Macromashup_EP 06_Howard Belk

[00:00:00] This is crazy. People have been using the 1% wrap philosophy for decades, and they're presenting something as if it's a new and groundbreaking idea, when in fact, it's the same idea that most wealth managers are offering. First and foremost, you have to have an authentic offer. And the army does. Even in this world, facts matter and maybe more than ever, and real clarity about a value proposition and fidelity to that proposition is key.

And so when you say to your kids, when they ask you, what should I invest in? You're like your default. If you can't think of anything else, the Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF is very easy. We live in a very transparent, unforgiving world for brands that have reached. Pinnacle status. Um, they get enormous benefits from that, but they're also held to extremely high standards.

The human element is really important as a filter [00:01:00] and also as a reassurance factor. The sort of sales process has gone from the sales funnel, which is quite linear and prescriptive. To what I like to call is the sales whirlwind. It's a wild west out there, which makes consistency difficult to achieve, but of paramount importance because inconsistency leads to trust breakdowns.

Welcome to the MacroMashup Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Winward. This podcast is sponsored by Dakota Ridge Capital, your energy investments partner, helping developers partner with family offices, banks, and corporations to make smart, clean energy deals and maximize government tax incentives. 

Howard. So welcome to Macromashup.

Nice to be here. This is our second go at this. And for those who are super interested, there's gonna be a bonus feature at the end of this, which is a link to a previous conversation that Howard and I had, which goes much more into the detail of branding.

So I'll put that in the show notes at the end. [00:02:00] But today wanted to get to is really how you bring the sort of simplicity and clarity that you have brought to iconic projects such as rebranding the US Army to help people understand some things about finance and macro economics.

When I look at the world of financial and economic, advertising and branding I think there's a tension because a lot of the stuff that's put out there is complex. And so you have to navigate between, persuading people that you're not pulling the wool over their eyes by making something appear simpler than intuitively they think it probably is.

And at the same time, making it clear enough and simple enough that they can digest it, understand it, and act on it. So from the world of branding and that sort of world of messaging, how do you think that should be [00:03:00] approached? The finance world and a lot of the tools and instruments and processes, et cetera, are by their very nature complex.

So that's what you're battling or any company that's trying to communicate with customers or clients or prospects is battling. So what's the key? The key is language, and. To stay away from jargon and, impenetrable terms and try to help people understand, what's being discussed right there and what the implications and what the levers are, Clarity becomes really paramount when discussing complicated. Topics, and certainly finance is one, healthcare is one, and insurance is one. And so I think that's it. And I guess what I'd add is, intent to be clear about as a speaker, as a communicator, what it is that you're trying to.

Accomplish, in that conversation or exchange, you're trying to help people make a decision that is going to impact some part of their life. They need to have the facts, you're trying to [00:04:00] present them. So great clarity about what you're trying to do, and the language you use is really important.

Yea,h certainly we definitely have a bit of a trust deficit. There's one I wouldn't necessarily bring up their name, but there's one that's pretty well known. Wealth manager, asset management group that is constantly on Bloomberg, which is what I watch most of the time. And they bring this idea that we only benefit if you benefit.

This is crazy. People have been using the 1% wrap philosophy for decades, probably, and they're presenting something as if it's a new and groundbreaking idea when, in fact, it's the same idea that most wealth managers are offering. So it is, that's to me a great example.

They have a massive campaign, right? It sounds really good. But the core of it, the message is more, which you're like, huh, of course. Doesn't everybody do [00:05:00] that? So it just amazes me that a well-resourced group can bring a campaign like that, which to anybody who is really. Informed about the whole world of wealth management seems completely simplistic.

And so that doesn't, for me, build trust. It actually makes me want to run away. If you get it just a little bit, often it doesn't sound right. Then it sends people running. I'm sure they've monitored that campaign, and you probably know who I'm speaking about, but it seems to me a very delicate balance.

I think we can safely assume they've researched the heck out of that campaign, and the people they're trying to reach, which may not be you. I think probably what that research showed, and it confirms, research we've conducted for our financial services clients, is that people need to be reassured about that very thing. I think a lot of people go in thinking, is this firm going to profit? They're a profit [00:06:00] oriented business.

Is their profit going to come at my expense? And, yes, that's a concern that's been around for a century or more, but that doesn't mean it's not real and people don't need to be reassured. And that, and probably because there are some firms out there where that's not number one on their list, their clients' success.

Okay. No, fair enough.

