Episode 289 - Darren Horwitz (AUDIO ENHANCED)
===
Corey Kupfer: [00:00:00] Darren Horowitz is the founder of 1010, a leading brand implementation firm that helps organizations plan, build, and manage brand change. With extensive experience in guiding Fortune 500 and global brands across industries, Darren has a proven track record of delivering measurable results in brand optimization.
His keen eye for efficiency has been instrumental in helping clients build brand implementation plans and management models for startups. Any starting point known for his passion for details, hard work and forging lasting relationships.
Darren brings optimism and enthusiasm to every endeavor. Darren, welcome to the deal quest podcast.
Darren Horwitz: Thank you, Corey. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
Corey Kupfer: So listen, you know, we're going to get into, all you do around brands and address the question that might be in that I'm, I'm sure is in, a lot of my regular listeners minds.
Why is Corey and having a brand guy on his podcast? Because he always talks about the fact that. There's a difference between organic growth and [00:01:00] inorganic growth and, you know, organic growth is sales and marketing and branding and that kind of stuff. But, you know, inorganic growth is something different and, and, but folks stay tuned because there's a real link here and a focus that, Darren and his people have that relate to deals, but we're going to keep that suspenseful for a moment because I'm going to ask you, my first question before we get there, which is.
What did you want to be growing up, maybe 10, 12 years old, because, I'm sure a brand, strategist and implementer and, all that kind of stuff probably wasn't it back then, but you tell me.
Darren Horwitz: No, you're right. I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid. I loved airports. Every. When I was a little kid playing with Legos, I would create big worlds with airports and, you know, different universes and as a kid, I was very fortunate in that we got to travel a little bit and every time I went to the airport, whether it was picking up a family member or going somewhere and getting on a plane, it was an opportunity It opened up a gate.
It was bringing me somewhere [00:02:00] new, somewhere special. And so that coupled with, I grew up in, I, what I describe as growing up in a television household, my father, worked for, network news. He worked for Cronkite and, created a bunch of different shows and ultimately ended up running a 24 hour news network.
But it was, I think growing up in a household where time mattered. Everything was precise and accurate, led to this idea of, I was a producer in search of a career and what made me happy. And so I think I was probably, you know, I looked at things in a certain way. It didn't fit to a lot of jobs, but somebody opened my eyes to the world of branding and specifically brand implementation at a time when it was really.
Evolving and what I found was that I could take, my passion and understanding for, I guess, Project management and appreciation for getting things done between editors and producers and TV folks, and just really knowing that and applying it to the world of branding where nobody was paying attention to it in [00:03:00] the same way.
And as I say to people, I went from, my mission was to take a team of production artists and go from production to producer and really evolve just beyond these guys that would make files or templates or guidelines and branding and actually say, no, we have a voice. We have something to say, we have experience.
We know how to get things done. Now. Just bringing it back around to the pilot. Ultimately, as I'm sure you can appreciate, consultant travels all the time. And so I think what allowed me to survive traveling every week, going somewhere, working with clients was this idea that every time I got on the plane, It was, I was going somewhere new, somewhere special, meeting new people and culture.
So it really, I did take flying lessons as, as when I was in college, ran out of time and money, never really got to go anywhere with that. But, but really just tying it back to the idea of loving everything about airports, airplanes, pilots, and then ultimately the big payoff. Was in my last job prior to founding 1010, I was brought in [00:04:00] to lead the implementation of the American airlines rebrand.
So I really got to see under the hood of everything. I spent almost two years living in Las Colinas, Texas working on the airlines, but, I, I loved. Every minute of that and really am so proud of what came out of that. And just every time I go to the airport to be able to see the work that we did, knowing that I'm behind the scenes, but it was cool.
I really dug it. So yeah, from pilot, producer, production, producer, airlines, all the way around full circle.
Corey Kupfer: I love it. And you know, it's something that you and I have in common in that one of the things that I love about what I do is learning about different businesses and seeing how, you know, different entrepreneurs and leadership teams grow them and.
And he's learning about different industries. In fact, you know, I joke, I'm not a big reality show guy, but. Some of these reality shows that have like, whether it was like the fashion ones or the cooking ones, whatever, that, show you behind the scenes, like how restaurants work or how, you know, fashion designers work, whatever, like, I would watch them for a season or two, and then I'd [00:05:00] be bored and whatever, because the only reason I watched them was because I was fascinated about learning the behind the scenes of how an industry worked.
Once I got that, the rest was drama and, you know, whatever, and I lost interest. But. But that fascination about, how businesses run and different people and different cultures and different, industries, it was, you know, we definitely have in common.
Darren Horwitz: I think, and you raise something that's, I think, kind of interesting.
One I'm the same way. I mean, looking at some of the reality shows, I do love the cooking shows. I love, I, I think Below Deck is great. Is just awesome to watch. It's a mess, but it's so much fun. But what I think works and the correlation to this is not just learning about how things work, but they have a formula and they take you through a formula in every show, every episode, every season.
