Mastering Marketing: How to Elevate Your Brand Value as an Entrepreneur

John Harcar (00:00.685)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with Michael Hunter. And what we’re going to talk about is branding and really communicating your messages. You guys remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, really all entrepreneurs, two to five extra business, you know, by helping them build the businesses they want to build with the tools and resources and live the lives that they’ve always wanted to live. So Michael, welcome to our show.

Michael R. Hunter (00:26.85)
Thanks so much for having me excited to be here.

John Harcar (00:28.911)
Awesome. Yeah, I’m interested to talk about branding. It’s actually going to be a topic at our next Mastermind coming up here in May. But before we kind of get into all that, I to just kind of give a little background about you and your experience, your journey in branding and how you got here.

Michael R. Hunter (00:43.756)
Yeah. I mean, so I had an interesting journey to get to this point because I started off in direct sales. My first taste of entrepreneurship was when I was 17 and indirect sales, I thought marketing was just complete BS. You know, if I’m not sitting across the table from someone closing the deal, like, you know, it’s not like, like, how does this thing called marketing even work? and then I actually realized the value of marketing and started a marketing company, helping author speakers, coaches, thought leaders.

John Harcar (01:03.234)
Right?

Michael R. Hunter (01:10.382)
monetize their message, monetize their thought leadership and their expertise. And I still kind of thought this whole branding thing was all, it was BS. There’s like super fluff and airy and vision statements, mission statements, all these things are just superficial. Like how does that actually drive results until I realized the actual true value of brand.

And so I’m excited to talk about brand today in a completely different way than most people, than really anyone’s ever talked about it before. So we’ll dive into it, but that’s how I got to where I’m at today was just through, through being a practitioner in this space, working with clients, being hands in the trenches and really understanding the strategic imperative and the correlation between sales marketing and branding and why brand is actually the missing link in most people’s businesses.

Because when you do it right, everything else clicks.

John Harcar (02:00.985)
Sure. Did you have any type of mentor or did you learn? mean, how did you really learn how to do the branding and do all that type of stuff? know you did hands on and that’s a fantastic way to learn. But did you seek out mentorship or anything like that?

Michael R. Hunter (02:15.534)
Yeah. So, mean, I’ve been very fortunate that on my journey, a lot of our clients were mentors, people that I looked up to. So, uh, when I first got started in sales, I got my first introduction into personal development, think and grow rich, rich dad, poor dad heard from a presentation that the highest paid profession is public speaking. So I got to see like, okay, these people are having a massive impact and they’re the highest paid. That’s pretty cool. I want to do that someday. And so I, I created a marketing company.

to get paid to learn. And so I serve the people that I wanted to become one day. And so people that I looked up to the books that I read ended up becoming clients of mine over time. And so through learning from them, developing my own frameworks and thought leadership and my own expertise, combining lessons from all of my mentors into a unique message that I’m sharing with you guys today.

John Harcar (03:10.627)
What do you think is, as you look back, most impactful book and or learning whatever that hits you that really impacted your life and your journey?

Michael R. Hunter (03:25.71)
man, there’s too many to really know to really say that any one was like the biggest, but I mean, early on in your, in my career, rich dad, poor dad was a big lesson. Um, a lot of learning lessons there, just the difference between going from self-employed to business owner. And it’s a completely different mindset. I highly encourage anyone, you know, it’s, it’s a common book that’s recommended. A lot of people have read it, uh, but it’s probably been a decade since you’ve read it last.

And the book hasn’t changed, but you have. And I would highly encourage people, even if you’ve read that book, go back and read it. Cause there’s so much depth and wisdom in that book. And same thing with Think and Grow Rich. Again, it’s kind of cliche. Everyone says it, but those aren’t books to just read once. Those are books to study. And like I just said, like the book hasn’t changed, but you have, you’re a different frequency or a different level in your entrepreneurship career and business and leadership in life. And that book’s going to hit different reading it again.

John Harcar (03:53.571)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (04:18.943)
Well, let’s talk about your experience and your journey and branding and leadership and whatnot. mean, why is it important? Why is it important to have your name out there and be known and to brand yourself?

Michael R. Hunter (04:33.58)
Yeah. So when it comes to, to branding, most people are familiar with branding, not brand. So there’s a distinction. One is the process to get to the other. So they’re not the same. So if you ask 10 different people, what brand is, you’re to get 10 different answers, most likely. And most of them will be close, but not actually the right, the right answer. So, you know, the, biggest distinction

John Harcar (04:55.863)
Right, right.

Michael R. Hunter (04:59.426)
And the biggest kind of thought reversal or mindset shift is your brand isn’t something you control. Your brand isn’t what you say about yourself, it’s what other people say about you. And through the process of branding, you can influence that, but you can’t control it. So really good branding influences your brand, but your brand isn’t what you say about you, it’s what other people say about you. So when it comes back to the importance of brand, everyone, especially in the real estate market,

John Harcar (05:20.079)
Mmm.

