Why Great Brands Win with Joe Gulesserian

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

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Rich Bennett 0:27
you ever stopped to wonder why some brands become part of our lives while others disappear without a trace? It's rarely about having the biggest advertising budget, or the flashiest logo. More often than not, it's because the brands we remember make us feel something. They tell a story, they stand for something, and they connect with us on a deeper level. Today's guest believes every successful brand has a soul, and if you're willing to listen, it'll tell you exactly who it is. Joe Gullesarian is a lifelong entrepreneur, brand creator, former business professor, manufacturing expert, an author who spent decades building consumer brands that compete on the world stage. From creating and launching products to teach in business strategy and embrace an AI as a competitive advantage, Joe has seen firsthand what separates businesses that simply exist from those that truly resonate. In today's conversation, we'll explore why branding is far more than marketing, why entrepreneurship is becoming a survival skill in today's economy, and how the story behind a business may be its greatest competitive advantage. Whether you are 

Joe Gulesserian 1:49
business 

Rich Bennett 1:49
a and aspiring entrepreneur or simply curious, certain brands earn your trust while others never do, you'll hear business in a way you probably have never heard it before. How are you doing, Joe? 

Joe Gulesserian 2:05
I'm very good. Thanks for having me on your show. Rich. 

Rich Bennett 2:08
Oh, my pleasure, I'm just happy that we could finally connect. I know we were playing podcast tag a couple of times. I tried to get you on because I think the last I was like, "Oh, he's coming in person. This is going to be great." You're like, "Oh, you emailed me for a link. I'm like, "Whoa. I forgot what happened. It was crazy." But here we are, finally. So I want to get right into this. 

Joe Gulesserian 2:36
Sure. 

Rich Bennett 2:38
So if every brand has a soul, what are the strongest brands doing that allows people to feel it instead of just seeing it? 

Joe Gulesserian 2:49
Well, first of all, what do we mean by a brand? 

If I have an adoring affection towards a brand, I'm part of a community. Let's just talk about and I'm going to go into a couple of gen Z brands because I'm starting to get more into that all the time. 

Rich Bennett 3:13
So 

Joe Gulesserian 3:14
let's go into one that you might have not heard of, maybe your daughter or niece heard of and that's ELF ELF Elf Cosmetics. It's a fast growing beauty brand with generation Z. High quality, affordable, cruelty free cosmetic. So it's virtue signaling. That's fine. It's driven by strong social media marketing, value pricing, a sense of inclusiveness, whatever that means. So that's one of them. So what it does is it connects with my moral fiber is what 

Rich Bennett 3:49
the Z ... 

Joe Gulesserian 3:50
Ziders are saying, right? And brands have what they call a sense of being multi-sensitory. In other words, this is a fancy word of, they, through the packaging, through the design, through the social media, through the advertisements, it's multi-sensitory. And then I hate pronouncing this word anthropomic. This is when they take on a human characteristics. I'm going to go old school and I'm going to bring up. We'll go through Nike, if you like. We can go through Apple. We can go to Harley Davidson. B I'm going to start with 1949. And 1949, I was only 45 years old in 1949. I'm gonna kiddie 

Rich Bennett 4:38
get it. It's 

Joe Gulesserian 4:38
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 4:38
literally you. 

Joe Gulesserian 4:39
listen to me. But we're bringing to the advent of television, like for practical purposes. The three networks, we're talking the early 50s and Ed Sullivan, so on, so forth, and the soap, the soap ones. So if you had one brand, if you had one show, you had one advertisement, they call them the soaps back then. And so Procter and Gamble launched the first practical synthetic laundry detergent in 1949, 1950, and that time, okay. 

Rich Bennett 5:14
Oh, yeah, try to remember what it was, 

Joe Gulesserian 5:15
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 5:16
tied? 

Joe Gulesserian 5:16
tied. Absolutely. So what does tied mean? Ties not funky, it's not romantic, it's not seductive. We'll get into seductive brands. But it's trustworthy. A she passed it on you know, remember these laundry detergent ads change a fair bit over the last 50, 67 years. You've 

Rich Bennett 5:37
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 5:38
got got, you've 

Rich Bennett 5:38
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 5:38
got guys cleaning the floors with their wives, well, okay, that's fine, I'll, 

Rich Bennett 5:43
we also have people eating the tied pots. 

Joe Gulesserian 5:45
Oh, my God. That's terrible. Oh, they use, so you know, tie. If I buy tied, 

Rich Bennett 5:50
Oh, yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 5:50
and if I'm a, if I'm a mother, I pass that on to my daughter, and what does tied to, it's absolute certainty that your clothes are going to get clean, and it reduces my risk, right? In other words, if you love your family, you'll buy tied, because you want them to look good. They're clothes clean. So the concept of that orange design is so indelible that if you try and make a laundry detergent that uses orange, the colors orange is associated with tied, you'll get a stack full of lawyers letters under passing off laws. 

Rich Bennett 6:30
really? 

Joe Gulesserian 6:30
Yeah, yeah, you don't want to do that. So if you go next time anyone of your listeners or yourself goes to the cleaning section, the laundry section, show me one brand out on the marketplace, outside of tied, that uses orange and their design. 

Rich Bennett 6:46
You know what you're right, 

Joe Gulesserian 6:48
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 6:48
because I'm one that does the grocery shopping, and no, you don't see it. Orange orange is always tied. 

Joe Gulesserian 6:56
Because it's part of it's 

Rich Bennett 6:57
wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 6:58
it's an indelible, and you know, I'm not a maternity, but for 70 years, but I've gone through this. For 70 years or so, they can argue that that color is associated with tied laundry detergent. And the same can be said of, you know, we're going, I didn't expect to talk about it, but when you go to Coca-Cola or even Pepsi Cola, the red, white, and blue, Coca Cola became a goal, well, it's associated with Santa Claus from going back to 1915, 

Rich Bennett 7:29
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 7:30
20. Coca Cola became a global brand, because in the Second World War, they brought all the Coca-Cola machines, like the factory machines to make Coca-Cola for the American troops. The troops home, most of them, and the machine stayed, and Coca-Cola was launched as the first real global brand. And 

Rich Bennett 7:54
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 7:55
what does Coca-Cola mean? And it's hey, Dave, you drink a bottle of Coca-Cola, and what are you buying? You're buying hope. You're really buying hope. You're buying the multisensitory tenets of Americana. That's what you're buying. We're drinking Americana. There's nothing more America. Some people knew the colors globally of Coca-Cola. They knew that bottle better or at least as good as the American flag. 

Rich Bennett 8:27
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 8:27
So it's a great piece. It 

Rich Bennett 8:29
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 8:29
became a great propaganda piece too. I mean, you know, when you've got Coca-Cola, you're drinking Americana, right? And if you said that the 

Rich Bennett 8:37
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 8:38
Zenith was Americana somewhere in the 1960s or late 50s, or even if you want to go to 70s, I won't get into a debate. It typifies the best of Americana. That's what the brand does, you know. 

Rich Bennett 8:54
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 8:56
I only 

Rich Bennett 8:56
I 

Joe Gulesserian 8:56
drink. 

Rich Bennett 8:56
mean, everybody knows Coca-Cola, the symbol, and everything, and even Pepsi. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:02
Pepsi. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 9:03
Yeah, but Pepsi was not worldwide yet. Like Coca-Cola. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:08
Exactly. And it's not as romantic. 

