live. I hope you guys are doing well. Happy New Year. I wanted to do PCOM for you guys because you guys have been asking about it. Well, several people have asked me about it. So if you don't know what PCOM is, it's Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. And it has like a couple campuses, if I'm not mistaken, like one in Philadelphia and one in Georgia. And so if I can, I'll get to both of them. If not, I'll have to save one for another time. Okay? But let's get into it. Let me just pull it up so that we can, you guys can see exactly what I'm talking about. PA program. And don't forget, you guys, like if you are interested in another, in having me do like another school, then go ahead and leave that in the comment section below. And I will, you know, try to get that school out for you at some point in time as well. Okay. PCOM PA program. I don't know which one this is. Well, let's just go back to the main. Okay. So I'm going to share my screen with you guys so you can see exactly what I am talking about. Then we can go from there. Hold on, you guys. I'm almost there. All right. So here we go. This is PCOM. It's Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, as I said.  So just another way of becoming like knowledgeable about medicine and osteopathic medicine kind of looks at the whole body in terms of their teaching. It's like a little bit more holistic as well. Okay. So here it says, students may enroll at either our Suwani, Georgia location or a main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So two campuses that you can go to. Let's see just kind of what they have on their main page. So their accreditation status. I don't know, let's see which one this is. So the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine has continued accreditation. I don't know if this is their main campus or if it's both campuses or how they're breaking this up, but continued accreditation and their next review will not be until March 20, 28. So let's see. So let's just go to the main, the main one. Let me see. So this, this is like a little bit, I don't know how to say, I feel like it's a little confusing on how to like get to exactly what I'm trying to get to. Like there's a lot going on. Let's go to application requirements. All right. Let's look at main campus. All right. So here's their main campus site, their Philadelphia campus site, programs of study. See, and then you still have to pick a program. So this is a, this is a, like a little bit much, you guys, in terms of getting to the actual PA site, but we don't get there. All right. Here's physician, assistant studies. So I was there before, I guess. Y'all, how many PAs does it take to go through this one website? All right. Let's just go here. Let's go to the side. It says program details. So I'm seeing this program description. I always tell you guys to go through, like the goals and the mission and the description of each program to see exactly what you're getting into. This is a 26 month program. My program was 27 months. Other programs are 24 months, so it's just a matter of like, what are you looking for? So it has 12 months of clinical, like your clinical year, like your rotations, and then 14 months of didactic. So that's how they break theirs up. And that's it for that part. Let's go to their goals. To identify for admission, those individuals with prerequisite academic background, a strong interest in the PA career, excellent interpersonal skills, and the maturity necessary for PA education. Okay, let's look at these stats. PCOM receives over 4,000 completed and verified applications for both campuses. Okay. Probably the Philadelphia location might receive a little bit more. So even if we're like 2,500 to 1,500 or something like that, that's a lot of applicants that you're going up against. And it says in 2020, in the 2019-2020 school year, we had more than 44 applicants competing for every one seat in the class. I don't know if that statement is all right. Okay, that's cool. It would be maybe in here, we'll find out a little bit more of how many seats exactly. Maybe it's 44 seats, I don't know. 1,000 graduates. Okay. The program's average pass rate, pants pass rate is 98% past five years. That's good. 93% in the clinical skills and average of 97% in attitudes towards patients, colleagues, and other professional roles. Okay. So this is not the pants pass rate. This is just the program's overall pass rate. And we'll probably get to the pants pass rate at some point. Okay. Let's go to technical standards. No, I don't want to see that. Let's go to what's course sequence. So this just shows you what you would be doing in your first year of PA school, the classes that you would take each term. Let's see if they have a total. So a total of 154 hours. So that's a pretty extensive rigorous program. There are like master's programs that are like 50 credit hours. And this one is 150. So kind of cool. What are you doing? Oh my gosh. Are you on? I am. Yes, I'm on. I'm looking. Do you guys know? They can't see you. You're not even in the frame. Anthony's here, you guys. There he is. Oh, look, I'm black and mugged. Hold on. You're taking all the light. All right. So are we doing this together? Sure. Oh, yeah. Come on. So you coming on this side? What's up, y'all? What's up? I'm here to give some different perspective on this school. Okay. All right. What school are we doing? We're doing PCOM. Are you in the frame?  Well, I'm a little black. I know. Here, this is what I can do. I can put it on autofocus and it will focus on you sitting here. There you go. Warren says, are you a PA as well? Yeah. A perfect Anthony is what I'm called. I know PA, man. I'm just here to support my wife and give some perspective with somebody who don't know anything about these schools. So that's why I'm here. A little comic relief.  Finish your stuff. Okay. So we were just looking at the course sequence. I like to look at the faculty and staff pictures if they have any. Let's see. All right. So here's their faculty. Mr. Becker is the coordinator of clinical sciences. Let's see. The director of the program. She's the director of didactic studies. So she's like the main person for the first year. Oh, look, he kind of looks young. Sean is the assistant program director. Just was there a program director anywhere else? He's director of clinical studies. Okay. So here he is this guy right here. He's the dean of the school of health sciences. So he's over all of health sciences. So if you're doing any of these like forensic medicine, microbiology, all of that stuff. And I'm looking for the director of the program, but I didn't see her. So I have a question. Yeah. This is for them. So a lot of these people, if you keep scrolling, all these people got like phone numbers and email addresses. Is it a good idea or a bad idea for a pre-PA student to actually reach out to one of these people personally for any reason whatsoever? I think it's a good idea, depending on who exactly you're reaching out to. So for me, if like I am a prospective PA student, and I want to know like a little bit more about didactic gear or just kind of like that missions process, I would reach out to the clinical director of didactic gear. Or you can also reach out to some of these people who are like the assistant out to say what to say, Hey, my name is the dynamic perspective student. And I just had a couple questions that I couldn't really find on the site. Or maybe it's a matter of like, I had a little bit more in depth questions. And I wanted to know if you could take a minute of your time to answer it for me. And then you put your question in there, like, don't have this be a multiple emails and then see what they do. It's not going to, yeah, it's not going to hurt. So what are some cons? Like if you want, if someone would properly do this, because I'm serious, like if I'm a student, I feel like I could be trying to, I could either be hurting myself by doing this or helping myself because you don't want to be a person that's like, who's this person trying to contact me? And they're trying to get into the school. Like you have to come across like you're not not sometimes like, what is it? What's the word that the thing? Fortune favors the bull. So, you know, sometimes it's a matter of you got to step out of your comfort zone or step out on faith and just kind of shoot your shot. And if you're really trying to get into the school, that's what I did with Don. Let's get back to this. Okay, so, so yeah, I mean, there are some cons, like maybe you might get somebody who's like a little, you know, I don't know, like not really wanting to be helpful, I would say, but I don't think that it hurts. It is a risk. But I think it's a risk that if you are like, if you're interested in the program, if you legitimately have like a question that you cannot find on the website, then go ahead and ask it.  Let me see what I can do as opposed to you asking a question like, what's your average GPA? And it's like the first thing on the website. So that's important. So don't go trying to contact them for stuff that they can find out already fine. Yes. All right, so we went to I switched switched it up and went to the program statistics. This is always good information for you guys to look at via their like acceptance and their acceptance and matriculation. So from there, they have stats from 2017, all the way to 2021. So number of applicants has steadily increased, right, slightly here in 2020. Look at this. Wow. They went from 2,000 applicants in 2019 to 2,600 in 2020 to 3,030, 121. So the applicant pool is getting wider and wider and crazier and crazier. And look at their cumulative, their average GPA for the entering class 3.7.  But all of these extracurricular things like what you've done for your your patient care experience, your personal statement, that is what is going to get you the offer for the interview. So you can't you can't pass this. I know like a lot of people are always like, oh, man, like I have like a 2.5 GPA, like is there a school that will take me? You know, maybe I don't know. No, there is no. No, maybe keep it real. Keep it real. If you got it, if it's say 3.0, you must have a 3.0. But it's not, I'm not talking about schools that actually have a listed GPA because there are some schools like Maharia just did that does not have a listed GPA. So who knows? Maybe, right? So specifically for schools that do not have a listed GPA, go ahead and put your 1.8 out there and see what happens. But if it was me, I wouldn't put my 1.8 out there. I would try to be the best me that I can be to apply to that program. And that means boosting my GPA because I know that it's going to show like your GPA also kind of gives them an assessment of who you can be as a student. So you want to you want to keep that in mind. Okay. Just give this question for you. Caleb said would you recommend asking PAC program boards for academic exceptions and prerequisites like calculus? No, I would not recommend asking for any exceptions. You know, just look at what their prerequisite requirements are and you got to do it. Like that's what it is. I think a lot of times we try to like skate, skate around like what is listed like this. These like these are your set rules, right? Like if there are exceptions, they'll have it listed on their website. So for them, this is what they want. And you just have to do it. If you don't have calculus, then try to take it as a summer class where you're doing it for like four to six weeks and not a full like 12 weeks semester and then get it knocked out that way. But to try to say like, hey, you know, like I took algebra, I didn't get I didn't get the calculus. Would you accept that? I wouldn't do that. Why? I mean, because again, to me, for me, I feel like it would show that I'm trying to like skate the process or I'm trying to like, you know, and that and that can be negative to a prospective director or program because of like, oh, this is the type of person that I'm going to be letting in somebody who is going to just kind of fly by the wayside or do the bare minimum or try the rules and regulations. Yeah. Yeah. So I wouldn't do that. Okay. So this was there. What cumulative undergraduate GPA for 2021? What is this cumulative undergraduate GPA 2021? I don't know. Oh, for the entering class based on a four, I don't know what the difference is, but no, this is Georgia. Okay. So this one is their Philadelphia campus here. And then this is their Georgia campus. So again, has steadily increased. And obviously, look, their Suwani Georgia campus has gotten 1900, 900 fold from what they originally had. And so maybe, you know, you might be interested in going to that one. Look at the total number of on 2021 was that 19, 1977. So it's significantly less applicants. So maybe if that is something you're trying to choose between, maybe you want to try to apply to the one that has less Georgia, correct, as opposed to Philly, correct, even though Philly pretty nice, you know, Philly high. That is, that is great. Oh, look, this is actually, so this is pretty good.  