Episode 1314: The Six Words That Build a Brand with Bill Schley

The right six words can do more for your brand than 60,000 forgettable words. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Kevin Harrington and Seth Greene interview Bill Schley, CEO and Founder of The Brand Titans USP Master Programs, who explains how microscripts help businesses communicate their unique value in a sentence or fewer. Drawing on lessons from the legendary advertising agency Ted Bates, Bill shares the five rules for an effective unique selling proposition and how to turn that positioning into a memorable problem-solution story. He also reveals why the most powerful brand messages are concise, believable, repeatable, and clearly differentiated from the competition. Key Takeaways: → An effective brand must clearly communicate what the business does that no one else can. → Branding has little value if it fails to meaningfully differentiate a company from its competitors. → The differentiating benefit must be important to the customer and relevant to a real need. → Microscripts are short, memorable phrases that are easy to understand, remember, and repeat. → A strong brand story should clearly present a problem, introduce the solution, and explain how the world changes as a result. Bill Schley is an award-winning branding expert, New York Times bestselling author, and lifelong entrepreneur. He is the originator of the Micro-Script concept in brand communications and is credited by celebrated marketers as the #1 USP expert in the world. His USP-centered brands have generated over $1.5 billion in documented new-business valuation and brand equity across companies ranging from global giants to acquired startups. Bill began his career as a writer at the legendary Ted Bates Advertising Agency, the original Mad Men agency in New York, where he won a National Effie Award for sales-effective advertising. His highly acclaimed books on branding and marketing are taught by experts worldwide. In addition to his latest book, The Micro-Script Rules: How to Tell Your Story and Differentiate Your Brand in a Sentence or Less, he is the author of The UnStoppables, a New York Times bestseller; Why Johnny Can’t Brand, which won Strategy+Business Magazine’s Top 5 Marketing Books of the Year award; and The Power of 10, an Amazon bestseller. Connect With Bill Website: https://brandtitans.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billschley/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast with Kevin Harrington and Seth Green. Kevin Harrington is the inventor of the infomercial, one of the original sharks from the hit TV show Shark Tank, and has generated over $5 billion in TV and digital direct response sales. Seth Green is the world's first trusted authority on cutting-edge direct response marketing, a bestselling author, and the only three-time marketer of the year nominee. On the podcast, Kevin and Seth interview sharkpreneurs who share straight talk on what it takes to explode your business.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Forty-nine faces looked to him in triumph. Over the last 12 months, they had each taken turns and promoted his business for a week at a time, driving over $987,342 in revenue. What if you had a network of 50 centers of influence who promoted your business every week for a year? Grab your copy of the number one Amazon bestselling book, The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with a Podcast at 33% off the Amazon price by going to ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Again, that website for 33% off the Amazon price is ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast. This is your co-host Seth Green. With me is the inventor of the infomercial and the original shark on the hit TV series Shark Tank, Kevin Harrington. Kevin, thanks for being here. Good to be here.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Thank you, Seth. Take care, buddy. Let's do it. All right. Today, our very special guest is Bill Shly. He is an award-winning branding expert, New York Times bestselling author, and the originator of the Microscript Concept. His latest book is The Microscript Rules: How to Tell Your Story and Differentiate Your Brand in One Sentence or Less. Bill, thanks so much for joining us.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Great to be here.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Bill, you spent a large portion of your career at Ted Bates, the agency that popularized the unique selling proposition. Tell us a little bit about kind of the lessons from that experience guiding your work today.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, they were... I spent the first three years of my life working in advertising at Ted Bates in New York, and they were the people that invented, actually, the unique selling, the USP, the unique selling proposition. And it's a term that people seem to still know a lot about. You know, you'll say USP, they've heard of it. They know it's something good, but they just don't know exactly what. But it sounds like it's something good in marketing. So they invented it there. And the thing was, back then, I was the Cub Cop. I was no Mad Men back then. My bosses were, real ones, but I wasn't. But what happened is they hire you, and then you had to follow them around. And they didn't teach you anything or tell you anything. You just followed them around.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  If you start to learn something and you showed a little talent, they wouldn't fire you. That's how it worked. They never wrote any of these great... But with their USPs, at Ted Bates, they made more number-one brands than all the other agencies combined in those days. They really did it.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Bill, did Bates, did they have a direct response division? You know, I don't know. Back in the early days, you know, there was the Chopimatic and some of that kind of stuff, right? But I don't know if that was like Wonder Men. I mean, you know, there was, there was other agencies back in the day. Bates was more mainstream, kind of, you know, corporate, right?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  These guys, these guys had the biggest accounts in the world. They did, they had Colgate, they had, you know, Wonder Bread, they had M&M Mars. These are the guys that came up. So they were dealing with big, big agencies, just like on Mad Men. These were national accounts. They had cigarettes in those days. They had the Navy, they had Roll-Aids, you know. So famous, well, first of all, melt in your mouth, not in your hand for M&M's, that was Ted Bates. That was specifically from Ross O'Reeves, who was the chairman who invented this USP stuff in 1961, 1961. They didn't, they didn't do a direct response, per se. You know, there were those great Wonder Men's and those kinds of famous direct response guys.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  But as we all know, though, the direct response guys, years before the golden age of the 50s, they invented so many of these principles. Let's face it. When I was trying to figure out how to make, how to make this stuff work, I read all those books. I read John Caples. You know, they laughed when I sat down at the piano, but then when I started to play, you know, I read Claude Hopkins. I read those guys. And so, but then, but then really Procter and Gamble, they were the ones that, that a lot of people consider to be the people that really created this mass market for television advertising, first radio and then TV. So that's what Bates did. They were selling, they were selling national TV commercials, okay?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Hall's Mentholiphtis. And so that's what, that's where these principles, but the USP just meant, you know, like we say, they wanted, they believed that people remember one thing. So you find the most important, most important, specific thing that people want and give them that and give that over and over and over again in a 30-second commercial. That's what they believed in.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  There you go. So would you say that USP, it, there's sort of a precursor, really, to Microscript? I mean, is Microscripting coming up with, you know, kind of your unique selling position?

