Turning Complexity into Clarity | Josh Cantrell

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Josh Cantrell of Signal Brand Works about the journey of entrepreneurship, the importance of branding and messaging, and the challenges of client relationships. They discuss the StoryBrand framework, the significance of understanding customer stories, and the necessity of identifying the problems businesses solve. Josh shares insights on creating repeatable processes, the Pumpkin Plan concept, and the importance of iteration and learning from failure. The conversation emphasizes the role of the guide in client relationships and the need for business owners to understand their responsibilities in the partnership.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Brand Works helps B2B business owners simplify complex messaging.
• Josh's journey into entrepreneurship began after losing his job.
• The StoryBrand framework provides clarity and structure for messaging.
• Understanding the customer's story is crucial for effective branding.
• Identifying the core problem is essential for business success.
• Client relationships require active participation from both parties.
• Creating repeatable processes can streamline business operations.
• The Pumpkin Plan helps focus on ideal clients and services.
• Pruning unfit clients is necessary for business growth.
• Iterative learning is key to overcoming challenges in entrepreneurship.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.088)
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 Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Never been to New Hampshire. I've heard it's lovely this time of year, but thank you for listening. Joining us today, our guest, Josh Cantrell of Signal Brand Works. Josh, welcome to show.

Josh Cantrell (00:28.27)
What's up, Christian? Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Christian Brim (00:31.264)
Well, I'm glad I'm glad you're here as well. So why don't you tell the listeners of what signal brand works is all about. We'll start there.

Josh Cantrell (00:38.668)
Yeah. So, okay. Cool. Well, signal brand works is about helping B2B business owners who struggle to communicate about what they do, find the right words that helps make what they do easier to sell. So, it's a lot of messaging strategy, positioning and copywriting. and yeah, we hope we take people who sell something complex, expensive, or potentially confusing, and then we simplify it. So it's a lot easier for them to

for their clients to understand it and so they can sell it easier too.

Christian Brim (01:11.244)
I love that. So how long have you been doing branding or brand works?

Josh Cantrell (01:16.302)
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I would go back to probably 2017 is when the business started and, um, I got, you may be familiar with a company called story brand or a process called story brand. So I got certified in story brand in the fall of 2017, but I had been doing my business kind of loosely until then, but that was really, uh, the kind of the impetus for kind of the modern iteration of the business. You know, the,

Christian Brim (01:26.705)
yeah.

Josh Cantrell (01:42.018)
version where I felt like I had a pretty clear focus of what we were going to do for people instead of just kind of like a general agency. We went for about eight, nine months, just kind of doing everything for everybody. And then eventually focused in more on messaging, positioning and copy.

Christian Brim (01:56.396)
I'm gonna put a pin in that and come right back to it. What did you do before Signal Brand Works?

Josh Cantrell (01:56.791)
you

Josh Cantrell (02:02.092)
Yeah. Yeah. So immediately before that, was, the marketing director for a real estate software company. And before that I was the marketing director and marketing coordinator and intern for a, in, in reverse order there. So started out as kind of an intern and then grew from there for an IT company in town, a local technology services company. And, just kind of worked in house, worked on their marketing stuff, would, pick up a little bit about the industry here and there. And then

went to about, worked there for about six years, went to go work for a real estate marketing software company. that one was a weird fit, not a good long-term fit. So about after about eight months, nine months, we parted ways and I started essentially started the, you know, the, the tab poll version of signal brand works at, January 2nd, 2017. So that was kind of the flow.

Christian Brim (02:57.566)
And okay. So what, why at that point, did you make a decision to start your own business? What, what was different at that point?

Josh Cantrell (03:05.46)
yeah. what was different was I no longer had employment. So I, I got fired from this marketing software company. I say part ways earlier, but the reality is they, they let me go, you know, I wasn't super sad about it. To be honest, it wasn't a good fit either way. So it's just one of those where it's like, man, it was the first time in my life I realized like, yeah, things don't always work out exactly the way you plan for, know,

Christian Brim (03:10.816)
Yeah

Christian Brim (03:22.314)
Right.

