Unpacking Branding: The Science Behind Marketing with Ethan Decker

Freddy D: 00:02:21

Today's guest on the Business Superfans podcast is where science meets storytelling, strategy meets psychology, and data meets dazzling insight. Meet Ethan Decker, a brand strategist, marketing expert and founder of Applied Brand Science.

With over 20 years of experience shaping award winning brand strategies for some of the world's most iconic companies, Ethan bridges the gap between scientific rigor and creative marketing magic. He's held top roles at renowned agencies like 72 and Sunny, Crispin, Porter Boguski and the Integer Group.

From ethnographies in Tokyo to matlab modeling. From launching razors to repositioning women's fashion lines, Ethan has done it all.

Grounded in research, driven by human behavior and delivered with clarity.

Originally trained as a scientist with a PhD in urban ecology and complexity theory, Ethan brings a fresh evidence based perspective to how brands grow, how people really shop, and what actually makes marketing work. His TEDx talk ranks in the top 1% of all time.

as voted best session at SXSW: 2023

Smart, funny, insightful, and here to help you understand the science behind branding.

Freddy D: 00:03:49

Welcome, Ethan, to the Business Superfans podcast. We're excited to have you here this afternoon. How are you?

Ethan Decker: 00:03:55

Thanks, Freddie. I'm doing well, I'm doing well. Trying to stay warm. It's cold out here.

Freddy D: 00:03:59

Yes, it's a little bit cold here in Arizona, but we're warming up. I think we hit 70 something now, but the last couple weeks has been in the forties at nighttime, the.

And actually a couple times it got into the low 30s. So I was like, wait a minute, I thought I left that stuff.

Ethan Decker: 00:04:13

Yeah, you stay indoors for that down in Arizona.

Freddy D: 00:04:16

So Ethan, what's the backstory of how you created Applied Brand Science?

Ethan Decker: 00:04:24

The genesis of Applied Brand Science was having spent 15 years, 20 years in advertising and marketing, helping brands try and come up with great campaigns to launch products and grow their business. And these are big brands. I was working with Kellogg's and Pepsi and P and G, the owners of Duracell and Tide and Bounty and Febreze, folks like that.

I realized a lot of great ideas, a lot of great campaigns, a lot of great marketing dies. Not because it's bad, but because we all have different beliefs about how marketing even works.

Even seasoned marketing veterans, business leaders, advertisers, they all walk around with varying understandings about how consumers really shop, how brands are chosen, how Advertising even works and how brands compete and grow. There were all these different beliefs.

I'd had a background in science long ago and brought that into the world of advertising and said, well, what's the science of branding? What's the science of advertising? And I got laughed at. They're like, there's no such thing. It's just creativity. It's magic.

And it turns out there is science to it. Most people don't know it, but if you understand the scientific principles, it really helps explain a whole lot of what really happens.

It brings objectivity to what feels very subjective. Choosing an ad campaign or a marketing idea or a brand platform, it actually makes things work.

It's more effective because you're not believing you can make bricks float or water flow uphill because there are some laws of physics that brands adhere to that they're good to know.

Freddy D: 00:06:01

Interesting, because I did marketing, you know, I was in the software industry for decades and the marketing that I had done back then was really to try to solve a problem and we were a solution to a manufacturing problem. That was the science of it, right?

Ethan Decker: 00:06:17

You're in the trenches, you're in the weeds, you're getting the work done. You don't have time to go dig up academic literature or read the textbook on marketing laws and principles 101. It's not very common.

It makes sense that most people don't know this stuff. And then to boot, some of it was created just in the past 10 or 15 years. Some of it was studied and researched in Australia pre Internet.

So it literally was hard for these ideas to spread. And a lot of it is still couched or cloaked in very academic terms which don't make it very friendly for the average person to use.

So applied brand science kind of does what it says in the name. I help companies apply the science of brands so that they can actually grow.

And I realized that if you do that, you're kind of upstream of the good ideas or the bad ideas or choosing the right ideas for marketing and branding and you can make a lot more sense about your choices because they're based on principles and laws.

Freddy D: 00:07:14

It totally makes sense. So how can a small to mid sized business grasp their head around that aspect?

