Latest / Brands, Beats & Bytes / Album 4 Track 18 - Life Lessons Make Great Stories w/Brandon T. Adams

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Album 4 Track 18 - Life Lessons Make Great Stories w/Brandon T. Adams · Brands, Beats & Bytes

• DC: Brand Nerds. You know, we back in here with you. You know, we back in here with you Brand Nerds, with another podcast of brands, Beats, and Bytes and LT, uh, I get excited with all of our guests, but I get particularly excited, maybe even giddy, when we are dealing with um, uh, an entrepreneur who, as I have described before, is willing to push their chips in the middle of the table and be on themselves. We have such a person in the building today, and then the second reason why I'm really excited today is LT, you know, my love for media and entertainment. And every few years or so in the marketing function, there are these words that come out and then everybody talks about their words like branded entertainment, right? And storytelling, right? So these words come out, but rarely are you in the presence of a true savant at the art of storytelling. And today, Brand Nerds. We might just have such a person in the building. LT, speak on it, please. LT: Yes, sir. DC We have Brandon T. Adams in the house today. Welcome, Brandon. Brandon T. Adams: Hey, how's it going, guys? Excited to be on. LT: Yeah, so, okay, D, you set it up perfectly and our constant quest to share with our Brand Nerds. All different aspects of marketing and paths to marketing Brandon is incredibly accomplished and has done it really in his own entrepreneurial way. So let's break it down for the Brand Nerds. So for college Brandon attends Iowa State University, where he earns a degree in business management and entrepreneurial studies. And that's key here, D. DC: Mm-hmm. LT: So, Right. So D uh, Brandon's, that's, you can see the, the path through of entrepreneurialism from actually before Brandon even went to college. DC: Hmm. LT: Because, Yeah. This is, this is really cool. His, uh, his business career in entrepreneurial bug started way before college where he grows up in his dad's package ice distribution company called None other than Adam's Ice Service. Doing everything necessary from managing accounts to driving the delivery truck and a whole lot more. So two years out of college, Brandon buys out his dad and soon after, on a very hot summer day, as his bottled cold beverage got warm and regular ice just wasn't doing the trick, he invents something called Arctic Stick designed to keep bottled cold beverages cold. So after lots of sweat and a hundred, Yeah, isn't that cool? Lots of of sweat goes into this, uh, pardon the pun, back to the Arctic Stick and a hundred grand of his own seed money. He obtains a patent and eventually gets it selling and, uh, selling on Amazon amongst, among many other places. So alright, D, with Brandon's entrepreneurial bit he does his first Kickstarter campaign in 2015 where he quickly learned so much, he realizes there's a business in helping others with crowdfunding, and he starts Keys to the Crowd, which he soon changes his name to Accelerate Media. Accelerate Media Group helps raise millions of dollars for other companies and helps them build their brand and influence online. Brandon and his team at Accelerate Media Group work with high profile clients such as Kevin Harrington, John Lee Dumas, Xprise, Think Rich Films, Ambitious Ventures, TV show, and others on successful crowdfunding campaigns, branding, PR, and digital marketing. So it's funny how our careers take different turns. DC: Mm-hmm. LT: A TV producer went to branding for help on crowdfunding and new TV show, and he helps raise the money for this show called Ambitious Adventures, which I mentioned earlier. DC: Mm-hmm. LT: which Brandon also serves as one of the executive producers. So with this experience, Brandon is now at the epicenter of crowdfunding and tv, and Brandon soon uses crowdfunding for a TV show he does with his wife called Success in Your City. Well, there have been tough times here too. At some point, Brandon said, and he uses this as a mantra. I realize this is a quote. "I realize I could achieve anything I set my mind to if I really wanted it. And that changed everything for me." So here's some other highlights. He's a two time Emmy Award winner. That's where you were going with the savant the content savant. D. DC: Mm-hmm. LT: He's collaboratively raised over 60 million for multiple companies. He's an advisor for 20 plus companies with four of those companies having the evaluations of more than a hundred million dollars. He's co-founder of Rise and Record, an annual event around sharing your story and using video marketing to grow your business. He's produced more than 500 episodes for his multiple podcasts, including the Brandon T. Adams Audio Experience. Mm-hmm. He's co-founded Young Entrepreneur Convention, which has the largest one day elevator pitch competition in the in the country. He's author of The Road to Success, How to Achieve Success in Business, Life and Love, and he's helped raise over 200 grand for various charities and nonprofits. In closing Brand Nerds, we have a high flying marketing entrepreneur in the house today. Welcome to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, Brandon