Michael R. Hunter (05:26.732)
you know the power of a referral. It’s the best lead, it’s the easiest lead to close. These people already are being introduced to you because someone had a great experience with you because you’re providing a service that fits what they already want. And so when you understand the power of a warm referral or a warm lead, then you understand the power of a powerful brand because when you do brand right,

John Harcar (05:30.319)
Yes.

Michael R. Hunter (05:52.04)
Every single lead is a warm lead. They’re coming to you already knowing who you are, what you do. They already trust you and they’re ready to buy from you. And so that’s the power of brand. If you, oftentimes we feel the effect of the lack of brand. We’re constantly having to explain ourselves, explain our value, having to convince people to do deals with us. And especially in the real estate market, you know, the, the, problem isn’t opportunity. There’s lots of opportunity in real estate.

The challenge is differentiation. How are you communicating how you’re different, why you’re different, who you are so that the people that resonate with you with your values want to do business with you versus the other person.

John Harcar (06:31.629)
Yeah, no, I 100 % agree with that. what kind of, know, when people are getting into, you trying to build their brand and do branding, I mean, what kind of mistakes are you seeing or what kind of challenges are people coming across when they’re trying to get out there and build their image, build a brand?

Michael R. Hunter (06:49.518)
Yeah, I think, uh, the, biggest mistake is the concept of good enough and people don’t realize how much good enough is costing them. You know, they kind of have this, this thought process for the mindset. Oh yeah. Like I got a website, like I spent way too much money on this guy that got me a website and didn’t really do anything. And so they let a negative past experience cloud their judgment and cloud their decision-making for the true power of what.

a digital presence, a world-class digital presence or world-class brand can actually do as a strategic multiplier in their business. Because I called this the Goldilocks zone. You can brand too early and you can brand too late. If you do your brand too early, you don’t quite know who your target customer is. You don’t quite know who, you know, who’s who makes a good team member. You don’t have enough real world experience. So you end up creating these very generic, fluffy words and concepts and fluffy strategy that

doesn’t work. It is fluffy. is, it isn’t founded in reality. If you do it too late, then you have a lot of unnecessary complexity and on a big opportunity costs that you’ve missed out on. But when you do it in the just right zone, that’s when you have enough real world experience to know who your ideal customer is, to know the language with which to speak to them. You’ve had bad clients, you’ve had good clients, you’ve overextended yourself for someone who you thought was a good client, but ended up not being a good client.

And you can craft that messaging to attract your ideal customer to cut, to, to be a magnet to come to you. So there’s a concept called the opportunity tax, where when you have that good enough brand, and you think that it’s just good enough, you’re only talking with the bottom 80 % of leads that are getting referred to you, the top 20 % of people that value who you do, that are willing and able to pay top dollar that are willing to pay a premium for your service, whether you’re a broker, lender, flipper,

developer builder, whatever your, whatever role you’re playing in the, the real estate space. If you’re not effectively communicating your message verbally and visually, you’re missing out on the top 20 % of people who are willing to pay a premium to work with you. And these aren’t people that are on the phone and just, you’re having a conversation with them and they just decide to go with someone else. Like they’re not even calling. They’re not even opting into your website. They’re not even approaching you. And this is what I call the invisible tax.

John Harcar (09:13.985)
OK, let’s go back a little bit. How do people stand out? What are some of the ways that when you’re doing the branding, they can actually stand out? then second thing, it sounds to me like in that brand time, you need to have a little seasoning. You got to build some maybe proof of concept, stuff like that. Is that kind of what you’re saying is our winter brand?

Michael R. Hunter (09:38.05)
Yeah, so there’s a couple of different questions there, but at the end of the day, especially depending on where you’re at and what industry you’re in, the industry could be pretty commoditized, you know, potentially in real estate, interest rates are commoditized. Like the differences between lenders might be pretty small. So really the differentiation comes from credibility, from trust, from actually delivering on a great result.

Not everyone wants the best price. There’s a lot of people that want the best service. They want confidence. They want peace of mind. And so you’re not just selling real estate. You’re not just in the real estate game. You’re actually in the trust game. And especially when you’re investing in big deals, how do you know, how can you communicate trust through your online presence? So that when someone lands on your website, it doesn’t look like everyone else’s website is immediately elevated. And, it, it evokes the emotion of trust credibility.

authenticity, and that will lead to bigger partnerships, bigger deals, and a lot more revenue for, for however you’re playing in the real estate game.

