Branding Is More Than A Logo…How To Brand a Fast Growing Fitness Business With Jack Lee

You are currently viewing Branding Is More Than A Logo…How To Brand a Fast Growing Fitness Business With Jack Lee

This week’s guest on the podcast is the man that launched a thousand amazing fitness business websites, Jack Lee.

Jack has over 15 years of experience and proven success working with Australia’s leading brands in both print and digital media.

In this episode, Richard and Jack talk about how branding is bigger than the visual identity of a business, how having a brand guide comes in handy when you’re trying to create creative assets for your branding to be consistent and a few tips on how to have the best website for your fitness business.

Tune in!

If you like this episode be sure to subscribe to the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast by clicking here.

Transcription:
welcome back to the marketing muscle up podcast show. I’m your host Richard Toutounji. And in these episodes, we talk all about how to grow your health and. Studio personal refining business GM. And we do that through a whole different array. Now in the, uh, anyone of our programs, our com commuter program, one of the first modules, this is a concept called brand.

And, uh, I know brand has, you know, a lot of people like we all buy from brands, you’re probably wearing branded clothes shoes you got from Nike’s on, and there’s brand everywhere that goes around us. But for some reason, um, and I don’t know the reason because I think what’s happened is. You know, before kind of, um, I like the golden era on Facebook where we could easily put something up and a lead format, for example.

And all of a sudden we’ve got these leads, but the market’s changing. It’s shifting it’s. I call it the new age of, uh, marketing again. And, uh, I want to highlight something that’s been probably by far. The one thing that you cannot compete on ever, and nobody can beat you on there’s no competition in this.

And that is a thing called brand equity, owning your brand. Owning that concept of what your unique about. So I thought I’d bring on the best person for this job. Uh, Jack Lee, uh, Jack’s going to join us in this podcast episode. And Jack usually sits at the back end. Jacks has created many amazing brands, especially in the health and fitness space.

Um, Jack’s been as part of, uh, the comm team for a few years now, and it’s a pleasure having him. And he’s had so many years of experience in this game. Welcome Jack. I’m good. Thank you. Very good. Now, Jack, um, our conversations are usually about, uh, you know, websites and logos and all those kinds of things, really tactical.

And I wanted to pull you out because, um, you have been, you know, you have been creating for many, many years. Well before Canva started isn’t that right? Yeah. I’m 18 years over 18 years. I’d been, um, been a designer. So yeah, it’s been a long time. Uh, it has been a long time, but you just, if you’re watching this, if you’re listening to this on audio, we do have a YouTube version.

If you do want to check that out, Jack does not look a day past 21. So, um, so there’s something there’s something to do with the work that you do, and that’s creating amazing brands for people and especially. All of our clients at com marketing as well. So Jack, take me back to the question of what brand, what brand means to you as a, as a branding expert.

Well, I guess branding is some people think branding is the logo, but really it’s not right. It’s the brand is bigger than just a visual identity. Um, the brand, I always like to treat a brand like a person. So think about you’re, you’re playing a SIM city. You are trying to, you know, the games, create this person that this person, what is going on.

W what is this person’s gonna wear? The, the personality, the attitude, the way this person communicates, um, and the, this person, you know, um, the friends that he can, he or she hangs out with, you know, that’s really important as that’s all kind of part of the brand. So, you know, so I guess if you think of it as a person, the brand, you know, for example, column for you guys, um, associated with.

Punish it without the like-minded, um, business, for example. So, you know, there’s all the friends that you hang out with. So then really shaped who, who you are as a brand, what your brand is. So, you know, I guess you kind of have to really focus along, you know, how you’re going to speak to, you know, your customers, uh, the tone of voice you should be using when speaking to customers, um, and you know, branding as in like blending identity, um, you know, the logo and the look and feel the color, I guess it would be kind of like, you know, the way.

