Rich Kozak On Creating An Impact So Your Work Is Play And Your Play Is Work (#118)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Sell My Business Podcast. I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.

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Rich Kozak is rocket fuel for people who want their brand to impact others' lives or the world. Rich is a sage voice of Impact Driven Branding. Rich's the Los Angeles coauthor of Cracking The Rich Code Volume Six, an Amazon bestseller in several countries where he tells his story to find your purpose and grow your business after these apocalyptic times.

His next book Impact Driven Branding, The Brand You Will Become: How To Define It And The Steps To Achieve It shares the process and how-to content. Just like Rich shares in his online one-day intensive and four-hour live workshops.

Rich, the founder, and CEO of RichBrands has experienced 44 years defining and launching brands and then marketing them. As a certified global branding consultant with partners worldwide Rich defines brands and their language for companies are impacting hundreds of industries.

Welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast. And as usual, I have an incredible episode and guest lined up for you. Let me ask a little bit of a rhetorical question for all my listeners out there. And the question is this. Is your work play and is your play work.

And I suspect that the answer for most of you is no, it isn't. Maybe it started off that way, but you know what? Jeffrey, I got the golden handcuffs and it's just the same blankety-blank another day. Well, I'm here to tell you and our guest is here to tell you it doesn't have to be that way. Can you imagine for just a moment where your work is play and your play is work and you're having an impact and you're making a difference, you're paying it forward.

You're actually having fun along the way. That's what we're going to be talking about today. So Rich, welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast. I'm really excited to have you with us today. Why don't we start with this? There's always a story behind the story. Rich, what's your story? What got you to where you are today?

[00:03:37] Rich Kozak: Jeffrey, thanks for asking me that. And I want to tell you, I am really excited to be here and to share these ideas with you and with your listeners. So let's start with the story. You're talking to somebody who has been in business and defining and languaging brands, and then marketing them and launching them for 45 years.

I've also been married for 45 years and been with my wife for 50 Valentine's day. So I'm one of the luckiest people in the world, but it does take a story to take you where I am right now, which is work is love. And it doesn't feel like work. And I want to share that with people.

So here it goes, when I was a teenager people would ask me, what do I want to do? And I wanted to do everything. I was pretty all around. I was playing my violin in orchestras and I was playing in rock bands. And I was creating businesses during the summer when I was 14, 15, 16. So I was like pretty active, really good in school. And pretty much everything I touched, I was successful at no things I wasn't successful at.

I don't even think about them that way, I think everything I would touch with successful at so, a little bit of self-delusion perhaps, but I did not know what I wanted to be. People would ask me, what do you want to be? I had no idea. And what I ended up being after 30 years was a certified global branding consultant, working in an agency as an exec VP and head of new business with partners in 21 countries, guiding large companies, what they had to become to be successful at their business strategies.

Now think about that, the irony of somebody who didn't know what they wanted to be guiding companies to what they had to be. That's God's sense of humor right there. It's so, let's connect the dots. I wanted to go to college I did marketing because that seemed to fit the things I did, but I had to figure out what that was.

When it came out of college I did do a short stint for a few years, traveling in a rock band. I play electric violin and bluegrass, and it was Crosby Stills and Young period back in the seventies. And we had a band that was doing its own material. So we had a dream. And so that period was over. I finished school, did some graduate work, and then went Fortune 50.

So now I'm an industrial salesperson and I've studied marketing industrial salesperson in a Fortune 50 company. And I got blessed to have my manager be the only other one in the office other than me and support. And he had run an international division for 12 years and he knew who the companies, he knew corporate.

He guided me how to be a corporate animal. I was with that company seven years until I couldn't really see a vision of where I was going and I resigned. At that time I happened to have volunteered my way into becoming the president of the American Marketing Association in Southern California. And I stayed in Southern California instead of going to Connecticut where they wanted me to transfer and started working with our search firm, calling on research managers.

Now I'm not a researcher by trade or by study, but I learned a lot about research, multivariate, statistical analysis, and the application of research techniques. What validity really is. So as an injection and research area. And then I got a call from someone that knew me from the American Marketing Association and said, I want you to be my executive vice president at my agency Well, you know, advertising is not an area that I really resonate with.

You don't understand, you need to come over. It was a business-to-business. So we're calling on semiconductor companies and lifting up their next chips. You know It's very different. So I signed on it. I was there 17 and a half years, and I cut my teeth on the process of watching, defining, discerning by looking at competitor set, what makes a company unique or outstanding, and then getting them credit for that.

Sometimes that takes renaming. Sometimes it takes skill for marketing communication because you have to shift people's perception and a brand. It's just a perception, but it's not your perception. It's everybody else's perception. So all of that business building, creating, and then the official period of branding ending up being partners with other agencies all over the world, using a rigorous process to research the foundation of what a brand is, and then move it from country to country.

