Turning cultural shifts into strategic advantages in business with Jasmine Bina

Akua: Today’s guest, Jasmine Bina, she doesn’t spot the trends. She sees the patterns that are shaping where culture is headed, and she’s what we call a cultural futurist, a brand strategist, and the CEO of Concept Bureau, which is a strategy agency. Helping Brands with Foresight. She’s also the founder of Exposure Therapy, a community for Strategic Minds.

In this episode, we are exploring how cultural shifts can guide sharper and more strategic business decisions and what it really takes to build movements, not just messages. What I loved so much about this conversation is Jasmine. Insight into how society really does shape the way that we run our businesses.

And also just sharing with us what it means to be truly uncomfortable. And when you’re in that messy middle of being stretched and uncomfortable, that is where it can lead to some of the best ideas, some of the best direction in your business. So I won’t take up any more of your time. Let’s get into the episode.

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Hello, Jasmine. How are we doing today?

Jasmine: I’m great. I’m really excited to talk.

Akua: I know. I’m excited for you to be here. We were already just chatting up a storm, um, about all the things, and we just, since you decided, let’s. See where the conversation takes us, which is what the unbreakable business is all about.

So I’m so stoked because I feel like you are just so cool.

Jasmine: I’m, I’m so touched. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Akua: I’m like, you’re super cool. So I’m excited. Excited to have you here. You know, one thing about you that I thought was really interesting and really unique is that you just have this ability to.

See, you know, just where culture is heading before most people do. And how did you figure out that you had this gift and what has led to you now helping business owners with their brand strategy? Like there’s just so many things that you do.

Jasmine: I, I, I really appreciate that. Um, it’s funny, I don’t know that it’s a gift.

It’s definitely work. Yeah. I started, so I think it kind of, maybe my, the inception of the business explains like how I got here, but I, I don’t even know how many years, like 10, 12 years ago, I had a PR agency. We were in like the Silicon Valley tech world, um, when like the app economy was booming and mm-hmm.

Um, you know, it was a time when, uh, our clients could get super big. And not even know how they got big. ’cause stuff would blow up overnight. And then they’d come to us and wanna go to press and I didn’t have a story because they didn’t even know who they were. So we would just kinda do their brands quick and dirty.

And that was like the pre-work I felt I had to do to get to the real work, which was like actually getting them to media. But over time that part of our business group. Hmm. And it occurred to me that that was something I enjoyed and it was the future of what I felt that industry was going to need. Um, my industry is much bigger.

Like we, we would go across all industries and verticals now, but at the time it was very much tech. And so I started writing. My answer to so many things when people ask me like, how’d you get into this? Or How do you do what you do is always writing. You have to figure out how you think. I think through writing.

Mm-hmm. And um, I started writing because when we pivoted our services and we rebranded ourselves as concept bureau, I did not have like a formalized process for what brand strategy was. It was very intuitive for me at the time. And I wrote, my first article was about like. And this is, this is what’s interesting.

I would write about things I had never done before and then I would win the clients that were in those spaces. So the first article I wrote was about new luxury. Kanye was just coming up. He was doing all that church stuff and like, yeah, we were really talking about like, it was a different kind of cultural capital.

And so I interrogated that in my piece and people responded to it. And even just like. When I say writing, I mean like responding to people in the comments, having conversations. Uh, you know when people reach out and they’re like, oh, you know, I love your writing. It really struck a chord with me, and so my writing practice has become my business practice, and I also consume a lot that comes from my PR days.

I read a ton. I have a community and a team that is always sending me content. So luckily, like I have a good funnel of, of stuff to be always kind of like exposed to and learning from, and. When you learn to develop an opinion about where the future is headed based on the signals that you’re getting, and you learn to understand how people behave and you learn to create patterns.

Through just the doing of it, which is the way it was for me. I’m very, my story was very DIY. That’s how you come to, you know, become like, I call myself now a brand strategist and a cultural futurist. ’cause the brand strategy piece is so fused with the cultural futurism and the work that we do for our clients.

But that was my process in many ways is still my process, but. I find that when it comes down to it, it’s really being in the world. We have a thing in my team where it’s, we have this kind of like edict of like one of our three values is learn everything and to change the work and then to let the work change you.

Akua: Mm. And

Jasmine: what’s interesting is, and I think the reason why people respond to my work and to our writing and come on as clients, is you can’t encounter the world the way that we do and brands and the markets the way that we do without it changing you a little bit. And I think that comes through in my writing.

People see how I’ve changed. I mean, my wild, my writing has wildly changed and, uh. When you let it change you, then you’re really a lot more in sync with the world and where things might be heading. And that’s, that’s when I think, you know, you have some intuition. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s those things. It’s really letting yourself expand to the surface area of who you are.

You know, another thing that we, we don’t always do this, but we have periods, phases. In my team, we’re like, we’re always telling ourselves we have to get weird with stuff. Like we have to experience weird things and seek out weird things and do weird things. Culture, those weird things on the edges of culture, I use this metaphor, they’re kind of like, um, satellites out in space, sending signals back of like where, where the future is headed.

You just kinda have to get out there and not just in mind or like, you know, from a distance. You have to actually put yourself in those spaces to experience them. It’s, uh, will kind of breed that intuition in you and breed that, whatever you wanna call it, whatever it is that I do. This kind of like.

