How They Became No. 1 Ranked Marketing Podcast w/ Ryan Alford

there are thousands of people tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of people who have a podcast who never really make a dent they're still stuck in the I got 100 downloads per episode what do you think makes you so unique what is it about you that people are drawn to that listen to this organically who enjoy the conversations with you and you don't need to be humble here just like really let's call it out what do you bring to the table that makes you you and what's your secret sauce okay everybody my next guest has the number one one ranked marketing podcast which just caught my attention immediately because naturally questions are like what you do to be so popular so my my guest his name is Ryan so Ryan for people who don't know who you are can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your story please Chris thanks for having me I appreciate you that I'm Ryan Alford I'm the host of the rad cast we are the number one marketing and business show on Apple and you know it's an interesting story Chris it follows a lot of uh what you talk about with personal branding I did a lot in my career I've been in in the marketing and Ad Agency business for 20 years I'll age myself a little bit even though my uh Caldera skin cream who's one of our sponsor ke keep the bags away uh but I'm a marketer Chris you know don't you know don't hate the player hate the game the uh but it look if you know I'm gonna give you can you hear me five words can you hear me now uh that was the first campaign I worked on for Verizon Wireless I've worked on every major smartphone campaign in the history of Wireless the first iPhone launch um creatively strategically worked on it with apple every Blackberry launch the Droid the first anti- iPhone campaign um so worked in Manhattan largest agencies in the world on some of the largest tech Brands Samsung am Apple Amazon uh Verizon uh Google so really ushered in the smartphone era working on the marketing campaigns for some of the most iconic devices ever sold over 500 million smartphones with campaigns uh that I worked on and uh you know have had a a career in the marketing side that kind of started there and then but but I came out of all that Chris and no one knew who the hell I was and started three things at one time uh about six years ago and they've all been on the same trajectory my personal brand the rad cast and my agency radical uh and so have devoted to all three of those the last six years and now we're an eight figure agency the rad cast is number one in marketing and business and my personal brand has done okay so it's um it's been a wild ride but it uh you know somebody's got to do it why not you and you do that all with a little Southern Charm as I can hear in your voice there can't recognize that from South Carolina baby I was you know the southern kid in New York repr trailblazing in Manhattan all right all right so I used to work in advertising myself and there are many roles in which one plays I just want to just for the record uh just ask you a little bit there because I worked on the design production side so when the agency would come up with the the creative brief they would ask us to pitch creative ideas and we would do that what did you do in those agencies where you were helping to launch all these phone campaigns are are you the I don't know tell tell me what it what role did you play specifically I'm a hybrid uh chameleon so I started you know agencies like to put people in boxes so started an account management then got into more of a strategy new business and always had a creative flare to me so I luckily I worked at an agency that allowed that to Blossom uh you know definitely played more in the strategy um account management side but I've always been a good writer and did develop um got to where I was developing campaigns um kind of bring it all together full full circle uh and working directly with clients and so I wore a lot of different hats over my 20 plus years and I mean I would dare say in in today's environment I play more creative director than anything else uh like at my agency but uh strategy creative director to kind of wear both of those hats I'm uh you know maybe one of those few that kind of has a left brain the right brain I I I watch an ad and I and I literally think I I can I can see the creative brief I see the creative brief and I can you know I think in headlin so it's like it's a little bit of both baby so it sounds to me like you are that hybrid person that you have this writing creative bone but you came up through the agency world through the account management strategy side right yes um okay I gota ask you this question because I remember this campaign I'm also old enough and I think I'm older than you but we'll get into that later is that can you hear me now which at first I was like that's it that's a campaign and then it becomes a thing tell me about the inspiration behind that where did that come from like tell me the business Insight or how y'all developed that and how it turned into that tagline with that spokesperson y so marketing at the highest level comes down to two kind of categories so there's CDI and there's BDI and in 2001 the wireless industry was in a nent period very early so your brand mattered but it didn't what What mattered was defining the category and the category of cell phones was educating people why they needed it and why cell service mattered and those things had started to come together okay I need a cell phone this is around 2 99 2000 we go from bag phones to flip phones and all these things but then there were pain points consumer pain Point very clear consumer pain points early on in Wireless in the category which were reliability and it was always about how do we translate having better reliability and this is working with Verizon Wireless in the strategy and the known pain point the consumer Behavior which was telling us the pain point was my cell phone does not work where and when I need it to and the Transcendent line which came out of that which personified everyone's pain because everyone at this point this is before smartphones this is before I'm doing even text messaging your number one focus is call Quality and going through and it working where you need it to everyone had the in their vernacular when someone would when you picked