Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you today. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Chirag Speaks, Mr. Chirag Nijjer. How are you, man?

Chirag Nijjer: I’m feeling good. I’m feeling really, really good. You know. Excited about this for sure.

Stone Payton: Well, it is an absolute delight to have you on the program. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I’ve got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think maybe a great place to start is if you could paint a bit of a picture for me and our listeners. Mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks? Man.

Chirag Nijjer: Absolutely, absolutely. So I think, Stone, the most important detail I tell people about my life is I grew up at a small business family. Uh, and literally I grew up we used to have clothing stores in Manhattan before the oh eight crisis. Um, and I grew up my crib was at the store. My first toy was my dad’s old, uh, credit card machine. I always tell people I learned, like, I could run your credit before I even knew my ABCs type of upbringing. Um, and that was absolutely a beautiful sort of upbringing. But, uh, at the same time, as much as I was learning skills like public speaking, interacting, selling with people at the same time, I was really starkly aware that at the end of the month, there was this thing called the rent payment. Uh, and for some reason, all the adults were freaking out about this thing. And we used to be across the street from things like Modell’s, McDonald’s, like all these big brands. And it always used to strike me a little weird as to like, why did they have lines? But we don’t. Um, and so this was something I kind of consciously sort of played around with, tinkered around. And I always tell people there was a story. Uh, my dad at one point says, hey, let’s put a bunch of jackets outside on a rack on the street itself. Um, and, uh, let’s advertise them for $99 instead of 100. And I’m sitting there going, but you’re going to lose a dollar, like, what’s the sense here? And he goes, oh, like, it’s, it’s a, it attracts people, right.

Chirag Nijjer: Of 99 feels a lot less than 100 I’m looking at I’m like, you’re crazy. I’m like at this point maybe eight, nine years old. I’m like, this is wild. Whatever. Um, but it does work. And so that became my first sort of introduction to the world of marketing and branding. Later on, many years later, my research finding out that actually psychologically little pricing tactics like that do work. But I became fascinated. You know how some people collect Snapple caps to learn the little facts and tricks? Yeah, yeah. Um, I collect marketing and brand strategy, little facts and tips. Right. Um, and so that became my first sort of excitement into this. And so when you say my mission and my vision many years later, now for the past eight years, uh, I’ve been on this a massive sort of research project, working with some of the world’s largest corporations down to mom and pop shops to understand, like, can we distill marketing strategy into simple, accessible tidbits that are actionable? And that’s what I’ve been doing. So my when you say what my mission is or what are the team’s mission is we want to make brand strategy more accessible, right? I want to teach you how to use your brand stories to develop intentional and actionable strategies. Most importantly, simple language. Man, I want to get you out of chaos that me and my family faced every single day and get you into actions. You feel a little more confident in what you’re doing. I’m going to pause there for a quick moment.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like incredibly rewarding work, and it sounds like you’ve been at it for a while. What are you enjoying the most at this point, man? What’s the most fun about it for you?

Chirag Nijjer: Oh man, I tell people, Stone, there is no better feeling than so I in my process, right? I get the chance to be able to speak on some amazing stages, right? Whether that’s colleges, conferences and all. Um, and I tell people there’s no better feeling than when I’m on stage and sort of explaining one of these concepts, going, hey, look like breaking down, I don’t know. So four P’s of marketing or the eight of marketing funnel. Uh, and as I’m saying this, you see someone in the crowd just sit there and go, okay, okay. Oh, and when you see that little oh that happens. Oh, man. Stone, that is perhaps one of the most the I tell people there’s no high like it. Right. It’s a completely exciting but more sort of on the ground is when people show, uh, come up and say things like, hey, I’ve been in like there was one person I was working with. She’s been in business for about ten years now. Um, she used to be in, uh, an executive at some fortune 500 company, quit, started her own business, ran it for ten years. She comes in and she goes, hey, despite everything and having even gotten an MBA, this, like, the thing you were talking about never had really made sense the way that when you said it did and it clicked for me, and I think that’s I wear that with a badge of honor, right. And being able to make these seemingly complex things into simple, uh, strategies.

Stone Payton: So let’s dive into the work for a moment. And in a moment I’d like to talk about, you know, the engagement cycle when you’re actually, you know, sleeves rolled up and hands on helping people. But I’m kind of fascinated by people who make a career or a large part of their career. Uh, in the, in the speaking, what is it like to be a professional speaker? Because I would think. That some people would find that nerve wracking.

Chirag Nijjer: Stone I’m a middle child. I’m a middle child. I love the attention. Uh, it’s what I tell people, right? I mean, I joke, um, so I think, uh, quite frankly, people ask all the time, right? You’re not the first person who have asked about, uh, the public speaking side. It’s like, oh, how do you prep for it? And I wish I could sit here and tell you. Yeah. I was born with this unnatural skill of being able to speak to a crowd. But at the end of the day, like any other skill, it’s practice. Practice. Like I want you to imagine from a very, very young age. I’m talking my parents waited 30 days for my immune system to built up, and they had me on the train going into the stores right there, a very young age, anytime a customer walked in, hey, go talk to that customer. Hey, go interact. Right? My parents were very, very deliberate. They did not want a shy kid in any way. Um, and so over the years, that skill builds up of being able to speak publicly. And as far as doing it as a, uh, as a career or as a sort of a life thing is. At a certain point, you fall in love with it, right? You fall in love with this ability, especially when you have a message the way that I do.

