Episode 383: Unlocking the Halo Effect in Business Growth
In the realm of business growth, branding and productivity are closely intertwined. Its main obstacles usually are internal beliefs, fear of judgment, and impatience in the branding journey.
In this episode, Adam dives deep into the concept of the “Halo Effect” and how it can provide a competitive advantage for business owners. Joined by Klaudia, Head of Brand at Big Business Events, they explore the connections between branding, productivity, and business growth, providing actionable takeaways to help listeners enhance their business visibility and operational efficiency.
Adam and Claudia discuss the crucial role that branding plays in driving productivity and reducing inefficiencies within a business. The duo highlight how a powerful brand can speed up client acquisition processes and the overarching benefits of building a “Halo Effect.”
Show Highlights:
- Understand how building a strong brand can create a “Halo Effect” that enhances productivity and growth in all business areas.
- Learn about the internal challenges business owners face, such as belief issues and fears about personal branding, and how to overcome them.
- Appreciate the step-by-step process of brand building and why it’s essential to start local and gradually build up.
- Discover how a powerful brand can reduce inefficiencies and speed up business operations, from client acquisition to team building.
- Recognize the importance of consistency in brand activities and the long-term commitment required for successful brand building.
Links Mentioned:
Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172
Adam’s website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod
Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod
Connect with Adam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamstottcoach/?el=Pod
Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod
Coaches, consultants, and business owners – lower your marketing costs, increase ticket prices, and get more high-ticket clients: https://3daybrandbuilderworkshop.com/start-here?el=Pod
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
[00:01:09] Adam: So how do you as a business owner become a product owner? productivity machine on today’s episode of business growth secrets. I’m really going to get deep into the nitty gritty of becoming more productive and getting more done fast, which is something I truly believe all business owners need to get the hang of.
[00:01:33] Speed is a weapon. Productivity is a weapon in our armory that is going to allow us to get more growth. Today I have the wonderful Klaudia joining me for her podcast debut. How you doing?
[00:01:45] Klaudia: All good. Hello everyone. Great to be here. My first podcast with Adam. So yeah,
[00:01:51] Adam: Super
[00:01:52] Klaudia: excited.
[00:01:52] Adam: Klaudia is our head of brand. So behind the scenes, she is working on the branding elements of what we do. She’s been actually instrumental in motivating me to do many more podcasts, right? And getting lots done, which is super cool. She helps us to build the brand of the business has some great insights.
[00:02:09] She’s very productive herself. And you got some great questions for me. So, Klaudia, what you got this dive right in and tell me what we’re, what the questions that we’ve got today all around productivity and we’ll take it from there.
[00:02:21] Klaudia: Okay. So productivity is a big deal when it comes to business. And I also know that in terms of what you teach, you’ve devised this methodology called the halo effect.
[00:02:31] How did you identify branding as a key driver of productivity and business growth? And do you see the connection between the two?
[00:02:39] Adam: 100%. So when we look at that, it’s a really good question. The halo effect. I will need to explain that to anybody that doesn’t quite understand it. The halo effect is about you building a brand that really allows you to stand out in the market.
[00:02:54] So people know who you are, know what you do. They build a relationship with you before they get to the point where they make an inquiry. Before they get to the point where they buy a product or service, they’re actually building a relationship with you and it shines over your business. Now, the way that you build halo effect is by using OPM.
[00:03:12] That’s not other people’s money. A lot of the time, it can be other people’s media or media. In itself to become more known that media could be social media, your own media channels that media could be actually getting out into the media, getting featured in world class magazines, local magazines to start off with or local newspapers that media could be other people’s podcasts that media could be your own podcast etcetera.
[00:03:37] So how does productivity linked to the halo effect? Well, the more you become known, the faster things get done. So, for example let’s take an example of an inquiry coming into the business. Typically, somebody needs to see a message between, depending on who you who you get your data from seven to 15 times to be able to build familiarity before they then take action on that message.
