Why Authenticity and 'Being Known' Are the Keys to Success in Today's Media Landscape Amid 2025’s Turbulent Business Climate

This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and caching checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to right about now. Happy New Year! As we start 20-25 here on our weekly marketing and business news of the week. January 3rd, 20-25. What's up Chris Hansen? What's up big dog? How are you? Good man. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. If you're listening to this, it is the New Year. We are admittedly we do pre-record these, but we are in 20-25 when you're listening because this release is on the Friday. I am definitely on the beach at this moment in time. I'm just going to play shift myself I'm having. Okay, it's around noon when we're recording this. Probably on my first beer margarita mix with some pancakes. Nice. That's a breakfast and championship. It's a brunch of champions. Exactly. What's cooking Chris? In Miami, you know, like it's the New Year. New Year, yeah man. I expected Jim to be very busy with New Year resolutions. Yes, exactly. It's so funny. Look at it funny how we joke about that, but it's so true. That's why I built my own home gym. I'm doing it all. I got the garage. My garage has been converted because I'm getting old, man. I know it. I go in and I like having some people around some humanity, but it just sort of drives me crazy because like, you know, I'm not Mr. Olympia, but I got a routine. I'm consistent. It doesn't take New Year's and I walk in and I'm like I'm proud of people, but at the same time, I'm like, damn, man. I'm waiting for shit to end. I don't have to wait on. Waiting for it to hurt this thing out a little bit. Come like, you know, March. Yeah. It's ever in March. Exactly. We're on a little bit of a skeleton crew. I'm in my new office. Got the wall of fame behind me. The mini big time guests we've had on our weekly guest episode of right about now. I'm standing. I do, I've set up for the, you know, I'm liking here. I got everything. I thought this thing shining on the lights will be good. Number one in business and marketing. Nine countries. We appreciate you wherever you are. Whatever language. Hopefully getting translated to you. But we appreciate it. And, you know, it's felt like, hey, it's New Year's. I need some bling. So I got it on the shoulder. It seems heavy too, man. This is not, you know, when I make these, I'm kidding around. You know, we've been taking the business. Sounds expensive. That's real steel right there. Hey, we're taking the BS out of business for you. We've had a lot of great stories this year. Some good things kicking off that play into trends that we've been talking about. And, you know, it was wouldn't be the cookie crumbling anymore with the administration that's leaving. Unless we had a good hacking from China before they left, right? A nice hack from our biggest adversary is come on in. You know, we try to, you know, the entertainment. That's what I'd call our show. Trying to educate you, opinion, have fun. But I mean, this shit is scary when you think about like, you know, one of our biggest adversaries in the world. Obviously, we don't want to be, you know, fight in the middle of the war. But we fight over resources, other things. And the fact that they can break in. You know, there's unclassified info. And get to the computers of a lot of elected officials or non-elected officials, just government people. It should scare you a little bit, right? Yeah, especially when it's our Treasury Department, you know, it's our money. So, money does really well. It's concerning because it makes you think, all right, if they got in, what else can they get into? Exactly. That's what it is. That's where the fear comes. It's like, okay, all right, maybe they did or didn't get the most important things this time. But the fact that they can, what happens when they do? And just like, you know, all the, all the time it has to do is go, no, you know, the US is trying to slander us. We didn't do it. And they came out and said that like, yeah, we didn't do it. Like, you know, like, what are they going to say? Yep, you caught us. Sorry. Damn, we're just looking around. I was, you know, on my space and I accidentally hit a button. And it got me into the Treasury Department. I was just scrolling around on 1010 or whatever the version of Amazon is over there in China. And President Ye just happened, you know, whatever. Secretary Ye backdoored his way into the truck. Oh, it happens. You know, I hit the wrong key, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. Right. Be a start and got in. How do you know? Who knew? So sorry. We didn't do it. I mean, it's just like denial. And I mean, it's hard to know. It's even hard to believe our own government sometimes, right? Like what really got taken or not? The fact that they're acknowledging it shows you that