Designing a Brand's Heart and Soul with Henry Wong

Unlock the secrets of branding that transforms mere structures into symbols of trust and emotion, as we sit down with brand strategist Henry Wong. Shedding light on the power of storytelling and core messaging, Henry dissects how industry heavyweights craft brands that resonate deeply with consumers. We delve into the journey of Shed Geek, drawing parallels between personal narratives and the emotive connections integral to iconic campaigns like Pepsi Nation. This episode promises to guide you through the nuances of brand-building in a niche market, tapping into the expertise of a giant who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Toyota and Procter & Gamble.

As we navigate the branding landscape, the conversation pivots to how personal branding and innovation in physical spaces blend, especially during the transformative era ushered in by the pandemic. Pulling from 25 years of branding know-how, we share the strategies that can elevate your personal brand, whether you're a seasoned pro or a novice with a tight budget. We also venture into the burgeoning trend of multipurpose structures, exploring how they become an emotional extension of one's home through strategic design—and how it aligns with my mission to work with companies intent on making a mark on the world.

The art of relationship building takes center stage as we wrap up our engaging discussion. Henry and I reflect on the delicate dance of business, travel, and family dynamics, emphasizing the irreplaceable value of genuine connections forged beyond the digital realm. Sharing personal insights, we highlight the profound impact of face-to-face interactions in deepening our understanding and enriching business partnerships. While the conversation flowed effortlessly in a digital setting, a longing for a future in-person handshake lingers—a nod to the timeless power of building relationships through authenticity and shared experiences.

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Transcript

SHED GEEK: 0:37

Okay, welcome back to another episode of the shed geek podcast and looking forward to today's conversation, because we're talking about branding and what better to have a brand strategist, writer, designer, creative director, speaker, author. So many more things on the topic of branding, which I think is so needed, and just an interesting conversation for the shed industry. So we brought Henry on to do that. Henry, do you want to introduce yourself, your company, a little bit about who you are and what you do, so the audience is familiar.

Henry Wong: 1:16

Yeah, absolutely. Again, Shannon, thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm really happy to just grab some time with you and chat. So, as Shannon has said, my name is Henry Wong. I run a branding agency called VU V-Y-O-O in Toronto, Canada, but my clients cover the entire continent and places in Europe as well. So I've been in the business for wow well over 25 years, despite my boyish look. I've had the opportunity to work on some major brands through many of the large ad agencies which I've been a part of. That include Toyota, Procter and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson. But these days I work primarily with companies that have a positive impact on the planet, on the world, and growth companies that are looking that may not have the budget to do large campaigns like these Fortune 500 companies, but a lot of the same principles apply to helping people try to get their place in the marketplace and stand out a little bit more and compete and hopefully result in some great sales that come along with it.

SHED GEEK: 2:35

Oh, pretty amazing. I love to hear you know immediately when you hear the big names, something happens, right, and we just jumped into branding without even intentionally doing so, because the thought of a big name like Toyota could grab someone's attention enough to be like, oh well, that creates some clout. With Henry here today, right, Like he's worked with Toyota and that's a big brand. But maybe if you worked with one of my favorite local restaurants yesterdays that serves, maybe you know, 100 clients a day, they might not recognize it so much. So it's interesting how even hearing those names like Proctor and Gamble and Toyota can already begin to invoke some sort of emotion, because people understand the company, the brand, maybe what it stands for. Apple comes to mind, Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, all those guys right, you hear those names. So I'm super excited about today's conversation and how it relates to Sheds.

Henry Wong: 3:40

Oh, sorry, I was just going to add yeah, so I was just going to add, shannon that in spite of the big names you know, these days I really enjoy working with the owner operator, the entrepreneur, because these are people like many of your audience, who you know don't have the big budgets, don't necessarily have the resources to succeed, and they're flying off and by the seat of their pants. So being able to help and guide people who are looking to try to improve their businesses is really what I truly get excited by.

SHED GEEK: 4:12

Great point. Great point and yeah, that definitely matches our demographic. We always ask people oftentimes when we go to restaurants, you know, like if you were going to buy a storage unit like a shed, where would you go to buy one? Just to kind of get people's thoughts, you know, just to kind of see is brand working? Do people recognize brand, even some of our larger what we would call big box stores or the larger brands inside of the shed industry. It's interesting to find that oftentimes they don't. They don't know. Occasionally they will or they'll have a friend or a salesperson did such a dynamic job that they just remember the guy down on the corner that sells these units or something like that. I always find it interesting that I almost always hear Lowe's or Home Depot.

Henry Wong: 4:56

I don't know.

SHED GEEK: 4:57

I guess I just probably go to Lowe's or Home Depot, I really don't know. And you know we're probably. I've heard somewhere, I've heard numbers that fall anywhere between four to seven billion dollar GDP a year industry. So for, like one name not to emerge out of that, that's sort of commonplace. It's kind of I don't know. It seems somewhat surprising, but it's interesting.