However, the fact that there are 110 possible seats here in 100, I don't know what their maximum size is. I don't know if this is what they listed it as or what the ones for the next upcoming semester, like year will be. So maybe 2022, it might still be 110. Maybe that's the mass that they can have. But if that's it, that's a lot of seats that you guys have to kind of get into. Like we were about 1500, I think, or 1700 applications for 30 seats. Okay. And so if you're getting 3000 for 100, it's about the same. But I mean, that's your chances are a little bit higher than you applying to a school that only has like 25 or 30 or 40 seats. So that's good. It shows that the entering class is only like 93 or 85. So that may mean that some people didn't like, didn't pan out, you know, like they chose other programs or, you know, they decided not to not to go to PA school anymore. It could be a number of different things. There are trish and rain look at this though. So this is this is the thing to look at. So this is how many students like they lose. Okay. And so you see like here this year that their attrition rate was low, almost the lowest, the first like 2018 it was the lowest. But here it's jumped up. Like it jumped up people in the class too. So yeah, but, but at the same time, you want to make sure that whatever program you're going to, we'll be able to keep the students and has things put in place to keep their students. So this is always something to look at. It's not to say that it's a mate, like a major red flag or anything like that. I think if this attrition rate was like, I don't know, 10 or something, like I'd be a little bit scared. But, you know, something to look into you want to make sure that they had the two numbers guy. So I would look at the percentages too. So like, you know, what is that percentage if it's 6.5 attrition rate and you have 93 that's entering the class, you know, you're, you kind of look at the percentages to do that math and figure out is that a 3% or 2% 5% because I don't know. I don't know what percentage would be good or not as far as people even but anything 5% or less sound nice to me. Yeah, I think so. I think that's good. All right. So I like to look at this the demographics of who they're they're letting into their programs. So what are black people at? Here we go. What are black people at? How many black people? So, are is the blacks black?  All right. So mixed race in blacks are the same, which is kind of cool. Oh, you mean the percentage is 14.5 Asians are 5.5% Hispanics. So Hispanic and Asians were the same. I'll be honest. It's okay. Like in comparison to what you might typically see because obviously I've seen a lot of, you know, class. Yeah, 3%. 3% is the typical when you're seeing what's the white percentage is 58. The 58% white is actually this is the this is one of the more diverse type of classes I've seen. And look at Georgia. What are black people?  This is Asian and this is mixed race. So maybe there might be some black people up in here too. But the 34%, that's actually pretty diverse. Like if you're a minority and you're watching this and you're looking for a program that is friendly to minorities, both of these look, you know, unfortunately, it's not as diverse as you'd want it to be. But at the same time, it's more diverse than a lot of these other programs I've seen. It is. It is. And then this is this is always an accurate assessment of like the P profession. It's more heavily like female driven than it is male. So, you know, it's kind of on par. All right. And so let's look at the how much it will cost. So to go to the Philadelphia campus, it's 100,000 for your academic time there. And to go to the Georgia campus, it's 112,000. So a little bit more expensive to go to Georgia, which I don't know why I feel like it would be more expensive to go to the Philly campus. You know why? Because they probably think you can afford a little more in Georgia because there's so much cheaper to live there. So they're going to charge more to balance out how cheap it is to live there. I don't know. I mean, we'd have to look and see what that's like. I don't think I want to do all of that. I'm going to go back. I don't want to do all of that. All right. What do we have left? Meantime of completion. Okay. So this is showing you how many people withdrew. 1.7. That's good. So 1.7%. Is it saying like one person? So out of, I think out of a class of 60, one person withdrew? I start day 2019. Is that what that means? 28, 29, 30. I don't know if the numbers are the total number of people in the class, but 6.3%. So 6.3% or two people withdrew and then two people, they probably like decelerated, meaning that like in some schools, they give you the option, like if you didn't pass didactic year, you get to take it over again. Now, obviously that means like you got to spend, you know, another like 50 grand for that year on top of, you know, the next 50 grand for the following year of clinicals.  And if that's really what you feel called to do, then, you know, I would do it. But that's always an option. As you're doing that, Grant Jones would grant and Grant said, do I need a four year bachelor degree or would a BSN in nursing work? So you just need a bachelor's degree. So I mean, even if it's a BSN in nursing, you would have had to have gotten either an associate's degree first and then completed your two year bachelor's aspect of it to be a four year degree for your BSN in nursing, or you just get an outright bachelor's like a biomedical sciences or biology or, you know, psychology, whatever it is that you want to do. But to be eligible to apply to the majority of PA schools, you have to have a bachelor's degree. There are some programs that are direct entries. So what that means is you would go straight from high school into the program. So it's like an undergraduate and master's program in one, but you just kind of have to find those.  All right. So I like looking at these patents, pass rates. This is like big for me. So they have the last five years. They don't have 2021 yet. And we're looking at PCOMs, first time test takers, and then what their pass rate is to the national average. So class of 2016 had 100% pass rate, same with 2017, same with 2018. So it kind of slipped a little in 2019. Well, yeah. So 2019 was the year that they did a new version of the boards.  There are some schools that didn't, but the majority of programs had a drop off in their pants pass rate. And look at the, I mean, you can look at, I don't know if it's necessarily that it was more, it was harder. It was just different content and, you know, how you're answering the questions and things like that. And with any time there's a new aspect of a standardized test, there is going to be some type of drop off in the actual like rate that people are passing it. And so you can see that even in the national average, right, there's like, it went from 98% to 93% the following year. And now it's ticking back up as people are getting more used to teaching for the board. So not too bad. This is different than what I typically see because I like to see exactly, and I don't know if I'd have to download, which I don't want to do, but I like to see the like official pants part that actually says like how many people took the test for the first time, how many took it again and passed after that. And that's like usually in like a purple box. So maybe if you download their five-air pants report here, it would show that breakdown. But that's also good to see if you're interested in looking at that. Let's see about the program. I want to see, I don't know if I couldn't find anything. Yeah, I saw a cost of program. Did you already talk about that? Well, yeah, because it said 100 and 111,000 for the Georgia one. That's what we were talking about. Does it break down? Is that, does it break down that cost? Like what is that? It does, but I have to go in, like I think it does, but I had to go into the thing. Oh, okay. See, so let's see, room and board. So this is where you can find out how you can save money too. Like if you're, if you're worried, if you're, if you're worried about the financial side of things, getting into the PA school, your budget, your money, dive deep into the cost of the school and see where you can save money. Transportation. Like what is that? What is $3,000 for transportation? What does that even mean? I don't know. And I don't know how this is like built into the different columns. What is that? So this is for each year. Okay. So year one, year two, and year three, year two, you're paying $3,000 for transportation. And that's because you're doing clinicals. And so maybe they're like, maybe they're, but, but my thing is, I don't know if this is like the actual overall, so it's estimated, right? So total estimated. So it's not really like truly what you're going to spend, but I think they're taking into consideration. If you're traveling to and from your different clinical sites, you know, you might spend $3,000 in transportation for the year. And let me help you guys out too. So like on the money side of stuff, right? So when I'm looking at this, my mind is looking at, most people are looking at this, this, this number here. Most people are looking at this $178,000, right? You look at it like, what the freak, I got that money. Slow down, right? What you can do is break it down, look at each individual thing. So like, you'll see this, you'll see, oh, $216 for student loan fees, right? Take a second and think, where can I get that, right? Can, can someone, can someone sponsor you $216 just to pay for that? Can you do work two extra days in a job just to pay for that, right? How, how can you get that $216, this $1,800 for transportation?   