• 5:36Speaker 02

  What happened, what happened was, they never, they didn't ever, they never used the word. I did, I pretty much coined the word Microscripts. And I did it, it was a long story, on a radio show, when I was talking to some guy about politics and what these politicians do. But what, what they were doing, they would come up with, with a position that was so sharp, like they would say, you know, again, M&M's melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Or they would say, what do you call it? Hertz is the number one in rent a car, you know? They would come up with a, with a very, very sharp positioning about, this is the one thing that we... They asked a question, okay? And this is the eternal question. You'd walk in there, they'd sit down, they'd say, what do you do that no one else does? Like, right, they were that blunt.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  What do you do that no one else does that gives me advantage that no one else can give me? Right there, whammo. And most businesses, they'd sit there with their mouth going, I'm, I'm, they couldn't articulate it, even though they've been in business a lot. What do you do that no one else does? Because that's the most important thing. When they found out what that was going to be, like Roll-Aid spells relief, you know? When they found out what that was going to be, then what they would do was they would always find, come down, bring it down to a tagline, a signature tagline that would symbolize and trigger that USP. Melt in your mouth, not in your hands. Visine gets read out. Oh, God.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Bill, for our business owners listening, what are some of the essential ingredients of a Microscript that will stick, help people remember them and grow their business?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Okay. So the first thing is you have to have an idea. A Microscript has to be about something. Now, well, let me tell you again what, what the, the rules of a USP are. And so, again, what I did, what I, in my did, my contribution to history is I followed these guys around, and they never wrote them down, they never told us the rules. So I wrote down the damn rules. No one had ever done it, really. I wrote them down, and I, because I didn't want to get fired. And then over the years, with my own business and branding, company after company after company, I start to perfect them, perfect them. And that's, that's what you see in these books, okay? There are a lot of things that they had skipped, especially for small businesses. But the thing is, you have to have an idea first. What are you, what's going to differentiate you?

