Pankaj Raval (00:04)
Welcome back to Letters of Intent, the podcast for dealmakers and risk-takers. am Pankaj Raval, managing partner here at Carbon Law we help founders and funders navigate the legal side of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Sahil (00:15)
And I’m Sahil Chaudry, corporate attorney for Carbon Law Group. On this show, we unpack real stories behind high stakes decisions from funding to formation, brand protection to enforcement, with the people actually doing the deals.

Pankaj Raval (00:28)
But today we have a special guest. We’re talking about something that every founder needs to master, but few actually understand the nuances that is branding.

Our guest today is a good friend who I’ve known for probably 10 to 12 years, Cynthia Ferngren. We kind of grew up, started businesses kind of around the same And Cynthia’s A fantastic brand strategist. I can tell you that.

wholeheartedly because we hired her for some of the projects that we’ve worked on. So I know firsthand how great she is and she thinks about these issues. Her portfolio includes billion dollar giants like IBM, Botox, Neutrogena, as well as worked with a bunch of scrappy startups with a few exits under her belt. She’s built scaled and protected brands that convert. And today we’re so lucky to have her here with us on this show. great to see you.

Cynthia (01:15)
Hi guys, it’s so great to be here.

Pankaj Raval (01:17)
So, Cynthia, you know, known each other for a while and, been nice that our paths have crossed, you several times over the years here in LA. But I’ve always been fascinated by your journey of entrepreneurship. So maybe we can when you first started going into What got you interested in branding and marketing and how did you in the industry?

Cynthia (01:37)
Well, I’ve always been interested in psychology and the unconscious decisions that are really sort of baked into branding and why people choose certain brands and align themselves with them. So that’s one of the things that at the heart of it that I really love. And I’ve always been a storyteller and I feel like brand strategy combines both of those things.

though, I actually started out my career in big pharma for many years pharmaceutical know, there was a lot of branding and storytelling in it, but it was also doing a lot of analyzing of clinical data. And there was also a lot of science and regulatory and legal stuff associated with it. And it got to a point where, I

really wanted to break off I like my personal values didn’t align with Big Pharma. And I really wanted to be able to work with brands that had values aligned with my personal values, that were trying to create something positive in the world, that were trying to make a mark in a positive way. And so I

and a lot of people at the time thought I was crazy because there’s lot of money in that space to start my own thing with the idea of taking everything that I learned of these billion dollar pharmaceutical brands and being able to wellness brands, like clean beauty brands and brands that have purpose driven brands and take the same kind of

things that I was doing in like those big spaces and from a to be able to help independent brands. So that’s sort of how I got started. And then, you know, I don’t know about you guys and how you feel about sort of starting your own practice and what that’s been like, but, know, I think you go into it kind of naively and then start out and then you realize, my God, there’s a lot more to this than I ever thought possible. And it becomes…

Pankaj Raval (03:24)
Good.

Cynthia (03:27)
almost just as much of a personal journey and self discovery and who you are as it it really teaches you to be able to kind of hang in there and what you’re personally made of and to persevere and all of these things along the way, like when you’re first getting started, because you can’t hang your hat on.

a title or a corner office or any of those things. It’s really just you at the end of the day. So, I am, it’s been, gotta think like 12 years now, and I’m still at it, So, yeah, so that’s just kind of a little bit about how I got started and why. to me, I think one of the things that I really love about it is to be able to help brands and

Pankaj Raval (04:01)
amazing.

Cynthia (04:08)
brands that are just getting started. To me, think one, from a branding perspective, that’s where it gets so much fun to be able to kind of start with a blank sheet of paper. But also I feel like those are the people that need the most help. And so just knowing that I’m actually helping somebody’s dream come true, just a personal level feels really satisfying.

Pankaj Raval (04:24)
Absolutely, Now that’s amazing to hear because I interviewed other people on podcast too and I think a common theme we see is a lot of people leaving corporate or leaving jobs, big titles, take a risk. happen to be counsel for risk takers and deal makers. So this is definitely on brand for what we’re doing when we’re talking about branding. So it’s great to hear, jump is not easy. What was it?

