Overcoming Fear in Entrepreneurship | Sunny Dublick

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Sonny Dublick, a marketing consultant who shares her journey from corporate marketing to entrepreneurship. They discuss the challenges of specializing in a niche, overcoming fears related to income and security, and the importance of understanding client needs versus what they think they need. Sonny emphasizes the significance of community support in building confidence and the need for strategic marketing that resonates with human behavior rather than just pushing out content. In this conversation, Sunny Dublick and Christian Brim discuss effective marketing strategies, emphasizing the importance of starting small when seeking clients, the power of authentic marketing, and the emotional resonance that drives consumer decisions. They explore the significance of defining an ideal client and the need for specificity in marketing efforts. The discussion highlights how authenticity and connection can enhance marketing effectiveness, ultimately leading to better engagement and business growth.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Sonny Dublick transitioned from corporate marketing to entrepreneurship after a layoff.
• Specializing in a niche can lead to greater success than being a generalist.
• Fear of income and security is common among entrepreneurs.
• Community support can help build confidence in business.
• Understanding client needs is crucial for effective marketing.
• Financial clarity helps entrepreneurs make informed decisions.
• Marketing should focus on human behavior, not just metrics.
• Social media should not be the sole focus of a marketing strategy.
• Effective marketing connects with people on a deeper level.
• Knowledge and research are key to successful marketing strategies. Stop aiming for global reach; start local.
• Talking to everyone means talking to no one.
• Authentic marketing is about connection, not just ads.
• Emotional resonance is key in marketing.
• Consumers make decisions based on feelings, not just logic.
• Brand identity is tied to personal values.
• Defining your ideal client is crucial for success.
• Specificity in marketing attracts the right audience.
• Authenticity fosters deeper connections with clients.
• Great marketing happens when you are true to yourself.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.634)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. A special shout out to our one listener in Inola, Oklahoma. Strangely, I've been to Inola, so maybe I've met you before. Joining me today is Sonny Dublick of Sonny Dublick Marketing. Welcome, Sonny.

Sunny Dublick (00:29.671)
I'm so excited to be here.

Christian Brim (00:31.502)
Well, I'm excited for you to be here. So tell our listeners who Sonny is and how she got here. Not like, how did you get on this show? But you know.

Sunny Dublick (00:42.379)
Sure. So I am originally from Philadelphia area, South Jersey. And I went to college for marketing, kind of bounced around the...

Christian Brim (00:49.454)
Nice.

Sunny Dublick (00:54.251)
Philadelphia marketing ad agency and corporate marketing department scene for about the first 10 years of my career and in 2017 I set out to do things my own way. I am an accidental entrepreneur I'm very candid about that and that I was part of a round of layoffs at my last corporate job and It was one of those things where it was, you know, what am I gonna do next? What's my next move? And I remember having a friend be like, well, you should just make your own business. You know how to do all this stuff

Christian Brim (01:04.31)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (01:20.44)
Sure, it's so simple, why not?

Sunny Dublick (01:21.739)
And I remember and I think this is the thing that holds everybody back like no one's gonna pay me right to do these things So when I started I was kind of you know This Swiss Army knife of I wanted to do all things for all people and has time has gone on I really refine that and Niche down into what it is that I am most passionate about and that I feel I do best Which is brand strategy consulting and marketing planning

Christian Brim (01:52.888)
Well, okay, so I didn't interrupt with this question, but the first question that came to mind was how'd that work out for you trying to be the Swiss Army Knife?

Sunny Dublick (02:02.815)
I mean, I hated it. So I will say that in the beginning, like one of the things that I am very candid with everyone I speak to about marketing about is I will not run your social media account. I am a marketer who hates social media. It's such a interesting relationship to have. Everyone's like, you can't say that, you work in marketing. Sure I can. But.

Christian Brim (02:17.635)
Mm-hmm.

Sunny Dublick (02:27.443)
I was running, think at some one time like around like five accounts and it was just constant, like constant mental pressure of a lot of marketing is perfectionism, right? You are expected to just constantly have everything correct and it's unsustainable. And it got to the point where I was learning and I was growing. And I will say to the other kind of point of view,

I had to figure these things out because I had clients that needed these things. So email marketing, digital ads, I got my Google ad certification, right? When I first started out, I learned how to do all of these things and I spread myself so thin so that I wasn't doing everything great, but I knew a little bit about everything, which serves me a lot now because when I have vendors either that I'm calling in or that my clients are working with, I can analyze things in the perspective of wait, I know how to do this.

Christian Brim (03:00.622)
sure.

Sunny Dublick (03:24.461)
so I know what works and what doesn't. So I don't regret it, right? I think it was a lesson that I needed to learn, but I think not specializing in what I wanted was honestly fear. It was no one's gonna pay me to think strategically on high level about their business. They're just gonna want a girl who could post on Facebook for them, run some ads and run some emails. So it kind of came out of a lack of confidence that over the years I just had to...

