The Secret to Winning Bigger by Doing Less | Negotiate Anything

Welcome to this negotiation masterclass edition of negotiate anything, with over 1600 episodes featuring some of the world's brightest minds.

We've carefully curated three powerful conversations for you.

What makes this so special is that you'll hear how different experts from different industries approach the same challenge in their own unique ways.

Our goal is to give you multiple perspectives so you can build your own unique style.

Success doesn't look the same for everyone.

And in this masterclass, you will see exactly why.

Let's dive in.

Vinny, thanks for joining us today.

Yo, I'm happy to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Listen, as you can tell in my voice, listeners, I'm pumped about this episode.

I'm so excited about this.

So Vinny, so how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Oh, I appreciate that.

Yeah, I am ear to ear.

This conversation...

For y'all listening to it, this will be at least 10x your expectations, I promise.

And some of that will take your brand to the 10x, monetization to the 10x.

But hi, I'm going to Emmy Award, which is nice to say finally after 25 years of being in TV.

An Emmy Award-winning media advisor, I got my start in talent development at MTV in the late 90s, working with artists to get into MTV films and then ultimately, the exploitation of their stories known as reality television.

Osbournes Newlyweds, Punk'd Pimp, My Ride, TRL.

I have stories to share and intimate, access and insights into the deals that all of those people had.

And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're a podcaster, I'm gonna tell you one thing.

You have one thing that none of those people had when I met them, which is you own your content.

So if you're a podcaster and you're creating content, congratulations, God bless you.

And I am 100% subscribed to the direction you're going in.

Now I hang out on LinkedIn.

I try to help founder-led companies, people who identify as talent brands.

I help them identify how to create content leverage it on media platforms.

I try to make that content something that they can own, so I can show them how to leverage it into TV, film and other media platforms.

And I'm really honored to be here.

But this is a result of Two people who are passionate about making sure that people who put their name on the line, their voice out there, they're getting paid, that they're covered, that they're protected.

And I'm really excited about where this conversation is going to go.

So thanks for having me here, bud.

Yeah, me too.

And listen, everybody, check out Vinny's podcast as well.

We're going to put links to all of his content in the description.

He was even generous enough to have me on the show one time earlier this year.

So this is a long time coming.

I'm excited for this.

And today, what we're going to focus on is the idea of creative cooperation.

Because in negotiation, we talk about the importance of creativity all the time.

And Vinny has such an interesting background when it comes to working with creatives to create something brand new, but then also monetizing that.

So we can go through the entire creative negotiation cycle to come up with the idea and then talk about the contractual side too.

And Vinny, let's get this party started hot because my wife...

Whitney, she is going to see Beyonce in Houston.

And you have a Beyonce story.

So let's just start off with that story before we get into the rest of it.

My Queen Bee story, by the way.

It's a good concert.

I saw it here in Jersey.

It's worth every single minute.

And it's the concert I recorded.

I've never felt older.

I had my phone out the entire time.

Because when you see Beyonce, there's such a perfect version of who she is today.

To remind yourself that she's human, that she breathes, that she looks off camera, that she fixes her hair.

Just that gentle reminder sometimes.

It's good for the heart and soul.

In this world of content where all we see is the final edit.

And she's someone who really, I know, has put the work in to not have to perfect the image, to perfect the image.

She is the image.

That's what makes that image perfect.

She doesn't wait till the end for the photo shopping to add in the dancers or extra lighting or extra who gots a whole lot of nada.

She brings that with her.

Um, and I I preface that by saying I was a casting associate at MTV and one of my jobs was to support MTV films.

MTV Films decided they were going to create Carmen, a hip hopera, and i got a phone call one day that it was going to the director of carmen hip hopper was coming to the times square studios and we were going to be interviewing and auditioning beyonce for it so it was me beyonce and the person i was most starstruck about robert townsend who like literally formed my entire comedic career and like introduced me to eddie eddie murphy raw by the way got me through college so like Meeting Robert Townsend, this was like a neck, this was, this was who I needed to impress.

And I have a story version of this.

I'll truncate it.

I had a story version where, where Beyonce reads her lines and I'm, I'm too fidgety in the room.

I'm trying to be a cameraman.

All of a sudden I, I'm like doing these weird MTV pans and Zooms.

Robert takes my hand.

And he pulled me maybe like six inches from Beyonce's face.

And he's like, Vin, I don't need to see that she can act.

I just need to see her eye contact.

He goes.

All I want you to do is stay six inches from her face and just show her eye contact, and Beyonce can take it from the top.

And then we did it again.

It was perfect.

It was like unison.

Like I couldn't believe how in sync that was.

And I was torn because I was like I can't believe I took away A moment from Beyonce's audition, like the auditions are not a time for a cameraman, a casting assistant to get the note.

I felt devastated that I did something in the room that would have even.

It's funny to think of that.

I could have done anything that would detract from the energy that is Beyonce.

What I realize now is when you have clarity.

When you have goals, you don't need to micromanage.

There's no constructive criticism.

There's no line reads when you're very crystal clear about what you want.

And what Robert did was tell the room he needs a tight shot of Beyonce's eyes and Beyonce needs to be focusing on a single thing.

That's what he wanted in this framework.

And none of those notes were even meant for me.

I realized that too.

He was literally talking to another 1 creative, who doesn't need to be told the minute details to accomplish the goals.

Instead, he reiterated his goal.

I land on that version of the story now, 20 years later, after telling it my entire life, saying I took away energy from what I was trying to make a successful thing.

And it just...

It's the power of cooperation.

It's the power of clarity.

And that room was magnetic that day.

And it was a moment.

I mean, as you can imagine, not many people will get to audition Beyonce in her lifetime.

And certainly when you have a star, come in and out of a session like that and your job creatively, is to accomplish what we accomplished.

Um It's, it's life changing.

And what she did with that role is even more important to me.

Like.

I've read articles where she talks about the importance of character development, because this is the first time she's ever had a lead in a film.

She's carrying it's Carmen the hip hopper.

She's playing Carmen.

And it's in these rehearsals and it's in recording this film that she creates the identity of Sasha Fierce.

The version of Beyonce that she steps into when she goes on stage, in those moments where she might not believe she's capable of or needs to show up the way she knows she's capable of, but it just might not have it in her.

She gave that power to another authority that she could step into.

And as an actor back then, I thought that was powerful.

Now, when I see how consistent she's been able to show up, it's like, Of course, because that space between those two characters, let's call it grace.

And that's where she's living.

And I learned this from being a casting assistant at MTV.

What a sick life experience.

That is amazing.

I'm literally getting chills hearing this.

And I know for me, as I encapsulate this and bring this to Whitney, because I always want her to think that I'm cool, because she doesn't think I'm that cool

When I say, listen, my, my friend made Beyonce.

Okay.

So I love bringing this back to the creativity, the cooperative creativity, but also you brought up a really important word, and that is clarity.

And I think that is one element of creativity that's often overlooked, because if we tell people go in a room and be creative, that can be an overwhelming type of experience because the opportunities are endless which makes us feel empowered initially and But then when you realize the opportunities are endless, then it leads to decision fatigue.

It leads to fear of missing out, fear of a better option.

And it can be really debilitating at time.

And so, when it comes to clarity, can you tell us the value of clarity when it comes to the creative process?

Oh, sure.

Right.

So if creativity is the act of taking what is an internal thought and getting it into their real life, if that's what creativity is, if creativity is, I have an idea.

I need this idea to exist outside of my head.

So I need to communicate this to someone who's going to support it, possibly create it, but definitely promote it.

The idea of cooperation, the idea of clarity exists for the sake of goals.

And if the goals are short, the wins are short.

If the goals are long-term, the wins are long-term.

I think of two franchises I was a part of at MTV in my time, The Challenge and While and Out.

And no part of of the challenge was ever about the cast.

It was always about the emotional, physical challenge that the generation that's watching television, specifically MTV, goes through.

And now, if you watch that show, there have been iterations and iterations of the challenges, by the way,

I think arguably we'd all say it's definitely got increasingly more challenging in a lot of unique ways.

While on out was never about the end of the episode.

It was never about who is the funniest, what's the funniest rhetoric, what's the best episode possible.

It was always about launching talent.

It was always about being a platform to give people an opportunity to get their jokes seen and heard that weren't being seen by the mainstream.

And I know that for a fact.

I was there when Nick pitched the show.

In fact, just again, to focus on goals and to focus on clarity, Nick Cannon pitched... We hired...

MTV hired Nick Cannon from Nickelodeon to MTV.

If you remember back in the day, that was kind of the design of those networks, right?

Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, right?

That was the goal that they wanted us to kind of cycle people through so that the advertisers would grab the 20 plus.

MTV would capture teenagers and Nickelodeon would sort of be there for the younger generation.

Nick came to MTV at a point in time where Carson was at a peak and Carson was looking to leave TRL.

We almost had Nick Cannon hosting TRL, but Nick didn't want to get stuck as a host.

Hosting a daily show where someone else had already made a platform from it.

He knew that he was capable of creating a show, that prop that brought people closer to what his goal was of getting on television which, to be honest, was getting more representation, more conversation and more culture and community.

We might have had some representation on the network maybe, but did not have culture and community.

The way that comedy can usher into a network.

Nick pitched the show on paper.

MTV passed.

He was dating Christina Milian back in the day.

The two of them spent some money and time recording a pilot episode that they shot themselves and came back and then re-pitched it to us with the goal of of it being a launch pad for comedians that were not on our channel.

And that's when the TV executives saw it.

They saw the energy, the camaraderie, the community, the culture and the comedy component of what it was.

So sometimes, you know, understanding the goal is half the battle.

I think the other half is getting people to see the goal.

If there's one thing i've learned, and nick is a great example of it, is like you surround yourself with people who want you to be successful, because because, as a creative, your success a lot of times is determined by the people who want to see you be successful.

If they want you to be successful, you will be successful.

If they do not, they will find ways to make it turbulent.

You know, and if you want to acknowledge that or not, there's plenty of tools I can, I can give you there.

But that's that's where goal setting happens.

And I think that's where where I can look back and say some of the TV franchise Housewives of New Jersey.

Also, like some of the franchises I've been a part of that are so, so deep into cycles.

Are are about

Story engines, I don't want to get all creative and use weird jargon.

Story engines, I refer, story engines are, is the thing that connects two people together.

So like Kim Kardashian has a story engine with her mom, Chris, right?

So that story engine is always going to produce some type of storyline.

The relationship between daughter and mother.

That's always.

That story engine will produce something.

That's from the way of looking at sustainability from a storytelling perspective on television, one of the devices that we looked in.

So, having that type of clarity, that those are the types of conversations we have in development, they would turn around to me and say what are the story engines?

What are our four or five story engines? since we all know the Kardashians, you've got, you've got parents, sibling, you've got sibling, sibling, you've got all the siblings versus one of the parents.

You've got two unique parents.

You've got two unique sets of siblings, a lot of story.

And then the family versus the media.

A lot of story engines to play with that that help build the sustainability of these creative projects.

And when you're pulling from story engines and long term goals, it's going to yield long term results.

Man, my head is about to explode Vinny because, like with every paragraph, there is just brand new information for me.

And I know this is the same thing that's happening for the audience.

And so I just want to synthesize this as everybody is having their own braingasms right now.

Please remember, you don't need to have a full understanding of the entertainment industry in order to appreciate the brilliance of this.

Because in this, in this little session right now, let's just talk about the talking about Nick Cannon, for example, pitching a while and out, which is incredibly successful franchise.

The first pitch failed because he pitched on paper in what I would consider and to be the traditional way.

All right, this is the idea for the show.

But persistence is part of the persuasive process.