Josh Cantrell (03:32.75)
My career before then had been pretty smooth. And so this was the first time it was like, wow, I got punched in the gut. That doesn't feel good. How am I going to feed these kids and my wife and myself? And what are we going to do next? So excuse me. So that was the first, that was the big challenge. That was the first time in my career that I'd faced like, don't know what to do and I got to figure this out and nobody else is going to figure it out for me. I got to do it. So

Christian Brim (03:33.036)
Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (04:03.27)
I talked to a friend and the first guy I talked to about it was just a buddy of mine that goes to my church and we were at this kind of retreat. I just lost my job. We went on this retreat and was like, he was like, you doing okay? I was like, actually just lost my job. I don't know what to do. And he was like, you should do some work for my company. And I was like, huh, okay, cool. Let's talk about that. So I my first client, like the first conversation afterwards. And that was kind of the open door to, maybe I can own.

my own income, you know, I can generate and I can bring this stuff in and I can control. I can control my paycheck. And so that was the first time it was ever like, huh, maybe people will pay me and I could do okay. And so it was, over the course of that year was I was DJing a bunch of weddings. I bought 10 storage units, sight unseen. I started an eBay store. I was doing storage wars and all sorts of interesting, you know, interesting ways to make money.

Christian Brim (04:33.941)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (04:39.68)
Yes?

Christian Brim (04:59.904)
Did you have the skeleton gloves? I always thought those were... No? Okay.

Josh Cantrell (05:03.278)
No, didn't have those. But probably found a few pairs in these storage units for sure. anyway, and so after about eight or nine months, I was able to quit all that because the business was paying for itself and realized that I could do this. So that was kind of the start of it.

Christian Brim (05:10.23)
Yes.

Christian Brim (05:24.874)
I love that. I, I find, you know, some guests come on and they're like in employment and really struggling with, you know, like wanting to start a business. and, and that can go on for years, right? where there's this underlying dissatisfaction, and they, feel like they're, they're being called to do something differently, but there's that fear that

Josh Cantrell (05:41.08)
Mm.

Christian Brim (05:53.77)
the golden handcuffs that keep them there. the stability that's not really stability, like to your point, like, you know, you, you're not in control when you're an employee. and, and so in, in a lot of ways you can look at being fired as, as a blessing. Like that's a good thing because it, it, gave you that opportunity to explore what you have created.

Josh Cantrell (06:05.624)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (06:15.47)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (06:23.648)
I want to go back to Storybrand because that's kind of interesting. Your story about doing a lot of things for different people and then making the switch to Storybrand, I find it interesting because Storybrand is a brand. What drew you to Storybrand and were you seeking

Josh Cantrell (06:23.651)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (06:52.426)
What were you seeking when you went there?

Josh Cantrell (06:53.806)
Mm hmm. Yeah. I got in pretty early in the story brand process. I was probably one of the first 60 to 70 or so guides that were certified kind of the second, probably the second or third round of of guides. So they I was

I got into it because I needed leads and I wanted some clarity on maybe they can give me an opportunity. Maybe they can give me some structure around selling something that's aligned to what I like to do and what I'm pretty good at, which is the words and the thinking, aligning the words to the strategy. And I kind of, thought I was good at that, but didn't have a framework. And this was like, huh, framework sounds really good. And they say they may be able to send me some leads. And so I was able to start. then within like about a month, I had paid off the investment.

Christian Brim (07:15.893)
Okay.

Josh Cantrell (07:41.9)
from the leads that had come in through it. It's a lot slower now. I would say that there's a few, there's, mean, hundreds and hundreds of guides at this point. So there's way less of an opportunity for that, although there's still some. But I was hoping for structure and additional opportunities. And it was a no brainer at the time for sure.

Christian Brim (08:01.322)
And so you got the leads. What did you get from Storybrand that you weren't expecting or weren't looking for?

Josh Cantrell (08:08.331)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's a good question because there was a lot of things that I wasn't necessarily expecting. I wasn't expecting, to essentially kind of have like a business in a box. You know, I was thinking I might learn some things. I was, they were, mean, there were some packages like, Hey, if you're just starting out and you are good at copywriting and you can follow a framework, people love this framework. It's really effective. Sell these things around this price point. You'll help a lot of people.

Christian Brim (08:20.714)
Hmm

Josh Cantrell (08:36.606)
and it'll help you kind of kickstart your business. And so I had already been doing marketing for a while so I could see immediately the value of having a structure like this of walking people through in order for creating a website. One of the, you know, my boss previously at the software company that,

where I lost my job at, one of the projects that I was struggling with at the time was like, they kept saying the words, tell the story. We want to tell the story. We want to tell the story. And I was like, I get that in theory. I don't know that we have a mutual understanding of what that means. And so.

