Leveraging Innovation & Excellence to Build a Legacy-Worthy Brand with Chris Stegner

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Success Story Podcast. Today, we'll be breaking down how to leverage innovation and excellence to build a legacy-worthy brand. To drop these value bombs, I brought Chris Stegner into EO Fire Studios. Chris is the CEO of Very Big Things, a technology, innovation, and excellence company. They help companies become their greatest self by digitally elevating their brand experiences and opportunities. And today, for a nation, we'll talk about what a legacy-worthy brand is, examples of those companies, how they provide so much value.

0:40We'll talk about generative AI and so much more. A big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chris and our sponsors. The Hustle Daily Show, hosted by Juliet Bennett-Ryla, Rob Litters, Ben Berkley, and Mark Dent, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Hustle Daily Show brings you a healthy dose of irreverent, offbeat, informative takes on business and tech news, like a recent episode on Hackers vs. Casinos, where the hosts talk about MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment and the devastating potential of cyber attacks. Listen to The Hustle Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

1:17Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world, and four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free trading, where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Chris, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. How's it going, Fire Nation? I'm a big believer that when you can raise your company's prices and your demand stays the same, that's when you know you've created true value and a great brand.

1:58And I think as an entrepreneur, it's really your job to really understand how to successfully bring that value to your customers and as well to your brand. It's a great way to kick off the episode, Fire Nation, because we're talking about leveraging innovation. We're talking about excellence. We're talking about building a legacy-worthy brand. And you're not going to do that if you don't do what Chris just shared. But first off, I just want to break it down for Fire Nation, for our listeners. What is a legacy-worthy brand? There's a little bit of a morbid side where this originally came from for myself, which was, you know, I like to take a minute every once in a while and say, if I were laying on my deathbed, hopefully, you know, 150 years from now, and I looked back on my life, you know, what things would I be proud of?

2:51And that's where the legacy worthy comes from. And it's saying, is this a brand that I would, I'd really be proud that I created? but I think through that you accomplish creating a brand that other people care about as well so you could look at some of the the extremely obvious ones such as like Apple like everybody in the world kind of looks at Apple as the pinnacle Nike Tesla's done some amazing things with their brand even Dyson like when people hear about Dyson they have a certain mindset around here's an extremely high quality product that I'm willing to pay more for. And then I'd even say a less obvious example would be something as simple as like Domino's Pizza.

3:35And with Domino's, here was a very, here's a brand that was very similar to the other brands, the other pizza brands in the world. And they were struggling and they were struggling. They're reaching a point of almost going out of business. And then they said, hey, we're going to make a huge change. And that change was, we're going to use better ingredients. We're going to take the extra time to cook our pizzas better. We're going to make sure when we deliver things, we're going to deliver them on time. We're going to go ahead and make a huge investment in technology. We're going to make sure that people have an understanding using technology of what's going on with their pizza every single step of the way, from the time they order it to the time it's delivered.

4:12And it just destroyed what everybody else in the market was doing. And all of a sudden, Domino's value went up like 500x. So I think it's a less obvious example, but a great one. What we're talking about now are some examples of companies that provide value at a massive level, and they built a great brand around it. So you named a bunch of companies, you got a little detailed with Domino's about how they provide value, the better ingredients, with the better transparency, the better technology, the faster delivery, all that stuff. So that's truly providing value at a massive level. And they were able to build a great brand around that.

4:50Let's go deeper with some other companies that you think provide that kind of example, that kind of value, that kind of brand worthiness that you're very impressed with. I would dive back into both Dyson and Tesla for a second. So when you think of Dyson, once again, they were definitely led by innovation first. They came up with the very first vacuum that used the, I don't even know the correct name for it because I'm not a vacuum person, but it used the whirlwind, so it kept perfect suction the entire time. but create this brand new technology that wasn't being used on any other vacuums anywhere.

5:29But same time, they executed it beautifully. Every one of their products just looks like something you could see at a museum. They're truly gorgeous. And because of that, I've bought tons of Dysons. Lots of people I know have bought tons of Dysons. And they cost like five times as much as your next kind of comparable vacuum at the store. But it just works better. and it feels like something that's quality and it lasts longer. And so now if Dyson were to say, hey, here's the next best vacuum and I'm out there looking for something, they're the only brand I'm ever going to turn to. I'm not going to say, let me compare what they're doing versus the next, I couldn't even tell you the next brand because I don't even care, but everybody knows who Dyson is.