And we're going to use a creative angle to persuade in this case.

You can't appreciate it on paper.

You need to see it.

So I'm going to invest my own money to create a more persuasive pitch for you.

Now you can see it.

That's one thing that we can keep in mind.

So when we're trying to convey a message to somebody else, sometimes they need to see in a different way for them to fully appreciate it.

Another gem that you dropped that I think can be easily overlooked is the fact that you said if the people, the representatives within the company, wants you to be successful, then you'll be successful.

Because I think A lot of times people would say oh, this is all insider baseball or all of these things.

But we have to remember, this is just how humans work.

Relationships drive these things.

So how are people successful?

The relationships matter.

And so, as much as there is importance behind being creative, there's also an equal amount of importance to having those relationships, because that you can be creative, you can have a great idea.

But we all have seen people who have had great ideas but couldn't get it done for whatever reason.

And part of that is because they don't have the right relationships in place.

And so what we're recognizing is that, in the entertainment industry, there are multiple angles that you need to approach things from in order to be successful.

Yes, you need to have a great idea, but in the world, and in Hollywood in particular, everybody's got great ideas.

So what differentiates you?

And sometimes it's the relationships.

So we need to negotiate from multiple angles to create those strong relationships that are going to be willing to work with you in your creative endeavors.

Oh, yeah.

And yeah, absolutely.

You're there's a great example.

Fat Man Scoop and his then wife Shonda created a podcast called Man and Wife.

And it was for the first time ever a married couple talking about sex.

You're talking to a guy who watched MTV in the late 90s with Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla, I think.

Those are the informative voices of sex and sex ed to my life.

Two men, by the way, that I do look like, but I could not have anything less in common with.

And I found it to be polarizing.

A married couple talking about being open, being shut, having an opinion and the respect of each other.

I remember saying to Scoop, because by the way, in 2006, podcasts were gated by technology.

If you had access to a microphone, you were more prone to do something in the podcast space.

A lot of actors and people who had access to radio networks and stations like that would use it in the off time.

And I'll never forget, he went into the studio and he recorded it with his wife.

I said, Scoop.

This is like you and your wife talking about sex.

Like I don't think the two of you should be in an audio booth talking about sex the way that you guys are talking about it.

Bring the microphone into your bed.

And I kind of want to like, I want you to be a little bit more comfortable.

Take me to the, take me to the place in your relationship where you have these honest conversations.

I don't want it necessarily.

I don't feel like it needs to be distilled for the sake of audio clarity.

You know to be done in a booth.

And we spent a day at the house.

He had the equipment, he, cause he was doing music videos.

So He had the equipment.

By the way, we tried an episode.

This sounds so honeymoon-ish.

We tried it in the kitchen.

We tried it in the bathroom.

We tried it in the bedroom.

The bedroom worked so well that they recorded every episode from the bedroom.

We took the bed and put it on stage, and the bed became – they toured by doing this.

I pitched the show to MTV.

MTV didn't see this as being a viable conversation for our audience, but I was passionate about these very specific two people having this conversation on at least one of our 15 networks MTV MTV2 MTVU, MTV3.

We were MTV.com.

We were booming at that point.

So I went downstairs to New Business and I said, there's a podcast.

It's looking to get a website built.

If we can give them 100000 to help build the podcast website, we can get in on the podcast and we can be part of this conversation.

What other artist is talking about sex?

Who's married to someone who is trained, who has a license to talk about sex, ed.

In the way, All the pieces just felt so perfect.

We got $100,000 because...

The 17th floor, you know saw it, by the way, meaning a different department at MTV understood the value of it, which I knew was the first step I needed.

Because once you got that pocketbook open, it is so easy to get another 100 and another 100.

And a week later, I went back to production and I said, look, we bought the website.

MTV.com is vested in it.

If we don't do the show, scare tactics.

Someone else is.

You want another network to take our show that we're going to make?

We're going to make, they're already superstars on our network.

Gosh, gosh, what an unfortunate circumstance.

What are we going to do now?

I guess we, and I knew it.

And that's how it took.

And again, that's because it's finding the right people and those gigantic companies that you want to work for.

Apple, Spotify, MTV, NBC, finding the right group of people.

Who want to see that success all the way through champion you finding those champions on the inside.

That's the.

I know I didn't think about this and maybe you meant for me to come on this on my own, but maybe I was.

I was definitely a champion of people at MTV.

I was a person who. who whispered into Nick Hannon's ear and I said, yo, Nick, you're asking for all the ways that people are getting paid and they're telling you, here's your executive producer fee, here's your actor fee, but they're not telling you like if your show does better than X per viewers, maybe you can get an incentive for increased viewership fee. um or you haven't asked for a location fee yet or you submitted a tape that tape technically is a video and the video is something you can get paid for where the idea isn't so the there could be a a way to monetize the actual content not the media idea but the actual content of india that's that's something ironically regardless of your scope or taste for media that that is more relevant now in the workspace than ever.

In the 90s, talent development was celebrities, actors, musicians, artists.

Talent development, as we know it now, go to LinkedIn.

It is us, CEOs, CMOs, we the people, the employees, not even the employers.

We are the talent that are being developed.

So you want to know the importance of I look at those celebrities, how they get paid for their name image, likeness and those celebrity contracts that tend to fit only for celebrities.

And I realized how people who are creative or creators because of design of their jobs or the seats that they sit in their companies are now called to do that.

They have the rights to those protections as well.

And I get excited about that because that's where there's money to be made.

And, and that's, That's where building the personal brand out of the gate is the most rewarding.

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Absolutely.

Okay.

So let me do this, Vinny.

What I'm going to do is do a quick synopsis of the last points that you made, just highlighting some negotiation points.

And then I'd like to transition to talking about NIL, talking about creative deal options, and then how, like you said we, the people, can utilize some of these in our everyday lives.

So first, when we were talking about the podcast with Fat Man Scoop, fantastic.

I have to get this joke in know in hamilton, where they say uh, you want to be in the room where it happens?

Hey, that's what you wanted to do.

You wanted to be in the room where it happens was the magic.

So i think that's great.

Um, one of the things that this highlights is the value of options when it comes to power.

Power comes from our optionality.

So in negotiation we talk about our batna, our best alternative to a negotiated agreement.

So when you first pitched it, they weren't interested.

That specific department, That's fine.

I've got other options.

I'm going to go with somebody else who can see it.

And so, by having those other options, you didn't feel the need to have any inappropriate compromises, because you could just go with somebody else.

I think that's really important, to make sure that, as we are negotiating, we're always considering what our plan B C, D and so on will be if we can't get a deal here today.

The next thing is you use the foot in the door technique.

You didn't ask for millions of dollars up front.

You said hey, just 100k let's, let's just get this started.

We can do it right.

And so it's like, all right yeah, let's do that.

But you knew that once you got the pocketbook open, it'll be easier to get more.

So it starts with that little ask.

And so this is the foot in the door technique.

Hey, you know, let's just have a conversation.

That's step one.

Hey, just a little bit of money.

Step two and then you keep coming back, and then then it busts open the opportunities.

And then the last one persuasion wise, let's just simply describe it.

You use the carrot and the stick.

Hey, so if we do this, we could make a lot of money.

That's the carrot.

This is a positive thing.

But on the other side, if we don't do this, somebody else will do it.

That triggers fear of missing out.

And listen, even if I don't want to have this, I don't want the other person to have it.

We're using the rules of the sandbox again, right?

I don't want the other person to have it, so again, just the.

The story that you provided on how you got this podcast into life is is another master class in negotiation, so i wanted to make sure people didn't miss out on those particular elements of it.

Yeah, thank you.

I love the way that you're processing this because, exactly as i intended to be as well.

If, if these insights are not as actionable as you think they are, reach out to me and ask me how, how to connect this on LinkedIn.

Reach out, how to connect the story to what you're going through now.

You know what I learned from the celebrities that I worked with at MTV.

Because, to your point, I wanted to be in that room, because everyone needed to go through MTV to get to the youth audience.

The youth audience is what I wanted to be connected to.

So Diddy had to go through MTV.

Ashton Kutcher had to go through MTV with Punk.

Ozzy Osbourne had to go again and Sharon through MTV to yet again reintroduce themselves.

So I realized that if I could perch myself at that location, that if I wouldn't need to run around the world looking for the top one percenters.

By the way, I talked earlier about how I found you and you are part of the alchemy of my success.

When I go to LinkedIn, I look for your content because I know I'm going to write something theoretically based on what you're talking about.

I want to be cooperative. in our space while being innovative, right?

So I want to be cooperative.

I want to react because I love that because I'm an audience member.

You want to know anything more than anything.

If there's like you could put me in any seat in the entire stage a moderator, star cameraman, spotlight operator.

Audience front row.

I love being in front of talent.

I love spotting it.

I love Seeing it.

It's the movies that make me cry, when a kid taps into their inner ability and they do something for their first time.

They didn't know they were a basketball hoop or something.

Oh man, that would bring me down to tears in a heartbeat.

And I can do that now with us adults, because we weren't taught to be creative in school, because we had different disciplines or specialties.

And for some reason or another, that element of communicating was removed.

And now because of tech, I can help.

And also with precaution.

So I'm all about being mindful.

There's no part of my SEO strategy that waits till the end to put in the words that I want my life to be discovered by and led by.

From a personal brand perspective, again what I learned from Beyonce, Diddy Ashton all of these people are Solopreneurs at first.

They don't have a big company.

They have a big presence, right?

But they don't have a big company, one or two, and no one's working directly for them.

They have managers in this.

How to scale?

You have to be cooperative.

You have to understand the goals of the network.

Some of that can be in the data.

Some of that data is acceptable.

Sometimes it's not in the data, and that's actually the best.

I love when MTV would say, we're missing this data set.

How do we get this audience in to MTV?

And I would go out and find people that would bring stories, culture and community and content and opportunities and other types of celebrities and other types of personalities that weren't on that network yet.

But it was their name, their image, their likeness that I was always leveraging.

I just started laughing.

I almost got in trouble.

I did get in trouble.

I had to book a celebrity that would specifically attract.

What we were looking for was a large Latina crowd to come to MTV to really be able to celebrate, and not just a one-off, but someone who would really have impact.

And I booked Sofia Vergara, I thought.

At a point in time where her English was not as good as it is now and was seen on the show.

And I can understand why some of my executives reacted the way they did, but I didn't care.

You asked me to create a moment that would send shockwaves to a culture and community.

And I am not going to pass up on the opportunity to put someone on television.

Just because you don't understand them doesn't mean that we don't understand them.

And part of what I have to do is cooperate.

I have to make sure.

So we come up with the idea of subtitles, or we accompanied her appearance with another artist who'd be able you know, they'd be able to play off of each other and open it up, so that it was something that didn't not get seen by the light of day, because it wasn't what people understood.

That's the fringe.

That's to me, where cooperation happens.

And I would only have known it was Sofia Garo and she was the one.

I only knew it because of her publicist, because there was one publicist that I trusted to call on who always delivered talent to MTV, specifically to that audience where we were trying to get more representation on the network.

And that's where, to be honest, diversity turns into inclusivity and inclusion.

In the practice of casting, I realized how important the people who are referring talent to me, even to your point of, even to the point earlier like when I know I go on LinkedIn and I know I'm looking forward to content I'm able to pull it and trust it.

You know, these are sources that I can say yes to in my life.

I don't have to question and I can move.

I can move on consciously.

That's really powerful when you're able to tap in trust and you're working with people who are protected.

I think that's a really, for me, an ideal way to partner and collaborate in this turbulent yet rewarding world of creativity.

Oh, again, this is great because I love this.

The story where you're saying, yes, we wanted we want to bring in Sophia for this.