I got a good background in branding and frankly marketing. So if you ask me any question about any area of marketing I could teach classes. You want to talk about trademark and you want to talk about service mark. You want to talk about trade dress, want to talk about rights or how one typo can lose a client. I've been through it all a lot.

When I turned 50, I was doing all nighters, loving it. Partners at 21 country though and I changed my prayers in the morning on the way to work and I changed it to Lord, I don't think you've put me here to be a dead ad agency guy. I'm resigning this addictive career. Show me what you want me to do. I'm ready.

The owner and I had a happy meeting. He wished me the best of luck. Became one of my investors, actually. And I shifted to real estate for my own account until I figured out what I was supposed to be doing.

But my prayer was the same every day. Show me what you want me to do. I'm ready. And then I started saying, I don't do branding anymore, but I love branding. And I was really good at it. And I'm good at looking at a company or an individual because some of these companies were created by a person and they still were at that realm of it.

So they were like the brand champion and seeing what they could become and saying to them, this is what your customer says, this is the way you're positioned. Let me show you, can I show you how this maps out and have them go? What? And then I share with them how I see and passionately their business going in different directions or joint venturing and partnering.

So I love that. And I just felt I was addicted to my job and that it wasn't good for my health or for my life. So I started saying I don't do branding anymore. I got involved with multi-level marketing and other things to create residual income until it became clear to me what God wanted me to do years later, and not too many years, but enough, three people in a row month one, month two, one through.

And this is the most important part of the story, I think, I need your help. Well, I love you? How can I help you? Are there people in my referral networks, three women actually, oddly know well, I love you. How can I help you? Well, I had this vision of a business on a hill owned by women in this city, and its medical healing, multiple modalities.

But right now I'm just doing this, but I had this vision and I want to build a brand. I don't know how to do that. Well, I don't do that anymore. And I get the Bill Clinton finger pointing at me going that's not true. You just don't charge for it, but you never stopped. And everybody around our table uses your language.

And you're brilliant. And I love you and I want you to work and I'm going to pay you. I said I'll tell you I will create a process. It'll be about $5,000 worth of work. And I'll charge you $750, the next month, another person, I need your help.

I've been doing HR under somebody else's umbrella for 14 years. I want to build my own there, but I don't know how to do that. Can you help me? Same. And the next month, someone who'd written the book on networking, known as a power player. And she's a business coach says I have the perfect client for you and hands me, one of her clients and says, I want you to go and meet her.

She needs a branding guy. She needs you. You're bright. You're the one I want you to help. When I was done those three, I was sitting in the choir loft at church one day and it came to me that is the process with individuals that I've created, that pulls out whom they clearly see touching their lives when their business thrives.

I think about their brand thriving, and it might not be thriving today. Like the first one wasn't even existed. It was a vision. But when it's thriving, whom do you clearly see impacting their lives? And at what level, let's write that down. And they write down a few of them and the impacts, the levels of impacts.

Now just based on having three or four or five or six or whatever types of people and that you can clearly see in your heart and you really want to help them. You really want to make their life better and you just sit them down and you've written down the level of impact, not just they see themselves differently, but maybe they start a new behavior and maybe they change their outcomes and maybe they share it with other people.

Maybe they share with the community. It's like how high a Value does the impact on their life because of your word, how high does it go? You write that down. Jeffrey, I realized that we can just define the brand. They must become to make those impacts and everything they say and do from that point aligns everything and they get there faster.

They get to the money faster. They make their impacts faster and their business, which is their vehicle for life, their vehicle to sustain themselves thrives sooner. And they create a platform from which they can step into the purpose of why they're really here because our businesses are not necessarily why we're here, but we're all here for a reason.

And I'm sitting in the choir loft. Then all of a sudden, I get this my gosh, if it's in their heart and they're just putting it on, this is God's work. And I ran up to the pastor afterwards. I said, I want to meet you in your office like right now The agency guy came back in and that's what it feels like. All of these years, I thought I'd resigned an addictive career.

When I realized this I've been shaped and it's not my skill, it's my gift. And so now my prayer is the same every morning and it is Lord, thank you for this gift. I get it. It's not my skill. It's my gift. I am so grateful. Put in front of me, those people whose lives or businesses, you want me to touch with this gift and give me the eyes and ears and the wisdom to know who they are.

And today, people hear me speak. They hear and I might just say, this will be a blessing your business, and they'll go and they show up, hey, can we have a Zoom call? I have the most interesting clients from all over the United States that hear me speak, meet me at conferences, and join with others. I've hired coaches because there are so many things I am not an expert at.

And I'm trained in NLP. I'm a certified trainer of NLP, but I don't train. I just use it to listen and be a better coach. And I realized I want a world-class team. So I have this bank of world-class coaches. And based on your, in my early conversation this morning, I might include you because you stand for something that nobody else does, but it's a really important thing.

And it's a world changes. So you know what you might be in any way, that's the story. And today I'm still the luckiest man in the world. Things I didn't mention, I got to take a radical sabbatical from my job, you know, resigned. My wife's still work. I'd made a lot of money. You know, I was safe who gets to do that?

