RADICAL COMPANY PODCAST - EP 36 - " Passion, Drive & The in between " with Ben Harris founder and host of GOALINK

Hey, guys. Ryan offered here for the Radical Company podcast. A little interesting switch here. This is actually an episode that I recorded with Ben Harris from the GoLink podcast. This is, I was invited on his show and we sat down and talked about a lot of things, both life, business and perspective on being an entrepreneur. Really great, you know, being the host of the podcast. I'm usually on the other end interviewing people, but it kind of got to give a little bit more transparency around my core beliefs, how I do business, some of my background getting into starting Radical and my early days in the ad agency business and just my early thoughts on entrepreneurship. Really excited for this episode. I hope you enjoy it. Definitely go check out GoLink and Ben Harris

know about you. Wouldn't expect a curve ball right off the bat. I told you that you better be ready. I have one kidney. I was born with a cystic kidney and I was two days old that scared the crap out of my parents because they had me in the ICU unit because they didn't know it was wrong with me, but I had one of my kidneys was just deformed and born unusable, but my body was trying to use it. So it threw off all my natural ways, but so I've lived my entire life with one kidney, and so there's your unknown fact. I don't know if that was like, not anywhere in the personal development, coaching aspect, but that's something very few people know. It's done in my growth.

That's the inside joke because you're growing up and I don't know if you've ever heard this. You say kidney with kidney issues growing up, it does stunt their growth. So it can have something to do with your development, but luckily I had no such issues. Yeah, how tall are you? I'm right at 65. With shoes on, I'm definitely 65. I think I'm, you know, take the shoes off, I'm like 64 and a half, 64 and three quarters. So this is yeah, we're not getting into the development world space yet, but have you, because I know like you're your fit, dude, and have you had any trouble building muscle being a tall person? Yeah, I think in some ways, yes, I think, especially when I was younger in the teens, I had a hard time because it's probably basketball.

It was all cardio, running laps and doing stuff, and I think it was more that like I didn't have the knowledge that I have now, and it was, we didn't have smart phones at all this, you know, fitness of readily available knowledge was just more available, you know, there was no internet, you know, so, you know, my dad was a member of a gym and I would go to the gym and work out, also playing basketball at the time, and I couldn't really put on that much muscle, especially my upper body, my legs have always been strong, that's more genetics, I think. But now that I know now, once I got into my 20s, mid 20s, 30, and all that, learning more about fitness, having more

access to knowledge and what to do, I actually can put on muscle, and I think about it known some of those things I probably could have done that earlier, but yeah. Yeah, well, and for me, it's funny because I feel like the older I get, the easier it is to put on muscle, or I just feel like you start to get like a man's body, or like a dad body, just like getting older, I feel like yeah, like in my mid to late 20s, I'm still there, but like that's where, just with consistency in the gym, like doing nothing crazy, because people ask me like, how do I get in shape, it's like consistency, man. Yeah, it's definitely that. I've always been, it's always, I think it's in the

offered blood, because I remember growing up, and my dad ran like five miles probably three or four times a week, and you know, this was when, I don't get me wrong, I'm not saying gyms and working out, hasn't been popular for a long time, and I'm not dating myself here, but like late 80s, early 90s, you know, there wasn't an anytime fitness on every quarter corner, or you know, like whatever, there just wasn't that really, but my parents were always physically active. My dad would, you know, I'd always thought it was crazy to put on this jogging and stuff, and go all for run, and be gone for 30, 40 minutes, or whatever, and five miles, and he did that three. So I always had

that kind of in my life, and then my sister and I have always had the workout bug. Like we've definitely had fluctuations in our weight. I've definitely had the, you know, the freshman 15, where you're eating way more than the matter of it, but I've always been motivated to work out, and I think it might just be a genetic thing in our blood, because my dad was the same way, and my mom's kind of the same way. My sister's like, is anal as I am, she's 10 times more anal. I mean, that's good. Yeah, that was a good thing to be like, like having the blood. So tell me about marketing at the speed of now. What does that mean? You know, that's an interesting question. That's kind of the tagline for radical, which is radical

as your marketing company. Yep, which you own. Yep. And you know, we're an 18-month-old company. I've been in the ad agency business my entire career, almost 20 years, and so working for a lot of other people, working for big brands, started radical 18 months ago, with the premise of marketing at the speed of now. And it's an interesting tagline, because what it, I think, and I haven't done any focus groups, you know, it's about the beauty and the curse of myself, I kind of go on instinct a lot. You know, I wrote that down when I was thinking about what we wanted to be as an agency, and what I thought was relevant would resonate and differentiate us. And this notion of speed is important, but I think when you hear that, you immediately think,