Christian Brim (09:18.142)
or even what the story is.

Josh Cantrell (09:20.106)
Yeah, what the story is, how to undercut, uncover what the actual story is. And so in their mind, it was like, I want people to understand like our story, but the story brand paradigm shift is so helpful because it's like, no, no, no, you're trying to help the client achieve their story, tell their story. What story are they living out? How do you fit into it? And there's a place for you in that too. But anyway, it was just super helpful.

Christian Brim (09:35.457)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (09:42.122)
Yeah, because I assume the software company was talking about their story, not their customer story.

Josh Cantrell (09:49.794)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And I think they probably had an idea of like, want to do that to some degree, but yeah, it's always the default when it's like, we need to tell the story better. It's like, we need to tell our story better. We need to make our stuff more interesting somehow.

Christian Brim (10:01.928)
Right, right. that's what I loved about Donald's book. I did his online webinar. I didn't do any certification, but it was so clear. He laid it out and I'm like, yeah, that makes total sense. Why do people not do more of that?

Josh Cantrell (10:14.348)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (10:29.066)
Right? Like, and, and why is it all about? I think, I think from a marketing standpoint, small businesses look at like, need to tell them more about me. Like what, what I do, how good I am, what experience I have, you know, the, the features, the bells, the whistles. But to your point and Miller's point is that it's not about you. It's.

Josh Cantrell (10:29.324)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (10:40.802)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (10:50.338)
Mm-hmm

Christian Brim (10:57.81)
It's about them. and I'll go, I'll go a step further. I, I, I've talked about this on the program a lot and I talk about it in my book, profit first for creatives, that, that the biggest challenge business owners have is truly understanding their, the, problem that they fix. Right. And.

Josh Cantrell (11:00.482)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Josh Cantrell (11:25.515)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:27.404)
Because if you don't get that right, nothing else is easy. And when you get it right, it doesn't make it easier. It just makes it much more clear the path forward. Right.

Josh Cantrell (11:30.903)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (11:34.37)
Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (11:43.842)
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It does make in the sense that it gives you guidance for what you're doing next in every single category. mean, like you can, for when you understand the problem, then you know how to sell better. Like, you know how, to like each of the marketing assets you're thinking about creating, every email gets easier. Like every,

Christian Brim (11:52.79)
Right.

Josh Cantrell (12:09.962)
all the successes or all the like the benefits like what are the benefits what are the most impactful benefits like well if you understand the problem you know the benefits matter you know are more

significant and meaningful to people because it's the things that directly relate back to the problem. It's not just like random things you can do. anyway, I think like it's a great filter for understanding what's important and what's not. And it is at least marketing and sales copy and conversations. It's like, it tie back to the core problem that they actually care about? If not, then it's probably not that important thing to talk about.

Christian Brim (12:43.52)
yes. And, it goes beyond marketing. Actually, I think foundationally it drives the solution you provide. Right. Absolutely. And what, what we found this and I, we've been doing this for 28 years. We we've, focused on the target market of creative entrepreneurs for three plus years.

Josh Cantrell (12:51.374)
True, yes, the product for sure.

Josh Cantrell (13:10.253)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (13:11.712)
But it wasn't until this year that the clouds parted and the sun shined down and we had clarity on this one service offering. It was like, And it was one of those things that we just sat back and were like, how did we miss this? And we figured it out.

Josh Cantrell (13:31.052)
Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Christian Brim (13:38.688)
by going and talking to the clients. And listening. It's not, okay, this is how I'm interpreting from, I think existing businesses get caught in this trap of what they do.

Josh Cantrell (13:42.478)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (14:03.39)
Right? So, so you could say, well, I help people with marketing, messaging and branding using the story brand framework. Okay. That's awesome. That's a clarity that a lot of businesses don't have, but it, but, if you, if you approach your clients and listen to your clients, and that's all. So, so that's the only filter you look at it from.

Josh Cantrell (14:03.789)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (14:18.702)
sure.

Josh Cantrell (14:33.44)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (14:33.556)
Right. You, you, you miss some things, right. and for, for us, it was what we, what we figured out was what they were asking for was consistent. Like we saw this pattern and it's like, well, yeah, of course that's, that's the answer to the service. But we, we were caught up in, looking at the problem from

Josh Cantrell (14:37.358)
Sure.