Henry Wong: 5:22

You know what it is, Shannon. I believe it's based on a level of trust. So anytime you engage with a service or a product, you're looking for an element of trust and that's where often the brand part comes in. So, in the absence of not necessarily knowing the brands in sheds, what do I default to? I default to the retail brands that I'm familiar with the Home Depots, Lowe's and that because I come to trust them and there is an element of backing behind it, so I feel comfortable in engaging with them. And that's really the whole purpose of creating a good brand, because you're trying to build a relationship with your own customer, to build that level of trust, so that when they have a name attached to it and they gauge with that brand, they know that it stands for something and that I feel very comfortable buying the product.

SHED GEEK: 6:09

of course, oh, it's great. It's a tagline in the business that we do in the industry is that we want to be the most trusted name in sheds. When you think of shed geek, the emotion that we want to accomplish through our mission, vision and values is that we want you to think of a trust and resourceful brand. So we've sort of dove into that a little bit unintentionally and really just authentically, as we begin to grow here. Going into year number four, you got to hang out with a pretty, pretty recognizable brand, as I understand it, and I wanted to get the story on the podcast. So I haven't asked you anything about it. But as we were communicating back and forth and trying to line up our schedules, you said I'm heading back from Europe and I got to hang out with Gordon Ramsay.

SHED GEEK: 6:59

I'm so curious about this now because we just watched the new, one of the newest launches of, I think, his latest TV reality show and his adventure. We're not foodies ourselves, but we love to watch people bake and who are foodies, so it's kind of interesting. But tell me about the story I'm curious before we get really any deeper.

Henry Wong: 7:21

Yeah, I mean to your point. It's interesting how reality content has become a form of entertainment. So, as I mentioned, I work with various companies that have upstart. I currently work with a company called Palmetto Gourmet Foods and they're based in South Carolina. They developed a very high protein ramen. That is 20 grams of protein to sustain a wonderful meal that is plant based, that is organic. All the good stuff, none of the bad stuff, and we've done remarkably well. The company will be going public.

Henry Wong: 8:02

Well, February 14th, and four years ago this company did not exist, but this journey of going from zero to hero has been utterly fantastic. But the underlying thing and this is really the basis of a lot of work I do, which is to help define what a company story is all about. So the company story, or the mission that this company stands for, is all really about making sure that food is affordable. Healthy food is affordable for everybody. So it would have been very easy to create this high quality food and sell it at, let's say, whole foods, but maybe six or seven dollars a cup. As you've ever walked down the aisle, you'll notice how expensive some of the food items are. The big challenge was to get it down to under two bucks or about two dollars a cup, which is very much in the reach of people. So 20 grams of protein gives you three equivalent protein of three eggs. So you know, for that amount of money you could eat recently healthy.

Henry Wong: 9:04

So the mission of the company is really to ensure that all of us is accessible to people. We get food out into, you know, challenged areas, into food banks, into areas in which are a little bit challenged for, you know, maybe a conflict or something happening in certain countries. So the idea is to get the food into people who need it the most. So this whole mission and this whole story that has been created by the founder, who was once a doctor who volunteered in the villages of India, developed this food that is very accessible to people, healthy, affordable and that.

Henry Wong: 9:46

So it's my long way of explaining, when I was helping the company find a brand ambassador that would align with us, gordon Ramsey came on board and he heard the story, heard the mission, and this is what I'm sharing with people today. That mission and that story can be so evocative and so powerful that you can get people to come aboard as your supporters, and that's not just your customers but really people on the outside wanting to help. So the time that I spent in the UK was, you know, I had the wonderful opportunity to hang out with Gordon Ramsey. We shot a whole bunch of recipes with our chef, who ramen that, and he showed people how to really make use of it and it was truly a masterclass in food recipes and what he does is just a whole another level above everything else that the rest of us do, but so entertaining and huge. Just such a wonderful human being and a great supporter of what we're trying to do. So that was, that was my time in London.

SHED GEEK: 12:14

I think it's very cool. There's not too many names in the realm of reality, as you say, as a form of entertainment, in which the name Gordon Ramsay doesn't show up. So I think it's really cool. I was really looking forward and anticipating to sort of hear in the story and what I really took away from. That is even more so when you talked about Palmetto, knowing that South Carolina or, as they would South Carolina say, I can't say it exactly just as well as they do.

Henry Wong: 12:42

Yes, you're absolutely right, north.

SHED GEEK: 12:44

Carolina, south Carolina, but being the Palmetto State, we travel down there a lot, we've done a couple of trade shows there and we've really there's just a lot of shed centric companies based out of South Carolina. So I recognize it well when you say it's based in South Carolina, based off of the brand Palmetto being the Palmetto State. So I think it's really cool and even beyond that, there's a lot of people even inside the shed industry that sort of fit, maybe kind of what you're talking about, maybe not to a tee. There's definitely a lot of borderline prepper mentalities, food plot guys that do a lot of, you know, organic based growing and things like that. But even my buddy Tristan classic over at cowl, has, I think it's, I think it's box of good. I may be I hope I'm not saying the wrong name for his company because I haven't dove into it very much but I know he's been in the food business in Washington for years, I think 25 years. He's been building something like that.

