Karen Kirton   0:10
Welcome, Chris. 

Chris Hekeik   0:23
Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Thanks for having me. 

Karen Kirton   0:26
No worries at all. I’m really glad to be having this conversation with you because we hear a lot about how noisy life is at the moment, especially when it comes to social media and advertising. And I’ve heard you talk about cutting through the noise. So what is the noise? What are we as business owners actually competing against today? 

Chris Hekeik   0:46
Yeah, great question. I guess, you know, we live in a vortex of information. If you think about your day and what you’ve already experienced, you would have been hit with thousands and thousands of messages, signs. It could have been a text, it could have been an e-mail, it could have been something that came through on your pop up, on your social media, et cetera. And I believe we live in a vortex of information and information is going at us 100 miles an hour.
More so now than ever before, Karen, because what happens is people just are throwing information at us left, right and centre. And I guess the part is that I call it noise because I think about how much is actually happening. You think about AI now and how much has already changed in the last 6 and 12 months and how much more information is coming at us. So I think as business owners, the challenge is to make sure that we cut through that noise. And I’ve got a bit of a formula on how to do that and help people cut through that noise, which has worked for us and worked for many of our clients, which is awesome. 

Karen Kirton   1:42
Tell us, what’s the formula? 

Chris Hekeik   1:44
Well, there’s a number of things to do, but I think the biggest thing is people identifying themselves as a business and a lot of businesses fail even before they become a business. Because I talk about perception, I talk about perception is key and perception is reality. The thing is, because there’s so much information coming at us, You’ve got to be really, really quick and direct with your message, your brand, and what you’re selling exactly. The thing is, people don’t understand, firstly, who they are, who their clients are, and really and truly, what channels to market that they should go after. So let me expand on that for a second. The first one is who they are. And I think identifying your why and your what and what you do as a company is very, very important. Because if that is understandable to you and your internal team, your message to the market is very, very clear. A lot of people try to say so much that they end up saying nothing at all.
And you see these beautiful billboards by Apple or by Virgin Airways. There was a beautiful billboard I saw the other day about Virgin and it said, it’s wonderful. That was it. You know what I mean? And it’s just a clear message. It’s wonderful with a beautiful person sitting on a chair in one of their passenger in their flights, right? 

Chris Hekeik   3:03
I love the campaign for Uluru. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Uluru, but Uluru’s campaign is just well, just well. That’s their message, right? And if you’ve been to Uluru, which I’ve been to Uluru, it is incredibly well, right? So most businesses try to say so much where this, where that, and then what do people do? They drive past it. 

Chris Hekeik   3:23
So I think the big thing is identifying yourself, identifying your real clear message and what you do. So we are brand storytellers. That’s what we do, right? We make magic happen. That’s our core message. The other part is then to make sure that when you’ve got your message, that your message is so clear and your message has
some conviction. People get this thing where they think louder is better. Louder is not better, it’s clearer. And making sure that that clarity beats through the noise and it cuts through the noise and that clarity is what we want to do. The next part is making sure that, you know, they understand who they’re actually talking to as a business, because most people think everybody’s their customer. It’s not everybody. And I failed at this for many, many years in business, probably for about 10 years of our, you know, we’ve been around for 27 years now, since 99. And I think it took us about 10 years to identify who we are as a business, what we actually sell well, and who our customers are. So we categorised our customers in A, B, C, and D. D stands for dead. They’re not our customers. So we got rid of all them, and everybody tries to identify to everybody. And I think if you try to market to everybody,
you end up marketing to nobody. Does that make sense? 

Karen Kirton   4:50
Yeah, absolutely. And I think as you’re talking, you know, I’m obviously thinking about this from a people and culture perspective as well. So like with Virgin Australia, with It’s Wonderful, like not only does that talk to your customers, but it talks to your employees and your potential employees as well, right? So that clarity piece, it’s going to help you with the marketing, but the branding is also going to help you from customers to  your employees as well. So is there a biggest mistake that you see people make? Because what you’ve said makes it sound kind of simple.  

Chris Hekeik   5:16

Yeah, it really, Karen, it really is that simple. It really, really is that simple. The common mistake is, like I said, people try to say too much. You know, it’s like when we go to networking events and people say, hey, you know, what do you do? And then, and the other person just vomits on you. And it’s like, what do you do? And you walk away going, I actually don’t know what they said.  

So when people ask me, Chris, what do you do? And I say, well, I’m in magic. And they go, no, really, what do you do? I said, I’m in the magic business. So I build magical brands. And then I’ll stop there. And I’ll make them think about that. They’re never going to forget the guy with the colourful hanky who makes magic happen, right? That’s what I do.  