Christian Brim (03:37.794)
Hmm.

Sunny Dublick (03:50.899)
I mean, to be an entrepreneur, can't not be confident.

Christian Brim (03:56.098)
Well, there's, there's a lot to unpack there. Okay. So, why did you make this transition to specializing in branding?

Sunny Dublick (04:05.131)
So I think it was, you I worked for a time at a branding and marketing research agency and I absolutely loved it. Like I loved the work that I was doing and it was the intentionality behind marketing for me. I think there's in any given job and any given role, there's gonna be the strategic side of things of how you think about things, how you plan for things and there's gonna be the execution.

And one can't live without the other. And that's kind of a little bit of the premise of my business because I worked for both ends of the scale where I was working for agencies that were just execution based. They'd be like crank out ads, crank out emails, billboards, all of those things. and it was literally just like sending out work orders, getting it done through creative, running it out through production, like just constant cranking out of work, but with no high level strategy to guide it.

And then I worked on the opposite end where it was so strategically driven, but it was kind of like when you got done, it was like here to the client and it just fell flat and it died. So I think one of the things is having the experience on both ends, both client and agency, and then also being able to work in strategic boutique organizations as well as massive production houses gave me that like, why can't one person weave this common thread together and have this

You know, even if I'm not the person that is constantly doing, I can find the people that can and make sure that this dream can come to reality. And I think that was a lot of what I built the business around is I was so tired of seeing people waste money on marketing that just went nowhere and didn't work.

Christian Brim (05:45.994)
There are a lot out there. So you said fear. I want to dive into that. What specifically was the fear?

Sunny Dublick (05:59.747)
I mean, it was at the time it was all income based and I mean, isn't it for everybody, right? Everyone that's a creative that's thinking about going into their own, you know, thing and making this a full time, making that leap from one to another is, you you talk Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that baseline fear of just like safety and security and shelter. and income is such a big part of that, right? So

Christian Brim (06:05.261)
Hmm

Christian Brim (06:21.742)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (06:25.742)
sure.

Sunny Dublick (06:26.727)
I've always worked for companies where I just I signed up and I got a paycheck. It was never debatable of how much I would be paid and when.

And I say that and it's so funny because I almost see it from the opposite perspective now, especially, you know, there's been so many mass layoffs over the past couple of years and you think you have security when in reality, you know, it is like what is security when it comes to jobs? No one is really as secure as we think we are. But I think starting out, I was so nervous even income wise, what I would charge asking people for what I thought I deserved.

and not saying this is what I'm worth. And if you can't afford to pay it to work with me, or if this doesn't work for you, or isn't in your budget, I'm happy to refer you to something else. Again, it's, I say this and I want to shout it from the rooftops of like,

Christian Brim (07:04.366)
Mmm

Sunny Dublick (07:18.687)
Where I started is where I think most people do of like, I'm scared I'm not gonna make any money doing this. I'm scared people won't compensate me. What if contracts goes wrong or I can't get more clients? It's all of that fear of what if I can't actually support myself doing this? It's scary, right? It's really scary. The only, it is highly motivating.

Christian Brim (07:37.464)
Sure, absolutely. It's highly motivating. It's highly motivating though. Yes.

Sunny Dublick (07:43.453)
And the only thing that gets you through it is doing it over and over and over again until you get to a point where you say like, this is scary, but I can figure it out.

Christian Brim (07:54.68)
So how did you overcome that fear? What gave you the courage to niche down?

Sunny Dublick (08:03.499)
think a couple of things. One of the most kind of beautiful things that happened in my career was actually joining a mastermind group. You know that saying you are the summation of the people that you hang around? I really needed people that were more successful than I was to be around. I needed to be in the room with people that had...

Christian Brim (08:12.792)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (08:18.254)
true.

Sunny Dublick (08:25.968)
done things that had grown businesses that had gotten to a certain level, been established for a certain amount of years. Because, you know, at the beginning, I remember they coached me through my first hire. They coached me through getting an office space. I was terrified. Like, what if I drop a contract or

I can't afford this anymore. And I remember one of the women saying to me, she's like, Sunny, like you're girl that figures it out. She was like, you couldn't bartend if worst case scenario happened to like supplement some income. You couldn't figure this out or that out. Like you figure things out, you make it work. And I think one of the biggest things too is like, I just look at past performance. Like I, it gives me a lot of confidence knowing I've been doing this for this long.

And every year I learn more and every year I feel a little bit stronger. And even being able to talk with you like this on a podcast today, my first couple of years of business, I would have been so nervous and anxious and stuttering over my words. And I think the only thing that builds confidence is just doing it, doing the work, showing up consistently and doing the work.