SHED GEEK: 13:46

But even around here in the Amish and Mennonite communities, the plain communities that we speak to or that we may service through the shed industry, there's a. There's a lot of calls that we get that I think about my buddy Randy. You know he used to be in a watermelon business. It's such a great story. I mean he was the largest watermelon supplier south of the Mason Dixon, him and his brother, I think, at one point. So those things are always interesting and I love to see the little odd connections that come out of the shed industry. I mean it's there's a lot of chicken farmers and a lot of dairy farmers, so all those things come back in a lot of those conversations.

SHED GEEK: 14:24

But so it's interesting to hear you to hear you say that Anyway let's move on from there and let's let's talk branding, one of the things that I feel like we noticed. I know you may not be shed shed specific with your branding knowledge, but you can bring a lot of value to it with with the information you do have that maybe we need. And when you're a small company and you're you're trying to get started, what is the most success that you can have trying to create that brand? Where does where does logo come in? Where does color palettes, where does branding guidelines come in? Are those things that that you think about whenever you initially try to set up branding, or are you kind of coming at it from a different perspective? I'm curious.

Henry Wong: 15:18

Yeah, very much a different perspective. So for any brand that we develop or help recreate, it really begins more with the story behind the company, and what I mean by that is every brand that you see there out in the marketplace has an element of story. It stands for something, it means something in the marketplace. So anytime that we talk about branding, it's much more than just a logo, much more than just the color palette itself. Those are simple expressions of what the brand stands for. And what the brand stands for often goes back to the element of of the founder or the element of what the company stands for in terms of its purpose.

Henry Wong: 16:02

So all of those things are just shortcuts. If you come up with a logo, it's a shortcut to understanding what you're all about, but there's a certain meaning behind it. I'm looking at the upper right or upper left corner of your logo, shannon, and it's very defined around who you are, so that has a certain meaning. So I bet, if I ask you what is the elements that have come together to form your brand? Because it's indicative of the way you dress and the way you present yourself.

SHED GEEK: 16:34

Yeah for sure. You know, shed geek was almost a foreign concept almost initially. I'm so blessed I've had so many people tell me I just really, you know, in the beginning I wasn't sure, but man it's. I'm really starting to understand the mission and what you do and kind of how you do it. You know mine was built out of a passion to increase communication. I was traveling all around the continent you know what I mean A continent's probably at the right word, at least around several states and and having conversations through social media and a lot of people were saying you know, we need to increase communication, like we don't really care what our competition's doing but we want to know what they're doing well, and like I don't know how to approach them or can I talk to them.

SHED GEEK: 17:21

So I was an avid podcast listener while I'm on the road and an audio book listener. So I was like you know, why don't we just talk about it? Why don't we just get on there and talk about it or maybe sell advertising to the shed industry in some way that could connect these people? And that's how it came about. And then the mentality became well, I wrote an article in a magazine and I was titled like self self, self titled shed geek, because I just try to learn every little bitty thing about the industry that I can. So I sort of became this shed nerd, right Like this, this connoisseur of shed information from every angle, and then put that into a central database where people could conversate about it and have conversation. So traditionally you know, I guess I'm a bit of a geek anyway the traditional standards for being a geek, wearing glasses and maybe suspenders and a bow tie, and you're kind of. You know what I mean. I thought, well, it just makes sense.

Henry Wong: 18:20

The term itself has worked quite well because you know you. When you refer to yourself as a geek, that means there's a high level of passion or a high level of knowledge. So combining those words with shed is you know, is hopefully a shortcut again to your expertise and your knowledge that you're looking to share, whether through interactions directly with the customer or through your podcast itself. One thing that is noticeable, of course, is you know the logo. Is you meaning that you're the on the front line, you represent everything that is all about shed geek and that you know.

Henry Wong: 18:56

Obviously you know we talked about this earlier before both a blessing and a curse at the same time, because you're looking to create value around it. But the reason often, I would imagine, that customers deal with you is because of you. You know there's a certain your own personal imprint that goes on to it and that's where often in branding, the you know, the founders brand and the company brand begin to melt. Where there's often this harmony is where they begin to diverge and you know what one entity represents versus how maybe the staff get it across aren't at harmony, and that often happens as a company grows big. But for many, many people who manage their own business, and they are the business, they are the brand itself, so they become one in the same.

SHED GEEK: 19:47

Yeah, that's definitely happened, really not by plan, but almost, you know, just organically, that people begin to sort of recognize the brand and and really I've even said at restaurants with the shed geek shirt on or a hoodie with the logo on the back, and actually my wife was sitting opposite me and she had on a shaggy hoodie, so there's a guy sitting directly behind her and he's just staring at the shirt and the brand and it looks like me and he keeps looking over at me and he finally summons up the question.

