How to Enhance Your Startup, Brand Leveraging Power of Big Brand introducing concept of Licensing

[Music] hello everyone this is swarit pramani with ignite the spark think tanks and today we have pete canalico in our show pete is author of book expand grow and thrive it has been has served u.s navy been an award-winning aviator advisor and has cleared one of the most difficult crisis leadership test and he will not let him speak about the the test which he has gone through it's it's something not everybody can clear up and uh these days he helped big branch fortune 500 companies tell their stories and help them expand and extend and one of his best-selling books expand grow and thrive so let's welcome help me uh we'll compete in today's show as a think tank expert in branding thank you pete for taking time out it's my pleasure i'm so glad to be with you today ferry thank you pleasure so as usually pete we start our show and uh this is always our core question any subject matter expert person who has transformed his life we ask that and you're particularly very right person to ask this because it actually helps brand identify their passion so help us in understanding how you evaluate and identify your passion when you knew nothing about it and then from that ordinary to extraordinary that journey and then how once you realize that passion step number two is trying to figure out commercial or sustainable advantage out of it right so many people are able to actually figure out a but left out incomplete and b so give us those tips and techniques or secrets behind who you are today how you move from that point to where you are yeah i think great questions uh you know as it relates to passion i think for me what i'd like to do is try to figure out why i tick and help others to figure out why they take what why they do what they do right i think that's the key question you know what what gives us a excitement what makes us passionate about things and then we define those and then we start to explore why they do that what makes them interesting to us what gives us energy right if we can do what we're passionate about it's never work we always feel so much energy that can come forward come forth from our innermost soul and therefore we're able to um you know really pursue it in a way that is meaningful authentic uh you know honest and uh purposeful and and then the question really is as you say the second part is really how can you commercialize this right so for me um i i was fortunate enough to discover you know in my work when i was at the coca-cola company this opportunity to go into this group called worldwide licensing and i learned that in that group my role was to help partner with uh big uh sponsorships like the olympic games which we just finished in tokyo um and with the fifa world cup and with nascar and other major properties and then figure out okay how could we create composite imagery coca-cola with the olympics coca-cola with fifa world cup and then apply it to merchandise that could then help memorialize help make souvenirs out of the experience for for the guests that came to these events so for us what happened in that period was i discovered that if we could partner with the right properties like the olympics and then find categories of merchandise that reinforce what our brand stood for which was about happiness and about you know joy and about you know warm memories then we could find a way to help make the experience for our fans for the consumers more enjoyable and like i said they could remember the the memories by collecting a souvenir so this converted something that was passionate for me you know this idea of wow look what we can do and then um and then make it commercialize in the sense of the company could sell this merchandise and get revenue from it and uh and choose to do what they want it with that revenue sometimes to do more with marketing sometimes to uh to cover other expenses and for me as you can hear my voice i thought this was the coolest thing ever that we didn't have to actually make this merchandise we had another company he was really great at making pins or another company really great at making t-shirts do it on our behalf and because of the brands they sold much much more merchandise than they would without the brands and then they won we won the consumer one and everybody was in a better place for it so that's a little bit about me as relates to passion and commercializing that passion so how did he evaluated that from the life of a navy aviator and i've heard your tedx talk you know how you figured that out and overcome the fear but how did you eventually ended up into branding and when you do branding you are like super different than what others do so from that piece of thing what you were doing and right now to what you are how did you figured out that journey as a as a successful brand listening advisor well gosh part of it was i think luck but you know when i i went to the united states naval academy i had an opportunity my last year there to determine where i wanted to serve in the military and at the naval academy you can either choose to go as a u.s naval officer or as a u.s marine corps officer and i realized for me the navy was a better fit it was more aligned with who i am and what i'm about and then fortunately i had good eyesight at the time and the idea of being a pilot was very very um exhilarating and and the path i chose was to fly on a bigger airplane hunting submarines so i had a crew of 12 people and we went all over the world and um you know we had this really cool mission of being a team and so the idea of being a team and being uh like like i like to think about like the quarterback of the team right i was still a member of the team but i was the leader of the team and so when i left the navy i wanted to continue that