Marc Rust is the founder of Consequently Creative, a branding agency that works with business owners and executives who struggle to describe what they do and use branding to grow. A significant part of his work sits inside the world of private equity, where he helps portfolio companies rebuild their identity after an acquisition.
The conversation centers on why finance-oriented buyers treat creativity as a risk when it is actually the opposite, and how that mistake costs them at exit. Rust explains that branding is not just logo and color work. It is internal alignment, a shared understanding of what a company stands for, and a story that clicks with the people who buy from it and work inside it.
Rust also introduces the term acquisition turbulence, the fear and uncertainty employees feel when a deal closes and leadership changes overnight. He argues that the right branding work, done early, gives those employees a reason to stay and a direction to move toward. The closing exchange on imagination replacing information as the scarce resource is the part worth replaying.
Marc Rust is the founder of Consequently Creative, a branding agency focused on helping business owners and executives use branding as a strategic growth tool. Much of his current work is in the private equity space, where he helps acquired companies rebuild their identity, align their teams, and tell a clearer story to the market.
Full transcript of the conversation, published verbatim. Speaker labels come from the recording itself, not from an automated guess.
Jordan:0:00
Welcome back to the [High Ticket AI Systems] podcast. Everyone, please welcome the one and only Mr. Mark Russ. Mark, how you doing today, my friend?
Marc:0:09
I'm Max Salinas. Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me on. We're going to have some amazing conversations.
Jordan:0:15
No, absolutely. And for one, it's our pleasure for you to be on here. One of the reasons why we invited you is because the market that you serve is a very, to me, rare market just because I'm not familiar in that space. I don't know any other agencies in that space, obviously, besides you now. But so with that being said, can you please kind of tell us like what you do at a high level and who you guys serve?
Marc:0:40
Yeah, sure. we want a high level. We worked with business owners and business executives who actually don't know how to describe what they do. They don't understand how to use branding to their advantage to grow their businesses. That's basically it. And what we do is we want we run workshops and we help them with their branding and we give them clarity.
So they know what to do next. They see the opportunities. They can have strategic growth using the powers of branding. And then this guy's the limit, really. So at its core, my company, Consequently Creative, is a branding agency. so as far as like you mentioned, like our unique market, the unique market that we tap into is in the world of private equity.
So private equity companies that are basically companies that buy companies, they do some acquisitions, they make them a little bit better, and then they find a suitable buyer down the road for them. sell them. In so many cases, branding is an afterthought, and that's a huge, huge mistake. Because we find that when you use branding and you make the cover of a book look better, you're ultimately making, it has an impact on so many things. Impact on the culture of the company, impact on the direction of the company, how people care about it, hiring more employees, retaining employees, and ultimately the valuation of that company goes up.
Jordan:2:27
not to get philosophical on you, but we always say, don't judge a book by its cover. But that's how humans are designed. Think about like food, before you try new food, you're literally judging this food. Am I gonna like this food or I don't like this food? It tastes like this, so I'm not gonna like it. Or I don't like that color or I don't like this house. Like we judge that that's what we do.
Marc:2:49
Everything, yeah, and it's emotional. It's emotional. mean, yeah, if you pick up a pack of chewing gum, I mean, maybe it's the flavor you want, but you end up choosing it because you identify with it, right? It's on an emotional level, right? I mean, if not, sales would be easy. Car sales would be easy. But you know what? People don't buy cars on safety or on speed. or on whatever. It's about the color. It's about the color. It's about the feel. It's about driving it. It's about the seat. It's about the sound of the door closing. You know, is it a high-pitched sound or is it a low-pitched, you know, nice sound? All those things come into play.
Jordan:3:33
So I absolutely, and kind of getting back to to PE private equity here, why do you feel like so many private equity firms just don't focus on branding, yet they focus on other things that maybe aren't as important as, as brand?
Marc:3:50
Because they, well a few things. Number one is that they're finance types, right? So they're trained to understand the numbers and they grew up around that and it makes sense on paper and it's about the ROI, right? That's one thing. The other thing is that for some reason, somehow, somebody has equated creativity with risk.
And they're wrong.
Jordan:4:21
Interesting.
Marc:4:22
Right, they're wrong. Because creativity is actually something that allows you to stand out, allows you to be different. Because different is noticeable. Same is not noticeable, right? So if you're going out to buy a car, you you want the one that jumps out to you, not the one that looks like everything.