Fantastic.

And then people aren't comfortable.

And so they might say no.

And so it appears as though this is a binary choice.

Yes or no.

But really, we're utilizing the third option, which is creative and collaborative negotiation.

We're saying, OK, your interests and your concerns have legitimacy.

My interests and my concerns have legitimacy as well.

So let's work together to address all of these things, while working toward that collective goal too.

And so it wasn't that you just pushed through and said, no, they don't understand.

We're doing it my way, this exact same way.

No, we cannot do that.

We have to take their concerns into consideration and then.

You make an event that is more inclusive and potentially more successful because you incorporate the ideas from other people who see the world differently from you.

I think this is really great.

I had to, I made the mistake of not doing that on one or two bookings.

And I was asked to take that person off the show.

And I realized that I can make an impact and that impact.

Has to be recorded now.

And I became okay with that.

If I could get it on tape, if I can get it, if I can get my foot in the door and start the conversation, I know I can come back and continue it.

Right.

Oh, man, this is good.

I know we've been here for like an hour, you and me.

I know it's going to be shorter for the audience, but I could not stop talking to you, brother.

We'll have you back on because this is so fascinating.

And besides the masterclass in negotiation that you've given us, the storytelling is amazing.

It's a good place to learn, I'll tell you.

I learned from the best.

I really, truly did.

They made my life possible.

They make our life possible.

They teach us the wins, the fails, the things that should happen and the things that could happen.

I learn from the best.

Yeah, no, I appreciate this.

And listeners.

Of course, we're going to have all of Vinny's content.

His socials follow him on LinkedIn, because the posts that he makes are really, really great.

So make sure you follow him there.

But again, before you go Vinny, I want to give you an opportunity to shout out some of the work that you're doing and give him one little piece of encouragement before they hit the road.

Oh, yeah, man.

How about this?

Just get guest.

Get guest.

Get out there and guest.

Get on someone's podcast.

Podcasting isn't owned by a company.

There's no part of the publicly traded world of media that's even touching podcasting.

We, the people, own podcast.

I trust us, the people who have control over the content and and i found myself in a whole new way, through a whole new lens, by allowing myself to show up as a guest and i'm humbled to be here with you kwame, my podcast is called i have a podcast.

You can check it out at.

I have a podcastcom.

Uh, join my linkedin newsletter at vpetv slash.

I have a podcast And if you have a podcaster, know someone or just have a podcast that you love and can use a little bit of a level up and amp up, reach out to me because I look for podcasters that I'm constantly identifying and amplifying, trying to get our voices out there so we have sustainable impact.

It's all about sustainability, long-term win.

So thank you for this space, bud.

Yeah, my pleasure.

And thank you again for sharing your expertise.

Really appreciate it.

That was the first part of today's masterclass.

Up.

Next we'll hear from another expert with a different approach, giving you even more strategies to add to your toolkit.

Let's keep it rolling.

Marilyn, thanks for joining us today.

My pleasure.

So how about you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Okay, great.

I am currently a vice president and associate general counsel at Nationwide Insurance Company.

And I'm responsible for our corporate and intellectual property, class action, litigation and discovery management.

Spent the first half of my career in private practice.

Started out in the coal industry doing collective bargaining and union avoidance.

I was on the management side.

A lot of civil litigation in the retail, financial services, insurance area.

Second half of my career I've been in-house as a corporate legal executive at two different Fortune 100s in the retail and then property and casualty and financial services industry.

Fantastic.

Yeah, we are very excited to have you.

We've had a ton of conversations just offline.

And now we're finally having the opportunity to capture it and share it with the masses.

So I am excited to share your wisdom with my audience today.

Well, as a member of your fan base, I'm absolutely thrilled to be here.

Having a great conversation with you.

Absolutely.

And so this is going to be a little bit different than our regular episodes, because usually we do a really tight episode 30 minutes, three main points, and then we get in and get out, and then we're done.

But with this one, what we're going to do is we're going to talk about a story.

A story is going to be the, the base or the case study that we're going to utilize for the rest of the conversation.

And then we're going to extract pieces of wisdom from that story.

And so listeners, what I want you to do is, even if this isn't a practice area or an industry that you're in, I want you to find the commonalities between what it is you do and the techniques and tactics and approach that Marilyn uses throughout the story.

And then we're going to have a discussion about it.

So I'm excited to hear it.

So let's get started.

It's story time, Marilyn.

So where do we start?

Well, let's talk a little bit about experiences and negotiations and how they help you with your personal brand, right?

And so for me And part of my story it's a little bit of a dandelion tale because again, first half was in private practice.

You know, you get out of law school, you know what you're going to do.

And then the good Lord does this great thing called life.

And your journey takes you in different places across different practices, different jurisdictions.

And so what was really important for me during those times was to build relationships with folks and establish trust with them, because I needed credibility with them, but to also do it in a way that I was true to myself.

And as I work with professionals now developing team members, mentoring and sponsoring different folks in the profession or across the country, the resounding theme of what is my personal brand becomes important.

And so it becomes important because it's the centered space you can take yourself to in any circumstance.

So early in my career, I did a lot of coal work.

And it was an interesting time.

There was a lot of strike-related violence.

Frankly, some of it fairly unprecedented for those times.

And so, being a young gal starting out in the practice of law, you had to be ready to take on what you needed to.

But you also needed to be resilient and adaptable and had to have a strong sense of self now.

Quite honestly, that gets interesting for me.

I was lucky to have been raised in a family with parents who believed in me.

And I thought I could do anything.

And it was really interesting when I got out to the real world after law school to see that maybe the world didn't necessarily agree with that.

And so one of the first situations I had and there were a couple that were very formulative, that I've learned a lot from and I've grown over the years to be grateful for were Just a couple of situations that I found myself in because I was willing to work hard.

So one of them was during the time I was doing work in the coal industry.

We had a strike occur, a wildcat strike, despite the fact that there was a collective bargaining agreement with a no-strike provision that was in full force and effect.

And so we found ourselves having to go to federal court to get an injunction and in order, sending the coal miners back to work.

This was big deal.

Early in my career, I was so excited to do it.

There were few women, but not many women doing this work.

And of course, on my side, for my client, my CFO, my CEO were men, as were my partners on the team.

And so it was very exciting to be going to the federal courthouse argue this motion was very, very important.

So we get there and we go in.

And the first thing that the judge does is the judge says um.

As we approached into the courtroom, I'd like to see the parties in chamber.

And so, um, I said, your honor, we really are going to need to go on the record here.

And he said well, I understand, but it's the court's practice to have you all come in chambers and let's have a conversation.

Um, All right, Your Honor.

So we all proceeded in, and of course our very worthy adversaries of union leadership was present, as was my client.

And so I explained the motion and I'm making our points for the court's consideration, and then the judge says to me Ms

McClure, like you, I've heard what you had to say for your clients and I'd like you to get the come hither, look on your face and go up to the picket line and see if you can't get those gentlemen of the union to go back to work.

Um, now there's a lot of snickering going on in chambers.

Um, and I said well, your honor, I'm not sure I know what the come hither look is, but I'll be glad sir, to go up to the picket line and see if I can get these fine gentlemen of the of the union to go back to work.

And so he says, all right, Ms.

McClure, please report back to the court after you have done this.

And if you're not successful getting them to go back to work, the court will consider granting your motion and sending in the federal marshals to help get these gentlemen back to work.

So you know it was interesting and we can debrief later.

But the rest of the story is I promptly leave with my clients, we're heading back to the office, where there was another interesting event, and get back to the office.

And then the discussion at the office with the clients and my partners is what are you going to do?

And I'm like, well, this is quite simple for me.

I'm going to keep my word.

I told the judge that I would go up there.

And so now the issue is who's going with me?

And we'll go up there and see the gentleman on the picket line and see if we can't reason with them and get them to go back to work.

Um, So they stood with me and we went up and I get to the picket line and there's fair amount of whistling and a couple of comments about me wearing shoes.

And maybe I needed to get a frying pan and go home and do what other women do.

And I talked to him and I said now gentlemen, you know, you have a collective bargaining agreement.

And I tried to charm them into understanding, with great respect, that we really needed them to go back to work or the court was going to intervene.

That was met with. a lot of snickers.

Obviously, it didn't work, but I tried and then went back with the clients to the court.

And what was interesting to me when I returned, same MO with the judge.

I'd like to see the parties in chamber.

Could you come into chamber?

Your Honor, I'm going to have to insist this time.

We need to have a record.

Well, I understand that, Ms.

McClure, but you come on in here and And let's see what the parties have to say.

So I tell my side of the story.

We've gone up there.

I have my clients who can affirm this.

And then I said, your honor didn't work.

They didn't go back to work, but I gave it my best shot.

And then what the judge says to me is attorney McClure changed from Ms.

McClure to attorney McClure.

Um, then the court's going to keep its word.

You've adequately argued the motion.

The motion is granted.

And Bailiff if you would bring down the federal marshals to go with Attorney McClure back up to the picket line to get these gentlemen to go back to work.

So we did, and the gentleman went back to work.

There's a lot to dig in there.

One of them is composure in the moment.

One of them is knowing who you are in the moment and continuing.

I mean, you know, And some of it's just overcoming right.

So make the best of the moment, turn that into an opportunity.

And in that moment, it did not feel very good, to be quite honest with you.

There's a part of you that thinks, oh my Lord, should I drop and run?

But the other part of me thought, I know exactly what to do and I'm not afraid to do it.

I'm willing to invest in other people.

And so I'm going to give my word to do this and go keep my word.

Now one of the things that was very interesting to me, and you know, at the time it didn't feel so good, as I've aged and practiced.

I've looked back upon that and thought, even though it didn't feel like it in the moment, that judge gave me great opportunity to show what I was made of.

And the fact that I could make my own decision, stand on my own two feet not let it keep me off my game of representing my clients, but also receive and respect the positions of those who were not my clients, kind of cemented my brand.

It did more than announce I had just arrived to the practice.

It announced who I was in my practice.

And I'm very grateful for that, because over my time practicing working with others, either on my teams or who were part of my clients and their organization, or those I mentor and sponsor I've worked with folks.

Sometimes it takes decades to to have an experience that helps you cement who you are and validate who you are, and then let you work towards it.

Um, And so I'm grateful for that.

And it has translated for me in my career to there is nothing I can't negotiate or won't negotiate to my own personal standard.

And so it freed me up a lot, I think.

As a young woman who first generation lawyer from Appalachia to figure out how to Marylandize folks, I wanted to move.

Not try to be somebody else, another woman, another man, but to figure out how to use the attributes and the blessings that the good Lord gave me to sort of Marylandize other folks and help move them.

Because you know, at the end of the day I mean negotiations is all about communicating, but it's deeper than that.

You know, you're moving people when you negotiate.

When you communicate basically in the highest categories, you're either informing people of information they need to know or you're elevating things for action right.

So, or a combination of the both.

But when you're negotiating, you're moving people.

And if you want to move people, you have to move too.

And so you've really got to have a good centered self.

And I think you want, over time, a brand that allows you to flex your style and grow yourself and bring others along.

But it's something that you can be true to, regardless of industry, technical practice area, dispute contract, marital bliss, whatever it is you're negotiating at the time.

Yeah, this is fantastic.

I love this story.

And there's so many things to dig into, but just big picture.

I like how you're able to blend the personal branding along with effective negotiation strategy.

Because in that moment it's difficult to do, because when you feel emotional, your mind gets focused on the thing that caused you to feel that emotional duress.

And the thing that we want to do is immediately alleviate that emotional duress.

And that's what leads us to make these mistakes in the moment.

