1875 – Empower your Business with Barry LaBov

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0:58with us right now barry labov barry you are the owner of labov and beyond marketing communications your website is labov.com barry thank you so much for joining us thank you josh i'm a big fan of you and the team there so i'm very proud to join you today well kind of you to say barry tell me a little bit about the work you do, who you serve. My company is located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but we have offices in Arizona and Dallas. And what we do is we are a marketing and training company. Our focus is on one word, differentiation. And what we do is we help companies, generally larger companies, discover, not create, discover the magic that they have at that company to do two things, Josh.

1:48Number one, of course, increase sales and market share. So, of course. But just as important to win the hearts and minds of their employees by sharing what that difference is and celebrating it, giving the employees significance and meaning. Yeah, I can see where this would be valuable. And I'll have you kind of fill this in. But I'm thinking, you know, if I'm a team member and I'm working with a company and someone asks me about my work, and if I were to answer just like, well, you know, I do SEO and I'm with an SEO agency and we're kind of like all the rest. It doesn't feel very exciting to say it like that.

2:27Whereas if we say, well, we are the best in the world at our very particular audience, who we work with, what we do, nobody in the planet does what we do like we do it. That does, that makes, like if I'm a team member in that kind of environment, I do feel like it's a little bit more special. Like at the very least, it matters a little bit more. You're exactly right. And here's what's interesting. Today, the world wants most companies to become commodities. They want you to just be like everyone else. They want to have you reduce what makes you unique and lower your price. And when you do that, all of a sudden, there's nothing special.

3:06There's no reason for a customer to choose you. What also happens, and we see this every day, is that it's very difficult to retain employees. It's very difficult to hire employees. And in many cases, companies are frustrated that the employees don't care. They're not giving their best. Well, it's all very simple. If we as leaders, and this is what my company helps our clients do, if we as leaders are able to identify one, two, three things that we're doing that are different, that are significant, that have a distinctiveness, and we celebrate it with our employees, well, we're more likely to retain them and they're more likely to care about what they do.

3:50And oh, by the way, that will help sales and that will help profit. Well, if someone is, let's say they're a founder and they're in leadership, and they are wondering, huh, are we differentiated? How might one gauge their uniqueness in the market? That's a great question. And one of the things that's really interesting is my company gets to work with wonderful companies that are sometimes over 100. One of them is 200 years old, but they're sometimes started by family, started by brilliant engineers. And you know what of happens, Josh, they're too close to what they're doing to see the magic in it.

4:31They're too close. So we help them identify that. We send in a team, we call it our technical immersion group. They go in and they identify in a manufacturing plant or service company, what are those unique differentiators? Now, for those out there who say, well, yeah, I can't afford to go hire a company to do it, then do your best to walk through your facility. Look at what you're doing that could be potentially different. And also talk to your customers as to, OK, why do you work with us and learn? And I really urge all listening here, because you have a great audience. I urge them to identify the one or two or three things and test it with the customers, test it with your employees.

5:20Do you really think this is unique? And if so, I really want you to magnify that, make it bigger, share that message. And again, as I said earlier, celebrate it with employees, if you have dealers, with the dealers, suppliers, and of course, with customers. This is really cool. How might this look when you say share it? What are some ways that this might look culturally in our meetings, in our environment? You know, what are some things that we can do to really communicate that differentiation internally? And then I'll talk about externally next. No, that's fantastic. Yes. What we recommend with clients is you discover that differentiation.

6:03Let's say you name it. Before you promote it to the outside world, you bring your people in. Now, you can have three people in your company or you can have 30 ,000 people. You bring them in. You share this. You celebrate it, meaning you talk about why that is important and the role that each person plays in delivering that to our customers. That's how you do it internally. And the other thing we always share is that, yes, that's a formal meeting. But on a daily basis, leaders must remind everybody as to the purpose of what our company is doing and why it has significance. because that gives significance to our people.