I'm paying $1,800 or $3,000 for nothing. I'm, we riding together. I'm building to making some friends and we going to do some stuff together. We cutting that in a quarter. But the point I'm making is, you guys, look at each one of these things, even the big numbers, right? Even the big numbers, if you do have to stay room and board utilities, right? Even looking at the big numbers, look at that $24,000 as opposed to looking at this $178,000 and figure out how you can get this, all right? And I mean, again, this is estimated like the actual cost of the program, like what you have to pay is $103,000, right? So all of this extra like $75,000 worth of expenses that they're calculating for you, you can dictate exactly how that is broken down on what you're spending your money on. So a little bit more than $100,000 obviously for your entire schooling with all of your extra added expenses. But this is, this right here is really the number that you have to understand like, okay, this is what is coming out of my pocket for my education. All of these other numbers you can dictate. All right. Let me see what else. I think like, I want to actually see like what their requirements are and things like that. So let me see if I could find that. Go ahead and ask questions. No. I don't know. I'm trying to know where. So it's taking me to CASPA. So they're a CASPA participating program. So you know your first, if this is your first school that you're applying to, it's like $100,000 and I believe $75 for that first program and then $55 for each added program after that. See and like, do you see it anywhere? I'm trying to find like the requirements. Well, so here's it. So this is if PCOM sees this video, here's a note for you guys, if you can make that, because that's important. Like, I mean, that's a significant thing. That should be very easily accessible on your website. I don't know if I'm very easily accessible. Oh, here we go. Application. There we go. Application requirements. All right. So then they just said, y'all, why don't you click our buttons? Learn more. What do you mean learn more? That's the first thing you want to know when it's required, not learn more. I don't, I've done learned.   Oh gosh. Let's see. Okay. Where are we at? Application requirements. Oh my goodness. Just skim through this generally. I'm trying to find, I have to find physician assistant first and then. There we go. Okay. Here we go. Some basic stuff starting with start at the top, quick facts right there at the top, right down the, right there. I mean, yeah, I don't care about that though. We already been through that. I'm talking about what are your requirements? For what? For like, hey, what's your average, your GPA requirements? What are your prerequisite requirements? Like what courses do I need to have? Clearly, PCOM don't care. They don't have any requirements. It's just, yo, are you breathing? Oh my goodness. It said requirements down low. Undergraduate degree requirements for PCOM. But that's the degree. Okay, hold on. The PA studies program will accept courses in labs completed online or on campus. Oh, that's good. Okay. So you guys have had a lot of questions about, oh, you know, if I got, if I went to school online or if I got an online degree, will they accept it? And they accept programs and courses completed online right here. It says it right here. So that's good to know. And then you have to have graduated from... It says labs online too. Yeah. I mean, because there's another program. So University of New England, they do online lab classes for your science, like for people that are pursuing a healthcare degree. So it's good to have that as an option if you can't go in person. Like that's usually the thing that trips people up is, yeah, you can take the class, but can you take the lab online? And there are places that will offer that. But regionally accredited college or university from the U.S., Canada or United Kingdom. Okay. Those are their areas that they will accept it from. So grade lower than a C is what they are requiring. That doesn't give me anything. Okay. Letters of recommendation. So they participate with CASPA. So you have an option of doing, I believe it's three letters of recommendation. It might be five now, but you can ask up to three people, I would say, to get you a letter of recommendation. And they'll all be, they'll all have whoever, whatever school you're applying to, will have access to those letters of recommendation through CASPA. Oh, let's look at this. Okay. So I don't see, oh no, standardized test scores are not required or reviewed for admission. So they don't require GRE, PA, CAT, MCAT, none of that, you guys. So for those of you who are like, I don't want to take the GRE, I don't want to take the PA, CAT. This is a school for you. This is a school for you. Okay. Maybe it's here. Coursework. All right. Yes. Finally, this is what I was looking at. So these are the prerequisite courses that you need to take. So your general biology, obviously your general chemistry. They want you to have another biology coursework. So it can be either micro, genetics, it can be any other biology, immunology, whatever you want. Anatomy and physiology, eight credit hours, meaning that's anatomy and physiology one and two with the labs. And then help science related course or physics. So again, here's like immunology biology. So essentially like another biology course, or you can do physics if you want a social science. And so they're asking for nine credits of social science. So that is actually like, you will do like general psychology, and then you can do abnormal and developmental psychology, because there are a lot of PA programs that require either or abnormal or developmental. So if you are interested in applying to like a program like this, that doesn't give you something specific, and it gives you a range of things that you can do, you can use that to be eligible to apply to other programs. And then six credit hours of statistics. Oh, this is, this is what, what is this? All prerequisite coursework, again, you can't have anything lower than a C. All the math prerequisites have to have been completed within 10 years, all the science and math. So that's important to note. So these, and what you might want to clarify is like your social sciences, right? So I know it's a science, but typically like a lot of schools don't really care about these social sciences being completed within the 10 years, but since it says all science and math prerequisites, you might just want to like make sure that it's done, or you can call the school and ask them if this, this statement applies to the social sciences as well. One course cannot be used to satisfy multiple prerequisite courses. Okay. So that's also something to keep in mind because I was thinking like I mentioned immunology for this aspect of like other biology coursework, but if you had immunology here, you can't use immunology here on this health sciences stuff. So just again, you have to read all of these fine prints because all of this makes a difference. And this will be like the making or breaking of your application because if you do something that is not actually like allowed, or you know, if you were trying to use one class to satisfy two of the different prerequisites, the application would be void. Like you wouldn't, you wouldn't have a completed application. So just be mindful of all of these little nuances. And their minimum GPA is a 3.0. So we can have it here for both science and undergrad. All right. And can you take prerequisites at a community college? The PA studies program will accept credits completed at a community college. Is there any PA, is there any PA program that would not accept community college credits? Yes, it just depends on the level because sometimes like community college courses are like 200 because it's through here. When that turns off, it's connected to that. But it's not off, it's just the video is off. Okay, you're not professional. Okay, professional. Okay. Could you guys hear me? Could you guys hear us talking? Go ahead. It's okay. All right, we'll see. And let me know if you guys hear us talking when that thing was off. This is the competition. I know my question. Yes. So back to your question about community college. So some of these community colleges, like the level of the credit classes are like 200 or 100 credit credit hour classes. And the schools require like a 300 or 400 level class. And so if that's the case, then it wouldn't accept it. But they're like, it doesn't have anything based on that. They will accept community college courses. So that's good.  I like the fact that they don't require any standardized tests. I like, you know, it's right on par with everything in terms of like a 3.0 and out of a 4.0 GPA scale and all of that stuff. Like the only thing that I had difficulty with was finding all of this information as I had to like scroll through all of these tabs. But other than that, I think it's good. Oh, let me show you the admissions staff. Okay. Because these are kind of like the people that you would reach out to if you had a question. Whoa. Whoa. Do I see diversity? I am. Whoa.  You got people wearing glasses, half bald, long hair, rosy cheeks. Y'all, this is beautiful. This is rare to me, guys. I like it. I like it. This is rare. You even got a brother. Like, that's very rare of African American male, but this is really cool, man. Really cool. Everybody wrote down pictures, professional, the smiles look genuine. I don't, let me see all sorts of joints because you can tell a fake smile. What do you mean? Like, oh, from the top? Everyone looks genuine. Go down. I've been over here. He didn't want a smile. No, but he, but that's genuine. That's my boy. That's Mr. Cox. That's for Dr. Cox. You know, whatever he is, he is about, right? No, he's not. Whatever he is, he's doing his thing, you know what I'm saying? Everyone's genuine, man. That's, that's legit. Now, for us, seriously, that's, that's a very diverse group. So this is the, I like it. So these are, this is your admissions staff. So if you guys had, let's see if can we, oh no, we can't. So they're like, they don't have their information here. In terms of, oh, look, there's, there's more. Oh, this is the Georgia staff. Okay. More diversity. This is really nice though, you guys. I gotta admit, that's really, and they had, you know, when it comes to diversity at these schools, really anywhere, but you, you do have to be intentional. You know, you want to pick the best people for the job, but at the same time, to be diverse or to not be diverse is also intentional too. So both, both can be intentional, but, but the intentional of being diverse is really beneficial to you. When you're looking at schools and you see a more diverse staff or faculty, people in charge of the program, that's only going to help you both, both if you're a minority and not, because you want to be able to have that engagement with, with a diverse staff, you want to be able to know how to talk to people and how people's personalities are from different, all different walks of life. That helps everybody. So look for that. And if you see that, that's a big plus. So although these people don't have, like, you can't click on them to find their information in the, like, like their contact information, what you can do, I think I saw there was something about a directory, but what I have done in the past was I just looked at these people's, like people's names. And then I looked at the people that actually had information, like their email address, address is available and looked at the format on what the school email address was. And then I just liken that to this. And I mean, it's hit or miss, you might get the person you might not, but you can also just make a call, quick call to the, the main office and get their email or contact information. Yeah. So all right, cool. So that's that you guys. So a comment question from real quick, from what you call Caleb. So Caleb, Caleb said, would you recommend asking a PAC program boards for academic exceptions and prerequisites like calculus? Oh, there? Yeah, I said. Yeah, you did. My bad. My bad. My bad. Sorry. Let me move on. This one says, oh, my bad was the wrong one. It says this is a comment. The thing with PCOM on CASPA is that they don't have you match your courses. I mean, I don't know if that's like really a big issue that you can't match your courses yourself. You know, like you, as long as you do well in those sciences, like the