Because you've got the guy that's got the landscaping business and then you've got a company that's doing accounting for example, or a law firm or a H Vac construction company. How can that applying the science to the branding and the marketing aspect affect those different industries?

Ethan Decker: 00:07:41

Well, a couple of things. First of all the beauty of the laws is that they're pretty universal.

When you understand the laws of biology, it applies equally to rats and whales and sea elephants and humans. And so similarly, a lot of the laws apply to all of those different types of businesses you just mentioned.

I've worked across B2B, B2C, tech, finance services, apparel. And the laws apply. The laws are there. There are parameters that you have to change. The laws of physics don't change when you're on the moon.

But the parameters do. You know, the moon is smaller, so you. You kind of float and bounce more than you do on Earth.

And there's no atmosphere on the moon, so you actually can't fly a paper plane. Right. Think about that. The paper airplane really floats on the air that we are surrounded by. That's usually invisible unless there's a fire.

And then, of course, you can see all the air. But the laws are the same. The laws of physics are the same. It's just that there's no atmosphere on the moon.

So the laws of branding do apply to H VAC organizations and financial services firms and accountants and lawn services. So that's the first thing. It's pretty cool that they do apply.

So one of the fundamental laws is that the types of customers you have and how much they spend with you doesn't follow a bell curve, doesn't follow a straight line with some light customers, some medium customers, some heavy customers. We're trying to make this a thing, call it a banana curve. Weimar Schneiders is a guy I know.

He calls it a banana curve because it's shaped like a banana.

So if you're looking at a chart of your landscaping customers, let's look at over five years, you've probably got a lot of customers that came and went, or they're light jobs, small yards, so they're light customers. So you have a lot of light customers. And then you've got half as many who are bigger, and then half as many of that who are bigger customers.

And then occasionally you've got a big account where you're doing lots of big estates and yards, and you've kept them for five years. So you have one or two of those big whales, and then you've got a lot of minnows, so to speak.

It's a little different if you do a subscription thing, like if you do tax preparation. And you might have the same people pretty often year after year for that. You'd have to scale it up to, let's say, 10 years.

And then you could see the same pattern.

Whereas if you run a coffee shop and you're a small business owner, you could see this pattern every week, that within one week you've got a lot of people that come in once.

Most of your people come in once, you've got a few people that come in twice, you've got even fewer people that come in three times, and then you've got like one or two people who are there twice a day or maybe three times a day. So this is a totally universal law and it's called the banana. We call it the banana curve to make it casual and easy to remember.

There's a technical term that the negative binomial distribution. But if you realize that this is a natural law, you have lots of minnows, you have a few medium sized fish, and then you have one or two whales.

You stop dreaming for the day that you don't have to waste your time on all these tiny clients.

When you stop dreaming for the day that you only have super loyal customers to your coffee shop that come in every single day and they only buy their coffee from you. It's just not how the world works. Correct. Right.

So not only do you stop dreaming for that kind of perfect loyalty from all of your customers, but then you can build your business around having a lot of minnows and a few whales and then some fish in the middle.

You can start embracing the fact that you have customers who buy their coffee elsewhere or get some H vac services from you, but get some other industrial services from other brands. You got to constantly be bringing in new people and it's the main way businesses seem to thrive.

Freddy D: 00:11:37

I can completely relate to that because you can also become complacent. They've got their 10 little customers and they think it's all life is wonderful.

And all of a sudden three customers disappear and their whole business scrambles. I've seen people have one major account and I'm going like, what? You've only got one account that you service. What happens if they go away?

You're out of business tomorrow.

Ethan Decker: 00:12:03

Yeah, it's risky, but that's because people have thought about brand love and brand loyalty so deeply. It's just an accepted premise.

Kind of like we assume that the moon and the sun revolve around the earth because it seems like it, and that we would want brand love and loyalty. And this is a little counter to the notion of superfans, but not entirely.

It's just accepting the fact that you will have super fans who come to your coffee shop religiously every day. And that's great. And they will rave about you.

But you also need to embrace and accept the occasional person who's driving through town or is from out of town. The person that comes in once a week or once a month because they've got a business meeting, but otherwise they make their coffee at home.