Cynthia (04:40)
you

Pankaj Raval (04:45)
something that you just dissatisfied with the corporate world or was it really that something that pulled you to working smaller brands, these was so intriguing to you?

Cynthia (04:53)
What a great question. I think be transparent, feel like corporate.

it tends to promote, honor the and somebody that has a unique idea that wants to do something disruptive, has an idea that is really Corporates typically not for them am definitely somebody, I’m a creative thinker, somebody that’s always trying to, when it comes to a brand, do things differently.

look at it differently just same thing over and over again was just not enough for me and in the corporate space it’s just not a good fit. So after years of that just felt like I had to shrink back like who I was both as an individual and also from perspective that I had all of these great ideas that able to be realized.

And it got to the point where I felt like part of my soul was kind of dying, like that creative part of who I was that very much lights me up. And that’s why I love what I do, because I really is not just designing, it’s problem solving and thinking about things in a different way and trying.

a unique solution to different So, whether you’re a lawyer or a finance person, everybody’s creative in a different way or has the ability to be. in the corporate space, I found that wanted to kind of just go with the program and just, they wanted to just keep doing the same thing and never

the needle at all and that just really was something that was really bothering me and I got to a point where I was something I read once and it said like when the longing is greater than the fear know you have to do it and I kind of got to the point where the desire to do more and to be creative and to take the risk was greater than the fear I felt of not trying.

Pankaj Raval (06:42)
Mm.

I love that. I love that.

Sahil (06:44)
So I…

On that note, do want to founded your own You earned a top 1 % spot on Upwork, perfect five-star rating. That means that you have a sense of who your client is. did you achieve that level of understanding of your client? Did it take time to build that customer profile? Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with building your agency and finding your market?

Cynthia (07:09)
Such a good question. Yes, it takes time. think when it comes to entrepreneurship, one of the biggest lessons I have found is that everything takes a lot longer than you want it to. So like having patience is like a huge thing. And so in the beginning, had no, I didn’t even know what I wanted to offer in the beginning. I just, started out with saying yes to everything. Like, Pankajan I actually met, cause he needed a bunch of emails done and I said,

Pankaj Raval (07:18)
Yes.

Cynthia (07:34)
I do emails, like I just said yes to everything in the beginning. And as I started to say yes to things, I started to realize, okay, I might be able to do all of these things, but not everything is in my genius zone. And I think learning about what your genius zone is and who your ideal target is, you find that through doing, not through putting an avatar together, not through like sitting there and trying to figure it out like in your brain, it’s through the act of

movement and doing. And so I by just saying yes to everybody. And then the more projects I work on, then the more you start to realize is a good fit and what’s not. And then I have found to be like the most helpful thing is to try to put SOPs and together myself.

the right client and to able to make sure it’s the right fit before I get in to relationship with somebody. So some of that is going through a deep discovery process. And for me, it’s not necessarily like, the business has to have a certain amount of money. It has to be in this kind of field. Like I don’t have those kind of things that I look at. To me, it’s more of a personality fit. they gonna be somebody that

truly wants an expert to be able to guide them in this area because there’s definitely those people that say they want help and then they think they know better than you and I think no matter what field you’re in everybody has worked with those kinds of people that’s not the right fit for me. Like I don’t want to be what I call like monkey hands like I’m an expert in my field and I want to be respected and treated that way.

Pankaj Raval (09:05)
Thank

Cynthia (09:09)
So for me, it’s just about making sure it’s the right personality fit because I always am somebody that’s gonna respect my clients and respect the people I work with. And I want the same, whether it time, whether it comes to the way that we’re interacting and talking and giving feedback, all of those kind of thing, it’s important. So just make sure that I go through because I feel like when you’re first starting out, get so nervous about where am I gonna get clients from?

that you tend to undervalue yourself. think that’s just natural for all of us. And I definitely went through that where, when I look at some of the things that I was charging in the beginning, it’s crazy. And the things that I said yes to, I was afraid to boundaries for myself. I was afraid to say no to certain things. was afraid to say, I would have clients that would not have boundaries and not respect the scope of work.

