If you haven’t tasted a lobster roll from Cousins Maine Lobster, you probably will soon. In five years, the start-up has gone from one food truck to a national franchise company with $20 million in sales.

How did the two founders do it? The cousins struck gold by using savvy branding every step of the way. Here are 5 branding tips from their phenomenal success story:

1. Start with a “small” idea:

It’s important to realize that “small” ideas grow into big businesses and big complicated ideas confuse and go nowhere. CML’s elevator pitch was “to bring the Maine lobster experience” to the rest of the world: “Shore to truck” in 24 hours to create the freshest lobster roll possible.” In my book, “Breakthrough Branding,” I talk about the importance of beginning with a “small” idea, one that is focused, different and sets up a “unique selling proposition” (USP). The cousins saw an opportunity for their simple idea of a lobster food truck business because, outside of Maine, it was hard to get lobster except at pricey restaurants.

2. Have a name that markets your story

The name, Cousins Maine Lobster, says it all. The founders were two cousins from Maine who had a reunion in Los Angeles in 2012. Encouraged by an evening drinking, they started reminiscing about their childhoods in Maine, family trips to the beach and eating lobster rolls for lunch. One thing led to another, and the two pooled their money, some $20,000, bought a food truck and launched Cousins Maine Lobster in Los Angeles.

3. Fuel the brand’s growth with a PR game plan

The cousin’s “creation story” based on their idyllic Maine childhoods and family outings to the shore was made for PR since it had a lot of human interest. The team knew how to tell stories with lots of anecdotes about the Maine lobster experience. Local PR led to appearances on national media. The PR attracted the interest of “Shark Tank,” and the pair got a big break when they were invited to appear on the show. Mark Cuban may have dissed them on the show, but Barbara Corcoran invested $55,000 for a 15% stake.

4. Evolve your plan to keep the momentum going

The original product was identical to the Maine lobster roll: soft roll, little bit of butter and gobs of lobster. To keep the momentum, they added fast-casual twists such as lobster tacos, and lobster tater tots with cilantro. They expanded their PR tactics beyond the Maine lobster experience story to their business success story. They had a great business startup story to tell. They franchised the business in 2015, and sales bounced from $2.6 M to $20 M in 2017. Now, the cousins have a book out, “Cousins Maine Lobster: How One Food Truck Became a Multi-Million Dollar Business.” They also set up a non-profit, “Cousins for a Cause” that is aligned with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

5. Don’t be afraid to look stupid.

Many entrepreneurs are afraid to look dumb so they don’t ask questions in areas they don’t know well. The two founders realized that they don’t have all the answers. They leveraged Barbara Corcoran’s experience and contacts to aid growth. They traveled to Maine to meet with lobster fishermen and suppliers to understand the business better such as how to cope with fluctuating prices. They include a trip to Maine for the franchisees so they understand what’s unique about the Maine lobster experience and the business.

The founders of Cousins Maine Lobster may not have started out with a lot of assets, but they did have an intuitive savvy about branding and PR, and pursued every opportunity to create a successful business.

What’s your dream? Do you dream of living and working in your zone of expertise while your company’s brand works hard for you? Do you want to attract clients and grow your business leveraging your unique talents?

I understand that there is so much to do, and it can be tough knowing where to start.

Watch me and 21 other amazing business experts as we come together to share our stories on how being clear about our purpose and following our passion has allowed us to build brands that work hard for us so we can get paid doing what we love.

You will be empowered and inspired to attract clients, make money and grow your business so you can have the business (and life!) of your wildest dreams. That’s why I am one of the experts in this special series and I’m inviting you to join me and 21 of my business colleagues.

Visit http://bit.ly/2nDaBU8 to get access to this FREE interview series. #brandbuildingblueprintseries

Personal branding is for people who are smart and talented by not good at branding themselves effectively. It’s for people who have come to realize that they need to take control of their career identity, job-hunt and career success. You can’t rely on (or blame) your university or on luck or other people.

The only person you really have control over is you. The only person who can develop a strong career plan that’s best for you is you. The relationship you have with yourself is your most important relationship. The more pro-active and self-reliant you are, the more luck and options will come your way.

You’ll have a surge in self-esteem as one benefit of finding your own solutions and options. You need to own your value, the real, tangible value that you – and only you offer – and use the principles of branding to stand out and get what you deserve in this job market.