I guess they do everything fast. Yep. Yes, we do. That is one of our pillars, actually one of our core values, and that is that we believe that success loves speed. And so we do things fast, but you know, we do a lot of content development. And my thought process is now, with smartphones, the ability and the number of platforms to message on, that you would be better to be getting content that is really good out there quickly, so you can read and react to consumer. Obviously, you want it to be on brand, and you don't want it to be, I just, I mean, literally walking in this meeting, it helped me, maybe 15 minutes late to us, you know, started sending an email to a client that, you know, we sent her some content over,

and you know, she's doing what she should do. She's being, she's evaluating that. And she's like, well, we really like this one video, but these, these three or four, you know, they just, we just don't like them as much as you like, they were on brand, they were animated, they were nice looking videos, they all were. And I think the client would say that too, but they just, but they had a subjectivity around a one style. And so there are four different styles, four different styles, and she liked one the best, and the other three were fine. They were not off brand. And my point back to her was, we need more volume of content out there more quickly, so that we're touching more people. And we can, let's let the market evaluate that and let's see

if what you're saying is right or wrong. Again, we're not promoting being fast to rush into doing off brand or stuff that we aren't comfortable with, or they don't represent the company well. But we do operate quickly. And I think we produce, honestly, like knowing the industry being in nationally, for the size of agency that we are, for the number of people that we're working with, in comparison to other regional agencies, no one is developing the amount and the quality of content at the speed that we are. So what are your thoughts on quality versus quantity? I think it depends. So I think based on our whole premise is built on more of the quantity side of it. We probably produce 250 videos a month. That's crazy, bro. And how many clients? 10 to 15. And so these,

and these aren't, yeah, these aren't five second, like ugly, high quality, it's high quality, you know. And so, but here's where I would stop and say this, because we had this conversation, creative director, Mike, we worked together a long time, worked on a lot of big brands, and we had this discussion a lot back to the speed thing, marketing speed, and now we want to do a lot of content really well, really fast so that we can get it out to the market to respond, kind of like the Oreo's moment in the Super Bowl. You know, like, I believe in being able to respond quickly and respond quickly with video with high quality content, and to let the market guide us versus our own subjectivity. However, when we're working on the brand anthem for a large

to medium business, you know, that needs to tell an emotional story. And we really need to make sure it is on brand, on strategy. We need to take our time with that in the right way. And brands need to, and we're not going to be rushed to, especially evergreen type things that are going to stick around for a long time, that are centerpiece to their, centerpiece. Yeah, we're not going to rush that out. Now, will our process always be faster, great quality, even for those type pieces? Yes, instead of three months, like maybe another agency or a big agency that's really trying to, you know, grind it out. And like, yeah, they're trying to do great content. It's going to be beautiful, you know, ours might be for six weeks, you know, instead of three months. Yeah.

Has it ever, has marketing at the speed of now ever not worked out for you? Like, have you gone too fast? I think the answer would be yes. You know, we're 18 months old, and I've done this a long time. It doesn't mean I know everything, most certainly. And there are moments where I look back on some things and go, that might not have been the best foot forward that I would have wanted in that moment. But you know what, at the same time that I say that and reflect on that, there would have been no foot forward if I had, or the client, and I had deliberated on it forever. Because, you know, so was it, you can get, you can get real self-critical moving quickly,

you know, because you go, all right, well, why don't we do that? What were you thinking? You know, especially, you know, one of our most known clients, Dr. C. Rich Constantine, I won't call him that he is not the dancing dentist. He's like the furthest thing. He's a dentist that can dance on, honestly. And so I met him at core 24 of the gym. I just introduced myself. Yeah. And dude, that guy is just genuine, holy cow, and just like the nicest person. You ever met a nicer guy? No, I was like, whoa, nothing like you expect. Yeah. But there were some things with him because his stuff was moving so fast. So we went viral with that first video. We really wanted to keep it obvious. How many views did it get? We, that video has been, been seen worldwide over 500

million times. 500 million times. And zero paid zero. You didn't pay for any ads. That's what that is. No ads. Not a single advertisement was run. Zero. Okay. All organic, all driven by the original viral video on Facebook. And then with the gasoline that we poured on with PR with getting news releases, getting the name out there, spreading it more going on the largest TV station in the Middle East. Their morning television show, all that via Skype going on. Good morning America, good going inside edition. I reached out to contacts at ABC News. So we poured gas on an R80 growing fire. But it became, you know, went from, you know, garage fire to a full on, like that. This might be too soon. Yeah. For a long on fire. I don't know. Yeah. I might be too soon. Yeah.

Probably. Probably. I did. I didn't worry about it. I'll stay away from that. I will start to go towards like a California wildfire. I'm like, geez, people. That's not. Yeah. Not the right way to go. But I think you get the analogy. But yeah. And so we're 500 million views. There was times in that when I look back at some of the things that we did for him, some follow-up content because we were keeping the flame going. I mean, what people don't realize, they all remember that first video. We did like seven or eight dance videos after that. They all got over 20 million views. That's crazy. They even standalone. Like what's funny is you get invited on Ellen if you get over a million views on one video. He probably, we had seven videos with over 20 million views.