the time, all of those things. And I was like scared to say no and to be able to honor boundaries myself. And so it was kind of learning that I feel like was one of the most important lessons when I came to kind of finding my ideal client. And I feel like once I started to, and everybody says this, and when you’re starting out, you never take the advice. It’s one of those things that you have to learn.

through the doing and it’s like when I started to charge what I was worth, when I started to create the boundaries, all of a sudden my clients changed, right? Like when I started charging fees of what I really felt like it was worth it, then all of a sudden high value clients would show up, but when I didn’t have, when I was just kind of saying yes to anything, where I was getting a lot of people that weren’t the right fit. So I don’t know if that.

Pankaj Raval (10:24)
Yeah.

Cynthia (10:48)
answers the question.

Sahil (10:50)
That’s actually, I think, really great advice for anyone in any industry. I think that’s very, very helpful. And it takes a lot of confidence, too, to apply that philosophy. And I do want to get a little bit more to your professional philosophy. You’re in a space that blends data, art, emotion, psychology. How do you bring those two sides of your brain together to problem solve?

Cynthia (11:11)
It’s such an interesting question. To me, it all starts with the data. I feel like data is so important. So for me, in my space, it’s really trying to uncover what I like to call the culture code or zeitgeist of whatever audience that we’re trying to tap into. is that cultural moment?

in that space, the that are keeping them up at night? What are they thinking collectively maybe is an insight that we can tap into? So it’s really kind of trying tap unconscious kind of that not as obvious. you know everybody sort of

do demographics. And a lot of people will do an avatar where you’ll kind of sit there and create an ideal customer profile where you’ll make up a bunch of stuff. And to me, I find that’s not actually find out what’s really going on so that we can base the storytelling on insights that are really going to resonate on a level. And when you look at brands that really do that, those are the brands that can create

viral moment, Like Nike just do it is always one of the classic examples. They tapped into something that it’s like, you the brand isn’t for athletes. The brand is for people that want to be it tapped in idea of the middle aged like average person, wakes up.

they have to go to work and goes running and does it anyway. It’s like that just do it like tapped into that thing. It’s like, you don’t always wanna exercise or wanna go for a run, but do it anyway. That was sort this thing that the everyday person could really resonate with that they were able to tap into. kind of where always start. once you understand

in the hearts and minds of the audience that you’re working with, and this can relate to any business, not just the rest of it easy, then like the storytelling part becomes a lot easier. I think a lot of people start with try branding is just trying to come up with something cool looking. that’s not what branding is. Branding is, I think it was actually Jeff that says like branding is what customers say when you’re not in the room.

Pankaj Raval (13:22)
Hmm.

Cynthia (13:23)
So it’s like really being able to like tap into.

Sahil (13:23)
Mm.

Cynthia (13:26)
connecting with the audience so that they look at your brand and they think, they get either want to be part of community and what they’re building or am part of that. Like they see

Pankaj Raval (13:40)
raise a good point because I think differentiating and understanding the different parts of marketing and advertising branding could you break down for us what is the difference or maybe some examples of branding versus marketing versus advertising? Because I think they’re probably concentric circles and some sort but I love to understand they relate and how business owners entrepreneurs should be thinking about each of those.

Cynthia (14:02)
a great question. So for me, and marketing go together. A lot of people see them as completely different things. A lot of people will actually hire completely different people to do those things. And what happens is that you end up with a brand that is completely disconnected because the branding is the storytelling of your brand. It’s the why and it’s the how.

do what you you do story is behind you do. then the marketing you get that story out to people. marketing

platforms and the execution of those stories. So a lot of people will look at marketing as different, but if you don’t have synergy between brand story that you’ve created and how you’re telling story and how you’re bringing your value proposition to life in a way that really connects with your audience, you’re not bridging that over to your marketing efforts so that there’s

through line with all of that things, then you end up with a bunch ads from like a growth hacker or somebody that uses like make themselves seem like know, know what they’re doing. end up with a bunch of ads that don’t tell a story. And I mean, I, and I see that over and over and over over again, because, lot of people use digital marketing and, know, this is space, but this is like

anything, they’ll throw out lots of fancy terminology and stuff to make it sound like it’s super complicated. whether you’re talking about social media or you’re talking about digital ads or you’re talking about a print ad or you’re talking about a television commercial, it’s storytelling at the end of the day. like, the vehicle in terms of the advertisement is just the vessel in which it’s like the story is being held. So I feel like