experience so for me instead of going becoming an airline pilot i chose to go to business school where i could learn all the disciplines about business and then from there take this kind of concept of being a team member uh with my discipline uh to to a company and fortunately i got chose i got the opportunity to work for the coca-cola company and um i started out in finance actually i think you heard that in my story because i was good at math i was good at numbers and finance and math they kind of go together but what i learned later was there's a lot of math and marketing there's a lot of math and other disciplines and i found that there was this huge passion for the connection part like i really loved to see what how people reacted to our brands to me this was very alluring why were these brands so powerful why did people react to them the way they did and my first opportunity was to help negotiate sponsorships so why did we choose the olympics or fifa and how do i get the best deal for our company that that allows us to win and then this gave me the chance to get into the licensing which i shared just then and so fast forward i left the coca-cola company i had a few other experiences working for a small experiential marketing agency actually worked on the 2004 global olympic torch relay i went around the world with the with the torch and then i got hired by the newer rubbermaid company and i ran rubbermaid's global licensing business another great brand and then i had an opportunity to choose to do something for myself and because i love this idea brands i love the idea of brand licensing i saw this big gap in between the people over here doing the licensing didn't necessarily understand the branding and the branding people didn't really understand how to talk to licensing people and so for me filling this void trying to bring education and knowledge and experience to help um make brands better was where i found my greatest passions so probably the next question and i know that you're an expert you do it day to day but for people so our audience is speed usually people who are budding entrepreneurs small mid-sized business owners and then they are part of north america indonesia and central asia so mixed magic global audience we have and some are university students from different countries who actually get inspired so to them how would you explain because branding i'm sure many people are aware of it this thing brand licensing which is a niche that you explained about and you're a subject matter expert in that how would you explain that to a layman or a small midsize business person to get benefit out of in tell us something more about it because somebody who is looking for to adapt this as a career as a passion how big is the market what kind of skill sets are required and and things like that sure all great questions so uh let me just start out by saying that the market globally is about 300 billion dollars and it is really global probably 40 percent of it's in the u.s but the remaining uh you know major markets have the balance so there's still a significant amount left in those other places um not only uh did i write expand growth thrive which really talks about branding brand expansion licensing but i wrote another half dozen or so guidebooks on how brand licensing works everything from why should this be a good business you know resource for me why should i choose it this is to help both brand owners but also entrepreneurs who have their own businesses who could potentially license brands but also is my brand ready to be licensed to how do i actually execute a brand licensing program so there's all that kind of knowledge that i've made available because i'm really interested in helping educate people whether they read it hear me talk about it i've actually taught a course using my book that i have a full curriculum for and want to share that curriculum with those that are available um and want it so so if you think about the small entrepreneur right how do they benefit from this well here's the thing right they may not have a brand but they might have a product that when they attach a brand to it could be successful for them and the brand and um and so the idea there is okay well what are we doing brand licensing licensing is another word for renting all you're doing is saying is i'm renting the brand in a category that i'm an expert at i'm going to apply that brand to my category that's going to make my product more attractive when i sell the product i give a portion of my sales to the owner of the brand they provide that they contribute that i contribute the product i execute the sales the marketing the everything truthfully i execute the manufacturing the marketing the selling of the product and then i give them a portion as compensation for the brand and so you can see how small businesses can benefit tremendously i like to think about the idea of if i make a t-shirt right and it's the greatest t-shirt it has good you know like properties it feels good it um it wears well uh has um good wicking experience so i'm not you know i don't feel any perspiration but i don't have anything on it that is really attractive it might just sell on the merits of the of the t-shirt but if i could put the mickey mouse logo on there or some other wonderful character that people love i might sell instead of 100 maybe sell 10 000. and you're reading on someone's brand equity and then renting the concept i think that's that's amazing so probably i'm sure not many people are aware of it so when you sell this t-shirt example let's say picking up that mickey mouse logo and paying a small royalty or license fee however you say but usually to somebody who is a small business owner or somebody a startup or an e-commerce person in today's world especially postcode a lot of online things are sas are getting