Category Design, Brand Narratives, and Beyond with John Rougeux

Join us in our latest episode of In Conversation as we chat with John Rougeux — founder of Flag & Frontier, a company that specializes in narrative design and execution.

In this episode, John and host Bill Kenney break down various category design strategies, discuss how to find c-suite alignment without taking away autonomy from the larger team, dig into what the right mindset is to have when approaching a big brand change, and so much more.

Whether you're a business owner, marketer, or creative we think you'll find some valuable insights from John!

Episode Notes

Learn more about Flag & Frontier: www.flagandfrontier.com

Subscribe to John's newsletter, The Field Guide Narrative: www.narrativefieldguide.com/subscribe

Full Transcript

[Bill Kenney]

Hey everybody. This is Bill Kenney CEO and Co-founder of Focus Lab and Odi - two global B2B brand agencies. I'm back with another episode of In Conversation. Today, I'm sitting down with John Rougeux. He is the founder of a company called Flag & Frontier. They're a narrative design and execution company.

What that means is they help companies craft powerful narrative, put their message to action and show buyers why they matter. So in today's episode, I was really excited to sit down with John. I noticed John because he was in the category design space, which sits very closely to the brand space that I live in.

I think there's a lot of overlap and insight that we could just share as kind of creative services businesses. We talk a lot with John about, um, his process, what it's like to go through that process, what the, what the client's challenges are, what their trepidation is in going through that narrative journey with him.

I then tried to highlight how I, we either have similar or different challenges as clients are going through rebranding efforts with us. So if you run a creative services business, this is definitely a great episode for you. If you are a client that is considering something in and around category design, narrative creation, branding, this is also a great conversation, so I hope you enjoy.

[Bill Kenney]

Mr. John, we meet again.

Uh, we've not recorded officially, but we've spoken multiple times. We've met in person. Um, the first time we met was just random LinkedIn DMs, right? That's how the world works now, which is, it's awesome. So I'm excited to chat today. We're going to kind of go around a variety of topics, but most notably:.

Branding, category design, and the things that happen in between. We'll talk about processes. If there's overlap, the challenging aspects of each of those, uh, how they relate to each other, we'll just kind of go where the wind takes us. But before we do any of that, do you mind just taking a minute, introducing yourself and tell people what the hell you do?

[John Rougeux]

Yeah, not at all. So John Rougeaux, in case you're curious how to pronounce the last name.

[Bill Kenney]

I left it to you.

[John Rougeux]

I run a consultancy on, uh, called Flag & Frontier. And the current version of how I describe what I do is narrative design and execution. We can talk about what that means, further, if you like, but really that comes down to (A) getting the executive team aligned on what makes us different, where are we headed as a company?

What's our point of view about why we should be the only obvious choice? And then (B) taking that core narrative work, whether that ends up designing a new category, niching down, reinventing an old one, and then figuring out how to execute that specifically on the go to market side. Uh, both are challenging and you need both to really have an impact.

So, uh, that's what I focus on.

[Bill Kenney]

There’s something in there that I'm going to pull right out. I'm going to kind of set us up on this topic already. It was great. A point that you made there, which is that it doesn't always have to be category design. It doesn't need to be a new category. It could actually be a version somewhere between what were the words you used?

I've already lost them. You basically said three.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah. So I, I have some research and I actually have six category strategies that I've found, I might find a seventh or consolidate it into five in the future.

So I think a company like Gainsight is a classic category creation. And I'm using the word creation, specifically classic category creation story, because what they were doing was not represented in any existing category, this idea of customer success and customer success software.

It's not something you'd use in place of a CRM.

It's not something you'd use in place of customer support. If they had positioned it in those spaces, that would have been a disservice to them. So for them, the right play was absolutely “Let's create a new category.” Because that gives us the easiest path, relatively easiest path to building our company.

It's still really hard, but less so than other strategies.

Um, and then you can take another really easy example: Zoom. Zoom was nowhere close to creating the video conferencing space. Those solutions had been around for ages. But they all kind of sucked: Go To Meeting, Webex. you're going to yell at the computer at some point in the process.

And so it was, Zoom's point of view is let's just make this easy to use. And like that, the codex made streaming easy. You didn't need special hardware or super fast internet connection, free trial. Made on-ramping really easy. There are a number of things, but they reinvented that space. They had a unique point of view about what video conferencing should be.

