Happy Agent Co. - Real Estate Agent Podcast for Women - Hosted by Lindsay Dreyer, Real Estate Coach

Stop Calling Your Logo a Brand — Real Talk with Tuo Studio

• Lindsay Dreyer • Season 1 • Episode 49

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If you’ve ever thought, “I just need a cute logo and some brand colors,” this episode is going to blow your mind! Lindsay is interviewing Patrick Sanders and Darcy Walker of Tuo Studio, the branding team behind her rebrand from City Chic Real Estate to Reverie Residential. We break down what real branding is, how to uncover your core belief, and why your visuals should be the final step—not the first. We also talk about how AI can help you execute your brand more consistently once your foundation is solid.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Why your logo is not your brand (and what agents get wrong about branding)
  • How to build a real estate brand that’s more than a color palette
  • What a brand actually is: your promise, positioning, messaging, and client experience
  • How the brand discovery process works and why it feels like “brand therapy”
  • What core beliefs, messaging pillars, and manifestos are—and why strong brands need them
  • Why generic, mass-appeal branding hurts boutique brokerages and agent teams
  • How to use AI tools for branding to stay consistent without losing authenticity
  • How to act as the creative director of your brand across marketing and social media

Branding isn’t about fonts, logos, or Canva templates—it’s about clarity, consistency, and the emotional promise you make to your clients. This conversation will help you understand the deeper strategy behind real estate branding and give you a framework for building a brand that truly stands out.

Learn more about:

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SPEAKER_02:

Today, I'm sitting down with Patrick Sanders and Darcy Walker of 20 Studio, the boutique branding firm behind my brokerage rebrand from City Chic Real Estate to Reverie Residential. If you have ever wondered what truly goes into building a real brand, not just picking colors and a logo and fonts, you're going to love this conversation. We talk through what a comprehensive brand package actually includes, how to think about branding as a real estate professional, and why it's so much more than aesthetics. Let's dive into the interview. I want to start the conversation by asking you guys, what do you think a brand is? And what do you think the purpose of a brand is?

SPEAKER_04:

I think there's a lot of different things that people say when they talk about what a brand is. And for me, one piece of it, I think, is a feeling. So it's like the feeling that you get when you think about X company, the feeling you get when you think about Nike, or Nike's always the best example. Like with Nike, the promise is performance, right? You want to buy from Nike when you want to have that like January 1st, like I'm gonna hit the gym and really like go at it. That's Nike, right? Or the other great example is Volvo. Volvo is safety. When you think of Volvo, you think of just like being comfortable and safe and cushioned. So it's the feeling that you get, and it's the feeling you know you can always get, and that promise and the consistency of it.

SPEAKER_02:

I really like that because it's kind of jives with what I feel like a brand is too. I feel like it's the promise that the company is making to the consumer, and it's how you're communicating that promise. So it's the words, it's the visuals, and it's all of those things. So it's like not only is it like making the client feel something or the consumer feel something, but it's also communicating what they're going to get when they work with you. So I think like we're on the same page about that. In the real estate industry, so much of it is just like what's your logo and what's your colors. And I just think that that's the biggest misconception. And it's why I was so excited to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