So you mentioned jargon. Jargon is something you have to avoid, and you rebranded the Army to an audience, which is a very skeptical generation. And what advice would you give even to firms like, our De Dakota raised capital in how you build trust with modern, skeptical.

People who have consumed social media in all its forms all their lives. How do you get through to and bring authenticity to that audience? [00:07:00] First and foremost, you have to have an authentic offer. And the Army does. Even in this world, facts matter and maybe more than ever.

And real clarity about a value proposition and fidelity, to that proposition is key. So in a case like the United States Army for young people, for a lot of young people today, not for all but for millions, they have a genuine, unique, and compelling value proposition about training careers.

Community purpose, a personal identity a lifetime sinecure if you put in the years. That's a real offer; that is an uncommon offer. To make sure you've got the building blocks for something that are real. And then to convey that in really compelling terms and in ways that people can see a future for themselves, in the case of the Army with that [00:08:00] organization.

So that's really key for firms that don't have the goods. Then they have another problem. How are they gonna, one is can they, go back to the drawing board and ensure they have something really valuable and unique to offer, and then to figure out how do we talk about that?

How do we convey that, and how do we ensure that we deliver it in a really consistent way? So with the Army. They are offering young people identity and purpose. You're part of an organization that's older than our country, by the way. The United States Army was formed.

Before we were free. Before the revolution was successful. So you've got that, you've got a chance to learn and advance in a really structured, merit-based way. You've got economic stability, now and possibly in the future. There's a lot there.

And then if that can be conveyed in a way that touches on people's emotions like we did with the [00:09:00] United States Army and all those campaigns and that shows up in their lives then you've got something powerful. For a, an outfit or affirm in any domain to try to think about those things will really help them with their brand.

Yeah. And the Army's a really interesting one because there's a lot of publicity at the moment around a part of the DOD, which is called the Defense Innovation Unit, which a good friend of ours is part of, but it was something that was started by Ash Carter. And it was really focused on bringing technology into the army.

And it used to be the case that places like DARPA would push out technology to the private sector, but this is really partnering up with Silicon Valley to bring, and just as a very simple example, which you can see being. Compelling for young people is they developed a concept, and it was that the idea was that they would make VC [00:10:00] investments and work with firms to develop things quickly, rather than using the defense primes, where it took years to work with those contractors.

So they figured out that they needed to have. A way where if a SEAL team, for example, was going to go into a building, they could know what they had in advance. So they developed these little tiny drones that could go into the building, look around with cameras, and show them what was there.

And instantly save lives in. Yeah. And so the bringing technology into the army like that is such a, the Army is working with Silicon Valley to bring the best resources that it can possibly bring so that you can be the best you can be, et cetera.

You know that sort of partnership, and that offer is super compelling for sure. Yeah. And the, “be all you can be”, which is the sort of line that the Army is has revived, it just in the past, two [00:11:00] years that's a really powerful and true call to arms, in their case.

yeah, they've got a lot of things going for them right now. You've worked with a lot of. Big brands that are great at doing what they do, brands like Amazon and Google. Can you think of any finance brands that are doing a really good job?

I know we have the US Open going on at the moment, so that's obviously a big brand shout-out for JP Morgan. But are there any others that come to mind? One that I think does a really good job is Vanguard, and why do they do that?

Because it goes back to where we started the conversation about clarity and simplicity and putting clients first, which Vanguard has done with their low fees and their very accessible products, and their consistency over time. They were leaders really, in fund investment.

They had an iconic founder who became a sort of brand himself. And I don't think that they've [00:12:00] ever really strayed in a negative way from their essential promise about delivering financial security in the simplest, clearest. Safest way, so I think everything around that brand is really well done.

So I think that's a terrific brand. I think it's a pair that goes with a great product, which is the ETF product, yeah. The sort of trend away from mutual funds, which I think lost a little bit of their sizzle when you started looking at some of the flexibility and the tax implications, and then ETFs came along.

And so when you say to your kids, when they ask you what should I invest in? You're like your default, if you can't think of anything else, Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. Very easy. And so that name, it's almost like the word Google became a verb, 

That's a brand success indicator. And I think Vanguard has done a great job. Are there any that you can think of which have really blown it and had an 00:13:00] advantage and then gave it away? I'm not sure. I think one that's that may be struggling a little bit now, but we'll get it back together, but certainly got off to a great start was Robinhood, which was really an integrated experience, simplicity at the core of the user experience at the core.