They use a lot of category design principles, but they didn't create the category

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

Equally viable and successful business strategy.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Interesting. I just, I love the fact of what you're saying. It's like, you've got to find what's right for the company. It's not just: category design is the only way to succeed. It still has to be appropriate for the company. Uh, on that same note, I'm going to be writing a post tomorrow. I'm already baking it in my brain of this idea of like refreshing versus rebranding. And what are the differences? I think those words get kind of mixed up a lot too.

I think people can, they think, well, our brand is suffering. But we're not ready to rebrand because to them that implies throwing everything out. So it's kind of similar in the way of saying like, okay, well, you can reshape a category. You could create a whole new category, but it's still all kind of like shooting for the same outcome, right? You're still driving in a direction, regardless of kind of like which path you pick. So let's talk about the work that you do, regardless of what we call it. Do you want to maybe unpack a little bit of that process? How do you go through that process with a client to find this narrative, this point of view that they can lean on?

And I know we don't have like, this is stuff you would spend an hour in a sales call talking about, but like, what are the high points?

[John Rougeux]

Yeah. Well, let's keep it interesting for the audience. So it doesn't turn into a sales pitch.

Is there a, is there a, uh, like piece of the process that maybe you're most curious about, um, or maybe that you think listeners really want to unpack.

[Bill Kenney]

So let's think about it this way. As I know in our process, there are these like pivotal moments, either sticking points, kind of obstacles, obstacles to get past. Is there a moment in your process that is like either the, the unlock aha moment or the, Oh no, we're scared. And what's that crux moment where things are starting to get filled with either excitement or fear.

What is that moment and how do you get around it?

[John Rougeux]

Okay. That's a good question. For me, and the experience that I've had with my clients, it's the idea of really grasping the problem that you think you're solving as a business. Because here's where it starts. Yeah. Yeah. So you ask a company, Bill, tell me about the problem you're solving. Oh, and by the way, don't tell me about the solution right now.

I don't want to hear about it. Just tell me like, why this thing needs to exist. And then Bill's response is almost always, well, our solution is really unique because it's got all these features. I'm like, damn it. damn it, Bill,

[Bill Kenney]

Second sentence.

Don't tell me solutions. Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

But it's, I think it's a very natural way, um, or a natural response because that's usually that's so often what we're thinking about and what we're wired to do is, you know, what's the next feature we need to, to build.

What, how do we describe this to the customers? What are our competitors doing? How are we keeping up with them? And you don't, it's not like you have to reevaluate the problem you're solving every month or every quarter or every year. But, things change and the strategy that maybe you had in place three years ago, five years ago, needs to be either tweaked or maybe even, you know, scraped and rebuilt, depending on, you know, the scope that we're dealing with.

So that's where getting to that aha moment is really hard. So then you'll like, put, even when you put away the solution, then sometimes the problem is, well, our competitors products aren't very good. Uh, that's not really a strong position in a lot of cases. Um, or, or it's like these table stakes things of, Oh well, our customers are really busy and, you know, they didn't have time or they need to grow the business.

And it's hard to grow the business. Those don't count either. Like categorically that's especially in B2B, if your business doesn't save time or help you make money, you shouldn't even exist in the first place.

[Bill Kenney]

There you go.

[John Rougeux]

I'm oversimplifying a little bit.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, no, that's great

[John Rougeux]

You finally get down, and usually in this process, I'm talking to the executive team. And, you start to get people to really like put those things aside and unpack like what they think is really happening and why either their current solution or some new solution they're envisioning needs to exist. And then you get different ideas on the team and they can't figure out, like, you can't sit along the same definition.

They don't have conviction about it. And so when you're able to work through that process and you get the team to say, okay, this is really what we're after. You get that collective sigh of relief. And that's really cool.

[Bill Kenney]

I agree. I'm sure it feels very similar to you as it feels for us on our side. That is almost a version of like, uh, of a high, like a drug high, right? Like you feel so elated for them that they seem to have finally seen it now. Collectively, this thing that was unseeable before and they are now jacked up about that so much so that sometimes they're like, that's it. We got it. Like, we're ready to rock. You're like, no, no, no, there's still work to do. There's still work to do.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

Great.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah. Like one workshop I did, um, uh, just a couple of months ago, it was with about 12 people from the executive team and we finished up and they're like, Oh, we have to stop. Like, I feel like. Kind of like a letdown that we can't keep this going. And I think what they were alluding to is like that, um, that, that high that you, you, you mentioned, like you kind of identify that and you feel so much more confident about where to go.