SHED GEEK: 20:18

You know the courage. And he says Are you the guy on her hoodie? I said yeah, it's. It's our personal brand through our business. He was like gosh, you just really look like him.

Henry Wong: 20:29

So I thought maybe you're him and I thought that was an interesting take on it right, you know, for that to for that to correspond.

SHED GEEK: 20:38

Yeah, I, I love the story branding idea. I think that there are certain companies out there that just should invoke some kind of emotion when you hear their name. What they stand for in the 90s, pepsi really try to do the Pepsi nation right. You know what I mean.

SHED GEEK: 20:54

They pushed that out real hard to correspond with Coke and Coca Cola branded so well that I saw a statistic the other day where 1940s, like like I think it was like one third maybe of the Southern United States still calls a soda a Coke, you know, and in the Northern population it might be called a pop, but the the actual term soda was a minority in the way that people identified. So oftentimes people in the South would say bring me a Coke. And someone might say sure, what kind of Coke would you like? You know, and it's like no, I want to, I want to, I want to Coca Cola.

Henry Wong: 22:20

Yeah, and that is the power of how pervasive a brand can be. You know, we see this in other parts of life as well. You know, kleenex of courses are tissue, disposable tissue but everybody still refers to as a Kleenex. Of course, it doesn't necessarily always mean that people will ask for that brand, but it becomes so well known that it becomes part of our vernacular. The goal for many companies and any brand is you know, there's a lot of choices out there, so how do you get people to choose yours? And? And it's creating that emotional connect to your point chain and with that particular brand or that particular product so that you go? That's, that's the choice I want.

Henry Wong: 23:04

I think that's very true within the shed industry as well, because no doubt, as you, you know, people are competing for business. You come to the table. You may have the same number of years of, you know, reputation, you know you stand behind the, the product and any number of things that everyone can compete on. Often it comes back to and you'll see this no doubt with yourself that the customer simply goes. You know, I, just you know I happen to like you guys and I want, I want to take you on as my supplier for this, so that emotional connect goes well beyond that simple transaction, and that's really often the purpose of branding is to build that bridge to it, and it comes from the way you reflect, in the way you do your business, the way you share that story, the way you certainly infuse it in into the products itself.

SHED GEEK: 23:59

So what are some? You talk about story branding and really trying to convey the message of the heart of the company and maybe even the founders messages, as you said. How do you do that? What are the outlets? What is Henry's top three suggestions? Maybe on how you create a brand from scratch and then like what? What directories, for instance, would you use to kind of get that message out?

Henry Wong: 24:30

So you know the. The first part is really determining what you stand for. So many people have hard time telling their stories. So if I said, you know, tell me about your company, they, you know. Then they begin more as a almost like a resume of sorts, or more of a hardcore history of the company itself. Really, what it comes down to is what is it that you stand for? Is it about the quality? Is it about the construction? Is it about the interesting designs? Is it about the, you know, the knowledge base? All of that applies, but it has to reflect well back to what you all about as a company, or as the founder, brand or the entrepreneur running the business.

Henry Wong: 25:14

Once you establish that, you find different ways in which you can tell that story. That and what I mentioned about shortcuts that also include advertising or coming up with that sort of core message. Above all else, what is your core message meaning? It doesn't have to be a slogan, but how do you articulate it in, let's say, six simple words, and I use that, you know those six simple words as part of the exercise, because often what happens is on a. If you imagine, driving by on a highway and passing a billboard. You don't have much time other than to take in one image and full set of words and usually the research shows that no more than six, seven words about what people can take driving at, you know, 60 miles an hour along the road. So if you can encapsulate what you're all about in those six core words, then you really have the basis of what you stand for and what your message is. And the work that we do is often to get to that point through different inputs, such as research in the market, understanding the company itself, understanding the founder behind it, of course. So once you've established that you, you have a message that you're trying to convey and you bring that to life either through visuals, through different messages, through content itself, because everything that you're doing, for example, shannon's based on you being this wonderful expert in this industry and Sheddeak, so you could talk for hours, no doubt, on the topic, because you're that knowledgeable and that well-versed in it, and it shows in the content. So you're using content as a way to attract people by demonstrating your expertise and sharing high-level knowledge, and that's a terrific way at it for everybody else.

Henry Wong: 26:53

They may not have the means by which they can do it, but the first thing you know. To answer the second part of your question, which is really taking your message to the market. It really involves and surrounds where your audience is and who they are, and that could be geographically, it could be a certain type of segment of it. You can't be everything to everybody and you certainly most of us do not have the budget to blast a message everywhere. So one of the mistakes that many brands or small businesses make is really just putting out a large message that everybody sees, but really not the people who are their true audience. So the first thing I would do is do ensure that you do an analysis of who it is that is your potential customer and where they are, and be able to vocalize and focus that, because that's a better use of the funds and money that's spent to it, and this is why Google ads have succeeded so well, because you're able to do all that.