Jordan:4:34
Yes.
Jordan:4:47
Yeah, that's okay. That makes more sense. PE guys are definitely, you know, freaking Wall Street finance guys. Not literally, but like definitely finance guys. But it's funny though, my favorite part about owning an agency, an outbound agency to be exact, is the creative part, the creative process of ensuring that the messaging that we're using on behalf of obviously internally and behalf of the clients lands with their ICP. And that messaging process is creative.
And it's really fun. mean, maybe my financial skills could probably increase. The right side of my brain is probably not as dominant as the left or whatever. But to me, it's fun. I love the creative aspect.
Marc:5:19
Yeah, absolutely
Marc:5:32
For sure, I agree entirely. think that looking at business as a relationship rather than a transaction is vital in what I do. It's no longer, we're creating this product and we're trying to, obviously we're trying to sell it, but...
It's a product that solves solutions for people. Okay, that's great. And that's, know, 100 % of the companies out there. But it's also me relating to you. How do I relate to you as a human being? How are we able to have a good conversation together? It's because we listen to each other. It's because we pick up on what we're saying. We add to what we're talking about. We bring value along the line. Okay, that's great.
Well then why aren't companies doing that more? Right? That's what companies need to do. The problem that you have with some companies is that they think that, it's only transactional. Well, that's wrong because you're missing out on all those opportunities to appeal to people on a deeper level. Levels that run so deep that they can't explain it or levels that run so deep that they become fans of the company.
I mean, we all have brands that we absolutely love. I don't want to name Apple, but damn it, I named Apple. Some people are crazy about Apple. And if Apple comes up with shoes tomorrow, people are going to go get in line around the block to buy Apple shoes. And they're going to say, my gosh, I don't know how I walked before, but these things are amazing.
Jordan:7:23
How do you think Apple did that? How do you think Apple just took all the market share? Everyone that uses an Apple product is madly in love with Apple. How do you think they're able to achieve that?
Marc:7:36
I think it's because they focused on the relationship that we have with devices, right? They also have a deep understanding of...
Marc:7:56
how we as humans need things in order to... go about our daily lives?
Marc:8:08
I know that Apple doesn't have a mantra or something like that, although they have Think Different, which is kind of somewhat of a guiding light for them. I think that's more of a campaign.
Marc:8:23
They design things with care and they do it in a way where it's all with Apple. feel like I'm the computer. You know, I, I, and, and, whether it's the Apple watch or, or the iPhone or, or, or the laptop, I feel I'm the one they've made it so easy to compute with it, to use it. I'm, I'm, I'm the driving force.
Whereas with other companies and other technology devices, there's a barrier to entry. You have to learn it. You have to really know it. It's not intuitive, et cetera. mean, so yeah, that's really it. It's the ingenuity. mean, to give you an example, my family and I, have an electric car. It's a VW electric car.
The interface is so unintuitive. It just doesn't make sense. It's got so many things within it that just are annoying, right? Like we have two keys. I have a key, my wife has a key. It won't recognize me when I sit in the car. And I have to confirm that it's me. First off, I have to change user from my wife to me. Then once I've already selected my name, it then asks me to confirm that selection, which is annoying. In this day and age, you just should be able to select things without confirming them, especially for something as personal as a car. And then, et cetera.
Jordan:10:05
car.
Marc:10:12
Apple doesn't look at things that way.
At all, you know, and I don't even need to get into it. You can imagine if it was an Apple car, you'd sit in it, it would know it's Jordan sitting in the car, okay, ready to go. I know Jordan's preferences, I know who it is, and it makes sense. It's a relationship, right? Whereas VW isn't necessarily, through their technology, isn't making a relationship with the driver. And that's a problem.
Jordan:10:44
Do you think some companies should take branding more seriously than other companies? I guess it kind of matters on maybe ticket size or it doesn't because if you look at Apple, I mean, sure, their thought their products are like high couple hundred to low few thousand. Obviously there's a massive difference between a car that costs 50, 100 K compared to, you know, again, high couple hundred to low few thousand.
And what you're explaining is it doesn't matter the ticket size. Apple crushes branding on every other company out there in the world.