6:12I honestly couldn't tell you the next brand either. And I will say I did a little research while you were chatting because it is interesting to know exactly what technology they're using. So check it out, Fire Nation. Characterizing cyclone technology, which enables air to striclate at high speeds inside the vacuum cleaner to remove dust, allergens, and other particles. The Dyson collects all dirt through a filtration system. Don't you want to be doing that in your home? I mean, hook, line, and sinker. And I know you're going to talk about another company, but something that was kind of coming to mind as well, because it happened to me yesterday.

6:48You know, Kate was having a little runny nose, And she's like, hey, can you pass the Kleenex? And I'm like, this actually isn't a Kleenex. It's a tissue, but that's all we call it, our Kleenex, because Kleenex was able to dominate that name, dominate that brand over time. Just like we can't name another technology that actually does what the Dyson vacuum does or the second place to Dyson. We just know Dyson and then there's just other ones that aren't probably as good. So think about that. So keep on going, Chris. I think you nailed it. And if you were to go back to the previous example of that, I mean, Tesla, obviously, a huge innovation change.

7:29Very first, true, like, electric cars at scale. And not only that, but I mean, when the Model S came out, it was Model of the Year, I mean, sorry, Car of the Year everywhere. because of all this new technology. But not only does it have all this amazing technology, but once again, it was a beautiful car. Like it drove beautifully. It looked amazing. The technology inside it was drastically different than anything you'd seen before. Instead of saying, hey, here's a 2022 model, here's a 2023 model, they just kind of said that here it is. There's no huge changes that have happened since it came out.

8:05Things like over-the-air software updates, That wasn't really happening before Tesla either. So now you can have a car that's five years old and you get the latest technology just like the brand new ones. They really changed everything around in that world. And it's very similar when you think about it. Like somebody who has bought into owning a Tesla, if they've, say, been driving a Model S for a long time, and now it's time for them to buy an SUV, chances are they're just going to say, which Tesla SUV do I want? It's not a question of, do I want to forward this time? You know, and it's just, it really comes back to that innovation meets excellence.

8:44Anytime you can have a company where they can both innovate and then excellently pull it off, that's the home run. Fire Nation, these are some really cool examples of ways that companies are providing value at a massive level. And then because of that value they're providing, they're building great brands around that. And it's just lessons that we can learn going forward, which we're going to be talking a lot more about when we get back from thanking our sponsors. The fourth quarter is here. It's time to hit your revenue targets, finish strong and win the quarter. But before you can win Q4, you have to close deals.

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11:48Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. All right, Chris, we're back. And we talked about companies that provide value at a huge level, about how they built a great brand around that because, you know, they've innovated. You also talked about excellence. I mean, Dyson is by far the best.

12:26It could be five times expensive, but it's 10 times better. Let's talk about the role that excellent plays in this conversation. So the iPhone, incredibly innovative when it came out, but at the same time, it was also excellently pulled off. And there was a lot of different innovative technology and phones before that. You had, you know, different types of flexible screens and there's been all kinds of innovation in that world, but it's getting a perfect pairing of the innovation with that excellent execution of it that really pulls it all together. So even diving further into that topic, Samsung at this point has matched probably all the innovation of the iPhone, but the iPhone still drastically outsells it.

13:13And I think that comes down to two separate things. One is that the iPhone has just really nailed that execution. Both of them have the same innovative features. Maybe the Samsung has pulled a little head on trying to do some extra innovative stuff versus the iPhone at this point is just iterating and iterating and iterating on perfection. but when you have that that innovation and then that just flawless execution people keep going back to it but now let me take that a step further and say say say samsung even reached a point now of creating a a better phone better in every way you know it had some even cooler innovation to it And the polish had exceeded that of the iPhone.

14:03And there's probably some people that say that's already happened, myself not being one for the record. But that said, the Apple iPhone would still outsell it. And the question there becomes why? And now it is moving from the product side to the brand side. And that's what we were talking about earlier with Tesla. If you've bought previously a Model S, you're likely to buy a Model X next. Or with Dyson, if you bought a vacuum from them, you're probably going to buy your next vacuum from them. You're not going to look anywhere else. Apple has built a brand, an entire brand, around the idea of we produce every single time innovative products that are also excellently made.

