The Power Of A Good Personal Branding with Jason Byer

Dec 12, 2022 | Gathering Fans, Learning from the Best, PodCast, Season 3, The Jam Room

Season 3 / Episode #97 : Jason Byer

by Work @ Home RockStar Podcast

The Back-Story

Jason Byer is the marketing and partnerships manager for Crowdspring, a Chicago-based branding company that helps businesses, agencies, and non-profits of any size start, run and grow their business through great design and naming. Crowdspring dramatically simplifies the design process by handling the complexity so that you can focus on getting great results. Crowdspring started to address a fundamental problem with the design process, most clients had little choice, and most designers had few opportunities to find clients. Jason is the oldest of 7 children. He was raised and attended school in Florida but realized he needed to feel a change of seasons, so he moved to Chicago. He’s equally comfortable reading The Game of Thrones and Dostoyevsky while training for triathlons and endurance races and brewing beer. He authored Get the Job: How to Use Personal Branding to Jump-Start a Career and Dominate the Competition.

Show Notes

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In This Episode:
[0:00] Intro
[0:28] What’s Jason’s good note?
[2:18] What is his bad note?
[5:20] What’s good and bad about having a good home office?
[11:21] How does he get fans?
[13:53] Marc Mawhinney from Natural Born Coaches shares his experience with Tim and Creative Crew Agency
[14:43] How do you figure out what your brand is?
[21:43] What is his process of learning?
[25:02] How does he find the right people?
[28:10] What’s exciting in Jason’s business?
[30:21] Who would be the best clients for them?
[31:36] Outro

Transcript

Read Transcript

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast.

Very excited for today’s guest. He’s, uh, the owner of a Wyoming Guest Ranch, and he also is the head of marketing and partnerships at crowdSPRING. . And uh, what he does is he helps business owners to understand how to build a strong brand. So I’m very excited to be talking to Jason Byer today. Hey Jason, you ready to rock?

Jason Byer: I’m ready. I’m excited. Perfect. This passionate, passionate subject.

Tim Melanson: Yes. Working from home . It’s awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success in your business so we can be inspir.

Jason Byer: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve, I’ve been, I’ve been working remote now for about a decade in, in kind of a hybrid and full-time.

And, uh, you know, like most people, I think it was a focus on, on the lifestyle I wanted to be there for, for the kids and, and, uh, not spend so much time in the commute and, um, You know, I think where that really came to a head was I got sponsored by Flex Jobs, which many people know is finding flexible employment, uh, as the job board.

And I got to travel for a year and document that experience. Uh, working from a mobile home, , you know, one, one that was moving, uh, with my girls. And that came with, you know, it, it was kind of that quintessential moment where all this work from home kind of came to this, this moment of like, all right, can we do.

And like stay sane and, you know, raise our kids and, and move around while holding down, you know, a a, a, um, a strategic position, uh, in the company. And, uh, yeah, it came up with a lot of challenges, a lot of struggles, and it was just, it was just a wonderful opportunity, I think to, to have that.

That is very interesting.

So you worked from a mobile home traveling around. That’s awesome.

Yep, yep. It was, it was a 30 foot camper. It was not, it was not a big enough . We had two little girls and, and, uh, traveling with us and my wife and, um, yeah. It was a interesting balance. You think it’s, it’s difficult sometimes for us to think about how to balance, you know, work life when we have, you know, running water.

And, and heat, and we know where we’re staying, but it just adds a layer of complexity when, you know, you don’t know where you’re going to park next and you’d like to have some time to have some fun. And, uh, you’re still trying to make sure you add that, that strategic focus for, for the core. For the core job.

Wow.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Well, we always also talk, we balance the good with the bad and sometimes there’s some bad notes to be hit here. So, right. Uh, based on what you just said, I bet you you’ve got some stories for me. So, was there a bad note that you could share with us that, uh, we can learn from?

Jason Byer: Yeah, that’s, that’s an interesting, I, I hadn’t thought about that, you know, connecting the two until just now, but, you know, we.

We got stuck in California during one of the wildfires, and we were kind of, uh, uh, trapped between a lot of smoke and, and it was on Thanksgiving. This was a couple years ago now. It was on Thanksgiving that we were able to finally travel down, uh, to the place we wanted to go, just north of San Francisco.