Branding is a strategic and creative process, one that flourishes when you approach it with a sense of fun and exploration and withers when you are too analytical or try too hard.

Some students, new graduates and professionals both young and old alike don’t like the idea of personal branding.

They think it is not authentic or even downright phony.

Or they think it is manipulative or that getting a job should be about your academic credentials, not how well you market yourself or how well-networked you are.

Do you?

How do you see the consummate personal brander? Someone who is a relentless self-promoter selling himself like a used car? That’s as far removed from authentic personal branding as stumbling is from dancing.

Like good product branding, good personal branding is always built on authenticity, on who you are and who you can be. In its deepest sense, personal branding is about self-actualization, being all that you can be

But it will be hard to succeed until you change your attitude, take a personal branding perspective and even start to love the game. You’ve got to tap into the dreamer and the realist inside you, demanding the best of yourself.

You’ve got to be an intrepid explorer discovering new growth areas in the marketplace, new careers and jobs are out there that you weren’t aware of before and you must find them.

You’ve got to be a chameleon. You’re in constant beta-mode changing as the markets needs and opportunities change. The key is to present yourself as a versatile employee who can take your skills and integrate them with what’s hot today.

You got to be a marketing whiz, your best brand ambassador. You’ve got to become a personal brand storyteller, connecting the dots between who you are now, what you can do and where you want to go.

You’ve got to be your own personal inspirer, a self-motivator who realizes that the process of launching Brand You can be hard, frustrating and even unfair at times, but it can be exhilarating too. You can do it and succeed if you show up every day and implement a multilayered action plan.

You’ve got to be a master networker, a magnet for business friends and personal contacts. Networking is the key to success. It’s always important, but never more so than at the beginning when you have a shallow network.

You’ve got to be technology and social media savvy, able to market yourself, network and job hunt on social media and mobile apps.

Above all, you’ve got to be tenacious. Fortune favors the people who keep on going. When one door is locked, you have to keep looking until you find a door that’s open.

In the good old days, college students could use their summer job earnings to pay their tuition.

That was once upon a time. It’s not true anymore.

College tuition has gone up a monumental 1,120 percent in the U.S. since 1978. Meanwhile, the cost of food has increased 244 percent during the same period. If you’re still paying off your college tuition loans, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that that student loans have overtaken credit cards as the second largest source of outstanding debt in the U.S. (Home mortgages are number one.) Indeed, tuition costs in the U.S. have gone up four times faster than the consumer price index. University tuition has also been under scrutiny in the U.K. due to tuition price hikes for home students (UK/EU) and an increase in premium charges for international students.

The high cost of a university degree along with the vagaries of the job market have created a student debt collection crisis in the U.S. The federal student loan balance has more than doubled from $516 billion to 1.2 trillion since 2007. And that’s just federal student loans. If you count private student loans to students, their parents and former students, you can add another $150 billion to the number.

It is hard to link more career success to having attended an elite school despite the wattage of a top brand image. Of course, having attended an elite school might help you win out over another candidate for your first job out of the graduation gate. Over time, though, it’s all about your performance, your leadership, your network, and your brand, not the school’s brand.

The answer appears to be a resounding, “No.”

If you look at the American-born CEOs in the Fortune 500 in 2015, only 30 went to elite colleges. The remaining 470 CEOs at the 500 largest companies in the U.S. went to a wide range of non-elite schools.

Of course, elite private colleges and universities have advantages. They have internationally acclaimed professors and cutting-edge curricula and low student-to-faculty ratios so presumably you get a better education and more personal attention. They have loyal alums and talented fellow students who can be a valuable career network. They have a well-staffed Career Services Office, which can guide you on the transition from college to career. And let’s not forget the lovely ivy-covered buildings, libraries and museums. (There’s even an arms race going on at some universities in the U.S over fancy recreation areas with water rides, spas and massage clinics.)

         Above all, you are aligned with a prestigious brand whether it is Harvard or Cambridge or France’s grandes ecoles, which will provide a halo to your personal brand particularly at the beginning of your career.

Social is growing beyond the merely social and becoming professional. Social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are going after the young job seeker and it gives you industrial-grade marketing, PR and job hunting tools to build your brand, manage your job search and increase your professional network. LinkedIn’s sophisticated Alumni Tool plugin lets you search your university and see the fields and locations alumni have ended up working, even reverse engineer their career paths to give you ideas for plotting your own career journey. The good news is all this information is now right on your laptop, and the bad news is information overload.