Christian Brim (09:34.996)
I thought it was my calming personality that... okay.

Sunny Dublick (09:38.387)
It's that too.

Christian Brim (09:42.464)
So I think you're right. I think that there are some commonalities in everybody that starts a business. And one of those is fear and the fear of not having enough money is pretty common to every entrepreneur. And where, what that looks like is a lack of clarity and focus on

what makes you money because you're not worried about what actually makes you money you just take whatever you can find and you know in some cases you find work that you don't like like in your case like i don't enjoy doing this and that pushes you a different direction but i you know i i think if if

Sunny Dublick (10:19.284)
Yep.

Christian Brim (10:39.712)
the creative entrepreneur could have a clear benchmark of saying, I just need to do X to be able to cover my expenses. One of our clients through working with us came to this conclusion that he only needed to work six days a month to cover his expenses. And

Sunny Dublick (11:06.869)
love that for him.

Christian Brim (11:08.242)
just having that knowledge was transformational to him. Because then you can say, well, okay, if I only need to work six full days, right, out of 25, that doesn't seem too cumbersome. It gives you the freedom then to be more selective about what you're doing. But until you've got that clarity, it's paralyzing. And so you're chasing a number you don't really know what it...

Sunny Dublick (11:11.221)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (11:36.734)
needs to be and so that confuses who you should be looking for.

Sunny Dublick (11:44.063)
Yep. I think, you know, for me, I always had, I'm a very big budgeter. So I've had a spreadsheet for, can't even tell you how many years, but it always just kept me in line of like how much money I had to spend every month leftover after all my bills were accounted for. So I knew what my expenses were and I knew the number I needed to make.

I think the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship, which you've alluded to, is that it doesn't have to be, you know, stuck into the confines of a certain amount of hours or certain times during the day and everything like that.

But when you know, like knowledge is always power, right? And knowledge gives you clarity. The car goes where the eyes go. So when you say, I know that in order to make this leap, I need to find a way to make X amount of dollars. And I know that this service, I've done my competitive research, I've looked around. Let's say that I'm offering social media services. Benchmark for something like this at a freelancer that's just getting started is probably somewhere around this. If I could sign six of these projects month one, that I know that I'm set to

Christian Brim (12:32.558)
Mm-hmm.

Sunny Dublick (12:50.515)
the leap and I can go from there. And I think just if you backtrack it, it's not hard, it's the simple math, right? But I think one of the things that's challenging, and I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but there are certain things you want to do and you want your audience to buy and there are certain things that your audience will buy.

Christian Brim (13:11.618)
Mmm.

Sunny Dublick (13:11.845)
And sometimes there's a big disconnect there. So for example, when I first got started on my own, no one was coming to me saying they wanted brand strategy and full disclosure, even at this point, not a lot of people come to me and say, I need brand strategy. Everyone comes to me and says, I need social media. need email campaigns. I need lead funnels, that kind of thing. When we talk, A, I'm usually like, that's not what I do. And B, when you backtrack it, everyone's looking for the

the same thing, they all want sales, right? They all want growth, sales, X, Y, and Z, like, it all is going in the same direction. So when I go through my process with them, which is really heavily based and founded in research, and I talk to them and I scratch underneath the surface of, you don't really need Instagram ads, what you really need is, you know, 10X the amount of sales that you've gotten year over year from last year, right? So maybe Instagram isn't the way to go. Have you ever thought about a higher level marketing plan?

that is integrated but includes all sorts of different channels you might not have thought of. So that's where I was able to kind of make the leap from what I was doing to where I am now because I realized for me at least I'm not talking trash about anyone that has a social media based business.

Christian Brim (14:28.213)
I'll talk shit on him. That's fine. Go ahead.

Sunny Dublick (14:32.131)
For me it was a drop in the bucket for me social media is just a just dumpster fire of just people pushing out more and more content and hoping for different results and I think that it has Efficacy, but I don't think it should be your entire marketing strategy And I think that's so common right now with clients. I work with why isn't this working? We're posting on Instagram every day That's not a marketing strategy right so

I think what I found is that when I started to make the connection of people don't actually need this, they think they need this, what they really need is this, I was able to really help them in a deeper, more meaningful way and that's something that lit me up. you know, anyone that's listening that is a creative, I think it's important to take into consideration both of those things and it doesn't mean that that has to be

what you do forever, but maybe as you get started, there's something super marketable that's really, really important to the clients you want to work with. Is it possible to bridge the gap to get where you're going? Right? Just something that has been really beneficial for me.

Christian Brim (15:37.815)
There's so much in what you just said. First was, I would love to see your spreadsheet because my marketing director, who's highly creative, gave me a spreadsheet once and I said, please don't ever send me a spreadsheet again. Because I'm like, this may make sense to you, but it makes no sense to me. So I'm just curious if your spreadsheet would make sense to me.