admissions counselors, I'm sure will do their best to make sure that they kind of choose the best course that you have done. So I don't really think that that is something like too, for you to like be too concerned about. I think the main focus is just making sure that you're doing the best in the prerequisites that they're asking for. Hey, Landry said, yes, we can. And they were talking about hearing this. Oh, yes. All right. That doesn't mean necessarily that I was wrong. Whatever. BeatfaceDanny asked me, how many schools would you recommend applying to? And I always, my answer for this is always as many schools as you possibly can. Like for me, I want to make sure that I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket. So I would get as many schools I would apply. What is wrong with you? Why are you laughing? Can we just take a quick second, a quick pause. BeatfaceDanny, that's your name? Yeah, because her face is beat. You don't know. When your face is beat, it's like... BeatfaceDanny, that's negative, ain't it? No. What does beatface mean? It means like your face, like your makeup is bomb. Beatface, that's objective. Dang, I got you, girl. Like, don't line in. But your picture's nice. That's what I'm saying. Well, that's the face. Because her face is beat. No, to switch that up, beatface, you're about a beautiful face. Like, that's a difference. That's the terminology. I'm not. I'm old school. We used to call the females beautiful. That beat, dang. That's when their makeup is like bomb and it looks good. The bomb face, Danny, or something. Well, that could be negative commentation as well. I know what bomb means. Oh, God. That's just because you old. Anyway, so, as many schools as you can, okay, as many schools as you can afford to, because it's expensive applying to PA programs. Like I said, it's $175 and then $55 each subsequent school. So if you have a budget of like $500 that you're trying to spend on applications, then you do the math and how many schools would that be, right? I don't know. I think it's like seven or so. If you have a smaller budget, then that's how many schools that you can apply to.  Make that a Christmas thing. Whatever. Yeah. So you can ask people to help you out in terms of that $55 or work a couple extra shifts, however you want. But as many schools as you can to Danny to one more thing. So one thing I learned just from watching Adonis now is how important it is to actually research every program, right? So because that takes some consideration of how many you should, you know, recommend applying to, because one thing is if you're, if you're, what's hard is that you actually have to research each program specifically in order to figure out what their specific needs and requirements are. That's a lot. Like that's a lot. That's like a job. Like you need to take a good couple of weeks to literally just treat that as your job and go through each school and specifically and write it down, plan out for on a piece of paper or whatever what you need for this school, what you don't have. Boom. That's that school. And then do the same thing for each and every single. Yeah. And it can be tedious, honestly, but there are like different programs and things out there that can help like mitigate some of that, that like tedious, like busy work of making sure that you have all of your ducks in a row, I guess you could say for each program, but you just have to either buy into them or do the work yourself. So that's the thing. But yes, you do have to do your research on every program. And then you have to also kind of narrow it down yourself. Like say, okay, I only want to apply to schools in Florida, Georgia, and, you know, I don't know, South Carolina or something, whatever the case may be, like you you have your little your area that you want to stay in. And that will help you narrow narrow down the amount of schools that you can. But as many as you can, at the end of the day, as many as you can, as many as your money will allow you to your time will afford you to as many as you can, because the more you apply to the more you're opening up your chances. So as many as you can, there's no recommended number as many as you can. All right, so Caleb said do all PAC programs require all sciences to be taken with labs at my first college in Toledo five years ago. I took first level biology there, but there was never a lab to go with it. And so not all schools require their sciences with labs, but the majority of schools do and then it just depends on the class. So typically your anatomy and physiology always has to be with the lab. I've seen some programs that don't require a lab for general biology and your general chemistry, but there are programs that require it and and you will see that delineation in terms of how many credit hours. So for me, when I was doing my undergraduate degree, my biology course was three credits, but my biology lab was one credit and it was like a separate course in and of itself. And that would be the same thing in terms of the delineation of how the program will say, Hey, this is what I need from you. I need a three credit general biology or a three credit general chemistry and you can figure it out based on that. And if there's any confusion on what exactly you need, again, just call the programs. But anyways, if you guys have any other questions for me, now is your time. I'm here for like nine more minutes ish. Yeah, I mean ish. You know, if they if you guys don't have any other questions, then I will get off. You can always again leave the next schools that you want me to research. And we'll do that next week, Tuesday. And I'll put it up on what school it is going to be either on Monday or Tuesday morning. So you can stay tuned for that. In conclusion with PCOM, what is your top, I guess, thing that you like about what you saw about the school? And is there anything that cautioned you or concerns you? I mean, I kind of said it already. My main thing was I really like the fact that there was no requirements for, sorry, I got distracted by beat based Danny. She said, and leave my YouTube name alone. It's a beauty community thing. My bad, Danny, my bad. I ain't in the beauty community. That beauty, that's why. Because I'm just old, but it's okay. It's not old. Yes, it's you and old. That's the old thing. What dude, what dude did any age know would beat face beat? That's not, when I'm talking to dudes, I'm like, yo, her face is beat. Yes! No, there ain't nobody on the, when I go who, I'm gonna know who was the dude.  It ain't, it ain't, no, it's not a yes. But that's, but I'm, but it's cool that, look, you're beautiful. I see your picture.  But the name is just, I wasn't used to name. I wasn't used to name. Sorry. Sorry. I'm not, I'm not there. Sorry. Grant said none of them for what dudes. So thank you, Grant. Thank you, Grant. Whatever. Anyways, like my main things was that I, what I really like is the fact that they don't have any standardized test requirements. I think that, that is a huge weight lifted off of some people that don't want to take like GRE or PA cat. And it's also something that they don't have to spend more money on, you know, those tests cost as well. So you can take that $135, $100 that you were going to spend on that test and put it towards two programs, you know, that you want to apply to. So those are things that really you take into consideration when you're trying to figure out like, where is this money coming from? And that's always something that I, you know, had in mind. And then the one like kind of negative, I guess you could say your thing that I had an issue with was just the, the usability and the ease of the website. Like I know there was two different campuses and, you know, trying to figure all of that stuff out. I think if it could be a lot easier, a lot more simplified in terms of how I can go through to find the things that I really want to know, which is your accreditation status and your, your requirements for PA school, those are like the main things. If those are clear upfront, then it will take it to the next level. So, all right. A. Landry said, longtime follower of your channel enjoyed your discussion. Did you have students in your PA program who were 40 years and older? I applied when I was in the U. S. Army years ago in my late 20s. So, no, I didn't have anybody that was 40, but they were they were approaching 40. And so they were like 36. That ain't close. That's four years away. That's not close. That's four years away. You don't say four years away. I think they were like, no. And they were 36 when they started. They were 36 when they started. So that's like 38 when they graduated. So I'm like close talking about applying at 40, not graduating. However, there are definitely and if you haven't seen Landry, Adana, you've been a follower. So I'm sure you have seen it, but obviously, there are definitely PA students who are over 40. Yeah. Yeah. There was a guy that was like 54 or something like that. So they're, I mean, like I said, schooling in general, like anybody can go back to school. You just have to have the wherewithal and the desire to do so. And then the drive because it's not going to be easy.  So yeah. But in my program, like the oldest was in their late thirties and the youngest had just like just turned 21 once we started school. It wasn't even 21 yet. So very wide range. And then Sarah said, please make a video on study tips and passing studying for prerequisites. Okay. Yeah, I'll see what I can do, sir. All right, y'all. Thank you guys so much for joining me and watching again, leave whatever schools you would like me to do next. Thanks and thanks baby for joining me. That's what I do. I appreciate you. Join me again next week, Sunday as I do another video for you. Shout out on Tuesday. Shout out to beautiful face, Danny. I appreciate you. That's your new name. Anytime I see that, I know what it means now. Thank you. Thank you. Now I'll tell my baby, you beat in the face. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. I'll talk to you guys next time. Bye.