My house had a fire. We got to rebuild house with insurance money. We have a brand new home on the side of a hill that looks at the mountains in Los Angeles that I use it to entertain it, to bring clients over here. I feel like, look, and I've been married for 45 years to an angel. I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

And I get, and I know that I'm doing what I was made to do, who gets all that. Who gets to, because a fire clear everything out of their life that they've gathered for 35 years and only keep what they want to keep for the rest of their life. Who gets these things. Oh, I got them. And I get to share that uplifting vision that I see when they play out how, what they are passionate about, what they feel is their gift or their work, or their skill thrives, whom do they touch and how do they touch?

We get to play that out and it becomes real quickly and it happens more quickly, but praise God and they become abundant more quickly. And then they become givers and they become contributors often. They create a brand that they hand off or leave as a legacy. I have one client whose brand name is Money, Truth, and Life.

And it's not about the money. But it puts everything in place. These are powerful in some cases, global brands and they're one person behind it. And they found me and I get to help them define and language their brand. So clearly it cannot be anyone but them. And it's a language that transfers energy, which is necessary for a brand to come alive.

[00:16:18] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Rich, that's quite the story there. And there's so much to unpack there. I'm not quite sure where to begin, but let's start somewhere. So Rich, let me ask you this because I know our listeners out there, they're hearing this wonderful story. You went from the electric violin to the Fortune 50 to global marketing agency set up to where you are today.

But what is the difference between branding and marketing in your world? How do we differentiate with that or do we differentiate branding and marketing from your perspective?

[00:16:49] Rich Kozak: Yes we do, and please do, and I will make it so simple for you. A brand is a perception and it's not your perception. It's the perception of others. So branding is everything you do to create a consistent perception. Marketing comes after branding marketing at its best is the execution of an excellent branding strategy.

Branding is who you are, why you're here, what it becomes, the vision for those whose lives you want to touch. It's all of those things predefined in advance so that you have a foundation. So that marketing executes that, and you get the credit that's consistent. So think of marketing as execution and think of branding as foundational and strategic, hopefully, that is simple.

[00:17:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: So now they were starting to get the foundation from your perspective and your experience. If I'm looking at my business as a business owner, and I understand every business is different, but Rich, I'm going to rely on Pareto's law that 20% of their actions are creating 80% of their success.

But on the flip side, 80% of their failures are probably coming from 20% of some things, perhaps that they're not doing right. So Rich when you're brought into a business. So if I'm a business owner and I say, hey, Rich, perhaps you and I can start working together. I want to have an impact. I want to grow the business.

I want to do some wonderful things out there. When you look at most businesses, what are some of the common mistakes that you can share with us so that our listeners walking out of this episode can begin to look for those mistakes and change them immediately if they're doing them?

[00:18:29] Rich Kozak: First is focused. You know It's typical for a new business owner. Say, I can help anyone. That's like going to a networking meeting and they say would be an excellent referral. And you're a dentist and you say anyone with teeth and nobody can think of anybody because it's not specific enough. But if you say someone who has lost a tooth and is now tooth focused and something just happened to their mouth.

And they're concerned now they can think of somebody, but if you don't define your focus, it's like the old adage. If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. So reverse it. Ask yourself, hey, who can I clearly see helping because of what I do really well, who I really know that this would really help?

And who do I really want to help? And write that down and then think of another one and write that down. If you focus on those, that really need, what you really are good at, and that you really want to help and know you can help. And you focus on that. You're going to help a lot of other people too, but your focus can create if you take it to the language of the business, if you just say anything and everything, it will create confusion. But if you allow that focus to turn into the way your business speaks. That includes looks the way your brand speaks will shape its impact. If you focus on nothing or everything, you won't shape anything.

[00:20:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Rich, that was absolutely terrific. And for our listeners, I really hope you were paying close attention because let's take a look at what Rich was saying on this one insight here. Number one, who can you help? And he was very specific about who is that in your world to come up with not just anybody, but the actual specificity of who it is that you want to help or what that's gonna look like.

So it becomes real. It's not just something out there. It becomes a person in your world, or you're speaking to somebody Rich, as you're suggesting. And you're describing to them exactly what that person looks like or is doing. But the other key thing Rich, that I really appreciate that you said, it was the word help.

We're not trying to sell somebody. We're not trying to take something from somebody we're looking to help somebody. And by looking to help somebody. And then Rich, you're very specific on you get specific of who this person is. That's Absolutely terrific just to bring it down to the baseline here of what we need to look at.

So having someone as a business owner become very specific in what they're looking to do or who the target market is, is incredibly helpful. Are there a few other areas of common mistakes that you can share with us?

[00:21:13] Rich Kozak: Absolutely. I'm going to do a handful that'll be the most helpful and the most common, but the next one is to take credit for what makes you outstanding. To find is a problem when I talked to business owners, it's for that $14 billion company that I ran it, that I, you know, was my client at the agency, but it's also for solopreneurs.