Dress the way you come across this, you know, it’s not part of the, I think it’s really important to kind of think about it as a, as a whole. There’s a whole entity and it is interesting. Cause I think a lot of people go, oh, I’ve got a logo. I’m good at my brand’s done. You’re talking about, you know, who you’re hanging around, who your partner.

And that’s really interesting. Uh, that’s an interesting concept there. So it really comes down to, I mean, especially, let’s say it. Uh, a smaller operators or solo operator, you know, they may have a logo, but a big part of their brand is themselves. I mean, what, how does, how do they navigate that? If, if they don’t, you know, people are judging what shirt we’re wearing, is that what you’re saying?

Well, we were constantly being judged all the time. Right. People watch as you on your logo or on, you know, um, the things that you put out to, you know, on social media, for example, people will, you know, if you, if you don’t communicate the right way, Uh, if your logo where the colorism, you know, communicate to your right target audience, you know, you’re probably not, not very good.

So yeah, you need to really figure out, um, identify who are you trying to attract to identify your target audience? What kind of personality they are and you know, what kind of the style or, you know, what, what, what appeals to them like. At the end, you want to sell stuff to them. So, um, interesting concept.

So it’s like walking into your favorite store, let’s say retail store. I think you’re wearing a Nike shirt there. Jack. Maybe I’m not sure I’ll do limit and I apologize. That’s why I look way better than the knife. It fits. Yeah. It ran themselves very well run. So, you know, well, yeah, I mean, they bring themselves totally different tonight, for example.

Uh, Jack. And when I walk into live in them and saw you feel something. Calmness and you always feel healthier just walking in there. Right. And basically like take all my money. Exactly. We’re not a bit more, a bit more fitnessy isn’t it it’s a bit more like let’s, let’s let’s crush something. Let’s let’s do something strong.

The price point makes a difference night has been more affordable for, um, I guess a younger generation like younger kids as well. You know, teenagers up to twenties. Cause I don’t think Tim’s can really afford Lulu lemon. Like they don’t want to pay $80 for a pair of shoes. I mean, you think Nike is expensive, then you go, Lou lemon, you go on.

Nike’s cheap. Isn’t it? Yeah. So, so you’re right. They’re attracting a different audience and that’s a very interesting point. You talked about Jack Price point, even, you know what I mean? So when you’re charging a higher price point, you’ve got more premium customers. Is that, is that the summary of that? Um, I guess it’s very different, what you need to figure out what your strategy is.

Um, this, you know, that’s why a 45 charges a little bit more because they’re, you know, they’re not, people will commit to whether they will keep coming back because they’re paying a little more, but some people might not want to pay that much money. So it’s, it’s, there’s a marketing those. So it’s really, you gotta figure out what your, um, tactics.

Um, very interesting. Uh, very, very interesting. And I think it’s so true. Like I walked into Lu lemon who 10 years ago, and I just walked down. I go, who would pay such a thing for sure. Yeah. But because they’re pricing highest. So that’s trying to attract a different income, right. Break it. Um, people arrive, it’s almost like going to Louisville it’s home, you know, like.

People. No, not many people can afford it, but they want to be associated with that. Yeah. Very interesting brand association. I think this is super interesting. So, um, Let’s talk about then the basics. Uh, we go to a website, we go to a logo, um, over the years, Jack, there’s a plenty of websites out there. You know, one of them, you know, won’t mention names like fiverr.com.

For example, for five bucks, you can go and get yourself a logo designed and, and, and the market’s gone flat over the, over the years. You’ve got things like Wix websites. We’ve got canvas for designs. I mean, Uh, I personally see there’s a little bit of, I think it’s a good thing, but I also see a lot of problems with this where we’re thinking that it’s almost like an, a super unfit.

Person’s never walked to a gym just because the gym 24 hours, we can go and we understand how to get in the best shape of our life. And I’m seeing this a lot more with people because we’ve got these sites, but their branding doesn’t look any better. Because they can design themselves. What is what’s happening in this space at the moment, Jack?