That's a huge chunk of your revenue. That's a huge chunk of your business. And that's okay.

Freddy D: 00:12:51

It totally is.

But you can still turn that casual once in a Blue moon individual into a superfan, because if you provide exceptional service and you've created memorable branding. I'll use myself an example. We went to Carmel a couple years ago and we stayed at this Airbnb. And I tell people that they're going to go visit Carmel.

You need to go stay at that Airbnb. Because the service was great, the cost was good, the location was excellent.

Ethan Decker: 00:13:19

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:13:19

And so I'm a super fan of that Airbnb, even though I haven't been there in two years.

Ethan Decker: 00:13:26

Yeah, that's an interesting and a great example because there's a very complicated connection between how we feel about brands and how we buy brands. Right. You have these great warm feelings about this Airbnb and you will recommend it to the people that are going to Carmel.

Who knows how often that is. But yeah, you're unlikely to go back and you might never go back. That's okay.

People can be super fans of Ferrari and Tiffany, and maybe all they've ever done is buy a small charm necklace or a Ferrari baseball cap. But they'll talk about it.

Freddy D: 00:13:59

Correct.

Ethan Decker: 00:14:00

So, absolutely.

There are things you can do if you run a coffee shop or an H vac service or tax prep company to make people really enjoy the experience, really love the product and hopefully share that with others.

But it's a freeing feeling to know that most of the people will just come through and they'll buy something from you and they will pass on to the next thing and you might never see them again. And that's okay.

Freddy D: 00:14:26

So share a story with us, Ethan, of how you worked with an organization to really leverage both the science and the branding to create the memorable brand that in turn helped that company scale.

Ethan Decker: 00:14:39

Sure. There's a small beverage company headquartered here in Boulder called Hoplark to describe it.

It's kind of fake beer, you could say it's beer flavored hop flavored iced tea. Sparkling iced tea, you could say.

So instead of using black tea or green tea, they make a hop flavored water and then you carbonate it and It's a zero calorie, zero alcohol beverage that is fizzy and tastes like beer.

So it's great if you want to eliminate alcohol or lower the amount of alcohol you drink or lower the amount of calories that you drink, but still get that flavor experience of drinking a beer. So it's really cool. And they do a great job of interesting new flavors all the time.

And they do fun marketing on their social media and their packaging is beautiful. And they were convinced that they had mad passionate, loyal fans and that's why they were doing so well.

And they were struggling a little bit with some of their distribution or their growth, which was confusing them because they had such passionate fans. And we took a look at the numbers and sure enough, they didn't just sell to people who bought them case after case and were mad loyal fans.

Those people were the minority. And they heard about them. They heard from them on social media and through surveys and stuff.

But the people they didn't hear about were the majority who bought one case and maybe never came back or bought a case online and then maybe occasionally buy it from the grocery store. And you're not quite sure who they are because you can't track that or can't easily track that, I should say.

But yeah, the number one purchase size was one case in the past year. And that floored them because again, they thought that they had mad passionate fans who bought them by the truckload. So it was.

It's a little sobering at first to realize, okay, I had it wrong, there are these passionate loyalists, but they're very much the minority and most people just buy us once.

But then they realized, oh, that means we have to embrace those folks who are really light buyers, like you say, make sure they're having a great experience, even if they only buy one case. Make sure that they're delighted even by that one case and might mention it to their friends.

But go after the super light buyer who probably buys a lot of other brands, a lot of other sparkling water brands, a lot of other zero alcohol beer brands, a lot of other normal beer brands, and that we're just going to be the thing they drink occasionally when they want to be drinking a beer but don't want alcohol or don't want calories. And it really changed how they went after distribution.

It really changed how they went after their growth because they realized the goal was not to get people to buy 12 cases a year. Their goal is to double the number of people that buy them at all, most of whom will buy them once. A year. Very different approach.

You're just trying to get a current buyer to go from one case a year to 12 cases a year. That's a very different approach of your time and money. It often doesn't work.

It's really hard to get someone to go from buying you once a year to buying you 12 times a year. You'd think everyone's heard of it by now, but you'd be amazed how many have never even heard of you.