Chirag Nijjer: Right? Um, what I have developed over time, and I think what we’ll get a chance to talk about is the Brand Clarity framework. And it’s over the last, I mean, almost a decade of research, being able to distill it down into basic core concepts, a framework that you follow to go from chaos to action with your marketing. And when you have a message like that, at that point you’re like, hey, I want to scream this from the rooftops. One of the best ways to be able to do this is, sure, I can put a ton of videos out there. I could write a book. One of the most fulfilling, meaningful ways to do this is being able to hop on stage, be able to look the crowd in the eyes, and actually be able to share a message to a mass audience. Um, once I’m all I’m doing is just talking. I’m having multiple conversations at once. And as someone who loves the attention as a middle child and is super energetic, to me that’s one of the best feelings in the world.

Stone Payton: Now to some of these folks in the audience also end up being clients and utilizing you in a consulting fashion. Yeah.

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah. No, no. Absolutely, absolutely. I think it is. Uh, so one thing I can sort of backtrack here is, uh, the speaking is also actually what I can call sort of my 5 to 9. Right. Uh, during my 9 to 5, I’m actually fortunate to work in the tech world. Uh, I work with, uh, over at Google as a platinum customer success lead. I get to.

Stone Payton: Work. Google. I’ve heard of them.

Chirag Nijjer: You may have heard of. Yeah. Uh, one thing to make very clear. Google and the speaking Chirag speaks are completely separated, right? There’s no affiliation. And all I do track speak sort of on my as I tell people, my 9 to 5 over at Google, 5 to 9 marketing speaker. Um, but uh, there I get to work with some of the world’s largest advertisers on a roll. That’s almost proactive problem solving, crisis management, um, which has been an amazing experience in itself. And then the speaking side, yes, it does turn into I mean, that’s kind of the goal, right? I want people to reach out. I want people to hear the messaging. So things will talk about things like, how do you break your marketing into stages. Right. Um, and if we have the time I can give an example of someone. Yeah. So for example, I was talking to someone who, um, she was complaining about the fact that her marketing, she was doing a bunch of stuff on social media, but it didn’t seem to be converting into sales. Right. And typically we tend to see this a lot, right? People view their marketing as this holistic, huge journey and it’s like, oh, I’m going to fix my marketing. And it’s like, that’s like saying you’re going to boil the ocean, right? Let’s break it down into stages. People saw your video, they saw your page. They looked on your link. They went on the home page. They went on the product page they want to check out. They bought the item.

Chirag Nijjer: Very simple. That’s seven steps someone’s taking. Let’s break down each one of those steps. Let’s ask ourselves what questions are they asking of you at every step. Because the basis of marketing, and this is one of my core theories, uh, the brand curiosity theory, which is that oftentimes marketing is just people asking you questions and you effectively answering them, but answering them in a way where you’re not only answering their question, but then guiding them to the next question. Right? So it’s like, what are they like? For example, if you would ask me, hey, Chirag, who are or if you were to say, hey, who are you? I’m never just going to say I’m Chirag. I’m going to say, hey, I’m Chirag, I’m the speaker, I’m Chirag, I work in tech. I answered your question, but I made it easier for you to ask me the next one. Oh, cool. In tech, where do you work? Oh, cool. You’re a speaker. What do you speak about similarly in your marketing? Let’s break down each little stage as figure out what questions are asking, and then guide them through those stages until we find what stage we’re losing them at. And in this person’s case, we found that her home page, large number of people were coming over from Instagram and TikTok and all these other platforms. They would get to the home page and we would lose like 80 or 90% of them. Okay, cool. Let’s let’s fix this home page. Let’s add a couple things onto it.

Chirag Nijjer: Let’s remove a couple things, test it out. Nothing was really working. And I said, why don’t we just get rid of the home page? Take everyone that comes to social media directly onto the product page. Uh, sales suddenly skyrocket, right? And we realized that it’s because for a lot of people, they were seeing content on social media of her product in action. So they were already bought on. They were already sold. They just wanted to be able to go buy it and get out of the way. And then when we were able to look at their marketing and the stage basis, that’s when we were able to realize, okay, cool, let’s get rid of this step. And it worked out for her. But that’s sort of the type of work that I get the pleasure of being able to do with people where it’s they come and hear me speak about sort of these work, uh, this way of looking at marketing and branding, stage based questions based, uh, and then oftentimes the work I get to do with them then is like, once their eyes have been opened, then they’re sitting there going, okay, cool, how do I apply this? And we get to go nitty gritty, like, let’s take a look at exactly what’s happening. Let’s, let’s apply some of those quick fixes where we can um, and that’s, it’s, it’s super fun and fulfilling. Right. It’s not this long thought out, you know, 20 year plan. It’s the hey, how how can we be actionable now?

Stone Payton: I gotta believe in that kind of work. You must see some consistent patterns evolve in a lot of your work. See some of the same, I don’t know, uh, misconceptions, common mistakes. Do you run into some of the same things and you’re like, you’re not surprised. You’re like, yep. I thought we’d probably run into these four things. Are there some common mistakes that you see over and over.