But you were able to take a big picture view and recognize not only what you needed to do strategically in order to get the outcome you wanted in this difficult conversation, but you were also able to do it in a way that improved your personal brand throughout the process.

And I think what people often miss when we think about negotiation as a personal branding tool is that we think too short term.

How can I be successful in this particular negotiation?

And we don't take the time to say how can this particular negotiation get me where I want to go in my overall career?

And that's the difference between thinking tactically and thinking strategically.

We have to have a grand strategy for our career and use negotiation as a tool to get there, while at the same time being mindful of what we need to accomplish in the moment for our respective stakeholders.

Absolutely understanding emotion, whether it's yours or someone else's, and not being afraid to either overcome it or receive it, but move past it or help others through it.

Because you have to do a lot of that in negotiation, right?

It's huge.

I think the other thing, one of the other big points you just made, which I always love listening to you for this very reason timing right.

You got to get timing right on And you know we use these adages like pick and choose your battles or it's a sprint.

You know, do you want to win the battle or the war?

And it's a marathon, not a sprint.

And we all say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's true.

And it's all about timing.

So there are times to take a position you dig into.

And we might get to one of those stories in a bit.

And there are times to say, you know, I might fly above this one right here because there's a bigger issue to be accomplished.

And when others see you do that yourself.

There's something about that over my time and my practice that inspires and empowers others to give it their shot too.

And so sometimes you don't want a rushed, quick over negotiation.

Time becomes your friend.

So protracted negotiations, like you often see in collective bargaining, Bargaining which looks very different than maybe going in to mediate the resolution of a piece of civil litigation, depending on its complexity.

I don't rush either of them.

Now, we want to move them along and those kind of things, but sometimes you don't want to rush that.

And then sometimes there are things that come up that could be what I call barriers or stop signs.

And you just need to decide whether it's a rolling stop, if it's a stop at all, or if it's something you just overcome because you're going to let it go.

And I think, on the personal branding side, and when you and I were talking a little bit, I think it's important to have your own brand and have your own motto.

And so for me over time and I've been so blessed because I've practiced in so many different industries and different places and tried cases and negotiated labor contracts all over the country as well as resolve complex litigation and other kinds of disputes, including disputes we resolve and negotiate to avoid litigation right and that kind of spend

And so part of what that is is I've had to develop my own motto that I want to bring myself back to and in any negotiation.

And so my personal motto that I have developed is don't take it personal, make it personal.

And by that I mean be skilled at overcoming and understanding your own emotion and flying above things.

So you don't take it personal, because you're the one who ultimately decides if you need to or, in fact, you do.

But then if you decide not to take it personal, turn around and disarm by making it personal.

Make it a memorable experience or journey with people so that when they think of you over time, the journey they went on with you and the negotiation and how that made them feel, lingers longer than that final end result.

When you crossed the T, you dotted the I, you had a deal, you got a settlement or you parted ways and moved on to other challenges.

Right.

And you know, one thing I want to go back to in this story is when the judge said I want you to put on the come hither look.

For our international listeners, who might not be familiar with that term, it is a nod to seduction right.

There's a sexual implication there.

And so that is highly offensive.

And I know probably back in West Virginia at that time, it was probably taken in a different way.

But today that would be something where the judge The judge would probably lose his job over, if that were to come out.

And so, in that moment, how were you able to maintain your composure in the face of something like that?

Well, I say it like this.

I mean, you feel it and you know it.

I did two things to diffuse it for myself.

And part of this is upbringing and I give credit to my parents and that was to try to handle things with class, because you never know what shoes people are wearing, et cetera.

And so the one thing for me that I did that I don't know if you noticed, but I said.

Well, Your Honor, I'm not exactly sure what the come hither look is, but I'll be glad to go up to that picket line and see if I can't get the fine gentlemen of the union to go back to work.

And part of that was truth.

Also an unwillingness to let that sort of broad brush taint my ability as an attorney to represent my clients or to influence my style or my sense of responsibility.

And so, to me, I felt like I gently diffused it without making it bigger than life, because I wanted this to be about you know Hey, I wanted this to be gee whiz.

This gal is a heck of a lawyer and she can take what comes her way and do it with grace and class and still bring people together and can see people.

And so I chose to do that in that moment.

I would do that again.

I have reflected over this story over my career and shared it in a way to help other people over time.

And I was glad I handled it that way because that was early in my law career.

I was establishing a reputation and very much wanted to be Maryland, not emulating the one woman, if there was one, or trying to succumb to cultural things where I had to engage in behaviors and conduct or even use words that were not Maryland.

And so it was my effort to diffuse it but not be defined by it, to keep on and press on with my job.

And at the end of the day here, The goal was to get everybody back to work.

That was good for both sides.

We had a collective bargaining agreement that had been negotiated by both sides.

And to do it in a way that was, I guess, my thought was respectful, because if the court thought that I had, you know the other thing?

The other way to look at this too is hey, this judge thinks I have enough influence to go up there and make a difference, and he doesn't have to send in the marshals.

Well, okay.

If I, if you have that, I can go do it.

I'm not afraid to do that.

And so, you know, unpacking that over the decades, uh, just that single story in the moment, there were many who thought, gee, was that was ridiculous.

I mean, I remember some of my partners were like, ah, this is not how the practice of the law goes.

And, you know, and I'm like, I can take this off.

It'll be fine.

But also was like you know, here's a chance to make a difference too and show that.

Uh, That's not going to cause me to not do what needs done in this moment or to rise to a challenge to see if there's an alternate way to resolve this dispute without intervention of marshals and an order of the court.

And so if I really want to live into being a great negotiator, I'm going to be open to those opportunities when they come.

I'll also say this about it.

And that week because we were back within I don't know 36 hours in front of the court.

I would say that he knew then I would be one of the best lawyers to ever practice in front of them.

And, you know, he changed the respect he showed me.

He was calling me Ms.

McClure when it started, which I frankly didn't take offense to.

But when I returned after having gone to that picket line, he referred to me as Attorney McClure.

And so...

What didn't feel good or look like much of an opportunity, then over the years I've come to appreciate was a great opportunity.

Uh, I've worked with other lawyers and people over decades.

It took them decades to establish the kind of credibility that an opportunity that doesn't feel so good.

If you seize on it can create for you much sooner in time.

And frankly, that helps cement my brand, my reputation, my career um.

I was fearless but tried not to be foolhardy, tried to exercise grace and be respectful of other people willing to meet them where they are, go to a picket line, crossed several in my career and also able to move on to other opportunities right

I would say that those were influential times for me.

A lot of my colleagues and peers who know me now in current roles and see me negotiate much different disputes, totally different scenarios, say to me gosh, you know, I never knew that about you.

But when I hear that, I can see it a little bit because you engage people.

First thing you do when you negotiate is engage other people.

So I'll stop there.

I did No, this is great.

This is really, really great.

And I think one of the core parts of this message is the importance of recognizing opportunities.

And I mentioned this in my TED talk too.

When it comes down to it, conflict is an opportunity.

We just need to be creative enough in the moment to see where the opportunity is.

And again, when your emotions are clouded, clouding your judgment, it's really hard to see it.

But just remembering that it's an opportunity and then forcing yourself in the moment to see where's the opportunity, where's the opportunity, you're going to recognize that, you're going to start to get grounded in the moment and you'll start to think more clearly.

And I tell you it's really impressive how you were able to maintain your composure at such a young stage in your career in such a high stakes negotiation.

But again, like you said, it was an important part of the building of your personal brand going forward.

And then for the second difficult conversation that you had, we had the judge, and then we had you walking up to the picket line.

And for those of you who don't know what a picket line is, So just painting the story, the picture here.

So we're in West Virginia.

It is a coal mining operation.

And so you have hundreds of men with signs talking about how evil your client is.

And you walk up to them as a young woman and you say, hey, please stop.

So how how are you able to do that?

Because that's, again, not an easy thing to do.

Um, you know, it's interesting.

Others have asked me that before.

I'll be honest with you.

I I again, I give my parents credit and and, and where I'm from Appalachia uh, and you know the good Lord credit for this.

I just was raised to respect other people and and consider where they are first, in addition to yourself.

Because you don't know what shoes they wear.

And so frankly for me at that time, while others might have thought that was crazy, I just was like well, in a way it's playing proper respects.

And in a way, if I actually believe in the end result I'm going to try to get from my client here, ie get everybody back to work.

It doesn't have to be my way or the highway how that happens.

And so...

When a third party tribunal, a federal sitting judge has a suggestion that makes good sense, why not be open to it?

And I think that was great for me and very formulative too, because one of the other themes in my career that I talk with folks about all the time you've got to be adaptable and you want to be resilient and you want to be in charge of your best self and your emotional reaction to things so that when an opportunity comes with reason, you can pivot.

And so, being open to another thought, what I'll call pulling out the stops was not inconsistent with my brand, because if it would have worked, can you imagine?

I don't know.

I probably could have charged a higher billable hour if they thought I had that much influence.

But those folks were worth it.

And, you know, I loved the time I did the work, a lot of the management side work.

And, even though it gets really difficult sometimes have great appreciation for the union movement and what it's done in our country.

And frankly, had family on both sides of that.

And so why not be open to an alternate path if it works?

My goodness gracious.

And if it doesn't, you can always come back to the initial strategy you were employing to begin with.

But you've also demonstrated to other people, I think, that you're open.

You can adapt to different things.

You're willing to try and meet others where they are, which I think is super, super important in building credibility and trust.

Because if you're not willing to meet other people where they are, why would you expect them to meet you where you are?

So, and again, over time, that story has meant even more to me, because I've realized and recognized that, even though I didn't feel like it in the moment, that judge gave me an incredible opportunity in my career, one that not everyone gets.

So it was up to me to make the most of it and I've tried.

Definitely.

One of the terms that you mentioned a few times now is engagement.

You had a willingness to engage.

And so we saw that clearly in this story, where you were walking up to the picket line knowing that you were probably going to be harassed all the way through the process.

And that probably made it easier for you to do that in the future.

And so for you listeners out there, when you're confronted with a difficult situation and you say I just don't want to engage, I don't want to have this conversation, recognize that this is going to make it easier for you in the next negotiation that you have.

I think about it in terms of a video game.

Video game, you have levels and there's a boss at the end of the level.

If you don't beat the boss, you don't go to level two.

And so, if you think about your career in the same way, you have to beat these bosses at the end of these games in order to move up to the next level.

And it's really up to you whether or not you want to engage.

And so for you now, as you're a two Fortune 100 companies, you have these high level contract negotiations.

What does engagement look like in those interactions when it gets really, really tense?

So it's very interesting.

Very interesting because at the end of the day, people are people.

And so all of negotiations involve people, which is part of what I love about negotiation and people.

But it does look very different.

And so, for the time that I was a corporate legal executive in retail, a big part of my duties and responsibilities included collective bargaining and union avoidance, but also managing litigation and resolving disputes, and then anything else duties as assigned which really caters and moves you closer to generalist tendencies.

Current role.

What I've seen from those is complex international negotiations where you're dealing with people in multiples of countries at differing organizations.

I've seen catastrophic sort of circumstances and injuries that life presents with people.

And so, you know, the loss of life.

And so trying to help people resolve their differences and get sort of restorative properties out of the negotiation process, not just monetary resolution, resolution or avoidance of civil litigation, but sort of restorative properties out of the negotiation that permit them to reset and continue on even though the path looks different than they thought that it would.

And I think it becomes increasingly important in those moments as a negotiator to make sure you engage with folks and you build that in, because it's very important.

And that goes really to emotion too and diffusing emotion.

And I think the second piece for me resolving complex situations and negotiation is also team leadership right.

Leading organizational change.