Henry Wong: 27:50

Targeting itself. The directories may work, depending on your audience in that, but you know, often those elements can be quite disposable. Used to be back in the old days. You know yellow pages was a great way. You go to that section, you look it up and there you were, amongst everybody else and hopefully you stood out with something that would attract someone to give you a call. But these days, the calling card, of course, is everything that you put yourself online and, taking this further, it really is a presence online that we're looking to often build you, you have the requisite website, you have the social media, all of which is to enhance your reputation and ensure that people feel comfortable dealing with you. So those are often the fundamentals.

Henry Wong: 28:35

From there, how do you push out the message to people? Is that at trade shows, where your audience might be? Is that the local bench advertising that people will drive by in certain neighborhoods, and that and I don't there's no magic formula to it, but it's really truly understanding where your audience is, where your customers are and who they are, so that you can talk to them. So one of the things we do do is define that customer. You make up a profile of who they might be. Is it a certain individual, a certain demographic, a certain income level? Once you understand that, then you know perhaps you're a little bit closer to understanding how you can reach out to them and connect with them on that basis.

SHED GEEK: 30:07

I love it. We had a chance to speak at an engagement recently. We were invited over maybe much of the industries familiar with Matthew Black and Shed University, One of the local trade shows we were invited as a guest to speak.

SHED GEEK: 30:44

We have a couple legs that hold up the table of Shed Geek brand and two of those that have launched recently Shed Geek marketing, Shed Geek rentals, with maybe one more to launch. Then, lord help me. Maybe I can just rest after that if I can learn to slow down a little. As we were speaking on that, the marketing aspect seems to take front and center for me around these conversations about branding. One of the things we really try to do from the onset is create a brand that can be understood and relatable. If somebody is talking to us about Google ads, you mentioned Google ads. Even meta ads In some of the conversations we've had with others have become so important here lately in understanding how to convey that information.

SHED GEEK: 31:38

I'll give you a perfect example. Someone recently said you know social media. Let's take Facebook, which has been around for a long time. It's common, definitely more common in our industry than, say, like Instagram or TikTok, because people just haven't embraced those technologies yet. They may not understand them in more rural communities. That Instagram almost is a search engine for some of the younger crowd, where they'll use it to find a place to eat, as opposed to Google or things like that.

SHED GEEK: 32:08

Maybe it hasn't hit in our more rural communities specifically, or even TikTok, but that's why everybody's going for that viral magic, trying to create that something that gets the recognition that the Yellow Pages used to do by trying to grab your attention with a logo or something that just caught your attention above all else. It seems like. Anyway, you know, we've started to create, we've created for a long time, but like Google ads and meta ads. Someone said something recently. I said, yeah, but when you get on Google this is why we discuss this in marketing when you get on Google, it's a more qualified lead because it's someone there looking for specific information. You know Google's become part of our everyday vernacular right. Like Google, it just go Google it. When you don't know, google's got the answer and it just it's been the search engine that's that's beat out so many of the rest in terms of a trusted source to get information.

SHED GEEK: 33:08

What's interesting is it's actually pulling on websites that are trusted sources, so it's really just a connector to get you the information you're looking for and exactly they've come to realize hey, we can sell advertising to get you in a better position, to get you in a better, more trusted position in your local community and that falls back to local SEO and all these different conversations that we can go on rabbit trails, but with like social media and using Facebook as the catalyst here, most people want to scroll through social media not to be sold to.

Henry Wong: 33:43

They want to scroll through to be social, just to save us, if you were at a dinner and then we're interrupting that Exactly, and I think that's why yeah, that's exactly why content is so important, because if you simply push an ad at somebody, they recognize it, and we get bombarded with so many messages every day. You know you tend to block out everything. Amazon's going through a period now where there's a lot of criticism because they're going to start running ads on their prime channel, of course, and essentially they've become the cable station that they have long sought to compete with. But really what it is is that we don't want to be interrupted from what we're doing. So if it's entertainment, we need to find a way to carefully pull that message in that makes it interesting for people. So social media is it, but you can still use it as a selling tool. You know it doesn't. Yeah, pushing an ad and being overt about it may not work as well as creating some interesting content around.

Henry Wong: 34:47

You know some of the projects or some of the installations that are done, or some of the products itself. I saw these wonderful and I was hooked on it for a while these YouTube videos of a power washer business, and for some reason it ended up on my feet. But they did a wonderful job of just demonstrating the work that they did and you know, showcasing different properties that they had power clean. And I wasn't in the market but I knew it was just sort of very captivating to watch. You know this little bit of process and for you know, you know the shed industry. That is even more engaging because you're dealing with construction and for some reason we love seeing things built and that in itself could make for some wonderful content where people can see it and along the way while they're viewing it, they get a sense of the quality of construction, or the or the uh, uh, the elements that come into making this a quality product that is attached to the company.