I would also say, too, like if you just think about what we were just talking about, like the things that happen for brands that fail are usually because they've broken that promise. So it's like if you think about it from the other way around, that understanding of what they stand for and their principles, their values, whatever you kind of want to label that, it really matters. The misconception that a logo or a color palette is a brand, you know, that's one ingredient. But really the thing that matters the most and actually establishing that kind of rent in someone's mind comes down to the feelings that you're giving them. What goes into a rebrand or a branding exercise to begin with is, you know, on your part, Lindsay, on the client side, the brand side, you need a lot of courage to be honest, to be candid, to be raw, but to actually really be vulnerable in terms of exposing the things that really matter to you and your brand. And then you synthesize all of that down into the things that really seem to be distinct, memorable, ownable, true. You want to get all the table stakes just pushed aside, get through the stuff that everyone can claim and really zone in on the things that make you special. And honestly, that means that your brand isn't going to be for everybody. It's really understanding who you're trying to reach. Because I think, especially in real estate, having spent a lot of time uh with brokerages and agents, there's a tendency to kind of try to be mass appeal. And you can do that, but what happens is that your brand becomes pretty thin. It's kind of like a veneer on something where it's just like the minute you start to dig any deeper, there's nothing really there. And oftentimes there could be, but it's just like we want to be liked by everybody. And you know, that's just not how this works.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And like I think that there's definitely the layers of branding and real estate where if you have the big behemoths like Compass or Codelbanker or Keller Williams, they're almost like a canvas that the agent has to paint on. They have to be flexible enough that thousands, hundreds of thousands of agents can paint on that canvas. Whereas if you're a boutique or an independent and you are more niche in terms of maybe clients you serve or agents that you serve, I do feel like branding becomes that much more important to be able to stand out in the marketplace because you do need to stand out in that sea of sameness. And I think that that's where boutique and independent brokerages or even just agent teams or even agents with their own brand. It's like that's how you can really differentiate yourself against these big corporate identities, is by like really leaning into what makes you different. And I think that that was really a great thing that you guys did in your process, which is like starting with that discovery of what do you stand for? What makes you different? So the discovery process with you guys, I thought was really fun and also super interesting because you asked such great questions. And I actually really had no idea where we were gonna go with this. To give everybody some context, I basically was like, I need to rebrand City Chic Real Estate because we are not just the city anymore. We are really the suburbs in the metro DC area. And then I'm also I opened an office in New Hampshire and I wanted everything to be under the same brand umbrella. So City Chic doesn't really work in New Hampshire. It's like country chic, and we're not doing that. I wanted to come to you guys where I was like, all right, here's the challenge. Our clients have changed, the agents we want to attract have changed, and our geographic location is also expanding and changing. And here's, I'm like dumping this all in your lap. So it started with the discovery, and I'm like, I got a challenge. What are you guys gonna do? So I'm curious to like get in your minds a little bit about like what are your goals from your point of view? What is the discovery phase all about? And what do you feel like makes it successful?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I will start with the fact that uh you also brought with us the challenges, you brought an incredible name. And immediately Darcy and I were just hooked.

SPEAKER_03:

Like Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, the the concept was there. And I think going into Discovery, it was like, I really hope this is substantiated with something meaningful. And so as soon as we started having conversations, you brought a very kind of candid, composed uh authenticity to every question. You were not afraid to just go there. In doing so, you kind of reveal weaknesses and challenges that you've been facing, mistakes that you've made, the aspirations you have for yourself and your life and your brand and your company. Coming out of that, it's our job to really comb through those things. Having participated in so many discoveries across so many different types of businesses and industries, the goal from our side is to just come with an intense curiosity and the ability to decipher through the things that just feel like not unique. You kept giving us these things that were just so interesting and vastly different than I have ever heard in any discovery for a brokerage. The layer of touch points that you have with your agents is special, first of all, but also things that you just would not expect to hear. As we're thinking about reverie in this really emotive space, you started to substantiate that with like, you know, we do dream journaling at our retreats. We talk about uh putting out intentions. It's like all of these things that were like, oh my God, this is gonna be a true story. Like, this is gonna be a real true story. And the potential that name had to really kind of stand for something, um, I think just made us even more eager to kind of like figure out all of the facets to how you exercise this kind of like again, it's buying and selling at the very base of it, it's buying and selling, you know, a house. You're helping folks, you know, uh achieve this milestone. But the way in which Reverie supports that in terms of really going there in terms of the daydreaming aspects, that kind of like really fuzzy, ethereal feeling that everybody has, every single person, no matter what, it's like this is a really cool territory. Like, uh, you know, I think from the manifesto to really understanding that very pure core message, there was just like it was a goosebumps a lot of the times, just going like, oh, this is just gonna be like incredible.