14:46So once you've done that, you tend to just dominate any sector you move into. You could even look at the Vision Pro is coming out from Apple. So for those that don't know, this is a new VR headset. Also, for those that don't know, Meta, previously Facebook, they've been in the VR world for a while. They have the Meta Quest Pro. They brought it out. It cost$1 ,500. Immediately, because the price point was too high on it, they dropped it to$1 ,000 in order to keep demand coming for it. versus Apple now is looking at launching the Vision Pro for$3 ,500, three and a half times the price. And I can guarantee you it's going to drastically outsell it.

15:29And that's just because Apple's built that brand of continually, every single time, creating their own innovations and then polishing them to perfection to where people just say, hey, if they're creating something, I'm in. I want to be part of that. Fire Nation, there's so many lessons to take away with these companies that have been doing this right for a long time. And something that we haven't really dove into a ton, but I really want to go deep into right now is generative AI. You believe that generative AI is going to be more impactful to businesses than mobile, the internets, and computers combined.

16:09I mean, that's a huge statement, Chris. Back it up, brother. Especially from somebody who has made an entire livelihood by helping companies with technology, mobile, and computers. But that said, when you take a look at it, the amount of companies that were affected really drastically by mobile, still to this day, it seems like a lot because we see the Ubers, we see the Airbnbs and so forth. But think of like the legal firm. They are being drastically affected by that. so many different types of companies, manufacturers, etc. They haven't really been drastically affected by mobile or with the internet.

16:48However, generative AI, where it's going to come in is it literally can affect almost every single business in the world. It's hard to think at this moment a business that will not be affected by either creating a better experience for the customers, creating a better experience for their employees, just creating tons of automation and tons of efficiencies. And of course, from there, drastically, you know, higher profitability. Fire Nation, I think you need to be getting excited about this world that we're moving into. And Chris is sharing just a couple reasons why it's not just going to be big, it's going to be literally everything.

17:30So Chris, we obviously talked about a lot of exciting things today. Excellence, you know, we talked about legacy, we talked about value, brand, generative AI, what's one thing you really want to make sure our listeners get from our conversation today? These top brands that I'm talking about, they're the 1%. There's another 99 % of companies that are all just doing well. They're doing good and that might be fine. But I think about it, kind of going back to the Apple example, example now what if you took steve jobs and you placed him inside any average company you know like so say say all of a sudden he joined a a pet grooming salon and said i'm going to become the ceo of this pet grooming salon do you think he would just sit back and say okay i'm going to take this as it is let's see you know how we can maybe make it a little bit more profitable maybe do a new marketing campaign see if we can bring in a couple more people um i don't think so i I think he immediately starts saying, how do we make this the best pet grooming salon in the world?

18:39How can I use technology like Domino's did to start innovating that process? How can I use generative AI in order to make customer support requests get back faster or help people book things faster and know the progress of their pet getting groomed to make sure that the quality is the best ever? And then it ended up making it the most popular pet grooming salon chain in the world that everybody go to. And it's the only one anybody would ever hear of. I want everybody to think of that. The 99 % of people that are running the everyday average business that makes the world turn. Don't procrastinate on your innovation.

19:18Do not procrastinate on excellence. These are the things that could take your company from where it is today. and turn it into something that's truly special, that really moves the world. Fire Nation, wise words from a wise individual. Chris, if Fire Nation wanted to connect with you, if we wanted to learn more of what you have going on at Very Big Things, what would we do? What is your call to action for our listeners today? The easiest one, of course, is just pull up verybigthings.com. And then from there, I'm an entrepreneur just like you. I love listening to this show and we're all the same type of person.

19:54So feel free to just reach out to me on LinkedIn even. It's Chris Stegner. And I would love to talk with you and chat through ideas and just connect. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with CS and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Chris in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Chris, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chris for sponsoring today's episode.

20:32And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. The Hustle Daily Show, hosted by Juliet Bennett-Ryla, Rob Litters, Ben Berkley, and Mark Dent is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

21:17The Hustle Daily Show brings you a healthy dose of irreverent, offbeat, informative takes on business and tech news, like a recent episode on hackers versus casinos, where the hosts talk about MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment and the devastating potential of cyber attacks. Listen to The Hustle Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world and four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free trading where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.