And you don't have to spend a lot of cycles trying to figure out that element of your business anymore.

[Bill Kenney]

That's right. Because it's a big hairy one that people were trying to unlock for decades even. Um, yeah, it's, it's, I think there's a version, maybe a better, uh, analogy other than drugs is like this idea of your mining and you're mining and you're mining and you finally find gold and you're like, I don't want to stop.

I think there's more gold down here. Right. I want to keep digging. We're like in the zone now we're finding alignment. Um, that actually relates to the post that I put out today, which you may or may not have seen, but it was, uh, basically my business, we are not in the creative services business. We're in the C-suite alignment business.

That's at the crux of what we are responsible in trying to facilitate and do. We do that through the vessel of our work being very visual and verbal, but if we can't do the things you've just said, create that alignment in that first bit of gold that people started to get excited about, which is really about alignment, not about the execution yet, then you can't go anywhere with it, right?

Cause it's still like, well, I know I think we should be doing this. I think we should be doing that. That can become really hard. Yeah. Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

Sometimes the CEO will have conviction, but, um, they don't want to use up all their political capital to force that on the team. They know that one, they won't have any political capital left if they do that. And two, the team doesn't feel like it's their decision. Then it's like Bob, the CEO's decision. then Bob's on the hook for everything right or wrong. People are coming along for the wrong reasons because of his positional authority. Not because they felt like they built this from first principles and had a chance to debate it and discuss it and unpack it. And that doesn't, that might show up.

If you do that the wrong way, it might show up as alignment then. But then six months later, when it unravels, that's a big reason why.

[Bill Kenney]

Well said, uh, I had one of those calls today with the CEO of a new project that just started for us and I do these CEO to CEO calls and a lot of it is trying to help that whether they're a founder or not, in this case, it was not an actual founder, but they are in the CEO position, understand how to navigate that component of the meetings that you're expressing, right?

How do they speak up with conviction about an idea, but not suck all the air out of the room to use their words in the call today, right? They're trying to figure out the balance in that too. Fun fact: what I did say though, it's better to over index than under index on that, right? Sometimes walking a perfectly straight line down the middle becomes impossible. So I just shared with him, like, I'd rather you share more opinions than less. What I don't want you to do is hold back and save all of your capital until you've held on so long now you have to come in and, like, shake too many trees and it's really disruptive. So just be a collaborative member of the group.

Everyone has an open opinion. And yes, to your point, You want everybody feeling like they're a part of carrying that flag. And now everybody is leadership, uh, reduced even, right?

It's not all of leadership. It's not the entire company. And what happens then, and I think you experience the same as if they feel convicted and they own it, then they're able to spread that internally. The vast majority become convicted and now you're off and sailing at that point.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah. That's a great point. Like if you were a participant in crafting the brand strategy or the narrative, whatever you have, you're then in a position to sell it internally because it's yours. It's not like something that the CEO told us to do and now I'm just playing the game of telephone, relaying what I was told to say.

[Bill Kenney]

Yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, great. Look at that. We found value in the first question.

[John Rougeux]

Sweet. Let's just, you want to just end the podcast there.

[Bill Kenney]

We should just totally end. That's it. So thanks everybody for listening and watching. Um, what do you, this, now this could be similar, but let's make it not similar. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of your projects?

What's the hardest part either for you or for the client?

[John Rougeux]

Keeping everyone patient. Here's why I say that. And I'm like pausing between my answers. Cause I'm trying to give you the, like the actual answer, not just, you know, something easy to say, but, and I'm curious to contrast this with your brand strategy work, but the work can kind of get messy. So like you described, um, mining and hitting gold and almost the analogy that comes to mind is like, well, you're

mining in a straight direction and the gold's there. And you're just like making a clear path to it. If you were to extend that analogy further, sometimes what happens is you go sideways and there we’re backwards or upside down, and then you almost feel like you're losing progress. Um, because a team can go into it thinking, you know, yeah, we need to clarify this a little bit, but it's more just about bringing it into focus.

And then you unpack it. And, and then you start to realize there are more unanswered questions and then it's like, Oh, this is actually less clear. And now I feel less confident than when we started the project. then, and so I tell teams like, Hey, you just trust the process. Like we'll get there. And if we second guess ourselves, we go sideways, that's okay.

It's almost kind of to be expected. But just, um, managing those expectations, I think is, if I were to put a finer point on it, if, especially if you haven't gone through the work before, you don't know what to expect.