6:49Yeah. So more than just an inspirational poster on the wall. Yes. Like, you know, I guess if they hear it, like, you know, I think about it's like the same thing, like when we set culture, when we establish our values, this is no different. So, you know, it's really important that we as leaders, you know, are quite visible in communicating those values and that our team members hear that in everything that we do, right? And then that becomes the lens like to decision-making or strategy or problem solving, or, you know, it could be even like a, you know, an HR conversation. You know, we think about, you know, well, what are our values?

7:28And I love that lens. And I think the same thing can be done when we think about, you know, our uniqueness as it applies to our values as well. You're absolutely right. I walked through an ambulance factory a few months ago and I talked to a young worker there and I said, what did you do? And he said, I plug in wire harnesses, but I'm going to leave and go work at a marshmallow factory for 25 cents more an hour. And so and I'll share this quickly. So I talked to the young man and I said, you realize every one of these ambulances going down the line will last about 10 years. and during that 10-year period of time, there will be 100 ,000 people who will be saved or protected inside that ambulance.

8:17Now, that could be the driver, it could be the emergency technicians, it could be the patient and the patient's family. And he looked at me and he said, I thought I was in the wire harness business. I didn't think I was in the safety business. I I didn't think I saved lives. We have to realize that that is what our people do. Now, he's more likely to stay because he's actually doing something of value. I believe our employees need to know what they are doing that has meaning. And if so, we leaders have a far better chance of retaining them and they're going to do a far better job. Yeah. What we do in the world matters.

8:59I love that. You know, and it's interesting, like, I think for us, it could be easy to say, well, you know, who are we? What do we do? We're a podcasting company. Well, no, podcasts are the, that's the platform that we use to, you know, make high value connections and help, you know, rid the world. That's what I'm just thinking about, like, you know, I could do a better job of reminding and kind of talking about this. Like, we are making the world a better place. We're cutting down on all of the B2B spam out there. And imagine what that world could be like to be able to. in anyway, I don't mean to go on and on about my thing, but I might, you already got my brain going on, you know, and how, you know, I can be communicating that a little bit better.

9:36Why is it like, if we're thinking about, well, let's say our objectives and this is kind of an easy connect the dots here for you, I think, you know, cause I'd mentioned thinking about, you know, how we communicate this externally, but we're having this conversation about doing all this work internally first. I think sometimes, you know, you could have like a marketing agency come in and say, okay, well, you know, we're going to kind of paper over, you know, with this great marketing message about who you are and, you know, what you stand for. But if that's not accepted or that's not lived internally, I think that's going to lead to some dysfunction.

10:12Yeah. And I love that you brought that up, Josh. We will have companies call us and say, hey, we need a new logo and we need a new slogan. We need a new brand. And we go, you know what? 90 % of the time, we will not recommend a brand new logo and a brand new slogan. What we recommend is you got to step back and learn and discover. And once you discover what you do, and it's not a hundred different things. And one more thing for your audience, your differentiation does not mean you're superior in those areas. It means you're unique, you're distinctive. It's like a Macintosh computer, a Mac versus a PC.

10:52They're different. They serve different functions. So many companies are out there with brilliant engineers and brilliant leaders. They've done things that are so great and they don't see them. Therefore, they're thinking, hey, I need a new brand. I need a new slogan. I got to get a new website because we're not getting what we should get. And the reality is the answer is right there with you. discover your uniqueness, celebrate it internally, and then tell the world. Yeah. Share, Barry, a bit about how you work with your clients. What does that look like? What does the engagement look like? Where do you start and how do you achieve those outcomes together?

11:36We have a branding process that is a five-step process that when a client reaches out to us, we will consider if all five steps really apply or not. So it's not one size fits all. We will listen first because we want to understand what a customer is looking for. About 30 % of the time, we think we would be a good fit. The other 70%, we give them guidance. We sometimes send them to somebody else. But all the time is every time we create a connection with them because we are there to help them. So the way it works is they reach out, email, phone, whatever, and just say, hey, can we talk? And we have what we call a jam session.