Josh Cantrell (14:56.462)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (15:03.314)
our perspective. And I find that fascinating because it's exactly what Miller's talking about. You have to flip your perspective to that of the customer.

Josh Cantrell (15:04.93)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (15:12.524)
Sure.

Yeah, it's really freaking hard to do. I think it's like, it's like you're you get in the zone and you think, I got it. I know the framework, therefore I'm doing it. And it's like, hmm.

Christian Brim (15:17.94)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (15:26.123)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (15:27.826)
Not necessarily. Like even I like all I do this for. I've done this for eight years. I'll still look at my stuff and be like, huh, I did it again. I friggin did it again. I made it about me or I assumed something, you know, I I'm thinking from my perspective instead of just like put myself in their shoes. And like you said, like you're doing the hard work of actually having those conversations. And then the next layer of hard work is listening and assuming that you don't know the right answer.

Christian Brim (15:50.547)
Mm-hmm, yes.

Yes.

Josh Cantrell (15:53.614)
You can easily read into what somebody is saying, what you also just want to hear and just validate confirmation by itself.

Christian Brim (15:56.064)
Yes.

confirmation bias, right? You, you, you, you fit it to what they're saying. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, what you described with the story brand, sounded like they brought some product ization and pricing to the table. had you done any work on that in your business before then?

Josh Cantrell (16:15.33)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (16:23.148)
You know, really? No, I think I had gone into, it was mainly a reactive freelance business until that point where I was like, Hey, you need a presentation, a slide deck to cells, help you sell something. I'll take a stab at that. Sure. Pay me 500 bucks. You know, 38 meetings later, it's like, gosh, it's still not working out. And so, or, you know, simple things, you know, a lot of, like I said, a lot of reactive stuff and story brand was the first time where it was like, huh,

Christian Brim (16:30.049)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (16:52.63)
kind of gave me an on-ramp to a more stable approach to services that people already want are pretty well-defined. And then from there, I've kind of tweaked them, made them my own, added in additional layers, put them into a sequence of like, hey, we come for a small discovery. And then there's

you know, an initial package where we're going to solve kind of the main things we know you know you need. You're going to get a roadmap that's kind of like, we could also do these things. And then, if you want us to help you with that, we can do that stuff too. And so more of recurring stuff on the back end. So kind of use that as a kickstart to build the business. And honestly, I know a lot of people that just continue to sell kind of just the basic core packages over and over and over to folks.

But I would say right now it's a component of what we do. It's not the only thing we sell. so, yeah.

Christian Brim (17:47.894)
Yeah, I think a lot of creative businesses struggle because they get caught in the custom project work, right? It's like everything's different. Everything is a lot of time to, know, because you're doing it custom. But if this is the way I kind of describe it in what we do.

Josh Cantrell (17:57.868)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (18:09.144)
Sure.

Christian Brim (18:18.476)
80 to 90 % of what we do would be the same regardless of the target market that we picked. Right. There's only 10, 20, maybe 30 % that's really custom to an industry. But that 10 to 20 % is all the value. Right. Because the

Josh Cantrell (18:28.014)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (18:36.472)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (18:42.178)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (18:46.7)
the client, the customer does not understand or value the 80%. Right. And, and so I think creatives kind of get stuck in this, like I've got to create the a hundred percent every time when, when really you only need to do 10, 20, 30 % every time. Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (18:52.973)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (19:03.886)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (19:08.63)
Hmm. Yeah, that's good. I, I hear you and I'm like, man, that would be great. You know, I'm still in that position of trying to figure out exactly where we can, what is all the same stuff? So I could identify with those creatives, man. mean, eight years into this very stable and healthy business and still struggling and working through that stuff. And so, that's on my mind a lot is like, okay, well, how can we templatize discovery? How can we templatize?

the first elements of these things and then where the sections that are really unique and challenging, not challenging, but really unique to this industry or this client. So yeah, it's a continual work in progress there.

Christian Brim (19:50.782)
Yeah, is. But I think going back to our earlier conversation, when you're real clear on the problem you're solving, and that includes who you're solving it for, that answers a lot of those productization questions. for example, if you're talking about websites, OK.

Josh Cantrell (20:03.117)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (20:20.172)
if you're doing websites for, speakers, know, professional speakers, there's going to be a lot of commonality in, in what they need. Right. and that, that would allow you to build that, 80 % that we're talking about. But if you said I do websites for anybody that goes out the window.