[Bill Kenney]

That's the ticket, right? I think it's having not done it before. And I empathize with all of our, uh, partners on that fact. Maybe they have it maybe once or twice and maybe it was a long time ago, right? And every agency is going to function a little bit differently. So in my mind, it's kind of like, okay, you're kind of going through it for the first time, kind of, um, in this idea that we've been through it now, personally,600 times, we came up with that number a couple of weeks ago because we were wondering how many projects we did when we hit

our 14th birthday. And I saw the number 600, what the hell? Right. So it's very easy for people like you and I to be like, Hey, trust the process. We're going to get there. We're going to mind that way only to figure out that was the completely wrong mineshaft. We should have been going that way. Right. That can breed frustration.

But what I try to remind our clients is like, that is the journey. Expect that to be a part of the journey, which is really now, again, coming back to that call today, that is the point of that first call where it's just me and the CEO. It's not project teams talking about logistics and things like that.

And it's just me having a true heart to heart about like, we're about to go on a journey. This is what I told this guy today. I said, we're going to go hike a mountain and it's a really tall mountain. And part of that hike is going to suck. And there's going to be crevices in places we didn't expect them.

And we're going to hopefully have a ladder to get across it. And you're going to feel like time's being wasted. There's frustration. The goal is to not stop climbing. We will get to the top if we don't stop climbing, right? We just gotta, we gotta stay the course. Setting that expectation up front is really helpful.

So that when you're in those moments, instead of potential frustration, it's like, Oh, I knew we were going to get here. We're here. Okay. I guess that means we're closer than not being here anymore and being actually in the right spot that we're supposed to be. But you gotta go on the journey.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah.

I think I'm going to co-op some of your, uh, language there, Bill, from my own website. Uh, just, it fits in perfectly with Flag & Frontier name with the keep climbing and

[Bill Kenney]

Yes! Yes!

[John Rougeux]

the crevices and yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, man, have at it, have at it. All that to say, I agree. I think patience is the hard part, but just the overall journey is the most challenging for the clients of the unknowns, not knowing what to expect. I think it's just unnerving. I think the other thing that I would add to, and I'd be curious to hear if your clients feel the same for us, it's a lot of like, even if we all align, the client and us, their whole internal team, our internal team, there's still no way to test that in a way that is like science.

You can't say we've made copper and the world wants copper. Yay. This will work a hundred percent. You have to say, based on what we know, factually, instinctually, where the market's headed, who knows where we'll be in 10 years.

[John Rougeux]

Mm hmm.

[Bill Kenney]

This is what we believe Has a larger percentage of being successful for you, given what we all know.

So there's still a leap of faith, no matter how secure you are. Some clients can operate in that space very comfortably. Some clients have a lot of trouble operating in that

[John Rougeux]

Mm Yeah. I think that does speak to the clients that are best suited to do the work successfully. So like I, uh, a couple of months ago I worked with a publicly traded SaaS company. And I can't tell you who they are yet because their space is very competitive and we were very specific about we're not going to share this publicly until it's launched publicly.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes. Yes.

[John Rougeux]

And this did happen to be a new category design play, but they had this dynamic where they weren't the largest player in the space. They're not the, the, first mover in the space, they're not the oldest player, but they had this ambition to really occupy that position in the market.

And they were very frank. They said, look, we're going to try this and we're going to move forward with every bit of confidence. We're also open to the fact that in a year or two from now, we may not have made the right call and that is okay. They said, we can. We can do more work and we can evolve, but what we can't do is just keep doing what we've been doing and make these incremental changes and expect to get where we want to get.

It's not going to happen. And so they understood that there was this risk involved. That doesn't mean that it's a crapshoot and there's a 10% chance that it's going to work out. Let's say it's probably 70 or 80%, but it's still when you've got a public shareholders and board of directors.

[Bill Kenney]

Yes.

[John Rougeux]

You know, everyone, analysts watching your every move, the stakes are even higher.

You can't like, you know, hide as you might be able to, if you were a pre IPO.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. I think some of that is going to end up as being the big teaser cut of the episode. Which is this idea that what is worse, small moves that have low risk, but don't really move the needle or leap of faith that actually has a high chance to move the needle, but we all know there's risk there and clients that are willing to go through that, those are the companies that are successful, right?