Mary Roy, educator and women's rights activist, died on Thursday. In 1986, Roy won a historic decades-long battle in the Supreme Court that secured equal inheritance rights of Syrian Christian women as their male siblings. In 2009, a Kerala court finally settled the inheritance which she has left to charity. We have with us writer and editor Geeta Hariharan, who has also fought a crucial legal battle for women's rights. Hi Geeta. Geeta, can you please begin by talking about Mary Roy's legacy and at a time when you have cases like Bill Kisbanos, the rip is being released on the mission, what does her life and her struggle really symbolize today? Yes, let me begin by saying that at any point in these last 75 years, post-independence, a life like Mary Roy's would have been something for us to look up to. Let me say why in many ways. First, of course, the most obvious answer is the landmark case that she fought for so many years, not just in the courts but in the community and even within the family. So this is really important to understand because in present times, if it's something in the court, you at least have the support of people on social media and the civil society supporters and so on. But here was a woman who survived a difficult childhood, restrictive conservative community but had ambitions, she studied and came back, left a bad marriage and came back with her children and discovered that as a Syrian Christian woman that she was not entitled to her share of whatever was her father's property and she was actually asked to leave a cottage in Utti that belonged to her father. So the shock there, and I think this is especially important to remember that for middle class women, when you discover that you might be middle class, you might have certain levels of privilege compared to other women in this country.  So there are various things here. One is that she discovers as a Syrian Christian woman that she's entitled to not only to one fourth I think of her brother's share but all 5000 rupees, whichever is less. So in other words, there's a specific amount which is mentioned. So I have to say that I really feel strongly about this because I discovered the similar fallibility of the Hindu personal law. So I think what we have to look at is that we have brave women who have come forward and said no, I will not accept this, I will fight it out in court and that's what she did and she did get a judgment which struck that down and so that Syrian Christian women, the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916 was no longer valid and the value of these cases, again that is important because it's how other women use this procedure, what it does for other women, other Christian women in that community and apparently there was a huge backlash and there were attempts by politicians as well as the church in short the establishment, the patriarchal establishment to say oh no, if this is with retrospective effect you're going to have all kinds of cases within the family. So this is also a very important aspect of this case which is that you valorize the family as if it is the unit that upholds equality, well it's not. So you have to look at all battles for equality in multiple settings, the court yes, but if the law cannot be implemented in real life there's just no point. So it has to be the community, the establishment which includes the religious establishment and then of course the family. Right Geeta, Geeta a little bit on the context today, can women like Mary Roy, can there be more women like her today, do the circumstances allow for that to happen? I think you know we have to recognize the very many brave individual women as well as those collectives of women whether they're visible or not. You know if you happen to be from a particular class background or involved in activities that bring you to the public eye then people know this and we are grateful for that, we're grateful for that because we all need role models, we all need people to look up to and say oh this is possible, I too can you know make my little modest contribution. So that is there but I think we must not forget that, will you mention Bilkis Banu, I think in a way she symbolizes this moment that all this talk about 75th year of independence, all this talk, all this lip service paid to women's rights and what is happening, here is somebody who expressed faith in the judicial system, who was so brave, was so astonishingly brave and stood up to rapists, murderers, the terror of that experience as well as the aftermath and to actually let her down like this, it's not letting down just one woman, it's not letting down just the Muslim community, it's letting down all the women and all the citizens of this country because this is not a question of women versus men, it's a question of obscurantism, inequality versus progressive equality. Right, to return to Mary Roy again, Gita you fought your own legal battle, you fought long and hard and did you actually ever meet her, did you know her well, is there a connection between the two of you? No, I never met her, of course like many of us I know Arun Dati, her daughter, but we do have a person in common, the wonderful advocate Indira Jayas Singh, who was involved in both our cases and this is what I mean about the, you don't even really have to know all these women, but you know there is a community of women, some you will never meet in your lifetime, you might not have a language in common, but you know it is this awareness that there are individuals as well as movements that support equality which actually keep you going, that's what keeps one going. My own case again the personal laws are framed with the view to upholding the rights quote unquote of the powerful and of marginalizing those who are already marginalized to some extent or the other, so in terms of gender, in terms of caste and so on. So not surprisingly Hindu women too, you know the cliches always that Muslim women are battered and oppressed and so on. So again like Mary Roy it was quite a shock to me when I went to the reserve bank to make a little investment in the name of my minor son and I was told I'm not the natural guardian. So you know I stood there and said do you know the meaning of the word natural?  And again the peculiar contradictions now in the Mary Roy case apparently if Sri Dhanam or some kind of dowry was either given or promised then even that 5000 rupees wouldn't be given but there is also a dowry prevention act. So really it's a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing and similarly in my case I discovered if I said that I wasn't married and if I said my children are illegitimate then I was quite free to be the natural guardian and of course the point of principle you want to make as a citizen of the country is to say there's no such thing as an illegitimate child it's the this law that is illegitimate because it doesn't understand that you know both parents have an equal right to the child. So I think till we clean up laws till we find ways of not either beating members of a religious community with a stick nor diminishing them to just that identity you know we're always going to have this kind of inequality persisting. And women who are struggling against it. Yes yes I think though these are small steps you know in my case it's not as if the Hindu Guardianship Act was struck down so it was it was a lukewarm victory I have to add that because you know though it was touted as a landmark judgment it wasn't really because all they said was that the woman too can be the guardian you know so of course your first reaction is well thank you very much did I need the law to say that but the point is that again other people where you know marriages are breaking down there are custodial quarrels warren fear can use the judgment as a precedent and hopefully the small stepping stones will help others. I also want to add about Mary Roy that it was not just this case you know you have to look at the this woman in her the fullness of her achievement that she also was an educator she wanted to obviously bring about change in very pragmatic ways day to day in the classroom and I think this is particularly inspirational because very often these days in these terrible times of division and hate speech and so on you think sometimes you almost want to give up on adults and you think it's children you know if children are thought to think to question to be independent minded and not swallow stereotypes then there's hope for the world and she set up a very interesting school where they were open minded willing to conduct experiments in the you know in learning and I think that too should be remembered. Thank you Gita thanks very much for joining us and thank you very much for watching NewsClick do follow us on our social media and keep watching us thank you.


Good afternoon everybody, happy new year and welcome back to our lunchtime Webinar Express series. We've got some great webinars lined up for 2023 and we'll be kicking off a series today with Rob Gray, co-founder and strategy partner at Creative Brand Agency Squad. If you've watched any of our Webinar Express sessions before, then you'll know how this works. But for those joining us for the first time today, I'll very quickly give you some info on how today's webinar will run. Here you can submit your questions for the Q&A and where to go if you want to watch the session again. So I'll be hearing from Rob for around 30 to 35 minutes. We'll then move into a 10 to 15 minute Q&A session to answer some of your questions. You'll be able to post your questions for the Q&A anytime during the session by clicking on the question mark you'll see on screen. We've circled the mark for you depending on which device you're watching from. So if you're watching on a laptop, you'll find the question mark on the right-hand side of your screen or along the top or bottom if watching on a tablet or smartphone. Rob has very kindly agreed for his presentation slides to be available to download whilst we're broadcasting. So if you pop into the handout section, which looks like a memo icon with the top edge folded over, you'll be able to download them from there. If you want to watch the session again, it'll be available on the CIM YouTube channel. Just head into the Webinar Express playlist and you'll find it listed there. You'll find the entire back catalog of our Express series with sessions covering a broad range of marketing skills and insights all free to access and available whenever you want. So do take a look as we've had some great sessions with fascinating insights from our speakers. If you'd like to share any thoughts about today's webinar on the socials, you can use the hashtag CIM events. We'd love to see your comments on Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, so we'll pop the hashtag up again when we get to the Q&A. And finally, if you're a university student attending today's webinar, then you may want to sign up to the CIM Marketing Club. All you need to do is hover your camera over the QR code and that will take you straight through to the sign up page. Alternatively, you can hop onto our website and find it within the qualifications drop-down menu. It'll keep you up to date with the latest trends, innovations and concepts in the marketing industry, so it really is worth taking a look and signing up. Okay, I'd now like to introduce our guest speaker for today, Rob Gray. If you want to turn your webcam on, Rob, I'll pass things over to you and the floor is yours when you're ready. Cool. Thank you, Phil. Hopefully you can all see and hear me now. There we go. Okay. So today I'm going to talk about how to give brands an unstoppable momentum and really drive their growth and specifically I'm going to talk about the importance of their position and the way you position them in doing that. So the context and squad and where I'm coming from squad essentially helps clients go from their vision as a brand into the execution. So we work at a strategic level with companies on their boardroom strategy for their brand and then we help them translate that into their creative output. That could be advertising, it could be branding, it could be internal communications, product design, culture, lots of different areas. And a key part of what we do is connecting strategy and strategists with creative and creatives. That's a big part of our process and that's a kind of theme that you're going to hear coming through what I'm going to talk about today. So over the last 10 years or so that squad's been going, we've worked with a huge number of clients and a lot of the thinking I'm going to be sharing with you today is based on the things we've learned during that time. So I'm going to share some theory around brands and position and how to drive their growth. I'm going to share some of the tools and practices we use and that have worked well for us and the particular kind of methods we have at squad. I'll also share examples from our own work and also from well-known brands to try and illustrate some of the points that I'm going to be talking about today. So hopefully you'll leave the session with some practical tools and thinking that you can take away and start applying to your own brand. So let's start with a definition of what is a brand. So we're all on the same page in terms of what we're talking about. I really like this definition from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room. For me, that captures the kind of