[00:04:09] So that means the amount of advertising messages that we put out to market seven to 15 times. Well, the more well known you are, the quicker, yeah, the faster that you can turn that. Visibility into an inquiry, right? So the productivity from the halo effect comes that you’re building that brand it speeds up the inquiry which makes you in turn More productive it also improves your conversion rate when it comes to sales.
[00:04:35] So example if you’re booking 10 Sales meetings, 10 consult calls, or you speak to 10 people, whatever it is, if you are completely unknown, it is going to take you a lot of time to build know, like, trust and relationship with someone. Whereas if you’re building a brand, it increases your conversion rate, increases the speed of trust, which increases the amount of business and deals that we get done quicker.
[00:05:00] Therefore, making us more productive. But it expands far further than that. You can tell I get excited about this because people just don’t get it, don’t understand it, haven’t perhaps acknowledged it. Let’s look at other doors. Because basically, what does the halo effect do for productivity? It opens doors.
[00:05:20] for you quickly and speed is that weapon that we need to move forward. So I’ll give you another example. It comes to building your team. The bigger your brand, the more well known you are, the more likely somebody is going to want to work for your business, or they’re going to want to work with you, want to work for you.
[00:05:39] That could work with employees, recruiting top people. talent that can work in many different ways. I’ll give you an example. Let’s pick someone really well known at the moment. Let’s say you’re applying for a few jobs with marketing agencies and you look at them and you’ve got one in your local area.
[00:05:53] This is a just a good way for a recruitment example. You look at a marketing agency, it’s in a local area, and you’re like, okay, they look really good, they’re five minutes around the corner, they’re paying really good money, you like them on the website, they look great, that’s option number one. You’ve got an option number two, you’ve got, you work for this big London agency, and you know, they’re really, you’re a top talent, and you’ve got the opportunity to go to this top London agency, and you’re thinking, oh, you know, that, that’s great.
[00:06:17] That sounds pretty good. I could go a bit further. Maybe I could earn a bit more money. And then you look at the next row and the next row is you’ve got to travel probably an hour further every day, but you can actually work with, say, someone really well known. Like Stephen Bartley is recruiting for his agency and you’re going to go and you’re going to work for Kim and you’re going to be directly a part of his team.
[00:06:37] You know, which one are you more motivated to go and work for? Absolutely. That brand is drawing the talent, you know, he has a great personal brand, which means he’s well known. Which means more people want to work with him. It’s the same in the instance of brand. If you want to get a deal done, you want to get a deal done fast.
[00:06:54] If you’re Richard Branson is one phone call to raise a hundred million where for a business owner that has no brand, it’s a lifetime to raise a hundred million. So the speed and the productivity that the halo effect creates throughout every area, the business makes you more productive and speeds up every aspect of your business.
[00:07:12] Klaudia: That’s a great answer. I don’t have a powerful brand, but it needed to be quite right. A powerful brand can take you such a long way opens the doors. Absolutely. Let’s talk about. things like reducing inefficiencies within a business and improving the client acquisition process. Do you think that the halo effect has a specific sort of helping hand in eliminating things like this?
[00:07:41] So making a business operate more efficiently and so forth. What are your views?
[00:07:47] Adam: Hey, everyone. Hope you’re enjoying the podcast. We’ve got a free training that I’m doing right now online from the comfort of your own home called Stand Out Brand. What this does is it shows business owners how to get noticed on social media, stand out.
[00:08:02] Get more leads and get more sales. So if you want to make more money in your business, head over to adamstop. com forward slash SOB. That’s adamstop. com forward slash SOB and join us on the free three day workshop, stand out brand. I think the brand will seep into everything that you do. And then if you build again we’re, it really comes down to brand again and how you build brands.
[00:08:30] So let’s look at. Let’s say we’re building a brand and we’re very clear. On how we’re going to get, so there’s different parts of the brand. There is the pre work of a brand, which I know you understand. And then there is the proactive part of a brand where you’re going out and you’re doing activity.