Not just because they hire us. And like, that means they're smart and it's not about us. It's that level of courage that it takes to actually make those types of moves as a business, which often result in. Doing the types of things that we do, right?

Changing the entire perception of a brand, visually, verbally creating a new narrative and a point of view and entering a new category, these types of things take courage.

Um, yeah, well said. Awesome. Love to hear that story. And we'll be looking out for it. All right. I'm curious. What do you find to be the most enjoyable, personally enjoyable for you part of your projects

in working with clients at any part of the process, whatever.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah, well, it's a little bit of the same like you might not expect me to be an introvert since I'm somebody who like spends time facilitating all day discussions with, uh, with the team and spending a lot of time doing in-depth one-on-one interviews, but. Um, I find the work satisfying because it's a little hard.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, I love that.

[John Rougeux]

And I, you know, I like that challenge of going into it and not really knowing what's going to come out the other side, you know?

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah, I mean, it's just like, you get to meet all these great people who want to level up their company. You get to learn about how they think about the business that you get to learn about how they're thinking about their role.

And it's like this puzzle because everybody's got this view into the business. It's a little bit different. And usually sometimes they're, uh, conflicting viewpoints. That's okay. But sometimes it's just different pieces of the puzzle. And you're almost, if you're doing your job, you really are hired to tell the client things that they need to hear, not to fluff them up and tell them how great they are. And so to me, that's not a responsibility to take lightly. So just that challenge of sorting through what you're hearing, what you're observing as an outsider, piecing that together, and then when you're able to present that back to the client and like, they say things like, man, like this.

Like we're talking about earlier, like this feels so great. I feel like I have so much more clarity. The last client, the head of brand told me she almost cried when we talked about the narrative.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah,it feels good. Like if the work was easy and it was just like a technical skill, I don't think I would find it as satisfying, but yeah, I feel like we're, we're helping them level up. And so outside of like running a charity or operating on sick kids or something like that, like it's, it's a pretty good, uh, outcome.

[Bill Kenney]

It's our version of the feel goods, right? Like we can never claim to be the we're here to do the best deed for the planet possible. Um, or we pass away type of vibe. Ours is very much that we serve our clients, but in doing so we are lifting them up and that is very rewarding. I one hundred percent agree.

Um, on the, what I find most enjoyable, it's interesting. I landed on this more recently coming out of a really challenging client meeting. Every now and again, there's, you know, there's these kind of like, uh, there's these moments in a project where things just really start to feel like they're unraveling.

And often when that's the case, I'm pulled into that meeting, not because I'm CEO and founder, but because I actually thrive in that environment. That's actually a great setting for me. Um, I'm a very good people person. I can read the room well. I can create a dialogue and empathize that kind of brings everybody back down and settled.

Right. But going into that meeting, I wouldn't say that like I was jacked up about it. Right? We'd all rather enter an easy meeting. Um, but when I came out of that, I was on such a high that I realized in that moment, Oh, you know what? I actually think this is part of the job that I love the most, even though it feels counterintuitive.

Because what I recognize is nine times out of 10 coming out of those meetings, We are in such a great spot and I feel so damn good about it. It feels like a little bit of a victory for the client and for us to be able to kind of turn the corner on those challenges.

What's better than that? What trophy is better than when you were an underdog and you were not supposed to come back

three games to 0, and all of a sudden you go on and win the championship and everybody celebrates. There's nothing better than that. Um, so although it wouldn't seem intuitive to say, that's what I find the most fun in projects.

It kind of is, and it's definitely the most rewarding for sure.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

All right, if I were going to go through an exercise that is very much what you do with somebody else though, yourself removed, what would you tell me is the most important thing I need to consider or do during that engagement?

[John Rougeux]

Be open to the fact that you probably have blind spots and that I'm going to point this out to you.

[Bill Kenney]

Love it. Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

That's not a hard thing to say sometimes, because oftentimes a client will say something to that effect, especially, uh, founders, but not exclusively founders, anyone who's been in the business for a long time, they'll say like, I can't see our business objectively anymore. It's so close to me that I can't really wrap my arms around it.

I can't separate myself from the situation and look at it dispassionately. Um, and so if that comes up, then I'm leaning into that and reinforcing how important that is. And again, how wise they are to think that. But if they haven't gone there, I need to point that out up front, because if I'm simply like just synthesizing what I hear on face value, but not probing, asking hard questions, sometimes adding my own opinion, which I usually try to save for the last, I'm really not doing them a service.