And, and we, we get there on Thanksgiving. I’m tired. I I just want a glass of wine, you know, I’m just, I got the camper parked and I’m like, you know, I’m just, I’m done. I’ve gotta work tomorrow. You know, I’m like, Uh, you know, just, it was, it was Thanksgiving, you know, we were traveling and, and so. I, I rushed and, and got the camper.

We had a, a trailer got it unhooked and as soon as I unhooked it, I realized we were on a hill and it, there’s just boom, you know, it dropped off the hitch and started rolling and just your heart sinks cuz there’s nothing you can do. I can’t like grab it and hold it. And it starts sliding towards this cliff.

It’s a 30 foot cliff, and, uh, it just bumps into this little fence, a a dinky little fence. I’m not sure why it was there other than to save my, my bacon . And uh, and that’s what it did. It bumped into that and stopped. And, and I think my lesson. For that trip and, and just in, in life in general was, was just a slow down, you know, to, to slow down and realize that like, all right, if I’m rushing a little too fast, you know, what could happen here?

You know? And, and uh, luckily it was just a big scare, , wow, that is so deep. , right? Slow

Tim Melanson: down. And it’s, it’s totally true. I mean, and, and, and when you think about it, there’s very few things. , uh, really need to be handled. You know exactly that quickly. Right. You know, and, and if it does and, and, uh, you know, you can’t get, I mean, you think about those times when people will, you know, be trying to sell you something and they’re like, you need to make a decision right now.

You know, if you leave this room, that deal’s gone. . Those are usually scams. .

Jason Byer: Good point. Yeah. I mean if the deal,

Tim Melanson: if the deal expires right now, then then how valuable is this, this, this program that you’re about to embark in? And if the program is as valuable as they say it is, then you can pay full price.

Jason Byer: Right, right. Great point.

Tim Melanson: So I agree. So I think, yeah, in just about everything. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, because we do make mistakes when we try to rush

Jason Byer: too much. Exactly. Yep. And sometimes the stakes are pretty high. You know, I could have lost the whole camper, been, you know, stuck on in California and Yep.

Yeah. And ,

Tim Melanson: I mean, it was for wine though, so, Hmm.

Jason Byer: Yeah. Yeah. On Thanksgiving, ,

Tim Melanson: so I can understand that . Right, right, right on. So now, okay. I mean, I can’t wait to talk about the next topic, which is the jam room, because I mean, I bet you you’ve got some really cool. Uh, stories about how to make that successful in, in your journey.

So tell me, uh, you know, the good and the bad about, about having a good home office.

Jason Byer: Absolutely. I mean, it’s, it’s critical. It starts with like a mental space, right? So I’ve got, I’ve got two little girls and, and my wife and, and so it starts with having that, that that mental kind of barrier in space where the family knows like, you know, this is, this is my work, this is my work environment.

You know, there’s times when you can interrupt because look, this is, this is why we do this, right? We, we want to be there for the family and so we want to, you know, share the little struggles or, or help out around the house when we can, but we also. Uh, you know, have that barrier around us, uh, that, that says, look, you know, I’m working, you know, and I need to be able to focus, uh, especially if you’re in a job that requires a lot of, of, of focus and strategy.

And so it starts really outside the room. It starts to make sure that the people that that are in your life recognize, you know, that, that it’s important, uh, for you to have the space. And then you have to recognize that you can’t abuse that privilege, right? I can’t just go to the room and, and say, you know, I can’t be bothered anytime I’m in here.

Right? Like, it’s gotta be a, it’s gotta be a, a, a, a give and a take. And so it starts outside the room. Once you get inside the room, you know, this is the space to craft. I think the single. Investment that I made, um, that, that, that really paid dividends is my, my camera. Uh, so having a D S L R camera set up, uh, it’s a Sony, uh, Sony muralist camera.

Uh, the DSLRs don’t stay on as long, they’re not as, they’re not as strong. Uh, but replacing the web cam with this, this mirrorless camera has really just. It’s like a new suit, you know, it’s like a, it’s like in the, in the old days where we worked from offices, , you know, you’d care about how you, you looked, you know, physically, and, and, and now, you know, kind of that digital presence has been so helpful for.