Marc:11:20
Yeah, I think that it doesn't matter the company. Everybody should absolutely care about it. You should make the relationship with your audience the center of your company. Okay? And I don't care who it is, but you know, and by the way, the price doesn't matter because it isn't about price, it's about value. So for example, if somebody who goes and buys a Toyota Camry, is looking for value for the price that they pay, right? And they get that. Well, same thing for somebody who's going to buy a Rolls Royce. They want the value for the price that they pay for that Rolls Royce. The value's in craftsmanship, it's in status, it's in all sorts of things. But those things are selling because there's value at that price. Same thing with Hermes handbag. which is $12,000 for a handbag that is made by hand, those are selling off the shelf for a reason. There's value behind it. If not, it wouldn't sell. The disconnect is when there is a value for what you're getting, right? And right now I'm not getting value for what I'm getting with my VW. bad experience. They're not building a relationship.
Jordan:12:42
I it.
Okay, so on the topic of building relationships, can you give us an example, maybe even two, of you working with PE companies, you emphasizing their branding, really upscaling, changing how their potential customers look at this private equity company and like the result and benefit that the PE experience with working with your company.
Marc:12:53
Yeah.
Marc:13:09
Yeah, so.
In the world of P, let me just kind of explain that the P company traditionally is somewhat of a holding company. They own other companies that they call portfolio companies. And they own them for three to five years and then they sell them, right?
What we do is we bring value to those portfolio companies in the sense that after an acquisition, we've kind of coined the term acquisition turbulence because unfortunately, acquisitions are usually done under the cloak of secrecy to avoid insider trading. You don't want people speculating about what's happening. You don't want people quitting because, we're gonna be bought by somebody. They basically bring everybody into a conference room and they're saying, hey guys,
Jordan:13:33
Hmm.
Marc:13:57
We're now a new company, we have a new owner, and we're gonna replace the CEO. That right there provokes a lot of turbulence. And turbulence in the form of, my gosh, what's gonna happen to my job? What does this mean for me personally? I have bills to pay, I have a family to feed. Are they gonna get rid of my position? Are they gonna lay me off? Is what I'm doing redundant because another company, the company that we're merging with actually already has somebody who does what I do. So, you know, should I dust off my resume? Are we, et cetera, are we attracting the right workforce? Are we retaining that workforce? you know, all these things are very, very difficult, very stressful, and lead to a lot of bad decisions when you don't communicate. So what we do, is that we use branding. It's not just branding. I'm not saying logo and colors, okay? I'm saying internal alignment. Everybody understanding this is what we stand for. This is why we were acquired. This is what you should celebrate about the company. And here's the plan going forward. If you don't have that internal alignment, you can't move forward correctly. So that's what we do.
That's where we're gonna go in and we're gonna help a company understand what they stand for in 2026 and in the next five years.
Jordan:15:35
I feel like that right there would cause a lot of peace, cause a lot of peace. would enable the staff to feel at peace with the new merger or with the new acquisition. Cause I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm just imagining myself in one of the employee shoes where I'm in that fricking meeting, right? And they say, Hey guys, you guys are rock stars, but we're now a new company. I'm thinking all those thoughts. What's going to happen to me? Are they going to fire me off? You know, my position going to be, it would be really stressful.
Marc:15:59
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jordan:16:05
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you more or less partner with PE with private equity companies firms. And whenever a new company gets acquired by them, by the top dogs, you help the new company with branding, internal alignment. Gotcha. That sounds like one of the best referral partnerships in the world, if you don't mind me stating.
Marc:16:11
Mm-hmm.
Marc:16:16
Yeah.
Marc:16:20
Yes. Yeah.
Marc:16:27
It is because oftentimes, Jordan, you come in contact with these companies that frankly haven't updated their branding or anything in 20 years. And branding is something you need to nurture, okay? And I know you might say, well, wait a minute, the Coca-Cola logo, that hasn't changed in over 100 years. Yeah, it hasn't, but the Coca-Cola brand has been nurtured for 100 years, right? We know what it stands for. and they've owned, it's become iconic, right? These companies that I'm dealing with have logos that were put together very quickly, maybe 20 years ago. It's served them well, but right now it's no longer in sync with their audiences and with the people who are buying their products, for example. And you need to update that. You need to have a story that makes sense and that clicks.
So we do that and that really allows people to have the right vision so they can grow the company.
Jordan:17:33
I'm trying to take in a change of course here. I was looking at your website and it looks like you guys have a couple of, a couple of staff members that are pretty unique to the company. Like I believe one was, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looked like it was like a website and it had like the head of, was as technology, like part of the, I'm gonna fucking butcher this shit dude, give me a fucking second bro. I need a look at this.