Chirag Nijjer: Over and over, over and over. Right. Um, so one of the I think the most prevalent, right, is this assumption that people know our brands the way we know our brands. Right. Um, and so one of the theories that I’ve developed over time is something called the brand echo theory. Right? And it argues, again, we’re simplifying marketing and branding. So it’s not going to cover everything. But the most simplest form, it’s arguing that your brand is essentially just a series or collection of words and terms that you want people to use about. You say when you’re not in the room, and your marketing is just finding unique ways to remind them, right? So let’s take a look at a couple examples here. Um, Heinz, are you familiar with Heinz, the ketchup company?

Stone Payton: Yes, sir.

Chirag Nijjer: Yes. So, Heinz, they have three words they care really deeply about. Red slow 57. A very specific shade of red means that ketchup is high quality. Slow means it’s coming out of the bottle and it’s very thick. So it’s a high quality. And, uh, 57 is they just have that number of 57 variants, right. Or varieties. Now their marketing is usually just reminding you of those three words over and over again. Right. So for example, they came out with a puzzle set that was 570 pieces, all red, slow red 57. They partner up with a company like Waze, the navigation app. Are you familiar with them? Yes. Yeah. Uh, over in Canada, uh, if you were traveling at a very slow speed that matched around the speed, by the way, they have a very specific number at which the like a speed at which the ketchup should come out of the bottle. But if you were driving around that speed and your traffic was, uh, you know, when it turns red in Waze, when there’s a lot of traffic, again, red slow, they partnered up to give you a coupon. Right? And when you start looking at some of these larger corporations, you realize that marketing what I’ve often found, right, with some of these bigger businesses is you ask them, hey, what’s your brand? Right? Like, what do you want to be known for? They go on this huge sort of 2020 five minute rant, right, of like, oh, this is where I started.

Chirag Nijjer: This is where I want to go, this is what’s going on, blah, blah, blah. And the assumption often, and the frustration that they’ll feel is when people don’t remember all that stuff. And you have to realize that when you’re not in the room and someone asks me about your brand or what your product is, you’re competing against millions of other thoughts. I’m having my biases, my mood that day, my memory. And so either you can rely on me to remember everything you’ve said or. And this is where the brand echo theory of mind comes into practice is you can select 4 or 5 words that you care the most about and consistently just drill them into me over and over and over again so that by the point that someone asks me, hey, who are you? Or like, what is this brand about? I’m simply echoing back the words that you gave me. And, uh, I can give one last example and I’ll stop here is, uh, there was a brand that was working with me, and, uh, they do a ton of pop ups and they go, that’s a clothing brand, small brand that just started off. And I go, okay, cool. What are your brands? And they’re like, hey, we want to feel homey, right? We want to feel outdoorsy, right? It’s almost like a log cabin that you know, that your family is sitting in with you, right? And I go, okay, cool.

Chirag Nijjer: What are you doing for that? And he goes, oh, well, we kind of say that it’s on our website, it’s on the tags. And I was like, yeah, but that’s just words sitting there. I go, well, next time you do a pop up, why don’t you go get a bunch of Febreeze bottles? And, you know, Febreeze always has those unique flavor, uh, that flavor scents like a campfire or a log, uh, house smell or outdoors, like camping smell that they have wxyt-am you have your pop up spray, a little bit of that in the area every now and then. So when people are coming by, they’re also smelling the very words that you want them to use. When you ask me what the misconception is, is that I think people assume that marketing and branding is this big. Like, let me toss a couple of words out there and it’s feelings and it’s emotions. It’s it’s a science. It’s time you take tiny little bricks, stack them up, and eventually you have yourself a marketing and brand strategy. It’s not very complex. It’s just intentional. Pausing there.

Stone Payton: Two quick observations. One, my wife absolutely will not purchase any brand of ketchup other than Heinz. There you go.

Chirag Nijjer: And they know. And they know it and they know it.

Stone Payton: Maybe we all know why. Uh, and I really do believe you are so quickly demonstrating right here live you living into your brand, because that was incredibly helpful for me to think of branding, uh, as what I want people to say about the Business RadioX network when I’m not in the room. So, uh, that was very helpful right there. And I may very well steal it. And trying to help some of my clients.

Chirag Nijjer: Uh, but by all means, steal pride. In fact, Stone, connect with me. Afterwards, I’ll send over some materials for you to use. Man. Well, I I’m telling you, it was. Oh, sorry. Sorry I cut you off there.

Stone Payton: I’m just saying that I sincerely appreciate it. And I’ll take all the help I can get, man.

Chirag Nijjer: Of course, of course, man. Look, Stone, I grew up, like I said, small business, low income family. Right. Uh, when things were tough, right. There wasn’t much for us to do. I couldn’t go out. We couldn’t get out. Consultants. We couldn’t go out and buy the newest business books. We couldn’t go out and, uh, get an MBA or anything like that. Right? The only thing I had at my disposal was a really old, horribly slow, uh, this is really, really old. Like, I think gateway or HP computer that by that point was already a decade old. Right. So you could just imagine how old this thing was. Um, and, uh, it barely worked. But the one thing it could do and horrible internet also is I could go on Google and I could search up a bunch of things. I couldn’t load videos, but I could load most web pages. Right. Um, and so a lot of this stuff was just me asking questions into Google to see what was going to pop up. Um, and sometimes I found nice, you know, tidbits of what people shared, but oftentimes it was paywalls. Hey, pay to get access to this.