Um, and, and it's probably similar for you. Like so much of what you're doing is reframing and. Just like we as individuals, we go to people like, uh, therapists or friends, or, you know, I still ask my parents for their perspective sometimes because they can see things from an angle that I can't, uh, businesses are no different.

In fact, it's even harder because you've got multiple people, um, experiencing that collectively. So, you know, what's, what's, uh, what's your take?

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, the dispassionate word. I really like that. I think there is so much passion that these business founders, leaders, and c-suite have for the business that it can become very blinding.

Uh, it becomes protective of what's already there, where you're saying like, well, we don't have to throw it all out, but let's think more openly than that.

Uh, if I were gonna tell anybody what they need to do going into a brand project, if there was just one thing I could tell them is to make sure that they're not worried about their own subjective tastes.

That can become a really limiting factor. It's kind of, it's kind of in line with the blinders. It's kind of probably all bucketed into that same kind of realm of you have to be able to think about the customer first and what's going to appeal to them.

That can be very hard though. Very, very hard. And I get it. I even wrote about it in the book. Like when we went through our own rebrand four years ago, I was very clear with our team. Nothing is sacred. Throw it all out. I don't care. But then when it starts to happen now, there's the reality at play. Oh, geez, I don't think we should do that.

Well, why? I don't know. It just doesn't feel right to me. Okay. Those start to be like very subjective opinions, and those can be really challenging in a project. So as hard as it is to do, if you can try to remove subjectivity, It will make the project smoother and not that smooth as the goal. Very likely a better outcome too, right?

We would never want to land on a color or a shape or a style or a word because the founder is attracted to that as much as I say that though, that is part of the ingredients and you almost can't get around it.

[John Rougeux]

Yeah, it's, uh, something everyone can have an opinion on, but it doesn't mean they're right. It's the right opinion, or they're the right. They're the right perspective to offer that opinion.

[Bill Kenney]

The thing I’ve also realized too is that there are certain hills that I choose not to die on anymore. And I say, this isn't a positive thing, not in a waving the white flag. I give up for sure. Get whatever you want. I don't say it in that sense. I say it in the sense of if you're that passionate about it and you can bottle that passion and push it into your team, then that is the right decision.

As far as I'm concerned, right? You want to stay blue. And we're telling you that half the landscape is blue. And that's one way that you can start to differentiate. It's not the only way, and it's not the end all be all, but it would be worth considering a different color. No, we can't get off the color. I really like the color. Okay. Then you better own it then, right? Then own it. And if you own it, I'll carry the blue flag with you, but don't just say that, but not propel it forward too. So, you know, all these things become very nuanced.

But again, that's part of the job. Like you said, you don't take it lightly, right? That is a big part of the job to help people through that journey.

And if they are going to go in a certain direction, just tell them what that means and how you can support them. Not, well, that's wrong. You've made a bad decision.

[John Rougeux]

This is, um, in some ways why I think your work may be harder than mine. Because when I go through the process, by the time that I present the narrative, what I have done is I've, I think of it as assembling the narrative. So I'm gathering the ideas and locking down things we talked about earlier, like the problem, uh, ramifications of the problem, you know, why can't be solved and the team.

We land on these, uh, like concrete decisions, right? And then when we get to the narrative, it's more, I wouldn't say it's like a style exercise, it's, that's not doing it justice, but it's more about how I use the example of a trial lawyer all the time. You, you watch a good courtroom drama, uh, or movie and the trial lawyer.

Like they string together the information in such a way that it's To where you really can't see things in any other way.

So there's a sequencing choice and there's a, like a curation choice. Saying sometimes adding to the argument takes away from it. Um, so if, but if I've done my job and if the team has been open with me about sharing everything, then when they see the narrative, there shouldn't be surprises.

But it should feel like that, uh, sense of cohesion. And if they, if they want to unpack like the word choice, great word choice can make a big difference. It's not like it's a little bit less subjective unless they really hate my writing style, which is totally fair game. But, um, yeah.

[Bill Kenney]

Yeah, and then in our world, we are basically bridging off narrative, right? So then it starts to become visual, right? Where it becomes heavily subjective. So yes, I accept your thesis of our work might be harder on that front than yours. I think that's accurate purely from the visual perspective is just so easy to be subjective.

It just is. Oh no, we can't go with that color purple. That reminds me of, you know, something of my childhood, right? This stupid toy. And I can't unsee like childish activity with that color. Ooh, man, that's the crevice in the mountain, right? We need a ladder now. Time to get the ladder out. We got to climb over that thing.