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Because, because the question is, what sets you apart? What do you do that no one else does? Branding, if it, for, it's useless unless it differentiates you from the others. If it doesn't, it's nothing but advertising, pretty wallpaper, words, and pictures, and spirit animals, and all the shit that they tell you that is so, you know, wonderful about branding. It's meaningless, okay? Because anybody can do it. What differentiates you? There's five rules to differentiate you, make a USP. You have to be best at something. Decide what you do. I guarantee you, when you know where to look and how to do it, and how to spin it a little bit, there's something that you do that others don't, okay? What's that?

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Number two, it has to be an important thing, if they want. Number three, it has to be believable coming from you. If you try to, Colgate, toothpaste once went out to try to sell Colgate bacon, it didn't sell, okay? It has to be believable. It's really happened, by the way. Believable coming from you. Then it has to be measurable. I need to see it working. You need to be able to show proof that it works. And lastly, ownable. If someone already owns that position, sorry, don't, all you're going to do is advertise for them. So you find, move a little bit to the left or the right and find your own position. Done every single day. When you find that, and you're, as you go through all these processes, it's a process,

• 9:27Speaker 02

  but you're eventually going to, it's, you're going to write a story, a one-page problem solution story. Remember these people talk about story brands?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  They talk about story brands, except they don't tell you about the story has to be about something. They say, just write a story, see you later. It could be Goldilocks. The story has to be about a problem. Once the world was like this, but it was a problem, someone came along to change it. It's a little story like that. And as you write that thing... The idea is to try, is now come up with little phrases that you can that encapsulate that or trigger that story, okay? Now, those could be your microscripts. See, because what microscripts are, are little six to eight word phrases that everyone, people love, they love to remember, and importantly, they love to repeat.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  People will, it's not what people hear, it's what they repeat. You can say things all day long.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  So that's what, right?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Said it and forget it, okay?

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly, man. But when you say, but when you, when you have something that people want, oh, oh, that stuff, that bite of the airborne, that's the one stewardess is used to keep them getting sick on planes. When they repeat that little line, you know what they do? They're selling your product for you. They're actually, they're actually telling your elevator pitch.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  So let me ask you, do you, do you deal with, like, do influencers focus on this kind of thing? Do you deal with, do you work with influencers at all to try to give them niches or?

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Ah, boy. I mean, I think they, they do. That my world is not necessarily the world of, you know, online influencing.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  I, I deal with, I deal with businesses that have products, that want to sell them products and services, who want to set themselves apart, differentiate. However, these were the principles of communication. So if, these are the ultimate human communication principles are, of this idea of the fact that, that six, the right six words are more important than 60,000. And if you don't believe that, every single, you look all the way back through history, great, great historical, you know, figures in history, and you remember, you remember one sentence or two about them. All the way back to the Greeks, Carthage must be destroyed. Give me liberty or give me death.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  You know, do unto others as you have others do unto you. Women want equal pay for equal work. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. You see, all, great, John F. Kennedy, people will say, ask not what your country will do for you. And, and so what happens is, all history is remembered like that. And all, and because it's, it gets in, the book gets into the, it's a very interesting psychology, the way the brain works. The brain works on these little rules of thumb. And so what happens is, when it finds out about something important, it packages into a little rule of thumb, and that's what it files in its brain. It, it packages a little microscript.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  So, um, so that if you, and so if you want to brand something, you want something that is, boy, give them a microscript. The ones that work are the ones that they repeat back to you. That's how you know. So I, for example, I knew the word microscript was a, was a, it can be a name for, look at, a name for a product, like Die Hard Batteries. It can be a name of a product, a name of a person, it can be one word, two words, or a whole sentence. But what I would talk to people about these microscripts, in, I got in a conversation at a party, and, and, and within, in that conversation, immediately, people would be using the word back at me. Oh, yeah, microscripts, oh, I need to get my micro, oh, yeah, I've got some microscripts, oh, I heard them.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  I realized it was a microscript. And so it's, it's the same thing. You're gonna, you have to decide what your idea is, you have to make sure that you write it into a very, a very short story, no more than a page. If you can't say it on a page, you can't say it. And then you're gonna, and then you're actually gonna shrink it down even more, because today your elevator pitch, you don't get a whole elevator ride, you get one floor. You know what I mean? You get one slide, right?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  There you go, hey.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  It's all, it's all you get. But the thing is, that you can, but you can send that, you can send that message and see it so fast, and if someone's brain has a need, so quickly, right?