up the phone in 2000 can you hear me now like can you hear me now you're trying to find that spot that location where people worked and everyone resonated with that line and literally it came out of you know I remember being like written on the board and then it got it made its way into one commercial and then it took a life of its own you know it's like one of those things but it but it was from that consumer Insight of I now know I need a cell phone but now it's clear that not all cell phones work ubiquitously and it became the vernacular with which people naturally said so having that test man who's testing the network quality who's personifying the reliability that Verizon was building by testing and retesting saying those things that everyone else said it the rest is history yeah I love that so you touched on a pain point that was a vernacular something that we all said like you'd move into the corner of the bathroom like can can you hear me now like and and you're right I remember those days and that was the biggest pain point which is how many dead spots are there and can I make a call and receive a call from my home and people would talk about the widest Network and the can can you hear me now with your your everyday person who wound up being the spokesperson for a gazillion years like how long did that guy wind up I don't know the actor's name but how long did he wind up being the spokesperson um and I'm just old enough and it's been just long enough to forget Paul's name uh it was right at 12 years so it was a long time wow and it under the umbrella he was used the first he was used heavily for about seven eight years MH it died off as the smartphone came around um and that and the and the networks got better and it was less about you know the quality of of that it was trying to find a home for him with network quality with data was always a struggle but he was obviously you know tied to the brand um and I will say this I had I had moved on was working on other pieces of business but someone left a clause out that allowed him to move over to Sprint like they had tied him up and paid him gosh but there was like a certain Clause that was in one of the contracts luckily it wasn't one we negotiated uh that left that opening because he they didn't intend for him to ever be able to get or go to another wireless network and then if you remember right sprit got him for a couple years and you know he was touting their Network quality I don't know if It ultimately ever mve the needle for them it was more just embarrassment for Verizon I think that he was a on someone else but uh yeah The Insider backstory there that's why I felt like he had a longer life the 12 years because I feel like I still see him from time to time and it's remarkable there couple of real quick questions to follow up you mentioned cdii and BDI I'm unfamiliar with those terms yeah category development and brand development so that's old school marketing man it's like here's what happens and it's even true today the best mark will tell you if you Romance the category you can win the brand game so the the who pays most homage to category development can win the brand game what does that mean well you know if you think about Uber coming around right so the category of taxy direct through app without the friction of having to be a yellow cab that you have to call on your phone or hope that if you're in New York city so Uber started a whole new category and when they when all their marketing came out all they they didn't talk about oh we're Uber we we're the best taxi delivery service no they they magnified the category of OnDemand car service and so that when you when you do marketing you have a 100% budget right so whatever that budget is 100% category designers would tell you that 70% should be in category magnification discussion instead of brand you know like instead of saying my brand Nike you know then I'm gonna I'm going to talk more about the sport or whatever it might be the category underneath it he who owns the category the brand will rise accordingly and so when I came up it was all we always talked about you know CDI and BDI and you do research the research studies we would do would be underneath you know who was owning category who was owning brand and share of voice share of Market those types of things okay more threads are opening up here I want to close a couple before I move on to the next thread which is based on the things that you're talking about here when you were doing this uh coming up with this insight for can you hear me now what agency was that at that you were with I worked for Hill holiday and Irwin pinland Hill holiday was out of Boston there was uh also worked with mccan um it was mccan Ericson then became mccan then it became McAn something else uh we there was a there was about eight agencies that worked with Verizon Wireless across the country and a lot of times it was as they would bring all the agencies together I mean it was kind of like they they pitted us against each other at certain times they brought us together at other times it was an interesting Dynamic lastly were you did you have any role in casting Paul for that role of no I had no part in that I did not have part in that so uh that was uh outside of my realm but uh it was and it was the perfect casting though he you know he had the exact look of someone you thought that would be a guy like testing a network and you know he was he was kind of the every man but a little nerdy techy you know like and so but approachable so he was perfect that's how I describe him exactly without even know the casting specs every man kind of good-looking friendly relatable not too nerdy that would annoy you exactly who you think he should be yep now I want to talk about Mr Shoe dog Phil Knight and and Nike because you brought up Nike and you said most marketers will tell you to do the category spend your marketing Budget on category defining versus brand how do you break up Nike today are they more brand Centric or category Centric it would probably surprise you that it's it it tends to lean towards category uh but it's definitely gone more towards brand for them over time because these categories aren't and just to be clear most marketers don't talk about it the way I'm talking about it don't talk about category uh they talk about Performance Marketing and they talk about all these