For meetings because it allows you to feel a little bit closer to that person. You know, it’s a, it’s a little bit clearer of a connection and uh, a lot of times it’s a great, a great way to stand out. A lot of times, you know, I look better than the c e o of a company that jumped on a call. You know, there’s something to that when you’re in a, a strategic environment at the company.

So I think, you know, for me it’s been a heavy focus on, on the mental side of my space, making sure that, that, I know that when I’m in the. , it’s time to perform that I’m not doing really anything else in this space. Um, and my space is not glorious right now. I’m still building my house. Uh, so I’m actually like in, in an upstairs room inside of a gable.

Um, it is not a, you know, beautiful space. So I know a lot of people have, you know, struggles where maybe working remote is new to them and they don’t have the dedicated space and they’re sharing that with a bedroom or a living room or something else. And it’s awkward. Uh, it’s, it’s more just to make sure.

your desk and that space that you occupy during work is set up, um, for work, you know, and, and the tools that you need. So, yeah, I think I give a little bit more credence to the mental side of, of my space than the, the physical objects. Well,

Tim Melanson: and I do like that you focused on that cuz I, I know my first home office was, in the kitchen, it just, right.

I mean, you know, if you, if you’re, especially if you are, you know, jumping out into something and you’re not really prepared for it, well, you know, maybe you, you didn’t buy a house with an office in it because you didn’t expect to have an office and, you know, you gotta make it work with . But I, I like, you know, I, I sort of did the same thing.

I had this little corner that was, had my desk on it and it was all set up for work. And when I was at that desk, you know, cause I. Uh, my son was at home as well. He was one year old when I started working from home. And you know, you’ve gotta set these boundaries and Right. Believe it or not, the kids actually, you know, you don’t, can’t control everything, but they do kind of get it, don’t they do,

Jason Byer: right?

Yeah, absolutely. It helps as they get older and they recognize, you know, that, you know, what is dad doing? He is not just sitting on a computer, you know? Yeah. Taking keys. Uh, but you know, You know, getting back to this mental, you know, it’s helpful to educate the family, especially if they didn’t come from, you know, if, if your wife, you know, doesn’t, or husband, spouse doesn’t work from home and they don’t quite understand this, you know, it helps to provide that education about, you know, what is a floss.

State, you know, what are you, what are you trying to get when you’re total concentration? So, in the house that I’m building, I have a bathroom right next to my office. I design that on purpose, , uh, so that, you know, I can’t get distracted right now. I have to go through kind of living areas and, and so I explain to the family like, look, when, you know, when I’ve gotta run to the restroom or run to make some tea real quick, uh, I’m still focused, right?

Like, I don’t want to hear about problems. I’m going to make time to hear about those. I’m not trying to avoid the challenges of, of family life and what we need to discuss, but I can’t do that right now mentally. I need to stay focused. Um, and so I think that’s, that’s critical. Whereas before, we might have that in an office and before you might not know what’s happening at the house because you’re geographically away from that.

Now it’s a little bit harder in that we have to mentally separate ourselves because we’re in the same physical. .

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think that what you said is key. It’s, it’s just about communicating that and also sticking to whatever you just said, , you know? Yeah. Like you, like you said, I mean you, if you abuse the room,

Jason Byer: you know, or the spot, oh, if I start watching movies up here, you know?

Yeah. It’s done. Nobody’s gonna respect the space. . Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So you have to actually be productive in those. And you know what, that’s probably really good as well. , uh, you know, for, for us as well, we need to have some sort of balance as well. So Sure. If you’re always productive in that room, your brain will start to get, uh, used to being productive in that room and you probably will be more

Jason Byer: productive.

Right? Agreed. Absolutely.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. I’m glad you, you, uh, touched on that stuff. So now let’s talk a little bit about, now you’ve, you know, you’ve, you’ve found a space to work, , you’re, you’re getting moving here. Now you’ve gotta start to build an audience and build some fans and, uh, get some people.

Looking at your business. So how do you approach, you know, the marketing side?

Jason Byer: Yeah, so, you know, this is my focus is on branding. So I lead, uh, marketing and partnerships for crowdspring.com. It’s a 15 year old brand where we focus on helping small business owners, solopreneurs, agency owners, on how to, how to build a strong brand.