really important quality of a brand that is an impression, an image, a reputation that exists in someone else's head. It's not something that you control directly. It's not your logo, your advertising, your communications, your design, any of that things, although those all influence your brand. It's the perception that exists in someone's head. And why is that important? Well, in my experience, that perception, that brand drives choice. It drives the choice someone makes whether they want to buy your brand. It drives their choice, whether they're going to recommend your brand to others. It drives, from an internal point of view, their choice as to whether they want to come and work for you, whether they want to work hard for your brand. So that perception influences choice. And often it's very small perceptions that can have a really big impact on someone's choice. We make big decisions based on a lot of gut instinct. So brand can be very influential over choice. And in terms of how that drives growth and profit for business, obviously the more people choosing to buy the brand, to work for the brand, the more that drives growth, the more people doing that, the more profit the business will make at an absolute level. But also the degree to which people want to choose the brand, the level of desire to choose the brand over other options affects the amount they're willing to pay. So more people paying more money obviously drives up profit as well. So that's the link between how brands drive growth and profit for brands. So let's kind of unpack that a bit and start to look at, well, okay, how do we create a brand like that? How do we create a brand with real energy and momentum and drive? I'm going to test the technology here, test the limits of the technology by trying to kind of have a little interactive game. I often play this when I'm doing these kind of sessions in person. So we're going to try and see if we can recreate it online. So I'm going to show you a few examples of brands and what I'd like you to do within the questions box that you should be able to see on your interface is just type in what springs to mind when I show these brands. So let's try the first one, IKEA. Okay, great. So we're seeing some things pop up there, DIY minimalism, Scandi minimalism, flat pack, choice, Sweden, Swedish design, cheap furniture, self assembly, meatballs, always get meatballs with this one. Yeah, arrows and meatballs. Okay, great. Lots of good stuff there. So, okay, a lot of people talk about flat packs, Swedish, Swedish design, minimalist furniture and lots of mentions of meatballs. Okay, let's try another one, Ryanair. Okay, so lots of things around cheap flights, budget, blue and yellow, cheap, cheap budget, lots of cheap budgets, low cost, etc. Yeah, also mentions of poor service, low quality coming through, get what you pay for, cheap no frills. Okay, last one, to try Patagonia. Okay, sustainable, idealistic, outdoors, ethical, purpose beyond profit, earth, responsible, sustainable. Okay, adventure outdoors, lots of things around that. Okay, great. So I think what that illustrates is the essential quality of a really strong brand is that it has a really defined image about what it stands for that's different to what other brands stand for. And I think those examples illustrate that really well that as soon as I kind of show those brands, immediately you've got kind of an image of what that brand stands for and actually remarkably similar, lots of people all kind of saying similar things when we were going through those brands. So that's the kind of key quality of why it drives a kind of brand success, that clarity of position and its ability to convey that position over all the things it does as a brand. In terms of how starting to kind of unpack how you do that, how do you build a strong position like that in people's minds? I think it's important to understand there's two sides to this, which we call position in the market and position in the mind. So position in the market is about the reality of what your brand does, what does it offer, what's its product, its service, and this goes to the heart of a brand's business strategy. The other side is position in the mind, so that's about the perception you create of your brand and what it stands for through its design, through its communication, through its advertising, through its marketing, through those kind of things. And both of those kind of sides to a brand are really important and will ultimately kind of drive the position it has. I'm going to show you an example to kind of illustrate those two sides and the importance of them both. And this is a brand called Oatly, Oat Milk that you may well have come across. It was invented by researchers at the University of London in the 1990s who discovered a way to extract milk from oats. So that gave them the basis of a really strong differentiated position in the market. All of the milk products were primarily from cows. They've created a milk that comes from oats. So it's rationally different in the market and provides a lot of focus to what they're doing internally in terms of the kind of focus of the business. But for many years, they just kind of bumbled along, not really growing particularly massively. You know, this, as I say, this kind of product was invented in the 1990s. And part of the problem is it looked like that. It looked like it had been, was the product of some university academics who'd kind of researched and discovered this. It wasn't really connecting with urban millennials who had the kind of potential to be its audience and this product to really connect with. So in 2012, they made a big change. They brought in a new creative director who together with the CEO really overhauled the brand starting with identifying what it stood for. What was its purpose as a brand? And that led to a big overhaul of the packaging, of the communications, of the brand personality, of everything that kind of the brand was doing. And the purpose was all around this idea of what they call post milk generation. So this idea of a plant-based society, a plant-based diet and the health benefits of that and the environmental benefits of that. And that gave them something else beyond the rational differentiation that being out milk had given them. It gave them an emotional connection in people's minds. It created a bond between them and their customers. And that's what really kind of then started to ignite the growth of the brand because it was connecting with people more. They were talking to their friends more about it. They wanted to buy it more. There were more loyal to it. People wanted to work for it. So the brand suddenly ignited its growth. Go back one if we can. Bit trigger happy there. Within a few years of relaunching, they doubled their revenues to about $41 million within a year of relaunching in 2016. The brand now, six years on from that, turns over about $421 million. So it's gone from $41 million to $421 million in a period of six or seven years since this kind of change. So that really kind of emphasized the importance of having a position in the mind on top of a position in the market. We will click on now. There we go. I think this is a good example of where brands go wrong though and why that can be a challenge. This is an advert for Hyundai, which says life is not about spending time. It's about time well spent. Hyundai is reimagining time for the future of the future that will connect people with quality time. It's a future reimagined for us. And last time I checked Hyundai made cars. I'm not sure what that kind of position as a brand has to do with cars, what it has to do with the reality of what they actually make and what they actually sell. And this is where brands often struggle and come a cropper and they kind of fail to be authentic because the brand position they're trying to create in the mind isn't connecting with the reality of what they're doing in the market. And this is a key thing for igniting the growth of a brand and when you think about how to position your brand, you need to think about the kind of rational, its rational position in the market but also its emotional position in the mind and crucially that those two things connect so that the brand comes across as authentic. A lot of those brands I showed you earlier do this well and they come across as very authentic brands that really connect with people. The other crucial thing is getting the alignment right across everything the brand does. These days there's so many different touch points that brands have with their audiences. Every kind of point of interaction on numerous digital channels is an opportunity to connect and say something about the brand and strong brands manage to align everything they're doing. Every kind of touch point they have with people behind conveying that position and getting that position across. When they do, they start to create a real momentum and energy because everything people see in here is reinforcing and feeding off other things people have seen there to kind of create this virtuous cycle of energy and momentum and growth. Where brands often come across is actually they don't manage to drive that through the brand they don't manage to get that coherence across everything the brand is doing and saying. I'll give you an example of that. M&S have for a long time focused on their CSR position, environmental position. They call it Plan A because there's no Plan B. You see it emblazoned across staff t-shirts. You see it emblazoned across lorries driving up and down the motorway. They've done some fantastic work and they've really kind of established this reputation for themselves through everything they've done. But then in another area of the business someone's kind of decided to give away a promotion to kids on free plastic toys. And then because the brand set itself up as having this position, the press grab hold of it and kind of call them out for it and then that kind of undermines everything they've tried to do on the other side. So it is challenging in big businesses particularly in big businesses to get that alignment across everything the brand is doing and saying but that's crucial in order to really ignite growth and drive the brand's momentum. And that's often one of the crucial things that successful brands manage to do is create that coherence and alignment across everything they do. And in our experience, why brands are able to do that, why they can do it well is when they do what we call position from the inside out. When they manage to, at the leadership level have a really strong sense of what the brand stands for, what its position is. And they manage to drive that across everything the brand's doing and saying and all it's kind of creative out, but it's advertising, it's communications, it's design, it's marketing, et cetera, as well as internally it's culture. And I'm going to give you a few examples of brands who've done this well, I think to kind of give you a bit more insight around how they do it. The first is well-known brand, you might well have come across called Apple, talked about a lot because it's the most, one of the top most valuable and successful brands in the world, but I think this video is interesting because it gives you a glimpse under the bonnet. This is a staff meeting that Steve Jobs held when he returned to Apple in 1997 and set about revamping it before the iPod, before the iPad, before the iPhone, before any of this stuff. This was the kind of the start of it. And it's Steve Jobs talking about a new advertising campaign they're about to launch and I think the way he talks about this, you can really start to kind of get a sense of that connection in terms of his definition, articulation of what the brand stands for