And I, I think branding works the same way. When we rebrand or an acquisition or merger or spinoff, We start with our formula. And what I say to people is, you know, what we do is not the unique piece. What you bring to the [00:06:00] table is unique. We go through our process and what comes out of it is unique.
The process is constant. Yeah we bob and weave a little bit, but it's the inputs that drive the outputs that bring the uniqueness to every situation. But I do think going back to why you might like some of these shows in addition to learning is they have a pretty good formula to keep you interested for at least.
Corey Kupfer: I love that. Yeah. Yeah no, no question. No question. All right. So I want to jump into all this but, my. Second question talking about a sort of a formula, whatever, you know, listen to any listeners listen to this have figured this out, although I don't say it, but we do have a way we open the show in a way we call it.
We have two, two standard questions in the beginning and one, one at the end, everything else in between, or actually two at the end, including give us your contact information, but everything else in between just flows. So we do have a frame and it's interesting, like I usually don't say this, but in the context of you know, I believed in everything I've sort of read or whatever is that.
I like the conversational style. I don't like a very formulaic. a podcast, but at the same time, there is a reason we open and close it the same [00:07:00] way, right? Because, you know, there is this thing about regular listeners who, sort of want that familiarity, want to know oh yeah, this is not just because it's called DealQuest or because Corey's hosting it, but there is something that is, you know, that, that follows through.
And what it allows us to do is whether it's this, you know, These opening questions are the last question. It also allows us to put together these very cool best of episodes that have, these series of people talking about what they wanted to be as a kid, which is, you know, which is kind of interesting.
In fact, it's funny because, I'm pretty sure, I could be wrong here, but I just let you know, so we record a couple of months in advance for the episode releases. And I just listened to the episode that released this week when we're recording yours. And I'm pretty sure Scott, Bushki, who was on this week, wanted to be a pilot as well.
If I remember. That's awesome. But in any case, so my second, consistent question on the podcast at the beginning is, Yeah. What was your first deal of any type? It could be something small when you were a kid or maybe it was the [00:08:00] first branding, you know, you did that was in connection with an acquisition or a spinoff or, you know, but anything that was a deal that you can remember your first one.
Darren Horwitz: So there's something that stands out when I was in college and it was a little thing, but it just got me. It started, made me think differently. I was in college. It was July 4th. I needed some money. And, I'm I'll date myself, but, they had these neon light up bracelets and kind of glow sticks and things like that.
And, this guy was going out, this is down in Florida. The guy's going out along the beaches, along Clearwater, and he wanted to sell these for like July 4th in the fireworks. And so we get out there and the deal, I want to make sure I have this right. But. It was, here's a hundred glow sticks and we're going to sell them 3 each and you're going to give me 1.
50 each. And you know, you can sell them two for 5 dollars and that sounds great. Well, then I did the math and I said, well, I can, [00:09:00] but then I'm giving away my profit to you because you're not giving me a discount when I sell two of them, you're still charging me per unit. And I did the math on this insight.
I just, I said, you know, college kid, 50 cents matters at that point, right? That's two ramen noodle packs. I can eat for a day on that. But I just remember I'm not doing that. And so I started selling these and somebody came up to me and they said, well, what if I bought two? I goes 3 each. And he goes, well, the guy down there says two for five bucks.
I said, All right, I'll give it to you for five bucks, but don't tell anybody. And my thought process was, I don't want to repeat this where I'm losing money. And, but I didn't want to lose a customer. And so it was this balance of doing this. And I think this was the earliest thing I remember. And I'll tell you, sorry, in addition to that, I'll give you one more.
As I got older and got into branding, there was, an executive creative director, at one of the agencies that I worked at when I first started really getting into what I was doing. And I was in a meeting and all of a sudden I get this call. And he said, Hey, can you come talk to me for a second?
Guy's name is Chris Campbell. And I tell Chris this all the time when I [00:10:00] talk to him, he calls me out of this meeting. I'm like, I'm in this meeting with clients. What's going on? And I come out, he goes, Darren, we never say no. And I just looked at him and he goes, we never say no. And that was it.
And I went back to this meeting, what the hell is this guy talking about? But I took it with me. And what I've tried to do with that is I don't say no. I go with, here's what we can do for you. Here's what I can do. And it's not about saying yes to everything. It's not about giving everything away, but it's about being fair with, Hey, you have a need, I want to solve your need.
I can't give you exactly what you're asking for in the way you want, but here's what I can do that I think solves the problem and gets us there. So that coupled with don't lose money, don't lose the sale. Don't say no. I think these are the things that have taken me through with a lot of help, gotten me to where I am.
But those are the two ones that really. Yeah. Then there's the bigger deals. You close, you remember those. But those are the ones that I think shaped me.