I don't get credit for what I'm really good at. It's like, we're really, really good at this, but somebody else is getting credit for him. We're really good at it. They're not getting credit. So we call that problem. No credit. Okay. You got to fix that. And what I had to tell the CEO that $14 billion company at 389 verified experts worldwide in their field of expertise and they weren't getting credit.

They weren't taking credit. It didn't have a PR program that was telling stories about their experts. They just weren't out there sharing it. So nobody knew it and he was frustrated. Hello, hey, so there were processes to make sure that you get credit for what makes you outstanding.

[00:22:14] Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that taking credit, giving credit, and Rich, as you talk about that in the nine-step roadmap of preparation that we have in the Deep Wealth Experience, our 90-day system, step number two, this is what we call X-Factors that insanely increase the value of your business. And one of the X-Factors, it's what we call four points of clarity.

And within the four points of clarity, it's culture, a company culture is huge. And part of what we consider a Rich and thriving culture is where you have credit that is being given. Like you're saying that we check the ego at the door and if it was a frontline person that came up with the idea, they saved the day, hey, let them get the credit to acknowledge them.

Give that to them. And at the same time, not be shy to have the client know about that because all too often where these unsung heroes and nobody wants an unsung hero, they want to know how terrific you are and what you did. So I really appreciate your suggestion of, hey, firstly, acknowledge that you did something really good and give the credit where the credit is due.

It sounds so simple, but don't confuse simple with simplicity it's very powerful to do easier said than done.

[00:23:24] Rich Kozak: Let's talk testimonials for a moment. When a brand says itself, what is excellent at that's a little different than when someone who's experienced the brand says what the brand is excellent at the second, the latter has a little bit more credibility. It now becomes real to somebody who reads the testimony on says, wow, it must be something going on over there.

I teach branding and how to create language that makes your brand come alive. So like I do this all day long and I teach the right testimonials the perfect testimonials that get you credit and let clients step into them. You can literally send a list of 18 and say, hey, here are some things people say about us.

If you'd like to use one of these, let me know otherwise, write your own. And they might pick one. There are specific words, let's call them characteristics. Let's pick one for you. Philanthropic or Philanthropy centered or envisioning philanthropy for you. It would be a nice characteristic on your desired brand, envisioning philanthropy, not on your own, but the philanthropy of the people that have gone through the Deep Wealth Experience.

And they're at that point where they're giving back and you envision that before you even start with people. And so that getting credit for that, like you could say that yourself, but if you had someone say to you, Wow, you know what I really love. I love that you saw the results before we even got started and that you saw me as giving back and you say to them, am I hearing you say to me that you saw that we envisioned philanthropy, that we're constantly envisioning philanthropy and you love that about us?

Yes, hey, if I wrote that down, would that be a testimony? Yeah, what you did is you just got credit from them, with their name on it, in your brand language, do that. Okay. Now, most people aren't going to sit around and do the rigorous process of creating their own brand language that people struggle with.

That don't even know what it means. You mentioned culture. I have a book coming out called Impact Driven Branding: Seven Steps. It's not a book about branding. It's a how-to book for people that want to impact people's lives. It's called Impact Driven Branding: Seven Steps to Ensure your Brand Impacts People's Lives and the World.

And step four is characteristics. And it literally says in order to make those impacts that you wrote down on those people that you wrote down you started with that. Remember what characteristics must you become and get credit for.

[00:25:57] Jeffrey Feldberg: Amazing in terms of what you're doing.

[00:25:59] Rich Kozak: If I handed you a binder and you read a characteristics page, you would see the company, you would know how it thinks and how it feels when you've done that. That's why everything was aligned and people, they might struggle with it, but that's why I'm sharing it. That's why I do what I do.

[00:26:15] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Rich, let me ask you this, because even the act of writing a testimonial or suggesting a testimonial for a client for so many businesses today, that just doesn't happen. And maybe it's because we've gotten all to use to these online reviews, whereas left up to people to maybe do something, maybe not do something.

And you know what usually happens. Usually, it's the very silent majority who sits on the sidelines. They don't say anything because its surface is pretty good. You get the very loud minority. Who's not happy and they're just painting such a negative picture of what's going on out there, but that's really not the case by and large.

So how do you within a culture of a business? Encourage everyone from the frontline people all the way through to the CEO of the company to be active elder ones speaking with clients, either writing the testimonials or encouraging the clients to get the testimonials out there, how do you get that going?

Because I view that as such an important point for a business to get that word of mouth that's social proof that you're talking about Rich, that really makes all the difference.

[00:27:21] Rich Kozak: You defined it into your business process, just like the sales cycle has a timeline, might take 12 months for you to go from somebody who just finds out about you to they purchase your programs. There is a, you make it part of the cycle. So when their client, at certain points where they're experiencing the light or aha, or joy, rejuvenation, or whatever they are experiencing, that's when you capture the testimonial. So I don't know if I understand what you said about the negativity of letting it, letting a social media define who you are and you get the whiners and the trolls and the whatever. But I also come from a role of virtual events and I was deeply involved in the world of real events and watched people setting up those video cameras and saying, hey, I know you guys are really pumped. Anybody who wants to come over and get in front of a video camera and say like, why you're so pumped about what we're doing here.