Chirag Nijjer: Buy this book by this consultant. So a lot of the vision or the mission that we’ve had over the last couple of years is can I learn as much as I possibly can now that I’m fortunate enough to have access to these spaces and these resources and then share them with people who need them the most? Let’s be frank, corporations, large corporations don’t necessarily need a very small, systematic approach, right? They operate in massive scale. Um, but all of this business, academia and information that’s existed for decades never makes its way down to the mom and pop shops that desperately need simplicity, especially in a world where we’re being told you need to be on every single platform, on every new thing, and you need to be producing content and information every minute. Otherwise you’re not going to be relevant. It’s like, no, you just need to be intentional. So please don’t. When you say that you’re going to take it and run with it, just don’t hit me up. I will send you resources. I want you to take it and run with more people. We can share this with, the better it becomes for everyone.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. Well, I love that, uh, that approach to to serving. And I do sincerely appreciate it. So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you who wants to get out there and serve and work with these clients? Surely you’re eating your own cooking, but do you find yourself you’re out there shaking the trees and having to live into all you have to be like a living model of what you’re what you’re providing, don’t you?

Chirag Nijjer: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think the two things right. One is eating. Uh, yes. When I’m teaching, there’s always like that argument people make is like, hey, if you’re teaching everything to them, but then also part of your business model is like them hiring you as a consultant and bringing you in to help them, um, is that I will what you often find is my job in any given talk is credibility and trust. And this is one of the key concepts I share with people. Right? Is the in business, the most important thing you’re asking someone to do, um, is not pay you money, it’s to pay you trust. Money is just a symbol in place, right? Because you can’t physically hold on to trust, right? So as long as you trust me, you will continue to work with me, right? So in my talks, my my goal is give you as much value as possible. Right? But it’s akin to me giving you, um, it’s like a painter coming to your house, right? And saying, look, this is the paint you’re going to use. This is the finish you’re going to use. This is the exact stuff. These are the exact steps you’re going to follow to do this. And now at that point is you can do this yourself, right? Or in the process, because I have explained everything step by step to you. And I’ve shown you that I’m going to listen to you along that way you can bring me in to do it, and I’m going to do it quicker, faster, uh, more efficiently.

Chirag Nijjer: And best thing of all is I’m going to be there. That smiling when things are breaking down, when that paint spills over onto the carpet and you’re freaking out at that moment, well, what if that happens while I’m there? I’m going to be the guy that’s smiling and going, don’t worry, I’ve seen this a million times. We’re going to clean this up. We’ll be fine to go. Um, so one, I think there is a lot of value in sharing what you’re able to teach people because you’re able to show them. People often don’t really want to do these things themselves. Right. Um, most people didn’t get into business. Very few people get into business were like, oh yeah, I love marketing. They go on to become marketing directors. People are in business, so usually because they love selling the product that they love selling or they sell. Be very specific about what they’re doing. My job is to show you, look, I’m going to educate you so that you know what’s going on and you feel empowered, but then also show you that I know what I’m talking about. So bring me in. Um, and then the second part of your question, uh, I apologize. What was the, uh, the second part of your question? Do you remember, uh.

Stone Payton: Just sales and marketing? I’m just I’m operating under the impression, and it seems to be true, that you have to eat your own cooking and live into what you’re. Oh, yeah. Uh, espousing.

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah. No, no. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it’s a little tough, right? It’s always like the. Hey, um. Eh, it’s very hard to trust a coach who hasn’t done it themselves. Right? Um, right. Uh, if a coach can’t throw a free throw, can you really teach you how to throw a free throw? Uh, free throw kind of thing? Um, and I think you’re absolutely right. So I think, uh, part of it is, uh, it’s a learning process along the way for everyone. I think I’m always very transparent with everyone is everything I’m teaching and everything I’m sharing is mainly because these are stuff that I’m learning and sharing. Excited with you all. And I’m actively testing it out every single day. And the stuff I do now. You’ll notice, though, if we were to take a word cloud of some of the of this conversation and of itself, though, have you ever are you familiar with like the concept of a word cloud?

Stone Payton: A little bit, yeah. But say more about that.

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah. So a word cloud is essentially and there’s I mean search up free word cloud generator on Google. But essentially you can take any speech or any written thing tossed it in here. And what I’ll do is it’ll the more times a word is spoken or referenced, it’ll make that word bigger and bigger. And what I often tell brands, right, is like, if you’re, say, you’re on your website and you have this entire long page that says, here’s who we are, blah, blah, blah, right? I want you to take that thrown in a word cloud generator and see how many times you’re mentioning those words that I told you to choose earlier on in our conversation. Right. Um, right. And so the idea is like being very deliberate. Now, Stone, you do this every single time when you start off with this, uh, with your sort of intro music and the words that you say right here at, uh, High Velocity Radio, here’s what we’re doing. We’re talking to people who are doing this, blah, blah, blah, right? Those work. You are constantly reinforcing those words. Chances are, anyone who listens to your podcast, probably out of most of the stuff that the experts are, the people you bring on have spoken the thing they can probably verbatim repeat back to anyone who asks about your show is your beginning, right? Same way how we can always repeat back, like the lyrics to the intro song to any sitcom from the like the 90s or the that because it’s just that’s the one thing that’s been repeated over and over again.