T. Adams. Brandon T. Adams: Wow, that was a lot. I just went down memory lane there. That's, uh, bringing back all kinds of memories and stories and experiences. It's, it. Thank you. LT: You did it. That's what I like to say. These are your flowers, Brandon, and I know you've, you, you do this a lot with speaking engagements and whatnot. I'm sure you're introduced in many ways, but look, you, you've earned all of that, so it's really cool. Love the giving you flowers there. DC: Yeah, brother. Brandon T. Adams: I appreciate him. DC: Yeah, Let, Larry does this like none other, but he's only as good as the material, bro. And you know that from the work you're in. Yep. Be as good as the material. All right. All right, Brandon, we're in our Get Comfy section and I was gonna go on one direction, but after listening more to your your journey, I'm gonna, I'm a go left for a minute. Brandon T. Adams: I like it. DC: I'm a, I'm gonna go left for a minute now. There are many folks who have been entrepreneurs. There are many people who have, uh, who have done content and marketing. Uh, there are many people who have, uh, who have, uh, secured money, um, angel investments, series A, series B, et cetera. There are many people that have done that. But it starts to narrow as you go up this pyramid of different things that I mentioned. But one area I am absolutely certain that only a few people in the world have ever had as an experience, and that is working for their father. Yeah. And buying their father's business. Now that has got to be like some, some 0.0, 0 0 1. That's true. The population. So, so Brandon, what was that like? Brandon T. Adams: Yeah, it's, and full disclaimer, like I bought it. That's the thing. Like I, I bought it with my, LT: That was your, probably your folks' retirement, right? Brandon? Yeah. There was no one. Brandon T. Adams: Yeah, it was, it wasn't because I, that was one thing growing up because I never wanted something be like, Oh, that was given to you. Or transition, because I worked for every fricking thing I did. Yep. And, and so that was, uh, you know, it was a great experience. Think about this. You know, you look at subconscious, you put things in your mind, what you want, your desires. When I was a kid DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: when I was in kindergarten, if you guys remember, like in kindergarten, they said, draw a picture of what you wanted to be when you grew up. DC: Oh yeah. Yeah. Brandon T. Adams: And I drew a picture of an ice truck, a picture of two stick figures, because my art is shit. Two stick figures and me with my father with ice bags in front of us. And it was, I wanted to be in business my father one day and eventually took over the ice business. DC: Wow. Brandon T. Adams: And so that was always my thing. That I wanted to do. I've always been an entrepreneur, but I knew when I wanted to take it over because when I was probably four years old, five, I was in the ice truck of my dad working. Right. I remember guys working for five, $10 a day, $20 a day to $5 an hour, and eventually 15, $20 an hour. And eventually, like obviously I made, when the money made, the business made money. Yeah. But I started from the ground up and it was so cool to see that become a reality because he started the business in 1986. DC: Mm. Brandon T. Adams: 1989 I was born. Wow. And then, I mean, I, the business was over 30 years, uh, around, So it was, it was definitely a great experience. A lot of learning. My dad, I'll tell you this, it made me realize what I wanted to do. And didn't wanna do for the rest of my life. Starting out, I thought I'd be in the ice business for the rest of my life. Yeah. But then once I got introduced to bigger, like just expanded my mind. Really. The book Thinking Rich by Napoleon Hill is a book that I read and completely opened up. Yeah. Like you said, the quote, when I realized I could achieve anything I set my mind to. That changed how I looked at everything and so then I started expanding. That's where I invented the Arctic Stick, but I thought there's more I can do beyond using my back and hard labor. DC: Yeah. Brandon T. Adams: Because I didn't mind doing that. But I remember my dad said to me early on, he said, Son, use your head, not your back. He had two herniated discs. Wow. His back hurt. Manual labor. And he just said, use your head, not you're back. And I learned to use my head, but also my mouth to communicate in a way to be able to negotiate and, and speak and, and close some of the biggest deals in history because I, I took my dad's advice years ago. LT: Wow. That's awesome. DC: All right, Lt, I got a couple things on this brother. I got things first. Brandon, is your father still with us? Brandon T. Adams: He is. DC: Okay. Brandon T. Adams: It will be a very sad day when he goes, because he is my best, one of my best friends. DC: What's his name? Brandon T. Adams: Randy. DC: Randy. Okay. So we're gonna shout Randy out right now. So, Randy, you, LT: Randy Adam, this one time? DC: Yeah. We, we we're giving you your respect right now for what you've done to, uh, to raise this one. Brandon T. Adams: Thank you, Randy. DC: Some others. All right. Couple things. Now, have you listened to the, uh, the Will