buzzword that are now because they don't understand the these things that we're talking about right now or they don't you know have the background and understanding of how this works the category designers talk about it and that's a very few small Bunch the best of which is Christopher lockhead he is the originator of category design but let me uh I'll say this Nike was definitely heavy heavy category um believe it or not even just do it in its it's became their tagline but was in a way an empowering statement underneath the category of sport and so they now I think are you know probably 55 45 brand uh versus category but the it it was at one time it was probably 7030 category versus brand but now like Nike is a difficult one to have this discussion on because they're so big and so ubiquitous as a brand you know that it could get hard to delineate which one is which category versus brand you've spent 20 plus years inside the ad world as a marketer as uh as an account director strategy person also with copywriting is it safe to say you're a ad nerd oh yeah you absolutely because I want I want to geek out with a little bit 100% okay so there are certain brands that always come up in discussion as shining examples of how you build a multi-billion dollar brand the two that come to straight to my or the three are Nike or four Nike Apple um uh Patagonia and Tesla yep and when I sit down and I try to say like um this is what Nike sells Nike sells you shoes but that's not what you buy you buy something else this feeling this idea this connection to something much greater than just a pair of shoes because for which you have a lot of choices for so how would you describe what people buy when they buy a pair of Nikes people think with their head and they buy with their heart we're emotionally driven animals and what I mean it started like we we've already you know broken some of the ice here with just do it the empowering statement with which they started want to be like Mike you know you want to be like Mike and uh Michael Jordan uh that campaign I'm really aiding to myself that's early 80s uh 85 84 85 be like Mike and that and you know like and that but just do it with him and then be like Mike was actually under Gatorade and then like it but it's all tied to Michael Jordan because all every kid wanted to be like him and so that there's your original influencer we used call them spokespersons uh now they're influencers everybody is the uh but in all seriousness like building brand is an emotional exercise in consumer behavior and understanding what those things are so like now I have kids and all my kids want Nikes they you know the the brand game the shoe game you know but it's because they've built the cache but it's an emotionally driven thing because they want their friends to like them their friends like Nikes because they've been conditioned to believe that's what their peer groups know like and want right and that's buil the brand that Nike has created the Mantra the aura that they've built that drives that emotional connection to it but it it still comes back to some very basic human things which is you know I want to be liked by others so if I wear Nikes and others value Nike then they'll like me too right but it's these emotional triggers that the best brands in the world do but it's usually guided Chris by amazing product whoo like I mean think about the companies you just named Apple Tesla and even Nike I mean their product quality has always been topnotch for most things um Tesla the first you know electric cars that really were viable and sexy and you know all the things are but and the secrecy behind it and everything that Elon Musk did that made it desirable but but it's an amazing product right it's an amazing customer experience Apple you know we always think it's okay the iPhone and the iMac and the Apple Pro it is but it's the ecosystem right the reason the iPhone was the best and greatest smartphone of all time is because they tied it all together they made it super simple for grandmas and grandpas and kids and everyone else to use a smartphone and to make that a necessity in your life because of the ease and the ecosystem that they built with all of the apps and all of it tied to the air in the total customer experience if you look at those Brands there's usually a customer experience portion that make up the affinities with those Brands I want your expert opinion on this getting back to Nike because I will tell people like okay so you you um they they produce a shoe but you buy something different and then I ask people in an audience what what are you really buying they're like well the best most technical shoe I'm like let's keep trying you're buying cash and then after a while I I think what what the just do it thing in their campaigns as a student of advertised myself is that they're selling you this message that within each of us lives an athlete whether you're out of shape whether you're a kid or you're an Olympic medalist that's what binds us together and then when it comes to Apple I agree with you I think Apple produces the ecosystem but I think what we buy is status cache that I I'm saying transmitting to the world I have good taste and I can afford this yes your thoughts on this yeah I think that was the way it was certainly it's still that way now but I think certainly 5 10 years years ago 100% with apple that was definitely that status symbol I feel like some of that's eroded a bit because I do think they're now in line with PC cost their computers are the iPhone and the the Samsung and everything else are priced same and the feature sets have diminished like model after like the new feature sets like when you think about like when Apple was coming out with new feature sets five seven eight years ago they were big leaps now these leaps have gotten smaller the prices are more in line with other things so I I think that you're right as a whole you know if you look at the history of the brand I think you're 100% on I think some of that's diminished now and it is more about you know ecosystem ease of use and some of these other things that with the brand experience as a whole that are that's started to take you know foothold to why the brand is still so relevant and whenever I go to the mall and I I cross the Apple Store versus say the Microsoft Microsoft store no shade thrown it's a completely different