Corey Kupfer: And, you know, all that second point, that thing about not saying no, that's great [00:11:00] advice in, you know, in negotiating and that is, like a no has an energy that stops things.
Right. Whereas a here's what we can do for you. Is, you know, the way to, to keep you on a creative conversation about how you make it work. Right. And whether that's on a, that applies to an M& A deal or financing deal, or things that are totally unrelated applies to any kind of deal you're negotiating is to try to stay in that creative space as opposed to it getting positional, you know, and that's something I definitely teach in my negotiating trainings.
All right. So, let's, take the audience out of the suspense and let's explain why the branding guy is on a. It's on a deals podcast, because I mean, it's not obviously all you do, but certainly like you, you have, you know, a niche in addition to the general branding, rebranding, you know, and branding and rotation work you do, to do this in situations where deals are happening, right?
Whether that was, that's an M and a deal, whether that's a spinoff, or other kinds of deals. So let's talk about, I mean, listen, if we think about it, logically, if people, you know, take a [00:12:00] step and step back into the industry. When the company's, brand or rebrand or, tweak the brand, whatever, well, usually when there's some sort of change factor happening, well, whether it's an outside force or whether they.
feel a need to cause a change, right? Because, they're stagnant, they're not growing, or they're whatever it is, or, you know, so it's, if we think about it for a second it's logical that, I mean, certainly, acquisitions, mergers, the spinoffs are significant changes.
So there's logic in it. But talk to us specifically about like what, you know, give us some examples of what happens in those situations and what you've done. And then I know we also want to get to, I think it's an under, appreciated thing for people to do planning well in advance in connection with a deal.
Let's hold that piece of it for a second. And let's just talk about, you know, some of these that he worked on and how you got into doing this for companies that are. Either requiring a spinoff.
Darren Horwitz: Yeah, no, thank you. So there's some basic things I think that people go through. And the scenarios are [00:13:00] nuanced, obviously.
They're and to that point, somewhat unique. It just depends on the scenario. But, you know, a spinoff or, a merger or a rebrand, you can easily get to, well, we're going to change our logo. And that's an easy thing to think about. And so. But the thing is, brand is much more than your logo. I mean, this is something we preach.
It's, you know, your brand is not your logo. Your logo is your symbol. And there's so much more that goes with it, blah, blah. Okay. But we're brought in because there are some very basic questions when one goes through a change like this. What do I need? How long will it take? Who's going to do the work?
And of course, how much does all this cost? And so we've learned to just. specialize in addressing those questions and thinking through this. Now, that's the easier side of thing. I think when you start to think about the tactical side of, okay, I'm going to go through this, what do we do with bringing two companies together?
What's our name? Somebody else is deciding that, but once that's decided, then we know what to do with that. And we help [00:14:00] people figure out where that name lives or how to introduce the new name. And the new logo and the new font and the new company in a way that makes sense. And what some of the pitfalls are from a logistical standpoint, there are very smart people usually, working on brand strategy, business strategy, naming, you know, visual systems were brought in to really figure out the logistics.
Yeah. I think that is the easier part of the conversation. I think the harder part of the conversation or the part that many people forget is the people that go with this. And so we try and remind organizations going through a change that it's not just the stuff, it's also the people that you want to proactively think about.
You, you want to put them ahead of. almost anything else, because they're the ones who will represent you in the ways that you would like. So you make sure that you're telling them what's going on when the time is right. And you make sure that you're giving them the information they need so that they aren't [00:15:00] anxious about this.
You're giving them the tools that they need in the way that they need them. All of this with training and engagement and things like that. So those are the big things where I think it gets really interesting is through. And the spinoff too, you think about this where, we went through a spinoff, a while ago.
Well, we just did GE healthcare. They were spinning off, but they still maintain the GE symbol, but they were standing up a new brand that's a big deal. We helped with, the two of the three spinoffs there, but going back a ways to, do pot performance. Codings became Exalta and they were spinning out of DuPont and a, private equity company was picking them up.
These folks were going from a very strong culture to losing their identity overnight. And it was really critical to keep that in mind, like you have a strong DuPont culture, people know what to expect of DuPont. What does it mean to be part of this new company, Exalta? What does the name mean? What does the company mean?
What do we stand for? What do we do? What? I don't know what to tell you. [00:16:00] So, it was really important and I say this to you because I think it's critical when you think about spin offs or also acquisitions of a smaller company that you consider this. If you acquire a company, it's really simple to say, well, they're taking on a new brand.
It's not a rebrand. We have a brand. Okay. For you, but for them, it's a whole new world. Do they even have a job tomorrow? What's their ID badge? If they're going into an office what's the name on their paycheck? What did they tell their family and friends where they work? And what does that really mean?
And so to me, that's really interesting to think about. Maybe a smaller acquisition that happens all the time that you never, that maybe not make the news in the same way or have a big splash like that. And I think that's the watch out is, stuff is easier, people are harder, and we often forget about them.