something happened. But will we ever have truths in there? Yeah. They got it in, but didn't get any classified. Oh, yeah. Of course. No classified stuff. It was soft, soft land. Yeah. Yeah. They got President Biden's solitary history. You know, that was it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They got his met him useful formula for the morning. Yeah. Like whatever it is. They got his, uh, his nap schedule for the day. I mean, that is 62 pages. Let's be honest. Oh, man. I sleep at the wheel. Whatever you want to call it. I mean, it can happen under any, you know, that any presidency. So I'm not saying that it's specific to that. But it does sort of follow the general line. It's been the last few months with like sleep at the wheel. Everyone. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So no new codes. Just really unclassified stuff. Yeah. Nothing important. Nothing to see here. And, but it did say in a major incidents, quote, but non classified. I don't know, man. It's just, okay. A digital key was compromised. I don't think my son Clayton could probably like break into this like state department. I don't know. Like what? I don't know what to believe here. But let's get that shit locked up. Okay. President Trump. Let's, let's, let's button it up a little bit. We could buy the best hackers, right? In the world. Can't we buy the best? Like, takes a criminal to no one. Let's just put them on the payroll. Maybe they do that. I don't know. That's all I'm born. I didn't. Right? It's where I get all my, my government knowledge. So they offer the bad guys a deal and convert them over. Yeah. What's, uh, what's the biggest something? You know, we talked last time about winners and losers, but anything like on your radar, like 2025, like, you know, we've got a few more news articles we'll talk about. I'm going to talk about podcasting. We've been talking about that a while. Radcast network. Some exciting trends in podcasting and video. The things we've been telling you for years. Go look at my Instagram feed. I've been telling you this story, but we'll get to that shortly. The, uh, but what, what's, what's 2025 feeling like for Chris Hanson? I'll pick you back on what you said. And I know I said this, you know, last week, the personal branding, social media, short form content. I mean, literally right before we recorded, there's another girl. I just started following her. She does, you know, talks about laws of the universe and stuff like that. She's educating. And even she said, you know, I started this like six months ago. She's like, I put up one video on TikTok and got a million views. And she's like, you're never going to know unless you put yourself out there. And I think we all need to probably the older generation just kind of get comfortable with the fact that this is where median entertainment is moving to your smartphone. And it's probably going to be on streaming platforms or podcasts or whatnot. And we talked about all the time with podcasting, but just as someone newer to it, I think, you know, you've been in this what eight years now, um, you're in a half two years in. And, you know, I don't think everyone should have a podcast, but I think if you have a message that you want to get to the world and you have the time and dedication, or if you're a business owner, I don't care if you're building houses or cleaning pools, make content. You know, like if you're a pool cleaner, shoot TikTok content, you know, I think we're at such a point where people are craving authenticity, normalcy, where 15 years ago, everyone's watching the Kardashians. Now you have people and I've another perfect example I had lunch with a buddy of mine back home over the holidays and his wife is a pretty big fitness influencer, her nurse sister. They built out a platform, they've got their own app. You know, and he's telling me, I mean, they've got this many subscribers paying this much a month, where it's like their followers are invested in them and their family, you know, they're kind of do the family stuff to kids, the workouts, the nutrition, but he's like, we're making good money on just doing what we would normally do. The only difference is my wife is just filming some of it, right? So I think to tap into that, people are looking for other financial opportunities right now. Right now, right? Everyone's diversified income streams. Social media is an easy thing that you can jump into that may or may not work, right? But Ryan says it all the time, it pays to be known. I will stand by that. Regardless if it's making more connections, could you have a presence online, meeting other people in your network, working with cool companies, put yourself out there. Just fully be yourself, put yourself out there, and the right things will come back to you. That's my advice. Yep, for sure, 100%. We've preached that a lot, and I think, but it's never been more true with the proliferation