Freddy D: 00:17:49

Interesting. But that's a good story because what you just did is you changed their whole demographic approach of who they're messaging to.

And they're messaging to an audience that wasn't their perceived audience.

Ethan Decker: 00:18:04

Right.

Freddy D: 00:18:05

But it's actually a bigger audience, which will actually generate significantly more revenue. Because as we talked before, if you've treated them well, if they had a good experience, they're going to tell others.

Ethan Decker: 00:18:18

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:18:18

And now you get the word of mouth branding going on and that just accentuates everything.

Ethan Decker: 00:18:24

I do a fair bit of pro bono work and help organizations that are helping others. Again, there was one that said, we've tapped out all of our donors in Boulder County.

I think we need to do a wider campaign across the whole state of Colorado. And I said, huh? How many donors did you have last year? And they said, 700. And I said, oh, cool. How many residents are there in Boulder County?

And they didn't know. And I looked it up and I think it was about 200,000.

Freddy D: 00:18:51

Yeah. So it's like 0.0 something percent.

Ethan Decker: 00:18:54

Yeah. I said, so you've got 700 donors. How many people even know about your nonprofit here in Boulder County? And they have no idea.

There's no easy number for that. There might be some ways to kind of guess at it. I said, so you don't know how many people even know you exist?

You've got 700 donors from last year and let's assume 50 or 60% of them will return next year. A bunch will just fall off and donate somewhere else. And that's fine. That's normal. So 200,000 minus 700 is still 200,000.

So I don't think we need to go to Denver and Colorado Springs yet for donors. I think we have a lot of opportunity right here. It's the curse of too much knowledge, Freddie.

If you're a brand owner and you look at your brand all the time and you look at your ads all the time, you think everybody else does too.

Freddy D: 00:19:41

Right.

Ethan Decker: 00:19:42

But the truth is most people can't find their car keys and all they're really thinking about is whose appointment am I going to this evening? Is it me or my kid or my spouse? And what time is it? And do I have to drive across town or is it local and can I get groceries on the way home?

They're not thinking about your landscaping brand and they're not thinking about your H Vac brand, and they're not thinking about your tax prep brand or your coffee shop or your apparel store. They're thinking about their family and their job and how much their shoulder hurts.

So you think about it all the time and you assume everyone else does, when in fact they don't know about you, they don't think about you, they might not even know you exist. And so that's where, if you focus on that, you often tend to do much more effective marketing because you're meeting people where they're at.

Freddy D: 00:20:30

Exactly.

And another thing too is then if you start realizing that people are busy about their own lives, they're not thinking about your brand, whatever it is.

But if you come up with some clever marketing strategies where you can periodically pop up in front of them, then all of a sudden, subconsciously it registers and I'm thirsty for something. I'm going to go to that place.

Ethan Decker: 00:20:52

Yeah, you gotta do everything you can to be sticky. That's the term for some reason I've landed on. I know it's an incredibly technical term. It's very. It reeks of academia.

But sticky marketing is kind of what you need all of your stuff to do. If you've got a logo, you don't want it to be boring and bland. You want it to be interesting or sticky like the Starbucks mermaid.

My logo is, for those of you who are just listening, it's a frog with elk antlers. So it's not quite a jackalope. It's not a frogalope, it's a frelk. It's a frog with elk antlers.

And it's so interesting and cute that my clients gobble up stickers and merch when I make stickers and merch with my little frelk on it. It's interesting enough that I've had people from England ask, hey, do you make T shirts with that thing on it?

At the time I was not selling T shirts with a frelk on it, but you can custom print them online in England and drop ship them. So I made one for her and had it sent to her home from England. My other thing is orange.

You've probably noticed, Freddie, that a lot of my Websites and my merch and my.

Freddy D: 00:21:59

You're wearing orange now.

Ethan Decker: 00:22:00

I'm wearing orange right now. I've got an orange track suit on, or at least track jacket on. I use orange the way Coca Cola uses red. Right Everywhere, all the the time.

And you think those coke reps are tired of wearing red? Probably. But do you think it helps people remember which brand that truck is that goes by and delivering subliminal.