Also, great clarity about who they were there for, investing for everyone. They made. Complex things are simple. So I think that they they as on a much different scale than Vanguard has done quite a good job. Yeah, no, I think Robinhood has, I think you're exactly right.

They, I think they got a little bit lost in the meme craze, that was not the idea that the gamification of investing and putting it on a par with sports betting and so forth, I think has a, that whole narrative is a very dangerous one because, we have the football season, starting tonight, and then you'll see all of the ads for [00:14:00] FanDuel and for parlays and I think that whole narrative around.

People do not feel that there's a way for them to succeed, so they have to put everything on black and roll the dice. And that Robinhood somehow, along with FanDuel, is empowering that kind of behavior is not a positive for the brand, right? No, exactly. They seem to be straying away from some founding principles.

Right now. So it'll be interesting to see how that unfolds over the next year or two. It's incredibly hard to maintain trust and also tell a compelling story, which is a hard thing for financial brands for sure, 'cause it is a super high trust industry. And if you for one minute forfeit that trust, then. You're done.

Back to that proposition of putting clients first, isn't that in a way the core of every financial services firm's promise? And for example, here's one that sort of stumbled [00:15:00] in an interesting way, is Goldman Sachs, where, they had a whole run of events where you really question whether they were putting clients first, whether they put themselves first and they had people going to prison and, involvement in the Malaysian fund disaster, But even some other things where, I guess it's difficult for them when they're trading.

Their own book as well as the client's book, and they try to keep the sort of the walls in place between those groups. But it seemed like those walls had a few breakdowns, from time to time. And I think that really tarnished their brand from where it was, call it, 15 years ago, where they were really the, undeniable gold standard of conduct.

On Wall Street, certainly amongst the consumer class, so yeah, I think that's fair. And I think comparing that to the arc of the JP Morgan brand, just for example. To come back to that, it's on my mind because we're watching it on the screens of the US Open.

But one of the [00:16:00] things that you see very prominently on the court when you look at any game is for 75 years, breaking. The glass ceiling, equal compensation for both sides of the draw, the men and the women. But just in terms of the financial brand, you think how far that has come over that same period when Goldman Sachs may have lost its top billing.

How do you do that? How do you make that kind of progress and cement that position? For full disclosure, JP Morgan is a client of ours. I'm a huge fan of them. But I think consistency is one of their virtues and strengths, and I think they also put their money where their mouth is.

They're back. Women entrepreneurs and make a real concerted effort to be even-handed in their business activities. And I also think they benefit from Jamie Diamond that, and who's a brand on two, him himself. [00:17:00] And he's like Warren Buffett, like in a sense, just so hugely respected with impeccable credentials and unassailable integrity.

Real savvy. And I think he does a very good job of leading that bank and putting the bank and their shareholders and stakeholders first, but also clients first. I never get the sense that Jamie Diamond and, in terms of what he's looking for from that bank.

It isn't putting both the bank and clients on equal footing. I, that's just my sense. And so I think that's been really helpful for that brand with certain communities. And then they are also vertically integrated in terms of having a huge consumer business as well as an institutional business.

They just have a lot of things going for them, and they seem to deliver. With integrity, on all fronts. And they've managed to ride both of those brands, right? The JP Morgan and Chase that sort of whole stack of consumer to [00:18:00] institutional.

They've managed to do that. So that's the challenge is to is to, to ensure that in communications to each of those different groups that have very different sorts of objectives, and business needs to be extremely clear about the. The different parts of the bank and thus the brand, that's what we try to help them with is to be really clear from an audience standpoint, but there are some universal operating principles and values.

Yeah. And in terms of that, I think that's a sort of a great example of how a brand has done it well. How do you identify the cracks? When something starts to weaken, when something starts to lose its footing, what are the signs that things are just not going right for a financial brand like Robinhood or Goldman Sachs?

It'll show up. one is it'll show up in the business in terms of what's happening with, acquiring new clients and maintaining customer loyalty. [00:19:00] And you'll also see it in media sentiment. we live in a very transparent and unforgiving world for brands that have reached, pinnacle status.

They get enormous benefits from that, but they're also held to extremely high standards. And we live in a world, for better or worse, where it seems like there's a lot of players that like to tear down leaders too. It becomes pretty evident when an organization is straying from professed values 

Through those different kind of metrics or a dashboard that's comprised of those different things. We have Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn X. You have, your the various channels such as Bloomberg and, CNBC. Are there, do you have to succeed across all of those platforms?