Forecasting. Mm-hmm. It comes from that kind of work.

Akua: Yeah. Oh, there are so many just important things that you said. Is that number one, like when you said like, I write because that truly works for me and my brain, I think that’s such a powerful thing to know as business owners like, and the fact that you leaned so much into that gift that you were writing about things that you had no experience in, and that opened doors for you.

Like I write, and I think that’s such a beautiful thing about entrepreneurship is like, what are some things that you’re, that you know, okay, this is where I shine. This is where, you know, I. Thrive or I’m able to process and get that clarity to really help move me forward. And I loved that you were talking about the Kanye piece when he like went into like the whole church thing.

I was like, what a time. I just thought of that. I was like that, that that album was fired. I just,

Jasmine: how ahead of his time was he? Because look where we’re now. It was so

Akua: good. Yes. And now I’m like, I’m so interested to know that article. I’m like, oh, I would’ve read that. Like, yeah, because that was. It was a great time.

So, um, just thinking of that, but I love how you said of learn everything. I think that’s something that we can easily, when we’re so much just, you know, every day in our day to day, we’re so busy as business owners and in our lives and stuff, just really carving out that time to keep learning, to get weird.

And I think again, because it’s gonna pull you in different directions that you never thought was possible. And so. Let’s talk about a little bit of like getting weird. I wanna know like what that kind of looks like for you and your team to where you’re able to be futurist to like see some of these patterns that you’re now like, okay, like now we can shape and shift things for our clients, for our business.

Like what does that look like? I would love more of a, a deeper detail.

Jasmine: Okay, so getting weird is basically when you see or encounter something that makes you a little uncomfortable, you have to lean into it.

Akua: Yes. Um,

Jasmine: the weird that matters, by the way, so weird is a great signal of where the future is headed.

Most things that become. Trends start as anomalies.

Akua: Mm-hmm. Uh,

Jasmine: but the important thing is to know what anomalies count. And when it comes to weird signals, you’re not looking for shock value. That’s not the kind of weird that matters. You’re not looking for things that like, you know, are just there to either entertain you or disgust you or scare you or terrify you for the sake of being weird.

For like engagement. You’re looking for weird. That is somehow the trespass of invisible boundaries or norms.

Akua: Mm.

Jasmine: So, you know, before I get into like what we do to kinda experience weird, here’s some weird signals, mom unes. Are, are they, they caused a hysteria when it was like in the news late last year. Um, the, I think the New York Times posted something.

It’s basically single moms living together to raise their children. Yes. Yep. But communes in general are just, you know, going wild. Um, cause commun communal living, eco living, intergenerational living, uh, I forget the word, but like, uh, nomadic, uh, communal living, stuff like that. And what is weird about that is not that these people are choosing to like live together or give up a sense of power, which I think is very hard for people in the West to kind of stomach.

It’s that they are decentering the marriage. So much of the world in life is centered around your, your romantic partner and your relationship, and this does not make that the center of your life. That’s what’s weird about it because when you decenter marriage from culture, if that sticks, we’ll have huge downstream effects.

So that’s the kind of weird that we’re talking about, what it actually looks like on my team. You know, I’ve gone on some like weird vacations, you know? Uh, what am I first like, is going on a, um, uh, Zach Lamb, who’s our, uh, principal strategist, who’s a genius. He is going on a psychic retreat that this group, it, it’s related to ai.

He’s, they’re gonna go do that. He’s done like renaissance fairs. I, uh, a really great signal in culture right now is the rise of romantic literature. And I’m laughing because anybody who follows me knows that like that, that I cannot. Bring that up in a podcast interview. Um, uh, so, uh, romantic is a great signal because it is kind of breaking norms around what female sexuality is allowed to be about.

Mm-hmm. And the idea that sexuality can be experienced without a partner in a way that feels very empowering. Mm-hmm. And so I, you know, a couple of people in my community, we, uh, we went on a secret romantic trip where we kind of were like, let’s just get weird with it. Let’s just feel what it, let’s pretend we’re goddesses.

Let’s just, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s. Try to live in one of these stories. Yeah. Um, a lot of times getting weird means letting go of your biases. Letting go of the things that you think are precious about who you are. Mm-hmm. And just making yourself really open to the experience. And a lot of times what you learn true, you’ll definitely change in the process, but what you learn is not so much like about the thing.

Mm-hmm. You learn about the, the thing that it gives you. Yeah. What are people actually seeking? The future is probably always going to go in the direction of what people actually secretly desire. The trick is they don’t tell you what they desire and it’s not really on the surface. Mm-hmm. In their private lives, it’s there and their conversations they have with themselves, it’s there, but how often do you get in there?

Akua: Mm-hmm.

Jasmine: And one of the more effective ways to get in there is to become that person.

Akua: Mm.

Jasmine: And so it’s, uh, you know, it’s play. You have to learn to play with it. And I’m not a good play person. I learned that when I had kids. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I have a hard time playing. Playing makes me uncomfortable. Playing is messy.

Playing is unstructured. Yeah. And I’ve had to relearn how to play somebody. Peter Switzer, he’s a member of my community. He, when we were talking about this, we had a, a play month that we were talking about. He, he mentioned. A lot of times play is kind of engineered out of you or bred out of you because you’re taught to compete for affection at an early age.