And that's where I think the smaller acquisitions are interesting.
Corey Kupfer: I love that because, you know, it's fine. I was actually working last night on a presentation. I'm going to be, doing, I guess they got me doing it three times, but [00:17:00] in, I'm gonna be in Singapore for the Entrepreneurs Organization Global Leadership Conference, and, I'm doing a, a workshop on deals.
And it's basically the concept is, That, it's a playoff of on the, there's an app for that, you know, so you have a need, you have a, there's an app for that, the theme is going to be, there's a deal for that, right? So, and as opposed to talking about. You know, types of deals, we're really going to have it be triggered by the need.
Okay. Like, Oh, we're not growing as fast as we want, or we want to get into this new geography, or we want to integrate this other product into our service suite because clients need it, or we're having trouble finding a good talent to hire. Right. Oh, well, maybe we can acquire that a joint venture on it.
Right. So it's the trigger and it's helped people think like a dealmaker. But the reason why I'm bringing that up in this context is that. I have a 10 step process that I take folks through. When they want to, let's say, do deals, mainly, let's say, do acquisitions, right? And it starts with figuring out their why and who they're targeting, and building a model and a deal structure, and then doing due diligence and negotiate.
But my last step is [00:18:00] positioning. Yeah. Right? And the last step because, and so it's integration and positioning. Those are two of the post closing ones that people screw up, right? They screw up the integration because whether it's the technology integration or it's the cultural integration, it's the people, the HR, whatever it is.
But they also screw up the, you know, basically the communications, right? You know, the, what I call the positioning. And it, this is where it ties into what you were talking about, because what is the messaging out to clients or customers? What is the messaging out to the industry in general? What is the messaging out to your existing employees?
What about the employees that are coming in? Because it's not just the employees that are coming in that are the company you acquired. No, that kind of change causes questions for the existing employees. Well, what is like, are they, is someone else from the other company kind of come in and take my job or how's it going to work?
Or doesn't it, right? So,
Darren Horwitz: or even how do I sell their products? How do I even understand how their products work with our products? Or what if we have, we're at a trade show together? What do I say? What if we have competing [00:19:00] products or how does this all work together?
Corey Kupfer: That's right. That's right. And it's interesting because the way you talk about it, some people might say, well, you, Corey, you know, you're talking about stuff that's way beyond branding, but the way I hear you talk about branding and implementation and people, right, it's not just the logo.
It's not just the, right, like all of this. The message I'm getting from you, where I think the tie in is that all this needs to be integrated. Right? You know, the branding affects all of the, you know, let's call them stakeholders. Not just the outward facing to the customers and clients.
Darren Horwitz: A hundred percent. And I'm going to, so look you talked at the beginning of this episode, your formula, and you talked about, we do two questions in the front and two questions, one or two questions in the end and everything else in between. Well, the reason you do that and you said, you know, this is what people are listening to.
This is what they expect. That's your brand. Right? You, a business is, it works the same way. It is, you are setting something up that is predictable and expected so that I, as a consumer, I, as an employee, know what to expect from this and I can speak to it [00:20:00] consistently. I know whether it's your podcast or everybody's favorite, you know, Apple store or Starbucks, they walk in.
It's expected. And now I have a choice of what I'm buying. And I can buy from Starbucks. I can buy from Tim Horton. I can buy from Dunkin Donuts, but it's the brand through the lens of experience and consistency and expectations, including people. I guess position you could throw all the peas in there but the point being that it's taking, I look at it as you have a business strategy.
First, your brand strategy comes out of your, excuse me, out of your business strategy. And then your experience strategy comes from there. And that experience is tied all the way through, right? Whether I experienced this in a product, in a facility. Online through a website, listening to a podcast and by the way, I think they need to be aligned.
If you had a podcast that was completely different than what your business is, wouldn't make any sense. So it goes back to what you're [00:21:00] looking at. I imagine in the beginning of the deal of how does this fit together and does it make sense? Should I even be doing this? Well, branding. It's the same way.
Should I even be doing this? And if so, what's the best way to do this? And then how do I explain it to somebody else? So just because it makes sense to me, it's got to make sense to them, which ultimately makes sense to the consumer if we do it right. But yeah, it's all related in my mind.
Corey Kupfer: So let's talk about, you have some examples of, you know, very big clients that you've worked with, right?
GE, DuPont, those kind of folks, whether it's on the acquisition or the spinoff side. But, let's talk about at that level, and then also maybe at the, you know, more middle market level, how good are companies about, when these changes are happening, when they're buying companies, merging, spinning off, any of those kind of things, how good are they about, you know, being ahead of the game and, being on top of, [00:22:00] this and understanding the importance of, of brand in connection with deals.
And is there a difference in terms of size of company or industry, you know, or is it just sort of, depending on the company?
Darren Horwitz: Yeah. So I'll say this, as we say with anyone going through a rebrand, there's never a good time to launch a brand. Right. And now there are, and there's all different ways to do it.