Well, really. Is definitely a place where can buy five weeks, all these platforms, because if you’re just starting out, you probably don’t have a lot of money. So you want to, you know, usually you want it to everything yourself. So you really need to figure out what, you know, your business, you know, where you are at.

Um, at the star. Yeah. You know, you want to test out the water, you know, go and get a logo design. There’s really cheap. Uh, you know, just get a start-up that’s that’s totally fine. But when you’re into your business, maybe two or three years is starting to get traction. You know, it’s doing, it’s kind of steady now, so you probably want to invest to kind of, to make sure your brand is consistent.

You want to get someone, you know, or, you know, maybe your you’ve been working for so long. You kinda know how to work around that. But if you, if you’re not very good at design or very not very creative, you probably should really hire someone to kind of figure out the two. Give you a clear, a direction where it should be going.

Um, you know, making sure all your branding for visual branding is consistent, making sure your website is, you know, alive functioning correctly, you know, more about framing, all those kinds of stuff. So, yeah. Um, at the start, if you’re, if you, if you, if you’re just starting out yes. You know, why not? But if you have the budget, definitely, you know, if you have.

Because if you don’t know how to design and do something, it’s not going to be on brand that you’re talking about. And so it’s almost like when I first got out, I didn’t know anything about zero, you know, um, how to conceal my accounts and stuff, but yeah. I’ve learned, but then now I’m into my business a couple of years now.

I’m like, ah, who’s got time for this boring shit. Sorry you outsourced that.

So yeah. Instead of spending hours and hours, trying to figure out, you know, does this look good or not? And if you’ve got the time, it’s like anything, get the expertise. So it reflects well in what you’re trying to get to because I always check always. To, uh, let’s say for a personal trainer, I go, well, what’s a client worth to you, Mr.

Personal trainer. And, um, let’s say you’re charging $80 a session and you do two of those sessions. That’s 160 bucks a week. Your times out, let’s say by 52 weeks, that’s like $8,320. So I mean, to me, I look at it and going well, is the brand and design. On par or are you going to, so it’s not what you’re saving sometimes.

It’s what it’s costing you. Is it costing you an $8,000 client because your logo or because you used a stock image or because you thought you just quickly do that. That’s what we’re talking about here. Right. We’re talking about loss of, and I guess, yeah. And you know, you can keep, and I guess it’s more like, You can keep building your business, or if you want to build a brand as a brand brand attracts loyalty is that, but if you just keep working on business, you don’t need, you know, like you can keep getting word of mouth from clients, you know, you don’t need, you know, if you’re busy enough, some people don’t even bother, you know, what can they brand?

But if you really want to be a brand. That you can sell off in the future or, um, you know, a brand that, you know, they’ve built, um, brand loyalty and you don’t want to sell merchandise and stuff, then you probably need to focus on, um, you know, these kinds of things like branding elements, like branding, identity branding.

Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. Because again, you know, it’s like even, uh, you know, Facebook, we can launch a lead ad straight away without going to. But again with the amount of competition, uh, that’s against us. I always say that brand is the only thing that you can’t. Um, the only thing that you can’t say, somebody can’t copy you on that.

Like, I mean, they can get close to it, but if you have brand loyalty, um, you look at the Lululemon example of the Nike example, like people to do reports all the time, but it’s not the same.

So Jack, a bit of a curve ball question for you. I know you enjoy those ones. Um, uh, I love working with Jack too, because it’s, it’s, you know, you’re, you’re a creator, but you understand what a business owner needs as well. And that’s a, that’s a, that’s a really key element there because you can even have design and they go super creative.

The question is just creative. So, um, you know, so it’s fine. That makes them, I guess my, my, my curveball question is like, how do you be creative when you’re just simply not a creative person? Do you have any strategies that you do? I mean, do you hype yourself up in the morning and go, Hey, let’s design, is it like writer’s block?

