah. They're way harder. We've we've dabbled in a couple that have had great traction, but the sustainability and the scalability factor was really hard. Yeah. And they died. We're like we even think about how we resurrect some of those in more scalable ways because we think they have great meat on them. And like, for example, the show we did called Sandwiches, where it's like I was cooking a sandwich talking about branding, but it took so much time to do.

44:36Yeah.

44:37Chris Cruz:They were just like, this isn't scalable. Yeah. Unless you have like crazy budget to do it. Yeah. And tons of time. Yeah. Because we're like, we're going, okay, yeah, we have the resources to create all this. But the time to create that while we're creating all these other things is really hard. It's not a scalable model that you can just do. Like making food made it not scalable. Right. Like when we were going, all right, we're going to make food every time. We should have seen that as the flag, as like this isn't scalable. But that is the thing. It was like ordering ingredients, getting ingredients picked up, then coming into the studio with the ingredients.

45:12Chris Cruz:The script parts were never fully the issue. The cinematography and the way that it looked, never an issue. Production and project management, never an issue. What the issue came down to was we couldn't sustainably figure out food, getting it and getting it ready to do this and keeping it on schedule. So it's just like social shows are hard if you don't have the right framework for it. Yeah. And if you're a founder trained to do it only by yourself, it's not going to work for you. Right. So maybe find something else that is going to work for you, like creating a stuff. Right. Or maybe showing your founder a story is also important.

45:47Like all of those things. I think there are many strategies to follow that can help you. Right.

45:53Chris Cruz:What do you think about websites now in 2026? what are your thoughts on websites and what they're even doing? I know we all have the, we all have the face, right? We all have the, like we go silent. For many businesses, I think they're useless and you don't even need them. Right. Maybe you just have to put some, a landing page is enough for other ones. I know for e-commerce they're very important. I think it's finding and being honest to say, Hey, do I need it? and what does it need to do? And that's it. I think... What does it need to do? Exactly. What does it need to do? Does it have to be a big expression of the brand?

46:36I don't think so. I think people want to spend the less time possible on a website. Right? Yes. Like, if I go to a hotel or a website, I want to be there three minutes. Book and leave. If I'm going to buy...

46:48Chris Cruz:If it's too complex and fancy, I actually get frustrated. Yeah. If it's got too much creativity going on, where I'm like, I was trying to book a room and know what the room looks like. You've put a whole lot on this that's actually deterring me from this. Right, yeah. People don't want to consume websites. I think that's the answer to it. Maybe sometimes they want to discover products, and that's e-commerce. And as we say, it's different. Yeah, it's a different category. Exactly. That's like saying, does retail need storefront? Right, exactly. But if you're a lawyer, if you're, I don't know, whatever else, services, is no one wants to be in your website, right?

47:25And I know, especially if you have lawyer websites, they have this huge website with hundreds and hundreds of pages.

47:31Chris Cruz:We're working with one right now. Yeah, because they want to do the SEO and whatever, and they think it's important. And of course, it helps. I know it brings leads. I know it will position you on Google. But the honest answer is no one wants to consume your website. It's true. Right? It's true. And the anchor of like SEO, I'm like, well, let's think now. The way that cloud and chat GPT has changed people's search realities, how often they went from, I think my search has dropped minimum, minimum, I would say 50 % since AI softwares, where I'm asking the questions to AI about the things that I would normally go in Google.

48:11Chris Cruz:Right. And then companies would be in that category where I'd go, oh, okay, I'll just call these guys versus I'm going to go figure it out on chat and search it and go there. So it's like even SEO is changing and they're like, you've got to change with some of that and websites. Yeah, SEO. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know if that game is the game anymore. I don't think it's. Yeah. Right. As I say, people don't want to consume your website. The less time they stay in your website, they're happier they will be. which is counterintuitive to some of the stuff years ago, right? Bounce rates.

48:46Chris Cruz:You don't want them staying there long. Like with one customer we had, we said, your bounce rate is huge, but that's because you don't have a way for them to start the bidding process with you. So all this is doing is getting them to start the bidding process, to get a bid from you. That's it. We have to build this website. Like you said, what does it do? It starts the bidding process. That is all that it does. And so when we're like, oh, we need it to be this. I'm like, no, they're coming to this because you're cold emails. They're not searching for you. Yeah, that's right. So we've got to change that.

