Breaker Culture: Branding Your Breaks

Jesse Haynes

The best sports card breakers have something in common with YouTube celebrities or podcast stars: they thrive on a brand they've built.

Take video game streamers, for example. While they have impressive skills with a joystick, 99% of their audience doesn’t watch them to only see them play the game itself, but rather to see the entire spectacle. These streamers put on a show and make the viewing experience fun.

If you’re ready to break out as a breaker, you need to develop a brand for yourself too. Let’s look at some strategies for branding your breaks.

5 Great Ways to Brand Your Breaks

Creating a unique logo

First and foremost, your customers are there for the cards. And while you hope to pull great cards for everybody who buys in, you cannot control that.

What you can control, however, is providing a memorable experience, and a great logo is one of the best ways to start.

As discussed in our post about earning buyer trust, a custom logo can work wonders for your brand. Logos are powerful associative tools that signify professionalism, and when customers see your logo, they’ll also quickly see that you care a lot about what you do. 

If you have the skills, make your own logo! If not, you can hire a talented graphic designer for as low as $5 on Fiverr.com. Once you have a logo you like, use it in your production: a backdrop, tabletop cover, or anything else that will stand out on your breaking set. 

Intro video

In addition to physical logo usage, creating an eye-catching intro video that can be played at the beginning of your breaks (or YouTube uploads later) is another way to show customers that you’re a professional and invested in what you do. 

This doesn’t have to be nearly as expensive as some people believe – in fact, you can get these videos created on Fiverr as well – but the small investment in a high-quality intro video will yield a great ROI for you and your breaking career.

Giveaways

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs, we all food, rest, shelter, health, and free stuff. 

Okay, that might not be exactly how it goes, but there’s no debate that everybody likes free giveaways. 

Now, as a breaker starting up, you might not want to sink a lot of expenses into a giveaway, and we can’t blame you. But if randomize a free pack, card, rookie, or something else desirable at the end of each break, that gives the audience something to look forward to and something to remember you buy. 

Don’t go too cheap (pro-tip: nobody wants a 2008 RC of a late-round pick as their prize), but find something fun to give away without shelling out major cash. 

Another idea a few streams are embracing is trivia. Ask a question to your viewers, and the first one to correctly respond in the chat feed wins the prize. This is much more fun and engaging than a random giveaway. 

Solid production

A solid breaking setup can go a long ways toward your breaking. Modern smartphones shoot high-res video that should be more than sufficient for running great breaks, but investing in a camera or two is never a bad idea. Also, if you’re using your phone, mute your notifications so they don’t buzz throughout your video. 

As part of your solid production, remember to be professional, as we’ve discussed before. While your customers are primarily concerned with the cards, they will enjoy the experience significantly more if you film in a professional, well-lit environment and look the part of a professional breaker.  

Additionally, consider investing in a USB mic for crisp audio. The Blue Snowball is a classic that delivers great audio performance on a budget. 

And if you order from Blue, tell them SlabStat sent you! What will that do for you? Absolutely nothing, honestly. But Slabstat is always trying to make new friends. 

Make it fun! 

Your personality is just as much a part of your brand as any logo or backdrop you could ever create. As a breaker, you’re something of a performer. You need to be fun, bright and enthusiastic without overstepping and coming off as too much.

We discussed great methods for making your breaks fun in our story about strengthening customer relationships, and those also apply to building a fun brand for yourself. 

To do this, strategies include making sure to pronounce names correctly, being excited for your customers who pull a big card, engaging clients on social media, and offering a positive, kid-friendly environment where season collectors can introduce the next wave of collectors – their children. 

Every breaker has his/her own personal flavor, so figure out what works best for you and stick to it. 

Concluding thoughts on branding your breaks

If you actively search for new customers, you could break every day for a month and have nothing but new clients. The industry is truly that big right now. 

But searching for new clients can be a lot of work, and breaking will be a better experience if you can provide a sticky solution. In other words, your goal is to become the last breaker your customers ever want to buy from because of the premium service and experience you offer. 

Will that happen? Probably not. If nothing else, you might be opening a different product from other breakers. But if you get to the point that you’ve established trust and a strong brand with your customers, they will keep coming back for more. And, better yet, often they’ll be willing to pay a bit more just for the pleasure of breaking with their favorite breaker. 

The bottom line is this: brands are valuable and too many breakers don’t realize this. If you take these steps to develop your personal breaking brand, you’ll stand out among the competitors and customers will flock to you.