popular you know i was reading reports 71 people are now getting into subscription economy so are there any marketplaces to figure out these kinds of brand licensing or people can get back to you or how do they start searching because now they are aware of these term brand licensing as you used uh how to go to what's a go to strategy like for someone who is yeah that's a great question i'm actually working with a couple of entrepreneurs to try to figure out how to help people that are smaller that have what i call narrow ip narrow intellectual property but you know so you think about a small company that has a product they don't have a lot of resources but there's a lot of small owners of intellectual property that don't have a lot either and what if we could marry the two together right maybe there's a local artist who has really beautiful designs that could not only be great on framed pictures but also applied to mugs or t-shirts or caps and so that particular artist isn't going to have nearly the demands that a big company like disney would have or coca-cola so if there were a way for this local entrepreneur who makes a great t-shirt to find a local artist who who's whose art is really attractive they could both benefit from each other right because the artist is selling her framed artwork but doesn't know how to apply it to a t-shirt but the t-shirt manufacturer does and so that would be a good way for example to try to do something at a smaller level that could benefit everybody wow wow something very out of box for somebody i'm sure many people might be taking notes from what you are giving the strategies any three strategies or techniques that you would like to share from your best-selling book uh which is right now i think not ranking number one on amazon marketplace in your subject category well here's the thing and this is the this is the takeaway i want to really um leave with your audience the first one is we we really need to understand why you know why brands become so loved in the first place right if you think about the brands you love what are the reasons for that and so i co-created a model called lasso with a gentleman named mark de soma who's a brand strategist out of new zealand lasso stands for lateral meaning from category to category how strong is a brand can it go from one category to another a is for addictive so how addictive is your brand right do you like for example um you know not that we may be huge fans of starbucks but starbucks is a pretty addictive brand lots of people go back every day to have their coffee or other drink the third letter is for s is for storied what kind of story do you have everyone has a brand story and it's important to understand that that story the next one is scalability how scalable is your brand sometimes we should scale down not scale up and the last one is o is for ownable and what i'd like to think about there is two things one is do i own the intellectual property a but b does the consumer or the fan out there think so much about the brand they feel like they own it also if you think about rabid fans like those that love apple computers or apple iphones they want to know from apple before the first the next um you know release comes out they want to know first because they feel like they own the brand so if we think about all of these things that helps us understand what makes brands so attractive and so strong so whether you're creating a brand building a brand uh you should think about all those but if you're interested in licensing a brand you want a brand that has all those attributes um and then ultimately it's a good business decisions right how do i work together with them i'm not paying too much royalty but they're not getting too little royalty in the case where everybody wins you know we create these opportunities and the more nimble we can be to be very um fast forward right to think about what are the needs of the consumer today and where they're going to be tomorrow so that we don't get caught up in too much inventory or that we don't have designs that are too stale trying to keep fresh about what what does the marketplace want and then being trying to meet them where they're going to be not where they are today i think those are three important points i would like to leave wow no wonderful this is really giving excellent insights into this thing so you spoke about the royalty fee or the brand licensing small fraction fee what's the market norm like like i know it's a budding feel right now but but what what's going on in the market usually for somebody who's a startup or who is a mid-sized growing company right now yeah so for me what i think is a lot of times these smaller mid-sized companies they get caught up on the idea and i mentioned this a little bit earlier but i wanted to just reinforce it i have to have the very biggest brands right um because those are the most attractive but the truth of the matter is if you can find a brand that is retractive in your local market it it could be just as lucrative if not more lucrative because it might be culturally a better fit for your market if we're talking about you know countries in asia a big american brands may not be the best fit that might be the smaller but loved well-loved local brands that can bring the most connectivity so don't think that you have to go big to be successful go after the brands that you know uh in your marketplace are the ones that you love perhaps right like i know every day i want to drink this drink that is in my my local you know um uh center where i live uh because it really makes me uh feel you know good about my day and then you think okay well where could that brand go what is that what is the emotional connection point i talk about um the brand expansion point in other words what emotion is the brand trying to create and then