Freddy D: 00:22:21

It's 100% subliminal.

Ethan Decker: 00:22:23

Yeah. I really want to help local small brands, especially the quote, boring ones like H Vac do things that are stickier because the bar is so low.

Freddie, can you imagine an H Vac truck wrapped in interesting imagery of, let's say, just how about this? Clowns. I don't know why just cover the thing with images of clowns and it's a clown car. What does that have to do with H Vacs? Nothing.

Will people remember the clown car driving around town all the time?

Freddy D: 00:22:54

Oscar Miner Wiener pops into my.

Ethan Decker: 00:22:56

Boom.

Freddy D: 00:22:56

Right in the air. Because they had the Oscar Mayer car. The Wiener mobile. There you go.

Ethan Decker: 00:23:01

If you're a small business, some of those things are a little expensive. But if you're going to paint your truck or wrap your truck anyway, instead of just say Bob's H Vac, we're reliable and trustworthy.

Here's our phone number. Here's our website. No one's even going to notice. That's just wallpaper.

But if you do something sticky like cover it with bees or ants or clowns or I don't know what, whatever your thing is, doesn't even matter. And the less it has to do with H Vacs, the better because then you're the only H Vac brand with clowns and, and people remember it's a clown car.

Another example, I had those TV ads, those local TV ads for attorneys for personal injuries. Right here in Denver, we've got Frank Azar, long arm of the law. He'll help you get a hundred thousand dollars if you're injured in a car crash.

I thought, what if you had an attorney company and your whole thing was wrestling?

You always had like a big Hulk Hogan person in the ad or you always had the big championship belt around your waist, the ding, ding, ding of the ring, the round three being rung in. And that was just your gimmick. But the gimmick makes you sticky and makes you memorable and noticeable.

And on the off chance that someone gets into a car crash and needs an attorney, which hopefully doesn't happen more than once in your life, who are they going to think of at all? The one. The ding ding, ding. And the pro wrestlers.

Freddy D: 00:24:23

Well, you look back at the: 1985

Ethan Decker: 00:24:33

Yes.

Freddy D: 00:24:33

And they did a video Super Bowl Shuffle. They were dancing and everything else. And it was like all the competitive teams were like, holy moly. And they killed it. And they have.

I'm still a fan of the 85 Bears. I was fortunate. I met some of them. I met Walter Payton. I've met Dan Hampton, Trace Armstrong, Kevin Butler back in the days.

But there's something that was completely out of left field, but it stuck.

Ethan Decker: 00:25:00

That's all you need. You need a good service. You need good quality, you need good customer service. Right. You need a great product. All that matters.

But that's not enough is what I'm saying. Because so many of the people you're selling to don't know of you, don't think of you at all, or might not remember.

Even if they have a great experience at the BNB in Carmel, how are they going to remember? Oh, yeah, there's that place in Carmel. I forget which one it was. And there are probably 50 fantastic Airbnbs in Carmel.

Freddy D: 00:25:31

There are. But the other thing is, most businesses fall short by maintaining that relationship. And we'll go with a home improvement industry.

Someone comes in, does whatever they need to do to your house, and they did a great job. He says, man, thank you so much. And then you never hear from them again. Never. Zero. Not a. It's been six months, Ethan. We took care of that thing.

Just want to make sure all is good. Hey, postcard.

Ethan Decker: 00:26:00

That's it.

Freddy D: 00:26:01

Or it's your birthday. Hey, happy birthday. Like to say we're thinking of you. The little things are really the big things.

Ethan Decker: 00:26:08

Yes, yes. The little touches. And you know who does it well. Or like the luxury brands.

If you go to a fancy like Gucci store, and I'm guessing this because I don't. I'm not the kind of guy that buys Gucci.

But go to Gucci, not only do they give you some sparkling water, some Pellegrino, but the attendants are really well dressed, they wait on you nicely, and then when you leave, they give you a gorgeous tote bag that it goes in and it's wrapped beautifully. And then if you gave them their. Your email address for your receipt, of course they're going to email you and say, how are things?

And by the way, come to our exclusive happy hour to try some locally made bourbon. Right? They do all these little touches, these little things.