SPEAKER_04:

I fully cosign everything you just said, and I would just add you come at it from more of a design, you think about things visually, I'm come at it from a messaging angle. And I think for me, what's probably not evident to people who aren't inside the process is just how like not groundbreaking it feels when you're doing it. It's very journalistic in nature, and I think of it more as like if you were gonna go out and cover a news story, you go and seek out as much information as you can gather on the topic, and then there's sort of a narrative that starts to reveal itself that you don't have to, the only work you have to do is get the information out. And so for me, that's really what discovery is it's pulling all that information out of you and pushing. I mean, in your case, you there was not a lot of pushing because you just were so open and willing to go there, but pushing you to like go deeper and dig deeper and really like what why are you here? Why do you do this? Because there's some sort of deep personal story that got you to where you are today that's driving that. And so it's just a matter of uncovering that, and then the narrative starts to reveal itself. And that's really what discovery's all about for me.

SPEAKER_02:

I didn't have any preconceived notions coming into it, but what I really loved is like you guys did a really good job of just like distilling all the information that I gave you into the framework. And so it was distilled into like that core belief, that core belief that every brand has. And if you don't have one, you should have one. But it's like ours is every dream is realistic. And from that, you build basically like it's it's like a cake. We're like putting some more frosting, maybe another layer of cake, and then a frosting on that, and then like a layer and some frosting. And so it was really cool to see from my perspective as someone who like really had no expectations, that you really could distill it down to that core belief. And then from that, it was like everything just kind of unfolded and expanded. But I think what so many people don't realize is that that was all based on this really simple core belief of Reverie Residential. So I thought that was like kind of amazing, and also something I didn't really understand going into it is that we were gonna like boil this down like maple syrup. Like it was gonna get like real boiled, and then you just distilled it.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'm like, oh, this is like so great. This makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And if you to go back to the very first statement you made about like the misconception of what branding is and your kind of you know, cake analogy, if the core message is the very base ingredient of that, we're the logo, that's the outside icing layer. You know, it's the thing that people interact with on the outside. And that core truth, that core message, that DNA of the brand, uh, I think for Reverie was really good though. I mean, just because it's like comparing and balancing out dreams and realism in one little, I mean, it's just such a great place to start from. So getting down to that really clear synthesis and distillation, if it's true and it's unique and it's special, everything else can't help but be special.

SPEAKER_04:

The cake analogy just reminded me of a metaphor. You've heard of a confetti cake, right? Everyone's had confetti cake. If you put sprinkles on top of the cake, it's not confetti cake. The sprinkles have to be baked in. And that's how I think of the process is like we have to find the sprinkles and bake them into the cake before we have the batter. It's not just sprinkling things on top.

SPEAKER_02:

It is that core belief, it's the flavor of your cake. Just it's like baked in through and through. Like you can't change a chocolate cake to be vanilla cake. So you better like that flavor because it is gonna be in everything. Every bite is gonna have that flavor.

SPEAKER_04:

And to that point, too, because I think something when you're uncovering the core belief, it's one part uncovering, but it's also like I think sometimes people will make the mistake of not personalizing their core belief enough. And what works so well with yours is it's your if your core belief is your dreams are realistic. That's not something that like that's something you have to prove, right? That's not something that everyone is just going to be here and say, oh yeah, of course. That that's like a stake in the ground, that's like a picket sign you're holding up that you then get to prove. That's very personal. And Patrick was saying it has this sort of unexpected duality to it. We're not just adhering dreams and real in the same sentence. And so that uniqueness rooted in authenticity, is what makes it work so well. Well, I have you guys to thank for that. You are the one that does the you do the hard work. We just reflect back at you what you have shown us. Yeah. So it's it's you're the one that has done the work. We are not to thank for that. We're just the mirror.

SPEAKER_03:

I think you guys do a great job, and I look beautiful. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01:

A lot of clients refer to discovery through like our lens and process as like therapy. Like it's just like brand therapy because you've got to go there, you know? And it's really our job as kind of the practitioners of that process to just really make sure that we are doing our best to genuinely reflect, like Darcy said, everything we're hearing into that through that lens of how people will interact and interpret this brand.