It’s very important to make sure that those things connect and whether you’re working with different people or the same person, making sure that you’re looking at what, like doing those things with a continuity in mind so that you can make sure that your brand story is being carried through all of the things and that you don’t end up with different messaging and different stories and a different look and feel for every single platform that you’re on.

Pankaj Raval (16:09)
no, it’s so true. So true. So interesting. Yeah, feel like there’s a lot of people that just confuse it to and love how focused really on the story because that’s really what I think marketing, advertising, branding is. You’re right. What’s that story? I do a lot of trademark law and that’s really idea behind a trademark is like a source identifier. What’s the story that people are buying into when they see a brand? Right. I, you if I wear Nike,

all of sudden that’s identity. That’s something that I’m identifying with that brand. And I’m, like you said, part of that membership, that part of that group, that affiliation. And that kind of gives me some identity, which is interesting. think how that plays out sometimes is good and bad, But we see brands everywhere, right? mean, the FBI is a brand. The government, the US government is a brand, right? You have brands.

Saudi Arabia is a brand, Like there’s all these companies and countries that are brands evoke certain emotions people, you know, on a very or even the kind of basic emotional level think it’s really important to understand, you as an individual, the brand that you’re embodying and also your company, what the brand that conveying when people think about you,

Cynthia (17:11)
Bye.

Pankaj Raval (17:16)
Judge that. How do you gauge that? Like how do you know how people feel about you as a brand or your company as a brand?

Cynthia (17:22)
Well for me it’s all about

trying to have touch points along the way. So when I start working with a client, I’ll do a bunch of research, both qualitative and quantitative with the audience that we’re talking to, to be able to tap into some of these insights. But then once we start building the we still want to keep doing that, because you’re always learning and always evolving. So, and that can be done just whether it’s through simple A-B tests that you’re doing and…

digital kind of thing. It can be done through surveys. It can be done through like events where you actually get to talk to your audience or engaging on social media. I there’s a lot like now with digital. I mean, I think one of the things that’s really interesting and what has shifted in the past 10 years is a brand isn’t a one way conversation anymore. It used to be a brand would come up with what they wanted you to believe about the brand and then they would push it out through TV and print like years ago and

you never had an opportunity as a customer to interact with the brand. And that’s not the case now. Now, the brand is part of the messaging and the story, but the other part is what the customer is saying about you online. You go onto TikTok and tons of creators, these young creators that are amazing storytellers. And a brand story can take on a life of its just by what the customers are thinking. So I think just through social listening,

and being able to really engage in your audience and how they’re about things. Like there’s so much that you can learn about your audience just by engaging with them, whether it’s online or in has so much opportunity now because now can be a super small brand and just by being really scrappy and doing some like things online to interact with your

You can get so much learning that years ago, was only reserved for big, huge

Pankaj Raval (19:12)
Absolutely, makes perfect sense. Yeah, so I want to pivot a little bit now to something that you and I have chatted about at length over the years, something that we kind of showcase on our website, as well as you, I feel like have a really strong understanding of, which is design thinking. It was a buzzword, I feel, a few years back, but now I think it’s still relevant today as ever. Can you tell us a little bit more about like what is design thinking and why is it important in the context of

building a business, building a brand, and just how you even think about it in your own work.

Cynthia (19:41)
So design thinking is a process that is used to be able to put some like order and steps to, well, in my case, I’ll use it a tech building space as well as like the branding and creative space. And it initially was a process that was, I think it was actually developed by

NASA actually, if I’m not mistaken. And it’s a process that they use when they were building things. then it ended up, yeah, being a buzzword like a few years back. I use it a lot of times in developing brands, developing products, developing websites. Actually, like one of my clients was just J &J. We use that process quite a bit when it comes to building brand architecture.