audio book? Will Smith Audio? Brandon T. Adams: It's so funny that you say this because I was listening, listening to it two weeks ago on the airplane because somebody told me he was in the ice. His dad helped him bag ice. DC: Bingo. Yeah. Bingo. All right, so Brand Nerds... Brandon T. Adams: Who would have thought? DC: Yeah. So Brand Nerds. I've listened to this book, you've heard me talk about it, and later on in, in a, in a different podcast, we'll get into to the whole Chris Rock thing, but not now. We just talking about Will Smith as a child. So those of you all who have not listened to it, I highly encourage you to listen to it. The beginning story in the entire book, he goes through Will, he is, talks about his father. His father owns a ice business and Will learns the discipline that he employed to become the arguably the biggest actor of all time in Hollywood with eight number ones and, and et cetera. And so the fact that you, Brandon, Wow. Had a father in that, I'm like, Wow, okay. That's the first thing. Brandon T. Adams: Crazy. DC: The second, the second thing, uh, Brandon, is this, take me back to the moment where you sat in front or stood in front of your father and said to him, Dad, I want to buy your business. LT: Great question. Brandon T. Adams: You know, this is gonna give me an answer that you probably wouldn't expect. I had said it for years. Oh, but the, the, the second, this is what happened. Um, thi this is what sacrifice is. So I graduated from Iowa State University in 2012. Mm. And after I graduated, I went in business, moved back to my small town. Six, seven months into, worked with my father. The company that we bought our ice from. So Arctic Glacier Ice was, they're like the biggest in the country, right? Um, one of the biggest in the world. LT: That's bagged ice, right? Just Brandon. Just for the Brand Nerds, bagged ice bag. You go to the grocery store, you buy bag ice, Buy a bag ice. That's one of the main, that's like I think the main brand, right? Arctic Glacier. Right. Brandon T. Adams: One of the, the main brands out there and they manufacture it. So we bought it from the manufacturer and we distributed it. LT: Got it. Brandon T. Adams: Well, there was opportunity to be a, a manager of a lo, like three different locations. We had one, three and it came up and they asked me, and I always said, I'll never work for anybody. But I thought to myself, there was two reasons why I thought this could be an opportunity. For one, I never thought I'd ever wanna work for anybody. LT: Yeah. Brandon T. Adams: But I could still be working in the ice business with my father. Two, I would have more knowledge and experience working at a higher level. And I also, in the back of my mind, I had just invented that product. I wanted a, a straight gateway distribution to their whole line. And so I took the job and this, this story comes full circle here. Took the job, worked my ass off. I was working so much and I got, I knew I wanted to get the position to be the best in that industry within 12 months. And so what I did is I went from managing three locations to overseen with another guy where I manage eight locations. I'm 22 years old, managing, overseeing 50 employees, eight facilities, dozens of trucks. Uh, he was, uh, whole state Iowa and three other states surrounding, and I basically this kid who had approved everybody that like, hey, like I know my shit. DC: Yeah. Brandon T. Adams: And so I did this working a hundred hour weeks and this is where it came to buy the business for my dad. I was working so much, no joke. The summer of 2013, I actually almost The ambulance came for me because I was working so much. I had a complete nervous to breakdown on the side of the road. The I, my whole body locked up and ambulance came and it was insane. And this is how messed up I was. I that they took me into the ambulance and they were trying to take me to the hospital, but I didn't wanna go to the hospital because I didn't wanna deal with the bullshit. Yeah. And so I convinced my worker say, tell them that he was gonna take me to the hospital. Well, we got into the truck and I said, I'm not going to the hospital. I'm going back to work. So I went back to work and I worked until midnight that night. And while sitting there late at night, I realized I am very lonely. I have no friends anymore. And I'm working nonstop. A week later, my dad, I was like falling asleep with him, like having a conversation. I was so tired. Mm-hmm. He said, you're gonna leave this, that job and you're gonna buy the business from me and take it over. And that was the conversation. It had me hit literally rock bottom. To get to the point where he said, You're buying it from me. You're taking over. I'm not gonna, And, and so that was a conversation. And, and within, uh, six months I bought the business from him. DC: What a story. What a story, Brandon. Lots of stuff in that. Lots of stuff in that, Yeah. Uh, not the least of which is the love of a father to a son. A love of a parent to a child, man. That's, that's dope. LT: So the company is Specificity mm-hmm . And as you alluded to, this is our first ad and we are really excited about it, especially since, and this is really important for you to hear Brand Nerds. We can vouch for this