Sunny Dublick (15:56.406)
I love spreadsheets.

Christian Brim (16:05.934)
That was the first thing. The second thing, this idea that what you do is not what the customer wants to buy is uber important. Because I'll use an analogy from our industry. So you have Intuit who has spent...

Literally hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising over the years trying to convince business owners what they need which is you know, QuickBooks and TurboTax and So when they come to us They they have been Suggested as to what they need But it's not really what they need and and I I think as any professional it's incumbent on us

Sunny Dublick (16:53.385)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (16:59.608)
to diagnose the disease, not just treat the symptoms, right? Because the customer or the prospect does not know what they need. They only know what their symptoms are. And if we just go along treating the symptoms, they're never gonna get healthy and they're eventually gonna be dissatisfied. And most of us, like I said,

Sunny Dublick (17:21.973)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (17:28.437)
don't have the knowledge to know what we need. We just know what we've been told we need by others, right? And social media is a prime example because we all participate in it, right? So therefore we think that we need it. And of course, Metta and Google and TikTok, they all make a whole lot of money off of us doing it.

Sunny Dublick (17:31.659)
Thank you. Yes. Yes.

Christian Brim (17:58.338)
honestly don't give a shit whether we're successful or not. They don't care. And so when you have those factors that are pushing you, like me as a business owner, into this, like, we've got to do this, got to do this, got to do this. Why? Why? Why do we have to do this? One of the things that's, you know, like in our industry that is people come to us all the time and, you know, we've got QuickBooks. That's awesome.

Sunny Dublick (18:01.641)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (18:28.078)
That's awesome. We're not touching it. What? No, we're not even getting in there. We will do what we need to do and it has nothing to do with QuickBooks. If you want to use it, great. It doesn't affect what we do at all. And to some people, that's offensive. And they're like, but I want you to work in my QuickBooks. That's great. We're not your person. We're not going to help you. Not that we can't help you, but we've chosen not to help you. The reason behind that is that

Every time we've worked alongside somebody in their accounting software, they've screwed it up. And it is more work for us to unscrew it up than it is for us to just do it from the beginning. But they don't understand that. And I don't need them to understand that. It's just, that's the, I had a marketer call it a scarecrow. Like that's the scarecrow that we put out. we don't work in your quick.

Sunny Dublick (19:10.443)
Mmm.

Sunny Dublick (19:23.241)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (19:23.31)
because we don't want those people, right? Scarecrows are to drive off the clients you don't want. Yeah, right? Going back to this idea of strategy versus implementation, I think there are some similarities in what we do and what you do in that regard too, because, you know, to your point, marketing,

Sunny Dublick (19:28.201)
Yeah, mine is Instagram.

Christian Brim (19:53.77)
Everybody wants the same thing out of marketing. It's sales. I mean, you can wrap it up in all different shades of green, but that's what they want. And most people, myself included, don't really know how to do that. Like, how do we go get more people to buy our stuff? How do you approach that?

differently than other marketing agencies.

Sunny Dublick (20:26.571)
Well, I think, you you had even said this like, this is all going to sink together, I promise. But we're being told what we need, right? And I always have a joke that if you ask five marketers for an opinion on what you should do with your marketing, you'll get five different answers.

Christian Brim (20:32.886)
I trust you.

Sunny Dublick (20:43.203)
And I think one of the things where we've lost the plot, right, as clients, as marketers, as everybody, is we're trying to talk about humans and human behavior and what we want them to do. Like people are these logical, robotic creatures and we are not. Yeah. So

Christian Brim (20:58.21)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (21:01.816)
Hmm, which they're not.

Sunny Dublick (21:06.047)
One of the things that I like to bring to the table when I talk to anybody is like, let's talk about consumer behavior and just like super high level baseline. Every single human, right? The average human, I should say, makes between 30 and 35,000 decisions every single day. And some of that's just like, what time am I going to brush my teeth? Am I going to the gym this morning? What am I wearing? Right? Most of those things have to be forced into our subconscious mind.

You don't go for breakfast and make a list of pro and cons of should I go to McDonald's or should I do this, right? You're making snap decisions for things. And I think what we fail to realize when we put out of so much of this marketing is we are just pushing people, pushing people and throwing more and more on their plates when they're already exhausted from making 35,000 decisions.

Christian Brim (21:57.078)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Sunny Dublick (22:00.683)
One of the extra kind of added layers is I think the average human at this point receives around 10,000 marketing messages a day and only about 25 % of that is going to be relevant to them. Again, when Facebook opened up the floodgates and Google opened up the floodgates of advertising, half the shit you see, I'm sure, is the same where you're like, why am I getting this? Right? So...