Freddy D: 00:26:51

Those are all the stickies.

Ethan Decker: 00:26:52

Yeah. And the stickies. You can do this as a tiny brand. If you run an H VAC service company, you show up.

Well, first of all, did you wash your truck before you showed up? Do you have a nice receipt people get, or is it just a yellow carbon paper? Do you leave people with any token of appreciation?

And, I mean, you don't have to buy them tickets to the local college football game, but what about some chocolates? Just bring some chocolates.

Freddy D: 00:27:22

Yeah. There's a multitude of things that you can do. Yeah. That will leave a great feeling and people are going to go, wow, that was a good experience.

But then if they don't follow up and maintain that engagement, that great experience.

Ethan Decker: 00:27:37

Correct.

Freddy D: 00:27:38

Fades.

Ethan Decker: 00:27:39

Correct.

Freddy D: 00:27:39

And a year from now, you won't remember who that business was because it disappeared.

Ethan Decker: 00:27:46

Yeah.

So on the one hand, if you're that H Vac or that lawn service or the tax people, you want to send a note, you want to send an email, you want to say, hey, happy Fourth of July. Or if you're lucky enough to have their birthday, hey, happy Birthday.

But the other thing you can do, and this is funny, I've become a real fan of merch and chach. Right. Tchotchkes. Because they're durable reminders that you exist at all.

Freddy D: 00:28:11

Yep.

Ethan Decker: 00:28:12

And so if you've got branded chocolate or branded keychains or a cool carabiner, I don't know, what about Sharpies? Right. Maybe if you're, like, if you do the H Vac stuff, you leave people a set of really cool Sharpies with your brand and logo on it.

Every time they pull out a Sharpie from that kitchen drawer to write on something, there's your logo and there's maybe something cute. You leave a little cute phrase on it.

Freddy D: 00:28:37

I'll go one step further. You take that branded item and you personalize it and then you send it to them. If it's got your logo and your branding on it, it's all about you.

But if I turn around and put the individual's name on it, it's no longer about you, it's now about them. And it's their pen, their jacket, their coffee cup, their water bottle, whatever it is.

And now you just created an emotional connection because now they're going to carry. If it's a water bottle, they're going to carry it with them or a coffee cup. And it's a continuous reminder.

Ethan Decker: 00:29:12

Exactly. And it makes them feel good about your company. I do consulting I do two things. I either help people with their brands.

So I work on branding and brand strategy and brand ideas. I train teams, usually from the larger companies. I train them on the laws of branding for those clients that I work with.

Last year, my corporate gift for the holidays was a mug. On the one side, it had my frog with elk antlers and it was a cute little FR. Elk. That's it does not have my brand name on there.

Applied Brand Science. Who wants to walk around with a mug that says Applied Brand Science, but the cute frelk is cute.

And on the backside of the mug, it's not this one, but on the backside of the mug I gave, it said, science is so hot. And it's a silly phrase and it's a double entendre because I am Applied Brand Science. So there's a little riff on my name.

Freddy D: 00:29:59

Yeah. Subliminal.

Ethan Decker: 00:30:01

It's an insulated yeti mug and it keeps your coffee hot. Ha ha ha. Based on science. Because it's an insulated thermal mug.

I still have clients who send me photos of my mug that I gave them when they're at a coffee shop and getting a refill and one of the baristas laughs about it and they talk about it, and then that means the client mentions me and thinks of me at all. And then they're like, oh, I might.

Freddy D: 00:30:26

As well, hey, hey, you've got a super fan.

Ethan Decker: 00:30:28

Boom. And then I might as well send Ethan a photo of it. Cause it was funny. And they might not hire me again, but I'm still in their mind.

And if someone else asks, I need some help with my brand, maybe they'll think of me to recommend me.

Freddy D: 00:30:40

Yeah, you've increased the probability of that. Really?

Ethan Decker: 00:30:43

Totally. An easy one you can do if you are in people's homes is their pets.

If they've got dogs or cats, either snap a quick photo and say, your dog is adorable. Can I get a picture? And then you can print that on something.

And if it's a golden lab, then put a picture of a golden lab on the Sharpies or the mugs that you send them, they'll love you forever. Yeah, it's an interesting.