That's crazy. So he posted one by himself that started to go viral. Is that what happened? And then it started going crazy so he contacted you. We were working together already. Oh, from the beginning. Yeah. I'd given him like his tripod and like we were talking about stuff. But his, his girls at work told him about the video about the dance challenge and New E.K. Dance and told him to do it. And I managed his Facebook page. And it was the drinks in my feelings. So I managed his page and have, you know, his admin on all his accounts and everything like that. So we were already working together. But I had been encouraged. I was like, dude, you're a good looking guy. You got a great personality.

You got to be out in front of the camera more. But his girls found, you know, told him the video. He used, like, I think he used the tripod that I'd given him. He set it up. And then, you know, like, he sent me a message or, you know, my phone starts seeing anyway because of all the likes and stuff that started coming in and sent me a message. I think I want to say and he was debating even taking it down at one time because he's just like, I think he was just, he was embarrassed because, you know, he's a shy guy. He's a genuine. And I'm like, dude, you know what's happening? I was like, I'm coming to your office. I was like, no, you're coming. Get Trish. You're coming

to my house. Trish and his wife and him wherever at my house, like that night to late. And I was just, like, dude, we're game planning. Like we were game planning from there, you know, how to like, really, I mean, it was, it was going viral on its own. But really, that's when I started calling media contacts from my days in New York and because I'm sure the plan for him was not to have it seen millions of times, but maybe like thousands of times in his market. Is that what his expectation was? It was totally, it was totally like, hey, it's a dance challenge. I'm trying to open up. Ryan's encouraging me to be on camera more. My people had already been challenged, you know, telling me I needed to do more. And it was a random thing and that he's a good dancer,

you know, and so it was just like the meeting of all of those things. And then, you know, you can't plan for that. You can't plan. Oh, he wanted to go viral. I'm like, I've never marketed that. We are not the viral agency. Yeah. But you know what's back to if we swing enough times at bad more content, more volume, the chances of that happening, maybe not 500 million views, but are more likely. Yeah, that's been my experience with more content and letting the, just the audience decide of on my platform, just releasing like, of course, I always think it's good. But then they don't always think it's good. Or maybe not the best or better, you know, and so it's cool just to kind of go through that process and learn just like, I'm not putting stuff to like

what they like necessarily, but what do they find useful or beneficial? Like what do they want to help them in my arena? Not just like, hey, let me just make everything, let me just make everything you want. It's okay, how can it resonate with you? And then how can I make it in a way that hits you? That's right. And it's been cool. Like definitely producing more content has got me in a practice that also produces quality. So doing more quantity has helped me get more quality content. And you know, it's somewhat related. If anything, and you know, we meet as a team, at least every other week, I mean, we're together all the time. We are very collaborative workspace. We use the benefits of our workspace as our team here collaboratively. So I feel like we're

always together, but we get at least in the meeting room once we have weeks. And I just have been hammering this is we've gone the other direction. We've slowed down because we've let the I'm so proud of my content bug. Catch us. What do I mean by that? Well, when radical for started, there's a time and a place for the perfect DSLR slow motion shot. Yeah, that's beautiful. And there's a time and a place where, you know, for our video people holding up my smartphone, I shot when it was me and a couple other people in radical for started with a few clients. We did a lot of smartphone stuff, you know, and it worked just as well for the for the right types of things. Again, not the brand anthem videos, but for the the fast quick content micro content

type things. And we've slipped a little bit in our ex I look at our volumes and everything like that. We're still killing a lot of other agencies and a lot of other brand. The brands that are working with us are doing a lot more video content than others, but we've gotten a little bit to and look, I want to have I'm very proud of our work. I'm very proud of our quality. I think if you go look at our pages, you know, you produce really nice stuff. But we've let ego and a taste for quality in our own minds for slip into everything and not just those pieces like I discussed it need to be that way. And so I've challenged my team. We're actually going and getting a little

more nimble and doing a little bit more, you know, running shoot type things like we were doing in the beginning and then finding those moments. So you can kind of and that's all back to and I struggle with this because I used to do more videos of myself like stories and I blame getting busy. I also blame my own. It's not like I'm I can turn it on, but I'm probably I'm actually more of an introvert data nerd like, you know, I sit with my digital media team the most because I can I like love the data and like dig into that stuff. And I can sit in my desk all day kind of like running reports, testing some ad combos and do things like I nerd out on that stuff.