of all these channels. Tell them about the roundcast now. Yeah, man, I mean, you've seen it in real time. Yeah, exactly. We're building the, you know, we spent eight years building this show, and then the last year, sort of pressure testing, like eight to 10 shows on the network. Using the things that we've done to tell stories, to build audience, growth, and eight out of the 10 shows have 10 x their downloads, seven out of the 10 or top 30 in their category, and we're helping brands and people grow and monetize their podcast because podcasting is the future of content. And podcasting is a kind of a word. There's a lot of purists that want it to only be audio, but the reality is it's multi-platform, audio video, social media. And you can do serial content, you can do weekly content. There's a lot of ways to do it, but this gene is not going back in the bottle. Like, literally, we have all the data. I'm actually even going to pull up like one of our charts, some of our research we've been looking at, one of our partners sounds profitable, give them a shout out, that really show like where the industry is going and what we're doing with the network, which shows that come on, but here's the biggest thing. And this may not seem like a big statement, but more people now tune in and watch podcast than those that don't. This was just past the threshold. You know, it's always like 30 or 40% of people. So it was somewhat niche. Now it's fully mainstream and we can all agree if you let's get your head in the sand, that the presidential election was in large part determined by what happened. And it's crazy. So this gene is not going back in the bottle. More people are doing it. Watchable podcasts are growing in popularity. One in three people now say they actively watch podcasts with videos. So again, the two year change is significant in how this landscape is changing from just audio to audio video and then the interplay of social media. And it can't be ignored. Hopefully you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify or any of the social media networks. But YouTube is driving over 50% of podcast discovery. So you've got nearly double the next source. Next source is the internet and Facebook, 27%. So what does that mean? When people were asked how they find or learn about new podcasts, over 50% said YouTube. That's crazy, isn't it, man? I mean, even as you're talking, I was thinking back over the holidays. My mom was telling me, you know, she'd listen to a podcast every day. And she shares an office with a woman and she was telling me, well now she started listening to it every day. And when I'm thinking, all right, she's near 70 years old. And that is now her biggest source of entertainment and information. Even my dad, he doesn't have cable, he uses YouTube TV. You know, you can call it TV, right? But it's YouTube. Even if you've got the major networks utilizing it, it's streaming. Exactly. I mean, like you said, we've talked about this as long as I've been working with you. But I can, if anyone takes a pause and just look at your own life in your group of people you're around and how they're receiving most of their data, it's altered the smartphone. Only people I know watching a TV is because they're streaming a movie. Or sports. Yeah, sports, or movie, or like Netflix series. Yeah. I mean, no one is watching normal cable television. No. Very few. And even if you are watching what we used to be on and say the Bachelor, that's on Netflix now. You know? Yep. So half of weekly podcast consumers follow a favorite host on social media. This is that interplay. 62% of people that listen to the show follow that host on Instagram. You know what I'm saying, Matt? It all is the interplay of social media and podcasting combined with the power of those channels all working together. And that's what we're doing at the Redcast Network. The biggest thing is you've got all these people that are measuring audio. You got people doing measuring video. You got measurement of social media when we're bringing that all together. It's called podcast total influence. PTI baby podcast total influence. We're branding that. We're literally bringing to bear the multi-platform impact that podcasts have. And you can fight the audio game all you want. But the reality is this industry with sponsors with ads needs to be integrating all of these things in for a multi-platform experience for sponsors. And that's what we're doing. Because again, the interplay of these media is what makes it super powerful. You know how I say super powerful? I integrate it in right here, baby. It's called X. Mark the spot. Exponent. It is the energy drink that fuels right about now and Ryan offered. And again, it's exactly what I'm saying. I'm proud of someone I preach, but it's true. I only work with the brands I love. I love these guys. I love the branding. I love how clean it is. We're talking about fusion