Chirag Nijjer: If I took a word cloud of everything Stone has ever said in his life, chances are the words you used in the front of those, uh, in the front of this interview will be the biggest ones there. Right. Um, and similar thing that I do with mine. Right. You’ll notice there are very specific words that I’m using when I’m speaking to you. Um, and that’s kind of what I teach in the Brand Clarity framework, which is pick your keywords, identify your stories, and then repeat them over and over again with people. Um, and I hope that people over time will start will pick up on that. That makes sense there. So it is a lot of doing what I am preaching, which is hard often to follow your own advice. Yeah, yeah.

Stone Payton: So I’m almost certain the answer to this is yes, but I’m going to ask anyway. Have you had the benefit of one or more mentors along the way to help you navigate the terrain of, uh, creating the Brand Clarity framework, doing the speaking, doing the roll up your sleeves consulting?

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah. Oh 100 110% 110 I mean, both from the emotional standpoint. I mean, my family, I always tell people we may not have grown up with a silver spoon, but I’m very, very privileged in the sense that I grew up in a loving family. Right. Uh, an entrepreneurial family. A family that allowed me to test out a lot of these things that I was learning. One of the first people to have ever, uh, really helped me realize how much I love teaching. Some of this stuff was my my father. Right. Uh, at one point, I remember I’d come across a concept that I fell in love with. Uh, and I tried, I said, I told my dad I was like, hey, you may not understand it, but let me just explain it to you, because if I can explain it to you, then that means that I get it right. Um, and I explained it to him. And then a couple of weeks later, he calls back and goes, hey, I used that thing that you were talking about. Indian immigrant never went to college entrepreneurs entire life. And he was saying, hey, for the first time, something’s making sense like that.

Chirag Nijjer: Um, so having an emotional sort of mentors, um, over down to mentors who probably don’t even know I exist. Right. So a lot of my research and a lot of the concepts are based, uh, we stand on the shoulders of giants, right? It’s very easy to shout in a crowd when I’m on someone’s shoulders. Right. But, um, people like Peter Drucker, Simon Sinek, um, down to even modern people like, uh, Gary Vaynerchuk. Right? These are all individuals who have I don’t know if you’re familiar with any of these names. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, these are all people who have, uh, and we were talking about Richard Branson as well. Um, these are all individuals who have sort of specialized and shared this, uh, finding information and then sharing it to mass audiences, sort of master that. And then lastly, there are professional mentors all across the world. I mean, the stuff I do over at Google, the stuff I do outside, there are always people that I’m able to rely on and reach out to.

Stone Payton: So something popped out for me as I read your bio when I got to the show notes before we came on air, and I’d love for you to share a little bit about it. And it was you. I think you called it the Ikea effect.

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah. The Ikea effect. Yeah. Yes, yes. So, uh, Stone, have you ever built anything recently, like constructed something in your house? Put it together? Maybe.

Stone Payton: So the short answer is yes, but I will confess, I tell a lot of people, and it’s almost true that I have two tools at my house a telephone and a checkbook. But yes, I have. I have built furniture before.

Chirag Nijjer: Yes. Okay. But, you know, I’m glad you said that. I’m glad you said that. Right. Let’s take a look at the Ikea effect. You said, uh, there’s things that you’ve paid for and there are things that you have assembled yourself. Mhm. So what I’m willing to bet the thing that you assembled yourself may be a little crooked, maybe wobbles a little bit maybe. But here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. Every time someone comes over or like someone mentions it or looks at it, you probably look at them and go, I put this myself or like, hey, I did this right? That the Ikea effect is one of the, uh, so it’s we try to I try to take a lot of marketing brand strategy like this abstract and turn it into concepts. Now, Ikea effect is not something I’ve invented, right? It’s just something I speak often about because it’s such a great example of what we can do when we simplify things. Right. But the Ikea effect, in the most simplest sense, is the stuff that we built ourselves or put some sort of, uh, effort into. We care and love for a lot more because it feels like it’s part of us. Right. And there are multiple examples now. It’s dubbed the Ikea effect because a lot of Ikea furniture, what you tend to find is over time, the company has found that people show a high affinity or a high amount of love for a cabinet that they’ve assembled from Ikea. Then maybe something they got professionally made because it’s like, oh yeah, my work went into this, but let’s take a look at the marketing strategy on a whole, right, uh, cake mixes when they first came out.