Josh Cantrell (20:31.662)
Sure. Yep.

Josh Cantrell (20:40.397)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (20:49.3)
Right? Because now that 80 % doesn't exist. Yeah. And, and, so it's really, to me, it's really about getting really dialed in on who you're solving a problem for and what that problem is, because then it becomes repeatable. Right? Not everybody is the same. Not every client's the same, but there's a lot of commonalities.

Josh Cantrell (20:49.56)
Sure.

Josh Cantrell (20:52.962)
Yep. Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

Josh Cantrell (21:05.368)
sure.

Yep. Yes. And I would say, yeah, I'm tracking, think I'm tracking a little bit more with you now. And I would say we don't, I don't have like a niche that's super defined.

It has felt a little arbitrary in the past, despite having read Mike McCallowitz's pumpkin plan and thought through all that stuff. It's felt a little bit arbitrary for me to just say, we're going to go on this. the layers that we've gotten to as deep as I've gotten so far is B2B services and tech companies that are between one and 5 million and looking to grow more, don't have an internal marketing person and are

Christian Brim (21:25.868)
Mm.

Josh Cantrell (21:47.406)
sell something complex, expensive, or potentially confusing. So that has been some layers that's been really helpful and we have seen a ton of commonality between most of those people, you know, where it's like, okay, the website's probably gonna look and feel a little bit like this. Our messaging playbook that we build out is gonna have these components and that's pretty standardized and templatized. So anyway, yeah. So even with, even though it's not like just for public speakers who wanna speak on TED, you know, or something like that.

Christian Brim (21:51.104)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (21:58.412)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (22:16.753)
Yeah. I, I think, I think the, the, the way we've been taught is, you know, in school or for marketing gurus, when you're defining a target market, it's, it's describing it the way you described it. And, and it's, it's like, it's size, it's industry, maybe it's employee account, length of business, you know, revenue, whatever.

Josh Cantrell (22:16.778)
It's been, even that's been helpful.

Josh Cantrell (22:45.517)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (22:46.316)
but there's also the ability to look at it from, the, more of the psychographic angle, right. And, saying, okay, this is, this is what this person looks like. That's, that's buying it. And, and they may show up in different places, but they have this, this common, desire. You mentioned the pumpkin plan, which is a brilliant book by Mike.

Josh Cantrell (22:56.546)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (23:07.404)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (23:14.864)
And for the listeners that haven't read it, I recommend it. But essentially, as I recall, because it's been several years since I read it, it's, you know, if you have a pumpkin patch, rather than trying to make all the pumpkins grow well, you, you focus your efforts on the pumpkin that you want to grow and you feed it and nurture it, et cetera, et cetera.

Applying that to your customers and saying, okay, who are your best customers and then feeding and watering them and they will help you attract more that are like them. When, when did I get that right?

Josh Cantrell (23:53.772)
Yeah, and I think another big part of it is literally pruning off the other pumpkins that are not the one pumpkin that you really want to grow. So say no to clients that you don't want to have so you can build the one that you do.

Christian Brim (23:58.634)
Yes. Yes.

Christian Brim (24:03.605)
Yes.

Christian Brim (24:07.532)
Yes, and and when we first started that we tried to implement that as as you know any serial entrepreneur will do the though they find the shiny objects and I'm like, oh well let's try this. Yeah. The the the problem we ran into was that.

Josh Cantrell (24:21.738)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (24:33.436)
I, there was, there was zero commonality that I could see in our VAIP clients, right? They were all very different. And I think, I think the, maybe it's in the book and I just missed it. but if you overlay that concept onto the idea that we've already been talking about of, of identifying clearly the person that you're solving.

Josh Cantrell (24:41.048)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Christian Brim (25:02.782)
a problem for and having clarity about what that problem is, that works brilliantly because then you're only focusing on them. And to your point, you're getting rid of the ones that don't. And that oftentimes feels scary, right? It's like, but I'm telling a lot of people no. And yes, that is exactly what you're doing. Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (25:10.158)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (25:17.614)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (25:23.084)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (25:27.05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, by design. Yeah.

Christian Brim (25:32.086)
Did you, did you struggle with the no like pruning?

Josh Cantrell (25:35.726)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I still do. I would say, you know, we're probably 30 % pumpkin plant, you know, we think like we could probably we got probably another 70 % we could really hone in and get super clear on. But so far, this as this is as niche down as I felt really comfortable doing.