experience and you can tell by the number of people in this store and for whatever reason the obsessive nature of the the Apple people in terms of like thinking through every single bit and how they've evolved and changed so quickly where you can go in basically every single person who works at an Apple Store can ring you out so what could be a a log Jam of frustration uh is a pleasant experience and everything from the unboxing pulling it out the way that I hear from uh cardboard Engineers how they engineer to make a very specific sound when you pull that box open that's attention to detail that most people don't know but they feel yes conversely I remember a couple years ago going to the x uh or Microsoft Xbox store to buy something there's nobody in the store there's like three customers and I'm waiting in line 20 minutes this is ridiculous it's a very frustrating experience why why don't companies get this that if you give people an an amazing experience they remember it why can't they why aren't they so easily duplicated and copied in the marketplace what do you think makes them so different I think that it comes down to like some rudimar things like the decisions that it takes The Bravery that it takes to invest in that total experience it's now easy for Apple to do it because they've done it and they've proved it but that's where it took Steve Jobs braver and guts and hutzpah when he did this when no one else would when Windows phone and blackberry and or Microsoft or whoever would not have done these things they would have not they would have laughed him out of the room to spend the money on that customer experience on the boxes and all that stuff he had the The Bravery to do that and even now I think when people try to duplicate it you can see where th those things push over know inter like you'll see the boxes and like the experience and it's never quite as good as the Apple experience they clearly you know are trying to copy it but they take shortcuts you know you can see where they like okay this the cardboard is a little nicer and it's got the little flap that you pull on and then you're like you're sitting there and you're still pulling it harder than you want to and then it like breaks or something and you're like you can tell they tried to but they took a shortcut somewhere and but but Apple's still one of the few that delivers it from top to bottom and a lot of that becomes just execution and you know you can all talk about it we can all do it but at the end of the day you got to execute and you got to have the Precision and the people and the processes to make that happen I mean I say the same thing every not every day but I have children and i' I'd love to say I never eat fast food but if you live in the south or live somewhere where there's a Chick-fil-A Chick-fil-A's excellence in drive-thru and management why can't that be duplicated at ver McDonald's or Burger King or whatever you know Chick-fil-A it's always my pleasure you know my pleasure right like a total different customer experience that doesn't seem to be able to be duplicated it's true and there's the cult of Chick-fil-A because every time you go there there is a line and it's it's a massive line but you're okay with it because they they've expedited as much as they can and they've convinced moms that it's healthier than McDonald's when really it probably isn't no a fried chicken sandwich come on exctly in fren Fri right right right but I gotta get my kids those nuggets you know right okay so let's shift gears you talked about a couple different companies radical is your agency rad cast which I really want to talk to you about is your podcast number one rank podcast for marketing and business on Apple here here's the thing this is an enviable position to be in and I I checked your chart just right before we got on I think you slipped to number two but just even being the top five is an amazing feet couple of questions for you why did you start the podcast and well I'll just start there why did you start the podcast I have been podcasting for 10 years like I I did one I I saw the medium like 2014 I did like a car show that had like 50 listeners but it was hyper Niche but and I've always liked the medium and believed in the medium from from I was a you know whatever you call it early adopter of the medium both listening and you know playing with them and when I started my agency it's kind of the the same it's the same answer for personal bre anything else I saw the ground swell coming and I believed in and knew and I actually owned the trademark for uh it pays to be known and so how better to elevate my Persona if I've been so slack in it I've done these amazing things and I'm tired of hearing about marketing gurus and ninjas on Instagram that have done nothing that I compared to what I've done in my career and I'm not mad at them I'm mad at myself I gotta get out there and share my knowledge but doing it in a different way and I just wanted to have a platform to to share knowledge to grow awareness for myself in the in knowing that that would bring opportunities and I wanted to build relationships with some of the amazing guests that you see behind me on the wall because I know that relationships create opportunities you said you're like 400 episodes in or something like that what year did you launch the 2018 so we're uh we're in year six of the show but we started at the early 2018 like February 2018 you've been busy yeah we produce two shows a week uh and sometimes we record a lot more than that I also have a secondary show now called the vacay podcast but uh it's a well health and wellness show but yeah man it's been good though and I've met a a ton of people and it's opened a lot of doors I love that okay let's get to the part where when did it start to connect where you start moving up the charts because to get featured on the top 100 and then 20 and something has to happen here so what insights can you share with people who are trying to grow their personal brand to to cash in on this idea it pays to be known I joke and it's maybe getting long in the tooth but I love to say it it was an overnight success in six years I'm going to tell your people the listeners and the viewers and everyone else probably something they don't want to hear but it takes time like the first 50 people like I had probably 50 to 100 listeners the first six months months