Come on over. You catch them when they're pumped. Let me give you one example. So I run a brand accelerator group that in seven days over two months literally defines a language as a person's brand with them, for them I'm in the room and they're there. And other people are there. It's like a focus group and it's marvelous.

And we graduated a group of this past Saturday. that day, I shared the vision of what the brand name and it's taglines were for two of the graduates. And I got gassed like in tears that's when you capture the testimony and just bake it into that interactive feedback loop, customer-centric process of how you do what you do.

[00:28:58] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so far our listeners out there. Again, it sounds so simple. It sounds so easy to do, but it really isn't. But Rich you're saying, hey, when it happens, be ready, be prepared on the spot. Wham. You're there. You're asking for the feedback. When people are already in the emotion, they're in the event, it's happening real-time for them that you're capturing that.

[00:29:20] Rich Kozak: Or in the work, it could be one-on-one. You and me right now and each other over Zoom or talking over the phone and you can go, hey, I just heard you, I just wrote down what you said. Can I read it back here? Would you be okay if I sent that to you in an email and you look at it and tell me, you know, kind of what I heard and I'm going to write that to me and tell me that we can use that? Cause we're looking for people that say how what we do affects them. Sure. And then when you write them an email maybe said here's what I think you said, here's what I heard. And then you rewrite it in your brand language and they go sure.

[00:29:52] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Rich what you're saying, and it's a very subtle nuance, but it's an important one because let's face it, our clients, they're not going to know our brand language. They're not gonna know how we position things or how we say things in the company. So when you're saying, hey, if I heard you correctly, did I hear you say it like this?

And then you're saying it in the business vernacular the business words. And Rich, I think I heard you say it like this and I get that and I say, however, we say it in the company, and Rich, you say, you know what, Jeffrey? Yes, you did. That's exactly how I feel. You're now taking that to press. And if we're honest about it, most people are busy and some of them maybe don't even feel comfortable writing things, but if we're helping them of, hey, did I hear it like this?

And if I got it off base and Rich, you know, Jeffrey no, not quite, you know, when you said this, when you said Zig, I really meant zag that you should have done that. Oh, okay, Rich so it was a zigzag whatever. Yeah. Jeffrey, you nailed it. And that kind of interaction. I just love that because we're getting it real-time from the person.

It's now really their hair experience. We've helped them with the words, but it's really their experience. And we're making all the difference in the world for them. It's such a powerful way to go on and do things. So for our listeners, there is an in the trenches strategy. I hope you picked up on that and whatever you're doing, stop, write the head down and do something today, take action today where you can find an example of where that's happening, and try it and see what happens.

[00:31:19] Rich Kozak: Your clients will appreciate it. They really will. They are lifted up by you telling them that their voice and their language and their comments are important to you and you want to use them, it's not just one-sided. If some people find me or referred to me because they're writing a book or they want to write a book and I have a publishing company called Impact Driven Publishing, where I publish my clients' books and get them listed on the library of Congress and so forth and make sure that they're available on Amazon over the world and make sure they're available digitally.

 And part of the process of writing a book is putting endorsements of the book. This book is really valuable. It's really going to change the world. It's important to people's lives at whatever on the cover. And in the first 14 pages of the book, where if you've got a whole bunch of people in the beginning saying or you opened the book and it's quote, after quote, talking about how important and how good, how useful this book is, or that the work that this person does is just remarkable and it's changed their life.

Literally, when you're about to do that's when you can send out that list of 20 and say here's some things that we know people feel about this work. If any of these resonate with you, just tell us and we'll use it for you. Otherwise, please write your own.

[00:32:24] Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that. And so Rich, let me ask you this. We've been talking really about some things where perhaps business owners are making the common mistakes, but there are always two sides to the coin. And let's talk about what successful businesses that you encounter. What are they doing right from a branding side and from a marketing side, what would be a few examples that our listeners can walk away with?

[00:32:43] Rich Kozak: There are four things that make a brand come alive. I said three, but there are four. And one of them that is absolutely vital is a what are people that are doing it right doing? And it's also what the people that aren't doing it right or not doing. So it's both sides of the coin.

It's concussing, consistent language that transfers energy. So there are two things there, consistency and energy transfer. Let's take them one at a time. Consistency, if Jeffrey, if I ask you, so what do you do? What goes on over there? How do you help people? And you say the same thing, seven different ways.

Because you're so creative. And you think with, or people that say the same thing all the time, what you do is you create confusion and you might create misinformation or someone, instead of using really clear language the same way all the time, that's crafted and include some unique words that only your brand uses because you pointed it maybe you explain them like, oh, we're experts at body intelligent yoga, which is the multi-type, you know, it's like, you use a term they've never heard, but then you define language that transfers, consistent language inconsistency creates confusion.