SPEAKER_02:

So, for those of you listening, Patrick is more of like visual identity and Darcy is like messaging queen. So, Darcy, we've headed into like messaging hardcore for our ideal avatars, like client avatar and agent avatar. So, walk me through the messaging layer of the cake. Because I'm actually loving this analogy. So, we did like the base layer of the cake, and now we're going to the messaging layer of this cake.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna do my best to try to think over here on some more cake.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm gonna go get cake after this, probably.

SPEAKER_04:

Or we're gonna watch Is It Cake on Netflix. Oh wow, I know. And probably that's a negative brand analogy. It really didn't make that work for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, so messaging, again, the process of it feels a lot more scientific and logical than I think a lot of people would expect. Once we have your core message and we know what you stand for without thinking about the outside world, we know what you stand for. Then the next piece of that is okay, who are the people I need and want to talk to? Who are my customers? We went through the process of ranking your customers, who's your primary customer, what are they like? Like what keeps them up at night? Where are they in life? What are their challenges? What are their goals? What are their fears? And really understanding them psychographically. So, you know, they might not be, depending on how we define them or what they're going through, they might not be in the same age group, but they certainly deal with the same struggle. And because of that, we can message to them in a way that speaks to them. So identified your audiences. And then the next piece of that is really just taking that core message and based on what we know about them, translating it in a way that they'll understand. And the way I like to think about this with the best metaphor I have is not cake, unfortunately, but it's language. I know. I'm sure if I worked on it, I could find one. But it's like language, right? If I go to Lebanon, I'm not gonna talk to someone in English. I'm gonna talk to them in Lebanese if I know how to speak Lebanese theoretically. I'll say the same thing to them as I'm saying to you right now. It'll just be in a language that they understand. It's the same thing with messaging. We're just translating it into based on what we know about this person, how they'll understand us. So we do that at a high level with the core message, and then based on what we know about their goals and their obstacles. That's how we basically create our messaging pillars.

SPEAKER_02:

For people listening, I think they may not know what a pillar is. So can you explain? That's a great point.

SPEAKER_04:

A brand messaging pillar is essentially it's the easiest way to think about it. Is I think probably most people remember in grade school, you learn how to write an essay, right? And you have your top paragraph where you sort of like it's your intro, and then you have the middle of the essay, and you're sort of like those are your proof points to the intro where you're proving out that first paragraph, and then you have your conclusion. Messaging pillars are that middle paragraph, and your brand foundation, your core message is that top paragraph. So if your core message is dreams are realistic, your messaging pillars are the three best arguments you have to proving that out. So based on your audience's needs and your services, each pillar is defined by, okay, well, this pillar is how we will make your dreams realistic through strategic planning or financial planning. This second pillar is how we will make your dreams realistic through selling strategies or buying strategies and so on and so on, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01:

I would also say too, like groundbreaking, but the reason they are called pillars is because literally they support your core message. They support what you stand for. In some ways, they are the articulation or the definition of your promise that you're making. So it's how you can break that down. And like Darcy said, with audiences, that pillar will be different for each one of your audiences, but it's the same pillar, but it's going to be conveyed differently per that audience.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Let's sum it up in like a summary of like a deliverable. And so our deliverable was we had obviously like our our core message. We had our manifesto. How do you guys define a manifesto? It was amazing, by the way. But like I'm at least like, I feel like it's your promise, but it's like gets people in their feels, honestly.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I mean I think you have a great definition for a manifesto, also, and I'm curious your like because you then translated into design. For from my point of view, the manifesto is really it's that like it's a capstone to discovery, and it's like the essence of everything that we that we collected from you, all the information. It's that narrative that we pulled out of it, and it's it captures the emotion that we got from you throughout the process, and just yeah, very expressive, emotive couple paragraphs.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You hear a lot of people use the term brand story, and I think that that is it's confusing for people because they, you know, a story is like well, there's so many different types. So many people don't like to read, they don't like to expose themselves to the world, they don't, you know, in terms of like being their true authentic self. And so, like, if if you're like, you need a brand story, I think it just it you might agree, but you don't know how to take the first step.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