Leading structural change, cultural change, and I've had several opportunities while I've been in-house.

Great opportunities to lead, but very challenging combinations when you're leading culture transformation right.

So changing a culture of an organization at the same time, you're bringing a team together, assessing a team, redesigning a team, building centers of excellence or whatever.

You're really getting into the human side, just like you would in a complex dispute resolution, because you've got to decide.

Can you bring these folks together?

Can people co-lead?

Believe it or not, that becomes a challenge at different stages, right?

On a team, can you co-lead?

Some people do well with it and some people don't do well with it.

And so it's played out for me in so many different ways under the umbrella of negotiation.

But the thing that's at the corner of it and centerpiece of it is people and me not just being focused on a result, a predefined result, but being focused on how we get the result.

Because, as the great American poet Maya Angelou says, and I love to quote because I thought this was fabulous people may not remember what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

And so over a career of negotiating.

You know, one of the largest and best compliments you ever get is you might have battled with someone which I don't particularly care for the word, but that's true.

If we're worthy adversaries, we get into, you know, major arm wrestling and negotiation and battling, if you will.

It's not just prevailing on the result.

For me at this stage, it's having a result when we all get there, we've achieved together.

And so the collaboration along the way and engaging people and bringing them to a table and inspiring and empowering them to help us redefine a common goal we can meet together, whether it's the reorganization of the team, breaking down silos so that there's greater collaboration and we can reach alignment across teams.

If it's a complex dispute.

We're resolving, bridging the gaps that help us settle a piece of complex litigation right.

And so It's played out for me in so many ways because I have got to continue to grow and learn.

I've got to learn other people.

Every time your negotiation changes, your team changes.

You've got to reassess and learn those folks.

And so one of the things that I would hope is a hallmark of my brand is being willing to trust first and being willing to step out.

And that has permitted me to walk into any part of our country or be on an international call with a complete stranger and go meet them where they are and learn something about them and engage with them hopefully share some of me.

And so that, because relationships really, really matter.

And in negotiations, you either start with some semblance of a relationship upon which you build, or you start with no relationship and you must forge one, even during the course of the negotiation.

And so you've got to be willing, somebody has to trust first.

If somebody's not willing to take that step and I made a decision a long time ago and maybe it goes back to the union story we talked about that I was going to trust first and step out and do some things to meet other people where they were.

And to me, that's a show of proper respect.

It's also a genuine effort on my part to get to know them and to receive them and see them and respect them.

And then over time, as you know each other, whether it's protracted negotiations or maybe it didn't last that long, but when they see you keep your word.

And the how and the journey of the negotiation to the ultimate result was consistent with what they initially thought or concluded.

And the how you made them feel on the journey to get to the result made that final handshake after you reached common ground really mean something.

As when people say when I get down and out, or it's me and mine that are, That's who I'm going to hire.

And so I think that's a great compliment and cements the personal branding on why it matters how you get a result, not just what the result is.

Just one other thought for your consideration.

I think we get caught up in emotion as, you know, what's the end result?

Here's the predefined result.

Well, in negotiation, if you really embrace the journey, there's multiple results.

And so you want to redefine and reframe and celebrate those victories that are steps through progressive negotiation.

And as you do that, people can step into it and become a part of it.

You know, you're including them.

You get them invested in the journey, engaged in the journey.

And then, sooner or later, you look up and you can both or all, because some of these have been.

You know, 25 different organizations involved and their representatives and their outside lawyers.

So it's a family reunion, let me tell you and.

But as you journey on and you build credibility and relationship, you can identify yeah, we all want a.

Now I may translate different to us, but we can agree on the a.

And then you say all right, let's figure out how we all come together to get to an a And so at the end, when you get the result complete resolution this journey is over.

We've met whatever the common ground is.

If folks say, gee whiz, I never thought we could do it.

You willed it.

You made me will it.

We got through it.

What happens after journeys like that in negotiations or leading teams, is those folks are forever in your network, which is then another great part of the journey is you've also expanded your network because oftentimes those are meaningful career, you know, bet the company really large exposure, high stakes things.

But when people know you kept your word, your credibility, not just that you were right and gave direction, not just you told them, but you embrace them and you pulled them to the table.

And here comes their creative and innovative thought and how we reframe what the end result is and can join together to get to it.

It's not only rewarding, but it inspires and empowers them.

And then you're on their radar because how you got the result and the journey of the negotiation maybe was even more important than what the final result was.

Right.

This is great.

And I think a great synopsis for that is just it's people in process.

That's it.

When you think about the approach that you have for negotiation, it's people.

You engage.

You treat people with respect.

You trust first.

And then the process.

You do it in a way that is respectful to the other side.

That's honorable.

But at the same time, you're zealously advocating on behalf of your client's interests.

And so the people on the other side, they say, wow, Maryland was a worthy adversary.

She did the best that she could given her position for her clients.

And she did it in a way that was respectful.

If I want an attorney, I'm working with you.

I think that's the ultimate testament to your efficacy as an advocate and as a negotiator too.

So this has been fantastic.

I've really enjoyed this.

The time just flew by.

I just looked at the time and said, wow, this has been great though.

And I think it's just a sign that we have to have you back on the show again.

To go deeper into some of these,

But before you go, make sure you let the listeners know who you are, what you do and how they can get in touch with you.

Oh, absolutely.

And I want to just add one other thing, if you would let me, because my time with you always goes so fast, because it's such a pleasure to be with you.

But One of the most important things I think here is self-awareness and self-checking.

You get off being centered or you go someplace that's not your authentic self or true to your brand.

You have to be the one to identify it and fix yourself.

And there are multiples of folks I've negotiated with or practiced with, been on teams with, will tell you they've watched me dial it back.

They have.

I would hope they would tell you they've watched me recover because I was self-aware and wanted to be in tune with that.

And and which means I'm not perfect, which I'm pretty clear about, but I want to be sure to get that out there because it is very much mutual and people know if they believe you.

Like a jury people you negotiate they they, they know if you're genuine and if you're authentic and if they can believe you.

Now whether you can always deliver is a separate issue with for another session but you want to have that self-awareness and and be able to to keep yourself in the middle of the road and dial things back when you need to, or recover if you need to for yourself.

Um.

So anyway, my name is, uh as Marilyn McClure Demers, and I'm at currently um on LinkedIn and vice president, associate general counsel at nationwide mutual insurance company a great organization.

Um, And it was just such a pleasure to be with you here today.

I'm a big fan, as you know.

And I think the conversations that you lead and the lives you touch and the impact you're having to make us all better at negotiating makes us really ultimately better people and enhances our profession.

So thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure.

It was.

It was so great having you on the show.

It has been a long time coming, but we're glad that you're here and glad that you like the show too.

So thank you very much.

And we'll catch you in the next one, guys.

You've just heard one powerful perspective and now we're moving on to the next.

A fresh voice with a new angle on the same challenge so you can keep expanding your skills.

Let's dive in.

Can you tell us about your work with Coke and about the case study with Coke?

Well, I mean Coke's a very interesting example, but they have stuck to red, except they've launched a lot of silly line extensions.

For example, remember Coca-Cola Life?

It's not alive anymore, but that brand was not red.

In fact, they went against their own rule, apparently.

It was all green.

Why green?

They wanted to be more environmentally friendly, right?

This was a new product.

It was a mid-calorie cola, if you know.

It had cane sugar and stevia in but it was a loser.

Why?

Because if you say your brand is Coke Life, what does that position your original thing as?

I think it positions them as Coke Death.

Because listen, I mean, if you say this is life, what's the opposite?

I mean, there's always an opposite.

I mean that's the key of thinking about strategic enemies, because There's always a choice out there.

There's not one thing for everyone.

And whatever you say about your brand, if you position it as life, people are going to think about what the opposite is.

And for them, it was their own brand and making themselves their own worst enemy.

Now, that product isn't around anymore.

And you think about that category.

Was the category problem?

No, it was the line extension.

Because today, the mid-calorie cola with prebiotics is the hottest thing going, right?

You got Poppy, you got Olipop out there.

And they're going like gangbusters, because when people want a new category, like this prebiotic soda, they want a new brand.

The brand that stands for that category, that owns it with authenticity and that can proudly promote it and as well promote the traditional colas as the enemy.

There's so much to explore here, Laura.

This is fascinating.

You're so right.

So it's almost like the concept in terms of the product that they wanted to create.

That wasn't the problem.

It was the execution and the branding and the storyline behind it that was the issue.

Sure.

I mean, there's plenty of cases where you know, listen.

Kodak they invented the first digital camera.

Can you believe it?

They did.

And they launched it.

But what mistake they made was they called it a Kodak digital camera.

Nobody wants a digital camera from a company called Kodak.

Now, Kodak was one of the most loved.

You're too young.

But I remember.

Kodak was, they called it, Kodak, they said, owned trust.

It owned quality.

No, it didn't.

It owned, you know, film photography.

And so when your brand is so strongly linked to one category, expanding that name onto a new one it messes with your mind.

People think it doesn't sound right.

That's not plausible.

They instantly reject it.

So when there is an opportunity, for example, in a new category, the best thing to do is give it a new name.

Look, what did Gap do?

They wanted a lower cost, fashionable type brand.

They didn't call it Gap Warehouse, which they initially considered.

They called it Old Navy.

And today, Old Navy is leading the whole company because that category is going like gangbusters.

I think a lot of people just realized, oh, my gosh, they're the same company.

No, that's the thing.

I mean, listen, people buy a Lexus, you know, despite the fact it's owned by Toyota.

The strongest companies in the world are multi-brand companies, not trying to put one name on everything.

That's so last century. right?

You know, the IBM, everything.

That isn't the way of the future.

The way of the future is new brands for new categories.

That's what Apple did.

You know, they got the, they had the iPod, they have the iPhone, the iPad, the Macintosh.

A brilliant strategy.

Each individual.

But also, what's really cool about Apple is that they unify the company with what I call a visual hammer.

It's a visual that visually and emotionally communicates your brand power.

And for Apple, I mean, great brand name, right?

Totally distinguished themselves from the trash 80s and all the techie type computers initially back in the home computer day.

Very, very strong identity for them and unifying it under one thing.

The other thing and I gotta give shout out to Coke because they are a great company and they do so many things right, but I just love picking on them for Coke energy and Coke coffee and some of the silly things they did.

But what they have done today is, first of all, great visual hammer that, what is it?

The contour bottle, right?

That symbolizes that it is the real thing.

It is the one that pioneered the category of cola.

And they use that on everything today.

Not only that, recently with diet, but more importantly, the Coca-Cola Zero, they've united regular taste of coke and the zero product into one color, one red, beautiful package that this is, you know, unifying together against all the other enemies of waters and energy drinks.

They have to come together to fight them and i think that is a very strong message, because think you don't want to show off that you're drinking a diet product or a zero.

No one wants to be a zero.

They want to say i'm drinking the real thing.

It just happens to be without sugar today, Brilliant.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And we're seeing that continuity, too, without feeling the need to label everything the same way.

I like the example from Apple.

They know the branding.

They're just perfect in what they do, usually when it comes to branding.

But, you know, they haven't always been a winner.

I mean, listen, one very interesting example is Apple Music.

Do you have Apple Music?

I don't.

I have Spotify, right?

Apple, you know, invented the iTunes and the 99 cent song and it was fantastic.

But what happened?

Spotify came out with a new category they pioneered for $9.99 a month, right?

You can have any song you wanted.

What a wonderful idea.

Apple was late to the game to counteract that.

And, you know, today they are not a big leader in music.

And in fact, the iPod has been killed.

It's rest in peace.

Called it the gadget of the century.

I think it was a bit premature, don't you?

A wee bit.