[00:08:45] So activity for a brand might be, you know, you’re launching a book activity for a brand might be you’re featuring the media activity for a brand might be that you’re winning awards. You’re doing all these different things, right? Or you’ve got a podcast that you’re recording, et cetera. But the pre work for a brand which is.
[00:09:00] Which is really important is that we’re gonna take two steps back to work on the business. We’re gonna put our heads together and we’re gonna understand overall what we’re trying to accomplish, what we want to be known for, who we want to attract and all of that pre work that we do before we then go and do our proactive work afterwards.
[00:09:22] And basically a lot of people don’t do this now when you talk about productivity, which is super important, right? In linked into the question is linked to the halo effects is that when you step back and you say, right, what’s the core purpose of this business? Why does this business exist? What are we trying to accomplish in this business?
[00:09:43] Which if you’re a business owner, you’re watching this right now. This is a question that you should be aware of. This is a question that you should be considering. This is a question that can affect your choices. So say that we understand the core purpose of the business. Why does this business exist?
[00:09:59] Give an example. Why does big business events exist? Why do we do what we do? The reason we do what we do is because the failure rate of businesses out there is so high when it doesn’t have to be because people start businesses not knowing how to run them. And because of that, they often run into challenges.
[00:10:17] Our mission. Is to make business education available to as many businesses as possible and to at a very minimum and our big goal is to take a thousand businesses to a million pound in revenue and there’s two branding elements there, which one is the core purpose of why we exist and where does that core purpose come from?
[00:10:38] Where it comes from when I was starting a business in 2008 I was driven, I had determination, I desire, but I also had no idea what I was doing. When I first did, I made loads of mistakes. I paid my Jews in pain, right? Rather than paying my Jews in money through just consistent mistakes, right? At the beginning.
[00:10:58] And I built this business and created this business because I know how that feels. And I don’t want other people to have to do that. It’s a lot easier to get the knowledge, to get the education than it is to make the mistakes. Now, why does that matter to you and how does that matter in relation to this question?
[00:11:13] The reason that matters to you watching is if you’re clear on your core purpose as to why your business exists and you’re clear on your mission that you’re going on, what you’re trying to accomplish with this business, and you’re clear on who it is you help, and you’re clear on how you help them, and you’re clear on all of these different aspects, It speeds everything up in the organization because it means that you don’t get distracted.
[00:11:40] The enemy of productivity actually is distraction because if you’re building a business and you know, let’s say that you let’s just take a real random analogy that say, You’re a group of brain surgeons and you’re like, you know what, we’re really good brains. You know, we should probably do some liver stuff as well, you know, because people want to pay for that.
[00:12:00] So let’s just go into the liver business and let’s go over into liver surgery and oh, you know what, why don’t we do a bit of heart while we’re at it and all of a sudden they’re being distracted and actually they could have just focused on their core purpose, which is brain surgery.
[00:12:12] Klaudia: Yep. That’s a great analogy.
[00:12:14] Give you
[00:12:14] Adam: an extreme, but that extreme is the purpose of the extreme is to get people to understand how to focus. Do what you’re best at. And if you want to become more productive, less distraction increases the productivity and your brand work that you do at the top end of the halo effect starts to deliver that in the long term.
[00:12:32] Klaudia: Absolutely. Brand is the fundamental core. And I say that because it’s my background, but that’s how it addresses the inefficiencies. And a lot of people fail to see that. So great answer. Okay. Onto the next question. In your view, what are some of the most common challenges that you face with business owners that have tried to implement the halo effect? And how would you suggest or sort of guide them to overcome them? Are there any challenges?
[00:13:02] Adam: One? Yeah, there are many challenges. That really come into building brand. I’ve seen these firsthand because this is something we train deeply clients on and have done for a long time. So first challenge. And if we put them in sequential order, almost the first challenge number one is belief is their internal beliefs around standing out their internal beliefs about putting themselves forward and everything that they believe to be true that they’ve grown up with.