reinforce that emotion in each of the categories that make sense for the brand so that's the way i think you should think about if you're an entrepreneur or small business owner or even a mid-sized business owner is what is the local brand what is the emotional connection that brand has with its target audience and does my category reinforce that connection if it does that's a good category for me if it doesn't i need to look for another one but don't think you have to go get the biggest brands they're not necessarily the best brands and they're more expensive and harder to deal with whereas the local ones they're going to be more lucrative more um you know amenable to making a a favorable arrangement with you sure sure and uh talking about i think that's a very valid point which you kind of brought right now and i'm sorry i have three cameras so i might be switching my eyes towards the notes because uh most of the questions we are trying to do x tempo based on kind of insights you are bringing to our audience and and really really valuable very valuable thank you pete uh you spoke about let's say for someone who has a residence let's say brands based in asia or central asia let's say you a middle east market a lot of north american audience as well so once they identify that brand or a mid-sized company or a decent company which is popular at a top of mind market research kpis how should they approach who's the decision maker in those companies you know they should speak to and kind of try to start the conversation with yeah so we have to use our networks there for sure and figure out who to talk to it's always great um we're talking about in in many of these instances we're talking about strategic decisions so if you can get us a senior principal person um you know small mid-sized company if you can talk to the owner or the you know the chief executive officer or the chief operating officer that can be ideal because what you want to talk about is a strategic opportunity um if that person is not available then then talk to maybe the head of marketing or the head of business development because in each case you're either in the case of head of marketing you're thinking about okay how do i put your brand into a new category which might be attractive to them if it's the business development person you're saying look i can bring more revenue into your organization which i know is good for you we're going to figure out how to do that in the proper way so those are the folks that i would try to get to first because you want to have that kind of more strategic conversation if you end up at a lower level then you're going to have a little bit more work to do because you're going to have to convince them to convince their their managers why this makes sense excellence makes sense makes sense and uh something personal uh you being so successful and you are the one who actually helps brian tell out their stories and help them figure out their stories what's your personal story like what's your personal philosophy of success and what were the most difficult moments in your life which actually stopped you uh which you have overcome and how you overcome so so thank you for that question freed um for me you know success is measured against a lot of different areas i had the opportunity recently to write a bio on myself a biography on myself that it was not business focused uh business was just a small part of it so i started thinking about what are the things that i feel like have helped me be successful number one i have a great relationship i'm married for 12 years now a wonderful wife i have four grown children two of which have uh children so now i'm a grandfather and two so that is another area of my life i have a strong faith and my faith keeps me going each and every day i have good friendships they're important to me and keep me healthy i take care of myself physically i'm i have good health so i'm i'm grateful for that and then i have i have the opportunity every day to pour into people with my passion for what i do around branding and brand expansion and and and having had the chance to write about it and teach about it and speak about it these are things to me that are um you know really rewarding so so the second part of your question was how did i overcome these challenges right well i believe you know and i've learned this sometimes the hard way sometimes easier after time but i believe every every failure is an opportunity to learn so if we don't think about failure as failure in the sense of like you can't go on but look you know this this uh this this um hurdle this uh barrier was a chance for me to figure out another way to get around it or perhaps take a different course it is an opportunity for evaluation right so uh and i've had uh several of them along the way um you know when i was in in the navy i had a challenging one i had to figure out how to get around that uh then when in my business world a couple of times i was laid off and had to find new opportunities uh and couldn't uh couldn't focus too much on that but said okay i got to be thankful for what i learned while i was there and now how can i use that to make myself better and stronger so i think that's a really important point for me and then the the part i talk about in my tedx talk which is the idea of visualizing right if you can visualize where you're going to be when you're going to be there who you're going to be with when you're trying to accomplish something it helps keep you focused on why you're wanting to go after what you're going after and gives you the discipline and all the criteria all the all the things that you need to be successful and so that's kind of where i've come from and life is a journey and um every part of it is uh part to be lived right so i don't want to be on the sidelines afraid i want to