And there's, so I imagine with an acquisition or a merger, things can take a long time and sometimes never happen where things can happen rather quickly and you got to move. And I think there's never a good time to go through that exercise. I would say it's a lot better to be prepared for this and understand and anticipate what your needs are.
And I would ultimately say having a plan of any kind is The best thing you can do it. And so this is what we tell our clients. We think about is, we call it brand MVP. What's your brand MVP? What do you need to get out there on day one? And there's never, you're not going to be fully prepared.
You're not gonna have everything done. And that's okay. If done by design. [00:23:00] Yes, we were brought in, on G. E. We were brought in, with not a whole lot of time left before they spun out. We're spun off, not spun out. That's not what they did. They spun off. And we prevented them from spinning out.
But no, they, that was, I think we had probably a couple of months to put a plan together to support what they had already been thinking. So we supplemented all the work that had already been happening, but it took into account the realities of what they were facing of, Hey, we need to be out there on a certain date.
What do we do and how do we do this? So. Okay. For them, it was defining what their brand MVP was, and we did this by just, as I'm sure you would do with anything, you ask questions, you do your due diligence, and then you come back with some recommendations based on what you're hearing and experience. And the bottom line is this, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you live by your promises, and it is okay to say, we have a slow roll, as long as you deliver to that.
And so don't over promise and under deliver, own it. If all you're going to [00:24:00] have ready on the launch day or an acquisition day is a PowerPoint deck, think through what that means. And what the ripple effects are, but it's okay. And so, I think whether you're a large organization, a mid sized organization, or even a small one, you have to define what your brand MVP is and what it means to people.
A bank will have very different needs. There's legal needs. So they probably flip branches very, very quickly. It could be over a weekend because legally they have to. But when you think about a restaurant chain, you know, maybe that's a little different healthcare. That's an interesting one. But there's so many layers of legalities behind that, that they could probably promote theirself as a new brand on their signs, but it's okay if their ambulances or vehicles take a little longer.
Right? And again, this is all about a defined plan. So earlier, certainly better. Right. Much like a deal. You want more time to just make sure you understand what you're [00:25:00] doing. And I think it also allows you to create contingency plans when things inevitably don't go the way you planned. And then secondly, it's okay to not have everything done.
Just own it. Have a plan. Tell people when more is coming or at least when they'll have more answers as you figure it out and deliver on your promises. And then I think the last thing is when you do go forward and make it. An acquisition or you spin off your organization or you just go through a merger and you come together as one, have some proof points to demonstrate that change is legitimate and happening in real time.
Because I think the, that what we've heard from organizations so often is. Less about a merger or an acquisition, but yeah, we've heard this for three years. We're going to go through this exercise. It hasn't happened yet. There've been false starts and stops and yeah, I've heard it before. And then nobody takes you, it's not credible anymore.
So that's why I say deliver what you promise. That's all. But yeah, earlier is definitely better. That's the short answer. I have a plan and do it [00:26:00] early, but it's not, we roll with it. You know,
Corey Kupfer: it's parallel. It's everything else in a deal, right? Ideally you have what time you don't always have.
What time you adjust to the time. How often
Darren Horwitz: have you come across funding has fallen through and you need to, you know, re secure funding from somewhere else. I'm sure that happens quite often, or you uncover something like, Oh, wait, that changes all our. our projections and forecasting. So what do we do here?
Yeah, you just got to roll with it, right?
Corey Kupfer: No question. All right. So let's, approach this from a, different take. So let's say you are a potential acquirer of the business, right? You're going to, you're going to buy another business. So you're going to tuck them in. You know, to your company or whatever the deal is.
You know, we've talked to on this podcast that people aren't talking about due diligence and of course a lot of, you know, when you, when people think due diligence, they think financial due diligence, they think legal due diligence. They've started to think cultural and HR, due diligence, right?
We haven't really talked about. What brand due diligence, right on your target. And you know, in my mind as a non [00:27:00] branding person, but as a person that does a lot of deals that I've seen some of the stuff, There's at least a couple of elements, but I want to hear, more from you, there's Hey, well, if this company really does have a recognizable brand now, and maybe how does it even affect value and what we pay for it, or, you know, just evaluating the brand strength and viability and, whether it's strong, whether it's growing, whether it's stale, whether it's whatever, and anticipating the needs of what you're going to need to do with that acquisition or talking, you know, going forward.
And like anything else in due diligence, when you find what's so, it could be a positive that it's really strong, but it also could be a positive if there's some weaknesses, if you see a way to, right, correct those and add value that's often the gap between where, what you have to pay and then what the value you create because you see opportunity.
So, that's what I see for, you know, as a lawyer on these deals, but talk to me about those, whether it's those items or anything else, like what should companies be [00:28:00] doing and what are they evaluating if they're really doing a proper brand due diligence in connection with the deal?