John Harcar (10:46.745)
Got it, okay. So now let’s talk about what kind of services and stuff that you might be providing. So let’s say, I’m a flipper, right? I’ve done six, seven deals, right? I need to get known out there. I’m coming to you. Let’s get tactical. What do I do?

Michael R. Hunter (11:03.522)
Yeah. So we work with, all different types of brands. make brands personal and, we also have, three day workshops and that’s really the first step to engaging services is, most people, like I said before, they have a misconception of what branding even is. And so rather than, trying to, to fight preconceived notions, the best way to, take that first step in working with us is reaching out to us, going to our website, personal brand.com.

and rolling in one of our three day workshops where we can, you know, provide results, pointing the right direction. Maybe you already have a team, maybe you already have an awesome brand and it’s just some small tweaks that we can unlock for you, where you don’t even need to engage our services, but we can help you, make that 2 % shift and move forward on your own. Or maybe you also want to just hire the best and you’re willing to, you know, make an investment and speed and getting it done right is important to you.

and again, you can go to our website, personal brand.com and book a discovery call and happy to have a conversation.

John Harcar (12:07.501)
I mean, can’t I just go on YouTube and learn how to brand?

Michael R. Hunter (12:10.894)
If it was that simple, then there’d be a lot more people that would be a lot more effective. So again, this is where the concept of, of branding versus brand come into play. So when, when, when people talk about branding, they talk about content strategy and they talk about all these other things are actually marketing. And so there’s a lot of confusion on what brand is and what brand isn’t. and usually people that are in real estate,

They’re multi-passionate individuals. And this is what we help a lot of our clients do is like, how do I actually create a personal brand that lends a lot more credibility and brings together all the different facets of who I am under one roof so I can clearly communicate who I am, what I’m passionate about and why people want to do business with me. So usually we’re too close.

John Harcar (12:57.165)
You mean, I gotta like, do I gotta walk around my jobs and do videos and all that stuff?

Michael R. Hunter (13:02.604)
Not at all. Like, you know, that’s the biggest misconception is that you have to be publishing 10, 15, 20 pieces of content a day. And if that lights you up and you like being a creator and you like publishing content, that’s awesome. Do it. But if that’s like the bane of your existence and you’d rather like pull your teeth out than, then create content. Like that’s one of the biggest misconceptions is that you have to create content to build a personal brand. Nothing could be further from the truth.

John Harcar (13:21.38)
Right.

John Harcar (13:27.535)
What kind of opportunities are you seeing that people are missing out there by not doing and partaking in branding their company or building a brand?

Michael R. Hunter (13:37.382)
yeah, just like double down on what I said before, when, when you have a online presence, that’s just good enough. A client comes to you, one of your clients that gets a successful result with you is telling their friend how amazing you are. And it’s human nature. know this in interpersonal dynamics and psychology that when we meet someone, we’re making a snap judgment subconsciously within the first half second of meeting them, whether or not we trust them, whether or not we like them, whether or not we want to have a further conversation with them, whether or not we trust them.

that subconscious built into our biology. The same thing happens when someone comes across you online. They hear how amazing you are, how world class the service was, the result they got, and then they go to your website and it’s like a big wah wah. You know, it’s like, it’s like, it’s not impressive. Like I thought this person was super successful. I got the, I thought they got really great results, but there’s no testimonials on their website. And so this is where people pay that invisible tax where they’re

best customers of people that are willing to pay top dollar, the people are ready to buy now are coming across your online presence, making that snap judgment and deciding not to work with you. So that’s the biggest cost. one of our biggest and best case studies is our client named Eliza. She was a bestselling author. She was getting keynotes, at a lot of different universities and, corporations, but she was kind of stuck at this $5,000 keynote fee.

John Harcar (14:44.804)
Hmm.

Michael R. Hunter (15:01.838)
After working with us, she landed a deal at Apple, uh, for three times her fee. And after it translated into $125,000 workshop series, uh, throughout all different organizations throughout Apple. So that’s not a real estate example, but it shows that it illustrates the power of positioning and having a world-class brand that elevates things. people, so you can charge more fees, you can close deals faster. And then the deals that you close translate into more business because people want to work with people.

John Harcar (15:02.414)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (15:08.079)
Nice.

Michael R. Hunter (15:31.278)
that they can trust.

John Harcar (15:32.847)
Sure. Are you seeing any trends that people are being more successful doing this versus this, or this is the way things are going, or anything like that?

Michael R. Hunter (15:43.79)
So that’s another, like one of the big misnomers in the personal brand space is following trends because it doesn’t matter how awesome trends of YouTube creators are if you hate creating video, right? So there’s no one size fits all answer as to how to do this, but there’s a right size answer for you, John. There’s a right size answer for you, the person listening to our conversation. And so you really have to figure out what your strengths are, what lights you up, what’s sustainable.

John Harcar (15:53.711)
Sure.