And, and this sounds scary for a lot of people, right? And, and this. It’s so critical, you know, getting to your question of, you know, where do you start with your marketing? You have to start with, with your brand and, and who you’re, who you’re trying to reach. You know, what is, who’s your audience? Why are they choosing you over a competitor?

You know, why do they stick with you? You know, why do they repeat purchase, um, . And so the brand is very simply every interaction that somebody has with your company. That’s it. It’s as simple as every interaction. So this is, this is emails, this is how you present yourself, uh, in a video conference. This is how quickly you return phone calls, it’s your return policy.

It’s all of this, right? And so what we do, and what I do is, is focus on, on the branding first, because, , everything else flows from that, right? The, the style that you use for your emails and, and who you’re going to, uh, you know what social media platforms you’re gonna be involved in for your marketing.

That all has to come from, well, what’s my brand? Why do people like me? What audience. Am I talking to? And if you don’t answer those questions first becomes very difficult to build, um, uh, to, to build a marketing plan. And then the very next step after creating the brand is the brand identity. And the brand identity is all the visual elements.

And they’re important because we process imagery thousands of times faster than text, right? Thousands of times faster than me telling you what I do. Me showing you through visual imagery is going to make an impact very quickly. And so at crowdSPRING we have 33 categories of branding and design. It’s a focus on, you know, custom logos, custom designs, that now you insert that within all of your marketing, right?

Flows from. It’s your brand first and then your brand identity translates that brand. And then you use this brand identity in all types of marketing, right? So all of your outreach. Does that make sense? Totally.

Marc Mawhinney: Hi, it’s Mark Ney from Natural Born Coaches, and I want to give two very big thumbs up to Tim Lanson and his Creative Crew agency.

I have been using them for a long time and I am 100%. , they get the job done right? They’re fast and they let me focus on my business. I don’t have to worry about anything. So again, I want to give them two very big thumbs up. I have no problem recommending them. I don’t give testimonials for everyone because my name is attached to it, but I gladly do so for Tim and the Creative Crew Agency.

So use. You won’t regret it and good luck.

Tim Melanson: Um, so, okay, I have questions on that. So now, uh, you know, cause I’m in a similar space, I do marketing as well and websites. So now, uh, what I’ve noticed is that. , uh, the best way to figure out your brand is to figure out what’s already been

Jason Byer: happening, ,

Tim Melanson: right? So, sure.

Here’s, here’s the, the people I’ve been working with so far, and these are the ones that I like. These are the ones that don’t work out so well, and then you can sort of start to figure out what your brand is that way. But, but what if, what if you, what if you’re just getting started and you don’t? Like, how do you figure out who you wanna serve if you haven’t served anybody?

Jason Byer: You have to make some As, yeah, you have to make some assumptions, right? And you have to also, y y you know, it sounds kind of Oprah ish, but you have to forgive yourself if you make the wrong choice, right? So you’ve gotta say, look, I need to commit to something, because if you don’t commit to something, You run the risk of somebody just thinking you’re, you’re something for anybody, right?

Which doesn’t really resonate. Now they’re gonna start beating you up over price. Um, because it’s like, well, that’s the only thing I can compare. You, you don’t look like an expert. You’re not really talking to me specifically. You’re a little bit more generic. So, so pick a lane. and realize that you may need to refresh that later.

You may need to change it because as you mentioned, most of us get into business and we just serve anybody with a pulse. And then we start to realize, wait a minute, I really like this one group. They don’t balk at my pricing. You know, they’re, I, I enjoy talking with them. . So if you’re not, at that point, if you’re just getting started, you know, your goal is really to, to find that nexus of what am I good at?

You know, what am I trying to sell? What is the core, you know, product? And then who do I like talking to? Who do I assume is going to be, you know, um, a, a a, a customer that is going to pay the prices that I need, right? If you’ve set the price, this is what I need in my service. You’ve essentially eliminated a.

Group of businesses or individuals who can’t pay that price or won’t pay that price, right? And so you start to narrow it down, but just by picking the, the audience, make some assumptions and find the areas where maybe you have some commonality, right? So, you know, if you’re into, I’ve done an Ironman before, right?

I can speak to endurance athletes. So if I’m creating maybe something. That anybody’s doing, you know, building websites or, or coaching, right. How do I niche that down a little bit further? Well, maybe creating them for this industry isn’t very unique, but at least I can speak to it. At least I can resonate.