Rich Bennett 9:11
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:12
It's not as, you know, I mean, I'm talking as a guy. It's not as Pepsi's cool. I'm not knocking Pepsi because I don't want people to, you know, throw rocks and stones at me. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 9:23
Yeah, We don't need another so to war. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:25
Yeah, we don't need another Soda War, but the romanticism of Coca-Cola, and the first time I remember it, is I was a little boy and department above us, our family friends had had sons, and they were moving away, and I was bawling my eyes out. I must have, it was a long time ago. And I remember I was crying that they were moving to another neighborhood and all that, and they were family friends and my best friends, and someone gave me a bottle of Coca-Cola and I just shut up and drank it. That was it. 

Rich Bennett 9:59
Oh 

Joe Gulesserian 9:59
That's 

Rich Bennett 9:59
wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 9:59
all I needed to soothe myself, so I kinda got off tangent. I didn't tend to talk about Coca-Cola so much. Before the advent of Nike, or not Nike, but Apple, Microsoft, some of the other ones, Coca-Cola is I think still one of the top valued brands that need to brand, in the world, it was number one in the world at one point. It's still up there. And I don't know how we got involved in that, but I can go through brand stories, and I always thought about I never found a book when I was in university about the history of brands, but I would probably write a thin book on the soul of brands. 

Rich Bennett 10:43
it. 

Joe Gulesserian 10:43
I 

Rich Bennett 10:43
write 

Joe Gulesserian 10:44
would probably 

Rich Bennett 10:44
a thin 

Joe Gulesserian 10:44
book. Yeah, just like 160 pages. My book The Gorilla Guide for Entrepreneurs is 525 pages, everything from AI for competitive advantage, the sales management, incorporating AI, the concept of negotiations. I took all the negotiators from politics, Elon Musk and really the style of negotiations and it's quite interesting how that works. When I was in school, my prof the most formal publisher of negotiations and teachers, teacher in the world. And his name was Gavin Kennedy and that was in Scotland. And I had a good privilege of having a lunch with him and a bunch of other students and my wife tagged along, and yeah, he taught negotiations. And 

Rich Bennett 11:38
was 

Joe Gulesserian 11:40
I'm not saying I'm great at it or anything, but I put a chapter in it that you know, you've got to come up with a strategy and it's quite interesting. I got John F. Kennedy negotiating style, cruise chefs negotiating style, the Cuban missile crisis, Elon Musk negotiating style. 

The president of Microsoft currently his style. He's more like, or even cook who's the president of Apple, he's got a different style. You know, the, you know, the desk slammers do jump up and down and the slam the desk. And you know, words like hard ball really mean, really mean going red, you know, the guy went red. So when you say, I'm going to slam, you've got to watch it, right, you can't, you can't hard ball, everybody, some people take it differently. But it's just the game and lawyers are pretty good at it, but going back to brands in the last episode of Batman and Robin, where were we? Oh, back to brands. Okay, there we were. You got me going there. Okay, I like that. I know if you watch Batman. 

Rich Bennett 12:43
Yeah. Thanks. Now I'm going to have to go watch the last episode of Batman and 

Joe Gulesserian 12:47
I 

Rich Bennett 12:47
Robin, because remember it. 

Joe Gulesserian 12:50
I don't know what happened. What is the riddle or do to them in the last episode. I don't know. But going back to brands. There's a few that come to mind. 

Rich Bennett 13:00
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 13:01
And I got you going there. But there's a few that come to mind, but they go, I'm going to talk about Lego for a moment and they go. Generation, the zedders are going bonkers over Lego and and Lego spin around. It's, I believe it's European brand. It's not Scandinavian or European. I don't know the origin. It's not an American. Yeah, it's Lego American 

Rich Bennett 13:21
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 13:21
or. 

Rich Bennett 13:21
I have no idea. 

Joe Gulesserian 13:23
Yeah. Anyways, why would the generate, like, you know, we grew up with Legos, and then you could make cranes. You can do all kinds of funky stuff 

Rich Bennett 13:30
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 13:30
with it. But generation. The zed is after Lego, because it takes them away from their smartphones. It gives them therapy. And then, in top of that, they have IG Instagram. They have Instagram communities and so forth. They talk about making the latest Lego sets. In other words, it's a stress reliever for this generation or the youth. So they rediscovered their grandfathers or their fathers or their granddaughter or, you know, the grand grandmother's Lego sets. But Legos are important because you find a lot of little boys and girls. If they're a really good Lego, they're probably going to engineering school instead of talking about butterfly mating habits in the Brazilian jungle and getting a degree degree for 

Rich Bennett 14:18
But 

Joe Gulesserian 14:18
something. 

Rich Bennett 14:18
you still have adults doing Legos. 

Joe Gulesserian 14:22
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 14:25
T-Titions. Yeah. And it was, it's amazing. 

Joe Gulesserian 14:28
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 14:29
I don't, it all honesty as a kid. I don't remember Legos. My big thing was Lincoln logs and erector sets. 

Joe Gulesserian 14:37
Well, those are cool too. 

Snakes 

Rich Bennett 14:54
and ladders. 

Joe Gulesserian 14:55
Snakes and ladders. You go up the ladder. Yeah, I don't know it was called snakes and ladders. Maybe you go and you 

Rich Bennett 15:00
down, 

Joe Gulesserian 15:00
roll it 

Rich Bennett 15:01
it was, it was 

Joe Gulesserian 15:01
You 

Rich Bennett 15:02
snacks and ladders. 

Joe Gulesserian 15:02
go up, you go on the board, you can go down, then you can go up and you can go down and that's the story of life. And uhm, uhm, if you're saying school long enough, you can get pretty stupid. Yeah. Yeah, maybe stayed a bit too long, so I've got an explanation here. But uhm.So  that was one brand. The other one is, uhm, you know, we went through Tide, went through some of those ones there. There's other ones as well. But the one that, uhm, but, but again, going back to Lego, it's got a thriving social community. It's part of the pop culture. 

Yeah, it's, it's lifestyle decor. It's basically therapy, going to Nike. Um, you know, I had this conversation with chat, the GPT, and they go, Oh, Adidas is a youth. Adidas is not as cool and funky as Nike. 

Nike is basically, uhm, trend setting. It's effortlessly cool. It has that, you know, 

Rich Bennett 16:07
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 16:07
ambience of all these great athletes that, you know, use Nike, so I want to be just like them, you know, the problem with, you know, western pop culture is everybody wants to be somebody, but they don't want to be just be themselves, 

Rich Bennett 16:21
Exactly, 

Joe Gulesserian 16:22
right? so. You know, they watch Nike and, and, uh, you know, I, if I have Nike, I can maybe be this great ball player or football player or, or, you know, if I were Nike or do they wear Nike in football? I don't know. Do they wear Nike in football? Who's the 

Rich Bennett 16:37
exactly. 

Joe Gulesserian 16:37
guy 

Rich Bennett 16:37
I 

Joe Gulesserian 16:37
who 

Rich Bennett 16:37
think 

Joe Gulesserian 16:38
married Taylor Swift? Yes. So, do you get to marry Taylor Swift and Kelsey? And you can't dance. Um, 

Rich Bennett 16:46
uh, 

Joe Gulesserian 16:46
he's not funky. No, but, but he can, he'll tackle me. I gotta be careful. Um, but no, I know essence, but Nike is cool, confident, 

Rich Bennett 16:55
hip. Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 16:56
I can play ball brands like that, but where do you want to go to? Do you want to go to Maserati? Or do you want to go to Harley Davidson? Well, 

Rich Bennett 17:06
well, 

Joe Gulesserian 17:07
yeah, I know you're going to 

Rich Bennett 17:07
I 

Joe Gulesserian 17:07
like hard. 