The value of it is that you’re able to like carve out steps, but it’s about iteration, you know? So it’s about taking an idea, it’s about starting with a problem, which is always what you wanna do. And then trying to come up with solutions for that problem so that you’re not going to the end of, we’re gonna build X. You’re starting with a problem in mind of how can we actually solve that?

and what are some ways to solve that and going through workshops and collaboration with people from different backgrounds because like for you guys, like you and I could do design thinking and like you guys might come at it from a totally different point of view and would maybe point out like obstacles and barriers that we would have to overcome that I wouldn’t think of and vice versa. So having a team

that are co-collaborating that have different points of view and coming together to do these like workshops where we’re looking at what some of the problems are and how to solve them from our own perspective. And then taking that and iterating on it to be able to then come up with a product that you can then test in the, or coming up with a brand or a message that you can then test in the market. And then.

as you learn from the audience and you can continue to pivot. And it’s about iterating and iterating. And the idea of kind of taking this idea of like, you’re never really done, you’re always trying to evolve it.

Pankaj Raval (21:55)
Right, Very interesting. used it kind of the same way that you just explained in our firm, is like you’re looking at problems that clients are facing with contracts, with doing deals, like &A transactions. and starting with the problem in mind and saying, OK, well, on this? How do iterate even the deals, with the terms get them to place? I love that.

Also, you know, when we talk about branding, we mentioned we do a lot of trademark mentioned that like some clients skip this important step of legal side of clearing a brand. Tell us a little bit more about like what you see on your side in terms of the importance of when thinking a brand.

Cynthia (22:21)
Totally.

Yeah, to time and time you know, I feel especially with startups at early stages, because capital is scarce. So trying to do things on the cheap a lot of times, which, I your brand is going to be something going to live on forever. And so a lot of times they’ll either

invest in something like a fiver and upwork with somebody that comes up with a brand name and a logo and they start the creative process and don’t bother to actually clear it with a lawyer. And then it turns out that that name or the mark or whatever that they’ve come up with is already by somebody in the space. Or they’ll

skip over the creative process and they’ll go right to a lawyer and they’ll just say, ⁓ you get this name cleared? And it doesn’t have any kind of meeting or strategy that it’s linked to. And either way, you wind up with problems. And I’ve seen them both many times. And so with the first one where they’re kind of, they start down the road because the creative is the fun part and that’s the part that everybody wants to do and they don’t pay attention. And then they get it to a point where they’ve spent

quite a bit of time and money coming up with something that they’ve now have an emotional connection to and they love. And then they bring a lawyer in most of the time because I’ve said, hey, did we get by somebody? And then it turns out they can’t use it. And now they have a whole bunch of people on the team that have seen it and fall in love with it. That obviously is a big problem because then you kind of have undo it and start from scratch. And the other way,

is a problem too. And I think it brings up a good point that you and I have talked about, many times is the important of collaboration and having partners. Like one of the things that I think is great is that when I run into these problems, I can always refer you because I know that you understand design thinking and that you understand the idea of

How can we be creative in trying to come up with some alternatives for somebody that are a little bit thinking it’s not just an email saying, nope, sorry, it’s taken, which I’ve seen quite a bit from a lot of other lawyers who have the same philosophy as you guys have. can really cause a lot of problems because they can end up racking a lot of hours with a lawyer that’s just basically saying no, but isn’t providing creatively about how to solve the problem.

Pankaj Raval (24:29)
Right.

Right. Right.

No, so true. So true. that’s something that we pride ourselves on. given my design and design thinking, it’s an area. There’s a reason why I’m also interested in trademark law, because it really is a great intersection of branding, design thinking, and also the legal side of things. Understanding the legal nuances of getting a trademark. a lot of nuances there that people should be aware of. Sahil, think you had some questions, just to get some insight on and suggestions for new founders.

