The Tag Line that Defines Us

Dear Advisor Partners,

Those of you who know me well, are aware that I am an early bird. I consider waking up at any time past 4:30 am, sleeping in. So it shouldn’t surprise you that in early 2021, I found myself brainstorming with the famous Scott Largay of Largay Travel, about a phrase I was toying with. What was born, at 3:20 am on a February morning, was not what I expected. Before I continue, I need to give you some back story.

Back in January of 2021, we were exhibiting at a virtual trade show. We were evolving our tagline and looking for words that truly spoke to who we are as a company and our culture as a team. During the virtual event, I was testing out the new tagline our team came up with for 2022 to gauge reactions. This is something we do quite regularly to avoid a disparity between what’s important to us and what’s important to you and your clients. During this event, one of my meetings was with Scott. Now being acquainted with this guy the way I am and privileged enough to call him a friend as I do, I knew that with his marketing background, I was going to get an honest reaction.

It didn’t take long for Scott’s gears to begin turning then he almost intuitively says, “leave this with me, ” as we signed off our meeting. That night, I start getting messages with semblances of words. Just past midnight, “Designed Differently” became the first two words to jump out at me, and I could tell a lot of thought went into this. At 3:00 am I was nearly jolted out of bed thinking of these two words. I started writing back to Scott with some ideas to complete the sentence. Amazingly, he couldn’t sleep either and immediately started responding. Yes, there we were trading ideas back and forth like two buddies cramming for a college mid-term, it was now 4:10 am. Both our spouses likely thought we were completely insane at this point.

Then it happened. A message back from Scott, “Yes, waaay better! I think that’s the one…that’s some powerful stuff right there.” I could tell two things in that sleep-deprived moment. First, this was no longer a tagline, it was a definition of who Big Five was. Second, Scott Largay is an evil genius when it comes to these things and my respect for him just went through the roof. We had it! We had created the perfect words to define who Big Five is, the four words that would start and end many conversations about Big Five, from 2022 and beyond. The time was now 7:10 am.

This one night of work also meant I was about to walk in and tell my team in the office that we were scrapping months of work on the current tag line, the third phase in our pre-present and post-covid marketing strategy. Normally when someone does this, you find a place to hide from the daggers, however, I call it luck and good fortune that the team here thinks like I do, always ready to try something new and are as passionate as I am about Big Five. So good were these four words, that when I told the team, it just clicked. They looked beyond the bags under my eyes and saw what I saw. To them, I give a great big thank you, and to Scott Largay, I give my gratitude for helping me brainstorm as if it was his own. Thank you, brother.

May I present, Big Five Tours & Expeditions – Designed Differently. Explored Sustainably.