of my show and 49 of them were my mom my dad and three of my cousins like they're like hey we really really like that episode and I was like did you hit play more than one yeah I have to listen to it like 12 times I like okay that's what now I'm like counting how many plays I've had and I'm like doing the math and I think I had four organic plays if I took away like you know the family members that did listen uh and look here's what happened okay I went big immediately like probably six months I go I'm going to go big I'm going to invite big guests I've got no credibil like I had credibility as a person my personal brand was starting to grow a little bit and I had done all the things that we've been talking about on this show so I had credibility and connections to make those phone calls or DMS or whatever it might be and I'm like wait a second I I don't want to play small anymore like the first six eight months of the show I just played small ball and I'm like I really don't have to play small ball like you know the show I and so I took on the Persona of we're going to go big and I devoted to two episodes a week I asked you know all the way from Mark Randolph the founder of Netflix who came on my show very early on to you know it's snow balled from there and I just always you know played at a bigger level than we were necessarily at and started to just say if I don't believe it then no one else will and look here's what happens when you do four shows you get better at it they get the shows get better you go I mean I keep a few of them up we've removed some of them because they just didn't make sense to the library anymore but you know go listen to an episode 40 and Go episode to Les three you know I'm better on the mic I'm better at asking questions the guests are better and the process and everything sounds and looks better so it was an evolution but but if I was going to give someone advice this is and we work with personal Brands and podcast now that we manage go [ __ ] big like you know like go big don't go small and look I wanted to be I could have been top whatever in some Niche it took me longer because we played the kind of the main stream education entertainment route with the show I didn't come on and just go heavy today we're going to learn about SEO and this SEO tactic you have to get after you know it just it was a it's an entertaining marketing and business show if you listen to our Friday episodes we cut it up we have fun but if you really listen you take away some marketing knowledge too so it's very much edutainment and but that so that took a l that was a longer fuse to build an audience but then once that fuse got going referrals and other things happened I will say like the last eight months we've gone from like top 40 to to number one like it's snowballed because I think of just once you kind of get to a certain position it starts to take on a life of its own on some level so here's what I got from you so far helps to be in a big family that loves and supports you the bigger the family the better get you off the ground so your Eagle doesn't take a huge hit right thanks Mom thanks Dad and cousin Vinnie whatever uh so you have a really big family in the South you're good next is you said um if you're going to do this do it with all of your heart all of your might don't be shy about reaching into your vast network of people that you know and getting on the phone or emails and hitting up people that you think would make a better guess the next Insight was you got to do the Reps put in the Reps you you what you repeatedly do you improve upon so it takes two 300 episodes for you find your your sea legs if you will and become good at being a host but something has happened in the last eight months do you attribute to anything else besides you being a better host the repetition uh the Deep catalog the kinds of guests that you're beginning have you done anything else that is really that you can attribute to like how we get from Top 100 to top 20 to number one heavy relationships I've leaned and into relationships that I've made and gleaned from this and been more intentional in the development of those relationships and I think it's gotten me on different stages different platforms different shows and you know it's a gold rule like I've I've been very intentional the last 8 to 12 months about being very giving of my time my energy and like trying to spread it around and to not make it so transactional and I think that is paid dividends next thing is there are thousands of people tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of people who have a podcast who never really make a dent they're still stuck in the I got 100 downloads per episode what do you think makes you so unique what is it about you that people were drawn to that listen to this organically who enjoy the conversations with you and you don't need to be humble here just like really let's call it out what do you bring to the table that makes you you and what's your secret sauce uh you know you you you said I'm I'm a Sou guy and there's an authenticity I think that comes with that that and I'm real like I'm not there's not you're not GNA find I've never someone gone very few people walk with me go you remind me of you know like I don't I can't think of the last time those words were uttered and I'm just different I think I've I have this worldly Edge to me but I'm a southern guy you know like I've lived Liv in Manhattan and la and Chicago and World traveled and worked on some of the largest campaigns in the world but I also can go eat fried chicken and green beans and sit in the you know on the dock with my fishing pole and like have a beer with anybody and I hope and I think that that comes across that there's an authenticity and a realness there so is that a like a worldly guy next door beer drinking fishing buddy maybe I guess I don't know I mean I you know like some people think of me as bougie and then some people think of me as a southern redneck so like I don't bie redneck I know I guess uh okay you know but I mean but I mean I get like 500 I don't know how many DMs I get a week and I can't keep up with them anymore my assistant can barely keep up with them like we try to respond to the ones but you know I don't know I think it just resonates on some level with people that I don't seem uh made up or that I'm answering to anyone other than just