Do you have to, avoid some and if you have to avoid some, how do you choose and if you have to ride them all, how [00:20:00] do you tailor your message to each one to make it compelling on each of those channels? I don't think, any brand has to be on every single platform. They should decide.

On that based on their audiences, because that's why they're there. They're trying to reach certain segments with certain messages and hopefully persuade them to do specific things. You really, you know what brands do is take a look at who's on those platforms. are they the people I wanna reach?

And by the way, what other companies or organizations are on those platforms too, and do I want to be in their company? That's one of the primary considerations. And then secondly is how am I going to deliver my content? What's the form factor for the IP that I'm sharing that helps people understand. My organization, what we have to offer, how it's different, how it's unique, and how it's gonna benefit them. And the form factors can vary a lot. It can be, quick spots. It can be [00:21:00] testimonials, it can be influencers, it can be lengthier, sort of white papers and content like that. It may require in-person interactions.

It could be product demos. there's a lot of media and moments out there that vary, enormously in terms of what happens there and are they, real world things or are they, digital or virtual? And so it's putting together a strategy that says, look, here's how my customers make decisions.

Here's how they are reached, here's where they are influenced. And then in a really coordinated way. Put together a plan that puts you in the right places at the right times. I definitely use, and I'm sure you do different platforms for different reasons some for educational content, some for, information.

And I know a lot of the, a lot of the channels are. Using AI tools in composing the content and sifting through the content and segmenting their audiences. And I [00:22:00] know that you are, you're passionate about the fact that the loss of human content and oversight is a big negative.

How do you maximize and optimize the use of those tools at the same time, keeping that essential human component in there? That's such an interesting question, and particularly in this world of AI that is really phenomenal and is changing so many different things, and at the same time it's.

It can get generic in a way. So the human element in a way, becomes even more important in this world. Where content is created on AI distributed optimized, whatever harmonized, and of course, it's drawing on existing content, because they're, llm.

So by their very nature, they're not original except in how they're put together. The human element is really important as a filter and also as a reassurance factor. The world of communicating with [00:23:00] people and selling, if that's what you're doing, has changed so radically because the places and times and moments and platforms where people can be exposed to a brand or an offer have changed so much, and they've gone non-linear, as it were.

You and I have talked about this, my metaphor for. The sort of sales process has gone from the sales funnel, which is quite linear and prescriptive to what I like to call, is the sales whirlwind, where somebody is going through their life at home, at work, on their way from one place to another and engaging with media of all kinds.

And so at any moment, they can. Receive an offer or they can learn something or they can, be influenced. And so for brands it's really important to understand that and to put together a set of assets and messages that can be delivered in all these places and realize that they will be, and the people that influence a purchase decision.

[00:24:00] Ha has really increased and that's true. And for consumer products and B2B products too. it's a wild west out there. Which makes consistency difficult, to achieve. But of paramount importance because inconsistency leads to trust breakdowns.

I heard this over here and I saw that over here, and they're radically different. I'm not even sure they're coming from the same company. What kind of company is that? So to build trust. That kind of consistency across all those form factors is very important. one of the most conspicuous examples to me, and it's very current, is the discussion of climate. The DOE recently brought out a climate report, to get the discussion level set and it said, roughly speaking, CO2 isn't as bad as people think. It's a great contributor to the growing of plant life on the planet.

And there's all these advantages and some of the models we've been using. Not as precise as we think, and it was, put out there for commentary and boy did it get the commentary. Now we have the usual [00:25:00] talking heads coming on media saying, this is a ridiculous report. It's completely at odds with all climate science and you have respectable people to the average person who's consuming this lining up on both sides and saying, who do I believe?

But both appear to have compelling arguments. Who do I believe? And it's the same in finance, it's the same in investing. Do I believe the macro? Am I a stock picker? What do I think? Should interest rates be lower, higher? Should the, should the administration, the treasury, and the Fed be more aligned?

Should they be independent or separate? And people are looking at this and they're like, how on earth am I supposed to sort through? All of this and come to a viewpoint that has any chance of being close to and how do I even know what right is? So it is a whirlwind of confusing messaging. what are the key elements that people use to decide what they're going to believe?

Gosh, Neil, it's, we're in such a wild moment, [00:26:00] and I'm not quite sure because it takes a lot of work on the part of people that are trying to parse through everything they hear, looking at the different voices and points of view and trying to understand motivations.