Darren Horwitz: Yeah, it's so, the opportunities, excuse me, the opportunities that you have with a brand that's not so great as really interesting. I'm going to come back to that because that's a very interesting point. So. If I'm an acquiring company, there's probably some base level questions that I want to have in place from a strategic point of view.
And my area of expertise is not around brand measurement or brand equity. I know enough to be dangerous, but from a tactical side, I want to know how this fits into my existing portfolio. So there's a brand architecture question that needs to happen. And so. First off, excuse me, as we, we talked a little bit about before, does it even make sense as a business fit?
Does this fit within my portfolio of services and offerings? Does it make sense? I mean, even I, as a brand implementation firm, as I look to expand what we offer, I want to be very certain that [00:29:00] what I'm going to delve into makes sense for my core business. Can I legitimately pull this off in a way that is credible, that I won't screw up, and then I can, you know, provide value and ultimately make money on and be known for?
Yes. I think that's important. Once you decide how to do that.
Once you decide that it fits within your portfolio, then the question is, well, how will it be branded? And there may be some very specific reasons why you don't want this product brand or this acquisition to be branded as a different name. So, for example we worked with Helena Troi. You may not know Helena Troi as a company.
corporation, but there is a good chance, you know, their products, they have hydro flask, they have, dry bar now they have, hot tools. So a lot of OXO is one of theirs, right? So all these products and businesses that you probably are familiar on. So when we worked with them, they did not own dry bar, but what they [00:30:00] did have were a lot of health home and beauty products that were under their business.
When they acquired Drybar, I read it in the news after we were working on it, and I'm like, that makes a whole lot of sense. Because they were taking their products that they have in the way of curling irons and blow dryers and things like that, and now they were buying a business that was a consumer facing hair salon that focused on blow drying.
Now, again, I didn't talk to him, but I can easily quickly get you, Oh, the synergy between beauty products and a beauty salon. Wow. That's brilliant. So. It made sense for them to put it in their portfolio, but then they had to ask the question of, okay, so how do we brand this? Are we going to brand our products, dry bar products?
Are we going to brand dry bar, hot tools or what are we going to do now? At the time they left dry bar what it was and their products, I'm not sure where they are now. Not necessarily germane to the point here, but there was a question. So when I think about this, there is a tactical question around brand arch architecture that says, I'm acquiring [00:31:00] this company.
I'm acquiring this business, these products, how will I brand them? Going back to your point, where's the brand value? If everybody knows the product, maybe you don't rename it, rebrand it. Maybe it's a simple emblem on the back that says, you know, corporation is their logo on the back and then everything else stays the same.
Or maybe it's in the case of GE healthcare, where we're going through these exercises now, we have all these product brands that are in acquisitions. We want to bring them into the master brand, GE healthcare. How do we do that? And our conversations are, okay, let's look at the brand architecture because that should be defined.
This shouldn't be a guessing game. When I get to, I have a new company now, what and they have an architecture and we are looking at how to follow that. When then. Building out the business cards, building out the PowerPoint, the sales materials, things like that. So it's brand architecture that I think that has to happen.
So that will drive your tactical exercises. And if you don't have that in place, you really need to [00:32:00] think about putting that in place. And that is not my expertise, but I know that I need that in place to be able to then acquire this brand. So that's that part. What's interesting about what you said to me is the weakness or what I would think of as a depressed brand that's really not operating to its full potential.
And I think that's really cool. So as I think about this from an acquisition, what I want to do is I want to go in and evaluate from a brand management or brand implementation standpoint, what do they have? Maybe the logo is great. Excuse me. Maybe they don't have consistent, Execution and communications, and then I start to dig in.
Why is that? Well, they don't have brand templates. Why is that? Well, they don't have a brand team. Okay, now I'm starting to get to the core of this, or I look at the buildings and their signs. Every sign is different. Nothing's the same. Well, that's expensive. Signs are unless you're the airline. Signs are the one, one of the most expensive things you can do.
And there are ways to build a program to get your costs down and be efficient and [00:33:00] bring your brand to life consistently. So that's the key word, consistency. And they're not doing it. Okay, well now I can look at these things or maybe signs are everywhere. That's a waste of money. You don't need signs. So I go through and I think when you say that, I'm like, how are they?
Implementing and executing on their brand and are there opportunities to do a mapping gap exercise of tools? Do I have is the parent company that I'm strong on and what do they have that would leverage my tools? That would be a simple fix when I migrate. Or maybe they have something that I don't have.
Oh, they have what we would call a brand center, which is an online portal where all your brand tools live, that everybody can access. Your guidelines are online versus a PDF that sits in someone's, you know, a hard drive somewhere that nobody ever uses for brand guidelines. Oh, they have a brand center. We can leverage that and we can put all of our guidelines on there.
So we start to think about what that looks like. And I think that's a really interesting exercise to go through from an acquisition standpoint. Or a selling standpoint of how strong is your [00:34:00] brand from the implementation and brand management and brand governance standpoint, that I don't think a whole lot of people are considering right now.