Rich Bennett 17:08
love 

Joe Gulesserian 17:09
Harley. Harley Davidson. So the president of Harley Davidson turned around and we're going back 15, 20 years and said, where else is there a brand where people will tattoo my brand name on their body, on their hands or whatever, right? So Harley Davidson, if you're talking about the soul and you're breaking down the architecture, the brand, it's again part of classical Americana. American made, uh, uh, room, room, you know, the sound and so on and so 

Rich Bennett 17:37
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 17:37
forth. Um, and it is, it's got that real feel going back to the 1950s. You know, 

Rich Bennett 17:48
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 17:48
of course, you know why bother being in the motorcycle gang if you're not driving a Harley Davidson, right? I mean, 

Rich Bennett 17:56
it doesn't look like you're driving something else. 

Joe Gulesserian 17:58
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 17:59
You like a, yeah, you don't want to, like a scooter. 

Joe Gulesserian 18:02
Yeah. You don't want a scooter, but no, no, no lessons. Um, but the brand is having trouble propagating to a useful generation against some of the 

Rich Bennett 18:10
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 18:10
Japanese bikes and so on and so forth. The Japanese bikes are quick. I think evil cannibals. Well, I don't know what made me do this. I go scroll and I watch my YouTube on our screen on TV and it first, it was on my laptop. I was watching evil cannibal on the Johnny Carson show. And I do want to see him crash because I don't have the stomach for that part. But um, what, what happened is he did the London buses were going way back with the Harley Davidson and when the Japanese bikes came out, they go, what do you think of these lighter bikes? He goes, oh, I could, if I had this one, I was when he retired. I had this, I could have jumped over the moon. That's what he said. Yeah. So that's already Davidson, but the other one that really comes to mind and the one I really like talking about is Apple, right? Now Apple is, is you know, I could get into tick talk, but Apple is the following. 

it's worth talking about, Steve Jobs didn't do focus groups, you know? He basically had instincts. Steve Jobs introduced clean, aesthetic, seductive design into technology. And that's what he is 

Rich Bennett 19:29
for. 

Joe Gulesserian 19:29
known 

Rich Bennett 19:29
Hey, 

Joe Gulesserian 19:30
so he made folds cool. He made laptops cool. I wrote in my book, a good four or five pages, because there's a chapter on the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of all time. I'll reveal the episode, of course. Steve Jobs is in there. Steve Jobs was not the strongest tech person in the world, but he understood the concept of seducing the consumer. And seducing them. And he created, I would say, from a commercial sense of, sense of point of view, I would turn around and say that Steve Jobs, 

an apple in general, has the largest cult following in the world, cult following meaning, um, as a business. I would say, um, nobody has more brand defection than them perhaps or 

Rich Bennett 20:33
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 20:33
at least loyalty. And, you know, 

Rich Bennett 20:35
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 20:36
I'm not an apple user. And so if I come up to an apple user and I use Android and I use PCs and so forth, I'm on Microsoft Windows and so on, and ERP. But if I use, if I start going to the apple guy and turning up a girl saying, I think Apple sucks and it's no good and I don't like Apple and it's overpriced and all that. How dare because Apple is now part of the mating game is the social media look, I go to Starbucks. I've got my earphones on I'm trying to seduce girls or she's trying to find, you know, a seduce a 

Rich Bennett 21:12
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 21:12
guy wonder the other, you know, and I've got my earphones, I got my laptop or I got my smartphone. And, and you know, I'm, I'm just being so cool. You know, I'm probably doing nothing. It's not like I've come up with a strategic plan on opening up the straight of hormones or anything like that. Right. But, but, you know, it's part of now it's become part of the rate. Meeting ritual. And what Apple does is clean aesthetic, you know, they use that white backdrop and so forth, very clean aesthetic design. 

Rich Bennett 21:47
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 21:47
And then to go back there. I would say for modern industrial design, industrial design, you know, the Guruji is Steve Jobs. But if we go back to where Steve Jobs took a lot of his knowledge from either consciously unconsciously, that brings us to Henry Ford, Henry Ford said you can have any color, car you want as long as it's black. So, Henry Ford was the father of industrial engineering, and he brought affordability of automobiles. In other words, that was his his forte. He made cars affordable, but we're going to go to a belief Sloan who was the president of GM who brought in Harley Earl. And if you don't know who Harley Earl is, he's an architect by training. He is the mastermind of of he got together with Sloan and General Motors and said, well, you know, Henry Ford can do whatever he likes, but we want to make cars for different purposes, you know, a different car for different precise. This is we're going back to the 1930s and prior before. And what he did is he differentiated the concept of differentiation and segmentation and marketing comes from Sloan and Harley Earl. The Cadillac's Buick, the 1950s Corvettes, all are the works of Harley Earl. Those are all his masterminds. Yeah. So he is the one of, if you're saying, how did America fall in love with cars? 

I would argue with some reason that Harley Earl seduced them into them. Like I have, 

Rich Bennett 23:30
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 23:30
I love I still love them more. Right. I went to the maserati factor in Italy because my wife speaks fluent Italian and we went and saw all the cars in the museum because for the penmanship. My wife 

Rich Bennett 23:43
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 23:43
is not a car nerd like me, but, but I was just like, I was just almost ready to cry like a little boy. 

So, that's what I was doing there. And so those concepts of penning. It's called penmanship. Penning the body of a car, the seductive Buick's. Um, uh, the seductive Cadillacs. Um, you know, then Ford and Christ had to fight back, right, with the Imperial. I think in 1957 Ford had the Mark II, and I think Elvis Presley had one. The, the, the Shaw by ran had one Frank Sinatra had one. They were hand-built cars. And at one point, Lincoln's and Cadillacs were at a higher, a higher perceived as a higher level than Rolls Royce at one point. Um, 

Rich Bennett 24:36
wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 24:36
So, uh, Harley Earle is the, is really the father 

of industrial design. Industrial design is your toasters. You know, you know those retro mixers you see now, yours in. 

Rich Bennett 24:51
Oh. 

Joe Gulesserian 24:52
Yeah, he's, 

Rich Bennett 24:53
he, the 

Joe Gulesserian 24:54
he, 

Rich Bennett 24:54
kitchen aids. 

Joe Gulesserian 24:54
the kitchen 

Rich Bennett 24:55
Is 

Joe Gulesserian 24:55
aids? 

Rich Bennett 24:55
that the, 

Joe Gulesserian 24:56
Yeah, because when, when I do health and beauty care products, that's what I do. Uh, I go, is this woman gonna like that bottle in her in her shower? Is it represent her? Is it maker? Is part of the, the lift, right? Is part of the lift, right? How does that hairspray look? Like I got a can of hairspray that's minimalistic. It's really cool. Looking the fragrances correct. How is that going to look on her counter in her bathroom? Or is it going to look when she pulls it out in front of her friends, the travel size in her purse? What's that event going to be like? 

Rich Bennett 25:34
I would never have thought of anything like that. But then you, you mentioned that if somebody goes to your house for a party or you go to 

Joe Gulesserian 25:44
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:44
somebody else's house, 

Joe Gulesserian 25:45
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 25:46
you walk into the bathroom, you look at that stuff. 

Joe Gulesserian 25:48
Absolutely. 

Absolutely. And especially women, you know, I'm working them over, women are the consumer market. If women, let me tell you something, if women said, but this is, this would be an act of God, if women said, we're going on strike for 10 days, and we're not shopping, it would collapse the whole US economy. That's the way I said that on your show, oh my goodness. 

Rich Bennett 26:12
Oh, I think you're right, though. 

Joe Gulesserian 26:14
Oh, I know. But, you know what, take that part out, I just might, you know what, I might, I might need to get an armored suit or something like that on the old nights of the, 

Rich Bennett 26:22
I think everybody would probably agree with you there, 

Joe Gulesserian 26:25
Yeah. It would collapse the economy. 