And you're screwed because if confused mind doesn't buy it, doesn't decide it doesn't do anything. And if they have to say wait a minute. So I thought you did this, but that's that's confusion. And maybe it's misinformation because they're going to share well, you know, Jeffrey, whatever they say because it's their perception and you created it because you could use them so consistent language in the way you say what you do.

Someone came to me was in the financial services business. There are a zillion people who, you know, but he has a heart and he has a specific area that he focuses on very wealthy people that have a lot of cash that they don't want to hand to the stock market or to some investment advisor.

Cause they don't think it's coming back. They worked too hard to make, they're frozen and they don't know who to go to for help. And he lived in that world where he was paid spiffs to sell them whatever he was supposed to sell them this week, you know, insurance or whatever it was that, you know, that's the industry.

And so he came to me and said I suck at marketing. And this is who I am. And oh, by the way, I do prison ministry six nights a week because I know I'm supposed to share that and that's part of who I am. And within the first couple of days of the brand accelerated group, I said, do you want to hear your new elevators speech?

He said, yeah, I said, okay, Frank, what do you do? For years, I served as a financial advisor and there are so many of them until I got to a point where I decided to serve people at a much higher level, particularly committed savers. I created my own company called Safe Savings Options. And today I serve as a savers wealth advocate. Does that help?

[00:35:45] Jeffrey Feldberg: What a difference.

[00:35:46] Rich Kozak: That's what I'm talking about now, what you just heard was a list of let's call them intangible brand promises that would make people flip the side, their head,s and go like, whoa, I want that. What's in there, what's the saver wealth that you know, safe savings options. What are you talking about? It's we've created compelling attracting language to attract who, whom my mom was an English teacher, by the way.

talks to me from heaven. And at home people that have a hundred thousand dollars of cash that they save every year or more. And they don't what to do with it, but they got to protect it and don't make any money off it, but it could be serving them so well. And they don't know, they don't know that it, by doing what the world tells them to do.

They'll get their wealth back in a big old pie, but a huge piece will be taken out. And it doesn't have to be that way, but they don't know that. So it's like we've created a magnet called a desired brand. That's the brand. He must become to make the impacts he wrote down on the people here.

[00:36:41] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. What a transformation and Rich, my goodness we can just go down so many rabbit holes here, and we're going to start to bump into some time here. So talk us through, I know you have situations where you will lead business owners through an experience.

You have a few different kinds of experiences that you do. Walk us through, what is that you're doing? So a business owner comes to you and they want to learn the world of Rich. And by the way, I love how you did a play on your name, Rich with Rich brands. Talk about walking the talk right there.

You're doing that, but you have a few different experiences. You have a one-day intensive, you have a four-hour live workshop. What does that look like? So if somebody wants to learn all of what you're doing, that they can have that impact where their play becomes work, their work becomes play.

What's your process like Rich?

[00:37:29] Rich Kozak: Well, the easiest and first step is not a workshop. It is a half-day called Branding you with Impact, and it helps you reframe how you see what branding you creating you or your work. It might be you personally, and an entity you create, but creating you as a brand needs, particularly from the inside of you.

Not outside, not somebody slapping something on you and going, oh, Jeffrey, you're the red Road Runner of you know, now you have to become it, but it's something that comes from inside of you and is completely and wholly new. And it's defined in a way to attract, okay to think about that. So it's a half-day branding it with them.

When people come to that and they go. Okay, I get this I want to try this process, this seven-step thing. I have a one-day workshop where we go through every one of the seven steps and it's a workshop. It is not some pablum day about, oh, Apple does this and Coca-Cola. I don't do that. Never ever. Okay. It's a waste of time.

It's not relevant to individuals. It's not. And so we talk about them and their problems, their issues. And I actually offered to work with them before that, to make sure they're perfectly ready and have a really well-crafted impact statement to use for every step of the process. So they looked down at the end of the day, they're going and it's coming alive on, I see this, I get this, there's a process.

Oh my God. One day workshop called The Brand You will become. And at the end of that and they go look, I'm in a hurry. How do I go from zero to six? Zero to 60 is the brand accelerator group. And that is seven days, three days a month, two days a month break, two days in eight weeks, all of the seven steps, including all of the characteristics, all of the unique definitions of your expertise and wording them.

So that you're your own category and titles and subtitles of content that you will use for two to four years, all written, all finished, and you have a track to run on it. You can't get off the track and it's totally, you gone that's brand accelerator group, and those are really serious and they hear about it or they get referred to me and they're like, I'm in.

And by the time they graduate all of these things that when they have been done defining and languaging. Language that comes alive and attracts prioritization of target audiences as people they really want to impact because it will impact thousands of others, but the ones that are going to define the brand, they must be done all done.