12:23I'm a former musician. So we call the jam session. We talk, we listen. And if there's a good fit, we'll recommend maybe a few steps. Like I said, we may recommend, hey, we ought to come into your facility and spend the day, take a look at what is going on there and give you some input. Maybe we can help you. That's how it looks. Yeah. Your website is labov.com. By the way, I would point this out, Barry, you're a good follow on LinkedIn. So I would encourage people to search for you personally, Barry Labov on LinkedIn, but your website is labov.com. Who should be reaching out and kind of what do you recommend their next steps?

13:05And by the way, Barry, before we get to that, Can we talk about your book? And I'm sorry, I'm just kind of catching this here, but your book is called The Power of Differentiation. Can you tell me a bit about that? Yes, the book is going to be released in two months on Simon & Schuster. It's all about what we've been talking about today. And it's really a how-to guide for the leader to look at his or her business and really take it to the next level of engagement, the next level of inspiration. So it's called The Power of Differentiation. When you either go to me on LinkedIn or go to our website, reach out, send an email, some sort of a communication, whatever you need.

13:51And I'll be happy to put you on the list to let you know when the book comes out, as well as if you want to have a discussion. I'd love it. like I said, we love to make connections and help people. That's part of our differentiation. We discover the magic and we will help the leaders of companies actually feel more fulfilled in their life because they're fulfilling the lives of their people and customers. My goal, Josh, is to move 1 million people with this message. That's my goal. So I want to move a million people. And that means however many leaders that takes to have a million of the employees and other folks out there going, you know what, we're doing something that has some value.

14:35That's my goal. I love it. Barry, in terms of, you know, again, just last kind of thing I want to talk about is this external messaging, assuming that, again, everything internal is in alignment with that. Where do you see this practically working well? I had mentioned your LinkedIn, but how might our outward marketing and or social media look? Do you see things working well in that in terms of, and I'm thinking particularly in terms of tone and language are the things I'm really curious about your take on. What happens, Josh, when you determine and discover what your differentiation is, your external marketing becomes simpler because all of a sudden you're not trying to be what everyone else is.

15:27You're not trying to say, yes, we have a red logo. OK, well, our competitor does. Oh, we're the cheapest. Oh, we're the you stop doing that because all of a sudden your life is simple. You go, wait a minute. Here are three things we need to constantly remind people about. and we are going to focus on those three, not 120 things. We're going to focus on those three things and what we do week after week, whether it's social media, whether it's websites, et cetera, whatever it is, digital marketing, we focus on those areas and we focus on the people, the customers out there who care about those areas.

16:06So what happens is, yes, when you go external after this is determined, it's a simpler life. All of a sudden you're going, you know, we are not the simplest. We are not the cheapest. But what we are is we have the most, let's say, safety. We have the highest safety focus of anyone in our industry. We have the highest level of engineering in this particular area of this product. And all of a sudden your life is simpler. So that's what it does. It simplifies and magnifies at the same time. You work with clients like Audi, the Macallan, Rev, Hyundai, Harley-Davidson. Who else should be reaching out?

16:50And again, they're listening to our conversation. What do they do next? Anybody that would like to just discuss this or get some feedback, reach out to me because that's part of what we're doing. We're trying to change the lives of a million people. We work with some of those very large companies you mentioned. We work with Betts components out of Warren, Pennsylvania. It's a family business. They're some of the most wonderful, hardworking, genius engineers on earth. We work with Betts. They're great. So we work from anybody from the family business all the way to Harley Davidson. Yeah. Again, website, labov.com.

17:28That's L-A-B-O-V.com. Barry Labov, again, you're the founder and owner. It's been great having this conversation. Thank you for the work that you do in the world. Josh, thank you for the difference you're making out here. I love your program, and I'm a big follower. Very kind of you, sir. Thank you.

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