energy. Adaptions to tropics. It looked electrolytes and amino acids. Zero sugar, plant-based. Healthy as it gets. Gives you that pep. You see it. X marks the spot for energy and clean energy, which is what matters. Exponent. Visual energy drink. Ryan offered and right about now. Boom. That's what I'm talking about. You need to watch that on YouTube. Guess how cool these new cans are. Got some new flavors coming out, Chris. I'm pumped, man. You know, let's take a lot to get me excited. But damn energy drinks will boom. I go Hulk Hogan. Got my belt. Do whatever. I'll go Rick Flair. Whatever you want. Woo. Get all Rick Flair. Yeah. I mean, podcasting is where it's at. The Radcast Network. If you're interested, look. Shoot me DM on Instagram. Go to or. Better yet. Just go to the Radcast Network dot com. We fill out that form if you're interested in helping us. We'll help you grow. We'll help you monetize. We'll help you leverage. This. Whether you're a business solo per newer. All yet, who's we ready to grow? We're built a big community. Got an app launching February 1st. The Radcast Network official app. It's just the community for growth. Hacking in podcasting and everything else. Got a lot going on, brother. Excited about it. Okay. Yeah, man. Oh, what else we got in the news? Hey, lots of predictions for Bitcoin. 200,000. That's an IOU. You might want to hold onto that one. Yeah. One Bitcoin. 200 day. That's real dollars. I mean, you know, when you got my dad started to talk about predictions. That's a good time. Right. That's when you know. And I said this six months ago. When the mainstream media starts talking about it. In all these random people that haven't talked about in four years. It's not going anywhere. Right. It's down a little bit. We're at 94,800 today. Big deal. Okay. It was at 60,000, three months ago. But yes, there's all kind of wild estimates here. You know, all the way up to 200,000. I don't know. Who knows, right? I'm comfortable saying 120. But I think we're this new administration. And who knows what's going to happen with banking policies and whatnot. Yeah. So it's looking bright. Future's looking bright. Yep. It said approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 marked a pivotal moment. Broadening institutional and retail investor appeal. 2024 Bitcoin halving event reduced supplies supporting price momentum. You know, I'm seeing anything from 120 to 250. You know, and I think it's safe to say, isn't it, that the broader market seems to come along. If Bitcoin's raising universally, I mean, unless it's just some crap token, like what, hot to a girl, whatever the fucking scam that was. Right. Yeah. But. Yeah. Look, what do you say? High tide raises all ships. Yeah. So you're your big movers, Bitcoin, and then, you know, your doge coin, stuff like that. You know, I think all that is going to rise up with it. It probably just things like doge and more of these quote unquote meme coins will have larger gains probably, but then they'll probably drop off harder as well. Yep. So big things coming from crypto was in our winners, losers and recommendations for 2025. So it's really just another investment platform. I mean, you know, it's a legitimate place. I joke a lot about gambling all that sort of is legalized gambling. It's so funny. I saw some of my joking about, you know, like brokers just sort of essentially bookies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Stock market bookies. We just legitimize it. We put them in suits and called it Wall Street and, you know, you know, but it's just it out the bank. One step away from off track betting. Steam skill set. Yeah. Oh, it's so funny. I also, you know, saw the news. Lots of CEOs turning over this year. CO departures. Yeah. Says nearly 2000 CEOs have stepped down from their roles when January and November. It feels like it's tough here in business. Tough here in business. And I almost feel like we're also like this short term is a man. Everything. Like it's easy come easy go. It seems like it's all related to me a little bit. And look, we all love our conveniences. We all love this stuff. But I think that how does that relate to business? Just think people, they're impatient. And they think they want change. And sometimes you got to stay the hard road. And then somehow just, you know, it's time for change. I mean, I'm not, you, ever you situations unique. I just think it feels like a sign of the times, right? The, all right, out of the end, out with the old, in with the new. And old, now to find this, you know, 18 months. And we see it with your own workforce. Yeah. With our own businesses, right? The employee turnover is, it's not someone giving you 20 years of their life, you know. No. Like they used to an old days, right? Now, I mean, I think most people I know. They're in a job maybe two to five years and move to the next one. Yeah. And most, I mean, I had a conversation with the