If there was something that could most accurately be summarized as a brand story, it would be a manifesto. It is just the absolute most pure narrative of everything your brand was meant to be and is and is becoming.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. That's so good. All right, so we had the manifesto, so you we got that delivered. Then we had the brand pillars, and then you dove into our three audiences. We had two consumer audiences and one agent-facing audience, and you basically wrote beautiful copy for each of those brand pillars for each of specifically for each of those audiences. And so I just kind of want to give like everybody an idea of who's listening, of like all of the stuff that gets generated, because so many people are like, oh, it's just a brand, whatever. We haven't even gotten to the visuals yet, Patrick. We're gonna get to you next. And then you're going to have this deliverable of all of the stuff that you can use. Oh, we didn't even get into tagline, but for dreams well lived is a beautiful tagline. And so you get all of this beautiful stuff, and then we're handing this incredible package to Patrick, who now gets to use all of this beautiful language and work and emotive stuff to then bring it to life. And I think, I don't know if you agree, but I think the branding visuals are the icing on the cake. It's the pretty decorations on the outside.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It tends to be the thing that most people are most comfortable interacting with and talking about as well. Everyone has had at least some conversations about a brand's logo or a color, whether they like it or they don't like it. And we interact with brands so much throughout our day. And a lot of those interactions are just visuals. We see it. We don't maybe understand its core message or its audiences or what it stands for, but we see it. And so I think that's why people are just so much more comfortable talking about it, um, but yeah, all of that foundational work is critical to building and our architecting a really special identity because I have something to tether the concepts to. Without that rich narrative and meaning, the design work that goes into establishing what the brand's look and feel and kind of tone is uh becomes really manufactured. It really doesn't feel authentic or really tied. So yeah, I think when we get to that part, it's the job for the studio to really present different pathways that you can take that really all kind of lead to the same destination, but in a different way. And we kind of refer to that as round one. It's meant to be really wide open. We're throwing a lot of ideas in there. We're looking at kind of art direction, uh, just mood, aesthetics, and then obviously like some of the tactical things, a logo. What does that logo give us in terms of a system, color palettes? And the goal uh coming out of that is like choose, keep moving. While that would be really beautiful and really nice, what tends to happen is that the client, and in your case, you and some of your team members joined that as well. Remember? Yeah, but it really needs to spark conversation, and I think what it does is it gives you the ability now to kind of go, okay, now I kind of see all these different avenues, and I have the words and the vocabulary to really kind of crystallize what it is that I want. So that's what round two is for. You know, it's for taking the outcomes from round one and really refining it down into the next kind of thing that we can really evaluate and hone in on. Because if we just asked you at the beginning, well, what do you imagine your brand is gonna look like? You don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

No idea.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So really, while it would be great to think that you we're gonna come in here and I'm just gonna show you the logo, that's just never really how it works. You know, it it's it's it's more, it's more discovery, it's more fact-finding, but in a way that's like really trying to paint a very clear picture so that you can really have everything you need to evaluate how it's performing, how does it feel? Does this stand for you? Does it feel timeless? You know, is this something I can I'm gonna be able to grow into over time? I mean, those are really all the things that we're trying to explore with round one.

SPEAKER_02:

So I feel like it was a really good experience. But I'll be honest, round one was very informative. I opened my eyes. I didn't feel like any of them were the one, but I really do feel like you had a good space where I could be honest and give you feedback. And it felt very collaborative. Honestly, the whole experience felt very collaborative, but I think design can feel for some reason, because there's actual visual artifacts, like in the client perspective, it almost feels like you're being more judgy and more mean because it's like, I don't like that or I do like that. Whereas with words, I feel it's it's like, well, you know, I'd like to say it in a little bit different way instead of with visuals. It's very black and white, like I hate this color, I don't like this. So I feel like that was a little hard for me because I want to be constructive. I'm very blunt. So I want to really not be too rude, but you were very professional and you really understood what I was trying to say. And I feel like round two pretty much knocked it out of the park.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm very happy to hear you say that it felt collaborative, that it felt safe. I mean, I would say if there was one thing I would want the hallmark of Tuo's process to be known for, it's that. I really think that anybody going through this process, I hope for you that you're working with people who don't take this so seriously and really understand that they're creating for you. Um, and this isn't an exercise in creating something for our portfolio. That's not the way this should go. I think in round one, you're you're generating concepts and ideas, and the goal of that is not to be right or to have one of those ideas win. The idea is to see how you respond to those and then hone in on that right pathway because it really is like an inverted triangle. We start way wide, and the goal is to keep coming towards that final destination with everybody in tow, everybody aligned, everyone feeling excited, you know. And so I can't, from my perspective, go into a process like this trying to be the one that is right. I'm I'm trying to surface things that make you feel empowered to describe and to articulate the vision you're having. And so again, it's still just it is like creating things, but the process is still just fact-finding. It's still trying to surface things that we can work with.

SPEAKER_02:

Beautifully said. Yes. So, what mistakes do you feel like people make when they are pursuing or thinking about a rebrand or a brand, just like developing a brand in general?

SPEAKER_01:

I think that I'll answer from a look and feel perspective, maybe an identity perspective. I think that some people have the expectation or the goal to look like another brand or to aspire to, I wouldn't say copycat, because I think most people are like, no, I don't want to do that. But I think they end up then trying to be something else because they see it as successful or they see it as maybe aspirational. So they come into it already, not really with a clear mind or a clear headspace in terms of what it is that this should be doing, like how it should perform. Um, you know, branding is it's like the difference between design and art is like art is meant to be evocative and make you feel like design is meant to perform and do a job. So when we think about brand design, we have to look at it from that perspective. And again, like we've covered kind of at the beginning of our conversation, in order to kind of do that really well, it's gotta tap into those core elements. And who knows how that's gonna manifest when we get to design. You know, there's myriad ways in which that thing could come to life. But if you already have a pre-ordained vision for what it is you're trying to make it look like, you're already doing it the wrong way. You're already coming at this and making the process surface level, and it doesn't allow us to really take you there, which is what you need to do.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you might as well just go into Canva and create one of their logos.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, I mean, there's no shame in that game. Like, if that's where you're at with your business, that's fine. But it's not branding.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and I think from my perspective, it's not taking the time and not allowing yourself the lack of to sort of be free of fear and like the freedom to really like look inward and figure out what that core message is, because it's easy to get caught up in feeling like, oh, this is so wishy-washy, especially at the beginning when we don't have visuals yet. We're just like sort of laying the groundwork and it's like, what the hell are we doing? But the whole point of that is that that message is what makes your brand strong, because brands are like we said at the beginning, a strong brand is consistent. And so for Nike, their core message is if you have a body you're an athlete. The only place you see if you have a body year an athlete is if you dig on their website, or if you go to their offices, it's like big on the wall in the break room. But if you watch, I challenge anyone to go on YouTube and look at any Nike ad, like literally, I do it once a month just to make sure that this is still valid. And it always is. If you think about the statement, if you have a body or an athlete and watch anything from Nike, you can see where that message is the starting point. And so it's really like the biggest mistake is just not starting from there because then you're not setting yourself up for longevity, setting yourself up to deliver on the promise.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you didn't figure out what the flavor of your cake should be.

SPEAKER_04:

And like if the cake is not that flavor, I don't want chocolate cake if I think I'm getting vanilla. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

I think we need to defined what a is it cake is actually. So is it if it's not cake, it just looks like a cake, but it isn't.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, when you cut into it, there is no flavor or there is no core method or belief. The calories are empty.