Christian Brim (22:20.462)
You're right.

Sunny Dublick (22:22.439)
I feel like because marketing has been, for lack of a better term, kind of abused in people's lives, you're seeing this across the board. There's a mass movement, especially with all of this AI nonsense coming out of people just, well, we'll just write posts when chat GPT and we'll just write blogs with chat GPT. No one wants to read your robot blog. Like, can I just say that?

Christian Brim (22:41.613)
No.

Sunny Dublick (22:44.587)
It makes us more effective as marketers, all these automations, all of the AI and everything, but it doesn't make us more effective in connecting with people. And I think that's what great marketing does. So when I recommend to anybody, traditional marketing is basically just spam, right? It's what we've seen. It's just pushing out more and more communications in the hope that you will get sales. And we do it in all these fancy ways through different areas and stages of the funnel and right, but.

Christian Brim (22:55.118)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (23:12.363)
Lots of places to measure.

Sunny Dublick (23:14.303)
Yes, lots of places to measure and lots of shiny graphs to be like, look at all the things that we did with your money, right? But think about basic human behavior. Again, we're marketing to humans. When you need something, you do one of two things. You search for it or you ask a friend or colleague.

Christian Brim (23:18.347)
us.

Sunny Dublick (23:32.019)
So I always tell people when they're trying to find clients, stop going at the height of the Mount Everest and thinking that you're gonna be the ultimate TikTok or Instagram influencer without years of putting content into that machine, right?

start thinking instead, can I start smaller and more locally? And it doesn't sound sexy, right? Everyone wants to go beyond that because they're like, no, but we want to grow nationally. We want to be a global brand. And you talking to everybody is you talking to nobody. Because if you're trying to throw ads out to everyone across the globe and email communications to everyone across the globe, you're not talking to anybody specifically. If you think about the best brands, and I challenge you

Everyone on this call to do this if you want to be an awesome brand I would love if you would tell me the five brands that you love the most and would love to emulate Because those should be your North stars. Are you acting like that? Everyone uses Apple. I'm an Android girl. So I can't really speak to that but Apple is a cult and everyone loves it and I just I can't stand it, but I won't negate the fact that they have built

Christian Brim (24:36.078)
Apple's a cult. I've said that repeatedly. Yes. Thank you. Yes

Sunny Dublick (24:45.149)
an amazing brand of people who are so loyal. It's a movement. People feel so ingrained in the culture that they've built. And I think for me, it's one of those things where it's how do you, first and foremost, the best marketing is when you have something amazing to sell, right? The worst marketing is lipstick on a pig marketing where someone says, it pretty, give us a pretty website, throw out a bunch of posts on social media.

Christian Brim (24:48.354)
Yes.

Christian Brim (25:02.732)
Yes, yes.

Sunny Dublick (25:12.041)
give us some ads, that is going to be right, drop in the bucket because people are not fools. The second someone starts receiving your product or service and it sucks, they're going to be the first to tell their friends never to use you. They will give you crappy reviews, right? You will be called a fool very quickly. And so I think for me, the question becomes when how do I get customers first?

make an offer that is so attractive that people cannot say no to it. People want to work with you. They want to line up to work for you or work with you because what you have is so amazing. They want to buy what you're selling. then secondly, I think for me, it's how do you get found when people are looking for the things that you're providing? And how do you get the people that have purchased from you to go wild in telling everybody they know that they have to come see you?

Christian Brim (25:40.834)
Yes.

Sunny Dublick (26:04.511)
That is the best marketing and again, it is not sexy. It is not mass marketing, but it's connection. Again, it's just human to human of I want to find this and I want people to tell me that this is good for me.

Christian Brim (26:21.152)
Yeah, and I've said this before, think in this age and with the advent of AI being everywhere, connection, authentic connection is becoming increasingly important. I think when you talked about the having a great service or product,

I think people don't spend enough time on that. they, and I, and I think, and this has certainly been our experience is because we approached it from our biases and we know a whole lot more about what we're selling than the client does or the prospect does. And so.

Sunny Dublick (26:55.914)
Yep.

Sunny Dublick (27:05.791)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (27:20.086)
that bias makes one, I think it takes all of the emotion out of it, right? And two, it overly complicates it. Where I think the real value is, the gold, is being able to present a product or service that resonates with

the prospect at an emotional level, means, mean, resonate means it's emotional in terms that they think, not we think.

Sunny Dublick (27:57.44)
Yeah.

Sunny Dublick (28:02.891)
Yep.

I have this, it's a joke, but I call it better benefit battles. So toothpaste, fun fact, is one of the least brand loyal categories. And if you think about it, you walk into a store, you're like, is something on sale? I gotta make a quick decision. Like, I don't think I even know if I buy the same toothpaste twice, right?