But, you know, not so sad for them because I think maybe iPhone could perhaps, you know, take the reign of the gadget of the century for sure.

Yeah, not a bad, you know, like an option.

Well, the iPhone, think about it.

Such a great example because you know it is about they weren't the first cell phone, but what they said was it had internet connectivity.

And they didn't just say it was internet.

A lot of companies are mulling around with this idea, but they gave it a very good category name.

They said this was a smartphone.

And what did that do?

It instantly set up the enemy and reposition them as dumb phones.

And Nokia at the time was, you know, leading the world.

I mean, Nokia was a cell phone, but instantly Nokia is a dumb phone.

And now who has a Nokia?

Nobody.

Right.

Smartphone is the, you know, the leading dominant category.

And you know they're not always.

You know they don't have the entire market, because there's always an opportunity for an alternative.

You know some people want Apple, but there's quite a few people actually, more than have Apple, have an Android.

And they didn't call it, you know, the Google system.

They bought a small company and they use that name Android, with a great visual hammer, that little green robot, to remind us that they're the open source cell phone and they today dominate the world market.

One word that you've been mentioning a couple of times that I don't want us to gloss over is the word category.

Because when you say the word category, I think you're meaning something different from the average person who doesn't spend their entire life dedicated to branding.

Yeah, I was indoctrinated to the positioning theory at a very young age.

So yeah, nightly dinners, I got the speech.

So Absolutely.

Let's go back to the basics.

So positioning and branding is owning an idea in the mind.

And, most important, it has to take into account not what you want to say, but what the prospect is willing to believe.

And so when you think about that theory, you have to think about the mind, what they're willing to believe.

But most importantly, how are they categorizing things in that mind, right?

Is it just a mishmash of brands?

Do people think about brand first and then the category?

I mean, when you go to the supermarket, you want to buy some drinks for the weekend, do you think...

I'd like to, I'm going in for Bud Light.

Now, do I want a Bud Light seltzer?

Do I want a Bud Light hard soda?

Do I want a Bud Light areta?

Do I want a Bud Light no alcohol?

No, you don't.

Nobody thinks like that.

The first most important decision anyone makes is what category do I want?

Do I want a hard seltzer?

Do I want a beer?

Do I want a light beer?

Do I want a stout, right?

You think category first and then the brands in that category.

So we call it the file folders in the mind.

Because if you're organizing something, whether it used to be in paper, now it's on your computer, what do you do?

You put it in folders.

And so we say those folders are the categories or positions.

And the best thing to own is to be the dominant brand in that category.

So today, you say, you know, think, I want to buy an electric vehicle.

You look in the mind and you think, let me look for my electric vehicle folder.

What brands are associated with that category that I should investigate and think about?

Now, of course, today, the top brand is Tesla because they pioneered it, right?

For many years, they were the only one out there.

Today, they have some competition and we got Elon Musk doing crazy stuff.

But you know for the most part, whether they buy a Tesla or not, everyone will at least consider them.

And so thinking about the category is what?

What category is our brand most associated with?

Dominating category?

But also the danger of putting one brand on multiple categories, as I mentioned, messes with the mind.

The best strategy is new brands for new categories.

Unbelievable.

For me as an entrepreneur, you are solving several problems at one time.

And I love entrepreneurs.

It is so exciting because they've got balls and they've got courage.

And those are two things that not every big company has, because big companies fall in love with their brand.

It's one reason why they do these crazy line extensions like say, Coca-Cola Energy, sounds great in the company.

Or, you know, Bud Lighterita sounds great at the company because they're so in love with the brand.

They think the brand name is the magic.

It's not.

It's the category that's the magic.

And, you know, again, that that.

Falling in love with your brand is so, so dangerous.

And it's how to influence friends, right?

What did Dale Carnegie said?

Use the person's name often, Kwame, Kwame, Kwame, and you light up, right?

And the same thing I think at a company is that the more the brand name is used, people feel very loyal to the company.

And using a new brand and not using Porsche on a new electric vehicle sounds like you're going against the company itself.

Which isn't true.

The best thing long term are those multiple brand strategies, as I mentioned.

Now, for individuals, how does this apply to them?

Because I think now more than ever, we have to pay attention to our personal brands.

Sometimes people can tune out when they when they hear this apply to big companies.

But I know that magic still works for individuals, too.

Yeah, well, I mean, you must think of yourself as a brand.

I mean, you're you're you're silly not to.

And, you know, from at the very start, what's your name, right?

Now, names always need to be thought about in relation to who you're going against.

Like how do you?

You know, John Smith is very simple name and simple names are great, but it's not very distinctive, not very memorable.

So you know, being able for your name to stand out, to be easy to say and remember, is very important.

But also, more importantly, a name is not a name unless you think about what that category is.

So what can you be, you know, what's your specialty?

What's your focus?

What are you, what do you want to be known for?

It doesn't have to encompass everything you do.

I think that's the mistake people think.

They say you know, if I say I'm just really good at positioning, does that mean I'm not good at you know writing slogans?

No, I mean, there's multiple layers, but you can only hope that people remember one thing about you.

You know, you've got five seconds to make an impression.

How are you gonna do that?

And that's why what you look like matters.

And when I say look like, I don't mean how pretty you are, what your hair thing is, but the consistency of your look.

You'll see today I'm wearing red.

That's my color.

You know, you have Steve Jobs.

What did he wear?

A black turtleneck.

Now that, you know, it was his uniform.

It set him apart.

He was different.

And he made it into that was why he was the, you know, such a genius, right?

And thinking about the simplicity of not just his technology, but he applied it to himself and he embodied that look.

What's funny is that Thor knows lady, right?

She wanted to be just like Jobs, so she dressed in a black turtleneck.

That's not going to do it.

You can't just put on somebody else's outfit and expect people to think you're Steve Jobs.

You've got to have your own outfit.

Jensen Huam of NVIDIA, he wears a black leather jacket.

Consistency is what builds brands.

You can't just do something once.

It's unlikely to get attention.

It's doing it and showing up every day.

And I think that's about your personal brand.

It does take that long-term consistency of doing it over when no one's paying attention, but just over and over doing it and thinking about it of how you can stand out.

This is really helpful.

And I want to focus in on that point where, with an individual person, it is both empowering but also kind of scary and intimidating to say okay, if I'm only going to be remembered for one thing, then what is that thing?

So, for people who are thinking about starting their personal brand, what advice would you give them, as they're starting to be more intentional about it?

Well, I mean, first of all, think about what you love.

Don't try to do something to build a brand, right?

It has to come from the heart.

And I think that projects on other people.

They sense that.

I mean, we have, you know, just such a bullshit meter these days with all that's going on on the internet and AI and able to, you know, fake it till you make it.

But really I think if you have the you know inner thought to think about what can I really do in this world?

What do I wanna do?

Where do I think that I can make an impact and a difference?

And hone in on that one thing and do it over and over and over again and apply, as I mentioned, the visual identity to it.

And you know whether it's dressing up to stand out and always having a bow tie, whether it's putting you know our mayor here in Atlanta back in the day, Shirley Franklin.

She wore a big flower lapel and she always wore it.

And so it was instantly identifiable as her and it became her signature look.

Everyone should think about what should be my signature look? and stick to it.

Now, here's the problem.

It's boring.

I went to the store and I saw these clothes yesterday and I'm like oh, that purple dress isn't that nice.

And I had to slap my wrist and say, no, you are red and you got to stick to the red.

It's the same for personal brands and companies get in trouble with this too.

It is a bit boring to stay focused, to say no That's another big idea for companies, for people.

Say no to things that aren't within the focus of what you want to do and stand for.

Put up those parameters.

Put the line in the sand.

And that's very important for entrepreneurs and the way many big companies are built by saying no to something.

I mean, Southwest, saying no to first class.

What did that do?

It changed the perception of the airline that it was for everybody.

And they you know the airline attendants and stewardesses, you know they made fun and jokes and it was a great place to be.

And sadly they're undermining that, you know, by adding the classes.

That changes the perception of the brand.

And long-term, you know, and the worst part is, you know, bags not flying free.

I mean, what an opportunity to have that one signature perk that nobody else is doing.

It's distinguishing yourself.

And not just in a silly way, but a really important way that sets up what your true values are.

I mean, why is Subaru known as, you know, the out sporty vehicle?

Because they only do four-wheel drive.

Back in the 90s, they did both.

Although they pioneered four-wheel drive, At that time, they're about 50-50.

Because why?

Hey, I live in the South.

We have ice and snow every 10 years.

So you don't really need four-wheel drive.

So they try to appeal to everyone.

They try to say, we'll do what you need.

We'll do what you need.

And that undermines the brand.

And they were losing money.

So what did they do?

They got rid of 50% of the business.

They got rid of two-wheel drive.

They focused on four-wheel drive, initially focused on, you know, the northern states, and then they brought it down to the south because, why not?

My son drives it out back.

I mean, the prants we choose say something about us.

I saw an interesting fact, you know, the They found the way to find love on Hinge.

Well, the young lady.

In one of her photos she showed herself holding.

She was at a concert and holding a can of liquid death.

Well, we know people love others with a sense of humor.

And she attributed that photo because her mate and now soon to be husband thought that was funny, thought it was relatable and connected with her.

Based on that interaction of the brand.

The brands we choose say a lot about us.

And I think we enjoy it.

I mean you enjoy the and you find a connection to the car brand.

You use the cola, you drink the lipstick you wear.

I mean, all of these things, they make you feel better.

And if that brand can have that narrow focus, it rallies people.

And most importantly, if you rally against something, it's even more powerful.

For Subaru it's like hey, it's not.

You can't be a serious outdoors person with a two-wheel drive vehicle.

You need to have.

You know, Subaru with the four wheel drive, or Salesforce, with you know saying no to software, the pioneer.

You know CRM in the cloud.

This is good because this allows us to segue into this, this brilliant idea of having a strategic enemy, because I think and also I think it's important to to kind of help people to understand, because actually I'm I'm interested for myself, because i know if for the younger generation, let's say people under 30, when they say a strategic enemy, they're going to say oh, laura's going to help me call out people, so i'm going to find, like an opponent, you're going to be my strategic op, i'm going to, i'm going to take shots on them on instagram.

It's going to be yeah, it's going to be fight club and uh yeah, there's going to be, you know, punching involved and uh no it's, it's not, that's not the concept at all.

It's actually, You know, it's not about evil corp, right?

It's not about saying there's, you know, our competitor is terrible.

You can't go there.

It's about a choice.

It's the contrast is most important, because people, you know most companies, most people just say I'm great.

I do this.

I have that, you know, all of those things.

Well, that's not believable.

That's what you're saying about yourself.

If, in fact, you can show a contrast with something else, it makes it more believable, easily processed and believed in the mind.

And when you can call out a strategic enemy, you could also rally people to get more excited about what you're doing.

Another good one is a dude wipes.

Have we, have you done the dude wipes?

They're great.

Oh my God.

They're so good.

Yes.

They're so good.

So this, this is a guy out of college living with his friends.

And, you know, as he says, and it's fun, Riley, you know, eating a lot of burritos, drinking a lot.

And, you know, as the, you know, they needed heavy duty things in the bathroom.

So, but on a weekly trip, they were buying baby wipes because they're terrific, right?

But they're not flushable.

They're not environmentally friendly.

And he was like why, why isn't there something out there for me and my buddies to really get the job done?

And also there were products out there which is interesting because Cottonelle and Charmin had these, you know, somewhat wet type of products, but They were poorly positioned.

They weren't going after, you know, they couldn't say dry toilet paper sucks.

You need to use this because that's our main business.

So they're very weakly positioned.

And Sean said, I'm going to make something out of this.