and then his driving that through into all their kind of brand activity. So we're going to test the technology a bit here and I can't actually play this. So I'm going to ask you to just take that link, which I think should pop up on your interface now or you can just copy that and punch that into your browser and then you should be able to watch that clip and then we'll resume in a couple of minutes when you've all had a chance to watch that. A couple more examples I think are interesting of brands that really kind of push that position from the top across that everything they do. Patagonia brand we looked at earlier but their founder wrote a book that my people go surfing and I think this is interesting because of the depth he goes to when he talks about their kind of environmental sustainable positioning as an outdoor clothing brand but how he drove that across, how there's a leadership team drove that across everything they do and he talks at length in this book about product design initiatives, HR initiatives, marketing initiatives, finance initiatives, operations initiative, manufacturing, all these kind of different areas and you get a really strong sense of how that position drove everything they do and really came to life across the brand. Another one that's interesting in a slightly different way is this brand. I don't know whether anyone's recognises who this is but this is the first iteration of Starbucks. It came about when Howard Schultz the founder went to Italy and he saw over there the importance of coffee within the culture. He saw how coffee shops were almost like a third place between home and work for people where they all stopped each morning for their morning espresso. He saw the quality of the coffee that was available in stark contrast to a lot of the instant coffee that was drunk in America at the time and he brought that idea back to the States and he launched a coffee chain and called it Il Gionale after Italian newspaper. He had waiters in little pinnies like in Italy. The coffee was served on bars in little porcelain espresso cups but over time this kind of vision changed and adapted to the American market and of course most notably the name changed but that kind of vision of creating this new place, this third place and offering this quality coffee stayed true and was kind of the driving force for how they've developed a brand. So I think those are all kind of interesting good examples of brands who've really kind of articulated that position at the top and then driven across everything they do. What we find when working with brands to do that is the importance of the way you approach the strategic process and the creative process not viewing them as two separate things in a linear process where the strategy is done and a kind of PowerPoint presentation is created and then that's handed over to the creative teams to implement and take forward into advertising or communications or whatever it may be but instead viewing those two things as an iterative collaborative process so that creators are involved in the strategic development thinking about the execution of it thinking about how you can bring that strategy to life and then the strategies are involved as you move through making sure the creative work that's produced connects with that position you're trying to build. And we have a framework and method we use to help clients do that at Squad which is what I'll share with you now. We call it the position power program because of the kind of energy and momentum it unlocks in brands as you move through this process and hopefully this is useful if any of you are thinking about your own brands and how to develop your own positions. The starting point is defining the position you want to build and there's lots of different kind of models available lots of different people talking about visions and missions and values and whys and narratives and big ideas and all this kind of thing but essentially a lot of these kind of things are based on similar principles and in our experience there's three core things three core questions you need to answer to articulate and define your position. So I'll lag on the change here hopefully the slide is going to change in a second. There we go. So first question is what's the space you operate in? This is about defining your place and really it's about two core questions. What are you going to offer? What's your products and service you're going to offer? How is that different to others? Is it going to be cheaper, more expensive? Is it better designed? Is there some unique invention that you've come across like the example of oat milk versus cow's milk and what's the audience you're going to offer that to? And those two things kind of affect the core of your brand's position in the market. It's differentiation. If your offer is different or if your audience is different or both are different then you've got the basis of a strong differentiated position for the brand. The second thing once you've done that is to start and think about what's the kind of narrative we're going to build around this brand? What's the story we're going to tell across it? And I think this is an interesting example of that as political campaigns often are because they have to talk about so many different subjects. This is some images from Barack Obama's landslide election victory in the States in 2008 where he went on this position of change and had this story about change and hope, this narrative he went through everything. And when he was talking about economy or welfare or health or crime or global politics it was all presented through this lens of change and that was what he boiled everything down to and brought everything back to. And over time he kind of established that position for himself and ultimately succeeded in winning the election. And that's the role a position needs to play for a brand is providing that story, that narrative that's going to run through everything. And so the way we think about making that leap between the place and that narrative is by finding your purpose. Why does the brand exist and what is that kind of core story we're going to tell? So the way we work with brands to find this is to think about what is the passion inside the business? Why does it feel passionate about that offer that it's presenting to the market? But equally then looking externally what does the audience really desire? Why do they really want what's being offered here? And if you find that sweet spot in the middle where you've got the passion that the brand has with the desire of the audience that's kind of the crux of the purpose why it exists and that's the basis of the brand's narrative. But then the third element which is really crucial is about the personality. So how are you actually going to articulate that in a way that's going to move people? And I think this is a good example of that difference between purpose and personality. Both of these hitchhikers essentially say the same thing. I want to hitchhike somewhere and one says it in a very straight way to Manchester the other articulates it in a very motive way to Moms for Christmas. And that's the difference between purpose and personality. It's thinking about not just what you're saying but how are you going to articulate that in a compelling way that's going to move people to action. And when we do this with brands a good technique that we use is to write a manifesto. And this allows you to kind of find that personality play with words, imagery, language to find that kind of way of articulating it in a really compelling way.  And they, the founders to former rugby players had gone off to Australia experienced Australian coffee culture and wanted to bring that back to the north of England. And so their position was all about Antipodean coffee culture but with a northern accent it was that play on the sonniness and positivity of Australia with the kind of dry wit and humour and grey skies of the north of England and Manchester and juxtaposing those two things. So if you read some of the words on that slide now you can get a sense of how that position started to come to life with personality through the language we used. And that then provides a great framework a great platform for thinking about how we're going to push that out across everything the brand does. Once you've done that so you've got your position you've articulated those three questions and you've got your manifesto it's then about how we're going to build that momentum of propulsion for the brand. And this is where you really kind of start to drive its growth and you kind of orientate everything the brand's doing across its different touch points and create that that coherence across it all. And these will vary depending on the type of brand you are different brands have different kind of touch points B2B, B2C, etc. But the principles are the same and broadly there's these different areas that you need to think about. So there's the branding visual and verbal identity there's the internal culture and how you embed that position internally through communications and behaviors internally how do you drive it through the brand's communications it's advertising it's social media and how do you drive that across its design whether that's environments and retail experiences websites and digital experiences packaging the kind of the things will vary but the principle of driving it through everything is the same. And then before we kind of wrap up I'm going to share an example of all that how all that comes together for a brand and show you that that process and that thinking action. So this is a brand we've worked with for a number of years called JWDs who are a Manchester based brewery and pop company family business sixth generation been around for 190 years and their CEO man called William Lees Jones sixth generation kind of the family came to us about six or seven years ago and and talked about how they looked then which you can see on the slide there and how they looked and felt quite old and stale and traditional and kind of like you might expect a sixth generation 190 year old kind of family brewing business to look and feel but at the same time you know he wanted to really re-imagise the business revitalise the business and create a new vision for the brand and overhaul it. So we set off on a journey together doing a lot of work with him and his board to go through that framework that I showed you a minute ago to think about first think about that position and we define that as modern traditional brewer and the thinking behind this was that brewing was really important to what they do but had kind of been lost that kind of been a focus on the pubs and the value of the pub estate and almost kind of thinking themselves more as a property company than a brewer but actually the brewery was what was really interesting it's what really connected with people internally with customers there's a real kind of resurgence in interest in craft beer and craft brewing so there was this kind of fantastic opportunity to make more of this brewery they've been brewing beer for 190 years we wanted to do that in a way that respected the tradition and heritage of the business they've got some fantastic stories of appearing in Coronation Street of Winston Churchill dining in their oak paneled brewery boardroom but we also wanted to do it in a way that was modern that reflected that pubs are changing they're evolving they're more kind of less spit and so does more family more food beer is changing craft the craft kind of beer revolution is kind of changing the way the kind of nature of brewing and beer so there's a massive opportunity to kind of re-energize as well so the position was about modern traditional brewery and putting the