And I was like, damn.

Akua: Mm-hmm.

Jasmine: You know that there, there are many reasons why we stop learning how to play. Yeah. Sometimes it’s not even important to learn, know why? You just have to get past it. Yeah. Um, so you don’t. It’s just another example of like, to do this work, it takes so much self evolution and, you know.

Akua: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I, I love so much of what you shared. And even when you said, um, you know how in order to really understand the people that you’re wanting to serve, you almost have, you have to become them. You have to be them. Right? And so like being able to play and getting up close and being open to the experience is what can really help you.

Align with the people that you’re wanting to serve. So it’s easier to reach them, it’s easier to speak to them. Hundred percent. And, and so with you, as you know, you have your clients, like they, they’re not coming to you for that surface surface level branding, right? Like they’re coming to you to create those movements.

And so what does that process look like for your clients as they’re coming to you? How do they find their own movements? How can that apply to their business?

Jasmine: So the people that come to us, you’re right, they, they do need to, what we say is we do, we do cultural brand strategy. So if you come to us. You know, there are plenty of brands that don’t need us, first of all, that can do great and that are killing it.

Yeah. Plenty of brands that are good at like jumping on surface level trends. That’s a real strategy and it works. Mm-hmm. Um. Uh, the way we do it is a bit more costly, not necessarily in money, but in time and in resources and staying committed to the course. And if your brand needs to move the needle of culture, meaning if you need to change a belief or a behavior in the market in order to win, then you come to people like us.

Our work is about changing beliefs and behaviors in the market. There are a lot of steps, but there are three main steps. So our work is heavily research based. A lot of times people even just come to us ’cause they don’t actually know their customer and they like the kind of research that we do. So three, three main parts to our research that helps us kind of start to figure out where we’re going.

The first part is cultural research, and when we’re looking at culture, we’re not trying to, you know, we’re, we’re not trying to understand what’s happening right now, but we’re trying to connect the dots to predict what might be happening in like 18 months to three to five years. Mm-hmm.

Akua: Mm-hmm.

Jasmine: You do that by looking at all of the narratives that a brand touches.

So you might have like a finance brand, right? That like does loans or something. You’re not really in finance, uh, especially when it comes to things like debt. You are touching stories of like the American dream capitalism or the Prosperity Gospel. That’s, that’s part of what Kanye was, was pushing this, especially when he was like with those mega church pastors and things like that, like.

This idea of like the prosperity gospel in the US is very interesting. It tells you that it’s a very natural, it’s a very natural combination of Christianity and capitalism. It’s this idea that if this is truly a free market, then when you become rich, you deserve it because you did that by yourself. But it also implies it’s opposite.

Where if you. Fatal. You deserve that too. Mm-hmm. Because it’s a free market man. How come you couldn’t do it? And other people can hack it together. There is a sector of Christianity that very much tells that same story through religion. This is not to hate on religion. I love studying religion. But you see how there’s, it’s such a perfect like combination.

It’s a very intoxicating story. Yeah. And so when you are a finance brand. You, you, you don’t think you have it. Like those are stories that are people in people’s heads that tell themselves change Exactly. That they tell themselves that will change. Whether they borrow, how they borrow, how they spend.

Mm-hmm. All that stuff. So you’re touching. So you have to really go broad with the kinds of cultural stories that you’re touching, and then you have to look at those stories and ask yourself how are they changing? And then you have two choices. You can either spearhead, become the leader in telling the stories that are developing, or you can change the story.

And, uh, neither one is right or wrong. They both are difficult in their own ways, but that’s what you need to do. So that’s the first piece of research that we, we look at. Then we look at, um. Conditioning narratives. So this is what people might call, um, competitive research. Uh, but we’re not looking for like, oh, you know, how does your product compare?

All that stuff, you know, that’s not necessary for the work that we do. We are looking at who are the other players in your category and how are they going to change the expectations of your users mm-hmm. Over the coming months and years. So, you know, apple is the, or at least was for a long time the conditioning player in personal electronics.

If Apple said You should, you know, your electronics need to make you a taste maker, or your electronics convey your identity or your electronics make you a real creative, then everybody is playing by those rules. So who are the people with conditioning narratives? I would argue sometimes increasingly the people that are conditioning your consumers are not even in your category to bring up romantic again, you know.

Look at the perfume market. This is based on research, by the way, of an incredible researcher named Lily McGonigal in the uk. I had her come and speak to us a couple of times, and I’ve, I’ve had her come to work on some of our projects. She’s remarkable and I love the way her brain works. And she, um, she wrote an article, uh, that this is based on in Dazed, I believe.

Mm-hmm. Where if you look at how perfume is changing, it’s become so abstracted. Like now you buy perfumes not, that aren’t like of vanilla and cherry. It’s like. You know, the descent of like falling down in a foreign city and a stranger comes and helps you back up, you know? Yeah. That, that’s how they describe their fragrance.

So it’s like these very immersive worlds, but there’s a whole category of fragrances that are just so unhinged now, and if you trace them back, you realize, are you familiar with romantic at all?

Akua: No. Mm-hmm.