I, that is really cool to me to think about it that way. Mostly because that's what I do for a living. So I see it, but I think to be able to apply the thinking in that way is really cool. And I think you could, sorry, just to finish this out, I think you could probably either somehow think about how to get better pricing on the purchasing.
Right? So, okay, hey, this is what I need to do, to bolster your brand or, hey, as I spin off this brand, maybe it's, or sell this brand, maybe, you know, I need to, much like a house, right? Think about it the same way. I need to put some shingles on the roof. I need to paint the rooms. What do I need to do to get my brand in a place where I can point to it and say, you know what?
This is kind of a turnkey approach. You're good to move into this new brand and we've set you up for success and now I can charge more money on the sales side. There's guys, you know. That's gotta be part of the equation or it should be if it's not I think that's where people can really [00:35:00] benefit from it.
Corey Kupfer: Yeah. That's a great point. Looking at it from the other side, because we do, you know, I talked about due diligence that a buyer, a potential buyer does, but also, you know, we help we do pre due diligence with our clients, like on, they make sure their legal, situations all straightened out because deals die if, you know, wait, you don't have, you don't have an updated con your contract expired with your main client.
You never got that renewed or. There's stuff like that. And the financial people do pre due diligence to make sure the numbers look great. And, you know, why wouldn't you be doing pre due diligence on making sure your brand's in good shape.
And it's interesting because, you know, going back to the acquisition site, these are the kinds of things, I talk about the mentality of a dealmaker. What dealmakers do is they look for places where they could, bring their expertise or add value to something that they're buying.
Right. The ethical ones are, you know, not looking to cheat anybody there, but they're not going to pay for brand equity that's not there. Right. If they can build it, they're the ones who should get that increase in brand equity because they're the ones who [00:36:00] are creating it. Right. So they're going to pay for the brand equity that exists today, which might be depressed or, you know, not fully maximized or whatever.
And that's the way dealmakers take it. Sometimes that, you know, it comes up in various areas, if their expertise is operational, efficiency, right. Or, process improvement or whatever, those are the ways they create efficiencies and create additional value if they are phenomenal.
You know, sales, right? And they think that they can pump up the sales program that's how, they create a, you know, value beyond what exists today. Well, there's an opportunity to do that potentially, in various acquisitions on the brand side. And I think it's less talked about.
Darren Horwitz: I think that's right.
And I think I would add to that culture. Culture should be another one. So, and not just, is it a strong culture or a weak culture or a good culture or it, what's it going to take to, to bring this group of people into our culture? And I would think, thinking about healthcare and the healthcare space and all the [00:37:00] acquisitions of physician practices coming into the larger healthcare systems, right?
You have, Definitely. And we see this, we've done a lot of healthcare rebrands and through mergers and acquisitions, and you've got physician practices who say, we are the brand. It is our name. It is ours. And they're not wrong in that, but they're becoming part of something different and bigger and they save lives and they do.
Now, the, Healthcare system will say we are better together as one organization. The more we put our combined brand out there, the more we can, solve and solve people's needs and healthcare issues in a greater way. Whether it's, Hey, you've got one part of the business that has technology.
Combined with another part of the business that has R and D combined with the physicians, physician's practices that come together. Now, I understand there's a lot of complexities in this. I've seen them. I've understand there's a lot of emotions in this when bringing things together as a business owner, I get, I have passion in my own [00:38:00] business.
However, it would be interesting to see on the culture side, what's it going to take to bring over a physician's practice to educate them on the fact that one plus one equals three. To train them on the fact that there's more that we have in our arsenal as a corporation, as a brand, as a healthcare provider that they can now provide and use to all the way down to a back office support to say, you know, you are, and I'm just thinking about this, you know, not from any, you know, business side of it, just as a person anecdotally, if the role of the front desk is to, or a physician's assistant or an admin is to protect the doctor's time, great.
But now maybe there's a way to protect their time in a different way, because we as a combined
So I think the culture side is very interesting and then I think beyond just physician's practices, obviously, bringing people through this journey and change sometimes can be easier, sometimes can be harder. So I would [00:39:00] extend it. I would think even more into culture, not my area of expertise but again, I know that these are all related going back to your original point.
It is all related.
Corey Kupfer: Yeah. Now, it's definitely true, and one of the things that's interesting to me, and we won't spend a lot of time here, but I'll just make a statement, and then we're getting close to our time here to close, but, you know, what's interesting to me is, so I talk with folks a lot about who are, let's say, on the acquirer side on, you know, I talked about that 10 step process, the last one of it is the positioning one, right?
An earlier stage is building a model, right? And then you build a deal structure with the model. Well, one of the things that is often in models or if you look at it, like one way of looking at the cell side, Of, of M& A and our clients are looking at the different models or platforms assist, you know, out there to sell to, and you see it in healthcare.