Christian Brim (26:02.252)
Mmm.

Josh Cantrell (26:02.326)
And not that comfort is like the whole point, but at some point it has felt a little bit arbitrary, like for to make a decision. right. My best client over here is an IT company. So therefore all my clients, I'm going to focus my whole business on IT companies, or I've got an occupational health management and medical program turnkey program to provider. Am I, guess we're going to do occupational health companies now, you know, it's like, I don't know about that, but like, what are the other common threats? And so for me, it's been this idea of like B2B

Christian Brim (26:29.345)
Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (26:31.954)
services and tech that ha where you have something potentially confusing and expensive to sell. Like those that that has given me a lot of, you know, common deliverables, common questions, common offers and structures that, between the people that struggle with that kind of thing, I can, I can talk that language and, and, but for I've got a buddy that

Christian Brim (26:40.566)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (26:59.254)
is a web developer and he was like, all right, I'm going to pumpkin plant. I'm to do it. And he's, he, he's like, okay, I got a home services company that I've worked with in the past. Really like them, but that's kind of generic. So I'll just choose to garage door opening, opening or garage door companies, residential starts a whole new kind of line of his business pivots into that. And within like a month he's like, this is going, no, this is horrible. Like this isn't working out. Like I don't really care about this business or know this business. And so

There's a, I'm sure Mike would be able to guide him through to like a better decision, a better path. But I have felt a little bit in the past, like I need to take my time on this and not just like go all in on one that doesn't necessarily feel super great, you know?

Christian Brim (27:43.956)
Yeah, I was rereading Extreme Revenue Growth by Ching. He wrote this very simple book. He was a VC investor in Silicon Valley. And he talks about the components that are necessary to have growth, mean, extreme or otherwise. And it starts with

The three elements that are key and I'm going to say this and you're going to say, well, yeah. But the simple truths are the most powerful ones. Like Donald saying, it's not about you. It's about the customer, right? So the first thing is that you have a you have a customer that has a need.

Josh Cantrell (28:24.364)
Mm-hmm. Great.

Christian Brim (28:33.0)
And they know about it. That's the second piece. They know about it. And then the third is that they have a willingness and an ability to pay for the solution.

Josh Cantrell (28:35.372)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (28:44.642)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (28:46.28)
Okay, that sounds right. But in application, it's a lot more difficult. It's not more complicated, but it's more difficult for your friend that went into the garage door. Okay, did he perceive that there was a need or was that just one that he thought was easier to get into, right?

Josh Cantrell (29:06.253)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (29:13.09)
Yeah, it's a good question. I think you're, you're onto something there or, also like for him, even the willingness and ability to pay for it. These guys are usually small. was probably around, it was a little bit after COVID so that the need wasn't really there because everybody was doing everything related to houses at the time. So maybe now actually would be a better, a better time. Maybe the need for leads for small, focused business like that would be a little bit more, but.

Christian Brim (29:39.252)
Yeah. And, and, and to your point, what you do with the, the complex and expensive sale is they, they know they have a need, right? Because if, if they don't know they have a need, you have to sell them that they have a need and then you have to sell them on the solution. Right. And, and that is a huge lift. and the most of the time you're not going to be able to do both. Right.

Josh Cantrell (29:49.165)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (29:59.019)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (30:06.562)
Hmm

Christian Brim (30:07.06)
So it's, focusing on the people that have the need and they know they have a need. We run into this all the time in the accounting space because like we, can perceive the need that the customer does not perceive. And it's like, you're wasting your time. Now, can, can you do, you know, content around education and awareness and, and, you know, teach them. Yeah. But, but that's a long game. That's not. Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (30:11.468)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (30:20.237)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (30:32.482)
Yeah, that's hard.

Christian Brim (30:34.26)
I mean, you have to find the person that knows they have a need. Perry Marshall, author of 80 20 marketing sales, he calls it the bleeding neck. Like, you know, it, it, I need a fix now. Right. Exactly. Yes. It's, it's not, or I like the other analogy of tooth pain, because if you've ever had tooth pain, you'll do anything to fix it. Right. And

Josh Cantrell (30:44.169)
Right.

Josh Cantrell (30:48.992)
I need a tourniquet

Josh Cantrell (30:57.172)
Mm. Mm. Yeah. All right.