Chris Hekeik   6:07
The mistake is that businesses come across very desperate and it reeks of desperation that much that it leaves no intrigue to the audience. So trying to say one, two things, like for instance, Steve Jobs, God rest his soul, everything he ever ran out, and Apple as a brand,
Everything that ever ran out was just clinically clear. If you look at anything, like there was one campaign and they said it was about the Apple iPad when it first came out and they just said, extraordinary, an extraordinary experience. That was it. What are you talking about?
And this is the other part where people fail because what they’re trying to do is they try to sell you a product rather than an emotion. And I think, yes, we live in a whole lot of information world. And I think the problem is we need to identify with the emotional world. You buy things whether you’re conscious or not conscious of it, Karen, and you buy it because you emotionally connect with that product before you even love that product. And that’s the thing. Seth Godin says this beautifully. He says, it’s not what you’re selling to them that’s important to them, but it’s how it’s going to make them feel. 

Karen Kirton   7:27
Yes, I remember someone explaining that to me as well. I remember someone explaining that to me as well. And she said, yeah, so many people talk about, you know, here’s my boat and here’s all the things about my boat that make my boat wonderful. She’s like, nobody wants the boat. Everyone wants Pleasure Island. So she’s like, you need to talk about Pleasure Island. 

Chris Hekeik   7:45
That’s right, that’s right.
And that’s why we always try to tell a story. Because I believe facts tell, the facts tell, but stories really, really sell. Because you’re going to remember the story that I’m going to tell you, the story about the island, rather than the story about the boat and how you got there. And this is what we fail to do as business. I believe that, you know, we live in worlds of networks and people. 

Chris Hekeik   8:12
I’m an old school guy. I’m older than you. I’m a lot older than you, I reckon. And I came from a world where, you know, there was no social media, there was no web, there was no phones. And I remembered that we wrote letters to people. And I remembered that we, you know, if I wanted to see you, I catch up with you and have a cup of coffee and really enjoy.
your time. And I think as businesses and as brands, we still need to do this. This is why our Mode XP department, Mode XP is our experiential marketing department. And what we do is we build brand experiences. And the reason why we do this is because we…
We strategize your brand, we build your brand, we have this cool logo and identity. We then build your website, then build your brochure. You’ve got all the bits and pieces. Now you need to get that emotionally engaged with an audience. So we then build a brand activation or a pop-up or some experiential marketing piece that will then
emotively connect with your audience. What happens then is that they will never, ever forget you. If you remember the Coke, the old Coke, and Coke had that, you gotta taste it. So they’d park their trolleys at the station and they’d do this taste test, Coke and Pepsi, and they did this for years. 

Chris Hekeik   9:30
And I was trying to embed that Coke in your head was the better way to drink. And because you tasted it, you could see it on the billboard and what it looked like. And if you remember the Coke campaign that said, Coke is it. That was their message. It was Coke. It was nothing else. And then you saw these beautiful guys and girls in their bikinis and their shorts and on the beach and they go, Coke, it’s it. You know what I mean? And that’s what you sell. You sell the emotion.
 

Karen Kirton   10:15
Sometimes people hear brand and they just think colours and logos. I always like exploring branding because it has a huge impact from a customer perspective  but also from an employee and culture perspective. So how would you explain branding to someone? 

Chris Hekeik   10:20
Yeah, I love that question. I love that question because to me, you know, people look at your logo and they go, that’s your brand. Your brand is so much more. It’s everything in your business. It’s the way you say hello. It’s the way your staff greet each other in the morning. It’s the way your team, and you’d know this right in HR, that it’s so important that people, they live the brand. Like you walk up to a Qantas counter and then you walk up to a Virgin counter and I guarantee you’re going to know the difference by the way someone says hello. Richard Branson, I met him once and I was blessed to be in a room with this guy.
And it was a dream. I said I would meet Richard Branson one day because I thought his mind was incredibly insane the way this man thought. And I asked him, I said, you know, Sir Richard, what’s the one thing, now he didn’t know who I was or anything, but I said, what’s the one thing that you build in your businesses?
over the years that has worked. And he said, man, it’s very, very simple. It’s brand and it’s culture. Because if you can build a brand, you get people to back your brand, they end up living your brand. And for me, that’s why I always say a brand is not a graphic art. A brand is a performing art.
When I say it’s the way you say hello, I’m performing to you. My brand is on display. When you walk into an Apple Store, from the moment you walk through their door, you know you’re an Apple Store. You get greeted by at least three to four people before you get to the counter. Why? Because it’s about that performing art. 