Chirag Nijjer: Right. Those add water, toss it in an oven. You’re all good to go, right? Yeah. Um, when it originally came out, it was very, very simple. Everything was already done. All you needed to do was add water or add or milk and then toss it into the, um, the oven. What they found was that very quickly sales started to decline. At first everyone wanted it. Suddenly no one wanted it. So they just kept trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually, they bring in a psychologist who spoke to a lot of their target consumers, which at the time were stay at home moms. Now, one thing I also want to be aware is it’s sometimes tricky to talk about marketing and advertising because a lot of it’s rooted in history. So let’s keep in mind that this was this was, uh, mid 90s at the time. Right? Very different social norms at the time. But at the time their target audience were working, uh, were at stay at home mothers. Right. And what they kept finding throughout the entire interview process was that the words kept popping up like it didn’t feel personalized. It didn’t feel like I was adding my love. I was just giving my kids or my family another generic cake. That’s when they realized, okay, here’s what the Ikea effect comes into play. So right around that time, what we noticed was that they removed dried eggs from the cake mix and they started writing in the instructions. Add your own eggs to this. Not only were you adding the water or the milk, but also the eggs itself. Very small step, but made a big psychological impact because the idea became like you’re still adding plus also the symbolic nature of eggs themselves, not to mention dried eggs, especially back then.

Chirag Nijjer: Probably didn’t taste that good either, right? So I’m sure there’s a lot of factors that go into this, but it did play that psychological effect of like, well, there’s still something coming from you in this, ergo, you’re still making this with love. And then they did something really interesting. The cake mix companies started partnering up with magazines and cake decorating companies. Now suddenly it was like, okay, cool. Well, the cake you made may be a bit generic, but now look, because of all the time you saved baking the cake, you can decorate it with this nice cool football stencil, or these special icing, or this special sparkle sprinkles that were coming out with entire industry of cake decoration at home had a huge boom. Again, playing on that same idea. If you want to show, like if you want to instill love in what people are building, allow them to play some part in its creation. Um, but you see how like, you know, a simple concept like that is like whether it applies to a large industry or to a very specific, narrow Ikea setup, it’s very useful when you’re able to look at your business yourself and go, hey, what are some of the things that I think I’m making easy for my customers? But in reality, I’m taking away their ability to invest their love into something. What are the eggs that I can tell them to add to the process? But I’m pausing there for you?

Stone Payton: Well, no, that’s really helpful for me because the the line that I drew from what you were describing to my world is exercising the discipline to give my prospective client, even, even before they’re a client, some authorship in the plan, uh, you know, like, and so maybe instead of, you know, just handing them this proposal that’s got all the answers, maybe make it more of a coauthored document where it’s like a recommendation summary. And we’re we’re in this together. And here’s some things you can do to. Yeah. No, that’s incredibly helpful. And that’s. Yeah.

Chirag Nijjer: Thank you know, you pulled it. Uh, please, please don’t you you pulled all I did was bring, uh, shed a light on something. You took it and you ran with it, and. But you did. Exactly. I can’t tell you how satisfied I am leaving this interview right now, having known that. Okay, at least one thing has resonated. And you hit it right on the dot. You hit it right on the dot. It’s as simple as it doesn’t have to be complex, right? It’s as simple as like, okay, cool. Let me as we’re going through this process, let me ask them, hey, what do you think? Even if, you know, like, you know, uh, sometimes even as simple as, like, you know that the color you should go with is blue, but you’ll still pose it in front of the your audience going, hey, you’ve got blue, red or green? Here’s why I think it should be blue, but I want you to make that final decision. Some small little decisions like that help people feel more involved and more fall in love with what they’re doing. And this is the Ikea effect. Please. Most of the stuff I can speak about, your audience can easily go search up again things that have been around for decades, but almost never make their way out of the academia or these big, huge corporations, usually because of these paywalls.

Stone Payton: So we’ve reinforced the idea that it’s that it doesn’t have to be complex and in fact should not be complex. Uh, but it really doesn’t have to be expensive either, right? I’m sure we have listeners who are aspiring entrepreneurs or feel like they have very limited budgets, but there’s still room and hope for them to follow this path. Right?

Chirag Nijjer: I’ve got amazing stone. So that first part, the brand echo theory. Right. So oftentimes when I go through my entire, uh, brand clarity framework, the first part we start is with your brand echoes. Part of the reason I do that is with your brand, like your echoes, your keywords that you want people to know. One, it helps people who usually I always tell people my favorite clients or the favorite people I love talking to are those that have been in business for at least a year or two years and have been trying to do their marketing themselves because they have the most realistic understanding of like, okay, this is overwhelming and things have gotten out of hand. The first thing we do when we simplify your words down to like four words, even like that, you care the most about it makes your life a lot easier mentally, right? Because you’re like, okay, I only need to focus on four words. But the more important part is the second step is, okay, well, let’s find unique, fun ways to get people to remember these words is when you find it makes marketing fun again. In a world in which we have to analyze and have analytics for every little thing, and it feels overwhelming, it’s like, now let’s go do a couple fun little marketing exercises just to get your brain running again. And so a great example that I give of this is, uh. Man. I want to say it is Red bull. Um, but don’t quote me on this, I believe so it was some energy drink.

Chirag Nijjer: I do believe it was Red bull. Right. Um, and at one point, I believe Red bull wanted to. Or. Okay, let’s actually, you know, if it’s not Red bull, let’s just. There was this energy drink, right? Um, that really was struggling to hit the market at the time. They didn’t have a lot of budget. Um, but what they did know is they wanted to be associated with nightlife and clubbing and, uh, DJs and. All right, so those were their key words, nightlife, clubbing. What they did is they took a bunch of empty cans, crushed them, and then left them in strategic places like, say, live, um, across, uh, a city in London in, like, the clubbing district. Right. Leave them in a bunch of trash cans around the place, um, or taking these cans and just like going into a nightclub where the DJs performing and just leaving the can right next to the DJ booth so that as people took pictures, those cans popped up. Very, very cheap strategy. Very, very effective strategy. Wow. Reinforcing that people were sitting there going, I want to say it was Red bull, but, uh, please, just because I can’t, uh, fully confirm. But we do know that that brand accredits a lot of their initial success to that simple little strategy because it got the word out there. People were like, wait, what are these cans? Why are so many people drinking them that like, I’m seeing them everywhere, crushed up and thrown away?