Rich Bennett 26:28
Joe. 

Joe Gulesserian 26:28
And with women, when it comes to hair care, I change my shampoo. I change this. It's an event when, if you go shopping with your wife, you go shopping with your daughters, someone, they go look at the clothing, they open up, hold the bottle, they touch the fabric. You and I went shopping. What are we going to look at? The guy spends an act, if you go physical shopping, 45 seconds, I go in, I buy my deodorant, I come out. We don't go out and go, oh, Rich, Joe, let's go check out these different flavors and ask the odors. Wow, this is good. And wow, and, 

Rich Bennett 27:03
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 27:04
and let's go, let's go check out some really good shirts and so on and so forth, and the, you know, the fashion store, they don't do that. We can talk about cars. No, I don't know how the EV ones work. We can talk about computers, and we can talk maybe 

Rich Bennett 27:22
you don't really buy, but 

Joe Gulesserian 27:24
yeah sports maybe we can talk a little bit about sports. These are the safe topics, guys talk about 

Rich Bennett 27:30
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 27:30
within their group. But women really, it's to them shopping is an event, and you have to start making your brands that appeal to them, that seduce them, that make them, you know, you're giving them a lift. We're living in a crazy, And I'm going to say declining civilization. But people need a lift, 

Rich Bennett 27:58
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 27:58
they need the, they need the, they need house right where it's coming to my mind now they need a sanctuary from the barbarity of modern civilization or lack thereof, they need a sanctuary. And that's what you're really selling in health and beauty care when it goes to redkin. You're selling hope, that's what you're 

Rich Bennett 28:21
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 28:21
selling. Yeah, boy, I went 

Rich Bennett 28:24
I 

Joe Gulesserian 28:24
on. 

Rich Bennett 28:24
mean, yeah, because you think about it you, I mean, how many people are just going to buy a, I don't know, shampoo, and a black bottle of white lettering. It's not going to, well, I don't know that nowadays, it might invite just pull somebody's 

Joe Gulesserian 28:43
tank, 

Rich Bennett 28:44
a who 

Joe Gulesserian 28:45
right, 

Rich Bennett 28:45
knows, 

Joe Gulesserian 28:45
right 

Rich Bennett 28:45
but like it's. 

You're looking at it, it's, I keep going back to Thai, but even with shampoo, held the bottle up and I can't think of the name. I want to say group toast or whatever. 

Joe Gulesserian 29:00
you 

Rich Bennett 29:01
The green bottle. 

Joe Gulesserian 29:17
All right 

Rich Bennett 29:17
other than that I don't know 

Joe Gulesserian 29:20
color 

Rich Bennett 29:20
the other 

Joe Gulesserian 29:20
the the the number of four selling brand. I might be off number three or four selling brand of shampoo in America right now And this is the numbers I have is none none neither than native 

native is Salphate 3 you know the biggest boogie man now is sulfate 

Rich Bennett 29:40
Okay, 

Joe Gulesserian 29:41
yeah, there's no chance yet. Yeah, if you use sulfate there's no chance of going to heaven 

Rich Bennett 29:45
native 

Joe Gulesserian 29:45
in the Yeah, if you use yeah so and I'm not gonna get into the empirical 

Benefits of sulfate because it does work very well, but the brand is 12 13 bucks, but I 

My native is paraban free real My native is not tested on animals, right? Well, they haven't been testing on animals since the blizzard of 1821, you know in the cosmetics industry or maybe 

I'm giving you this stuff here, but but I'm being facetious here, so It's paraban free, it's sulfate free, it's vegan and you it could be vegan so forth That's that's a different client, but native is 1299 and the question becomes in my particular business is How can I seduce people like native at half the price because but you should be spending 13 20 dollars on the bottle of shampoo Right, so you know you want to create brands that lift people but at the same time come out and viciously slave inflation because if you're waiting for government To slave inflation. That's like that's like the bank robber turning around and saying somebody stole my getaway car and Caused the cops to try trace it down for them, right? So But but in essence, I had to throw that one in but but in essence That's what we I do as a company at brands 

Rich Bennett 31:24
Yeah

Joe Gulesserian 31:24
15. And so that's native there's another one when I was right Younger and I had to go to work Monday, you know Oh, geez, I got to go to work Monday's, but they have a brand called Monday, so good shampoo It's not clean ingredients like native. It's about number 10 or 11 on the on on the store shelves, okay? And you'll find their advertisements are absolutely brilliant. You got these girls going how cheese I got to wake up Monday morning my hair's terrible and they're sitting there and you know They're gen zedders, right? They're really hip and cool, right? We'll see how cool they look another 15 20 years But we'll figure that out later But anyways, no, but anyways, but what it's done is Monday turns around makes my hair better I'm 19, 20, 21 years old I'm working at my job I got to go in and I don't want to get up to work Monday, you know because you know At that age, you know heaven this would love the weekend for six days and work is For one day, right like I told one Zetter as she was a cashier where I go to the store I go why don't you vote for me as prime minister she goes what will you do I go I will let you stay on TikTok At least 20 hours a day and you only have to work two hours a week and you know have everything you want in life And she didn't know I'm having fun, right? But Monday Has in fact, I'll bring it up, so you visually see it just hang on rich. I'll bring it I know your audience won't

Rich Bennett 32:57
You're listening to conversations with rich Bennett. W be right back. I

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Joe Gulesserian 34:00
So this is. Native. It's clean clean ingredients. Right. Next 

Rich Bennett 34:06
Right. 

Joe Gulesserian 34:07
time you go on the shelf, you'll see it all over the place, but 1299 in Walmart. Right. You can buy it online for about the same price probably more. Clean ingredients, no sulfates. It's it's it's definitely just before you get the heaven, you have to use this. Right. Otherwise, you're going to have some the base at Perlis Gate. So then they have Monday. Now you see this. 

Rich Bennett 34:35
I can't even. What the hell 

Joe Gulesserian 34:37
can you see that it's 

Rich Bennett 34:38
okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 34:39
Yeah. I should be in their ad department, but I'm not. And Monday is like, look, it's very girly, you know, very feminine, you know, And so, yeah, Mondays are the worst days of the week, because Monday is when you start your five day work weeks. So you can be an ATM machine for the government, basically, right. What we are. Yeah, I'm nice. You can go out and vote every four years for your next. Next tyrant go ahead. You can do that. 

But no, 

Rich Bennett 35:14
I mean, and that it's hard to read the brand. 

Joe Gulesserian 35:17
No, because it's inscribed. But when it's on the 

Rich Bennett 35:20
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 35:20
shelf, my 4k camera here, when it's on the shelf, ask any female about native or Monday, um, 

Rich Bennett 35:29
they know it. 

Joe Gulesserian 35:30
Right. And they know it. Right. Because shampoo is an undeclared religion for them. Right. Hair care is an undeclared religion. Now we're the virtue signaling stops Monday is not as clean. It's not as less free. It's not so. So free free. Um, where the virtual signaling signaling stops is hair spread. I've never seen a natural natural hairspray that'll hold your hair. Look, I'm virtually. I'm doing virtue signaling here. Rich, but look, if my hair is not holding the hell with virtue signaling, I need a good old fashioned aerosol can. 

Rich Bennett 36:08
Joe. 

Joe Gulesserian 36:09
Yeah, yeah, we're doing better. We're bad. Um, but yeah, uh, there you go. So there you go with that. And, um, that's a nice clean can and it's very, very well known. 

Rich Bennett 36:23
Yeah, I think that's what my wife uses. 