We can have good conversations because people wanna do business with people they like. Right? And so I, I think it’s. It’s a complicated answer, but we don’t want analysis paralysis. We don’t wanna be thinking so long about, I don’t know what my niche is. You know, pick one, move with it, and then make some iterations later when you find out, you know, they’re not the right fit.

Yeah. I love

Tim Melanson: it. I love, I love those answers because I, I, I, I always have found that, uh, having a branding conversation, uh, is a really good way to figure all that stuff out. And I think you’re right. I think people don’t want to get into that because they don’t wanna make any commitments to anything yet.

You know, they’re sort of like, oh, I’m not, I’m not quite ready for that. I don’t want to, you know, spend the money or do, but, but I mean, you don’t even necessarily have to spend any money yet. But you have to really start to think about who it is you’re serving and regardless of where you’re on your, on your journey.

I mean, you mentioned earlier that you know, if you’re, if you’ve already. Uh, you know, some business going, going and meeting with a branding specialist is gonna be the best thing you ever did because now all of a sudden they’re gonna start to ask you some questions that are really gonna target you into an area.

And I mean, what you get, what you focus on expands, right? And if you start focusing on exactly what you want, That’s only gonna get bigger. And then on the other hand, if you’re just getting started and you don’t know who you serve yet, having those, those, those conversations is gonna make you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I, I think you’re right. I think that is who I want to focus on. I wanna focus on people that I get along with and I wanna serve them. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s, let’s go down that Dr. That way,

Jason Byer: right. Exactly. I mean, think about the challenge to, to not committing to something right. To not, and I’ll, I’ll focus on the visual side to not creating a strong visual brand, to not creating a logo because you’re fearful of, of, um, uh, of, of, you know.

Focusing on one niche, right? Why? Why do we have logos, right? As a business, you know, it’s not because Facebook, you know, has an avatar section that we’ve gotta upload something, or random pages ask us for a logo. We have logos because we process imagery faster than text, and the logo is a visual. Shorthand.

It’s a visual shortcut to our brand. It signals everything about who we serve, our and, and what we’re trying to do. Are we trying to build trust? Save them money? Speak to an affluent audience. This is what colors and shapes and words within this logo are going to communicate. What happens if you have something very generic?

What happens if you speak to everyone? You use a free logo generator or something, and it spits out something that’s, um, uninspiring and generic. It’s meant to talk to everybody. So it’s not talking to anybody. It’s not serving that purpose of a visual shortcut, uh, uh, a shorthand for your brand because it’s meant for anyone.

And so what happens early in your business is it makes it even more harder. To grow your audience, because now you’re not talking to anybody. You’re not even talking to the wrong person. You know, you’re not, you’re not, you know, focused in on the wrong niche that you made the wrong association for. You’re just, you’re talking to a, a generic audience and it becomes very difficult to understand.

God, starting a business is hard. Why? Why make it even harder? You know, by, by not communicating what you’re trying to do, even if you ultimately find out that’s the wrong approach, at least you know, you communicated, you know, the, the most succinctly. To this audience, you just picked the wrong audience, and now you can refresh or refocus the brand somewhere else.

Oh, man. And,

Tim Melanson: and just think about it this way. If you make a decision today to focus on an audience, you find out that it’s the wrong audience, and next month you start focusing on the right audience. Versus you didn’t do anything , right. And now you’re floundering for a few years until you know you’re, you’re better off to actually, you know, go in that direction, figure out it’s not for you, so that you can get it on the right path quicker.

Right.

Jason Byer: Exactly. I mean, look, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. You want to make, you know, you, you wanna make the commitment and start moving forward, even if it’s the wrong commitment. You want to give your all so that you can say, you know what? Wrong audience, let’s refocus somewhere else.

Yeah. Uh, otherwise you’re just left wondering, was it the wrong audience or was it. The wrong approach. Did they not understand, you know, what I was doing? Yeah, yeah,

Tim Melanson: exactly. You’re you’re better to figure that out as early as you can now. So, uh, I like having this conversation about the, the next topic, which is learning from the best, which is, you know, I, I like to get.