And they're ready for the brand to launch and they have a plan and they've written it all down. It's remarkable. And so those are events that I do on Zoom and I am recording evergreen webinars. So if people want to get 90 minutes of, you know, what they would have gotten in a day and they want to do it 90 minutes at three in the morning that they'll have that available too.

So that I'm more accessible. And not just accessible only when I do these events. So those are being recorded. And even those little bites, like if you're struggling with logos and taglines, I'll have a section on that and you can just buy that separately or you can buy three of them together, what's integrated marketing.

So remember I said, I could speak for weeks. So I'm going to literally speak into the camera and have those things available so that, oh, you know, I missed, there is something that any lists can have for free right now, and it will touch their lives, maybe bless their lives. And it is go to www.thebrandyouwill become.com and tell me who you are and you get an email with a link and eight total 18 minutes. So it's, you know, it's easy to watch them all. Video answers common branding questions.

[00:41:15] Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that. And we'll put that in the show notes. So for the listeners, it'll be a point and click. You don't even have to remember it. You'll save some time in and you'll get there. But Rich, let me ask you this. When someone begins to work with you and you've given us a few different scenarios of what that could look like, and you know, I know there's no magic bullet out there.

You got to put the time in the amount of effort that you put in is what you're going to get out of that for someone, a business owner, who's working with you now, and they're putting in a reasonable amount of time and effort into the strategies that you're teaching into your system, into your world. When can they expect to start seeing some results?

[00:41:50] Rich Kozak: What I'm seeing is the moment. They want to use things immediately. I tell them, wait until it's all there. But when we've come up with, let's say a coined term that we say, Ooh, you know what, let's use this as a term for the brand. So we turn it purple and we put it in my Tallix and our notes to brand term, we're going to use this term.

They want to start using right away, as long as they know how to clearly define it and speak to it, and maybe we'll make a real-life example. You know how, when you attend a networking group, they give you one minute or 30 seconds to say who you are and what you do

[00:42:29] Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

[00:42:30] Rich Kozak: When that's written. And you internalized it like Frank, like the one I, you know, what do you do, Frank? That one that we did earlier and you deliver it, it starts happening immediately.

So the moment you have a term, a thought, a piece of the desired brand that you're clear on and you can articulate it and you've practiced it. You can start using it. And the moment you start using it, you become more attractive. You create those intangible brand promise moments where people go, oh, I've got to go, but could I have your card?

Those things immediately. And when it's all done, like at the end of brand accelerator group, when everything is in place, there's a timeline for the brand to launch. But you begin using in your speaking, in your meeting, and with your clients immediately, and the consistency and the unique language starts to work right away.

[00:43:25] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. I love that and you know what you're saying it just intuitively makes sense. And you've been doing this for so long. The nice thing about this is for our listeners. You know what Rich, you've been down this path and you're on this path and you've been there for quite some time. And so someone who perhaps is new to this, they get all the benefit of the in the trenches war stories that you have of what didn't work, that you now know what to reverse engineer to have a work.

And that's such a powerful thing of mentoring. Mentoring can be so powerful when you can help people like that.

[00:43:55] Rich Kozak: Jeffrey, you prepare people for the kind of a roadmap to liquidity event when they're going to sell their business and you have a model and you have a 90-day system. And so let's make what we're talking about here, the definition and languaging of a unique desire brand that comes alive and attracts. When you do this early when it's time for that liquidity moment.

Those potential purchasers are going to be saying stuff. And I might not be saying it to your face. And they're going to be saying like, no, what this business really knows who it is willing to really on who they're after my, they're just so clearly have such clarity, the vision they project of what they see for the people whose lives they touch is so clear.

So many brands suck at that. They fall flat, but these people they're really clear who they are and what they do. Look at the language. Oh my God, it didn't just happen. Okay. The earlier you define that language, the brand you will become the stronger you get. And when it's time for that liquidity moment, you have built an asset.

You want to read about that? Read anything by David Aaker. He's been writing books about brand equity and the value of brands since the nineties. You can charge more. You have more customer loyalty. All of these aspects of brand retention is easier.

They refer you. They know what to say because you give it in clear language. You haven't been confused. There's so much there, hey, if you're linking up with Jeffrey Feldberg and going through the 90-day system, and you're, doing the roadmap to your liquidity event, get this done early, build it to sell it.

That's how we connect and what I do, what you do, Jeffrey. I want to say that explicitly. It's clear to me, I know it's clear to you. So I just wanted to say it.

[00:45:38] Jeffrey Feldberg: Thank you. I appreciate that. Rich, we're at the point in the episode where we're starting to wrap some things up. And this is where I get to ask my favorite question. And here's the question for you. Rich, I want you to imagine the movie Back to the Future. And when you think about the movie, you have this magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time that you choose.

So Rich, now imagine that tomorrow morning, you look out your window and there it is. The DeLorean car is there, is waiting for you to hop on in. The door is open. So you go in and you're about to go back to any point in your life. It could be Rich as a child or a teenager, a young adult, whatever point in time you desire, what are you going to be telling your younger self in terms of life wisdom or lessons learned, or, hey, Rich, don't do this or Rich do that. What would that sound like for you?