Joe Gulesserian 36:25
Yeah. Yeah. So anyways. Um, 

so what I'm trying to say, there's a limit to virtue signaling, because if my hair spray doesn't hold my hair, an I'm going out, um, just ask yourself the next time you go out with your wife, how long do you spend to get ready, and how long does she spend? Did I say the wrong words? If she's listening to this, I hope you have 

Rich Bennett 36:49
never met a woman. Oh, my God, I'm probably going to get a lot of women yelling at me for this, but I've never met a woman that could get ready quickly. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:00
no. And if you tell her, hurry up and get ready, you will get, um, you'll get 

Rich Bennett 37:05
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 37:05
blowback. Yeah, bad move, wrong move. This is not a multiple choice question when it's time to get ready, you know. 

Rich Bennett 37:12
See, they need to make something to wear like a shampoo that once, once they use it in a condition, they come out, it's dried it styled 

Joe Gulesserian 37:20
matter. 

Rich Bennett 37:20
all the 

Joe Gulesserian 37:20
Yeah, exactly. But, you know, getting 

Rich Bennett 37:24
it going to happen. 

Joe Gulesserian 37:25
Yeah. Well, yeah, in our household, I, I, cause I know these, because I've been in health and beauty care for you. I did actual cosmetics, um, years ago, I had a whole line that I brought from America. So I know these things, right. Um, but yeah, in our household, I even put, I got a low, low sound blow dryer that's magenta. So I go, you know, so I presented magenta, like a nice feminine color for the blow dryer. I go, here you go to your deal. Like that. I go. And my one pan tone color off, you know, but anyways, if we talk like this, and if you said to your wife, she takes too long to get ready, I hope you have a comfortable couch rich, because you might be on there. 

Rich Bennett 38:11
Yeah, I don't say that to her. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:12
No, no, don't, and don't let her listen to this part of the program because, um, yeah. Uh, so now it's really 

Rich Bennett 38:20
Don't 

Joe Gulesserian 38:20
funny. 

Rich Bennett 38:20
piss off in Irish. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:21
Yeah. Yeah, eggs. Oh, all just, yeah. Oh, only thing worse than pissing them off is two Irish. heads at the 

Rich Bennett 38:28
time. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:28
same 

Rich Bennett 38:29
Well, and that's my daughter. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:30
Oh, ah, there you go. Okay. So I guess you've never wanted an argument since, oh, Moby Dick was a guffy, 

Rich Bennett 38:36
Hey, 

Joe Gulesserian 38:36
so... 

Rich Bennett 38:37
look, for years. 

Joe Gulesserian 38:38
Hmm. 

Rich Bennett 38:38
Free? I always taught, and we've been married 29 years. I always told my wife, she married Mr. Wright, first name always. Always use that line. Every time until last year, 

Joe Gulesserian 38:51
What happened? 

Rich Bennett 38:51
as she came back and said, well, if your Mr. always Wright doesn't that make me missus, always write? And I was speechless. It's like, Then it took her 28 years to come up with that, but 

Joe Gulesserian 39:05
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 39:05
still, 

Joe Gulesserian 39:05
like. 

Rich Bennett 39:05
it's 

Joe Gulesserian 39:06
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 39:06
Now I don't say I'm always right anymore because... 

Joe Gulesserian 39:09
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 39:10
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 39:11
Oh wow. 

Rich Bennett 39:11
Can't win any argument. 

Joe Gulesserian 39:12
You can't win them. Well, at least, look, carry a wipe. You know, the funny thing is, on your wedding day, you should have had a white flag, so you can bring it out all the time, you know. I didn't give me any of those, but just, you know, wave a wiped flag. Play dead. 

Rich Bennett 39:26
Geez. 

Joe Gulesserian 39:26
You know, live to fight another day. Now, I went on about women, but now a lot of the young dudes, you know, they want to look spiff and, you know, because they're 19, 20, 21, they want to get into the game, have, you know, have a lot of them, 

you know, they want to get into the game. So, a long story short, here's what I've, you know, I speak to a lot of women about this. I like, and you'll see when they're 2021, right? They want to get into the groove. Oh, I like a guy who takes care of himself, and he's clean, shaven, or whatever he it is, and I like a guy. They like that. Well, you know what? You're right. And once you're hooked, there's another problem. That's good. The guy takes care of himself. As time goes on, if his face is in the mirror, more than your face is in the mirror? I'm talking marketing. You got a problem. 

Rich Bennett 40:22
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 40:23
You got a problem with that guy. And they laugh, because it's true, right? In the beginning, um, I forgot the word. I had this word. I have so many words in my head. I forget about him. Oh, I'll come up with it, but swag. That's it. The guy 

Rich Bennett 40:38
Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 40:38
swagger, 

Rich Bennett 40:38
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 40:39
the guy, you know, yeah. I like a guy who's got swagger. Well, Uh, that changes later, right? Um, and I'm, I'm sitting like swagger, but um, so those are some of the ones. But again, going back to Apple for a second, I know we got thrown off a little bit going back to Apple. Apple is on cool. It's clean, easy to use technology. Um, 

Rich Bennett 41:03
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 41:03
you know, um, a lot of seniors will find an easier way to adapt that brand. What's the other brand, I mean, when I, when I, let's talk about Toyota, Toyota means It's not sexy. It's not funky. Um, it's not a, it's not a chick magnet car. Okay. But 

Rich Bennett 41:23
right. 

Joe Gulesserian 41:23
it's reliable. And, um, all the count and sign will drive Toyota's or Hondas. Okay. Uh, and I'm not knocking other cars. Um, but what you've done is again, much like tide Toyota Honda reduces risk. It's reliable. You might get the odd dog, right? In terms of, you know, reliability. But, um, 

Rich Bennett 41:45
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 41:46
You know, if you're talking camera, you're talking Honda Civic. If you're talking, uh, they don't make it purely they make the court now. Um, I don't follow Toyota inside in a reliable cars. Um, just like tide, they're reliable and they built that reputation. And they built that reputation. Even though the American engineers went to Japan in 1950s to teach them QC quality control. They laughed at these small cars every being, um, popular in America. Yeah, the, 

Rich Bennett 42:19
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 42:19
the OPEC oil crisis hit the OPEC oil crisis hit nearly 1970s. And America, um, just could it could not make small cars. They're executives. Like, you know, we drive big cars. This is America, you know, so on and so far. And let's call strategic inertia and business. That's how we did it. That's how we always do it. That's what happened to Xerox too. And that's how we're going to always do it. 

When he approached Henry Ford Jr. with small cars, uh, saying that this is where the world's going. The future is going because he went all over Europe and so forth. Um, they fell out with each other eventually and he fired them right. He fired. I'll coca. Uh, 

Rich Bennett 43:02
the Chrysler. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:03
Right. And I a coca was considered in the Wall Street Journal. They called him the last emperor of Detroit. 

Right. The last real. He was the emperor of Detroit. You know, the, the, you know, when he, the minivan, genius stuff. Um, um, when they brought back the Chrysler Imperial, they didn't do it right. But when they brought it back, you know, my dad was just like, that was his favorite car. Right. 

Rich Bennett 43:31
The Imperial 

Joe Gulesserian 43:33
1950. 

Rich Bennett 43:33
My parents had one. 

Joe Gulesserian 43:35
Yeah, you never. It was he worked on them. He used to stretch them way, way back. It's another time, another conversation. What's the other brand that comes to mind is let's talk, I was going to go Maserati, but I want to talk about Tesla. Tesla just like native shampoo. What did Elon Musk do? Well, the good thing he did is he's kept away from politics just because just keep away. Like, you know, um, 

Rich Bennett 44:00
no money 

Joe Gulesserian 44:00
it. 