I can flip the on camera guy switch. I do have that ability, but it's not my natural thing either. You know, I just don't naturally get in front of my story camera all day. And I even though I know that I should, you know, and I teach and I tell my clients that they need to be doing it. But it's funny how, you know, we can kind of, I don't know, get it on. It's not even I get in my own head. I just have gotten like we were busy. We're doing other things and I selfishly have not doing it as much as I want to be doing it. Okay. Well, I'll ask in a couple weeks how are the stories we can we can start with a story today. Perfect. So what's something if someone is saying

I'm just saying so that you can communicate with them. They're your customer, whether that's email or that's calling them, but if you're a small like, you know, business where you only have seven clients, you know, it's about having their phone number and their email to directly one to one communicate with them, not talking about spam. But there's a lot of companies that we work with that don't really own their customer data and they don't take advantage of that relationship and nurturing it and nurturing it in contextual ways. Like, okay, I worked with you with this service. You would naturally be interested in that service and that would be so I'm an accountant, but I'll also do X and Y that are related to that. Are you having that communication with them

and, you know, I'll use the word upsell, crosssell, you know, but in a contextual way, not a spam you way. And so if you don't want to do social media and you don't want to do videos, then do email marketing or one-to-one text marketing or, but again, own your customer data, nurture them, take care of them through communication. And that is marketing at its core, in a lot of ways, especially with customer-based marketing. And I think that's one avenue. Everyone in business thinks about prospecting. How do I get more customers? How do I get more? How do I get more? But if you will nurture your existing customers, number one, they'll stay with you, number two, they will refer you, and number three, they'll help grow you. And so that is like tip

uno, numero uno. It has nothing to do with content. Just really treating, like you said, own your customer, but like really like building that relationship with your current customer, I like that. So you mentioned in a, an accountant. So they're probably not going to be running, you know, social media ads, but how can their career, why does marketing matter to their career of just day-to-day, or trying to get a promotion, or do better at their job? I will say this, whether it's a lawyer, whether it's a doctor, whether it's an accountant, some of those tried-and-true services, and everyone kind of thinks that same thing. And I even thought it at one point, but now, and it took maybe running my own agency and doing what I've done

the last 18 months, think about this, if an accountant, even if he's a numbers guy, but would do stories, and would do content on social media, educating, and making it interesting. And if he can't be that, then hire an agency, you know, and you'll have to pay them $10,000, if there's small business agency, radical, you know, that will do this affordably, and do interesting content as an accountant. Hello, who wouldn't want to be doing business with that accountant? They could break down the walls of what the heck is going on in this balance sheet, and it's boring, and it's boring, and like, yeah, the numbers aren't that interesting, and it would take some strategies and some workout, what that is, but that code can be cracked for

anyone. And I'd be running Facebook ads and doing that, if an accountant came to me and said, look, I see what you're doing, we want to be radical, like an accountant could be radical, you know, a lawyer could be radical, we've tried to work with a couple of them, and they couldn't get out of their own way, you know, but there are legal challenges in finance and in law, but being a human and showing humanity and not being looked at as a commodity or in a lawyer sense, some negative connotations, there's ways to do social with that as well. What, so you mentioned, like, someone getting in their way, with your clients, what's, if you can say, what's one pet peeve, that's like, oh man, like, if you would just do this,

you would see, like, exponential engagement or business or whatever. You know, we don't, you know, that's kind of like sometimes the, the assumption, like, that agencies have working with clients, if they just do everything, we know everything, and they know nothing, not marketing or whatever. I never enter into a relationship with a client or a business and pretend that I know everything, because there's nuances to business, even if it's e-commerce, there's nuances to sports supplements versus beauty in health care, you know, those kind of things, there's nuances, and so I don't step into it pretending to have all the answers and like, well, if you just listen to everything that we said, but I do find that the general pitfalls are around ego of how we've always done things,

and an inability to try and test something for long enough to truly know if it could work. And, you know, kind of that example I gave before, you know, what we like this one, and, you know, these three are, look, okay, but they're not as good, cool as that one, you know, like, that is not a scientific way with which to, you know, expand and grow your business. And so, it's hard to get solo pernours, like, individual entrepreneurs that are real setting their ways, and I had a meeting with one a couple weeks ago, super bad-ass guy, like, just super knowledgeable and knows the stuff, but he's kind of been sitting at this one point. Hmm, it's a pretty good living, but he's never cracked the code for the next level.

For the next level, he's never scaled, and, you know, we sat in the room and gave him two hours worth of great advice, and he won't do any of it. And it's not because he took it to heart. He knew everything that we were saying was right, or good tips, or good thoughts, or good things that he should try, but then it came back to, yeah, but I just did this on the website, and I really like it. Focus group of one. The worst way to judge anything, and that just means you don't go on your gut, like, we're all like, I do a lot of my gut. I said at the beginning and like, yeah, got it by your gut, but like, if you really want to grow and you really want to scale,

you've got to push past the solo, per newer, or the focus group of one mentality. And that's harder than people. It's not easy, but you got to... Well, because we always think we're right. We do. It's funny. Like, I always think I'm right, and then, luckily, I think I'm pretty open-minded, that sometimes I'm like, oh, okay, like, I try something, and it's like, oh, it's working, you know.

I definitely felt like I had like that business slant, and I always felt like, I had that creative side to me. I wasn't like an artist growing up, I didn't draw, or anything like that, but I think I kind of had that creative brain. And so, I think those things combined, and I think my girlfriend at the time was going into marketing, and so it all came together. I like, you know, but there was some, there was both art and science in that decision. The science of the former of what I said in the art of the latter, you know, full transparency there. And then it worked out, you know, and then that same girlfriend who I was actually no longer with, there's some irony in this.