Christian Brim (28:13.486)
Tell me more.

Christian Brim (28:27.778)
My wife doesn't, but yeah, you know.

Sunny Dublick (28:29.447)
Yeah, but again, you're not sitting there going through is this one ADA approved and does this one have 90 %? But everything you see from toothpaste commercials is forcing down your throat.

98 % of dentists recommend this toothpaste and then the next company is 99 % of dentists recommend this toothpaste You don't think like that human be like to an extent it just becomes like who cares you're a hundred percent right when you say that human beings resonate on emotion and Again, it goes back to the conscious and the subconscious mind

Christian Brim (28:48.513)
Right.

Sunny Dublick (29:03.953)
If you are buying, let's say like a couch or a home or a car, you're making those plus and minus categories, right? Those are massive purchases. But the majority of our day-to-day purchases are more emotion-based. How is this going to make me feel? Is this like going to make my life better, easier? And I truly believe, I wouldn't be here if I didn't, but I truly believe that marketing has the ability to help that happen for people, to help them discover products and services that can make their lives better.

easier, longer lasting, all of those great things. It's just we get lost in this idea of we have something to say, everyone wants to hear it. They don't. They're hearing 10,000 other messages a day.

Christian Brim (29:45.886)
No, no, they don't. And, and, and to your point, you know, those larger purchases, you, you may go through some rational decisions, but the reality is that you're still making it emotionally. I was getting my hair cut this weekend and my, my hairstylist is a, 20 something year old single mom. And, she told me before that she was getting a new car and I asked her if she got it and she goes,

No. and, basically through this conversation, re what I found out was she was going to buy a Bronco and she decided that she was going to get a Range Rover. And first of all, I'm like, what, what, right? Well, no, but, but I'm sitting here looking at this young single mom and I'm like, why do you want to spend 60 grand on a vehicle? But that's, that's beside the point. But, but it was fascinating because

Sunny Dublick (30:23.775)
Mm-hmm.

Sunny Dublick (30:31.091)
Rocko's are making a comeback. I see him everywhere now.

Sunny Dublick (30:39.924)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (30:45.246)
She acknowledged that it was more expensive, but then she started talking about why it was a better deal. And even to the point where, well, in the Bronco, the air conditioning events were in the floor and my child can't, you know, they're not going to get the direct, but the Range Rover is up on, right? This whole rationalization, right? She didn't even realize she was doing it, but she made that decision. She wanted the Range Rover.

Sunny Dublick (30:48.787)
Yeah.

Sunny Dublick (31:14.197)
Yes.

Christian Brim (31:14.422)
or and that that the rest of it followed, right? And so those decisions that we have to pause because they're large purchases or they're new to us, where we actually engage our brain, we're not engaging our brain the way we think we're engaging our brain. We are rationalizing, but what we're rationalizing is our feeling.

Sunny Dublick (31:18.195)
Yes.

Sunny Dublick (31:35.017)
Yeah.

Sunny Dublick (31:40.381)
Yeah, what's really, I read a book. It's one of the most wonderful books ever. It's called The Culture Code. was recommended to me. Fascinating. It was this French gentleman who did these in-depth marketing research experiments. And he talks about cars and he does this experiment in the UK. He does it in France. He does in the US, particularly in the United States. Car is so heavily associated with identity that like, you know, some people are like, I would never drive a Kia.

Christian Brim (32:04.732)
yeah.

Sunny Dublick (32:07.935)
And other people are like, well, Kia means that I'm like, you know, super practical and blah, blah. But even like I was on a call with two gentlemen that I'm doing a marketing research project for and they were like, we like Ford. The other guy's like, no, I like Chevy. And they're arguing back and forth about what's better between Ford and Chevy. But it's it's symbolic of what you choose to be seen in. And so that's what I mean in that, marketing.

Christian Brim (32:12.675)
Right.

Sunny Dublick (32:35.239)
It's actually so much deeper when you were talking about the rationalization. It's basically confirmation by she already knows what she wants. She's like, well, this is going to make me feel better or feel more established or more confident. And that's wonderful for her. Right. I personally am like the Bronco sounds a little cooler, but everyone's so different. It's part of your personality and a reflection of that. And I think that's what's awesome. They in this experiment, the gentleman was hired by Chrysler.

for the Jeep. At one point they were trying to, so I'm a Wrangler girl. That's my car of choice. I'll never have another one. And in the experiment Jeep at that time had been like kind of taking its Wrangler and like de-boxifying it and making it more SUV like.