And I'm not even sure paradox is the right word, Freddy, but the notion that those little things make people fond of you, right? And make them fans of you, even though they might never buy you again or might recommend you once in the next 10 years. But it adds up.

Freddy D: 00:31:20

It totally does. When I was selling manufacturing, I shared this story many times. I'll share it Again, because I want to drive the point home.

I was selling computer aided manufacturing software to tool and die shops. Okay. And we would have people come in for meeting to software presentation. I made sure to get everybody's name information.

And some of these guys were the people out running the milling machines and the lathes and the wire, DM and et cetera. So they were in the watch because they're going to be using the software to program their machines, et cetera. Meeting was over.

I would send everybody a personalized letter, say, okay, Ethan, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to participate in our meeting. We're grateful for your input and suggestions and stuff in the conversation.

We look forward to building a long working relationship with you, et cetera. You being Ethan the milling machine guy, you don't get anything in the mail and nobody recognizes you.

Ethan Decker: 00:32:16

No, totally.

Freddy D: 00:32:17

And so when I did that and recognized everybody, didn't matter what level in the company you were. We would get the sale and I would turn around and says, well, what was the deciding factor?

And they says, well, after the sale, we felt you would give us the best service. All I do is implant them by thanking them after the presentation.

Ethan Decker: 00:32:39

Totally.

Freddy D: 00:32:40

And it's again, it was a little thing that was a big thing.

Ethan Decker: 00:32:44

Yeah. We are talking a lot about service. We're talking about personalization. We're talking about attention.

It makes me think of a project I did 15 years ago when I was at the big ad agency. The national association of Convenience Stores asked us to do some major research and strategy for their members.

Their 150,000 convenience stores, c stores in America.

They wanted to give these mostly local small operators who might have a license with Kwik E Mart or Circle K or Chevron, but they're really running their own little shop. Some guidance. And we did a whole bunch of research and we found out that the assumption is what matters in a convenience store is convenience.

It's in the name. What matters in a convenience store is speed. And it is true that the average time a customer spends in a C store is about 12 seconds.

It's not very long, maybe 60 seconds, because they gotta check out. Those are quick trips. And they usually buy one, maybe two products. They're tiny trips.

It turned out the thing that mattered most to the shoppers was service. It was not speed. It was not convenience.

They were happy to go out of their way to a place with crappy parking, to a place that may or may not have the best prices, because they knew the guy at the counter who knew their name and knew their kids and talked and laughed and gave them a free cup of coffee once in a while.

To your point, the superfan thing again, acknowledging you probably will only have one or two people who come every day, but you're still making everyone else happy and making everyone else smile and spreading the word that if you gotta get gas or you want to pick up cigarettes or get a scratch off or just some candy, go to this place. Because that guy's a great place.

Freddy D: 00:34:36

Great. How can people find you?

Ethan Decker: 00:34:38

The two easiest places to find me are applied Brandscience.com My website has a lot of info about me and our services and you can also sign up for a weekly newsletter where I share little tidbits. It's about once a week or less. I share some interesting things and some things you can use. Once a week you can sign up for the newsletter.

There again, it's Applied brandscience. Com or just read stuff and learn stuff. I've got a lot of free content. The other place is I post pretty regularly on LinkedIn.

So if you go to LinkedIn and look for Ethan Decker or E H Decker, which is my handle or Applied Brand Science, you'll find my stuff and you'll find the things I post and ways to get in touch with me. My email and phone number are probably linked on there, so you can reach out. No problem. I'm always open for a conversation.

Or if you just want to read the stuff I share and get some little tidbits or tricks for how to grow your business, that's where to do it.

Freddy D: 00:35:40

Put all that information in the show notes as well. People can go to the show notes and get the information, contact information from yourself.

Ethan, it's been a pleasure having you on the Business Superfans podcast show. Great conversation, great insight. We could probably go on for a couple hours on this stuff.

Ethan Decker: 00:35:56

Freddie, you're a gentleman and a scholar.

Freddy D: 00:35:58

Well, thank you. We look forward to having you on the show again down the road.

Ethan Decker: 00:36:02

All right, have a great week.