Michael R. Hunter (16:12.364)
because any of us can override our willpower and get out of our comfort zone and do something that like we really don’t like for a short period of time. But business is a long term strategy. We have to play the long game. So if I like writing, I need to play to that strength. I need to be prolific on on on LinkedIn and maybe X. And I need to write a book and I need to find ways to use my writing as my superpower. If I hate writing and I like speaking, then I need to use podcasts and I need to leverage other people’s audiences.

John Harcar (16:39.033)
Yeah.

Michael R. Hunter (16:41.016)
So I will need to get on other people’s platforms to share my message. And then if I like video, if I like speaking and being on stage, that’s a whole nother avenue. And so it’s whatever recipe is right for you.

John Harcar (16:52.663)
Right? So what does your business look like now? Where do you see it going? What are your goals?

Michael R. Hunter (16:59.97)
Yeah. So I’ve been in this author speaker coach thought leader space, helping people monetize their knowledge for the last, 15 years built a software company on the backend as well. we service, our, our target demographic with high end services, business strategy, and also technically with, software last year, about November, passed a big milestone of a billion dollars process through our e-commerce platform, which is a huge milestone. and so.

John Harcar (17:25.359)
Wow, congratulations.

Michael R. Hunter (17:28.142)
Yeah, over the next three to five years, we’re looking to grow that as quickly as possible, serve a lot of people, have a big impact in the world. Nothing lights me up more than helping lift up other voices that have a powerful, positive message with the world. And that’s what we do with our services, with our strategic consulting and with our software is we want to enable our customers to have a big impact in the world.

John Harcar (17:44.847)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (17:54.159)
Okay. Awesome. Do you see any obstacles as far as getting to that next level in your business?

Michael R. Hunter (18:01.566)
yeah, there’s always obstacles. That’s what makes it fun, right? If it was easy, there wouldn’t be any fun. Yeah, no, I mean, like any business, there’s challenges, there’s obstacles. There’s strategies that sound good in theory, but don’t work in real life. And that’s what differentiates a true entrepreneur from someone that has a casual passion is just, you know,

John Harcar (18:04.835)
Right. Right. Right, right.

John Harcar (18:19.597)
Right.

Michael R. Hunter (18:28.984)
constantly being on that path, constantly trying things, iterating quickly, getting quick feedback loops and moving forward no matter what.

John Harcar (18:37.519)
I love it. I love it. And I hope everybody that’s listening on here got some good information today. If folks want to reach out to you and they want to talk to you about branding and helping them with their business, how do they get in touch? What’s your website? Give us a plug for your business.

Michael R. Hunter (18:52.674)
Yeah. Personalbrand.com is a great place to book a discovery call or just reach out to me on social media at Michael R Hunter. Or if you just search Michael R Hunter, you can find me easily on LinkedIn on X and on Instagram. Those are the three big platforms to catch me on.

John Harcar (19:11.727)
Perfect. All right. And any last words of advice that you want to leave our audience with?

Michael R. Hunter (19:18.382)
think my biggest piece of advice is don’t underestimate the power of brand. I did for way too long. I thought it was this airy, very fluffy concept, but it actually is like the operating system for your business. And I believe that every business problem is actually a revenue problem. Cause if you had the revenue, then you could hire someone to fix the problem. And every revenue problem is a brand problem. Because if you.

had your brand locked in, then there would be no revenue problem. So what that means is that every business problem is actually a brand problem. Going back to team issues, going back to growth and scale issues. It’s very simple to delegate tasks to team members, but if you’ve grown a business, you realize that you become the bottleneck. Your team still comes to you for all the decisions. So it’s easy to delegate tasks. It’s difficult to delegate quality decision-making.

John Harcar (20:02.713)
Mm-hmm.

Michael R. Hunter (20:14.03)
And how do you delegate quality decision-making? It’s creating a powerful brand, just like being a good parent. I’m not yet a father. Hopefully God will bless me children one day, but I have a father and you’re not there to make every single decision for your child. So how do you ensure they’re able to make quality decisions? You instill quality values that shape them. And we need to do that same thing with our businesses. We need to instill values, we instill vision, we need to instill mission and create the structure.

and the banks of the river for the flow of creativity and production of our team to help us get to where we want to go. So if I could say one thing, whether it’s working with us or someone else, find a way to create a brand in a way that’s a strategic multiplier in your business.

John Harcar (20:47.203)
Mm-hmm.

I love it.

John Harcar (21:01.229)
And guys, I suggest working with this dude. Sounds like a very intelligent cat. Thank you for sharing this information, man. And I hope you guys do see the power of branding yourself and of your brand. You you gotta get yourself known out there. That’s how you differentiate. Michael, thank you again for coming on here. Guys, hope you enjoyed this show as much as I did, and we’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.