advertiser first hand. So Brand Nerds, if you want to optimize your digital marketing to maximize results, we have the solution for you. Last November. An interesting thing happened that forever changed the landscape of digital marketing. Apple's iOS update was structured to provide users the opportunity to opt out of ads and more than 90% of users opted. The Android devices quickly followed suit with similar numbers on the optout. So this situation created complete upheaval for the entire digital marketing infrastructure with engagement rates, following precipitously. Now, you know why you may live in a downtown San Francisco high rise or D in your case, Midtown, Atlanta, condo, and you're all of a sudden getting digital ads for lawn. That's just simply money down the drain. So with this issue, here's where Specificity comes into save the day. Specificity does not track or know user's personal data, such as name, social security number, et cetera. Specificity uses device ID numbers, similar to a VIN number on a car. So they track what users are doing without knowing their personal identifiable information. So their system works wonderfully post privacy update. This enables consumers to see ads that are relevant to them and advertisers to serve ads to people that are actually receptive to the message. Let's give a real life example. If our friends at Beyond Meat wanted to use specificity, they can serve ads to consumers who are vegans, vegetarians, and or those who may be interested in a meat alternative without wasting any of their precious ad spend on the significant group out there that are carnivores without any interest in trying a meat alternative. Like my wife, Sherry, who wants no part of it. So this would enable Beyond Meat to be incredibly efficient and only taking their message to only those who care and doing it in a way that totally respects consumers privacy, since they do not know any personal information. The bottom line is in 2022, we believe no one else out there can deliver better digital marketing results than Specificity. We have introduced Specificity to many clients and everyone we've introduced them to is super happy since each client has been more successful with the digital marketing efforts than they were before. So for more information on Specificity, please visit their website at specificityinc.com, again, specificityinc.com. That's S P E C I F I C I T Y I N C .com. Their website is also in our show notes. If you want to improve your digital marketing results, go check them out. DC: All right, LT, I'm, I'm ready to roll to the next one unless you got anything, follow up on that all. Hey, Brandon. Uh oh. We Brand Nerds. We're off to a sublime start here. Sublime start. All right. I was gonna mess with you a little bit, uh, Brandon on the Brandon T. Adams Experience, and ask if you've been hanging out with Joe Rogan, But I, I, I'm gonna leave that one alone. All right. Here we go. Uh, five questions. This next segment, I hit you with one. Larry hit you with one. We go back and forth until we arrive at five. And, uh, shout, Uh, Aaron Judge. Jeff and Jade don't like us to date our podcast, but shout Aaron Judge, yesterday hit 61. Yeah. So I'm in the batters box. First Brandon, first branding experience for you, brother, where when you were engaged in it, it, the, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up, you were like, Ooh, I love this thing, whatever it is, whatever the brand is your first time feeling like that enthralled,. What was that for you about a brand? Brandon T. Adams: You know, my own brands? Somebody else's? DC: No, no, no. Whatever brand that was for you when you were a kid that you just fell in love with. Brandon T. Adams: I'll tell you Apple. DC: Ah, yeah. Brandon T. Adams: Apple. I listened to the 23 hour audio book of Steve Jobs. Mm-hmm. , and it was when I was starting my career and I saw what he did to push people beyond what they thought was possible. He had a term for it, but like they, they would say when they're around Steve, people thought they're invincible, they could do anything. And he really instilled the belief in confidence in them that they could achieve anything. And so that, that, I really resonated with that. Mm-hmm. Yes, I do have business partners who knew him and they say he was an asshole, but yeah, the guy definitely got shit done. He, he executed. But the thing about Apple was how they communicated their brand and messaging. Think about the one ad they did during the Super Bowl or looked like it broke the TV. Like Yep, yep. That or anything else. He was communicating in such a way where he told us such a powerful story about a product. It made you feel like Apple would make your life better. It would allow you to achieve your dreams. It would allow you to achieve. It was just a part of it. And so I am sold, everything I have is Apple and I believe, and it's a brand. I mean, the products are great. I don't who would want Android anyways. Like come on, be real . LT: But we're all Apple too Brandon, we're we're in lock step. Brandon T. Adams: All it was Apple. Yeah. But Apple, Apple is, is I just how they communicated that message and how it made your life better and the inspiration behind it. I mean, one other thing too, I saw an