whatever the hell I want to do right no corporate Master to please you just do what you got do I have a a few sponsors now but I'm very particular about those too you know like if they don't work I don't talk about them okay we have an intern audience from from all over the world and there are people who are going to listen to this like we don't know what it means to be Southern in the United States so what are some Southern isms like edicate us a little bit here what what does it mean to be Southern yeah I think if it's the right Southern I think it's there's a uh I think there's a natural friendliness and ability to relate with anyone and like I've never met a strange like I'm kind of a extroverted introvert on some ways I am truthfully I mean I can talk and do it I can turn it on but like I'm not always like you know Mr chatter box like on my own but I will say like in a discussion like I never I never walk into dis I think southern charm or Southern things like that I don't walk into every discussion with a cynicism and a chip on my shoulder like when I was in New York and I'm just going to compare like okay north to south there's an edge to you in New York and there's a what are you trying to get out of me you know like a little not every single person but like and this was in Manhattan I'm not judging New York's a big [ __ ] state so like but like Manhattan you know there's a little bit of just that edge like I'm I'm you know what are you you you couldn't possibly be that nice you can't be you can't be real you know and then I think like I just walking discussion like I'm just I'm just a dude like let's just let's have a beer let's have let's talk you know like or you know what's going on and asking about family and asking about like it doesn't immediately become so intentional and I think you know I think in the there's a little bit of just we don't have to have an ingame in mind for this conversation or for this interaction like we can just be shooting the [ __ ] there's a a general um stereotype people from the north talk fast always on the move it's a little bit more transactional what are you going to do for me what have you done for me lately career climbing in the whole rat race of things and that's New York the city didn't never sleep so everything's always open and you can get everything in a New York minute we get that and then the southern stereotype is slower down home uh family dinners let's talk let's get together and it's a different pace there's a lot of y'alls uh bless your heart that kind of thing and there is such a thing as Southern Hospitality I've been to the Carolinas before and there it's a little bit different people don't have the guard up they'll talk to you and it's just a random conversation people from all walks of life we're talking about the good people you know some not some good people but the good people they'll like oh what do you do and you just have a conversation and you can talk to a stranger for 30 minutes and walk away and and just feel like wow I just really connected with somebody for a minute is that the southernness that you're talking about yeah I mean it's just not it doesn't always have to have an agenda and you know like you can let your hair down you unless you're going to like you know some Southern pant or something like then real real serious in a hurry that's a whole another you know pageant pageant Zilla uh but uh and look though you're on there's some fake southern people too I mean you know it's not all butterflies and rainbows uh with some some of the Southern Charm a Char and you know like can be a little other the thought but I you know I relate well to people I feel like people relate to me once they get to know me I mean I think yeah some of the things that can happen when you build a brand and you're doing things and you're out there you can seem we can all come off more unapproachable maybe than we are but I think when people you know come hang around myself or other people from the South I think a lot of that stuff gets disarmed pretty quickly once they really you know get underneath the hood well let's let's transition into to personal brand you mentioned it a couple of times what how do you define your personal brand when did you start developing it I mean your personal brand is your reputation and it's your digital reputation it's what you're known for and social media has afforded this ability of amplification and reach and frequency to use media terms how many people see you how many times and you know when we lived in a world of mass media was the only way to be you know you had to be on TV you had to be a TV star uh you know 15 years ago 18 years ago time starting to all fly together Chris but uh you know and now with social media you know we have this ability to amplify and to be known and to share our credibility and so my is built around you know marketing and being a father and being a a husband and you know so there's a personal level and a business level and I try to share both um I try to you know be authentic in my opinions which I am and but I'm also you know going to show you I don't show you every crevice and every you know corner of my life but I there's nothing really hidden it's it's all kind of there and I'm not afraid to put it out there because I'm not perfect I make mistakes my wife would tell you all about them but but but I'm but I want to leave a legacy and I want to help as many people as I can learn from what I've learned and if I can have an impact on someone I'd rather risk being embarrassed to make an impact and leave a legacy so it's like if the price of personal and professional embarrassment is the price you pay to make an impact in the world you're you're happy to pay it yes and I think that's a lot of people get stuck and don't do quote unquote personal branding because you know that fear of judgment I I I have a real blind spot with being judged like I don't I don't give a [ __ ] I mean I I I I care don't get wrong I mean we all look in the mirror we're all human we all have blood like I'll give like I'll be like damn like that was stupid or I wonder I tell what people thought about that but I think about it for like half a second you know like I'll go you know and I just move on I was born without a rearview mirror it lives it works it's great for a lot of things I'll admit it it's difficult with others I I have to for