Like, do you have to be in a to create? And my whole group, I have my whole morning routine max to meditate.

I have coached shower. I through my. Breathing, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I’ll do visualization. Tell myself, yes, I’m going to be creative, to be honest. You know, I like, I think I do quite a bit of self development, you know, I, I, um, uh, I, you know, I do like ongoing learning for, you know, just small courses for like design courses, branding courses online.

Um, sometimes, um, I need to step out, look. If you worked with me sometimes you’re like, oh, how long it’s taking a while. Because sometimes to be creative, I need to actually work for everyone. They need to step away from what they’re currently working on and then come back and then tweak it because, you know, a job can be taken maybe like four or five hours, but then.

None of us will work for five hours. This project, like all at once, because you know, there’s not, you’re not going to be creative for that long cause, you know, like, and then because sometimes you have to step away and then come back and realize, okay, this needs to, we need to treat this to make this look better or, you know, um, different ideas and yeah.

Okay. So I’m glad you say that. It’s not just me. That just goes, Hey, I I’ve got to, I’ve got to get out. I can’t do this. And you come back the next day and it’s like, everything’s a bit fresher. Yeah. And then, uh, maybe it depends on your mindset. So I usually do my creative work, um, in the morning. Cause I feel like, you know, a bit more energetic kind of date, um, and just stay creative.

I kinda go on Pinterest. A lot of. I’ll be the one that I can see some ideas, um, or, um, behinds is pretty good as well. So yeah, just, you know, constantly, you know, archive, you know, finding pictures that you like archive in a way, and then, you know, that’s how it, yeah. Great. I’ve been just doing that a lot things.

I like on a, if I’m, I’m searching through Facebook, Instagram, I just like take screenshots of my. And okay. Oh, that’s a good idea. And then it’s so much easier after that. Right. It gets it out. Well, that’s a really good guy. Yeah. But also like sometimes I know for a small business a lot, um, they’re, they’re going on, Pinterest they’re found, find something they like, and then all of a sudden they’re trying to recreate it’s time to copy it, but then you need to be careful because you’re trying to copy it, but you need to really know your branding.

Well, you don’t want to do, and I go. Your branding identity and then completely, because just because she finds something that you like, so you gotta be careful, you know, you can adopt some graphic elements that, you know, that incorporates your existing branding, but you don’t want to just go deal with a completely different direction.

Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. And I think that’s the problem with cannibis. Canva. It’s a lot of different templates we use. And then all of a sudden, all right, I’m going to do a social post. And then all of a sudden I see something that I really love as a template, but it’s completely different visual than what your branding is.

So people just kind of create that and then put it out there. And then, you know, your audience, you know, mechanism association with your brand. So to kind of be careful with that, what worked really well for us, Jack, when you rebranded our com uh, icon, he said, Richard, you want. Totally different or very similar.

I said, ah, I might just go similar. Well, you started from, it’s still completely different near you. We’ll come back to refresh. Yeah. Just a little refresh. What you did really powerful for us and what you do for our clients too, is that you gave them a guideline. So, you know, things that we could take and use on camp.

Um, and like, it could be a color theme or it could be a certain pitchers that we should be using or certain like blobs or sort of little graphics you create. And that that’s really powerful. So then you can, you know, the boundaries and you don’t have to recreate all the time. I think that’s super powerful for businesses that don’t have.

So with that rebranding, you should be getting a brand new style guide, right? So it’s basically a rule book, what you should be doing with your brands. So the color, um, color palettes, the phone you should be using, um, and, and in associated graphics. And, you know, like I said, some of the branding, God, I can be like a Bible can be really big, you know, like even like how to, you know, the font size, you know, like all the lettings and Kearney, but you know, it’s just small business.

Just keep it a lot of a simpler, um, I think that, yeah, yeah. Um, or another curve ball question for you, Jack what’s what’s. Okay. What’s the best brands that you really love? Like what’s, you know, where, where does your, I know you were talked about it before, but what’s a, what’s a brand that you really want.