So the CO2 argument, where I go to was, that's obviously advancing an agenda for a particular industry group. And I recall that President Trump sat down in front of those groups and said, give me a billion dollars and I'll change the laws and I'll shut down.

The competing industries for your market and basically offered up a quid pro quo and now suddenly, all of this stuff is happening. So that's one way to look at all that is that there was a transaction. And that's now we're seeing the fruits of that.

So what, where do you start, is the motivation, there's. I'm not sure. It's tough and no it's, we all bring a point of view to it, but I know what I saw and I know what I, I know what I heard and then now I'm seeing [00:27:00] what happens, whether it's that or other things. When accepted wisdom and where there's been decades and decades of science that confirm it from a lot of different sources are suddenly upended. That's where it's possible that's something that should have happened, but it's also possible today.

And we're seeing it where there are different factions with their own agendas and they're doing whatever they take to bring them to reality. Onerous burden on people trying to figure out what's the right answer here. No it's super hard because it's just as in, we've been talking about trust in financial advertising and financial media, and investment advertising, politics is all about trust as well.

Who do you trust? And I think. When you get to a point where you're like I don't think I can trust anyone, then you know that's a really tough place to be in because it's very disorienting, and I think there's a lot of disorienting going on in the world of branding, in the world of investing.

Purposeful [00:28:00] too. Where we started too, when you're saying, okay. There's so much complexity in the financial services world, right? And you've got all these pundits speaking, et cetera, about it on different platforms.

What do you make of all that complexity? And is it being weaponized? Are there people using it for, using it for its own sake to achieve some other end? And I would say in some cases, yes. So if you go back to where we started on complexity and financial media, you've got the media companies or broadcasters or personalities that, in some cases, they've got realities that can lead to unintended complexity. For example, they're on deadlines. They have to move fast. There's a breaking story. They've got a limited amount of time in that particular broadcast, so they have to race through something. You're going to get more jargon and shorthand in a situation like that.

And it's not intentional. But on the flip side, there's also an [00:29:00] entertainment aspect to what they're doing and drama and confusion and those kind of things. They are sticky by their very nature. People are glued to them to figure out, okay, what's happening right here? Is it risky?

Am I at risk? And so that all that drama serves their end of viewership. So there's both deliberate and structural confusion happening out there, and it probably holds true for a lot of domains. Yeah. No, I agree. It's challenging. And I think the core messages of trust, authenticity, and clarity.

Those can be weaponized, right? People can weaponize clarity, and they're trying to create doubt to, enhance their own position, correct. As the soothsayer, the oracle, the gatekeeper, so that's in a sense how it can be used, in a very purposeful way to keep people confused.

So they have to come back for 00:30:00] some moment of clarity. I try a lot of the time, a lot of the content that I put out there to help people understand some of the themes going on in the world of macroeconomics, which I know, you've consumed.

It's a real challenge to sift through, make something relevant, make it clear, give people a perspective that isn't just loaded from one point of view. It's a hard path to follow. I actually I listened to your broadcast and read your blogs.

I think you're actually trying to demystify things, which is really important. To me, it builds trust, so I really trust your point of view. Some people don't want to; they wanna mystify it still. No, I agree. So they're the only ones that can explain it for you.

Yeah. But even in so doing, they'll leave a few tangles in there, so you have to come back. Some stuff is complicated, like macroeconomics and the different. Domains that contribute, whether it's energy, transportation, manufacturing, defense, all those kinds of things. But to make sense of that and then to say, okay, and here's the implications from an investment [00:31:00] perspective, that's a really valuable exercise.

I love listening to the way you articulate. Brands, and in particular, as it relates to the world of finance. So I would urge anybody who's.

Tired of the BS and like looking to get some insights about clarity. Definitely to, check you out and your work out at Siegel and Gale, to go to the bonus content I mentioned at the start. And you've helped some of the biggest brands in the world to succeed and to continue to succeed.

For those who want to dig deeper and get to know her a little better, which I recommend, having known him for a long time. Siegel and Gale is a place to find him. There's some great content and insights there, and if you enjoy this episode. Hit the subscribe button, and you can see more.

And Howard, until I see you again, good luck with the rest of the week, and we'll be in touch. Thank you for coming on as a guest to Macromashup. Thanks Neil. I really enjoyed it. [00:32:00] I always enjoy our conversations. Take care. Bye-bye Howard. Bye.

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