Um, Yeah, but it's part of the game, right? We're here for it. I even told my team a couple of weeks ago, I said, listen, these challenges, I think year over year, we always try to find like, okay, what's the solution, right? We're always building process. We want to meet our clients where they are, but also like build process and structure that helps make these crevices smaller. Maybe in a hope that we could make them go away 14 years into business, they're not meant to go away.

They will never go away. That is actually part of the journey. Everest is not cool to climb if its incline is like this and there's nothing hard to do, right? Rebrands and the work that you're doing is that type of climb. It just is what it is. It's just our job to kind of maybe smooth those over and soften them as much as we can.

[John Rougeux]

And sometimes just going through that.

It’s like, in the future, maybe I'll come up with a better analogy. Every time you have a discussion like that, you're adding energy into the work. And, and there's this, uh, I'm not a psychologist, but there's this, uh, interesting dynamic that, you know, when you add more effort and energy into the thing, whatever it is, your sense of ownership increases, your desire to carry the work forward increases.

And so like, just the fact that you're debating it, you're spending energy, putting it into the project that assigns meaning to it over time. Now you can go too far, right? And you can drive a client crazy with 76 color revisions. I'm sure, or, you know, and like use all their energy, but the fact I'm, I'm trying to say what you're saying, but I think in another way.

Which is that if it was just a straightforward process where, you know, you took a bunch of boxes and we send something back to you and it's one and done something like that, if it's treated trivially, then it can be dismissed just as easily. So the work doesn't have the same, um, it doesn't have the potential of hitting the same value and impact.

[Bill Kenney]

Now I'm going to steal that back from you, sir. And use that in client meetings. Thanks. And remind them that in those moments of challenge or not feel frustration, but to feel that energy that is then fueling the thing that's going to be become more impactful, ownable, exciting, et cetera, because of that energy input, uh, you're right.

If it's just, Oh, this is great. This is great. Check the box. Check the box. It's still very surface level in every way. Yeah.

[John Rougeux]

It's almost like if my, um, I, I've tried to get my wife into formula one. Um, she, it's not going to happen.

[Bill Kenney]

He's giving up. You've given up.

[John Rougeux]

if I, I got my parents, my parents are bigger fans of it than me.

[Bill Kenney]

Wow. Congrats.

[John Rougeux]

Interestingly, but yeah, if I watch a race, and there's a driver and I know their backstory and I know all the, uh, trials and tribulations and victories they've gone through that I'm watching a much different race.

I've like poured energy and understanding into that story. But my wife watches the race. It's just some guy who cares. Sixth place, whatever for him. But I understand that like, oh, that's the best finish of his career. He had to overcome all these things. I don't know. I don't want to belabor the point, but the same principle I think applies.

[Bill Kenney]

I love the way you think, sir. Um. Well done. I'll just say that. I don't think you belabored it. I think you nailed it. All right, John. Why don't we get everybody up out of here, uh, for everybody listening. Definitely go follow John. Actually, John, why don't I pass the mic back to you?

Where should people go follow you?

[John Rougeux]

So I have a newsletter that I launched. I'm on issue four right now. It's going to come out in a couple of weeks. It's called The Narrative Field Guide. That's a great place to start because each issue I pick one brand and I unpack the history of the brand, but more importantly, why they got to a point where they are the only obvious choice in the minds of their buyers.

So it could be a product, strategy, messaging, point of view. Um, it's very tactical and we just focus on that one brand. So I would start there. If you want to talk, you can go to flagandfrontier.com and a way to, to book a call with me and, you know, LinkedIn is always an option as well.

[Bill Kenney]

I hope everybody listening and watching enjoyed that, John. I found that very insightful and enjoyable. I think it was a good look behind the curtain on what you do. Uh, how you bring value, what some of that process looks like and really getting to the intangibles, which I personally love, like the people side of these processes and helping our clients and all these things.

So props to you and what you're building over there and I'll see you on LinkedIn.

[John Rougeux]

All right. Thanks, Bill. I was looking forward to this conversation all week. So thanks for having me on.

[Bill Kenney]

Oh, awesome.

[John Rougeux]

I always enjoy podcasts, but this is one of the more enjoyable ones.

[Bill Kenney]

Hey, let's go. Let's go. All right, brother. Thank you.

[John Rougeux]

All right.