SHED GEEK: 35:49

Yeah, I definitely think of time lapse videos, whether it be delivering of a shed, building of a shed, um, those things just capture attention. I was hooked on the same power wash cleaning videos because it was mesmer and I'll I'll also watch.

SHED GEEK: 36:05

I don't know if you've seen the guy who mows lawns, uh, but he's created content by going around and taking a really, really rough looking yard and volunteering to mow it for free one time, and he time lapses the entire thing, which may take hours Does it completely free and then gains business by putting that content out, which also shows his level of character, his work ethic.

SHED GEEK: 36:30

It shows you know that, what you can expect. And then it has almost this double entendre when oh, by the way, we're charitable, We've done this for free for someone who kind of had this need you know. So we're not going to be price heavy, but maybe we're going to charge what our value is Right, so it creates these things without them even happen to like think about it all because we're scrolling through mindlessly and catch a video that says, well, this is interesting. I just love watching him go with that power washer and clean that in a square pattern, and it looks so much more amazing when you're done. And for many people that might say you know, we need to do that, we need that to our driveway.

Henry Wong: 37:12

Exactly, and that's the whole trick, isn't it to try to get you to top of mind. So when the customer is looking for your product or service, they have a certain amount of recall that, uh, great, you know, get some to come to your site or come, you know, pick up the phone and give you a call.

SHED GEEK: 37:30

We sell advertising on the podcast to the industry, and I use that word top of mind, common Cause whenever people say, well, what do you accomplish? I said, well, it's real simple. It's very simple, like. Advertising accomplishes two things. It brings awareness to your product or service or it keeps you top of mind when someone's ready to purchase and I'm willing to have like both conversations but if you don't advertise, now we're where are you top of mind when they're looking for a fastener?

SHED GEEK: 37:55

Or if they're looking for an RTO provider or marketing. So, like you, want to stay um relevant in the conversation for someone who's in the market, who's looking for I love that term in the market. I'm in the market for a vehicle. Well, the natural things that begin to come to mind is my first three spots to go is probably my local, uh, uh, car dealer, right, and then maybe there's a connection, a local connection with a friend or something. But you know, or maybe they've just marketed well enough for me to know that they're always on my mind, they're always there, they're always available, um, so I love it, I love everything that you're you're talking about.

SHED GEEK: 38:35

Give me some, give me some in depth knowledge for Henry and and view brands and sort of um, how you, how you attack this, how you approach this. I mean maybe a little more detail. I know that you, you're an author, you've got a book uh, probably you say it's Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. Give me a little details about Henry specifically, and if a shed, if a shed guy was interested what you know, what does he need to know?

Henry Wong: 39:03

Yeah, so uh, I? Uh during uh COVID, I had the opportunity to learn a little bit more free time, as they are, my team was working in never more places to uh, you know, spend uh writing a lot of what I had learned over the last 25 years on uh big brands and applied it to uh more people brands, you know. So I began noticing that many um people would approach me. Unfortunately, they couldn't necessarily afford the fees to try to bring their brand to life Um, so the book was really meant as a shortcut to that, and that applies a lot of the methods and ideas that I have uh put together in the process as I go with uh uh products and services, but for for people. So uh, easy read Uh, hopefully people will get some value out of it.

Henry Wong: 39:49

Um, if they would like to try to um uh get hold of the book, just go to my own personal website, Henry Wong dot co. Uh, there's a book and it has the retailers listed uh that you can acquire it from. Amazon carries it, of course, and uh, you know, it's just a uh maybe a good guideline to everything we talked about today and a little bit more of a self-help approach to uh you know, doing some of your own um, whether it's marketing or branding, um both, for you know, because the same principles apply for yourself as well as it does for the company and interming, determining your message, and so forth.

SHED GEEK: 40:26

We actually kind of talked about this a little bit before we got on and I figured I'd bring it back up.

SHED GEEK: 40:33

You're in Toronto, canada, and we were talking about sheds. And as you begin to ask more questions about the details of sheds, we begin to words begin to emerge about granny pods. And words begin to emerge, such as during COVID people were looking for ADUs or home offices or things like that, and we experienced that in real time. Our industry actually saw a massive increase during that time because we were able to sort of serve multiple needs with construction, right when you dream with someone. It can be a shed for your lawnmower, but it can also be a home office or a home gym or music studio or whatever it is that you want, and we saw that increase, especially as people begin to stay home. But I found it interesting that, as being you even navigated through the formalities, that the term granny pod showed up.

Henry Wong: 41:35

Yeah, I think it's a term that has often been used, like in the city where I live for the longest time. You know, granny flats were really wouldn't pass the bylaws because it was a separate structure on the same property. In a lot of the urban areas where density has become and housing has become so expensive, many cities are looking for those alternatives. So a lot of this is happening where I am in terms of lane way houses or what granny flats and granny pods that have been built, or a way for people to extend their house by putting an office on us, you know, as a structure outside. So you know super fascinating things and there's some wonderful design that seems to integrate.