[00:13:34] Comes into brand building. So first of all, it’s okay if somebody’s got put their color palette and their logo and their website to give up because I can logically go. Yeah, you know, do you know what’s really going to help me? Is that specific color? It’s not really going to help me. Is that, you know, if I just get that website perfect, that’s going to really help me, but it’s not.
[00:13:54] Cause if no one ever gets to your website and you don’t build any human connection on your website, it’s irrelevant how good it looks, right? It’s a part of branding as you know, but it’s not everything about branding. So first of all is belief because people typically try to hide behind those things. I just said color palette, website logo.
[00:14:13] Well, if I just do a great logo. I don’t really have to talk to anyone because everyone has seen my logo. It’s great. It is all about human to human interaction. Until you sell to robots, you’re going to be dealing with people and people buy from people. And if you want to deal with people, you’ve got to build a relationship with people.
[00:14:30] So there’s first of all, there’s a belief issue. And that also in the belief comes fear. Now as a fit, the second issue is a fear. It’s like, all right, okay, so I get it. I’ve got myself out there. And how do I feel about that? Well, you know, I don’t really want anyone to say something bad about me and I don’t really want to be judged.
[00:14:47] And do I really have to build a personal brand? Can I not just build a business brand? So we’ve got all of this junk because basically it’s junk that we’ve got to get out of the brain. Yeah. In order to move forward. And that’s typically another big issue that people face. And then the next question will be how do we do that?
[00:15:04] That’s probably another episode. But if you want to hear stuff like that, how do you get rid of junk in the brain? Tell me in the comments, because we’re pleased to see that something that resonates with people. So we have to go through that. And after we’ve gone through that, the challenge then is there actually are people that are not afraid that have belief that want to go far, but they don’t want to take the first step.
[00:15:26] They want to take the 100th step, which is, well, yeah, I want to build a brand. I want to be in Forbes. I want to be an entrepreneur magazine. Yeah, I want to be on the top podcast. Oh, yeah, I want to be on TV. But they’ve not earned their stripes and I’ll say it’s like this, right? So the way that I will give you a good metaphorical analogy for it You build a brand are you do anything in business?
[00:15:49] Why I find quite interesting. I’m a boxing fan and people that are not watching they’re watching won’t all be boxing fans I understand that yeah, but if you look at someone like a heavyweight champion of the world, you’re anti Joshua Mike Tyson, whatever I think it’s a good analogy The first of all, they do the amateurs and they get used to being in the ring and they get used to going how that goes.
[00:16:08] And after they come up from the amateurs, whether they do the Olympics or not, so they do some competing, some of them do, some of them don’t. And these are the people going all the way to the top, right? What do they do? Well, they don’t go, well, this is a great prospect. They’ve won in the amateurs.
[00:16:21] They’ve won in the Olympics. They’re really amazing. They say, no, let’s get him, let’s get the ring rust out. That’s going, they put them in against someone that’s had 20 fights and lost 10 of them, right? It’s their first fight. So they put in a man. These are called, you know, bums, right? Or people that are typically like, right.
[00:16:37] So they go in and they have the little fight and they win. And they usually win in the first round and they look gray. And they have a second fight. And this one’s also had 30 fights and lost 20 of them. And then they have the third fight and they keep having these fights. And they keep building up after 10 fights against some very easy opponents that they Definitely outclassed in every single way, shape and form they then get in and they start to take on bigger opposition and then they move through that opposition and then they move to bigger opposition and bigger opposition before they get to your, you know, your ranking fights and then your world title fights before they get all the way to the top.
[00:17:11] So what am I trying to say? You’ve got to be understand that all types of branding is a journey. You know, your first part of branding will be starting local, you know, can you get a couple of local people on board? Like I did this back in the day, you know, we sponsored a local football team, get into the newspapers, you know, for the first time.