SPEAKER_03:

They are empty calories. It makes me so sad. I want to eat that cake. Oh my gosh. Whoa. Are you final thoughts on branding? This has been like brand nerd central and I've loved it.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh you know, I think Darcy and I were having an interesting conversation over the past few days. It was really sparked by something you had said in terms of like things that you're doing with some of your agents that you're coaching and um talking about AI, everyone's talking about AI. And I think that you hear a lot uh about how so many industries and crafts and jobs and careers are going to be obsolete. Um, it's easy to think that our roles are going to become obsolete, you know. But I think one of the things that makes me feel really good about that is how essential the work that we do together with our clients is in actually making AI perform for you. So it's like it is a tool and it is only as good as what you put into it. In some there's there's obviously use cases where that isn't true. It's giving you more than you're giving it. Um, but this is not that case because at least right now, you know, AI can't define your brand for you. It can't tap into your brand. It cannot extrapolate the things that you're not saying. You know, it's using outside and external sources to basically answer your questions. Um but you like you can only answer those questions. So it's like it is a very exciting time for a lot of companies and individuals and organizations. But I think that this work is like critical in terms of how it can help you. Because once you are able to give it every ingredient that you've got, it allows you to really bake as many damn cakes as you want.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I plugged in the brand guide that you gave me. So the PDF brand guide, which is like 50 pages, so wonderful. And I plugged it into a custom GPT. So basically, it's like the Reverie residential brand GPT on Chat GPT. And it really like it knows the manifesto, it knows our tagline, it knows our brand voice, it knows all of our client avatars, it knows our agent avatars, it knows everything that is in that brand guide. Like that really is just like this extension of this like amazing work that you guys did. Could AI have created that? I don't think so. But now that it's been created and it's wonderful, it is a tool that AI can use to then help us be more efficient and get things out into the world. Like I did a rebrand five years ago, but that was so different in terms of execution and getting the rebrand out into the world. Post like in our in the AI world, the launching of everything has become so much easier because I'm now able to be like, I need to create our homepage. Like, let's kind of riff on that together. And it's taking into account all of the stuff that we've put in with the brand guide. And so I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but it is almost like an extension of the brand, like because it already knows everything, all that hard work we've done. So it's like, I'm gonna say, like, it is like AI enhanced has been really great. But I think the only reason it's been great and has worked really well is that I had such amazing materials that you guys put together that I was able to then put into the into AI.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, which was very cool to hear when you told us that I think that's what got us talking about the future of brand standards and the kinds of deliverables and outputs from this process. How does it better set up um companies and brands to, you know, you're essentially creating like the universe in which AI then is like, or whichever one you're using, it that is its confines. That's how it's exploring. And so it when you said it, I you don't see it as artificial, it's like it's not in that way. At this point now, it's pulling from the universe you've given it.

SPEAKER_04:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Serving back up ideas and riffs off of that content. You actually have to direct it. But what empowers you to direct it then is that you've just gone through the journey. So now you go, that's not quite right. Like that doesn't hit that note. And again, you have to be the curator, you've got to be the creative director for your brand. And going through that journey not only gives you stuff at the end, it empowers you then to be able to judge and define what makes your brand your brand.

SPEAKER_02:

Definitely. I really think we're just in the beginning phases of this right now. And so I don't think AI is taking over anybody's job, but I think that you are putting your head in the sand if you are not seeing how AI can enhance what you are already providing or what you are already doing.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's a productivity tool to increase your ability to be consistent. Exactly. That consistency piece is so important, but it only works if you actually stick to the messaging and stick to the design. And so AI just re makes it so easy to scale that. It's always human-led, right? You're the best voice of or and you know what feels right and feels wrong because you've gone through this process now.

SPEAKER_02:

I think there's you're the creative director. I do see it as like it, like I'm the creative director, and it can kind of be my brainstorm assistant where we just kind of riff on it together. So I do think like the AI enhanced or just that, like it is a productivity tool. Like, just like you said, like I don't think it's a lot of people are like, it's removing humanity, it's gonna make us all inauthentic. And I'm like, it will do that if you let it and if you do that. But like, I don't feel like it's made me any less authentic. And I think it's actually made it easier for me to get more authentic content out into the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you my hope for it is that it gives people who otherwise didn't have it the confidence to selves and to try things and to kind of put those like statements about, well, I'm just not creative, or I just that's not me. Like that's you. It's like everyone has that the innate ability, it's just covered up in like self-perception and fear and anxiety to you know exercise that muscle.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

My hope is that this allows more of that expression to happen because you've got this like you know, very benign, safe um partner who's just gonna amp you up.