Rich Bennett 44:00
in 

Joe Gulesserian 44:01
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're just going to get mudfested. My dad says, told me when I was younger, he says, whatever you do, don't get involved in something where a lot of the crowd claps for you. They'll keep I understood what he meant by that, right? 

Rich Bennett 44:17
Okay, 

Joe Gulesserian 44:18
that went back to before, we're on the air, the the the the book called The Crowd by Gustav Le Bonn written in the 1880s, right? Anyways, what's Tesla mean? What's the soul of that brand? Well, first of all, it was initially virtue signaling. Tesla is the number that Tesla trees the number two or three selling model in the world. Number one is the in America. The number one is F 150. Globally, I'm not sure, but Tesla virtue signals. Tesla is cool. Tesla is I have an EV car and I have a higher moral fiber than you, right? This is what it's saying. I'm not saying I do. So it says a lot of things, The genius behind Elon Musk is his eccentricity matches the I got to have that Tesla. It's just so ultra cool. That's what makes up the bones and structure of a task. Is it the best EV in the world? No. And he's also in China where he's personally revered, right? So on a global basis, his eccentricity, like him or not, is infused into the brand of the Tesla and now SpaceX so on. 

Rich Bennett 45:35
but 

Joe Gulesserian 45:36
People are enamored with him. He's like, he's like, people would just sit back and twit under a thumb so the Beatles came up with their new album. You know, and what's going to come out of the studio next 

Rich Bennett 45:46
what's he going 

Joe Gulesserian 45:46
and 

Rich Bennett 45:46
to do next? 

Joe Gulesserian 45:47
yeah, and then they played Hey Jude or whatever, they played in front of a satellite audience or Bruno Mars or what's going to be on, you know, Rian's new album. Later, we'll talk off the air. My favorite singers of all time. But you'll like that. But anyways, but so that's what he's done. He's built great cars. Now, BYD is the Chinese company. Yeah, there you might or might not know this. But China is now the largest exporter ahead of Japan, Germany in cars. And that's um, China's the largest export of cars in the world. 

Rich Bennett 46:25
I didn't 

Joe Gulesserian 46:25
that. 

Rich Bennett 46:25
know 

Joe Gulesserian 46:25
And you go all over the developing Latin America, go over the Middle East, go over the GCC countries, go over Asia, all those areas there, not in India because India has got to protect it market through Tata Motors, which builds 3000, 4000 dollar cars. They're not great cars, but they're good enough for India. 

Rich Bennett 46:44
They're good for over there. 

Joe Gulesserian 46:45
Yeah, they're very good for India. So I'm not knocking it that way, but BYD is and the Chinese now have cars that are doing, they're approaching a thousand kilometers on a charge, right? Like 600 miles, like an American term, 600 miles. 

Rich Bennett 47:03
Really? 

Joe Gulesserian 47:03
Yeah. And some of them, uh, I read about this in Transjournal, but some of them, and I'm going to China again, but some of them, um, you can charge, and you can 3/4 or 70% charge it. People, your audience can fact check that. But you can charge it substantially in about 10, 15 minutes. You can just like gas 10 minutes. You're charged at 60% and you're grooving, right? Wow. 

Rich Bennett 47:27
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 47:28
So they have the Seagull, which is, uh, and my friends, a car reviewer, $10, 000 American dollars in China, but the time it came to America, uh, if you had no duties, it would be worth 14, 15, $16, 000 US, and they're reliable and well built. They're testing them in Canada now because they won't love them in the States. It would just kill the car company. He's the President of the Ford Corporation went to China. And he was just, He was floored. He was completely floored by what they're doing. So that goes into competitive advantage in one way that BYD gets. So they know how of batteries, the local peripheral industries with all their components that they need, the rare earth metals, the copper, whatever they need is done through a supply chain that's in synergy. And BYD makes good, good cars. They have like they have a car that goes up against the range rover, but more reliable. Right? And yeah. So they have a they're innovating now. They're no longer, you know, people years ago, although they're just copycats nonsense. Their industry is incredible. They have, I think the most robotics in the world per capita is Singapore per person. Number two comes China. So not China, South Korea. Number three or four comes Germany per capita, I'm saying. And then 

Rich Bennett 49:01
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 49:01
China is number four or five on the robotics because I I follow that China is the most robots in the world. Americans are about number seven, six, seven. 

Rich Bennett 49:13
Wow. 

Joe Gulesserian 49:13
Yeah. So if I was in school, I drop out and I just go to a junior college or a special private school. And I'd learned about being a robotic technician. And if I can walk into that ascent, oh, give me some good advice to anybody who's younger, I can walk into an assembly line where you got 15 robots and something went bad or wrong, your assembly lines down. And I can fix that in four hours and charge you seven to $10, 000, why? Because you're probably losing $150, 000 every 30 minutes because your production systems down. So I think it'll be the war of the robots. I would in my other life, my first trade is I'm a tool maker, I learned that from my dad, he taught me to get a little machine shop. And he fired me about 150 times. Some for good reason. And 

Rich Bennett 50:07
make it hand tools. 

Joe Gulesserian 50:08
yeah, like tooling. Like tooling for molds, tooling for machining 

Rich Bennett 50:13
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 50:14
blades 

Rich Bennett 50:14
okay, 

Joe Gulesserian 50:14
and machines, all that kind of stuff I used to make. That was nothing great. But I took some industrial engineering at college and equals, yeah, why don't you do that? So I took some industrial engineering and I started learning how to program what they called CNC machines. They're on tapes back then. Today, there are no brainer to program. They're much easier. And CNC machines for the U. S., if you're not familiar with this, computing, numerically controlled, they're manufacturing machines that make – I'll give a example. They'll make a car, a boater's breakwaters on a car. They'll make them, they'll make them in two minutes. A machine is probably take two hours. They'll be 10 times the quality, 100% consistent. If you know the concept in engineering and blueprinting, all the parts are consistent. And CNC do so, they'll do those. So I know my way around the factory floor. I'm not a whiz, but I know my way enough that if I get into trouble, I can call a whiz. So going back, if I was 20 years old, a year ago, you went and studied sociology and you're going to be more than likely as unemployables, your sociology and professor themselves. And you're going to change the world. And even though you probably couldn't coordinate a shift on Dunkin Donuts, you're going to change the world. I get that idea, why don't you go learn robotics? And why don't you go learn – you don't have to be a whiz. You just have to be technician. The colleges have very good technical schools. If you go into your resume, I think I can set up your robot, your industrial robots that make these contraptions. Or the human robots that are now going to start working side by side with humans, you've got some pretty good leverage. Welcome to the future. 

Rich Bennett 52:12
Well, and I'm glad you said that because with the future, even though it's been around for decades, AI, I don't understand why people aren't – well, some people are. But you're still seeing a lot of people not embracing it. And using it, but not using it properly, does that make sense? 

Joe Gulesserian 52:34
Well, that makes sense because, you know, I'm going to go to a garden party on Sunday. But some people that 

Rich Bennett 52:46
Thanks, 

Joe Gulesserian 52:46
I 

Rich Bennett 52:46
now 

Joe Gulesserian 52:46
know. 

Rich Bennett 52:47
I've got Ricky Nelson on my head. 

Joe Gulesserian 52:48
Yeah, hang on, no, no, and believe me, just like, eh, I don't think they're going to embrace me, you know, they were calling me names last time, so I guess I've become an acquired taste. 

I'm still executives who had their secretaries, that's what we called them then, pardon me. Or administrative, saying, you know, uh, you, or they get their wives or whatever, to do the email link, you know, uh, that's gone now. The Lodites, which just goes back to the British Industrial Revolution, once upon a time, if you were a weaver, this is a high sought after artesian skill. What they did is during the Industrial Revolution, they knew they're losing their jobs, they went through the factories at night and started smashing the machines down, hoping that this would, this would alienate progress, right? So, um, is AI going to be a guard of roses, not necessarily, it's going to take massive jobs away, but again, I'm not going to come up right it's, it's another show for another time to really go. 