I'm going to make it in a strong way, with a great name and a great branding, and say we're going to put you know, dry toilet paper just doesn't cut it.

We're going to send dry toilet paper to the Stone Ages.

I mean, you can really get courageous in rallying people for something and when you give them something to fight against.

Now I mean there's plenty of.

I mean for women.

There's plenty of good reasons for the dry toilet paper.

And another reason they went after dudes, right?

That's what they need.

But in any case, it is so important to go out and call something out.

I mean, the other one everyone knows about is liquid death.

And people think oh, it's the crazy.

Can you know all of this?

You know crazy promotions and they do great marketing.

But they also have a very important serious message, and that's death to plastics.

Plastics are killing our globe.

In fact, it's not even profitable to recycle them, I've heard.

So they're just going to the landfills, and they take millions of years to decompose.

Aluminum is forever recyclable.

In fact, most of the aluminum ever invented is still in use today.

It's an amazing, important message that is also connected to you know, giving it a great brand name and positioning it for people that you know and listen.

It's a big trend people go into concerts and not drinking.

Apparently there's a soberoo at Bonnaroo today, but it talks to people and they feel good about using that brand because it's a message of I don't want the energy drinks, I don't want the sugar, I don't want the alcohol, I just want to, you know, have a product that I enjoy and drink water.

Or Now they're expanding into other more healthy alternatives, but still backed by that positioning of you know, saying and death to plastics.

Brilliant.

I didn't even know that.

Now it's almost like they can't forget it.

They have to, they have to keep reminding people because you know they don't want to be seen as you know, just just.

You know just crazy marketing.

Right.

They have a serious message and that's really important.

I mean, even Dude Wipes, it's a serious message.

I mean, this is serious business.

One funny thing about Dude Wipes, and this is a great message for entrepreneurs.

He was on Shark Tank, which is really exciting.

He got an investment from Mark Cuban and things are moving along.

And what happens when you get a little success? it goes to your head, right?

You think, oh my gosh, I am killing it here.

And he was, right?

He had a great product.

But what the mistake he made was, you know what?

People really like these dude wipes.

We want to be dude nation.

They wanted to launch a whole range of dude male products from soap to deodorant.

We'll just be the dude enterprise.

And he did.

In fact, in 2019, he launched the dude soap and dude deodorant, um, Two things.

Think about that.

When you do that, do you really want to use a soap that is from the brand you wipe with?

I mean, many problems on this.

Yeah, many, many problems.

But, you know, people do.

They fall in love with the name that it will rise above that.

Right.

We are Dude Nation and we're for dudes.

But there's first of all, there's many other competitors in that space.

But it also took time and attention away from expanding the brand.

They were only 100 million or so in sales.

Well, that's a lot.

There's a lot more they can grow into, right?

Today, they're over 350.

But it just so happens I'll just give a little plug here.

But he read my dad's book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.

And he got a few chapters in the book and he said, oh, shit, we're expanding.

We're killing ourselves.

We have a category.

We need to grow this category.

We're killing ourselves with the line extension.

So He killed the dude expansion.

And it just so happened.

And if you remember, we would buy.

And for some reason, toilet paper was the thing we had.

Toilet paper and paper towels.

And we would buy anything on the shelves.

Many people discovered dude wipes.

But he was able to leverage the disaster of COVID and the attention it brought to the toileting because he got out of the deodorant.

He focused all of his time, all of his resources.

He ramped up manufacturing.

He ramped up marketing.

And he was really able to take advantage of that.

And think about that.

Money is great, but time is your most valuable resource.

What are you going to spend your time doing?

And when you have a big opportunity like that, to make the most of it.

You know, by having that narrow focus, by being there, being prepared and being able to ride the dude wipes, wave.

And I love he's got the – when you have a narrow focus, you can think of funny things to do or serious things.

But for them, they've got, you know, the mini Cooper car.

They call it the mini pooper.

And he drives around talking.

Talk about a unique calling card.

It is absolutely.

You know if you're going to.

You know you got to have a sense of humor, but you know listen, the principles also apply to very serious business.

I mean, the success of NVIDIA in particular is just an amazing story.

I cover the whole case history as a whole chapter in my book, as a matter of fact, because it's so interesting how they use the idea of positioning a focus of a new category.

So they launched the first GPU.

Well, What's a GPU?

They invented it.

They wanted a bigger graphics chip that did more things, was more powerful.

And instead of competing on price, they gave the new category a new name.

And it was instantly understandable why because everyone knew what the CPU was, which Intel pioneered.

And so when you can give a category, a name like that, something where it relates to something people already know, it's much easier.

You know, that's where you have, you know, wet toilet paper versus dry.

You've got the GPU versus the CPU.

But but also what they did was what today they are known for the AI.

Right.

But using that GPU, it's also very good at the parallel processing, which is what the AI is all about.

And so they were the pioneer.

They started at the very beginning when everyone said they were crazy, but they had vision.

And that's what entrepreneurs, that's what the most successful people have.

They have the vision to, you know, see the future and then also the courage to double down on it, to have the faith that you know.

Maybe today everyone's not going to say I'm great, but I have a very strong conviction and I'm going to do everything I can to, again you know, stay focused, maintain and repeat repeat, repeat.

The most important principle of building any brand is the consistency of the message of BMW, saying the ultimate driving machine, right for over 30 years.

You know, over time, actually, when you repeat something, it becomes more believable.

You got to study the brain to truly understand and best utilize branding and marketing.

Because Absolutely.

Visuals have emotional power and the repetition of verbal ideas that make them more powerful and believable over time.

Let's talk about the brain, because I think when people can understand the psychology, those mechanisms that are driving these branding decisions, it helps them to feel a lot more confident in them and feel that courage to double down and actually plant their flag in this way.

So, when it comes to psychology, what do you think it is about the psychology of branding and marketing that people don't understand?

That holds them back the most?

Well, I think most people are just.

They're very focused on themselves and what they want to say, right?

And, you know, and that's, you know, that's human nature, right?

I mean, and they believe you know, we've got a really great product if people would just listen, right?

But instead of saying, you know, just forcing the idea I think thinking about in the mind where is that open hole and what can we relate it to?

So it makes it more understandable, because sometimes these revolutionary ideas are difficult to understand.

But if you break it down into simple, you know a simple formula, a simple mechanism.

Listen, you have a dog.

Me?

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness.

All right.

Whenever my kids ask, I say, I already have too many small mammals.

Yeah.

Well, that's very true.

But They're wonderful things.

So the farmer's dog, what did they do?

I mean, this is fresh dog food.

I mean, is fresh better?

I don't know.

But probably, of course, fresh is better.

I mean, people are supposed to eat fresh, wholesome foods.

Why would you feed your dog processed food every day of its life?

You're going to shorten the longevity.

And they call the enemy brown burnt balls.

I used to think that was the healthiest thing.

I didn't feed him canned dog food.

I thought all the healthy so-called brands were dry food.

I didn't think about it until they reminded me that that's processed.

It's a bunch of processed stuff in there.

And the farmer's dog, which is a great name, names matter.

The other really interesting thing about brands is too often You know listen, they listen to what I say.

They say, oh, my gosh, Laura said the category is really important.

Why don't we just give our brand name the category name?

So you have products like Fresh Pet, which is a supermarket brand of fresh food.

You have Lyft.

Do you take a Lyft?

If someone says you want a Lyft, I say I'll have an Uber.

Thanks, uber is a client, so i am pro uber.

Oh, uber is yeah, uber.

Uber is fantastic.

And and here's the uber got lucky too.

You know, sometimes you know you're a genius sometimes it comes with a process server.

So uber wasn't initially called uber, it was called uber cab, it was uber cabcom.

And uh, you know the san francisco, you know taxi authority said you're trying to fool people into thinking you're a taxi cab.

And they're like, whatever, no, we're not.

And they're like, we don't want to fight you.

We're just going to shorten the name to Uber.

Well, that was the best thing they ever did, because taking cab out of the name let them strongly promote as taxis, as an enemy.

And that was a very key part of the brand strategy and great success.

Such a killer example of utilizing the enemy and having a excellent brand name.

Now, despite you know some of the silly things they did with the logo over the years.

But just that simplicity of black and Uber, that's all they need.

And it's a brilliant.

I mean, Lyft has not been able to successfully compete, but the name is too generic.

And what is the, you know, they had those pink mustaches.

Now that is unique and it stood out, but What did it communicate?

I mean, to me, that's not a strong communication platform there.

But over.

You know you've got lots of examples from you know the old one, but oldie but a goodie was, you know, Miller Light Beer right.

They try to position it, and many companies do this with an alternative spelling, right?

Lyft is L-Y-F-T, right?

L-I-T-E for beer.

But, you know, the problem is, while it looks great on paper, That's not where the brand lives.

The brand lives in the mind.

And in the mind, it's a sound.

And L-I-G-H-T is the same as L-I-T-E in the mind because the sound is exactly the same.

The better direction is to give yourself a strong brand name than has a generic, if you will, category name to reinforce it.

Oh, explain that because that is a nuance that I think a lot of people could miss, that last part.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, of course, the idea being that your brand name long term wants to stand for the category.

And as a result, you want it to be differentiating from everybody else.

I mean, you can't own a generic name like Light because what happened?

Bud Light came out, Coors Light came out, and all of a sudden it had to be Light from Miller.

It was no longer a singular name or idea.

And so, if you can, you know, think about your brand name.

Long term is very important, but you need that.

You know very generic category name as well as the brand name.

Another great one is, you know, the hard seltzers, right?

This wave took off, you know, billions of dollars and was started by what?

White Claw.

Now, interesting backstory, this was a brand from Mike's Hard Lemonade.

So they saw an opportunity.

People were, you know, wanting to cut down on sugar, cut down on carbs.

So they launched a new brand, but it was a simple category.

It was, you know, Hard Seltzer.

What's interesting is they weren't first.

Spike Seltzer was first, but the name is too generic.

You know, that's a great category name, but it doesn't allow for that uppercase name.

You know, if you say, have you had a spiked seltzer to your friend?

What kind of spiked seltzer?

Long term, every category is going to face competition.

So, unless your name is right, unless your visual is strong, unless your communication strategy and what your slogan, your battle cry is, is strong, it's going to be very difficult to compete against the enemies that you're going to face.

White Claw did a great job.

They were in cans.

They forgot the bottles, right?

And that they didn't coin this, but a lovely guy on the on the YouTube did.

But there ain't no laws when you're drinking the claws.

And that's the way the kids, you know, we're talking about him in the early days.

Um, and the police didn't like that very much, but um, there's always an opportunity for the new, the drink for the new generation, right.

When I was in college, everybody drank beer.

You know, today I've got, you know, one out of college, one in college.

And, um, And it's, you know, all about these white claws.

And they do like, you know, having a brand for their generation, for them.

I mean, even you see in energy drinks, you know, the kids today are drinking what?

Celsius.

You know, it's more of a fit lifestyle.

It's, you know, both male and female.

It's welcoming to all.

And they see what you know.

Monster and Red Bull is what their parents drank, which you know.

As we all know, if you have kids, not very cool to do what your parents did.

It's so funny to think about it because I remember when those brands came out and it was like so cool.

And my parents were saying, this is so terrible.

People are drinking this stuff and now it's old, too.

You know, everything gets.

Now, that's not to say that, you know, listen, Coca-Cola has been around, you know, over 100 years.

And, you know, as the real thing, it's the original.

There's still power in that as long as the category is strong.

The success of Coca-Cola as a brand is only as strong as, you know, the cola category itself.

Now it does have advantages back in there.

You know, orange soda was a big hit.

Apparently I wasn't there, but it's a, it's a one note flavor.