Stone Payton: And what? Yeah, yeah. And what helped him get there to that really creative tactic was getting very clear about who what they wanted to be associated with. And then from that, it spurred these creative ideas I love it.

Chirag Nijjer: Exactly. And you know what? I actually just had a chance to take a look. It was Red bull at the time. And Red bull, I think I often encourage people, if you’re looking for a brand, I mean, we’ve seen how massive Red bull is today, right? Yeah. Um, Red bull, when it started off, openly admitted that they didn’t have a lot of budget to compete. Um, so a lot of the stuff they did, I think even like when Red bull wanted to be associated with extreme stunts, I think the originally again now I feel horrible for continually saying, don’t quote me, but, uh, I think originally some of their original, like, big defying stunts was literally just finding a stuntman who was willing to do it for free, and then they would, like, sponsor it a bit. Right. Um, so it doesn’t always have to be this large, complex. I need to buy out inventory on some website or on some TV. And look, there’s always a step. Eventually you reach scale. You want to do these massive things, but initially you can start off really, really small. As long as you’re intentional about the words that you’re using.

Stone Payton: Yeah. So I don’t know when or how you would find the time. You’ve got a lot of irons in the fire and you’re doing an awful lot. But I am, uh, interested to know passions, hobbies, interests that you pursue outside the scope of this work. Anything you have a tendency to nerd out about or do outside the scope of this work?

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I always tell people, uh, the way I get everything done in just 24 hours is that, uh, the bags under my eyes? Very expensive, very expensive. So these are Chanel bags and. No, um, uh, you do sacrifice a little bit of sleep sometimes in these scenarios. One thing I’ll say is the brand marketing and the brand strategy, things that I do, I love them. They’re such a like when you mention Ikea effect, man, I lit up, right? I get excited, I know people can’t see the stream, but this kind of stuff is so fascinating. So fun. Like, I started this because I was learning this stuff. I didn’t have anyone to share it because my friends didn’t care. Uh, so I was like, okay, I’m just going to put this online and see if I can find people who nerd out about this like I do. Um, so one is that. But then the second thing is, uh, loving cooking, the cooking. And then I come from a South Asian background, Punjabi family. Um, and we have a dance form called bhangra. Right. Um, and between cooking and bhangra, I think those are my two sort of outlets over time. And I found, uh, actually recently, it’s like the cooking, the idea that I can take small, like, take this really complex dish, break it down into these small individual ingredients, and then just one step, one step, one step, build it up. And somehow, like these arbitrary random group of groceries have now turned into a dish that feels amazing, super satisfying. Um, and then bhangra, the dance form, if you’ve ever seen it, I don’t know if. Have you ever seen, uh, bhangra?

Stone Payton: I have seen in a there’s a business group here, um, that that was founded largely by an Indian population. And I went to one and they did a form of dance. I don’t I couldn’t say whether it was that or not, but they were really into it. And it was it was fun and fascinating to watch.

Chirag Nijjer: Yeah, I can imagine. You know what? I’m willing to bet it probably was background or some version. Right. Um, but bhangra is a it’s a very, very dynamic dance form. You are on the balls of your feet the entire time you are jumping around, you are hopping. Um, and for me, I’ve always tell people it is like you’d be surprised if you ever see me speak in stone. I’d love to have you out someday. Right. As well as, uh, we I you will see I am not. I do not stand still on a stand. I have had I have literally I have one videographer I work with often and he’s been very vocal. He goes, Chirag is probably the worst client that I’ve ever had to film because this guy does not stand still on a stage. Right. Um, so he’s just always if you people are always like, oh, you must be exhausted after an hour long talk and you look over to the camera guy and he’s sweating and all, he’s exhausted because he’s been running around just as much as I have following me with that camera. Um, but the dance, like bhangra, allows me to practice some of those big, sweeping movements that then you’ll see in some of my talks, which is me going to one corner of the stage and then suddenly jumping to the other side, going, hey, here’s this big point I want to emphasize for you.

Stone Payton: I’m so glad that I asked. It’s fascinating what you can find out from people by asking that question. And I do, at least personally for me. I, my listeners, know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Yeah, I need that that white space, I call it. And I feel like I come back that much more refreshed, recharged and equipped to fully serve, you know, in the business arena.

Chirag Nijjer: Exactly, exactly. And I think I came across something the other day, um, in a world like today where we see a lot of people constantly wearing multiple hats, um, your hobbies don’t have to make you money. Not everything you do needs to be monetized, right? Uh, sometimes it’s or. Nor do you need to be great at it. Right. Um, I don’t think I’m a great bhangra dancer, but I still do it because it is in some way. It is still me reinforcing my general identity. Right? Or giving giving myself space and building a small scale. Same way with you, Stone. It seems like people could argue like, oh, what does that have to do? What is, uh, fishing, hunting and, um, traveling have to do with this podcast? It’s like, well, it gives me the ability to go out and look at things systematically, have my white space. I’m sure the travel probably brings a ton of meeting newer cultures and individual people and being able to tailor your questions right. So you’re more multifaceted than just, say, a podcaster who sticks at home all day.