Rich Bennett 54:15
I was going to say, but I would think it would create jobs as well. 

Joe Gulesserian 54:18
can create jobs, and that's why I was talking about robotics, and so 

Rich Bennett 54:22
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 54:22
if 

Rich Bennett 54:22
It 

Joe Gulesserian 54:23
those who can control the robots, look at, look at it this way, pretend you're a politician and you can seduce people by propaganda all day long, in fact that's their job. But if you can, the way they control us, right through the crowd we're talking about that before the show and collective misguidance and other silly ideas like that, if you can control the robots, if you can program those robots, if you can fix those robots, you got yourself a great Oh, by the way, learn how to speak Mandarin too, right, and you're good, right? And, um, you know, and drop that course that you're taking in university called butterfly mating habits in the Brazilian jungle in the Peruvian jungle, Peruvian jungles, and I said being there before because I had customers there. 

Rich Bennett 55:11
Really? 

Joe Gulesserian 55:12
Be nearly, proves a beautiful country, um, 

Rich Bennett 55:15
it's what I've heard. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:16
It's absolutely stunning. I took my family. The way I saw much of the world is through business. I, you know, I ended up in, you know, Dubai, and Peru, and Ecuador, and El Salvador, and Africa, and some other places I've been in, and of course China and South Korea. Those of us that come, of course, fair bit of Europe, but that's how I saw the world. 

Rich Bennett 55:40
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:40
I, I, I, I, for better for worse, you can't get me to sell in the beach for more than four or five days, you know. 

Rich Bennett 55:49
I'd rather be in the mountains. 

Joe Gulesserian 55:51
Mountains are beautiful, 

Rich Bennett 55:51
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 55:52
are they? 

Rich Bennett 55:53
I love that. Yeah, I love. Mountains. Give me the mountains with a nice lake 

Joe Gulesserian 55:58
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 55:59
there. A fishing pole. I'll be happy. 

Joe Gulesserian 56:02
Yeah. And 

Rich Bennett 56:03
the bears away. 

Joe Gulesserian 56:05
So do you want to talk about it? So where do you want to talk about? Now we can talk about how Rick Flair was the real world champion, not Hulk, and, you know, I'm if you wanted that moment. 

Rich Bennett 56:15
Oh, wait a 

Joe Gulesserian 56:15
Hold 

Rich Bennett 56:15
minute. Hold up, 

Joe Gulesserian 56:17
hold on, I got you, 

Rich Bennett 56:18
Jeff. 

Joe Gulesserian 56:18
I 

love those guys on the mic. I can't stop. 

Rich Bennett 56:25
Oh, you know what here's the thing when it comes to you talking about branding. 

Joe Gulesserian 56:31
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:32
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Down, because a lot of people thought that the WWE, when the world wrestler, or world wrestling, when the World Wildlife Foundation filed that lawsuit against them, and they had to change it can no longer 

Joe Gulesserian 56:45
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:45
be WWF. They thought a lot of people thought that was the 

Joe Gulesserian 56:49
at. 

Rich Bennett 56:49
end. 

Joe Gulesserian 56:49
No, not at all. 

Rich Bennett 56:50
And look That's back. But with So WWE is its own brand, 

Joe Gulesserian 56:58
again, 

Rich Bennett 56:58
but the wrestlers are their own brand as 

Joe Gulesserian 57:01
exactly. 

Rich Bennett 57:01
well. 

Joe Gulesserian 57:01
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 57:02
And Hogan, yeah, Hogan sold a lot of t-shirts. I don't even know if Flair ever did have a t-shirt come to think of it. If he did he could have sold him. 

Joe Gulesserian 57:11
He was great on the mic though. He was so good 

Rich Bennett 57:13
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 57:13
on. 

Rich Bennett 57:14
he? Yes. Very good on 

Joe Gulesserian 57:16
Crazy. 

Rich Bennett 57:17
the mic. New had to tell us new hood have a sell story 

Joe Gulesserian 57:20
Crazy. 

Rich Bennett 57:21
so I have to sell a match. Seena his shirts were always selling, but the funny thing is I think one of the shirts, the merchandise that sell in the best right now in wrestling. Is a character named Danhausen? 

Joe Gulesserian 57:37
Oh my goodness they write that down. 

Rich Bennett 57:38
Who is only wrestled a couple times. But he's he reminds you of how can I explain this like? not really well, yeah, Dracula 

mixed with because he's got the face paint on and everything meets. I don't know. Some comedian, Robert Williams, whatever. The guy's just hilarious. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:08
Oh my god. 

Rich Bennett 58:09
He is, he was in the independence for a long time. And WWE picked him up and it's just skyrocketing. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:19
And he sees he's I'm going to look that up. I'm going to check it out on YouTube. I'm going to see. 

Rich Bennett 58:24
Oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 58:26
I haven't watched. Like I like, like I'm just remember the old, the old school guys a lot of them are no longer with us. 

Rich Bennett 58:32
oh, yeah. Bruno San Martino Rick Flair. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:34
Oh, And I like, who was I liked, King Kong Bundy to here's a good villain. Iron Sheik was excellent villain. 

Rich Bennett 58:42
Iron Sheik. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:43
Oh, I liked 

Rich Bennett 58:44
it. Oh, yeah, I grew up on wrestling. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:46
Yeah. So let me say one thing. Oh, sorry. 

Rich Bennett 58:50
No, no, I was just going to say I grew up on and stole big fan. 

Joe Gulesserian 58:53
my book on the chapter on negotiations, these guys like Bundy Kamala the Ugandan giant use from down 

Rich Bennett 59:00
In 

Joe Gulesserian 59:00
south, right? He's a really nice humble guy. And these guys here did not make a lot of money on the cards. So in one scenario, I had them negotiating against Vince McMahon and how they could work and leverage what they could offer because why do you go to a movie or go see wrestling, you want to see the horror, the potential horror of your hero being destroyed in front of you, you know, that's what you're going, right? You go to a movie and if it's all good guys are angels in there, what's the point, right? If the look bad guys are what create history, not the good guys, the good guys are just a filler. So I think people like going to see MMA or you know, which reminds me of the fall of Roman Roman Empire. 

they like to see that because inside us, I think we have this villain aside, and we try to wash it away by look pointing at the other villains thing. That's the bad guy look. Look, I'm so I'm such a good balance nice guy, you know, and. I know how we got into that, but I had I had a strategy for Bundy and some of the other wrestlers who got paid very little compared to Hulk and Rick Flair, the big names and missing 

Rich Bennett 1:00:24
Yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:24
if you hear the rock got paid well. And how to leverage that, you know, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:30
yeah, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:31
yeah, anyways, I don't know how I got into that, but I got you button going there with wrestling and this morning, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:36
I could. I could do a whole episode on wrestling. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:42
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:42
alert, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:43
I 

Rich Bennett 1:00:43
yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:46
said my mother on WhatsApp, my mother's older, but I sent my mother on WhatsApp. She's a, um, Jean Okerlan interviewing the macho man, righ? And the, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:56
Yeah. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:00:57
yeah, and the macho man was infused on stuff would just be diplomatic. And, but you know, my mom will get a chuckle out of that, right? Like my wife says, I don't want to hear anything about it. Yeah. And, um, so I only have one friend left that will actually come and watch on YouTube, some of the old wrestling interviews. I like the interviews better than just the matches themselves. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:21
Oh, oh, yeah. I mean, that, that was the story. the interviews 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:26
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:26
and the promos were the story. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:28
Yeah. And it was so believable too when, when they beat up, I think who was it? Someone, someone splashed, oh, Bendy splashed, uh, they ganged up on Hulk Hogan and they're carrying Hogan out on the stretcher. The little kids are crying and all this, and it's fantastic. Where are you going to get? 