Chris Hekeik   12:00
The brand is an emotion. And Steve Jobs said this, he said, it must make them feel something. Now, whether it’s the product, or whether it’s the billboard, or whether it’s the campaign that you see on TV, or it’s the way they greet you when you walk into a store,
That brand comes to life. A lot of people forget what that, sorry, not forget, but they don’t understand it. And this is what kills me when I see a business just look at a brand and, or they call it a logo. It’s so much more than logo. And my guys who have worked with us,
for many a years would, they freak because they go, it’s not just a logo, it’s an identity, it’s a DNA, it’s everything you are in a business. And where businesses fail is because they, the ones that succeed and trump that other business is because you look at 2 plumbing companies or two electrical companies or two
HR companies or two, why would one stand out above the other? It’s about the emotive. It’s about selling what this thing can do for you. 

Karen Kirton   13:12
And I think that’s where a lot of smaller businesses rely heavily on referrals, which is quite normal. But I think when it gets to a point that you’re really just relying on that and you’re not talking to the market, maybe that’s an indicator that their brand maybe isn’t working so well externally, even if their internal customers understand it kind of intrinsically. Have you seen that happen where you might have a successful business, but they still really haven’t landed that external brand. So how do you get someone to, because it’s a bit of work, right, to try and work out who we are, what do we stand for. So, you know, do you have advice for anyone listening kind of going, yeah, I haven’t really done that work. Like, where do you start? 

Chris Hekeik   13:39
Yeah, all our work starts at a strategy session. We have this real self-discovery session, which goes for 1/2 a day and we say cancel your afternoon because we may continue. And only because we have a whole lot of fun. The biggest problem, Karen, every business is a reflection of the business owner. Now you look at every client you talk to, it’s a reflection of the business owner. 

Chris Hekeik   14:15
My business, my team is a reflection of me. I’m crazy. I’m eccentric. I’m lovable. I love hugging people. That’s me, right? But guess what my team does? They do the same thing. And I think even with your customers, we say to them, we want to build friendships before we build a deal. The friendship will always trump the deal. 

Chris Hekeik   14:36
Because if they really and truly understand who we are as a brand, who we are as a business, they’re always going to come to us. They’re also going to recommend for 27 years, our business is built on a network of recommendations. People have used us, love us, recommend us. Some business owners, and I say some business owners, I’m not going to use the word arrogant, but they’re just…
They’re self-centered in what they believe their product does. Your product is so much more than that. And that’s why it’s got to connect emotionally. Richard Branson is not a stupid man. He created, he had this piece that he did that was to tell his staff on how to greet.
And they go, what do you mean? And at the time, Qantas was going downhill. And he said, I will challenge Qantas one day as a commercial airline. 15 years later, guess what happened? He did it. And he freaked out the market because all of a sudden, they were providing something that we weren’t even used to because Qantas, you’d walk up to a counter and they’re like, yeah, what? What can I do for you? And it’s like, rather than you walk up to a Virgin counter, they go, hey, how are you? Welcome, good morning. Where are you travelling today? All of a sudden there’s that emotion and that’s the brand. Businesses don’t realise that that visual, sorry, that. that emotion will always, always trump the visual. You can see the brand. but you need to feel the brand. And I know that sounds a little bit freaky, right? But I think about what AI is doing now to the market. AI is an incredible tool that will not replace us, but it will enhance us. But I think more so now than ever before, we have to bring the humanization of our brand, the humanization of our product, and create that experience that becomes memorable, something you’ll never forget. 

Karen Kirton   16:30
So how much of a brand do you think is created by the employees versus the marketing? 

Chris Hekeik   16:39

I think they go hand in hand. The employees become the custodians of the brand. And what we do when we create a new brand, the first thing I tell the CEO is I need to deliver the brand not to your audience, but to your team. Why? Because they need to understand the psychology, the thought process, and the real reason why the team created this brand and what it means to your company. They then become the custodians, they then become the brand ambassadors who wear this on their chest every day and are proud to say I am and I work for this brand. I’m proud to deliver this brand every day. It’s not magic, it’s real. Because when you and I and the people listening connect to a brand, whether they’re conscious of it or not, There’s an emotional attachment because that person will make you feel special. How many times have you been to a retail shop or a shop? Or let’s say you went to a restaurant, right? And you went to that restaurant and the server was so, so polite, right? 