49:17Chris Cruz:Yeah, interesting. So you said a couple of other things that I'd love to dive into. You said pretty doesn't sell, trusted does. Pretty doesn't sell. As a visual designer, too, you're almost like, do I want to say that? Yeah, it's very contradictory to what I sell that is visual branding. Yeah. Of course, beauty sells at some moments, and it's important. But doing honest things and having a real product, having things that are useful and things that are worth it, that's going to sell way more than having the most beautiful coffee back, right? If you have the most beautiful coffee back, but inside you have trashy beans, no one is coming back.

50:04And maybe, yeah, you will do the first buy. You'll get the first bag.

50:09Chris Cruz:you will always get that first customer. But loyalty and retention of that customer? That's the most important part. The rebuy is the people coming back. That's the most satisfaction you're going to get as a founder because, okay, my God, they are coming back, and the more money you will get. Okay, so this is interesting, though, because this also ties into a little bit about some of our takes on quality of product. Because when the thing breaks that you buy, though it looked better than everybody else's, then at that point you're like the brand is broken because the quality of the product is horrible it's it's not that your your quality it's like it's this it's this beautiful dance when you're looking at an ecosystem of a brand and it's looking at all these pieces like you're saying here like the bag will be amazing and some people will honestly tell you the coffee is good because it's a story they want to tell yeah it's what they want to tell themselves right it's they they're like it has to be good because i like the way it looks and when i have to say at one point i'm like it's not good if we're just going to go on a objective standard of tasting which some people say taste is subjective which there's certain levels yes but when we're doing like is this burnt or not burnt we're going to be able to say is it burnt or not burnt coffee beans that process of saying okay i like it better than anybody else i'm like you you're willing to accept that's because you like the story of the brand exactly and then sometimes you're like this thing needs to it better work like the product needs to stand up like but at the same time you're wrestling with only if it's a i would say it like this only if the product is fundamentally flawed and it's like broken does that actually mean it's the whole picture like if they're getting a toy and that toy breaks within minutes i don't care how fancy that is i'm never buying from that toy company again for my son.

52:00Chris Cruz:But if it's like, oh no, it broke because my son threw it and it didn't endure, but the branding was amazing. I'm like, I'm probably going to buy from them again. Exactly. And even like after that, let's say you call customer service. Right. And maybe they answer and say, oh my God, we're so sorry about it. We'll send you one tomorrow morning. But if they answer and say, oh, I'm so sorry, that's it. You'll never buy from them again. Right. Correct. And that's, as we say at the beginning, like every single touch point is building the brand. Everything is a brand. And one better experience is going to kill all the good experiences.

52:37Chris Cruz:You're exactly right, because I know experiences I've had or heard and watched as, okay, so we just had a crazy ice storm, right? Just trees knocking down Nashville, 100 ,000 people without power. And a lot of it is because tree branches are falling. and the week after, the moment where, like, cars could be on the road again, I was getting text messages to be quoted for tree trimming, right? The tone deafness of that moment was so high. Yeah. Because they're going, opportunity, everybody wants their trees trimmed right now. We're going to go and give free quotes to go cut them. Yeah. Versus going, saying, hey, we want to come trim your trees at a massive discount because we know this is really tough.

53:22Chris Cruz:we want to get rid of this for you like even if they started with that i would have been like come come cut my trees exactly but first it was like we want they didn't mention anything about the toughness of the times they didn't mention anything about the difficulty of not having power they didn't mention any of that it was we're in your neighborhood giving quotes i'm like you're so tone deaf right and this is looking so bad on your brand and it's so i get what you're saying when there's that element of customer experience my dad even bought a product that uh he the quality just wasn't there when it got there.

53:52Chris Cruz:So they sent him an entire new one without question. Like they taking his word on it. So customer service has to be authorized, so to speak. Okay. So you've said this before. We'll start to land this plane here because I feel like this is a bit of a masterclass on every element here. You said before, if you're the founder, you shouldn't be the brand designer. That's very important, right? But the designer, how do you say it? The founder, of course, I know at the beginning, you don't have the budget to hire a branding agency. You don't have the budget to have a full-time designer, and you have to do it yourself.

54:33And it's okay, of course. It's part of growing a business, and at the beginning, you'll need to wear many hats, right? But you are not a designer, and you have to be truthful about that. Like I know you can put a camber together with all the information you want, but it's not going to help you connect with your customers. It's not going to help you to build your brand in the way you want. Does it hurt?