There's only so much orange soda you can drink.

You know, Coca-Cola is, it's more like a wine.

It has multiple flavor notes, which allows people to enjoy it more and drink it as opposed to.

You know, you can only have one orange soda and you're done.

Hmm.

That's so it, There's so much to consider when it comes to making these brands.

Oh, you know, and it's what's what you know there's, it's an art and science, which is what, I think, what gets me excited about working with all these companies.

Because you know we write about the immutable laws of branding but it's applying them is.

You have to really understand the situation, the category, the brands at play and know what laws to apply when.

And that's what makes it fun.

That's what makes it interesting.

That's what makes it a challenge.

Why not all companies get it right.

And the best thing you can do is study case histories and keep up with the news.

See what the brands are doing.

Many times we don't often see the early failures before we see the great success.

I bet many people didn't even know about NVIDIA in the early years if they weren't a gamer.

I had sons in gaming, so I knew about NVIDIA chips back in the day.

But today, everyone's now getting introduced to it as the AI computing company of the world.

I want to talk about the connection, the nexus between marketing and other types of persuasion, like negotiation, and persuasion when we're actually in front of people.

Because I've recognized that if you have a really strong brand of your company but also it applies to individuals if you have a really, really strong personal brand, it's almost like that brand does a lot of the persuasive work that you otherwise would have had to do in the actual conversation with people if they already are familiar with you and your brand.

Can you talk a bit about that, Syke?

Well, yeah.

No, I mean, that's what a brand is, right?

It's that idea in the mind that you own, that you stand for.

And then so people already have perception is everything.

You know, way too many people are focused on the reality of the situation of yourself, your brand.

It doesn't matter.

It's only what the perception is in the mind of the consumer.

So first and I call it, the Everest of challenges in marketing is getting in the mind in the first place.

And that's the biggest challenge.

I mean, once you're in there, then you have a, you know, you're known for something, right?

You have in.

If you're going into a negotiation you know you have.

You're a pre-known entity for good or bad right.

I mean, you're stuck into whatever perception you're in, but you are a known entity.

And that's why you know we talk a lot about the importance of narrowing the focus and what you did with negotiation right.

I mean, that was what?

That was the sharp knife that got you in the mind of the consumer.

And that's the first and most important thing.

And it also is what anchors you.

And if you think about it, I hope you don't ever want to get away from negotiation as a core and central idea of your identity.

But think about isn't everything a negotiation?

I mean, I think there is lots to say.

And when it comes to you know what I talk about in branding.

You know absolutely because it is a negotiation is about understanding the differences between the two sides.

And the fact that you know there is a, you know there's a war in many.

You know we got the cola wars, the beer wars.

Brands are at war.

And the contrast between them is what gets people energized to support their their brand, right?

And it gets people excited to understand and the differences.

And what I love what you say in terms of negotiation is that it is about having respect for the other side.

Because the same way in marketing, you don't want to trash your competitors.

You want to, you know, you want to accept what they're doing and say there is a time and a place.

Listen if I am Canva, which I think is one of the greatest companies right, bringing the ability for anyone to create a logo and a graphics, and all of this.

But, you know, they can't trash talk and in the reverse.

But Adobe I mean, that is, you know the high end, high level, super complicated, you know software for you know the professional set.

And so you know the contrast between them and not you know again seeing what your size where there's benefits, where there's not,

And to successfully compete against them, we call it a debate.

So, you know, in any kind of situation, people love this.

They don't just make a choice.

What do they do?

They think about who are the competitors in that category.

They go to Reddit to see what is being talked about.

But getting people word of mouth is, of course, the key driver of getting brands.

You know that respect of getting the brands, that credibility of you, know you trust much more what a friend says to an ad.

You see,

I hope so.

I mean, I think that's the way most people think.

But what the ad does and this is a very important part, part of marketing and understanding the process is that advertising should never be used to introduce an idea.

It should be used to reinforce something that they already know.

When you see an ad, you should nod your head.

Yes, I should.

I should go buy a Coke.

You know, it is delicious.

It's the real thing.

And too many companies use advertising to expand into other things, to talk about the expansion they're doing instead of, you know, hammering in that one idea and reminding people to do that by using you know again, the word of mouth.

The PR talking.

You know what others say about you has much more believability than what you say about yourself.

This is so good.

I'm running out of space for notes here, too.

Taking notes.

Fantastic.

I love a good note.

Well, you know, notes are important.

You know, Being able to oversimplify your message so somebody can take a note.

That's a really important principle if you think about it.

And that's what we work with, you know, with companies.

How can we oversimplify it so people can tell their friends, can be reminded of it and you know to take a note on it?

I mean, if you were going to listen to this, what, you know, what would you write down?

I mean, I hope you write down that, you know, brands need a focus.

When you have a focus, you know, that categories matter more than brands, right?

So dominating a category with your brand is the ultimate goal.

And then you need an enemy.

How can you contrast from, for example, another category?

If you're launching a new one, you know pushing the other category to create the contrast.

So what people can more understand what you stand for.

Because when you clearly say what you're against, it makes it much more clear what you stand for.

Wow.

You're so right.

You are so right.

Laura, I could keep on talking to you forever about this, but I always want to make sure that I give Simone some space, because he listens in and see parts that I know that our audience will want to know more about.

So, Simone, any any additional follow up questions coming to mind for you?

So once you have your own brand and you realize that everything is wrong, how can you change and not change in front of, or not be perceived as weak by, your audience or by your target or your niche?

How can you, you know, tweak your message or repurpose everything or, you know how how can you frame it so that you don't look like weak?

Um well, i mean, most people are trying to do too many things and saying too many messages and ideas.

I mean, the idea of narrowing a focus, I think others will see that with strength.

I mean, again, if you don't have a brand in the mind, then nobody knows you.

So the reality doesn't matter.

I mean, if you have a strong perception, it is very difficult to make a radical change, right?

I mean, you can't go from A to B. Kodak couldn't go from film photography to digital photography.

That was just an impossibility.

So for a company, you can launch a second brand.

Now for a person, that becomes a little bit more of a challenge.

I think making the bridge of narrowing in on the focus and calling out with that future and how it relates to the past can be very effective.

But again, so few people think about applying these things to themselves.

I mean, you know, I just got on the on Substack and I mean you look at all these names of the stacks and nobody I'm like.

What are you talking about?

Just give me a reason to follow you and maybe I will.

And you know that.

That again I mean and and the consistency of it.

One of the difficulties, as I mentioned, is it gets a little boring to kind of talk in the same, in the same vein or on the same topic over and over again.

But, you know, just remember not everyone has heard the 85,000 times you said it before.

You got to say it again.

And they also like to be reminded.

I mean, I think there is something, you know, why do people go to church every Sunday?

I mean, just to hear the same message over and over again.

And so I think with brands, it's the same thing.

You go back to that brand because you, You want to be involved with them.

You want to be pumped up to, whether it's Patagonia and the environment, or whether it's Tesla and EVs.

I mean, you feel good about you are doing something.

You are supporting an EV company.

And that's a message that other companies like Ford can't do because they're selling everything.

They can't strongly go against a competitor.

And what I love to do is I love to go to the supermarket.

And everyone should, because you know, looking at what the brands are doing out there.

But just remember, they're not all doing it right.

You can't always follow what the big guys are doing and girls and companies are doing, because they're not always doing it right.

You've got to look at those you know up and coming and see long term what happens to those brands when they launch things like Coca-Cola Energy.

Or one of my favorite examples is Triscuits.

I love Triscuits.

I go to the store.

I mean, they've got, first of all, they've got like 28 different flavors.

They've got like basil and pumpkin spice because everything has pumpkin spice.

Triscuits?

You're kidding me?

Now, that's fine.

I mean, lots of companies have lots of flavors.

But the one product I did notice was Triscuits Organic.

Organic Triscuits?

I mean, think about that.

You can imagine though, at the company they're sitting around thinking well, organic's a big thing.

We've got to cover the market.

If somebody wants it, we better offer it.

And, you know, that's inside-out thinking, right?

And so you've got to think on the outside of what if we put that on the shelf?

What is that doing to the mind of the consumer?

What is that saying to them?

It's saying to them, you're an idiot.

We've been fooling you all along.

You thought Triscuits was wholesome because it was the original wholesome whole wheat cracker.

And now we've got organic.

And now you put them in a bind.

Now, there's one thing about making choice.

And you want people to make a clear choice in the market, because do you want Triscuits or do you want Cheez-Its?

I mean, that's a choice.

But now Triscuit regular versus Triscuit organic, you make your own consumer feel dumb.

Because now they got two lousy choices.

They buy the organic thinking.

Oh, I've been duped all these years and feeling silly to pay more for it.

Or they buy the original and feel bad, you know, it's not organic.

Some choice.

And that's unfortunately the situation that many companies have put themselves in.

And I call it, you know, being your own worst enemy.

There's nothing wrong with, you know, having a second brand to compete against you.

That's a great strategy, but having that one brand with a line extension that makes your original look silly that's a danger that many companies you know face.

And you know, unfortunately we're trying to set them straight and so excited because I think you know entrepreneurs really, you know they latch onto this, they get it, but long-term they have to remember what made them successful and keep onto that anchor in the mind.

So, when it comes to your legacy in this space, you know How have you balanced, like charting your own path, with just the honoring the legacy that your father created.

How have you gone about balancing that?

Well, it's it.

I had the greatest opportunity in the world.

You know, being the daughter of Al Reese, and you know, as I said, being indoctrinated into positioning at a very early age.

You know the articles and it started hitting the scene when I was born and you know dinner table conversations were about we would

We would watch the television.

The commercials would come on and my dad would give a sermon as to what they were doing, right or wrong.

And talking to my mother and I as if we were the company CEOs, we could actually do something.

But, you know, I was 10.

What was I going to do?

But here, here's a very interesting thing.

A lot of people want to make it on their own.

They want to do and they don't want to, you know, take any handouts, if you will.

I don't think working with my father was a handout.

I think it was a great the greatest opportunity I was I was blessed to have.

And I spent, you know, 30 years.

I had almost 96 years old and you know just such a, such a wonderful life of you know, talking the world.

But, you know, I was able to, you know, I think really take advantage of that.

I mean, I.

I like to say that the first 10 years of working with him, I was like the ultimate apprentice.

I mean, I was getting coffee, doing the books, taking notes.

I was just like a sponge soaking up all that it was.

It was so exciting.

And then I was able to speak up more in meetings.

I was getting my own confidence.

I mean, these things take time.

You don't become a guru overnight and you can't just slap your name on something.

I mean, I really I think I did the hard work of years and years of in the business with him and then even guiding him in his later years as to what the newest things that were going on in technology and in branding.

And now today, having just the excitement and courage to take positioning to new heights, to new levels, to face what we're all facing today.

And you know, I think you know keeping the core of what my anchor is in terms of positioning, but also bringing new things, new spins.

That's what the visual hammer is.

You know the idea I've talked about for many years and now the strategic enemy of how to to best leverage positioning so that you can build, I say, a strong brand that is worth fighting for.

[Mastering Creative Cooperation, Personal Branding, and Strategic Positioning]-[The Secret to Winning Bigger by Doing Less]

📋 Summary

The Art of Creative Cooperation and Clarity

Resilience and Personal Branding in Law

The Psychology of Strategic Positioning

Synthesis: The Power of Consistency

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Mastering Creative Cooperation, Personal Branding, and Strategic Positioning]-[The Secret to Winning Bigger by Doing Less]

📋 Summary

The Art of Creative Cooperation and Clarity

Resilience and Personal Branding in Law

The Psychology of Strategic Positioning

Synthesis: The Power of Consistency

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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