She was working at an ad agency. We were still friends, and she gave me a really good referral, you know, don't ever burn your bridges. And so two months out of Clemson, went to work for Erwin Pimlin, EP, and CoNow, here in Greenville. They're the largest agency in the state. And so started there in 2001. Look, don't burn your bridges, that's smart.

But back then, there was, you know, Verizon stores on every corner and agent stores and all that. And we did all of the marketing. We almost store support for the southeast stores. And so there's a lot of stores. And so we had that piece of business. We also did, kind of managed everything for those stores, customer-based communication. So any customers that went to those stores specifically, Verizon thinks about their customers more nationally now.

But the regional communication, if you walk into the store of the graphics, you see the ads, you see in the newspaper ran or ton of newspaper ads in radio. That was my first job, trafficking, when newspapers was like everything. In every, people don't know this, but every newspaper had a different size and different ad sizes. So you'd have this 8x5 ad that you'd create and get the client to approve. But then you'd have 300 in one market newspapers. You'd have to shrink it a little bit. And the variables within that ad, you don't have some of the software that you have now that automates like some of these things. It was just very graphic design driven. You'd have to shrink it down. Sometimes you might have

to remove an element. It's a big, busy ad. You might have seen something out and then you've got to get that approved and you've got to proof the legal. Oh, this is a glamorous job. Let me just tell you, when I first got it, proofing all those ads, getting them out, same thing with radio. We'd have different radio reads, different disclaimers paid on the state and the city. They have different disclaimers that you need like legal. So I did that starting out. And not so glamorous first year, but I made a lot of relationships with Verizon, made a lot of good contacts. I was promoted five times in like four years. And so I came really, I was good relationship. I was also really aggressive internally at EP with like, give me more, give me more,

give me more. Like if someone would leave like that was above me, even if I had the job for them, I want their job. I will do their job. In my boss at the time, Alan Bosworth, he always gave me an opportunity. He said, so you fail. And I don't think I ever let him down. I wasn't perfect. And I didn't get everything right. But I knew how to step into a role, take on direct reports. If I could, but I had relationships with Verizon. And so that led to national opportunities, building those relationships with me and other people on my team. It certainly was not a me show. It was a, we had a great team. Guys that are still even over there. Chief Curf officer,

Jeff Hoffman, and I, Alan, my boss, you know, he played air cover. I think we just, Curtis Rose, Catherine Sloan, who's now, Catherine Schafer, but we had a really great core team that really grew and grew our relationships. And we kind of did the same thing. They started doing the same thing as me stepping into roles we didn't even belong in. We were in, you know, meetings at Verizon that this little little agency and it's how kind of pride it went belong in. But we go, we can do that. You know, they talk about something they need to get done. We can do that. Could we do it? Had we ever done it? No. Could we figure out how to do it? Yes. And so we became that scrappy agency. And we took a $3 million to $45 million over 12 years.

We worked on everything from, can you hear me now, to the Apple iPhone launch, which came on to Verizon. We really shepherded them in. All the stuff with the NFL, all the original content, which grew breeze, the training ground, which was a big traveling tour of going to all the NFL cities when Verizon and NFL mobile first got their deal. The droid, which was, you know, when the iPhone first came out, you know, you had the droid that came in, the Android first Android phone. We were involved in all of those campaign developments with the, you know, we had the campaign. I can't do this. I can't do that. You know, that was droids first kind of first for a playing against the iPhone. So we worked on all of those things. And so Verizon was kind of the

bread and butter. But then while that was going on, got involved with, I opened or helped open the New York office for EP. They weren't there before. They weren't in New York. So we opened the New York office. I lived in New York for four years, kept a place here. It was kind of back and forth, but lived in New York and worked on, you know, got pulled into other meetings. Some Budweiser stuff for Hill holiday. It's actually large agency in Boston that owns EP. Okay. Okay. And so it's actually part of a big IPG conglomerate. I won't get into all of the, I guess I did a little bit there, but the ad world and how it revolves, it's all very incestuous, but nonetheless, worked on a number of campaigns for them. Firehouse subs, all of their original

marketing and campaigns. Denny's everything was crazy, man. Like, I'm sure, is there anything that sticks out from your head in your head of like what you've learned from all of those big campaigns? You know, yes, there is, there's, there's like a serious side and then there's a, like, let's hear both. I love it. I'll start not serious. The not serious was kind of back to the premise of like radical now, which is like, you know, technology and the ability, like video has always been on this pedestal, you know, it costs like even five or seven years ago to get a really nice, even at the lowest level, nice 60 second, two minute brand video. You're just been 10 grand, you know, you know, that was saying, you know, like five, seven years ago, like at the low

level, you know, big agents, you're going to spend 150 to $500,000 for that same type of content. And 10 years, 15 years ago, it was unheard of last sat, I sat on a million dollar budget, 30 second commercial spots. That was all it was. Can you hear me now spots with, you know, not every one of them, because we started to temple glad of some of that, but some of like the NFL stuff and other, we're just getting a 30 second commercial that's going to go on all these TV sales. I'm a million to produce, like huge cars, then the million bucks. Yes. And now it was a call with all of the resources that were there. It wasn't like the agency was making 40% margin on that.