54:55Chris Cruz:A lot. Yeah, it does hurt. Because you are making trashy things with all the respect because you don't know about design, right? If you hire me to do your finances, I'll do trashy work because I'm not a finance guy, right? Right. And it's the same thing. Like you need to hire a designer to help you grow your business and your brand. Right. And you don't have to hire someone full time maybe, but you need creative people in your team. You need people who can tell you, hey, maybe you don't have the best taste in the world. Right. And you need better taste to grow your brand. You cannot grow a brand without taste.

55:34I think that's very important. Doesn't matter what you sell. Doesn't matter what your service is. and that's why like lawyer websites and all of them they're horrible right because it's probably the founder partner saying hey just this colors or do this do this do this when what you need is bring an expert to the table to help you out doing those things even if they're even if the expert consults you on setting that up and they don't you have to get somebody else who's not you still as

56:02Chris Cruz:the founder who can get a little bit better at it but the idea of like doing such a critical part of your business just because you're a founder thinking i can just do it without getting input is when you get these brands and visuals that you're like oh oh we literally aren't we've literally struggled with this the other day where we got sent the logos and we're like oh right no let us fix something here because i it's just respecting what those roles do even though you can quote unquote do this the question isn't can you it's should you Yeah. And I talk a lot of, not trash, but I always make fun about Canva, right?

56:45But I'm making fun about Canva as a tool. It's a fantastic tool. Everyone should use it. I think it's a great tool, for sure. Yeah. But if you're using only the Canva templates and you're using the Canva aesthetic, you just look like everyone else, like the millions of people who use Canva, right? So Canva is a great tool. It shouldn't be your aesthetic. yeah that's the important thing or if you are buying templates that it's also a valid point you are buying those templates aesthetic it is not your brand's aesthetic so i think you have

57:18Chris Cruz:the aesthetic of your brand is getting defined by the templates that you're picking that right 20 other people can pick exactly and you have to be very if you are doing that you have to be very careful yeah uh because you become noise at that point right you become noise and it hurts you exactly i was i was thinking about this with canva it's like canva like you said like it's a great tool it allows this accessibility to design and they're they're branching out they're coming in they're trying to create new ways like there's sometimes i use canva because i know how to use design yeah where i'm like okay i can say i can use canva and i use it because it makes for ease and quickness because i know how to design yeah versus i don't know how to design that's what canva sells to you is the idea that you don't need to be a designer to use this but at some point too you're like it's like DIY and guess you technically could DIY your house exactly you could build it if you wanted yeah I don't know if it's always gonna be the most sturdy but it's possible yeah it's possible do your plumbing exactly I can try it I think it happens the same with keynote on PowerPoint like yeah people say oh my god it's way better to use keynote it looks better it's not really the software it's not even it is what you're able to put into the software, right?

58:31Chris Cruz:So yeah, everyone is capable to use Canva, but maybe hire someone who can help you do it for you. I've thought about it so many times where I'm like, get someone who has some sense of it to just even consult you maybe and create guardrails for you and go, what's good, or run it by them. What founders, I think they're so attached that they have this inability to look honestly because they created it. So it's so tied to their identity that they won't ever have anybody feedback to it and go, I'm sorry, that's bad. It doesn't mean what you're doing is bad. It doesn't mean what you're building is bad.

59:06Chris Cruz:It doesn't mean you're bad as a founder. It doesn't mean what you're creating is bad. It just means what you're making in this specific case is bad. Right. But they're so scared to do that. And it happens. It is the same with AI, right? Yes. Exactly the same thing. Everyone's saying, oh, designers are dead. We don't need photographers anymore because I can prompt it and I can make a loan just without a prompt. Yes, you can do that. But you don't have the taste to do it. That's the honest truth, right? Yeah. If you don't have the taste to do a good prompt, it's just less. There's the meme that says, we're going to be okay because in order for a business to use AI, they got to know what they want.

59:45Exactly. Right? Yeah.

59:49Chris Cruz:It's great, man. Well, bro, thank you for spending time. Dude, you flew in from Mexico City. Come on, dude. I wanted to be in Tennessee for the first time in my life. Yeah, dude. This is great. Yeah. So happy to be here. Yeah, man. We're going to go hang out. Thanks for coming in there.