Christian Brim (31:02.301)
That's what you're looking for. You're looking for that problem because that's easy to sell to that's easy to market to But it's not always easy to find right

Josh Cantrell (31:05.347)
Yeah.

Sure. Yep.

Josh Cantrell (31:13.062)
Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. And then figuring out how to package it up and do all that stuff. It's just, that's the hard work of listening to folks and, um, and making some passes and having the guts to be wrong and get out there and just put yourself out and learn. And that's been one of the things that's been so fun about being on my own has been, um,

Christian Brim (31:22.026)
Yes.

Christian Brim (31:27.436)
Yes.

Josh Cantrell (31:37.536)
It's okay to fail. Like it's okay to mess up and you don't have to like getting past the idea that every email, every post, every landing page, every bit of self promotion you do has to be amazing or perfect. It's like, man, you have lots of opportunities to in lots of swings and lots of at bats. some of the best business advice I've ever gotten has been,

after I lost my job, a buddy, was, you know, bummed out about it. Like, what is this? What am going to do? All that. And, uh, my friend was like, he said, Josh, just like, get over it. You just lost your biggest client. Go get another one. And it was like, huh, that is such a helpful perspective. And one of the reasons like being a creative on my own has been so fun is it's like we

I get to just go get more clients. Like you can just go get more clients, you know? and a lot of what you're, a lot of what we're talking about here is like having the courage to, in the presence of mind to say, all right, we're going to make certain decisions, but also just realize like each one of them on their own, isn't going to make or break anything. You know, it's going to be fine and you can learn and improve and grow and control more of, of your future and your income.

Christian Brim (32:32.02)
Right. Right.

Christian Brim (32:57.388)
Absolutely, and I think as entrepreneurs, I know this is the case with myself, and I'm assuming it's the case with you, because I've talked to lot of entrepreneurs and it's been the case with them, that we often get down on ourselves when things don't work out the way that we expected them to. And we start framing the conversation of we made the wrong choice, right? We made a bad decision.

Josh Cantrell (33:16.546)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (33:20.758)
Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (33:23.768)
but this became clear to me when I was starting to lead my, my, my team, my, my leadership team and explaining it this way, we're like, no one sets out to make a bad decision. No one. Right. And, and so you make the decision that you think is best with the information that you have at the time. And, and then if it doesn't work out the way you expected to do, well, that's just data.

That's just, that's just feedback. Like, okay, it's not a, it's not a judgment about your decision, right? It's not a judgment about your decision making ability. and it's, it's also, if you're, if you're thinking about it in terms of getting to the right answer, your point is it's iterative.

You don't figure out the answer upfront. Like that's not the way it works. You've got to go through the reps to get to the correct answer.

Josh Cantrell (34:22.412)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (34:28.098)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's true. And I love that book. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. Have you ever heard of that?

Christian Brim (34:40.396)
Maybe. I haven't read it.

Josh Cantrell (34:42.442)
It's, it's worth picking up at some point. It's this, a little bit of this idea where, the obstacle to the way is the way it's this stoic phrase where it's like the up, the way through the way past something that's in your way is actually through it. That's the thing that's going to get you what you need, to, to know or understand or have experience of to get to the next level. So for

Christian Brim (34:51.905)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (35:10.316)
you know, independent entrepreneurs that are struggling for their, you know, responsible for bringing in the dollars and responsible for figuring out the business. It's like, it's easy to want to shortcut that by just saying, you know, pay a guru a certain amount to like fix my business or fix me or whatever. Yeah. It's like the hard work is figuring out what it is about us that we need to know and for struggling and pushing through that. And,

Christian Brim (35:26.59)
Yeah, that doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Cantrell (35:38.996)
And when you I'm I am, you know, in a constant process of learning this as a independent creative entrepreneur, that struggle is the thing like that is the way like struggling through and figuring out all the things that you you don't necessarily feel like naturally good at. Like I want to lean away from certain things, pressing in and owning not that I have to be an expert in everything, but pressing in and owning those those problems.

Christian Brim (36:00.726)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (36:08.91)
Um, is the path through, you know, and sometimes you come out on the other end of that and you're like, I need to hire Christian and his team to do this stuff for me. Right. Or, um, but at least by owning that, that is a problem and I am responsible for it. You get the solution, even if it is somebody else, you know, so.