An idea of what your idea is of learning. Like, you know, do you hire coaches? Like what, how do you find out, how do you learn what you, what you know now? Uh, yeah. Do you have masterminds? Like how, how is it, how is your process?

Jason Byer: So, I think it’s a little less sexy than, you know, the coaches, the masterminds. I think it’s having a curated list of, of educational resources from.

True experts in their crafts. Right? And so what I mean by this is I think when we try and enter a new industry or we’re trying to learn how to do something, we Google you, you know, like, uh, lead gen tools, you know, or how can I get more clients? There’s these big. Topics. Right. And the problem with that is the crap content ranks first.

It’s like HubSpot and it’s like generic, like start a blog. Okay. It’s like, all right, that’s, you’ve just taken an entire life. Thanks, . Yeah. Yeah. It’s not, not very helpful. Right? And so what I like to do is find the content that is, um, Is really focused on what they do. Beth, so, so kind of rapid fire, you know, it’s Annie McGuire for copywriting.

When you see some of her work compared to, uh, and she has a a, a blog, she’s not gonna come up in, you know, HubSpot is going to outrank her every time, but her content is, is dramatically better. So somebody like this can. Uh, can show you how to improve, you know, your copy, uh, Dan over, not a newsletter who puts together a, uh, Google Doc.

Very comprehensive. Every, every month. Uh, it’s a cheeky name. It’s still a newsletter. It’s just in a Google Doc that he sends out once a month. And, uh, , and, and this is talking about email, you know, everything around email news and privacy and tactics that you should know, again, you know, much deeper than something, you know, to keep rank, uh, uh, RA on, uh, HubSpot.

Um, and then finding the areas that, you know, I think it’s, it’s, we don’t wanna just get the information that is, that is obvious. I think we want to find and curate a list specific to your industry of who truly. The best. I mean, I love, I, I can’t think of his name now, but his whole thesis is, he’s not in MySpace.

Um, he’s in, he’s in development in, uh, ui, ux, but he’s got this thesis and podcast and, and newsletter around. The idea of hourly billing is nuts, right? It’s a clever, you know, uh, I can’t remember the guy’s name. I can remember like his tagline and I still get his emails, but they’re succinct ways of communicating.

how to value-based price your services, right? And. It’s about finding and curating a list of true experts in your field and turning to those on a regular basis to get the insights. It’s a little bit harder to find these people in your industry. It’s much easier just to read the HubSpot and kind of check it off your list and say, okay, I read, you know, the first page of Google, uh, on, you know, these types of legion tactics.

But I find that this, this resonates, um, it, it creates stronger, uh, So I found Jonathan Stark. Jonathan Stark. There we go. . Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Right on. So I, I mean, I I love that. I love that advice. Um, and you know, over time you are right. You end up figuring out who these people are that are the top of levels of your niche.

Um, but yeah, I, I like how did. I’d like to get a little bit more insight into how you find these people, uh, because I’m sure someone’s listening to this going like, well, sure, thanks. I keep on getting up on HubSpot. Do blogs.

Jason Byer: Right? Yeah, absolutely. I I think it, it, you have to be curious. It it, and maybe this is a personality, you know, trait.

I’m, I’m not sure you have to, if it, if it doesn’t come naturally to you, you’ve gotta maybe kind of schedule this curiosity, right? And so this is, you know, podcasts, this is YouTube videos, you know, On these crafts and, and finding. Finding these people. I think it also helps to ask, right? A lot of these people are connected.

You know, I found Jonathan Stark through Kai Davis, which was from the podcast. Um, they stopped it now, but a podcast they were doing together, right? So it was like references between people who all, you know, kind of hung in the same circle, offering different advice. I mean, some of them are obvious, some of them are truly great.

You know, like Seth Goden for marketing, he’s been putting out a daily email. That is maybe just two paragraphs long at the most, very hard-hitting, you know, very, you know, you’re thinking a lot about what he’s putting out. Um, you know, so, so some of these are a little bit more obvious, like who truly are the experts in these fields.

Uh, but a lot of times you could just ask, you know, you can ask other colleagues, you know, if somebody’s coming to me, I can give you a list of 10 different kind of focused in the marketing and, and, uh, partnership and, and space. Uh, but a lot of times it just is as simple as asking. other colleagues that you respect or asking the guests the or the, or the resources themselves.