We do a lot of financial services. You see it in financial services. And there are models that, that are, we're one brand. There are models that you get to keep your brand. There are models that do some sort of hybrid, you know, it's cup for, wealth management powered by, , a X, Y, Z company [00:40:00] or you know, there's ways that it's sort of hybrid done and sometimes though that branding difference or the ability to keep branding, you know, and that also could be tied into COVID structuring.
Like you might have your own entity, you might not, but you could actually keep a brand without having a separate entity. It can just be a separate brand. That's a DBA, whatever. So like it, it ties into the legal, but the more important point is that. That sort of branding approach or, you know, level of flexibility or whatever your model is around branding, Impacts who you attract, right?
So, if you are a one brand model, then you're not going to attract people who want to maintain their brand. And that's fine, right? Because one of the great things about having a differentiator, whether it's out the clients or whether it's the acquisition targets is that people get to opt out if they don't like your model and you don't waste time.
Right. But, so yeah, it's an interesting point to look at that brand decision as part of the business model is part of the deal model and deal structure. When you're doing this from both sides, because different people want different things.
Darren Horwitz: Yeah. And I'll take [00:41:00] it one step further along the hybrid approach.
So I think two watch outs there, and I'm not saying don't do it. That's again, that's business strategy, brand strategy, architecture, really, it should be the brand architecture is what's critical to understand the value of one way or the other. But I can tell you this, be careful you don't send a mixed message to the people.
That you're the employee base where they're like, we're a stepchild or no, we're still our own independent brand. And we're going to speak about it that way. Like there, there needs to be some education there on why and what it means and how to speak about it. But the other part of this is if you're doing it as an interim step to ease people through the transition, that's an expensive way to go.
Right. And sometimes you might be better off just ripping off the Band Aid, educating. Your own people providing the tools doing the changeover once and more importantly providing your consumer base your customer base that this change is happening now There are reasons not to do it. As a migration, you can do a slow roll, but I think that comes down to communications planning from a tactical side.
Can you imagine if an airline, well, they did do it [00:42:00] with what was a Continental United. They went for a period of time where they migrated the two and that was a business decision, but the cost involved in painting those planes twice, that's crazy. But there was obviously a reason to do it that way.
And that way a long time ago, and I'm not faulting anyone for doing it, but it's expensive. So, you know, these are the things you need to work through, not just from the recognition side of it, but also the, the migration side of it. What's it going to take to pull this off and how much is this really going to cost?
And if it makes sense, great. Do it, but going eyes wide open, going to your point, how early do you need to plan for this when you do your due diligence, figure it out and start to think about it that way. I think that's yeah. And there are reasons to do it. And there are reasons not to, you know, there's no one way to do this.
Corey Kupfer: Love it. So Darren, before I ask you my final question, what's the best place for people to find out more about you? Thank you.
Darren Horwitz: So,
10 10 group dot. Com all spelled out. T E N T E N G R O U P. com brings you to the [00:43:00] website. There's ways to, to reach us. You learn a little bit more about what we do and how we, help organizations plan for this type of stuff.
LinkedIn, you can reach out to me through LinkedIn if you want to get ahold of me personally, but, either way you'll find and you'll find me. So thank you.
Corey Kupfer: Awesome. So this is. My final question of the podcast is always about my highest value in life, which is freedom. And to me, that means everything from freedom around the world for people, all people from oppression to why I've been an entrepreneur for decades and never had a boss.
What does freedom mean to you and how does it impact your life and business?
Darren Horwitz: Whoa.
I think to me, freedom, there's a lot, I don't disagree with anything you're saying. So let me not dismiss the global aspect to what you're pointing out. I'm going to give you one that's much more. Personal to me and close into me that allows me to go in day and day out of what I do. Freedom to me is to forgive myself for the mistakes that I've made.
When I didn't know better and I've learned from them. Freedom to me is to grow [00:44:00] from my mistakes and freedom to me is the ability to go out there and share what I've learned in the world with others in a way that helps them from a place of, Being honest to who I am and knowing who I am and being comfortable with that and being able to go out there and just talk to people like yourself and say, this is what I do.
This is how I do it. I don't know everything, but what I do know, maybe it's appropriate for you. Maybe it's not. And if it helps you and I can motivate you in any way whatsoever, as a sounding board, as a cheerleader, I would love to That's freedom. I get to wake up, look in the mirror and I'll tell you, I love doing what I do.
I, it was not money that has driven me to do what I do. I've always believed that it is passion and the money should follow if you do it from the right place in the right way. And this is what I try and tell my daughter, who's 16, follow your passion. Everything else should fall into place. So I think that to me would be freedom.
Love it.
Corey Kupfer: Love it. Darren Horwitz, thanks for being such a great guest on The Dealquest Podcast.
Darren Horwitz: Corey, thanks so much for having me. [00:45:00] Really enjoyed our time together. Thank you.