I have to be more empathetic because most people don't have that Gene but it's enabled me I think to press forward because I'm just always facing you know like straight ahead what do you attribute that to this ability to kind of set your own Direction know what your compass your true north is is something in your childhood the way you're raised a community a mentor or something how how is that you're able to have that kind of healthy mindset Steve and Mary Linda that's my parents you know they were there they gave me what I needed they gave me some of what I wanted but they didn't try to to force me to do anything other than guide me WS healthy behaviors and you know I think some parents today and some of my friends you know had heavy-handed parents that were just too heavy-handed and my parents had a real deaf Touch of no you know they were at every game they gave me you know put the opportunities in front of me my dad would say Hey Dad I mean he would be direct with me he was a military guy he was in the Air Force so it wasn't like I grew up with you know some an easy you know time of it per se but they they had their own lives my parents had their own lives my dad played in a band this whole my whole life and they they didn't try to make my life theirs but they guided me towards the right things and course corrected me when needed but they let me develop my own talents and skills and never over judged me when it went off the rails that does sound like a pretty good recipe yeah and that's what I'm trying to do with my kids like I've got four boys and you know trying to do the same thing it's a it's a delicate balance because you you know trying to guide and say you do these things and knowing when they have a skill and then they don't necessarily want to work hard enough for it you know and I won't tolerate that they don't want to work hard for it but I will allow them to make decisions if it's based on you know something that really makes sense and sometimes it's hard to know that exact moment it's why I respect my parents more now you know than you know having that and they weren't perfect either but it's a it's a really difficult balance but I think if it's guided in the right premise and the right I'm not going to live my life through them yeah I think that's the mistake a lot of parents make that I think it was some Yogi that I heard say this it's like your children's lives are for them to live stop trying to punish them for the mistakes you've made because we're trying to now Rectify that like you didn't take piano lessons well now you have the kids doing piano uh you didn't go to graduate school now it's their thing it's like you're trying to correct for those mistakes and my my feeling and it seems like it's your parents and yours as well is you got your shot let them have their shot whatever they want to do let them do their thing and it's a dance for sure between too much discipline and in control versus complete freedom and autonomy because that could lead to chaos to yeah and and you're you're constantly pushing and pooling sometimes okay we got to ease up on the control part and the discipline because this person's got it and they need to let loose a little bit versus one who's like a free spirit but like a little discipline could really help you get to where you want to be it's personalized for sure yes it is and it's isn't it wild that same parent same DNA same gene pool same environment for different human beings completely totally 100% totally that goes against nurture and nature it's like it's the same nature same nurture but they're just going to be who they're going to be that's right we're running out of time I want to ask you this and you might need a minute or two to think about it but I want to get Ryan's three rules for living a good life since we're talking about raising people but the things you've learned reflected on if I want to live a good life and you could Define it any which way you want success happiness good relationships whatever you want three rules number one our only finite resource is time we can always make more money we can always meet more people we can always do more things but we can't make any more time time or money and money were time we'd all have the same amount but we don't because we don't know so time is limited so I I will respect you you but you don't I don't let anyone control my time my whole and my drive and what I do and why I do it is because I value my time and I think if you recognize that it'll change your life when you really put wrap your head around it doesn't mean that you'll never work for someone else by the way it it's not it's not meant to be like the entrepreneurs code you know it's more okay time is fleeting time is limited and you need to recognize that a lot of people don't and so that's a big one um and so look I'm Guided by Freedom you know like people say well man you must you've done pretty well like I saw you in that car and all that and like yeah I got nice things uh but it I'm Guided by wanting to control my time I the more money I make the more freedom I have not the more things I can buy you know and so I think that's a big one I lived my whole 20s and early 30s around being very selfish individual a very self-centered person that I didn't rely on a lot of other people like I just trailblazed you know and at a certain time it it flipped on me and realized that the more you give the more you get and that has never been and you know some of these things become very cliche you see everybody posting quotes on them but when you live 46 years like I have you start to experience these things and you start to gain wisdom and there's a lot of Truth to that notion and it will pay itself uh Pay It Forward baby last one last one family is everything you know like I'm talking about like your most intermediate family you know like you know there's cousins and all those things there and those are great aunts and uncles all that's fine but you know you're you're blessed with one family and if you nurture that and protect that and guide that um that's another resource that can't be replaced and I have probably as much empathy for people that don't have close family than I do anything else I mean I know a lot of really wealthy people that have no family and they're really [ __ ] lonely and it's sad and if you um you need to appreciate that I don't think enough