And people hated it and the sales dropped dramatically. And he did this experiment and he found that the reason people love the Wrangler was because it was ugly. And it evoked this feeling of like the wild west and like riding on a horse. You can take the doors off. You can take the top off. You feel rugged. And like that means something to people. And when they try to take away those characteristics, people freaked out. Even though research was showing everyone wanted SUVs. So it's just kind of an interesting,

You know, the mind and the human mind is forever just this completely complex web. But I think we spend so much time, A, assuming that people are very simple minded and dumb of like, here's the breadcrumb, this thing. Or B, really just not talking to them in a way that makes sense for something that's gonna influence them to actually think or consider what it is you have to offer.

Christian Brim (34:15.052)
No, a hundred percent. The communication is in our communication is, is so biased towards what we know and, what we know is actually getting in the way. you, you, mentioned, Chevy and Ford, if you want to start a fight among men,

Sunny Dublick (34:32.297)
Yes.

Sunny Dublick (34:42.69)
they were going off.

Christian Brim (34:44.45)
I mean, it's ridiculous. daughter's boyfriend drives a Ford truck and I drive a GMC and you would be shocked the number of memes that you can find about Fords and I send them to them all the time. You know, basically the Fords break down all the time. That's the whole shtick.

Sunny Dublick (34:47.989)
Hmm

Sunny Dublick (35:07.913)
My dad always told me it stood for found on road dead. Yeah.

Christian Brim (35:10.956)
Yes, or fix or repair daily, either way. But it's so funny and like his dad drives a GMC and then like they get into it. And the point is, they're both perfectly fine trucks. But you're talking about your identity as a person, right? And so when you translate that to anything you're selling, it has to make that person feel good.

It has to make them feel a certain way. And if it's not, it doesn't matter what the features and benefits are. It really doesn't. Like Ford doesn't have a wireless charging pad in their vehicles. GMC does. Is that going to move the needle? Is that going to? No, no, because I'm a Ford guy.

Sunny Dublick (35:40.767)
Yes. Yes.

Sunny Dublick (35:56.533)
Who cares? Yeah, exactly. It's like one of those like, no, it doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. I think the top recommendation that I have, and it's a question I ask everyone I work with, and it's funny to see the resistance to this question is who is this for? And you'll hear people, usually it starts out of like, it's for everybody. And I'm like, er, like false.

Christian Brim (36:18.635)
Hmm

Christian Brim (36:23.85)
No. Please God, no.

Sunny Dublick (36:25.831)
Right and I get super into like where do they hang out? What kind of news sources do they read? Are they introverted or they extroverted like I want you to describe your customer as a person and I get a little creepy and I usually name the customer

Christian Brim (36:44.918)
No, I think that's the idea. We did this with a marketing agency this year, which we had never done before. he did not let it, before it was like, the process was more like you're describing more generalized. He made us pick out specific clients that the litmus test was you would feel comfortable getting them a

Sunny Dublick (36:54.218)
Yeah.

Sunny Dublick (37:00.811)
Yep.

Christian Brim (37:14.342)
birthday gift or you would be comfortable having dinner or lunch with them. So that level of intimacy that you have with them and then all of these questions were geared to that specific person not the more general methodology that we've done before and it's fascinating the insights you get because you're dealing with a real person not an imaginary one, right?

Sunny Dublick (37:15.519)
Mm-hmm.

Sunny Dublick (37:20.799)
Yep.

Sunny Dublick (37:41.439)
Yes. Yes. And it's, mean, the more you can describe them.

It gives you perspective that you didn't have before. Like I am a big, like law of attraction person. And if you don't have the clarity on what you want or who you're talking to, how do you expect them to find you and to connect with you and understand you? So, you know, there are times I go through this exercise and people start describing to me this client. And then we have that secondary conversation of, who are the clients that you're working with now? Do any of them fit this description? It's like, well, no.

So where is their misalignment? Are you not finding what you really want or is this not the client that you're, you know, there's something off here? Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Christian Brim (38:25.408)
Or do you even know, does this person exist? and right. I think maybe an easier set of questions would, would start with a negative. Like, who do you not want? Like, yes. And that's, that's difficult because most people start with that. Well, I want to sell to everybody. but, but to be successful. And I've said this multiple times.

Sunny Dublick (38:38.771)
Yeah, who would you turn away? Well.

Sunny Dublick (38:47.775)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (38:53.39)
It not having a clearly defined target customer niche was the biggest mistake I made in business. It delayed profitable growth much longer than it should have because I had that similar fear. didn't let it rise to my conscious level that that was, but it was that bias that

Sunny Dublick (39:17.152)
Yep.

Christian Brim (39:21.986)
that if I restrain my marketing and sales to one specific type of person, clearly I'm saying no to everybody else.

Sunny Dublick (39:34.963)
Yes. But that's otherwise like I liken it to this, like I liken it to dating, right? Because you don't want to be the person that's like, I have no criteria for the person that I want in a partner. Same like you don't want to be the person who has no criteria in what you want from a client.