Stone Payton: All right, before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners with 1 or 2 actionable pro tips, just something they can be thinking about reading, doing, not doing. And look, gang, the number one pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with Chirag or somebody on his team. But between now and then, let’s leave them with a couple of actionable tips.

Chirag Nijjer: Absolutely, absolutely. Uh, the first thing is, uh, I mean, aside from everything we’ve already spoken about, right? I don’t want to repeat myself there to give you guys as much value as possible. So do take a look at the brand clarity framework, the brand echo theory. Uh, the, uh, brand curiosity theory I was speaking about earlier in the talk, um, in this conversation. But I think the two things I’ll leave you with right now is one stage based marketing, right? There are, uh, Stone, have you ever heard of the Aida marketing funnel?

Stone Payton: Yes.

Chirag Nijjer: Yes, yes. So you’re familiar for the audience? That isn’t. There are four stages everyone will always go through, whether they’re meeting you for the first time or buying something from you or anything. And you go through this all the time as well. You become aware of the fact that something exists. So a for awareness, you become interested in what it is. So eye for interest you begin to desire it. So d for um desire. And then finally you take the action A for action. Right? So you become aware of the fact that a shirt exists in the mall. You become interested in taking a look and touching it. Finally you desire wanting to get it, and then finally you take the action of getting it. This could take minutes or seconds, and sometimes when you’re buying a home or a car, this could take months to do right. But when you start becoming intentional about breaking your marketing down into these stages, you begin to learn where you can guide people through each one of these steps. So if you’re saying, hey, what’s, uh, what’s, uh, one rabbit hole I’d want people to jump down is go search up concepts like the Aida marketing funnel. Been around for decades. Very simple, but it’s simple because it works and it’s powerful. Um, at least to introduce yourself to the brand strategy world.

Chirag Nijjer: And then the second thing I’ll quickly shout out for the sake of time here is, um, there’s a concept within my framework, within the clarity framework, uh, called the eight Resonance Stories. So after you’ve developed the words or the echoes that you want people to use, it’s not just enough. Because if someone asks you about your brand and all you’re doing is sitting there and telling them four words, that’s a bit, uh, disappointing. But if you’re sitting there and talking to them for 30 minutes about your brand, that’s very overwhelming. So there are eight story types that I’ve identified across my research of over eight plus years now. Um, there’s your origin story, your product story, your culture story, your world story, your universe story. There’s a ton of, uh, and please reach out on my website and we’ll give some contact information afterwards. But these are eight stories, and I always encourage everyone sit down and write 500 words for each story. What is your origin? How did you start? What is your product? What does it do? One not only does this help you narrow down your focus, but now if you do all eight stories, that’s 4000 words, all written in your tone, your language, emphasizing the story you want to tell.

Chirag Nijjer: So when you go out and hire that college student to be your intern, to help out with something, or you go and hire out a new sales rep, you’re not sitting there hoping that they understand what the brand is. You’re literally giving them a packet of 4000 words for them to read and to reference. From where I’ll leave you here. Stone is one of the most powerful applications of this is Stone. Every question you have asked me. Right. So for example, like how do I, uh, I have to walk the walk or, uh, I walk the talk if I’m going to speak about this stuff. I grabbed a sentence from my origin story. I grabbed a sentence from my product story, a sentence from my customer story, and a sentence from my future story weaved that together. That’s a four sentence response that I’m giving you, stuff that I feel confident speaking about, because over the years I’ve developed these eight stories and I know what I stand for. So not only does it help in cohesion with your audience, with your team, it also helps you be able to be more confident in what you’re talking about. I’m going to pause there, Stone. I feel like I went on a rant there for you.

Stone Payton: Well, I don’t think so. I asked for actionable and we got it, so that was fantastic. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to tap into your work and have that conversation with you? Website, whatever. You know, LinkedIn, whatever you think is appropriate?

Chirag Nijjer: Absolutely. I think it depends on your goal. The easy basics, um, is Chirag speaks.com. So Chirag speaks.com. That will be the hub that has all my information for you to contact. If you’re someone who is a business owner and you just want to learn as much as you can and enjoy the content, go follow me on any of the platforms. Tiktok being our biggest one, but if you’re someone who is putting together maybe a conference or wants me to come in and host a workshop with your business, uh, check out the website and then email me at Chirag. So Chirag at Chirag speaks.com and someone from my team will be more than happy to speak.

Stone Payton: Well Chirag, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast today. I thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm and your actionable ideas. Man, this is, uh, this has been a marvelous way to invest a Wednesday morning.

Chirag Nijjer: Oh, man. Stone, that, uh, knowing that you’ve got plans to go, uh, hit up a Blackstone and really, uh, cook up some amazing food for the rest of the day, knowing that you’re saying that this was a good way to start off is actually making me feel really good, man.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s been fun. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today. Chirag Nijjer with Chirag Speaks and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.