Chris Hekeik   17:57
The food was nice, but the server was just awesome. How many times have you been to a restaurant in comparison and it was the other way around? The food was great, but the server was horrible.
You’re never going to remember how beautiful that cocktail was, how beautiful the fit out was, how beautiful that meal was. You’re just going to remember that other person was so rude. And I’m going to tell so many people about that. That’s why we miss people. People get the brand. And the other thing, sorry, with the brand is that what we do as part of the brand. discovery, we invite key team players from teams into that process. Why? Because we want buy-in. It then becomes their brand as well, not just our brand, yeah? But some business owners think, oh no, it’s my business, I’ve paid for this. I will tell you how the brand works. Well, well, guess what? People are probably not going to embrace that as much as you’d like, yeah? 

Karen Kirton   18:52

Yeah, and I guess that was one of the questions I was thinking about as well as you were talking, because especially in small and medium sized businesses, the business is the founder. And I know like with our brand colours, people often comment to me, why do I have so much teal? Like, you know, my Kindle’s teal and my laptop and you know.
It’s like, well, it’s my favourite colour. And someone once said to me, oh, why did you make your favourite colour your company colour? And it’s like, because, like, you know, you’re intricately connected. It’s hard to kind of move away from that. So how do you think, like how much of a founder goes into having a memorable brand or do founders kind of get in the way of having a memorable brand? 

Chris Hekeik   19:41
They do, they do. Because let’s say the founder is a, let’s go you, you’re a HR company. Your expertise is not brand or colours. Do we agree? Your expertise, you might like the colour teal, right? And I go, cool. Let’s consider that when we’re thinking about colours. But your expertise is HR, and I’ve got no idea, but what you do, and I wouldn’t want to do what you do because I think it’s just so much a lot smarter, a lot harder than what I do. because what I said before, the most important part of your brand is not you, rather your audience. Is your audience going to resonate with teal? Or is your audience more of a navy blue with a little bit of teal? How’s that sound? 

Chris Hekeik   20:46
So we try to manoeuvre it in a way. But again, I believe we’ve met some strange ones in the years, but most people understand that when you sit down and then organise, hey, let’s look at the psychology behind the colour teal and let’s give them reason and rationale why we don’t recommend teal, but we might recommend a mauvey colour.
for instance. And we don’t just think, oh, that’s a really cool colour. There’s reason and rationale why we would choose a colour, again, for the industry, for the product, and more important, as I said, for the audience. So the audience now will look at your brand and they’ll go, cool. As soon as they see it, and in the first I’m talking milliseconds, they make a decision. 

Chris Hekeik   21:29
Karen, did you know that your brain, your brain processes 60,000 times faster with a visual rather than a text? 60,000 times faster. So when you go to a website for the first time, You either stay or you. Go! 

Karen Kirton   21:50
Okay. 

Chris Hekeik   21:52
So in that first one, two, 3 seconds, you’ll make a decision whether you want to hang around or not. So the thing is, I say, you’ve really only got seconds. Men, we’re a little bit slower, right? Women just go, yes or no. It’s like, no, I’m not doing it. I’m not going there. How many times have you chosen a restaurant and you walk past and your husband goes, yeah, babe, this looks good. And you go, no. I’m like, why? It’s like, no, I just, you just don’t connect, right? So that’s why we always say perception, perception is key and perception is reality. Because if people don’t perceive you in that one, two, 3 seconds, And we try to help founders and businesses understand all this and understand why we do this. And, you know, it’s not arrogant in saying that we’ve been doing it for 27 years. So I think we know a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t work for different industries. We try to then take them through the process.  

Chris Hekeik   22:55
What I love about my team is we will never go ahead of our customer. Rather, we will make you and your team part of the whole process. So you really enjoy it because founding a brand is so exciting. I love doing that every time. We had a presentation just this week and it was a law firm. And imagine what lawyers are like. They’re a little bit you know, prim and proper and you know, we like this, but we don’t like this. And so we said, but they did say, guys, we’ve employed you, we trust you. We presented to the two founders and on Tuesday this week. And what I loved about what they both did at the end of our presentation was They looked at each other and they just smiled.
As if to say, these guys got us. So there were two different minds. But what we did was we migrated and there was like this osmosis feel of integration that allowed the two hearts to come as one and then to establish this baby brand that would now represent their firm. 

Karen Kirton   23:42
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, and I think like branding is exciting and just so you know, there was more to it with our colours than just the fact that I like to also make you feel better. Now you also mentioned AI before and yeah, AI is great, but it can also create more noise. So how do you think AI is going to help businesses to stand out in the future? 