Henry Wong: 42:20

So you know yourself, shannon, it's not just simply a utility shed or simply a structure. There's so much more that you can do with it and I think I gained those aesthetics very similar to branding, helps it stand out. It's a design of it that often appeals to people, it's a uniqueness of it and you know it's great to see that a lot of this is happening because it just, you know, allows people to enjoy life that much more and you wouldn't think that. But you know, a shed is very much like an extension of your home, in my mind that your home is where the heart is, so why not extend that to you know, to be part of your property and so why should it be a utility? There has to be that emotional connect that comes with it. This is really the whole element of marketing is to connect with people on emotional level. So if you understand that and understand where people are coming from, I think you can find a pathway to those sales, hopefully in the future.

SHED GEEK: 43:20

I love it. I'm looking at all the different links that you have here, for you know a few brands and even your, your, your personal site here at Henry Wongcom. I love the tagline from the beginning in this world, everything and everyone is a brand, you know, and it's really just trying to figure out how to convey that message. What should people know about Henry and all the components of you and the companies that you're connected with? What does Henry's brand say?

Henry Wong: 45:06

You know, I think, if I were to sum myself up in a word, it's a bit of a caretaker or a helper. These days, I really work with companies that only want to have a whose mission is really to have a positive effect on our world around us. In a way, when I sort of put out that mantra, I was beginning to downsize my company because I was looking to take on less work. The funny thing was, the opposite began happening. More people came to me because they understood what I was all about. They connected on that level. So, again, applying a little bit of this knowledge to yourself, you'll stand for something in the marketplace and the people will write. People, the people that you need to connect with, will come to you.

SHED GEEK: 45:53

Yeah, we could be wrong and maybe this is a silent flex. I don't mean it to be that. We launched the marketing recently and we had you know, probably took on worked with in some capacity maybe not in a full marketing suite, but probably 15 companies sign on immediately. We've got 11 quotes out and we're projecting for hopefully five years, working with as much as 250 different companies in the shed industry. And each time I say it's fantastic we're going to have to slow down.

SHED GEEK: 46:21

we get more requests and I know that sounds like a statement of arrogance, but I don't mean for it to. We almost sometimes. Just we don't want to over promise and under deliver. So like we have to take our time to make sure that we've created our trust, that's our tagline, right? We talk about trust.

Henry Wong: 46:35

So, we've.

SHED GEEK: 46:36

we've had to stop and do that. What's the process look like? Going through signing up with your company if somebody just wanted to reach out and feel free to share your information, in case somebody's like hey, I really want to talk to that guy and take my brand to a new level, what does it sort of look like in a step 123?

Henry Wong: 46:53

Yeah, you know. So, as I mentioned, everything these days is really by simple engagement or referral. So I, the first thing is just a conversation and I just love meeting people and hearing about people's businesses. So connecting off on that side, reaching out, we have a chat and I see if I can help. If not, then that's perfectly fine, but I'm always up, you know, quite happy to offer, you know, some half hour of time to provide advice, and they can, people can go away and work on that. Or if they want to engage further, then we take a look at how you know you're a place in the world and how you know how I can help you achieve your mission of having a positive impact on the world.

SHED GEEK: 47:40

Yeah, I love it. So we've got the website. Do you have best connectivity, best ways to connect with you outside of someone mentioning? Hey, I heard that guy on the podcast. Can you get me in touch with him? Where would they go?

Henry Wong: 47:55

I think the simple thing is just my website, henry Wongco, and with it. There's a number of ways to connect it as well, both through my consulting agency as well as myself. That's probably the easiest. So yeah, look forward to anybody wanting to reach out, of course.

SHED GEEK: 48:14

That sounds great. I'm going to turn the mic around. We're 45 minutes in and it goes way quicker than I ever anticipate. That it does in a natural conversation. It always does, it really does. But I wanted to give you the opportunity to give people in the past not that you should so desire it, but, if you do, to interview me for a moment, turn the microphone around. Podcast questions, shed questions, you name it. Nothing's off limits, just incomplete transparency. We try to do this with every guest so that they can, you know, maybe surprise us with a question we didn't anticipate maybe. So feel free. If you have questions that you want to ask, I'll do my best to answer it.

Henry Wong: 48:57

Sure, I think a couple. First off, I find it really interesting, shannon, that you have a business that you know revolves around shed, which is a way of extending your home and setting forth a marker or a shelter, a place to call home and create your own sort of ecoverse. At the same time, you sound like such a well traveled person, so there's a bit of a dichotomy that I'm interested in, that on the one hand, you know create elements that and make you enjoy the home life really well, but at the same time you're out traveling the states.