Christian Brim (36:26.932)
Yeah, I think every business owner has to know a lot, a little bit about a lot of things. but to your point, it's, it's understanding that at the end of the day, it, it's your, your problem and your responsibility to fix. Yes, you can involve others, but you know, if you don't know enough to know whether they're doing the job.

Josh Cantrell (36:33.003)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (36:56.886)
then you've failed because they may do the job, right? They may do it right. but you have to know enough to be able to make that determination because ultimately it's your responsibility. You know, one of the things that frustrates the hell out of us is, is we don't get this, this much anymore, but when we weren't real uber clear, on our service offering and the problem we were solving and our marketing and our messaging is you'd, you'd end up with people.

Josh Cantrell (36:58.99)
sure.

Josh Cantrell (37:02.51)
Yep.

Josh Cantrell (37:09.068)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (37:25.088)
That really just wanted to, they wanted to make their problem our problem. Right. And, and, and so like, okay, well here we're, we're throwing all this in your lap and you fix it, which is fine. That's, that's, that's, you know, at the time that's kind of what we thought we did. Right. Right. We thought we fixed their problem. Yes. But at the end of the day, until they took ownership of.

Josh Cantrell (37:29.677)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (37:36.194)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (37:41.421)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (37:44.983)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (37:52.468)
the finances of the business are my responsibility. We never really got traction because at the end of the day, it's kind of like this. If I hired you to do marketing, I'm like, well, Josh, I don't understand that shit that branding like you fix it, right? You need me to engage with you to help solve that problem and achieve the best outcome.

Josh Cantrell (37:56.632)
Hmm.

Josh Cantrell (38:10.808)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (38:19.0)
you

Christian Brim (38:21.46)
Right? You can't do it by yourself. But if I have that attitude of like, well, you fix it. I don't understand that stuff. Well, that's not going to work well. I have to understand the basics. I have to be able to do what I need to do to help you do your job.

Josh Cantrell (38:21.902)
100%. Yeah. Right.

Josh Cantrell (38:29.334)
Yep. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Josh Cantrell (38:38.646)
Yeah, exactly. That's a, I mean, that's a big pain point for anybody that has to engage with a business owner to do marketing and probably any area where it's like, if you expect us to solve quote unquote, solve the problem, we can, you know, there are, can do this, but it isn't, it's a partnership. Like you gotta contribute some as well. You won't be as happy with the results if like you're not invested, if you don't care and you'll be a lot happier if you do, if you are invested in do care.

So, yeah.

Christian Brim (39:09.482)
Yeah, StoryBrand led us when we, the term guide that he uses, we actually adopted that into our messaging because I think it's critical. You use the word partner and we used to lead with that. But the problem with partnership in my mind is it's too easy.

Josh Cantrell (39:17.774)
Mm.

Christian Brim (39:37.014)
for them to shift like, okay, we're partners, you do this and I do that and we're gonna, right? Whereas the guide implies that I'm not going to do this for you, I'm going to show you how to get to where you need to be, right? And service providers get really confused in that because we do things, right? We do partner, we do solve the problems, but ultimately the guide implies that it's not our responsibility. It's your job to go,

Josh Cantrell (39:41.654)
Mmm, yep.

Josh Cantrell (39:51.496)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense.

Josh Cantrell (40:05.932)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (40:06.988)
take on the Death Star. You've got to go kill Darth Vader.

Josh Cantrell (40:09.088)
Yeah, that's a good point. I like that. That's an interesting distinction. Yeah, I've heard it as a. I haven't heard it put quite that way in the past and I really like that. I think you're right on.

Christian Brim (40:20.0)
Well, Josh, how do people find Signal Brandworks and learn more about you and what you do?

Josh Cantrell (40:24.514)
Yeah, sure. so my favorite, my favorite social channel is LinkedIn. I'm over there a lot posting there a good bit. love making new friends over there. Let's try to how that's kind of how I try to think about it is like everybody is a potential friend. not everybody will be, but everybody is a potential one until they prove otherwise. So love to make new connections and friends over there. it's, just search for Josh Cantrell and then, my website is signal brand works.com and no crazy spelling. It's just,

Christian Brim (40:38.528)
Yes, that's true.

Josh Cantrell (40:54.232)
three very simple words put together into with a dot com at the end. So.

Christian Brim (40:58.828)
Well, Josh, thank you for your time, your experience, share your canter. appreciate it. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you want to hear and we'll get rid of Josh until then. Ta-ta for now.

Josh Cantrell (41:17.357)
I