be doing things i know at the end of the of my time i want to be able to say i've tried everything i've pushed myself uncomfortably sometimes to know where my limits were and then feel like i've really fulfilled my life versus um perhaps living vicariously through somebody else it sounds great because you know once i think that passion which is the energy we all can feel and sense in you that's bringing you i think both and you are actually focusing on both the direction commercial as well as social impact you know which you will do a lot especially the kind of curriculum and all that that you have designed for people to benefit from i think very few people who get to that subject matter expertise open that up you know and so so thank you for being who you are any personal philosophy i know everybody has a court a philosophy a two-liner or a proverb they have written and they try to refer that back and forth you know in times of being down is there anything that you have to share with the audience that you do well i talked about my faith earlier and i'm a christian man and i believe that um you know faith is so important you know um jesus said in john 10 10 i come that they might have life and have it abundantly right so i'm looking for the abundant life and i know abundant life for me is walking with my faith every day and knowing that i have the opportunity to experience abundance in any in any form shape that i'm in regardless of where i am it's more of these experiences like the one i'm having with you right now is very i feel very very energized by it i'm so grateful that i have the chance to meet you and to talk to you today so i don't think we have to think about materialistic things as a way of being not opposed to them and i think they're great but to me experiences are are the most important thing and how we treat others so um when we do that well then you know we can have a smile on our face and we can rest our head on our pillow at the end of the night and know that we've done well wonderful wonderful so abundant fate and then carrying the faith with you in day-to-day life so so these are the two key words i think message for the audience that we could learn from pete uh pete last question i know i requested you have a busy schedule and i know we are going above 15 minutes but uh pre post pandemic you know bits it's delta back again so people are slightly confused you know whether will we point back to point zero again and you know uh so we have spoken a lot of questions about entrepreneurs and professionals but there is also a audience uh which does freelancings you know especially in parts outside north america and they is there any component of brand licensing you feel they can master at could not be brand licensing itself but like a subunits you know that you feel that the economy is turning towards and they can tune themselves get that skill set which could benefit them if they are trying to get yeah great question i i do think the gig economy is alive and thriving and will only get more thriving as we move forward whether you're on a platform like fiverr or something like that um so you know for these uh licensees right the companies that are making this licensed product they need good design they need you know that's designed in the sense of two-dimensional but also three-dimensional design they need to have you know style guides created and look books created um so these are things that um i think you know entrepreneurs out there who are you know working at their desktop can do um there's also you know the whole sense of kind of fulfilling maybe in the area of potentially how do we how do we test these products so maybe you know they could be there in evaluating the the you know the the miraculous the meritocracy of the product the actual capabilities of the product so that might be another way that they can help uh these brands or these companies or it might be as something you know as more basic as you know helping these businesses run smarter so their shared services those are important to these everybody has to be more nimble and and to do more with less so where these ladies and gentlemen can fit in and fulfill those those niches are going to make these companies more nimble more successful so i don't think you should be discouraged um by this conversation but be encouraged that there's all of us need help in in all of those capacities so please keep doing what you're doing wonderful wonderful and i think uh that's where i think we can learn from pete is that uh so you speak about ui ux let's say designing services fiverr up for could be logo designs but one thing that i think as a take out i an audience can learn from you is all these designers which is a very growing feeling of economy you termed it right uh i think when we when they realize more of a brand story i think their designing sense will also curl around those pointers and i think that's what they can make them extraordinary and excellent what they do so i think thank you thank you pete for your time in the busy days and we bless uh stay blessed in what you're doing and thank you for the valuable advice and wish you luck in what you do thank you so much for this opportunity i think this platform that you've created is a wonderful gift to the world i appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today i wish you much much success because i know you're pouring into these ladies and gentlemen all over the world and that's a great thing that you're doing so thank you for for this platform and i'm i'm just thrilled to be a part of it today thank you pete thank you steve bruce take care bye you

Channel: ThinkTanks by Farid Premani

Views: 1,122

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: IRoZj3bQheg

Length: 29min 56sec (1796 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 10 2021