Sahil (25:06)
Yeah

Pankaj Raval (25:09)
NewcomerDs.

Sahil (25:09)
Yeah, exactly. Brand building can be considered a very risky business. mean, especially when you compare it to, we were talking about working corporate, you’re kind of protected from having to take these kinds of risks and building a brand can be considered even more risky because it’s very capital intensive. You’re building this intangible asset of intellectual property. I wanted to ask if you could give us a couple war stories of yours of building a brand

to a successful exit or successful licensing deal. And I know you have probably lot of confidentiality agreements around this, but if you have a couple you could share where you watched a brand go from that seed stage and then totally bloom and be able to access the business opportunities that come from building a brand successfully.

Cynthia (25:52)
Sure, yeah. One of the ones that I can tell you about is a company called Daily Greatness. And it was a company out of Australia that I worked with. And they had these really cool planners written planners, like notebook form. And it was kind of like a life coach and a calendar had a baby. Like that was sort of the concept. And it would take you through lot of

Business coaching and personal coaching you there is once for different areas of your life and you would go through these different exercises and it would have Different check-ins like 90-day check-ins on how you’re accomplishing the goal. It was a really really cool concept and she didn’t have branding around it. So we Went through this whole process that we’ve been kind of talking about with her and we came up with this

Unleash Your Inner Warrior was like the theme and it was all about tapping into that hero’s journey some homage to like Joseph Campbell and some of his work on using her tools to kind of go on your own internal exploration.

and journey to become your own inner hero. So that was sort of the theme of the campaign. But in addition, as we went through this process, we did a lot of research with her existing customers to find that there was definitely a couple of opportunities she was missing out on. One was having a digital format, obviously, like in this day and age. So she developed.

that used the same philosophy, but now people like who were more digitally based would have a digital option. And the other thing that she was missing out on was using it from a B2B perspective where she would be able to go into corporations who were doing sales training, leadership coaching, all this kind of thing. And to be able to have like one of the things we were able to really look at was that in a corporate perspective, when a review is done,

like it’s like arbitrary. There’s like some like review process where some middle managers giving you a bunch of stuff, things that you need to work on, but it’s never really clear. Well, what if we could take her book and then redesign it a little bit for the corporate so that it could be something where.

when you do your review that the manager’s actually giving you some goals and then you could use the book to be able to track how you were accomplishing those goals and then you could do check-ins during the year so that it became something of a log that companies would have where it could be something that an employee could use to work with their management team to really be able to their performance on.

So that idea was something that came out of the strategic process. And we talked a little bit before about the importance of how storytelling and marketing kind of intersect. And that idea came out from that process. It was an idea that when I was doing the research for the marketing, that became something out of it. So it was an idea that I incorporated into the brand strategy and the marketing strategy part of it. And it ended up becoming.

a huge thing where they ended up getting a ton of really big licensing deals with some really big companies in Australia, including some government, like Australian government contracts, and they ended up doing an exit, a very successful exit as part of that. was something I was very proud to be part of, yeah. It was really cool.

Pankaj Raval (29:04)
Wow.

Sahil (29:05)
Wow.

Pankaj Raval (29:08)
Very cool.

Sahil (29:08)
Are

there any pressures that come from when you’re working with founders and they have to, there’s a trade off between short-term wins and long-term brand strategy. And how do you have those conversations to enforce or reinforce the necessity of, for example, investing in brand versus, for example, sometimes a CPG product might, they might be able to get an easier win with a

retailer that’s large and can place big volume, but it might come at the expense of branding. so are there examples like that where you have to encourage the founder to make a long-term choice? Or how do you normally advise clients when they’re in that type of position of choosing sort of the short-term capital win versus the long-term brand play?