Well, um, go with the obvious one. Maybe apple, apple is a really good brand apple. Yeah. They do claim that, communicate with the audience really well. And you know, like their website is very mobile-friendly. So also, you know, like making yourself really mobile friendly and very, um, Um, what’s the word? Um, very, um, interactive, the swelling.

Um, they they’ve done that very well. Um, Um, and Monaco magazine is a good, another good one that I, um, that I buy. Um, cause I love magazines still cause in our life, the feel of the paper and, you know, Monaco, Monaco is a, um, Canadian magazine I think. Yeah. Um, and they’ve developed their brand. So while they, they even sell merchandise and then a big following, um, another one is a startup, you know, scheming.

Care range. So you know that brand new. Yeah. I liked that brand. Oh, it’s almost like sometimes with a store and they got the free taste. It’s like, Ooh. Yeah. And then you’d go in there. It’s like, the interior is amazing and you know, like everybody would have a ASAP hand-wash these days. And so many other companies copied the bottle.

The designs are there clearly they’ve done it. Right. Great job. Yeah. Very interesting. I love the way you look at brands and I think this is an easy step for anybody. Who’s trying to figure out what their brand is. Um, I did that when I was building my studio and my zoom studio, and I went around the Westfield and I just looked around at all the stores and how they would design.

What do they use wood or TVs and it, you get a lot of great ideas because they’re spending a lot of money on their brand and especially the setup of their brand. Um, all right, Jack, I know you built a lot of websites. You’ve been a lot, a lot of websites. How many websites do you think you’ve built Jack?

Like a rough, rough seven and dock then what do you think?

yeah, definitely 51,000, no 50 websites. I reckon. Well, maybe you love, but more, I can’t ask you to over 18 years, over 18 years, how many ways, but I didn’t really stop building web sites from the very start. Remember, I’m actually trained as a designer and not many designers actually builds websites that I actually self-taught myself to build websites later on.

Um, so I kind of have. I you, you hire an architect, but it’s, this is Hannah Hart. A better question is how many logos. Ah, to manage 50,000. I don’t even, I designing logos to be honest, it takes so long time to design a logo and people, people don’t appreciate you, blah, you know? Yeah. People don’t appreciate the time.

I always appreciate Jack the designer here cause he could get the logos. Don takes a bit too. They get it done. It gets done right the first time. Um, let’s say our website. So Jack, what are your top three? Um, what are you, what are your top three ways to improve a current website that’s possibly underperforming?

You know, what are some adjustments that you could tell you web developer to go and action straight away? Well, um, the most important paths, do you have a call to action button? That’s really obvious if you want people land on the website. You want them to, if you want to sell something to them or you want them to inquire and make sure that people can inquire.

So the call to action button is obvious enough for them to go. All right, I’m interested. Where do I get in concert with you? So, you know, that’s really important. Um, and making sure it’s mobile friendly. ’cause you know, these days, I think they’re saying, you know, majority or people use mobile. It’s definitely well put voluntarily past the 50% mark.

Yeah. But feel conversion happens on this top dark because people still prefer to buy things on that on desktop, they will do their research on mobile. So, um, yeah, so I’ll probably I’ll really focus on, um, more about, and really, you know, um, really. You know, testing is really important. Um, making sure you show your target audience, you know, your, your websites, you see how they feel and really tested out for a month to see how the user, you know, what the user experiences lie.

And it’s keep optimizing that, you know, like some people think, okay, website has done now and then desert, they never do any more upstairs. I feel like, you know, It’s an ongoing theme. It’s kinda like going in a house, you, the housework never stops. Right? You need to, um, I feel like I’m making a seasonal, um, seasonal update is always really good for your websites to, so it’s fresh content, you know, every season and, you know, um, add in lots of resources, blogs or something like that.

It’s really good. It’s just, you know, all this kind of stuff. It’s really good for ACR and. Just to generate more traffic. Yeah, love it. So click clear contact button and, um, it sounds easy, but there’s a lot of websites that just don’t do that. They actually forget about that. That basic re-skill that people would just go there and get the details, uh, mobile responsive, super important.

Um, and especially too, that’s a good idea. When you are designing a website, the designer will send it back to you and you have a look at it in desktop. You have a look on your nice 27 inch apple. But then you actually forgot to look it on the mobile site as well. And it’s like a total nother experience.

So don’t forget to check that that’s for sure. And, um, the last point there is ensuring that it’s, uh, it’s friendly. It, uh, it ranks and it can rank and so forth. What’s the best app for SEO. Yeah. I use an app called uh, well, I use a plugin if you’re using the WordPress site, that is, I use the plugin code, rank math.

So is, um, I think, yeah, a lot of people use. Um, I gained, but I think rank math is a better plugin. So what it does is it’s free. I mean, you can do a pay one. It says, what did that? It will calculate a score for your each page out of a hundred. And then, then you can go into each, your page and then put in there, you know, it will give you, uh, Suggestions of the meta-tags you should be putting in the keywords, you should put it in and then they give you a rank that obviously the higher out of a hundred, it is the better the pages it’s going to rank better.

So that I think, um, yeah, I think rank matters. Right. Yeah. Great. I haven’t heard that one before. I’m going to check that out. I think I that’s what I put on your side though. So, oh, rank. Math’s great. I’m glad you got the best stuff on our site. That Jack that’s the way. Good to hear. Good to hear. Um, well this has been super informative.

Uh, love your work, Jack. This is a very good, and I, you know, as you know, I’m a massive believer in brand Jack, uh, brand personality. Um, you know, brand doesn’t, you know, it’s not just the logo. It’s like, I I’m obsessed with this because I, you know, there’s just, you know, competition is everywhere, changes all the time, but there’s one thing that you can never beat and it’s brand like nobody can beat you.

Um, and if you build it well and you create a great tribe of people, you have a lot of that, a lot more options of what you can do in your business. You could sell it for more money. Um, I’ve sold businesses just on the brand. You can sell it for more money. You can charge more, more to people. You can retain staff better.

Um, and you know, just those items alone is so valuable. Uh, to keep building that concept. A lot of people are in this game for a long time. And I just, I, I hate when people walk away with nothing and they haven’t built up any kind of brand equity, it’s just themselves, themselves, themselves. And so it’s definitely something to think about.

If you are a solo owner here and you don’t have a brand, maybe in 2022, this is one of the secrets to start marketing a little bit better is to build a solid brand equity, um, logo. Uh, branding guidelines and start working, uh, start working is probably because by favoring, even Facebook ads, Jack much cheaper with brand equity in their conversions, a better once people know their brand.

So yeah. Anything else you wanted to add Jack before? Not, um, that’s pretty much it amazing. Well, um, guys, if you want to see more, Jack’s amazing work. You can check out some of the sites he’s done on calm, creative.com. I’ve put a link in there. Um, you’ve worked for probably the Mo the most, uh, you know, probably the major fitness brands in Australia.

I would say Jack. Yeah, you’ve, you’ve been. A lot of them. Yeah. All the live far legs, fitness network. In-situ fitness. What a big. Yeah. A few of them. Yeah. Everybody knows Jack. So, um, guys, thank you, Liz, for listening to this episode about all about brand, uh, Jack Lee, you can check out somebody’s work on calm, creative.co he’s in our com marketing community.

And, uh, if you ha, if you are in that community and you’ve designed something, can Jack give this episode, like give Jacobin love and, um, you know, tag this episode and say, Hey. This is my designer. Um, and, um, you know, that’s going to really help to help the next person to start making this industry better and start charging more when we, when we do things the right way, instead of the quick way.

Thanks team. I’ll catch you next time on the marketing muscle up podcast show.