[00:46:31] Rich Kozak: What a powerful question. I'll answer it with a story, which has the answer at the end of the story. So after I left the agency business, I invested in personal self-development, which a lot of people that are on this call probably have done. So I'm in this one room and it costs me $5,000 to do this thing for a week.

And we're in this room, it has to do with what you're going to do for the rest of your life. And they've created this wonderful, quiet moment. The lights have dimmed. The thousand of us that are in the room are surrounded by life coaches that are ready to kneel down with us at any moment and talk and they ask us, okay, for the next 15 minutes, I want you to think of, if you could do anything for the rest of your life and we would be successful, what would it be?

Write it down and write a picture. And what I wrote down was I had been in self-development work for a year and a half. And I wrote down, I would create a foundation for young people that gave them this work at 14, 15, 16 because I know if I had this language and these awarenesses, I would be on a different rocket and I would be able to help other people a lot more and so on to create the Empowered Youth Foundation to give young people these life lessons early so that they can leverage, I would go back to high school and I would share with myself what I created called empowered youth day.

It was a series of life lessons, oh my God, aha moments for 14, 15, 16, and give it to myself.

 I worked with Lisa Nichols that motivated teens' teen spirit for three and a half years, a world changer, Lisa's amazing. And I was learning to do her work in her teenage rooms as a part of that, knowing I wanted to be an expert at touching teen lives during that period where they don't know like, I didn't know what I wanted to be, but some things are just so out of it or they go through so such horrible anchors and there's no reason for that.

And they disconnect with their parents. They disconnect with their faith and it's a natural teenage thing, but it can be prevented. And Lisa was the master of motivating the teen spirit. And it was out of that, that I created my own curriculum and all this other self-development stuff. So that's my answer and my story.

[00:48:49] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, powerful, insightful, and certainly moving. You know, what, Rich, thank you so much for sharing that. Rich, as we begin to close this out and I'll have this in the show notes if our listeners would like to reach you online, what would be the best place?

[00:49:04] Rich Kozak: You know, It's rich[at]richbrands[dot]org. Send me an email. It's a matter of fact, if you want the seven steps, tell me you want the blueprint and I'll send you the blueprint and jump on a Zoom call and talk about you. I do that for free. I still do. I shouldn't, I should be charging big money, but literally, when somebody says I am struggling, I'll say let's do a Zoom call and literally you'll have me focused on you and in your zone.

 Tell me about you, send me some stuff, and don't struggle with branding. Don't wonder or think it's an albatross or a weight around your neck or something you can't afford or something that's only for big people that the world misinforms about branding.

The world of marketing service sellers uses the word to entrance. This'll be good for your branding oohh but they don't even know if they had to define how to make a brand come alive. They couldn't because they don't know. They just use it to sell things. Even branding people use entrancing language. Well, your essence and this and that, just let it bounce off.

Get straight answers to key branding questions, and go to www.thebrandyouwillbecome.com. Listen to those eight videos, 18 minutes, and then reset how you think about the brand you will become. And it's going to be completely you uniquely you that's the way it should be. You need help with that.

I'm here to do it. The reason I'm writing the book is to hand it to people. So they know they don't need a guru or they just leave the process. I said I got a bunch of coaches because there are things I'm not really good at. And I don't want to take time to do them because I'm going to do what I'm good at.

You might be the same way. If you're not a good writer, there are people that can write the book. It's okay. But we'll outline and make sure your book has a great title and subtitles, and subtitles of the chapters and we bullet point all the content and then somebody else can interview you and write the book.

But you wrote the book, and being congruent. To be congruent with who you are, or you'll always be in conflict. Your brand in this process will be 100% congruent with you. And what you stand for. Who you are. And there'll be a lot more praise God's in the world, and there'll be a lot more liquidity events that don't go south.

[00:51:20] Jeffrey Feldberg: We'll take that here at Deep Wealth. That's really what we're all about. Rich, thank you so much for your time today and for spending part of your day with us here on the Sell My Business Podcast. And as we wrap things up as always, please stay healthy and safe.

[00:51:33] Rich Kozak: Thank you, Jeffrey. It's an honor to be here. Thank you very much. I look forward to connecting with you again.

 (Outro)

[00:51:38] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

[00:51:41] Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

[00:51:51] Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

[00:51:56] Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

[00:52:02] Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

[00:52:18] Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately.

[00:52:40] Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

[00:52:50] Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

[00:53:04] Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even.

[00:53:22] Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

[00:53:49] Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

[00:54:07] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode of the Sell My Business podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help me reach new listeners, grow the show and continue to create content that you'll enjoy.

As we close out this episode, a heartfelt thank you for your time. And as always, please stay healthy and safe. 

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Your liquidity event is the most important financial transaction of your life. You have one chance to get it right, and you better make it count. 

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Enjoy the interview!