Cynthia (29:52)
a really good question. come across this a couple of times in my career. So when it comes to big box retailers, a lot of times they, in the beginning, I’ve had clients where, mean, I don’t want to say any names or anything, but a lot of these retailers take 60 % of the net in the beginning and that’s because you’re relying on them.

and it’s just as much, when you’re doing these deals with big box retail, everybody thinks like you get on shelf and that’s it. But the reality is that you actually have to have a strategy to get people in the store and get your product off the shelf. Otherwise you’re not gonna be able to get rebooked. And a lot of times these smaller brands will try to get into big retailers way, way, way before they should. And to do it right,

you should absolutely build your own brand, build up a following, build up your own e-commerce thing where you can actually have data and numbers so that you have more leverage when you’re going in to be able to do a deal with like a big retailer or something like that. Because ultimately you’ll have a longer relationship because I’ve had a lot clients, well, they’ll do like a deal with…

a big grocery store or something like that and they’ll get their products on there with a few stores, but because they don’t have the big following yet, they’re not able to move product off the shelf. if you do a deal too soon, you’re risking ruining an opportunity with a big retailer that could end up being a national deal where they’re gonna wanna put you into stores if you can’t get your brand off stores in a few stores.

Pankaj Raval (31:18)
Hmm.

Cynthia (31:19)
they’re gonna put your product on bottom shelf and then you’re not gonna get it out. big, yeah. And it’s always better try to build up a little bit of success on your own through e-commerce and social media and to be able to come with some metrics to be able to show how much product been able to move and where you have relationships with.

Pankaj Raval (31:24)
Yeah.

Cynthia (31:39)
some influencers and you have like your social media brand kind of figured out and some presence on social media and you that you’re online in your store because you’ll be able to do a better deal too where you can negotiate when they say they want 60 % of the net, you can show them your metrics and then you can say, okay, well make a deal where when you don’t have that, you’re kind of at their mercy.

Pankaj Raval (32:01)
Yeah.

Interesting, interesting. Yeah, those numbers are fascinating. I didn’t know some of those industry numbers. So that’s interesting that, you know, the margin that they’re getting. So, Cynthia, this has been super fascinating. I’m sure we could talk for another hour or two about, you know, everything you’ve done and all the interesting clients war stories. Do you have any suggestions for new entrepreneurs looking, starting their companies, especially in this day and age where AI is such a, you know, so prevalent, disrupting a lot of our

industries and a lot of what we do. What are your suggestions to new entrepreneurs, new businesses just getting started and building today?

Cynthia (32:32)
is great and it’s a great tool, but that’s what it is, it’s a tool. And ultimately when you’re building a business, makes one brand more successful than another is the human connection. Ultimately, that’s what it’s about. And AI is only gonna be as smart as what you put into it. So I think it’s really important to be able to have a team

that can really help set you up for success in the beginning stages because it’s easy to do things with AI and some of these tools to be able to cut corners. But the fact of the matter is, customers are really savvy and they can really tell when something done with the human connection in mind. So I would say that it’s important to get the right team and to invest.

in your strategy and in your team upfront and making sure that you have a sound strategy, that it’s legally sound as well as strategically sound. And that’ll be like a really good building block to build from as you grow. Because it’s kind of like building the foundation of a house and it’s only gonna be as strong as that initial foundation.

Pankaj Raval (33:32)
great. Great advice. experts involved know the industry, who know how to navigate human element is super important. feel like a lot of people today think they’re experts because they have chat GPT even like it people would Google things and tell you it seems like they know more than you, but the reality something to be said about experience so great having your experience and your expertise.

on the podcast today. think it was super helpful to hear insights about branding and how to build a strong brand. just for our listeners out there, how do people find you if they want to get in touch?

Cynthia (34:04)
thank you. Yeah, they can email me at Cynthia at brand soul agency and it’s S O like the sun and my website’s brand soul agency.com

Pankaj Raval (34:12)
Okay, you so much, Cynthia, again, for your time and expertise and friendship over the years. been really great. And I look forward to doing many, things in the future as world changes. will continue to need branding and good branding. I hope you guys reach out to Cynthia if you do need help and guidance. I am Pankaj Raval Carbon Law Group, and this is Letters of you, well as my co-host.

And have a wonderful day to everyone and looking forward to seeing you guys build the businesses of your dreams. All right. Thank you.

Cynthia (34:42)
Thanks guys.

Sahil (34:43)
Thank you.