It wasn't, you know, it was, but so what about learning like that has been really interesting. And that's not even driven by the campaigns, but just by the budgets, you just the money spent even on marketing then and now is so ridiculous with the large brand level. And some people, I think, especially younger people and even myself, I'm naive to how lucky we are. Yeah, like social media is free. Yeah, exactly. You know, it doesn't, I don't care if you get 10 likes, it's free. Yeah. You know, like you can make a viral video for free. Like we take it for granted. And because we don't remember those days of man, you had to pay like 10 grand for what you can make in your home with your phone in a few hours. Yeah, that's super cool. It is cool. So that is such a shift,

you know, you know, and that is related to not necessarily the campaigns themselves, just the size of the client, the changing of the technology and stuff like that. On the more serious note, what hasn't changed, and Mike and I talk about this a lot. And you know, it matters for smaller business too, but it definitely matters for medium to larger brands that have to really live their brand, you know, at a bigger scale. The big idea and creativity is the ultimate differentiator. And so what do I mean by that? Really great strategy built on insight into a consumer mindset, fuels great creativity and ideas. For example, can you hear me now? That came out of a really great insight, which is at the time in 2000, it was we never stopped working for you for a while. That was Verizon's tagline.

Then it changed. Can you hear me now? Which was never really a tagline. It was more the statement. We never stopped working for you. It was really more the tagline, more empowering. But can you hear me now? It's so simple, but it came out of this premise at the time. Verizon has the best network. People hated drop calls. All the other networks, they all had drop calls, but Verizon was the best. And it came out of just that simple insight of consumers don't want to deal with drop calls and what could make them relate to that in a way that brings that emotion and that thought back up to then. And everybody knows when you say, I catch by saying it now, even to this day, it's less of a challenge because luckily we don't have as many drop calls as we

text and do a lot of things that's talking this other day. I mean, I catch by myself saying, I don't like this, it's still in the vernacular. You'll say when someone you can't get through, can you hear me now? But that was really based on that insight of, you know, and it's so simple. And even to this day now and just do it, just other things, you know, that was an empowering statement, but it was built on a consumer insight at the time. That has not changed. And the great differentiator from one brand to the other is still creativity backed by sound strategy. That's cool. And because I know before radical, before you started radical, what was the other business that you were that you earned a dealership? I drive on demand, customer cars,

you know, Carvano, what Carvano is doing now that we were doing it in 2012. That's crazy. So like, so you're definitely like the entrepreneur and you moved up in companies. What made you decide that came going to start doing stuff on my own now? You know, I get asked that a lot, either on podcast, just in part. And I think I am definitely there's an entrepreneurship in my blood. I think I'm reasonably good at it. I don't have it all figured out, but I can totally work for someone else. Again, I am not a lot of people assume like, you just don't, you can't work for anyone. You're so sick. Like, no, I have, I have, I have no problem working for anyone else.

My, both of my situations have been more, you know, leaving EP, you know, not really having a job there. If I want to come back here and like needing to get back to Greenville with, you know, went through divorce and, you know, my kids were here. I wasn't going to stay in New York. I wanted to be with them. You know, and I wanted to be back here anyway. I'd had my fill in New York. Love New York, but it's a tough place to lose. So we've had for kids and family and all that.

It was more out of just necessity. Like, I had the idea with the car thing with a partner that was already doing it, you know, so I kind of like, franchised his idea a little bit. And it was just like, I'm going to try this and it was a good time of my life in a transition period. It wasn't, I'm quitting and I'm going to go do it for myself. I'm going to, you know, fist to the man. You know, it wasn't, it's never been that for me. Like, it was just more the opportunity at the time. It was like, okay, I want to do this. I guess I got to start it myself. You know, had the funding to do it and did it. It didn't pan out. I just, more, it didn't do

wonderfully combined with I didn't want to be a car dealer or salesperson. I'm dealing with there's just stuff that came with it that I just didn't think I was going to have to deal with, that I did have to deal with. I didn't want to do that restaurant life. I was a better marketer than a car operator. Yeah. And went to work for someone else in between as the chief marking also another agency. And, you know, the vibe and the culture didn't line up for what I wanted to do and be more than, oh, I'm, I can't wait to get my own business started again, this, this early. I always had it. I thought my process if I stayed at an agency business that I

might start my agency. But like, if for some reason there had been another EP size agency in Greenville that needed someone at my senior level, I might would have just gone over there for a few more years. I might would have eventually started radical, but it might not have been, there's not like this. And I, you know, I think it's going to work out. It's been so good so far. But things didn't work out again. I really don't mind working for someone else. But I enjoy it. I mean, now that I've had a taste of it, it's a little bit hard to go back, because you kind of do set your notes because you know, and it's not because I get to play golf every day. It's not, I'm not there yet. I don't know if I ever want to be there, but, but it's,