You know, Hey, Jonathan Stark, I really like your content. You know, these people respond, you know, who do you recommend? Who do you think is the best? What newsletters are you reading on a daily basis? I can’t tell you how many times these people respond, and it’s like, wow, that’s cool. Like somebody with a newsletter or podcast I respect reached out.

I mean, you know this as a host, this is what you live for. You want somebody to say, You know, Tim, what newsletters do you read? What are the top five you like? Yep. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: I, I agree. I mean, of course it’s, I’m, I’m gonna say this because I run a podcast, but, but I do find that nowadays, you know, especially if you find a podcast that has, you know, more than five episodes, but like in a podcast that’s been running for a while, you know that there’s something going on there, right?

Sure. And, uh, and like I’ve always found that as well, if you see something you. Then you can, you can usually reach out. People are responsive. Yeah. They’re more responsive than people think that like, I think people have this idea that, oh, that person’s way too successful to respond to a message from me.

And maybe they are, but they’re probably not. They’re probably interested in helping you . And so it’s worth sending them a quick message going, Hey, you know, I saw this. Oh, who can you recommend? And they’ll, they’ll give you somebody, right?

Jason Byer: Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So it is time for your guest solo, and I’m excited to hear about what’s exciting in your business.

Jason Byer: So tell me what’s going. So at crowdSPRING we’ve, what we’ve realized, we, we spent a lot of time educating around branding, much like we’re doing now, trying to demystify and, and, and show that it’s uncomplicated and, and give you permission to take that first step to say, look, you know, commit to a lane, you know, put some, put some effort behind it and, and see, see the result.

And, and so one thing we did recently was we said, let’s, let’s actually. This, this a little bit more relevant. We’ve had a lot of guides on brand identity, but we said we wanna make. More specific to the business. And so we created a brand identity greater, and this is a custom 10 page report. It’s created for free and done by a human.

And so we actually look at your brand. Uh, we graded on a scale of of one to a hundred and provide specific insight on areas that we think you’re doing well and to double down on or, or areas that could use improvement. And it’s been really exciting because it. These lessons, uh, around branding and makes them super applicable.

I mean, they’re designed just for you. It’s for your business. And, um, you know, if you, we do this to invest in this idea of, of, of building strong brands as the secret sauce to, uh, to, to improving your business. And then look, if you decide that you want to make some changes, crowdSPRING is an affordable platform.

Our, our logos start at $300 and it’s a way to. A lot of different ideas. Each logo comes with dozens of different custom designs, so you’re able to see, uh, your brand in different, uh, different perspectives. Uh, if you don’t need a logo, because you know you’ve already gone through this process, we have 33 categories of branding and design.

So the marketing materials, the flyers, the postcards, things like that. And then, uh, there’s a hundred percent money back, g. So if you don’t, that includes credit card processing fees. It’s everything. So if you don’t find something, uh, you don’t think it’s for you, then there’s no, then there’s no risk. But we wouldn’t be in business after 15 years if we didn’t have a, a very strong process for getting results.

Right on.

Tim Melanson: So then who would be your main target audience? Like who, who would be the best clients for you?

Jason Byer: So it’s, it’s everyone from those just getting started. We have company and product naming. So literally like, I don’t even have a name for my company yet. I’m so new. I, I can’t register the company until I have a name.

We have those and then we have, uh, companies that have been around for years and, and they’re either saying, look, I finally need to get official. I need to, you know, I’ve heard this podcast and they’re telling me I, I really need a strong brand. I agree. Let me start, you know, others have been operating and said, look, we need to pivot a little bit.

Our business has changed and we want our brand identity to reflect that. Uh, so we, we work with solo business owners to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve worked with 65,000 clients. So there’s quite a few, uh, industries and, and, and company sizes, but yeah.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Awesome. So how do we

Jason Byer: find out? crowdspring.com and uh, if, if we’ve got some show notes, I’ll send over the link for the brand identity Greater as well.

And then if you need to reach me, it’s jason@crowdspring.com. Awesome.

Tim Melanson: Thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Jason. It’s been a lot of

fun.

Jason Byer: It was fun. Thanks Tim. Appreciate you. Right on.

Tim Melanson: And to the listeners, make sure you subscribe right and comment and we’ll see you next time in the Work at Home Rockstar podcast.

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