brewery at the heart of the business and then we started to think about okay that's the purpose but how do we articulate that with personality how do we bring that to life and much like I talked about kind of writing a manifesto another great way of doing this is to create a film I'm going to show you a film in a second that's the film we created for JD release you can produce these in a proper polished way and then they become kind of great communication tools for launching the position but equally you can produce them in a very kind of rough cut informal way just using iMovie or something like that just as a way to start to experiment and work out how is the kind of brand going to communicate what it stands for using words using pictures using imagery what so how's it going to feel how's it going to look and you can experiment with that in a very kind of rough cut way as well so again I'm going to send you off to watch a film that's on that link there and this is the position film we made for JD release and then we'll resume when you've all had a chance to watch that so having worked out what their position was we then moved on to that next stage of propulsion which I talked about and this was about driving it through the different areas of the brand so we started with internally their culture this was William their CEO a big company conference where the business came together and we talked about this new vision and direction for the brand and what it was going to mean for the kind of behaviors internally and the service and the experience and the pubs we then overhauled the identity creating a much stronger sense of JD release it's a family of beers there running through everything flexing from more traditional beers like bitter to more modern ones like NPA and the identity had that flex in it to look more traditional or modern depending on the beer in question but all with a kind of strong sense of JD release identity running through it that was then kind of pushed out across the business into the pubs collaboration brews with other breweries it fed their innovation so one of the things we identified was the need for a stronger lager range they had a lot of ales but their beer portfolio only had one lager in it so we developed and launched a new product called Manchester Craft Lager which were designed as a kind of premium lager to go up against foreign continental lagers other collaboration brews seasonal ranges so you can see this kind of drive to be that modern traditional breweries started to really come across in the design the branding, the communications but also through their innovation extending to creating and launching new micro brewery then out into communications and starting to think about how do we drive this out into our communications and promote our beers even within communications that aren't necessarily around beer making sure beer is prominent within them and then driving that out into the design of the pub experience so not just changing the exteriors and the identity of those and tying them back into the identity for the brand but also thinking about how does that position start to drive the customer experience within the pubs so bringing almost like a micro brewery experience into the pubs reflecting the uniqueness of JD with these pubs in that they are a company that still brews its own beer unlike most pub chains you go into in the UK today the pub chain itself won't be brewing its own beer they'll be buying it in they'll be white-laving someone else's beer so that connection between brewery and pub was really important we wanted to bring that to life through cues of hops and brewing that can take it into the interior design schemes so hopefully that gives you a flavour of how you kind of go on that that journey from articulating the position and defining that to then building the energy and propulsion around it that process was really transformative for JD with these and lots of other brands we've worked with if you want to play around with this yourself on your own brand then we have a number of tools available that URL which might be interesting things for you to play with particularly the calculator which is a self-assessment tool on our website where you can answer various questions about your own brand and depending on the answers of those it'll kind of spit out an assessment of the strength of your position and how well you building propulsion around that in different areas and give you an idea of the kind of areas you might want to focus on for developing your own brand we also publish newspaper every year that you can get if you visit that URL and punch your details in this contains lots of kind of thinking and playbooks and other content that we create around how helping brands position themselves and drive their growth around it so that might be another useful resource if you want to get a copy of that and sign up there and then last but not least feel free to connect with me on on social media mainly on LinkedIn tends to be what I use also be great if any of you want to drop me an email I'm always keen to hear feedback it's hard with these online webinar sessions to know what kind of response you're getting from people and how it's going down so if nothing else it tells me that people are at least still in the room and listening as I can't see you all connect with us as a business on all the usual platforms and our website there so hopefully that's useful I think we're now going to dive into some questions that we fill thanks very much Rob that was fantastic and we have actually run over it at the moment I'm nonetheless for those who are happy to hang on we're going to try and get through one or two questions for Rob Rob a couple of things around the film that you showed for Lees one was one of the biggest challenges is bringing the people within the brand along with you did you find any challenges with staff who were reluctant for JW Lees to modernize if so what did you do I think you always get some of that at the start of a project a big project like that I think you know crucial things are engagement when you develop that position at the start particularly around the leadership team the different heads of departments to making sure their kind of voices have been heard and they've inputted into the process so that's that's crucial and and then I think you you know once you start to communicate it out into the business you find that bringing it to life kind of painting a picture as it were really starts to create energy so in that JW Lees example when we had that conference we played that film we showed the new identity of the beers and the design of the beers that's what really started to kind of create a lot of energy and excitement for the business because they could see what it meant what impact it was going to have and how the brand was much more interesting much more exciting much more interesting so you know that really kind of helps that process so that engagement piece up front and then bringing it to life for people as you move through I think would be the key things great thanks Rob questions around B2B so one question was very between different sectors particularly B2B versus B2C and secondly does culture play a role in brand repositioning of the B2B business from inside out yeah so I think we've worked with a lot of B2B and B2C clients and the principles the process is exactly the same you know at the end of the day brand is still influential over people's choice in the B2B setting as that famous phrase no one ever got fired for buying IBM you know so perception of a brand drives choice in a B2B environment just as much as B2C and at the end of the day still dealing with people you know still selling to people marketing to people who are you know the same people who are buying a consumer products as a business product I think where it gets different is the execution so if you think about the kind of channels that drive drive the growth in a B2C environment it might be more advertising you know if you're Coca Cola or whatever soft drink you know the advertising that's going to be a crucial channel in a B2B context perhaps a professional services business accountant's lawyers whatever you know the it's going to be less about advertising it's going to be more about people so you know to your point about culture you know I think culture in a B2B setting is crucial because that's one of the key mechanisms for building the brand you know what people say when they're out and about at industry events and networking and on social media and those kind of things those are really kind of drive the brand position more than perhaps advertising in a B2C context so you've got to adapt the way you execute and deliver that position for the channels you're using but that that's probably the key difference you know the principles of the importance of position and how you develop that position and how you drive it from the inside out the same in both kind of environments really. Okay thanks Rob I think we've just got time for one more question although there's two on a similar theme here so best advice for building a brand from scratch and what would be the number one priority for a challenger brand in a sector with an overwhelming market leader? I think so should we take them separately the first one was about a startup yeah I mean I think for a startup you know position is really important because it's your story and you know at the start of a journey you're trying to get people in board whether that's your first customers or investors or whoever it may be that story you're telling through the way you're positioning the brand is critical for creating that initial kind of energy and kind of momentum and you know I'd focus much more on getting a compelling position and story than any kind of whizzy kind of graphics or anything like that you know that that's really important for a startup particularly when it's a founder telling that story and delivering that for themselves a lot of the time and you know a challenger brand I guess you know similar thing but you know up against a market leader you know really look at what is their position and how are you going to position differently I think is the crucial thing understanding what is going to be really compelling because if they're so dominant you're going to have to find that kind of niche that sweet spot that's going to really set your business apart from them in order to kind of draw people to you but if you do there's often a great challenge a great opportunity because with situations like that you've often got a lot of inertia and a lot of people are quite fed up with the dominant player but they just kind of need a compelling alternative so you can kind of tap into that okay great thank you very much Rob that was great unfortunately that is all the time we have for today's webinar so I'd just like to say thank you again to Rob for a fantastic presentation. Thank you Rob and to the C.I.M. Yorkshire group for organizing the webinar. We do hope you've enjoyed the session and found it interesting and worthwhile we'll be sending out a short survey about today's webinar and we'd love to hear your feedback it will only take a few minutes and all survey responses are anonymous so please let us know your thoughts and what you'd like to see from our Webinar Express series in the future. We'll be back with our next webinar on Wednesday the 15th of February with UK marketing manager for Hasubana, Sarah Bentham you'll find further details listed on the events page of our website where you can also register for the session so that just leads me to say a final thank you to you for joining us today and we hope you've enjoyed the webinar. Take care everyone and we look forward to seeing you again soon.