people do so it sounds to me like they're financially wealthy but probably emotionally bankrupt yeah 100% because they're not sharing it with anyone else right that's the thing that you that's the thing at the end of the day like you know when all these things you get wrapped up in like the ciche like you know like it did it mean anything if were you truly happy if you didn't share it with somebody else I heard a uh I think it was a podcast on this I think it was on Radio Lab and it says there's this notion and it's a popular idea that money can't buy happiness go well we conducted a science experiment that says the opposite money can buy happiness but it's not what you think it's when you actually give the money away to some other people to help them out whether you know them or not it doesn't matter so it's like when when you are giving five bucks and you spend it you it's diminishing return every time you spend that it gets you get a little less Joy each time when you buy enough cars whatever it is that you want to buy your Indulgence not as joyful but when you give it to other people just the act of giving is such a wonderful feeling so you talked about like you're a driven person you talked about at least in your bio going from from zero to eight figures in four years and all of that was to do two things for you as far as I could tell right now number one to buy back your time to have the freedom to choose to do what you want when you want with who you want and number two is to be able to use that money to help and support and and love on the people that you care the most about your your immediate family or those that you want to Aid in this life is there another reason or those two pretty good reasons that's 100% it like and you know if you ask my friends and if I died tomorrow I know what they would say I have all I'm very generous and I always pick up the tab secretly like I I'm that guy because not because I'm trying to brag or show off is because I take great joy in being able to do that and it mean very little to my bottom line but make someone else's day and you know like and so it's it's exactly that and things with family too like you know nothing brings more joy than you know being able to take your family where you want to go and get away when you need to do it and do those things and it's but it still it still comes back to those fundamental things of you know like freedom and and choice the choice and ability to do that it's a privilege I'm GNA ask you before we go one serious question and one not serious question at all okay I think you mentioned you're 48 I'm 51 by the way so I'm going to ask you this question question you're on an airplane you're traveling for business and the the the captain makes an announcement you're not going to make it this plane's going down what are your last thoughts before you you die I think if I've got everything in in in the order that I had intended and I I'd like to think that at this stage I'm close to that uh if not there you know I'm probably thinking that this would make a radical story and and that you know what I'd rather that than than I died on my deathbed and suffered you know over six months with terminal cancer like yeah that sounds pretty [ __ ] radical I laugh not because we're talking about such a morbid thing but I feel like the marketer like I still got one more story to tell this is the last yeah I mean it feels like a good story to me I mean look I'm not be sitting there praying and like you doing things that were actually doing but I think in the back of my head I'm I would have some semblance of this is the way it was supposed to go out yeah you lived a good life you did what you could in the time you had your house is in order and you can go you can go down with peace yeah I mean I don't be wrong I mean I'm sure you're scared is all get out and it's right there's a lot of fear but I mean I don't know I feel like I'd have a wink of cynicism that this was kind of how it was meant to be very good last question for you the not so serious question is and I just want you to say whatever is on the top of your mind don't overthink this one what's a guilty pleasure you have that you're not afraid to admit oh I have several I mean you're gonna say I'm a Swifty no like that I'm a country music guy that's not really guilty pleasure anymore that's pop music these days I mean I energy drinks and Bud Light next what's your favorite energy drink uh one that is in a can you don't care I don't care like you know if it's got caffeine in it I'll drink it I'm not going to drink coffee so uh energy drinks and uh you know I I've been known to drink one to 20 budlike necks they're the only carb-free beer and you know right even with their little snafu and everybody not liking Bud Light for a little while uh they're the only one makes the total carb free beer and so if I'm gonna have 15 of them on the lake on a Saturday it's gonna be those because you know I got to keep this girlish figure in order all six you don't want to be big but it's true uh and I get [ __ ] from it from everybody in my Lake uh we have a house boat on at the lake and everybody gives me crap because I'm luring these budlike necks and but there you have it wonderful well it's been a real pleasure talking to you Ryan I've been spending the last hour talking to Ryan he's the host of the number one marketing business podcast on iTunes called the rad cast he also has an agency called radical um running an eight figure business um how do people get in touch with you if they want to follow up with you yeah I'm at Ryan Alford uh r y n a l f o r d on all the social media platforms you'll see the check next to my name on Tik Tock Twitter Instagram I had it before you could buy it nice well done well done OG there all right well take care thank you very much thanks Chris enjoyed it

Channel: The Futur

Views: 7,395

Keywords: the futur, chris do, how to start a podcast, how to get more listeners on your podcast, podcasting, podcast audience growth, get more podcast downloads, get more podcast listeners, grow your podcast audience, how to grow my podcast audience, podcast marketing, how to grow your podcast, content creation, think media, podcast monetization, why podcast fails, tips for podcast, How to start a podcast 2023

Id: vZPW0sdulo4

Length: 57min 59sec (3479 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2023