I think it's definitely in the offer blood. I think I, I'm not scared of it. You know, a lot of people don't become entrepreneurs just because they're scared of it. You know, like, I've got to, I'm responsible for my unchecked. I'm like, really responsible. Like, not just clocking in, you know, like, that, that doesn't scare me. Like, I'm not intimidated by that. It doesn't mean I don't worry about it or think about it or, you know, have all of our moments of doubt and all that. No, of course I do, but I've never done it. It doesn't, it's never been a paralyzing. And like, that's probably more the inside of me than anything is for good, better and different. And I was not a wild child or like some crazy person that's always, you know,

I'm not that person, but I've just never been paralyzed by decision in anything in life. I'm not like, I just, I don't live my life that way. And that's, that is, I don't think that is something you can, you can train that. Not saying you can't get there. Not saying you can't be coached and mentored and all that. You can improve. But that's just been a gene. But you just weren't, so you're saying you're not afraid just to pull the trigger to see what's going to happen. Yeah. Because you've never been, because you're not afraid of if it works out, awesome. If it doesn't, I can just do something else. Yes. There's something in my head that's probably both crazy and wonderful at the same time. Terrible, wonderful, and crazy at the same time

but there's a lot of like motivation and self-development there. So what role does self-development play in your life? I think that, you know, we all can have continual growth. And, you know, you're never done. It's kind of back to that, you know, there's certain premises in certain things about myself, you know, they're not paralyzed by growth or whatever, but I believe in you're never like stuck in a certain mindset or certain thing. And I had been getting to a place the last, you know, four to five years where reading books and doing podcasts and like, you know, learning about those things where I felt like I wanted to be a part of sharing that same mentality. Well, also that disconnect. And I think we've talked about this as some of the

GVL Hustles like towering out both being in Greenville. But I was in New York for a while. I have family and kids. I didn't feel like connected to the community. Even though I'm from Greenville, born and raised and been successful and done things, but I didn't feel connected. So I think it was the path of those two things. One, wanting to help Greenville, wanting to share, and at least not just because I knew it all, but at least provide a place where those things, that growth can happen, combined with wanting to be more connected to the community. And so it was like the intersection of those two things. And that's where, you know, I've just, I've taken more to heart, you know, the personal growth side. You know, like we all go through

challenges and changes, you know, I've been to divorce. I've seen the worst of myself. I've seen the best myself, but I think I've always known there's a delta of opportunity to grow at all times. And, you know, how do I manifest that? Yeah. What's your advice to someone who is in the worst, like they're seeing the worst side of themselves right now? And they're just stuck there. Like, they're just lost in this place of, I don't like who I am. What did they do to get out? You know, there's two sides to that. You know, there's one part that I get uncomfortable talking about, like the mental health side. It's like this fine line there. And that's even doing what we do, like that was always like in the back of my head, like this fine line of being a mental health

professional and being personal growth. You know, it's a fine line sometimes. It is. And so I get, I try to leave the mental health side to the professionals. Yeah, that's good. But on the personal side, you know, it's so interesting, like thinking about like some of my like worst moments, personally or professionally. You know, there's like a certain time where you just have to look in the mirror and say this two will pass. But you have to just make a plan and go do it. There has to be action. Like the pity party has everyone I've had. We can, I've thrown, I've had banners. I've had streamers. I've had airplanes flying by at my pity parties. Like literally, you know, hot air balloons. Like I invited clowns over from my pity parties.

Like, you know, we can all have them. And so it's not about, okay, get off your tail and go make it happen. You know, that's not what I'm saying. But like, but at a certain point, you have to decide. A to B to C. And I'm at A. And here's the, these are where I decide where you want to get to. Like don't even worry about the map yet. Let's just decide we're going to Idaho. You know, like, but you got to decide you're going to Idaho. Like decide that I'm going to be, okay, I failed as a lawyer, but I'm going to be a financial advisor, whatever. And get there and start taking steps to do it. You know, like map out the plan, write it down,

create a journal, write down your goals and go do it. And like action, like, all that assumes that you got the mental health that taken care of. Because that's where I don't pretend to give advice or know if there's something chemically or like some, that's just such a hard space. Like sometimes, sometimes that can be the problem. Yeah, there's been challenges and pitfalls. Things happen. But like, if there's a mental health challenge there, that needs to get figured out before you'll ever get to where you're going. You know, so it's a delicate balance there. But assuming that parts worked out and this is just the pity party, you know, banner streamers, clowns. Yeah, I mean, that's, I think that's really good advice. Because I feel like the pity party, we just get stuck there. Yeah. And you don't, you can't see