SHED GEEK: 49:36

Yeah, it's, it's. I appreciate the kind words, first off, and and Second, you know it, it's something that happened very organically travel wasn't? We did some travel previously, but I really feel like it's just. You know I can, so I can podcast via zoom and we can podcast in person and sometimes it gets very demanding at doing two podcasts per week, 104 episodes a year. Currently to people don't see it a lot of the the back-end detail of like lining up the advertisers to make that happen or lining up the travel plans to make that happen. I can only be in Michigan once a year or Florida once a year or whatever, and we have to try and like keep all that connectivity Happening. But it's just kind of nice that we're blessed to be able to travel, but I always prefer relationship based selling or even relationship based networking.

SHED GEEK: 50:36

So while while Visibility and zoom is a nice secondary, the same reason for why we do video On, like marketing and things we want people to see things Much more personal. It's much more personal if I can get in front of the person, break bread with them, eat with them, meet their children. You know there's, there's, there's, there's been so many positive experiences happen out here by, like somebody saying hey, my kids listen to you and they want to, they want to meet you. And I'm like, oh, I'm no one to me, trust me, I, we're just talking about Sheds. But it makes you feel really warm and and and it makes you want to do more. It just makes you care more naturally to be like wow, that really affects their day. To listen to what we're doing and sometimes you can, you know, you can ask yourself is it worth it? Because you're putting in a lot of effort that's unseen and then it's always worth it. So if I can get in front of people so well traveled, I appreciate that I Maybe we're fairly domesticated, but we've got a long way to go.

SHED GEEK: 51:40

We're, we're trying to Understand culture more. You know we. You know we. We've embraced the Amish and midnight culture, the plain community, and I try to just learn more about that. I don't know, I'm a student of people, henry, maybe it's the best way to say it. I just love people.

Henry Wong: 51:57

And, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. You know, shannon, I think the best way to Educate yourself on the world is to get out there and just meet people. They're not At all what you read about and you, what you believe is, you know, sort of a defined stereotype, is completely wrong Until you actually meet the person and understand that each of us are individuals and human beings and come from Different places. So I think I encourage everybody to get out in the world and just see it and meet, meet people. One thing that you talked about earlier, of course, is, you know, working with your wife and and son. How are the dynamics of that as a you know, a business owner? Because not everybody can do that, but you fit sounds, seems like you found a successful way at it. I.

SHED GEEK: 52:44

Just tell them to tell the line and don't take anything. You know I'm just kidding. We we Me and my wife have been together since I was 15 years old, so we're a bit of a well-old machine at this point in terms of our relationship. Some husband and wife teams can't work together Me and her can't, we can't not work together. So for us we share such a closeness that you know we try to communicate on every level, even in our business and some people prefer to keep that.

SHED GEEK: 53:13

That's amazing my son was going to college and you know he's much more entrepreneurial minded than he realized once he went to school. He's a very smart kid. I love to brag on him. I know what embarrasses him. I always tell people, you know, I had a 4.2 GPA ona 4.0 grading scale. He's never studied a day in his life and I love that. He's naturally intelligent. He's everything opposite of what I was as a child and he's been so fun and easy to raise. He's just a good kid. And he got there and he said, wow, I really don't feel like this is where I'm supposed to be. I've. I really feel like I'm supposed to come back home and he's actually embraced, being very involved with us in the business and what's beautiful is I can give him work and he picks up On it twice as fast as I ever did whenever I was learning it.

SHED GEEK: 53:58

So, now it creates sort of this synergy between the three of us and, yeah, I just think it's great it really works and he gets to travel. He's so excited about coming up and on Texas and going to Texas and I was like, well, let's take you to a Rodeo, because he's like I've never seen that. I think that's interesting. He wants to go and see the embrace, the culture and just sort of. You know, I think he's kind of taken after me and that he wants to learn People and I can't say enough great about what your comment was about learning people, because it does it turn it.

SHED GEEK: 54:34

It breaks down walls of barrier through bias of what we think. Once we get to know a person and especially any amount of time spent with them, eating, meeting their family, interviewing them it sort of creates a whole different dynamic sometimes of what we didn't know. Through the computer maybe. Yeah, absolutely.

Henry Wong: 54:53

It does, yeah, well, hey, I appreciate having you on.

SHED GEEK: 54:57

Today. My wife's been after me telling me you got to quit talking for a minute and ten and we're at 50 minutes in. So I mean an hour and ten minutes, so we're 50 minutes.

Henry Wong: 55:06

So I'm trying to, I'm trying to do.

SHED GEEK: 55:08

I've tried to do well, dear, I'm trying to do well. She's gonna be the one editing this. She'll get that. But, henry, if you'll stay on here, we'll just chat for a bit, but I'll go ahead and end today. Was there anything else that you Wanted to say?

Henry Wong: 55:20

I feel like we could talk two or three more hours, and probably yeah yeah, you know it's unfortunate we didn't get a chance to break bread in person, but really terrific to hang out with you for this time, so thank you for having me Well, maybe.

SHED GEEK: 55:37

We can make it happen one day. There's always follow-up, there's always content to create, so you just never know.