Jasmine: Okay. Tread lightly. If you get into it, you might get lost. It’s basically, um, these romance novels that are very, sometimes they’re trashy, but they’re very s muddy, so they’re sex.

Mm-hmm. But the sex is secondary. I don’t know if some famous person said, you know, everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power. Mm-hmm. So these stories are about women. Encountering their power, and it’s through like, um, fantasy fairies, things like that. It sounds so silly when I describe it and it’s taking off.

It’s written by women, by the way, and it’s these incredible explorations. Explorations of not just sexuality at a time when being sexual overtly is dangerous in our culture right now, right? Mm-hmm. So women are escaping to these novels, but you know what happens in these stories, these women. Discover they have these secret powers.

It’s very much an ugly duckling story. And then they exact vengeance, then they kill people. They become killing machines and, and so you have this heady mix of like sex and beauty and power and killing and you know, getting back at people and retribution. And now you end up with perfumes that are straight references to what’s happening in these books.

Perfumes that have like fragrance notes of like. Sweat and tears and blood, you know, um, they have names like Laughing With a Mouthful of Blood that is a direct romantic reference. Yeah. Literature is affecting how people want, you know, to, to get into fragrance. So this is a very long-winded answer. Um, anyways, so conditioning narratives, you know, and then we, then we do psychographic research, which is the heaviest piece, which is really stepping into people’s lives.

We do quantitative and qualitative where we really try to understand, you know. Uh, people’s value systems, how they create those value systems. The stories they tell themselves, the lies they tell themselves. Yeah, the stories. We know that they’re willing to pay a premium for all this stuff. You end up with hundreds of signals.

You find the patterns in those signals, and you start to exact, like, where are they all converging? That’s where you need to build your brand, and that’s where you can build the future.

Akua: Yeah, I love this though because it really is, number one, it offers such a very unique and different perspective. Like I’m learning so much and already in my mind I’m like, oh, like there’s so many things that I can apply to my own business.

Like right now, I did an episode where it’s talking about why high earning clients aren’t buying from you as a business owner. And there’s a stat that I shared, you know, which came out during the holidays of last year. But I do think it’s really relevant now of. The buying, we’ve talked about the buying patterns have truly changed.

People are taking a much longer and longer time in order to make a decision and why. Okay, well what are the narratives? What are some of these, like what are the cultural like shifts and the patterns and what is this connected to? Like hearing you talk about all of these things like number one, you’re extremely knowledgeable, like everything, like you truly do exemplify like, I’m like, I don’t know anything about romantic.

Now I’m like, oh, that’s. So unique, like now I’m interested to learn more, but how it’s connected to perfumes. That’s the thing we forget as business owners, that our businesses are truly connected to culture and like what’s happening all around us. And I think it’s just, if anything that you take away from this episode is, I think it’s great for us to be heads down and in our business, but also be fully aware of what’s around you.

Not in a negative way of like, oh my God, inflation is up and this and that. Yeah. Like, what are we gonna do? Yeah. No, this is your time. To go with curiosity, and that’s what I’ve loved so much about this whole conversation is that you are super curious and like how it just really leans and like links into your business of like.

The, like again, like the perfume. Yes. That’s been a bit like also, yes, perfumes have absolutely taken off. Like now there’s all of these different types of scents and like I layered, I layered today, somebody told me I, I came in good. I came with my, you have a

Jasmine: scent wardrobe.

Akua: I have a scent wardrobe now.

Right? Like, that’s how things are shifting, right? And so everything that we do in our life, everything that we do in our business is a pattern. And so it’s really taking that time as you are wherever your industry and see again, like culturally what’s going on and how can that. Change things for you in your business so that you can forecast, so that you can plan.

Okay, so now you have like a business owner, right? Like obviously you work with, it sounds like, really make like bigger brands who are wanting to shift this belief. And I think right now we are in a really interesting time as business owners where we have to work harder to shift beliefs. And so for us of like, okay, like if you are a solopreneur, you’re like, you know, I don’t, I’m not a big brand, you know, I’m just trying to build my business and keep up.

Jasmine: Yeah.

Akua: What would, what advice would you have for business owners in that and like. Many of us in that space, like how do we start to shift that belief? How can we in our day to day really start. Seeing some of these patterns, if that makes sense. Yes. I like, I threw a lot at you, my back.

Jasmine: No. So, you know, you are so right and so perceptive to say really everything’s becoming connected.

Yeah. And there’s a good reason for that. Everything really actually is becoming connected. My good friend, um, Dr. Lydia Costless, I, I know I’m saying her wrong name, wrong, she, she wrote a great book called The Imagination Dilemma. I had her come and talk to my team actually about the singularity, and it’s this idea that.

Things are becoming so connected, and my advice is when things become so connected, you better start getting super wide with your data inputs.

Akua: Yes.

Jasmine: Here’s, here’s an example. So eggs were expensive for a minute, right? They were expensive because so many birds were being killed because of. This, uh, the avian flu or whatever was going around.

Mm-hmm. That cost of eggs is what started a whole national discussion around the cost of living. Mm-hmm. And that cost of living is what got Trump and his cohort into power. Trump has brought in. This whole world of religiosity into the White House and into what’s, what’s going on, uh, politically here in our country.

And it basically has added a, has really, you know what, that’s like one of the, this country’s original stands, right? You’re not supposed to combine religion with Yes. With the state, right. Church and state. And, you know, you can also trace eggs to the fact that we get a lot of our, we got a lot of our eggs during that time from Turkey.

Akua: And

Jasmine: Turkey had a big social unrest problem.

Akua: Mm-hmm.

Jasmine: That was basically quashed by Elon Musk on X because he DD activated certain accounts that were part of that uprising. And it just goes on and on. And you realize your omelet is like, connected to geopolitics. I know. And like, it’s just like it’s, and, and, and the religious revival of the US.

Crazy. Yeah. So hold that example in mind when you feel like something is too niche or too farfetched from your industry because it’s not. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so I go wide now, you know, you there. There are lots of places to pull information from. There are a lot of great people who like. You know, our pattern finders, you know, sub stackers, researchers, insights, people follow them, um, but also go to places that, again, make you feel uncomfortable.

So I was always uncomfortable with geopolitics and I finally found something like Peter Zhan is a geopolitical analyst. Um, he’s a little contrarian, but uh, he’s the only. I only pay for two Patreons. He’s one of them. He does a quarterly call where he literally will go around the globe and tell you everything that’s happening.

And it’s so enlightening. You know, there any place where like, so like, uh, threat tech is what I call it. That’s not a really, that’s what I call it. Anytime you see investments in like weaponry or logistics or technology that is about, you know. Threats that we don’t have yet. So like anything that, um, I always forget if it’s luck or, uh, Palmer Luck or Lucky Palmer.

Uh, I should know he’s a big guy. Um, anything that he’s doing or Palantir like. You know, it feels unrelated, but it’s actually not because it very much types into, it taps into the underlying psyche of threat in this country. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, other things, like, there’s a whole like world of like vigilante justice, uh, influencers that like go and hunt down, you know, child predators, things like that.

Mm-hmm. Um. Uh, death, death and birth. So much happening in those two extremes. Um, how the language of death is changing. So, uh, a friend of mine, Michael Ard, just wrote a book called Byebye, I Love You, and it’s based on first words and last words. Like, byebye is one of the first common things people say, and I Love you, is one of the last common things that people say when they die.

Um, you know, we are reinterpreting what life means and what death means. You know, the death industry is changing rapidly, these fringes. Um, have some really universal themes for what people are actually feeling and what, what is going on with all of us that connects to all of us.

Akua: Yeah,

Jasmine: and it doesn’t, it’s like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, for people who are old enough to remember that like you can connect anything to anything at this point.

That’s how interconnected things have become, and that’s why, you know, I say go broad, but really what I’m really saying is nothing is broad anymore.

Akua: Yeah, I love that nothing is broad anymore. Like the Eggs example too is just such a good example. I’m like, you’re like my eggs exit I made today. I’m like, all that it took to get these eggs here that I, you know, and you don’t think about it when you’re purchasing these things.

So when you’re thinking about business owners of like really shifting your belief. Really go, the answer could be literally in a place that you would’ve never thought of. And I think again, it’s like, okay, like it’s okay to go wide researching other industries that may not necessarily be connected to you, but there could be a pattern there that could showcase that could affect your industry in X or XY months.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like those different types of things are such a really. Good reminder and just so important, like again, like how everything is truly connected and it’s like all you have to do is just take the time to actually see the pattern. Because when you see the pattern, then it’s gonna be a lot easier for you to lay out your marketing plan of how you wanna show up.

Like I said, like earlier, like now for me, because of like some of these things that are happening, I’m like, okay, that’s fine. Now I know that people want a more personalized experience for me. So like even a little different thing that I can do that I wasn’t gonna do before is, all right, I am now going to have a like one-to-one open, like a one-to-one, like little open house meeting with like people that wanna potentially work with me.

Like those different types of things to give that accessibility. Because what I’m seeing now right, is things are taking a lot longer. Yeah. People are, you know, when it comes to things of a higher price point, people are really making sure that they, they’re really taking the time to make sure, like, is this.

Does this work for me? Is it risk averse? Like, I think a lot of times too, like we’re all pulling back in a lot of ways of like, don’t wanna take a lot of risks. So how can I help alleviate that in any way, shape, or form? I’m just, I’m just throwing out really simple examples. Like just so like people, so like people listening.

Like if you’re listening like that, you can see that again, like everything is truly connected and like. I love what you said, like always be learning, like everything that you do, everything that you’re encountering, it’s, it’s communicating something to you that can really help you, like that can really be an unrecognizable tool in your business.

Yeah. So

Jasmine: 100%. We’re all in the business of people. Everything is people. Yes. The market is just people underneath. Mm-hmm. Um, so there’s nothing that’s not worth learning about them. Mm-hmm. Because everything can be a clue into, like, like you said, a decision you make about how you engage to, you know, speed up the sales cycle.

Akua: Yeah. Oh, okay. So now we see these patterns and everything in the world is ever shifting for you, even as a business and just what do you have advice to business owners of, Howard, are you standing out? Like I said, it’s a good question. Um, not me complimenting my own question.

Jasmine: It’s

Akua: a good question. It’s a good question though.

It’s a good question. Hyping myself up. But, um, no, I think it’s just, I, like I said, everything is so just shifting right now. And unlike all of these patterns that you’ve even talked about, just examples that you’ve given. To me, I’m like, how do we not get overwhelmed? How do we figure out ways to stand out?

What are your thoughts?

Jasmine: I mean, I think it might be a really good time to stand out soon because everything is turning into slop. You know, you have two options. You can be the loudest or you can be the most resonant. So you can be the noise or you can be the signal in the noise. Uh, big brands have the money to be the noise and they can show up 10 times in your life before you convert.

And they know that, you know, they just have to like touch you that many times and you’re gonna buy something. Hmm. Uh, but the great thing about being a, a, maybe a brand that isn’t huge is that, um, the noisier it gets, the more the signal will be understood by the people who get it. Mm-hmm. So make sure you are sending out a very clear signal about exactly what you are about, and that means oftentimes creating tension against other brands.

So, mm-hmm. I don’t think it’s a great strategy to always describe yourself in terms of like, we are not them. I, I think that’s, that’s a bit of a failing strategy, but strategies that show an alternative future, or an alternative reality, or an alternative experience, people will find you through that if you can really make that clear to them.

If you can focus on. What you are trying to build in the world that doesn’t exist, or what you’re trying to create that is just, it’s a little oasis. Mm-hmm. And in some ways, that’s why I see like a lot of these good smaller brands, they feel like an oasis. When people arrive there and that brand is meant to speak to them, it feels like a relief.

Like, oh, okay, they get me, I get them. And that’s what you really want to be because you don’t, here’s the thing, being a like good brand, that generally speaks to a lot of people like. The problem a lot of brands have when they come to us is like, they’re great brands, but people look at them and they say like, that’s good, but they don’t have a strong reaction.

You need to create a brand that people react to. ’cause you can work with love and hate. You cannot really work with indifference.

Akua: Yes. So

Jasmine: if somebody hates your brand, great. It’s not for them. You’re creating more of a tribal experience for who it’s for. If somebody really loves your brand, great, then they’re gonna be diehard loyalists.

But like if you are like the average brand or like you’re a good enough brand, you’re not gonna force that reaction and then you don’t force the conversion. Mm-hmm. You gotta dial it up until people react, somehow you, and obviously the artistry is figuring out and the right kind of reaction, but you do have to dial up so that people either.

If, especially for the kind of brands that we’re working with, which are brands that are offering you an alternative vision of the future, like you could be like this kind of runner or athlete or like, you know, this is the future of food or this is the future of like fashion. They will either really understand that future and they’ll follow you into it or they will not get it at all and they’ll walk away.

You, you need that kind of extreme to, to make it work.

Akua: Yes. I think, oh, that’s such a good point. And you know, even just as a brand, right, like we obviously know that our brand is always communicating something and that, you know, the, you know, we know the basics where, you know, it’s always like, talk about the transformation and stuff like that.

And it’s like we’re always speaking to, and maybe this is just me, but you know, we’re always speaking to. What we know for sure, what our audience wants, which I think is great. But I think from great to extraordinary, it’s that future piece, right? Like where you’re creating an alternative that they didn’t even know was possible.

Yeah. That forces them to think differently and yeah, I don’t know. I’m like, oh, that’s like really, really cool. Like that’s such a,

Jasmine: I think So that’s what we do, you know? Again, not everybody needs it, but yeah. I, I, I also think it’s like, I enjoy that, that part of it. Yeah. It’s hard, you know, it’s, it’s a risk always.

Mm-hmm. But, um, I find it quite rewarding and that’s the kind of thing. Yeah. And

Akua: I think, and I think, you know, even as business owners, you don’t have to go into this whole extreme of like, I think, I think there’s a way that you can find some balance, because I do think as business owners like. Uh, to your point, I’m like, oh, yeah.

I think of brands that I absolutely adore, like love, like I purchase their products all the time. Yeah. And it goes beyond the values. It’s like they have solved a problem in a way that I like, I knew was possible and I had it in my mind, but they just exceeded that. You know what I mean? And I think that as like a business owner, like there’s a way to still exemplify and showcase that.

And I think when we, we can be more confident doing that. When we are looking at the patterns, then we like feel more confident of like, okay, like this is where I’m, I’m willing to be a little bit more edgy. I’m willing to, to take the risk. Yes. And, and I think that’s a really cool. Honestly kind of beautiful like journey you can take yourself on as a business owner.

I feel like I’m like, I dunno know how it making sense, but

Jasmine: No, no, I get that. You know, sometimes another way, what the future looks like is not necessarily like a changed world, it’s just changed people. Mm-hmm. So a lot of good brands just give you an alternative vision of who you can be in the future.

Mm-hmm. Yes. That’s very exciting. A lot of people do want to be changed in some way or you know, more commonly what we’re seeing especially is like there’s a lot of new. Technologies and innovations that can actually change things about yourself. Things about your body, things about your performance, the way your brain works, stuff like that.

You know, the whole wellness industry for example, or now, um, you know, so much innovation and attention is, uh, coming into the perimenopause and menopause space with like hormone therapies and things like that. Obviously, GLP ones, they have to wade through. A lot of, you know, I, I’ve mentioned this before in some of my writing, I call it moral static.

I think that’s a good metaphor for this. They already want to inhabit that identity. They wanna be that person or that version of themselves, but they get through all this moral bullshit to get to you, to get to your brand. You have to create a space where they can easily step into that identity. And see themselves in it.

Mm-hmm. It, I, you know, uh, med men, it is too bad that that brand was so poorly managed and like, you know, they took liberties with like, you know, it is, it could have been something, uh, but they, they drove that company into the ground, but for a minute, you know, and I think they did have a lasting effect on how we perceive people who maybe use cannabis, for example.

Mm-hmm. Up until that point, cannabis users. We’re always seen as like you were, it’s kind of like how they describe veterans. Mm-hmm. You can either be a victim, a villain, or a hero. Cannabis users can only be a victim or a villain. Really? Mm-hmm. So either like you were sick and you needed it for pain management, which was a lot of the branding at the time.

Or you were just like a, you know, a loser, uh, not useful part of society. Me men had this great campaign, I forget what it was called, but you’d see these huge posters where it’d be like. A picture of someone, and it would have the word stoner crossed out instead it would have like teacher or stoner crossed out, you know, construction workers, stoner, crossed out, um, you know, uh, I don’t know the, the grocery store manager and they were really going for.

The jugular and they were just saying like, actually, what if they’re pillars of society? Yeah. What if people use this stuff? Are the people that make our communities great? And I think it did a, a tremendous amount of, uh, lifting the, the, the burden of the stigma. This is also California, so yeah. You know, it’s California.

Uh, it’s gonna be easier to do it here than anywhere else. But that was, uh, that was meaningful and they were just giving you a new identity to step into.

Akua: Yeah, and I love that. That’s such a, such a great example again of like how can you show case the new identity for your buyer? And like of course, obviously California and and cannabis, like that makes sense there.

But I think there’s so much that you can take from that, even in that, that ad, that relatability piece again, like kind of taken a stand and just being like, boom, this is what, this is where we’re at. And I think again, that’s. Speaks to, we always say like, stick to our values. And I think that’s, I think there’s so much of a much more deeper meaning to that.

And I think especially like as we’re really leaning in into identifying these patterns and, you know, seeing that I feel like it, it gives like sticking to our values to a whole new meaning. Um, and makes it like easier for us to do so, if that makes sense. Yeah, no. So

Jasmine: if, when, you know, when you have conviction about where culture can be gently guided.

Akua: Yes. It’s

Jasmine: a lot easier to stick to your plan.

Akua: Yeah, exactly. Oh, I love that. And so I’m really curious to know your take, because obviously the rise of AI and you know, which has been, I, you know, it’s helped my business. I can’t deny it, you know, where do you, what patterns are you seeing and in regards to AI and, and, and small business owners patterns?

Um, well,

Jasmine: yeah, I think if, if you see any, maybe

Akua: not. Yeah.

Jasmine: It will empower. It’s, it’s, it’s empowered many small business owners, including me, my own. It, it definitely will empower a lot of small business owners, um, to kind of have an advantage because, uh, larger companies are from all the intel I’m getting, you know, we’ve worked with AI companies too that are trying to sell to enterprise.

It’s very slow business. You know, it’s, it’s not happening as fast as we might think. I have my own thoughts on ai. I think it depends on the day you ask me where I’m like, you know, the, where it does feel like there’s a natural limit. Other times where it feels like maybe there is no limit. I do know we are absolutely in a hype cycle led by open ai.

100%. You know, the, the. The predictable pattern of these outlandish claims they make, or, or, you know, wasn’t science supposed to be solved by now? He told us a year ago science would be solved in a year. And like the fact that the more sophisticated models, their error rates continue to go up and that we’re out of, they’re out of raw data.

So now they’re eating synthesized data, you know, but then I wonder, am I a Luddite? Am I not really getting what’s happening? I don’t know. So. If you’re small and nimble, this technology was built for you. It’s a huge advantage and you should use it. Um, I think what we have not seen so much of, which is what I’m trying to encourage in my team and in my community, is, um, so Jeremy Kirschbaum is this AI researcher and developer, and he’s also an artist, and he’s gonna be, he’s coming to speak to us soon.

And I, I, I’ve, I’ve come to know his work and he said something so interesting, he said. We are not waiting for better paints and paintbrushes, so why are you waiting for better AI to start creating with it? Mm. And I thought that was so genius. And his whole, you know, one of his messages is, get weird with ai.

That’s the thing I, I feel like might be a more interesting use case. Get weird with it. See how it can inspire creativity. It doesn’t have to replace, you know, the things that you feel are precious. Like artists need the work. The, the, the doing the work is the art. It’s not. For me writing my articles, which is my art, it’s not the publishing of them.

It’s like having written them is the relief. Like, ugh, I got that out of me. Mm-hmm. You know, it’s, this art feels like wrestling something out of yourself and um, artists will always need that. I think AI is a great tool for kind of wrestling deeper things outside of yourself. You just have to learn to play with it and get a little weird with it.

And, um, that’s something I’ve started to experiment with a bit more that I think could be the more interesting use case for what this is. The technological, like practical things it does are amazing and there dazzling and it’s easy to see what it maybe steals from us for sure, but it doesn’t have to be that way there.

If I, if you catch me on an optimistic day, I would tell you. Why don’t you use it as part of the wrestling, something deeper out of yourself? Because we could always use tools for that. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the exciting part of like, you know, being a creator, being alive. And I, my work’s pretty dry, you know, I’m not like painting things.

I’m literally like writing reports and plans. Mm-hmm. And, um, that’s my, it’s still, that’s still a creative process though. Yeah. And you, Jane McGonigal, she’s an incredible futurist and game developer. Um, she had a couple of really big TED talks. She actually, I know I keep saying this, but they’re top of mind ’cause I recently have conversations with them.

She wrote this book imaginable, which I still go back to. And she talks about how creativity is really, or excuse me, the figuring out the future is a practice of imagination because the future could be anything and it’s very easy just to predict the next bad thing. Mm-hmm. But the long arc of history has always been towards progress.

Yeah. Even though in the moment it seems to be going down and you know, she has this exercise at the beginning of her book, which I still think about all the time. It was so frustrating. She would say, just imagine waking up in 10 years. Can you describe it? Can you describe the room? Can you describe who’s with you?

Can you describe the light? I still find that hard. That’s an act of imagination. If you can’t even describe where you’re gonna be in 10 years, when you wake up one day, how can you really be a futurist? You can see it’s a creative act when you look at it that way. Yeah. And yeah, I think in that way could be a useful creative tool.

Akua: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that explanation. Well, I seems like I caught you on a good day, or at least a decent day

Jasmine: today. I’m feeling a little bit better about it. Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, okay,

Akua: good, good. No, I, I, I really do love that. I truly, I mean, I view AI as, as that partner. And I love what you said, like if you can’t, if you can’t even.

Plan out your business within 10 years and you’re not really a futurist. And to your point, I think AI can really help with that. I, you know, and that’s what I love, is that it’s, we’re really starting to broaden our usage of AI besides like, you know, saving time and this and that. Like it truly is becoming that right hand person, that advisor that can help you make these strategic decisions in your business.

So, love that Jasmine, I have loved this conversation. I definitely am going to chew on some things after today. Um, ’cause this, this conversation has been wonderful and so every question we love to end with is, what does having an unbreakable business mean to you?

Jasmine: Oh boy. That’s a really big question. Okay.

I have an immediate answer, and if you don’t mind, I might, I would like to plug something too, because I feel like I’ve discovered it through one of, one of my businesses. So having an unbreakable business is. Things that don’t break bent. So you have to have a business that bends. And I did have a fragile business with my consulting practice.

Um, so our agency is Concept Bureau. We’ve learned to make that a bit more flexible, but we’ve launched our second business through Concept Bureau called Exposure Therapy, which is our community for people who like to have conversations like this. So it’s strategies, creative directors, social media people, marketers.

But we’ve gone wide. I have like all kinds of founders now. I mean, we have like executive coaches and artists, people like that. And it is a community which is very much a business. It’s very much like a lot of my work and effort goes into managing this very high touch, very high trust, um, community. Where we are constantly, the whole edict of the community is I’m constantly exposing you to new ideas.

I’m bringing in speakers. Many of the people I mentioned today, people that do workshops, we do. Um, dinners and events and things like that. This is a different kind of business. This is a bendy business. That’s what I’ve learned. It changes, it moves, and it has to because the people in this community change and move.

They need different things than they did a year ago when we launched this. And I can feel the nature of it is flexible. It’s bendy, it’s, it can mold itself to wherever we’re gonna be. Hmm. In two years from now, five years from now. Um, ’cause it’s speaking to a deeper need for, you know, the people that come here are the people that feel intellectually isolated.

Mm-hmm. If you want to like, if, if these conversations spark you. That’s what I’ve tried to create here. There are plenty of places where you can go for that, but this is one of them. Yeah. And, um, that’s a need that will not die. And so that’s, that’s what makes an unbreakable business. Find that thing that you can see it like.

By definition it has it, it will remold itself. It will bend, but it will not break, break because it’s, uh, you know, the, the need underneath it will not become obsolete. That’s what I would call an unbreakable business. And let me tell you, I’ve built a lot of fragile businesses and it’s taken me this long to get here.

Like it’s, it’s not an easy thing to do and it’s not a very intuitive thing to do either. Uh, bendy businesses. Ugh. You can just never get comfortable. They are always changing, and so I, that’s kind of had to become a skill of mine as a leader too.

Akua: Yes, bendy businesses. I like that. You can’t, you can’t get comfortable with ’em.

Oh, this has been such a good conversation, Jasmine. Thank you so much for joining us. And so for people who want to connect with you, where can they find you?

Jasmine: Um, LinkedIn is where I post a lot of my ideas. Jasmine Bina. I post every day. I post one big thought piece on Substack every day under, you know, my name or concept bureau.

And if, like I said, if you really wanna spend every day with me, come to Exposure Therapy. That’s exposure therapy.com. Or if you want, you know, brand strategy the way we do it, that’s just concept bureau, concept bureau.com. That’s us. Awesome.

Akua: Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Jasmine, and for everybody listening.

Until next time, thanks for tuning into Unbreakable Business. If you love today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who needs a little extra inspiration. Remember, no matter what life throws your way, you have the power. To keep going and your business can be unbreakable too.

Until next time, keep building, keep growing, and stay unbreakable.