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Bill, this is a crazy question, but you get a, you, you walk into a big client, and they're, they want, they want you to come up with their, you know, uh, show me the beef, okay?

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  And so, how do you charge? What, what, because if you just said the words and hit it, so, oh, thank you, we're gonna use that one, okay?

• 14:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Like, what, what's involved in the process of being creative, and then being adequately compensated for something that may be used for 30 years?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Well, and frankly, I'll tell you that I've seen, I've seen two words, and by the way, they, the, the big, big money in this stuff comes usually on exits. It doesn't, you know, they can raise, they raise their revenue, raise their EBITDA, they can, you know, increase, you know, increase sales and stuff. But when you do this thing right, you're actually creating kind of a vision for the company and where it can go, right?

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  Um, the biggest multiples I've ever seen come on exits, because companies want, they want what this thing is, because they, they know it can grow into something much bigger. I've seen two words, I've done two words that were worth $2 billion. $2 billion a word. Uh, and it's, I mean, and I'm not exaggerating, I don't have time now, but I'll tell you the story.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Did you get any piece of that $2 billion?

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Uh, at that time, I did, actually.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Good.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  But I, I was very.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  You gotta, that's a good thing.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  Well, I was, I was very close to the chairman, who happened to love, it was a big public company, he happened to love this stuff, and he and I, he loved working on this stuff with me, if, if, and I worked directly for him on his personal payroll, if I'd worked for the, for the company, I would have been fired 25 times, because, you know, the CMOs, you know, as soon as they get, they, they don't want anybody in there that they think can, you know, getting, you know, that might be, know something that they don't know, or have any influence. So we went through about three CMOs. The thing was that they, they don't, most of them don't do this kind of thing, they manage, they manage people, this is, this is strategic. Um, let me put it this way, it usually, okay, I've seen big agencies and big companies,

• 16:15Speaker 02

  I was at a speech once, uh, at a big conference, and the lady that worked for the Good Hands people for Allstate, and she was a keynote speaker, and they show, she was the head of international sales or something, or marketing. And they were just, they were doing a, um, the study was on the good hands, okay, and how they would, how they would change the good hands. They went for two years of focus groups, studies, you know, whatever they were, all kinds of stuff that they, they, all the scientific. At the end of two years, they changed the angle of the hands from this to this, okay? Maybe it was from this to this. That was the, the net what they did in two years. And she stood there like this, with her, so proud of what she'd done, the whole place

• 17:00Speaker 02

  applauded, okay? I'm gonna tell you, no, we can, we trans, we'll transform a company, oftentimes, because we ask these very, very simple questions, I call them the eternal questions, and you ask them over and over. And I've seen so many patterns over my life, that I can see things quickly. You can usually get the answer, or know, hear the answer in the first one or two meetings. I can know, we can know what it is, I can see, wait a second, you can see through, see something that they don't see, because a lot of times, you know, there, people are stuck in their own walls. It takes 90 days. It takes 90 days, because when you think you've got it, you think you've got it, you