Marc:17:58
I like that you looked at our website.
Jordan:18:03
Of course, of course I did. But like I was looking under the services you guys have and there was an individual, it looked like something was technology based and you have like head of technology. And the question I'm trying to ask you without sounding like a fricking doofus is what exactly does he do? Like this fricking guy right here, do you, a AI plus technology advisor? Thank you. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know that guy.
Marc:18:30
Okay.
Marc:18:33
That is just, you know...
Marc:18:38
I don't know how to answer that. mean, AI and technology advisor is that technology is an ever moving bullet or a moving target, sorry. And it's always evolving. You can't, I don't think that you can be, I don't think you can continue to being an agency that just focuses on building websites with coders and developers. That's going away very, very quickly, okay? with the advent of AI, with the way that you can expedite building things. And you're opening up Pandora's box with that question because it's a conversation around what is happening with technology today, right? And so it's no longer about, we need somebody who builds a website. It's more about how...
Does this website evolve over time with needs and technology?
Marc:19:47
How do we use AI to build it and how do we maintain it? Those are things that are up in the air right now. I know that right now you can build a website with AI, easy, but you can't attach a CMS to that just yet. I think we're months away from doing it. In a few months, yeah, you can probably build a website and have it have a content management system, et cetera. using AI. Today, right now, it's just it spits out the HTML. You can take that and put it on the server. You have a website. That's great. But the functionality behind it is lagging. And that's going to show up very, very quickly. So it's more about the strategy around technology rather than the implementation that matters.
Jordan:20:38
Got it, okay. And maybe I was, you know, mixing too many bags in one here, but it sounds like there are, again, based on your website, there is an architecture and user experience. Are these predominantly for websites? I'm under the impression, because when I look at this, I'm like, there's some technology atmosphere or aspect to what you guys do.
Marc:21:00
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Listen, the epicenter of a brand is the website. Okay, so that's not gonna go away. So the need for technology in a company, in a brand, and the way you communicate is vital. Those that have poor technology are not gonna communicate as well as those who have great technology. That's clear. So when it comes to the architecture of that,
Jordan:21:07
Got it.
Marc:21:28
Yes, you do need kind of an information architect for things. However, more and more, we're seeing that that information architect is coming up with ideas and some strategies that now can apply to business in general, not just your website.
Jordan:21:47
Got you. Okay. Can you describe what with the private equity firms you have partnered with essentially what companies that they're actively buying?
Marc:21:58
I mean all sorts. mean the ones that we tend to work with these days are around industrial technology. technologies that are really vital to the expansion of the world really. Anything from ceramics to semiconductor to software, drone technology, that kind of stuff.
Jordan:22:23
Got you, okay, cool, okay, cool. Let's see here. How did you even get into this?
Marc:22:31
my gosh. Well, I mean, first and foremost, our company is creative and I've always been creative and come from a family that's very, very creative. So that's one thing. The other thing is that I have always been fascinated in telling a story and how that story develops and people adopt a story. And then finally, marketing is a media is a an area of business and thought that to me is amazing because it uses magic, honestly. And what I mean by magic is that when you combine different elements, you get magic. So the perfect tagline with the perfect photograph is something that you notice on a billboard. You turn around, you look at it, you can't ignore it. That's magic to me.
It's elevating a message and you go, my gosh, that's really, really clever. I really like that. Okay? And it extends beyond that. You put video, you put functionality, you put user experience together, and you're starting to create something really remarkable. there isn't anything that gives more power to an idea than good marketing. So that's why I absolutely love it, and that's how I got into it.
You know, that desire to dig deeper and try to find a really innovative, fun, clever way to take something complex and give it clarity so people can say, I want that. I'm choosing this pack of gum over that pack of gum. You know?
Jordan:23:58
cash.
Jordan:24:18
What would one pay for your services? And I'm sure there's a range, but like.
Marc:24:24
Gajillions of dollars. There's always a range. mean, yeah, it depends. It depends on the company. It depends on the complexity of the project. Sometimes projects are very, very complex. Sometimes the environment is complex in the sense that there's many times where we'll work with companies who haven't updated anything for a long time and there's so much to unravel.