buddy yesterday. Hey, I want to completely switch industries from real estate to software. And because it's bored. Yeah. And I, hey, each their own. It's fine. Yeah. It's just, I'm getting more and more to this, like, lean approach of like, okay. Now, my recommendation is, and I mean, look, once you're cold size, different game. You know, like, but let's just say micro teams, like five to 10 people that are all highly skilled, highly smart, and all pulling the same direction, and building, you know, like high equity stakes so that everybody's kind of rowing it. And build, you know, build your administrative, you know, overseas VAs, whatever around that. But you have like a central nucleus of a centralized skill set, all pulling one direction with, well, I mean, not centralized like company. But then like five or six people that all have unique skill sets, but then building the ancillary around it. But not necessarily a company where you have 50 employees on the book. I think that's the way it's lean mean, baby. Nimble, nimble, nimble. Gotta move quick. Gotta, you know, like, be able to, I just think, and again, I'm kind of painting with a broad brush that don't need to. But like, I just think being able to move nimble, consistent revenue, the exact same way is not consistent anymore. Like, I think you've got to be nimble month to month or quarter to quarter when you're a small business in entity. And there's a lot of different ways that you can sort of pivot and evolve throughout a year's time across, you know, a subset of disciplines. And that's sort of what we're doing with like radical ink, got the radcast network, which obviously I think the mainstay and building that for seven years. But I think the ancillary things around it with ways with which to monetize when you have a group of skill sets in business services is becoming unique. It's a little volatile, but if you're nimble, you can take advantage of it. That's my thoughts on that. But lots of CEOs stepping down, except for this one. CEO of life. We're saying right here. I know. And hey, speaking of that, getting your life right, you got to get your health right. That's what Chris and I do on vibe science. Go check that out. You got some big hitters coming up on that show as well. We're taking you to your highest five. Look, all this circles around like you can be talking about business, about all this stuff and podcast, personal brand. All that means nothing if you're health is shit. Yeah, because think about it, Chris, like, but if the moment we do all this stuff, I could hit the lottery. We could have a big sales. We could, you know, sell one of our brands for nine figures. But does it mean anything if you're in bed with the flu? Like in that moment, or I mean, even worse, like, you know, something more. So you got to take care of your health almost mind body energy. We bring on the best guess we're empowering you. We're navigating it for you. Like we're not, we don't know it all. We're not doctors. We just play them on our podcast. I'm kidding. We don't. We bring, we bring in a lot of people smarter than us that tell you about it. So we're empowering. It's an empowerment show on health, wellness, mind body energy. That right, brother. That's right. Get this part of science. Yes, check that out. Five science podcast. Look, it's the new year. Got hacked by China. I'm not going to overwhelm you with this with too much. You know, we appreciate you for listening. We know you have options. I like wearing this belt. It's how to appreciate if you keep listening. You know, I don't want to have to hide it or send it to somebody. So go subscribe to that YouTube channel. Go watch us. Spotify or YouTube. You can see Chris and his pretty face with his Mark Wahlberg t-shirt on. Yes. Shout out to Mark municipal sponsor plug. And we appreciate all our sponsors branded bills independent center exponent. Appreciate everyone for making this happen for us. We couldn't do it without the support of listeners, the sponsors. And I appreciate you, Chris. Likewise, brother. Cheers to a great year. Any final words we close out today. I just want to send everyone good, good vibes, abundant energy for the new year. Health, wealth, happiness, love, and I hope everyone just has an amazing beautiful year. Yes. Well said. Hopefully your college team won in the playoffs. That will have been determined by now. Good luck. I know. There it is. It's probably be there in the state. We don't know. Of course this before. But anyway, we wish everyone a beautiful, lovely 2025. We can't wait to be a part of it. We got big things coming and it all starts with you. Check us out at Ryan is right.com. All the highlight clips, links to our sponsors, links to all of our social media. And of course, we appreciate you. We'll see you next time. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryan is right.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.