Christian Brim (39:49.25)
Right.

Sunny Dublick (39:52.903)
You know, girls and guys are on apps being like they need to be six, five, Scorpio, own a home, wants kids. Like you're adding all these criteria. Why would you not do the same thing for your business? Because you want you're looking for that person, those people that are going to buy from you that organically connect with you.

So I think not getting clear on that, I completely agree with you, is such a miss. It took me even years to niche down. I mean, I used to joke my niches, I have no niches when it came to industry. I gotta be honest, B2C is not where I shine. I'm a B2B girl and it's some of the most unsexy industries that I'm in.

But for me, it's fun because I can make them creative and it's a challenge in how to do so. I'm a big person of like shaking things up and taking something that's been done over and over and making it new again. And I often have times that clients will say to me, well, you've never worked in, you know, tech or financial services or any of those things. And my response is that makes me better.

because I'm able to look at this with a fresh set of eyes and apply kind of tactics that I've used over the past 10 to 15 years with all these different industries and have something be more creative and more connecting to the people that you want to work with.

And I think when you get focused, when you get specific, that's where the gold is. That's where the jewels are, right? Because you know what's for you and what's not for you. And if not, you're just a sitting duck being like, I hope somebody comes by and buys for me, right?

Christian Brim (41:28.394)
Yeah, and I think to really kind of

hit that fear head on is, okay, if you're, if you're going to target this specific part of the market, this is who your target customer is. a little research to say, okay, how big is this potential market? And, and think in terms of what if you were number one in that market? Like you controlled 10 % of it. What would that look like? And.

Sunny Dublick (41:53.451)
Mm-hmm.

Sunny Dublick (42:01.374)
Yep.

Christian Brim (42:05.87)
In our case, it was like, well, that would be plenty. Like there's no fear there. that. So in our case, it was redirecting our efforts and not, we weren't really, we weren't really, forgoing anything. we, weren't losing anything. we, we had all that we could say grace over if we could, if we could just be the number one in this space.

Sunny Dublick (42:09.77)
Yeah.

Sunny Dublick (42:23.327)
Mm-hmm Yep

Sunny Dublick (42:33.129)
Yep. I think I heard this somewhere and it stuck with me of oftentimes we are our own ideal client. So a lot of the characteristics that we have, if you don't know where to start,

Christian Brim (42:42.574)
Mm.

Sunny Dublick (42:49.067)
Say that you work that you're a dentist. I was talking about toothpaste earlier, right? But like the kind of people that you want to work with. Well, why did you form this dentistry? What about that was important to you? Were you trying to break free of like the kind of just, you know, check off the checklist? I'm charging way too much, you know, scary dentist that's, you know, over drilling and over charging that kind of thing. And if so, talk about that because people will resonate with that. And what kind of people are in your circle and can you start there?

Like I think when people come out with an offering, the sense is they want to tell the world, right? We want to tell everybody. And there is exactly what you're saying, that fear of alienating potential customers. But the more that you dive into who you are authentically, the more people are going to connect with you. And again, I go back to think about those five brands that are the ones that you feel like are talking directly to you.

They can't be talking to everybody and that works they would isolate everybody because they weren't being specific so when you're authentic and who you are and you're talking to people in a way that kind of makes them feel connected to you that is the best kind of marketing and it doesn't mean that you're going to isolate people that will buy from you like those people might still be coming in but the more hyper specific that you get The more that you're gonna draw in the right people and that's gonna expand upon itself. Not everyone

work with is my ideal customer, right? Like I have, I have an ideal customer, her name's Serena. have like a two page profile of like everything about her, right? But most of the time I'm not working with exactly her, but there are elements.

that I am like, if I'm working with someone, I really need these couple of things. Everything else can be ancillary. But in my messaging, I'm very, very specific about who I am and the kind of people I want to work with. I don't always get it 100%. But like, I think that's what the miss is. So the more that you allow yourself to be clear in who you want, and the more you allow yourself to be clear in who you are,

Sunny Dublick (44:56.447)
That just makes everything just feel really synchronous and direct and easy. And like, again, that's where great marketing actually gets to happen.

Christian Brim (45:06.2)
Sunny, how do people find you if they want to learn more?

Sunny Dublick (45:10.259)
So I am big on LinkedIn. That is the only social media platform that you will find me on professionally. But other than that, my website is sunnydublic.com. But yeah, I do offer free consultations for people that are just interested in how they get started and all of that good stuff. But I would love to chat with you if that is of interest.

Christian Brim (45:29.1)
Well, we'll have that information in the show notes. very much appreciate your time and your experience. Share listeners. If you'd like what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast. Share the podcast. Rate the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message and tell us what you'd like to hear until then. Tata for now.