Believe it or not, there are some companies out there where we meet with them and we run workshops and we say, hey, what are your values? And they say, we don't have values. That's really interesting, okay. So how do you find values? That's extra work. And you try to, ask them questions and you dig deeper and deeper and try to understand the why behind what they do. And you pull some values out of that as an example, you know? So it could be anything.
Jordan:25:19
God, yeah.
Jordan:25:23
Gotcha, gotcha. I'm assuming high ticket, obviously, know, against the name of the podcast is like it's high ticket, like over 5k. Okay. Okay. You know, that's interesting because if you are working with companies that were recently acquired, it sounds like they're probably doing some level of revenue.
Marc:25:32
yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jordan:25:45
And for them to not have any values is that's interesting. I can see for like an SME company, you know, like a company with like three employees or something like that. Really, really, really, really small company that I definitely fit in that category. I'm not shaming anyone in that category, but like, I guess it's just different. Like for me in my values, I mean, maybe I should do some more thinking on that. Maybe I don't really have, or like, I guess that's not important.
Marc:26:11
I'm sure you do, come on, what are you talking about? Everybody has values, I mean, you're human. You have things that you believe in, things that you like, ways that you treat people, you have an understanding of what customer service means to you, right? You know what bad customer service is, so you have values. And I'm sure that when it comes to your clients, you treat them in a certain way, you give them an experience, and it's based on that.
Jordan:26:37
That's interesting. Okay, you're 100 % accurate there. However, I just haven't like thought about it, you know, and put it on paper. If that makes sense. There's definitely a way I treat people, treat customers or clients. Definitely things I stand for.
Marc:26:45
Yeah.
Marc:26:51
Yeah. And you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, it's a relationship, right? It's not necessarily when things are easy or when things are fun that you can find your values and see what people really stand for. It's actually when things go bad, right? If you have a relationship, you have your girlfriend, you're dating, things are beautiful, and then you run into your first argument. How is that argument handled?
Is it handled in a way that's respectful to both parties or not? That has to do with your values. Same thing with a company. You go to a restaurant, you love this restaurant, having a great time, it's delicious, whatever. One day your dish comes and it's cold or it tastes bad and you let the server know. How do they handle that? That's their values, right? Do they say, I'm sorry, yeah, that's just the way it is. Or they just take it away and replace it without asking you anything about it.
That to the waiter, that could be like, I'm giving good customer service. I took care of the problem. But are you making the person feel better about it? Are you trying to understand what happened, et cetera? And we've all had horrible customer service experiences. And that happens when things go bad.
Jordan:28:10
Definitely.
Jordan:28:18
Mark, thank you so much. Thank you so much for the conversation, my friend.
Marc:28:19
Yes.
Jordan, it's been awesome. You're awesome. It was a pleasure.
Jordan:28:27
Where can they find you?
Marc:28:30
Well, our website is consequentlycreative.com. You can Google my name, Mark with a C, Rust, R-U-S-T. I'm on Instagram and all that stuff. LinkedIn, whatever you like.
Jordan:28:44
Perfect. And then we'll actually end it on this question here. know, looking back over your career, what is one thing that you would tell your younger self to either make yourself happier, to get to your exact spot where you are today faster, or just one piece of advice that you would leave to your younger self?
Marc:29:05
Well, I mean, in hindsight, you always have great ideas. There's no way I could have known this 20 years ago, right? But the world has changed and very few people understand the transition of things.
One thing that has changed today versus yesterday is access to information. Everybody thought, where about the information age? The information age is behind us. Access to information is super easy. I pick up my phone, chat GPT, anything. I have access to any sort of information within a matter of seconds.
Marc:29:48
I think we're going into a world where information is no longer the value, imagination is the value, right? That's the transition. And few people understand that. So you have these leaders, Jordan, where in the past, these leaders would read business books, they'd read all about marketing, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. That's what it is, because information was the value. Well, today, information is no longer scarce.
What the value is, is imagination. So how do you build a business? How do you put something together? How do you come up with the idea for a great product? Those are the leaders of tomorrow.
Jordan:30:35
Amen. I love that. I cannot agree more actually. No, thank you, Mark. Audience, we appreciate you guys tuning in. We'll have to have Mark come back in like the next six, nine, 12 months to see how the business is. Yeah, we appreciate y'all. Till next time.
Marc:30:42
You're
Marc:30:48
Anytime.
I appreciate you. Thanks a lot, Jordan.
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