Chris Hekeik   24:17
Yeah.
The availability of information now has gone nitrous. It’s on steroids, yeah? The problem with that, though, it does bring more noise and more confusion. In the hands of somebody who doesn’t know how to deal with it, it’s not good. For most businesses, I believe, that’s why I say, and I say to my guys, AI is not here to replace us. It’s here to enhance us. 

Chris Hekeik   24:46
The great thing is now if I want to do a presentation, if I want to talk about something, if I want to present, my research piece is so much more extravagant because I have so many minds that I can call on. I guess the key is to try to siphle through what’s important, what’s relevant, and what’s going to make sense to my presentation or to my customer or my
brand build that we’re trying to do. The great thing about it though, I love the fact that efficiencies are kicking in. So you know something takes 4 hours, now this thing can take 15, 20 minutes, maybe half an hour tops. So our efficiencies are greater, which is going to help small business and going to help founders like you and me.
plan our teams, know what we can deliver and what and how we can deliver it. I think it’s made us also a lot smarter, yeah, because there’s other, like I said, on one mind, you’re another mind. If you and I were just brainstorming, but then if we kicked in with AI and chat and all the, and there’s things like Claude and Lovable and all this access. points that we got now, it makes us a lot more refined and sharper to what we want to say. So I’m not afraid of it. I think we’ve got to embrace it. And businesses who are going, no, I’m not doing that. Well, I think you’re going to get left behind. The efficiencies and the creative mind behind it. Look, I love what we’re doing with some of the stuff. So we might be doing an HR company and we might put together a bit of a concept. 

Chris Hekeik   26:11
We throw it through chat and then, or through AI, and then AI will then refine it and go, yep, how about this idea? What about this? And then we still need to create it, obviously, but the time for thinking has been reduced to allow us to then, you know, present a much better option. I love it, yeah. 

Karen Kirton   26:25
absolutely. Now, I really enjoyed our conversation today. I always love your energy, Chris. And a question that I ask everybody is, what’s one thing that you wish that you knew earlier about building a business or leading a team? 

Chris Hekeik   26:39
Yeah.
I wish you never asked me this question. I need another two hours 

Karen Kirton   26:51
One thing! 

Chris Hekeik   27:05
I think one thing, one thing that I wish I knew now that I didn’t know back then was about the level of care that you can put in a business that will enhance your business. 

and that will resonate in the heart of your customer. Because I think starting a business as founders, we just want to do everything and we want to get everything without thinking. We realise that the most important part in what we do is not how good our brands are, not how good our websites are, not how good my presentations are. but how I connect with people. And I always, and I know we’ve had chats and we’ve had conversations one-on-one, but I love to slow down and spend that time to really get to know the person and the brand behind the business. But I feel sorry for small business and I feel sorry for founders because
There’s so much to think about. But if I can add one more thing in there, I think it’s finding your strength as a business owner and realising that if I’m not good at HR, which most people are not, go out to a HR person like yourself. If I’m not good at branding, go out to a branding agency like myself. If I’m not good at accounting, go to an accounting good accounting company and find people who can strengthen you, who can prop you and who can support you. You be you and I think the most important part as a founder for me, I’m not in the branding business, I’m in the people business. Yeah, I love, Seth Godn said this beautifully, he said, people don’t buy What you do, they buy it because of what you. People don’t buy what you do. They buy it because of how you make them feel. And that’s my job. I’ve got to make you feel great. I’ve got to make you feel comfortable and give you a peace of mind. The rest works. The rest works. Because I’ve got other people here who do that. But we’re in the people business. 

Karen Kirton   28:43
awesome.
I love that. Such good advice. So thank you so much for joining me today. We’re going to put your contact details into the show notes. Is there a best way for people to get in touch with you? 

Chris Hekeik   28:59
Yeah, just jump on our website, follow me on LinkedIn, Chris Hekeik. Jump on chrishekeik.com.au. That’s my speaking site of my site. You’ll see a bit more about what I do, how I do it, and how much I love doing it. So, yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. It’s been great. I wish we had more time, but it’s flying. 

Karen Kirton   29:05
Excellent.
I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Chris. And for those that are listening, if you’ve received value from this episode, I’d love it if you could leave a rating or a review of Apple Podcasts or Spotify so someone else can also find the episodes to help with their business. Episodes are released on Mondays, so click subscribe and you’ll be notified of when it’s available.
As always, if you have any feedback, questions or ideas for future episodes, head on over to amplifyhr.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation.