AJV (00:02): All right. Welcome to a recap episode on the influential personal brands. One of your co-host AJ Vaden here, and I’m doing my recap conversation on my conversation with Tiffany and Leon from Tiff’s treats. They are the founders and owners of Tiff’s treats, which is a $5 million business. They started it in college together, have grown it to incredible success, but they are also launching their very first book together which comes out on April 5th. So what did I learn from these two incredible entrepreneurs and now published authors? So he, here are my three key takeaways as we often share on our recap conversation. So number one this was probably the number one thing that I took away and something that I’m absolutely gonna turn around and instill at brand builders group is the idea that as the owner, as the founder and maybe no, not even that, but someone in the company has to be the brand protector. AJV (01:08): There has to be someone looking out for the reputation of you and your company’s brand. Most often that probably makes more sense for it to be the founder or owner, but there are people who look out for the finances. There are people who look out for revenues. There needs to be someone who says this is not in line with the brand. So the answer is no. Even if it costs you money, even if it costs you time, there has got to be someone who is the brand protector of going. There are things we say yes to. There are things that we say no to, but at the end of the day my job is to protect the brand and the, of this organization or for yourself. Right. how often do we, as individuals who are building our own personal brands, say yes to everything, then all of a sudden what we stand for and our own business becomes diluted because we talk about everything. AJV (02:01): We have different business models, different ideas. We, we could speak on anything. We write about everything and simultaneously we’re not clear on anything. And I thought that was really good. It’s like be willing to say no to protect the brand, loved that. I can think of like three instances in our own company right now where it’s like, no, I just need to put my foot down and go, that’s not in line with who we are. My job is the brand protect protector. So the answer is no, it may cost us money, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it in the long run. So good. So, so, so good. Second thing that I thought was really good and also I have a little insider Intel on this one, cuz I got a gal copy of the book. But I just love the concept of you don’t have to have a lot to get started, but we all think we do. AJV (02:52): We think we need all this technology. We think we need huge followings. We think we need investment money. We think we need all these things per perfected. And the truth is we don’t, we just need to get started. Right. I, I loved hearing the story of how they started. They were 19 in college, started with 20 bucks, a cell phone with her skill set that baking cookies and you using his college apartment. That’s not much right. And there’s beauty in the naivety of all of that. So you know, that old saying ignorance is bliss. And as we get older we just become less ignorant to things and simultaneously become a little jaded. But what if we stop doing that? What if we looked for real opportunities to do things that we were passionate about and we opened up our eyes to every single opportunity right around us. AJV (03:49): We don’t do that as much anymore. And I so want to bring that back into it’s like, there’s no reason this couldn’t work, except for us believing that it could work. But what if we just said, no, I believe it can work. And so that we will find a way that it will work. Right. I don’t remember who said this. But I’m gonna quote it, even though I can’t give credit to the person that the credit is due to, but there is evidence and whatever you wanna find, right? It’s like, whatever is the truth that you, you will find evidence for. Just that. So why don’t we choose to go? There is, there is a way and then we find ways to support that it’s possible. And this is how we’re gonna get there. Such an inspirational reminder to me of going whatever we believe is true, but if we could just believe that it would work, believe that there’s an opportunity. AJV (04:43): That doesn’t mean it’s gonna make it easy or simple. But it does make it possible. It does make it possible. But starting with 20 bucks on a cell phone you can’t really have more bare minimum requirements than that. And I would just say it’s like a great reminder from this conversation is you don’t have to have much to get started. You just have to be willing. I think that’s a really great reminder for all of us who find plenty of opportunities and excuses to not do what that calling is on our heart, what we feel called to do what we’re passionate about, because we think we can’t now the answer is you can, you just, won’t great, great moment in this interview today. For me, it’s like, whatever you believe you’ll find evidence for just that last thing. And I love this, nothing. AJV (05:33): This is really important is making time and space to learn why your customers use your brand so wise and also sometimes so overlooked. We look for, how do we find our target audience? How do we grow revenues, grow our client base, retain ’em. How about spending just as much time of going, why do they use us? Like, what is it about us that sticks out to them? So creating those opportunities for conversations and feedback and stories whatever those may be of actually digging in and saying like, here’s a place where you can submit your stories. Here’s where you can give us our feedback. Like we actually wanna talk to you, tell us, what’s go going on. How’d you find us? Why are you using us? And then creating elements every step of the way of going, why do you use us? AJV (06:24): Why did you buy from us? Why do you continue to use us? And that creates your own ammunition for how you should market and who your audience is and what your audience wants from you and what you should keep and what maybe doesn’t matter you think does, I love feedback. I love customer feedback. But it’s like, even in this conversation, I’m going so much of the feedback is not asking, why did you pick us? Ugh, like such an aha moment. I’m going, Ugh, geez. Still so much to learn still so much to do. But such a great, just remind from people who have been so successful in business started with an idea and a dream and has grown it to a half billion dollars in revenue launching their first book and just wanna give the behind the scenes, look at what it likes to be married. Be in business, grow a family, grow a company and all the details in between. So again, I said it go check out this book. So excited to support just fellow entrepreneurs and fellow authors. So go to cookie delivery.com/bain, our last name, you’ll get a discount code and a link to pick up the book. So stick around, come back, catch another episode at the influential personal brand.