• 17:42Speaker 02

  need to talk about it a little bit more, you need to, need to pressure test it and float it within the organization, you need to do, create certain things around it, like we call the facts of the difference and the stuff that make it. Remember, the positioning is two things, one is it's a proposition, buy this product, get this benefit, that's, it's a proposition, and then it also has to be a reason to believe, we call it an RTB. So you have a unique proposition, a unique reason to believe. If you don't do that, people don't believe you, you're erased. So you can come up with that, let's say in the first 30 days or so, and, and I mean, you'd have a lot of possibilities, a lot of whiteboard sessions, and then, but you have, so you have to write up your first drafts, and then you have to float it.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  And as you float it and test it, you know what I mean, things come back, you make changes.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  And so, and the bigger the corporation, the longer it takes, but usually within about, around 90 days, you can be ready to something that you're so sure about, you can start putting it up on your website. That's what it takes.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  You've developed a system, I'll let you go, one second.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  No, no, that's right.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  You've developed a system that you sit with people, you follow sort of a, a protocol to develop these, these innovative, um, unique positionings.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  It's not just that, it's not just that.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  It's not just that, wait, I'm gonna show you something. It's, um, it's not just that, I know. We, I can, I can show you the entire thing. See that thing?

• 19:14Speaker 02

  That's the USP star. That took me 30 years to make that. That's the entire process on one slide. It's on page 104.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  104, okay.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  That is one slide. And what happens is, and by the way, I had a real madman, the guy, yeah, guy that was the chairman of Cunningham and Walsh in New York City. He was a real, real, real madman, madman, just like if you watch the show Sterling.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Those guys. He was, he was the chairman of that. He used to be, he was a art director. In those days, you know, the, the art directors and writers were the heads of agencies. Now they're all suits, but they, those days, you know.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Bill, we, we know your time's incredibly valuable. We greatly appreciate you spending.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  Well, no, I know. Time flies. We're having too much fun. This thing.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  For our folks who want to learn more, Bill, where is the best place for them to go to learn more about you and the book, The Microscript Rules?

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Yes. Okay. You can see that this thing, there's a lot, there's a lot going on here. Okay, I will tell you, my website, the simple website is called Brand Titans, one word. So B-R-A-N-D-T-I-T-A-N-S. It's just BrandTitans.com. You should be, there's a contact us. We are, as always, you know, we're, we're right in the middle of doing our phase two new upgrade of the website. But you can contact us there. Anyone who contacts me and wants to, what I will do is I will send you a,

• 20:51Speaker 02

  I'm going to send people who listen to this show, an audio excerpt of the book. I'm going to send you the first few chapters of the book, which are, of the Microscript Rules, which are pretty fantastic. And they, and they set the whole thing up. I'm going to send that to you for free. And then we'll have a little forum and, and, you know, we, we talked to, at this point, we, I will tell you that we are, the work we do is with owners and CEOs and entrepreneurs at this point.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. Nice.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And the reason we do it is.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Where are you based, Bill?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  I'm based in, I'm based in, in the city of cathedrals, Tiverton, Rhode Island. No, I'm, I'm Tiverton, Rhode Island. I'll be right here. I'm from Boston.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Okay. All right. We will tell everybody to go to Brand Titans.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Get your free, free excerpt of The Microscript Rules, how to tell your story and differentiate your brand in a sentence or less. Bill, thanks again for joining us.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Well, that's great. And I hope I get to spend more time with you guys. This is, I, see, I could see, I could have a lot of fun with you guys.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Hey, this is right down our alley. Let's reconnect, Bill.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Well, yes, Kevin, let's do it. And by the way, I met some of your compadres also. I've done, I actually did some commercials for Damon John and things. I mean, yeah. Anyway, I'd love to, I'd love to connect if we can after the show.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  I will, I will make that happen.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Seth will put us together.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And where, Kevin, where are you?

• 22:14Speaker 03

  I'm in St. Pete, Florida. Moved here 32 years ago in adventure with Home Shopping Network. And so I'm still here. They're gone. They, they, they got bought by QVC and then they filed bankruptcy.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  It's a tough, it's a tough world. So.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Well, okay, we're having fun. And Seth, thank you so much. And we'll talk. Let's continue.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  Do it. Thank you, guys. See you, Bill.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody for watching or listening. We will talk to you or see you next time.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  You got it. Bye bye.

• 22:44Speaker 03

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