Rich Bennett 1:01:44
Snuck 

it in the head with the coconut. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:48
Oh, yeah. Jimmy Snucker, you know, Piper. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:51
Yeah. Piper 

Joe Gulesserian 1:01:54
grew up in Dom Mills, Ontario. and he was friends with, he was friends with my lawyer when they grew up apparently. I never, I met someone's. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:02
He, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:03
He was good. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:03
Actually, 

his daughter. Have you seen the UFC power slap? 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:09
No, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:10
no competition. So it's, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:12
oh, oh, yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:13
yeah. Yeah, where they slap each, his daughter just did that. And I think 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:17
one, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:19
one, her match. Anyways, guy, I'm looking at the time now. Joe, you get, okay, now we know. Now I know I'm going to have to get you on again because there's still a lot of things we could talk about. Yeah, and besides wrestling, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:31
besides, right, and we go deep into AI and strategies for competitive 

Rich Bennett 1:02:35
oh, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:35
advantage. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:36
yeah, And so I said there's a lot more we could talk about. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:39
And the other one I have is inflation, but we'll go into there. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:43
So tell people where they can find you and get your 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:48
Well, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:48
books. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:02:48
after this show, I might be in San Quentin for all the things we said. But if I'm not in San Quentin, my book's the Gorilla Guide for Entrepreneurs are online. You'll like that one. And my other book was called the Practical MBA for Economics, that's online, meaning on Amazon. And I'm available on LinkedIn. I'm also available on Instagram. I have a YouTube channel. I don't do much with it. I've done some videos. So I'm not hard to find type in my name. And my website for my books is practicalmba. ca. Don't wear it so much. It's not drying all that stuff. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:28
"da 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:29
But anyways, 

Rich Bennett 1:03:29
for Canada." is Canada." Okay. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:33
Yeah, yeah. "da 

Rich Bennett 1:03:33
Yeah, I had a thing for... 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:34
But don't worry. We have McDonald's hamburgers here too. We're okay. We're... 

Rich Bennett 1:03:38
Oh, I'm sorry. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:39
Yeah. I like their french fries. I go maybe once every two years, you know. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:43
I'm 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:43
And 

Rich Bennett 1:03:44
sorry. Burger King always had the best french fries. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:47
You like theirs? They're good aren't they? The Onion Root. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:49
Well, they were. Until I think they had to stop using peanut oil. Who would have known? 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:56
I don't 

Rich Bennett 1:03:56
I don't 

Joe Gulesserian 1:03:56
know. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:56
know. I don't go to any of them anymore. I can't do the fast food. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:00
It's tougher when you get 

Rich Bennett 1:04:01
I 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:01
older, 

Rich Bennett 1:04:01
can't... 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:01
right? It's to get older. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:03
Well, I was up to 300 pounds. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:05
Oh my God. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:06
And my A1C was high. It's like, okay, I need... Plus, when my one job, I was always on the roof. So when you're on the roof, yeah, you're gonna eat fast food a lot. And yeah, I'm done. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:16
And now that you're 

Rich Bennett 1:04:17
All right. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:17
off. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:17
So, Jill, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:18
you're feeling better. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:19
Yeah. Now I need to healthy stuff. My friend, when I eat lunch, I'm probably going to eat either sardines or tuna fish. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:25
That's good for you. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:27
It's very good. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:28
But you're looking good. You're looking good. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:30
well, thank you. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:31
Anyway, 

Rich Bennett 1:04:31
Thank you. And that's why I got to wear the fake belly when I do sand and 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:36
now that's okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:39
I draw. I need you to pick a number between one and five, 

three. Great. All right. Now, I need you to pick a number between 41 and 60, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:04:52
57, 

Rich Bennett 1:04:54
55, 57. I talk about branding. Okay. What's a quality... Now, run it lips here. What's a quality you admire most in others that you strive to cultivate in yourself? 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:10
Humbleness. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:12
Why is that? 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:15
It just... I think it celebrates the human spirit. I really think it's... People like that are very nice to be around. And not just because they're nice, they're just... When you meet humble people like that, they probably have a beautiful story to tell and they've done some interesting 

Rich Bennett 1:05:35
Yes. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:35
things with their lives, yeah. You know? 

Rich Bennett 1:05:38
I love that. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:05:38
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:39
Great answer. Joe, I want to thank you so much. It's been fun. Yeah, definitely have to get you back on again. And there's a lot more we can talk about. Now, go check out Dan-Hausen. They'd be reading... Be sent... You know what? Better yet, Joe. Go to the bathroom first and then come back and watch Dan-Hausen because you're going to be lame. It's so hard you might piss yourself. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:02
Oh my God. That's terrible. I'll walk... You know what? I wrote that down. Tonight when I come back from the gym, I'll come back and I'll watch this kind of stuff, you know? And... 

Rich Bennett 1:06:14
Well, 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:15
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:15
it's hilarious. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:16
Yeah. Yeah. It does. I just... 

I just like... Oh, I like stuff like that. But thanks for having me on your show, Rich. It was a lot of fun. We finally hooked up. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:27
And we'll hook up again. Wait a minute. No, we can't say hook up. That's a bad thing. We'll get together again. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:32
Yeah. And if I'm out and your neck of the woods, I would... you know, wear my James Bond Toxito and pull up and, you know, we just sit down and you know, we can talk about whatever you like. Yeah. Sure. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:46
And I'll introduce you to some good seafood. 

Joe Gulesserian 1:06:48
Oh, there you go. That should do it. Yeah. It will be good. You take care. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:58
adds another conversation in the books. Jo and I started out talking about the soul of a brand. And somehow we ended up going from Tide and Coca-Cola to Harley Davidson, Apple, Shampoo, AI, Robotics, Automobiles, and yes, even professional wrestling. But when you really think about it, all of those things connect to what Jo was saying from the beginning. The brands that stay with us aren't simply selling us something. They're making us feel something. Whether it's trust, nostalgia, confidence, belonging, hope, or even a little bit of rebellion, the strongest brands become part of our stories. And I think there's an important lesson there for every entrepreneur and business owner that's listening. Your brand isn't just your logo, your website, your packaging, or what you post on social media. It's the experience you create. And what people believe about you when you're not there to explain it. I also loved where our conversation went when we started talking about AI, robotics, and the future of work. Technology is going to continue changing, whether we're ready for it or not. The opportunity is in learning how to adapt, understanding how these tools can give us a competitive advantage and developing skills that remain valuable as the world around us changes. But after more than an hour of talking about business, technology, brands, competition, and entrepreneurship, I think Jo's answer to my final question may have said more than anything else. Humbleness. Because behind every great brand, every successful business, and every new technology, there are still people. And as Jo said, humble people often have beautiful stories to tell. Joe, thank you for finally making this conversation happen. We definitely have some unfinished business because we barely scratched the surface on AI 

competitive advantage, inflation. And apparently, we still need an entire episode about professional wrestling. And to everyone listening, check out Jo's books, The Gorilla Guide for Entrepreneurs and the rest of us and the practical MBA on economics and learn more about his work at practicalnba. ca. Until next time, I'm Rich Bennett. Thanks for listening. And remember, every great conversation starts with someone willing to listen, and someone willing to share. Now it's your turn. Join the conversation by sharing this episode, leaving a comment or reaching out to me directly. Take care, be kind to one another and I'll talk with you again soon.