SPEAKER_02:

Non-judgmental, it really is. And like you can put anything in and you can just like riff around, like, like just play with it. I don't think five years ago, without AI, I would have been able to like execute the brand that you guys so beautifully created in the way that I did, because having this like non-judgmental kind of on-demand tool that was able to just like brainstorm with me and work with me and rewrite things and like really figure out like how are we getting down to this like messaging or how are we gonna design this better, how are we gonna do this? It really was like having another person who's consulting with me on the whole thing, but wouldn't have been so amazing if I didn't have the brand work that was done prior to. So it really was this beautiful kind of melding. I've been a marketer for years. That was my degree in college, and I started designing websites when I was 14. So this is my jams. I've been doing this for a very, very long time. It was kind of amazing to be like, oh my gosh, this beautiful brand work can now be executed so much more effortlessly and more beautifully with AI. So it's not the devil, but I do think we're in interesting times where it's being used for evil and also being used just sloppily.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I something that surfaced for me when you were just saying that was um the reaction that I've seen a lot of times having done, you know, upwards of almost a hundred-page brand standards because it's a really large, you know, brokerage that covers a region. There is often a it a little bit of a panic moment, anxiety attack when you when you are passing the the the mail everything over, and the clients are like, oh dear God, like I don't know what to do next. I don't know what to do next because they've been handheld through this process the whole time, and then all of a sudden they get this thing, it all feels so serious and so scary. And what you just said is like there is now this threshold at the end that is excitement and uh a readiness to just get going. And I'm really happy to hear that. Like it's it feels like a better outcome has has arrived finally for this type of work.

SPEAKER_02:

Especially because I I know you guys work with big brokerages or big companies, but when you're dealing with a small business, like you have limited resources, you are already investing in a rebrand. So sometimes it's hard to have the resources to hire a graphic designer, hire a project manager, get this extra staff to get it going. But honestly, I went in, uploaded the brand standards, all of that. And then it was like, all right, I need to rebrand City Chic Real Estate to Reverie Residential, walk me through it. And AI literally was like my project manager for it. And I'm the graphic designer, which is great. I love doing it. But it was like, here's all the back ends, like what backend software do you use? And like it was walking me through like all of the things that I needed to go through. And I'm telling you, this would have taken me months, like six months at least. And I was able to execute it in a month and a half because of AI.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, we delivered we delivered the brain stand at the end of August, right? Yes, and you lost it.

SPEAKER_02:

At the end of August, October 8th, everything was done. So I know it's bananas, like, and I wasn't working, you know, the weekends. I wasn't like burning out. I have three kids. Like my husband would definitely not tolerate that. And so it was, I was working normal hours and I just got it done. And it is really cool that we're in this new era. And like, I mean, I could even see you guys like having your 2-0 studio like post brand delivery GPT, where you're like, here's what you gotta do. Like, yeah, you plug it on, like, here's your offboarding process, and it could literally be run by AI, which is incredible.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You definitely got us thinking uh since we had that discussion about how to better set things up in this new environment for the next phase of work, which is execution. It is launch, it is putting it out there, it is the promotion, it is all of that stuff. I think we understand the value of the tools that you know, all of the things that we provide out of this process, but may not consider how to enhance and amplify the power of those tools.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's been really interesting to discuss the possibilities there.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm all about collaboration in all its forms. Thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast. This would hit all of my favorite buttons AI, marketing, branding. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

This was so fun. We I feel like we could talk about this stuff all day. I know. So yeah, this was a blast.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks, guys. If you want to learn more about 2.0 studios, you can find them on the web at 2o tu.studio. Also, if you're curious about custom GPTs that we talked about, you can check out my custom chat GPT for real estate class online at happyagent.co slash academy.

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Lindsay Dreyer

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