[00:17:32] And then you open a little branch and you might come and have a local newspaper photographer come and photo and do your bits and stuff. And you’re starting to build a profile and, you know, after that, you’ve got a bit of a relationship and maybe they write a piece about your business. Now you’ve got two or three things on your business and you go and you take that and you put it into the awards and maybe you win a local award.
[00:17:53] And after that you start to get a regional award and then you win a national award and then you win an international award and before you know you’re global, but you don’t get to the hundredth step without taking the first steps and you go through these little rounds in the same way a boxer does in terms of building your brand up one fire at a time and you know, getting that experience.
[00:18:12] And I think that is a big fundamental problem is that. You know, especially in today’s society, no one wants to start from the bottom.
[00:18:21] Klaudia: Yep. Everyone wants to win without doing the hard work. Exactly. And you don’t deserve, you don’t deserve
[00:18:28] Adam: to win unless you’ve done the hard work. And I think it’s a lot like everything.
[00:18:32] You know, I’ve got a lot of friends that are very successful in content creation or whatever. You know, I’ve got a lot of friends that have got, you know, hundreds of thousands, a million people subscribing on YouTube. They have been making those videos, you know, day in, day out, week in, week out, you know, and honing and crafting their skills and understanding their audience.
[00:18:54] And they’ve built that up after years. They’re doing their rounds before they then start to get success. And people thought, Oh my God, it’s like an overnight success, but they missed all the hard work that went in between. So I feel that. You know, patience, step by step consistency is actually a commitment to like, like the YouTube thing would be a commitment, right?
[00:19:17] Absolutely. Long term, you know, we you know, we do some YouTube, it’s not ever been our biggest channel. It’s never been our biggest focus. But we certainly do a lot more now with your influence as well, wanting to do more. And part of that is about being consistent. Knowing that when you go to YouTube, you’ve got different videos there every single time you go, and you’ve got new content to feast on.
[00:19:37] That content’s going to be interesting and you are consistent. And that is the same with branding. It’s the same with YouTube. It’s the same with your social media is you’ve got to do that consistency. And over time, what works will arrive in front of you.
[00:19:50] Klaudia: Perfect. What a great answer. So essentially you’ve got to walk before you run, right?
[00:19:55] When it comes to brand building. Amazing.
[00:19:58] Adam: Get the steps in.
[00:20:00] Klaudia: Yep, absolutely. And I think that’s all we’ve got time for really. I’ll let you close off because I don’t know how to do this.
[00:20:07] Adam: So if you just say something like are some great some great questions. They’re really looking forward to doing to, to diving in some of these on the next episode or something. Okay. Yeah. Next episode, business growth secrets.
[00:20:18] Klaudia: Okay. Wow. Some amazing answers there. Really inspirational.
[00:20:22] Really looking forward to diving deeper into some of these in in the upcoming episodes.
[00:20:27] Adam: Brilliant. Well, look, I hope you’ve enjoyed today. We’ve been. Diving into halo effect and how you build brand. We’ve touched on some productivity elements there as well, which can help you get faster results in different areas of your business.
[00:20:40] And really, our ambition from this episode was get you to understand the halo effect, which shines over every area. Of your business and makes everything easier is to start to understand that principle and that concept so you can apply it to your business and start taking the steps that you need to take to get more success.
[00:20:59] Look, if you’ve been watching the podcast YouTube, if you are watching on YouTube, remember you can download these episodes if you are a premium member, so go and download the episodes so you’ve got them to hand. If you’re maybe going on a flight or you’re going out for a run, whatever it is, perhaps you want to do that.
[00:21:16] And maybe you go and tell us in the comments what your challenges are and what things you need help with. You know, this podcast is all about helping business owners to get more growth and taking them on a journey. And the more we hear from you, the more we can help you. So go and tell us in the comments.
[00:21:33] And just want to say thanks again for listening. I look forward to seeing you. On the next episode of business growth secrets. See you soon.