nine GPA. Second semester, I think it was like one point nine eight. Like it was just no better. The parents ripped me out of school. And so I took a year off and I knew I'd eat it too. Like I had no direction. Like I was just partying, having a good time, like somewhat going class, but I had no idea what I was trying to get done. You know, I was just there at school. I was a marketing major, but like, and so I went and worked at a place called Steak Out. Yeah. Steak delivery. And I, you know, went and delivered steaks. And I, you know, made good money, you know, considering I was like a 19 year old, you know, driving my Honda around the drilling steaks. The

tips were pretty good. And, you know, when did that, like dad's like, you're gonna get a job. And I'm like, all right, I'll drive around my car and make some pretty good tips. You know, like, okay, I'll do that. Yeah. Went work there. We're there for like three months or a couple months. And they pulled me into the store. They're like, this guy's not the average, maybe Steak Out employee. I don't know whatever. Yeah. Came the manager of the Steak Out, like within like five months. Wow. Is like a 19 year old. This is the, you know, a pride joy here. Um, and was, but was making like 40,000 dollars a year. Wow. Like, that's not bad. Bad bad as a 19. I think I might have

turned 20 in the middle of that. Um, and so like, but I had to make a constitution. I gotta go, but I'm not gonna work, but I had to give up 40,000 like is a 19 20 year old never had really any money. You know, I was like, I don't know. I just keep doing, but I knew and gave that up. But the point was I was in a real pity party before deciding, okay, I don't have it figured out yet. But step one might be going and being a barista at the coffee house. Mm hmm. Well, you figure out what you want to do with your life. You know, like, oh, what? Because if you don't want to be here, you're having a pity parter because something didn't work out. Go work

at Steak Out for a little while and get your shit together. Doesn't mean it's permanent. Doesn't mean it's permanent. Yeah. And figure out what you want to do with your life, but didn't map out the steps to get there. You know, and maybe you'll figure out, hey, I want to be a barista and an artist and that's going to make you happy. You just said, I was going to make you happy. And then then map, map it out to get there. Yeah. I like it. What are your thoughts on? I'm curious, like, I'm really curious on your thoughts with this. The balance of, like, kind of trusting what will work out. I'm not sure if that you can call it fate or just trusting the universe versus creating and working for it. Like, what is your thesis on that?

I think the question more time. You're good. So, like, what is your belief around how much do you have to work for something to make it happen versus, hey, that's just not meant to be or that is meant to be or trusting that everything's going to work out? I am a very, I have very, like, on the scale of fate versus making it happen. Here we go. I think I might rephrase that question. All right. So, like, you know, like the balance of the scale, me personally, I'm 90% the make it happen guy and 10% fate back to that analogy, like promotions at EP, asking, taking action towards things that I had no business, like, even asking for. I'm just, like, a go do it. Like,

I'll go figure it out. And sometimes, sometimes it's kind of like back to the marketing speed. Now, like, my whole life is like marketing speed. It's like, sometimes a wait and see approach might have been better. But more times than not, the go make it happen has served me well. And I do believe in higher powers and, like, I believe in things are meant to be. I totally do believe that. But I believe that those things can be influenced by going and make it happen too. Yeah. That's kind of like where I am. I'm like, like, give it your all. Go make it happen. If it doesn't happen, try, try again. If it doesn't happen, try something else. Yeah. You know, it's like, just keep trying. You're going to have to try. But yeah, I've, why ask is just because I've been

things like, you know, advertising actually works. You know, well, even it's just a glimital messaging dude. You don't even realize that if you just see it over and over, there's this psychology man. Exactly. But sometimes you have to work harder and be scrappier, you know. And I will actually say, you know, use radicals analogy, you know, good end point, right?

Radical is built on the premise of being different and not better. It's back to the speed of now, which is we are swinging well above our belt line compared to agencies four or five ten times bigger than us that are have better better bank accounts or better resources.

Perceived better talent. But we find differentiation in speed scrappiness efficiency. And I think you have to work smarter, not necessarily harder. And it's it is harder because being different is hard. It's really hard because it's easiest to fall into. Like if I had one billion that probably take more than that, if I was just going to create an absolute duplicate of Amazon, you know, absolute duplicate and I had the money to do it. It's just money. I mean I'm not saying money's easy, but like you just create it. But to create something different than Amazon, but equal is effective is harder, smarter, you know, just takes more thinking. It does lead me to the premise of more times sometimes. That's not how you can say that. But to be different,

it'd be brave. I like that man. To be different, you have to be brave. It's more fun though. It is. Well awesome, dude. Well Ryan, thank you. If you're in Greenville of course, come check out your co-working space. Come rotarycowork.com. Check it out online and then we're right here on the Small Private Trail, 25 Delena. Boom. I love it. It really is like an awesome trail. This is an awesome spot to be at. Do you have anything else on your heart or mind that you want to say marketing life? No, I mean, no. Follow me at at Ryan Offered on Instagram. You can find keep up with anything that I'm doing or the agency's doing or camaraderie or GVL hustle. I'm very accessible. I mean, I think you should not. I can attest. So if I can help anyway, I'm here.