ad, um, the other day, a video where it was showing him talking about how they would take the keyboard away and it'd be the touch. And he said, Who wants to stylist? Who wants his pen? He's like, We're gonna give you the most powerful device to be able to move things. And it's your finger. Using your finger. And it's like communicated. That was so genius. And so Apple was one of the greatest, like branding, I mean one of the greatest brands of all time in my mind. LT: Love it. DC: We, concur. LT: D, do you have a follow up? DC: I do not, brother. LT: I do. I have a couple quick things. Totally. So one is, um, uh, Brandon, as I mentioned, I, I live in Northern California. I'm in Silicon Valley, and uh, I had a good friend and neighbor who worked at Apple. And you know, a lot of people, and this is back when Steve Jobs was still alive, rest in power, and a lot of people, uh, quite honestly worked at Apple, were scared of the bump into Steve because if you bumped into him, no matter who you were, he was asking questions. Yes. Oh, he was asking questions. So one day this, this friend of mine bumped into em and so they were in the elevator and he asked the questions, and you better, you better be prepared to answer his questions. And if you answered his questions though, great. It was wonderful. It's when he saw that there wasn't a light going on, that there were problems. DC: Mm-hmm. LT: So, um, that's one quick anecdote on a personal level. The second one, D is I love, Brandon has used Apple. We probably, when we ask this question, I think we've had more than a hundred episodes. Knock on wood, Brandon, we've prob I bet you Apple is the, is the one that the most people have said. DC: I bet you're right. LT: Right? And, and that says something that we have so many accomplished marketers like you, Brandon, on here who, who really use Apple. And it's for the right reasons. We use it quite candidly, Brandon, in our brand workshops of a juxtaposition of how one does a great job of emotionally connecting with target audience. And you almost verbatim used, you know, with the, Brandon T. Adams: That's funny, LT: The finger, you know, that they, they started using really, uh, going back to the original iPad. So, uh, it's really special and I love the way that you conjured it up because they actually at the highest level connecting emotionally. They make all of us Apple folks feel like our lives are better. So it's a wonderful thing. Brandon T. Adams: A hundred percent. DC: Just quickly on this before you go to the next question, uh, I, I think you're right about Apple being mentioned the most, what I, uh, what I find unique about Brandon's take is he talked about the brand and the man, the brand and the man. Yeah. And when you were, you were talking about a phrase that they use in this book, uh, Brandon, I think it's RDF, Reality Distortion Field. Brandon T. Adams: That's exactly what it is. DC: Yep. That's what, that's what they called it. Okay. Brandon T. Adams: Reality Distortion Field. DC: Yep. Cool. All right, Larry. LT: And that was a great book. I read, I read the book. You guys were one of the best Brandon T. Adams: One, one comment on that. This, this shows you and we'll talk about later, like the power of a story. Like he communicated great brand for Apple itself and got kicked out of his own company for a while and then he came back. LT: Yep. Brandon T. Adams: But for me, I think the real reason why I initially bought into Apple, Was because I believed in him and what he had to do when nobody thought he could do something, he achieved it. And so that story resonated with me as an individual and entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. . And that was the core reason. His story is why I bought. Yeah. And then eventually the brand is like, what? So that's the power of like somebody's story. People will buy from that. LT: Yeah. That's great. And that's a great segue to question two D. Yes. So who is had or is having the most influence on your career? Brandon T. Adams: Yeah, the Kevin Harrington is definitely, um, I say this in every show. I mean, my father obviously to start, uh, Kevin Harrington would be the next one. Uh, because there's multiple reasons. Yeah. It helps. Like his name is original Shark and Shark Tank. He's taken many companies to huge exits, created the infomercial, but it is, I've been around him so much. I've done trips with him around the world. Spent time with him. And once you're with somebody that much, you just know them and how they, and sometimes not even what he says to you, but how he does things. You, you just witness and experience. And it has allowed me to think at the highest level exponentially is helped me understand the power of a fair deal, the power of a great partnership, the power of JV partners and, and influential deals. The power of taking companies to the next level. Mm-hmm. And so that influence has helped me exponentially grow the amount of money I make, uh, has helped me think differently in how I structure partnerships. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: and it has made me who I am today. I mean, it really has, it's, uh, he's been the biggest, one of the biggest influence beyond my father in my life for what I do. LT: That's great. I d I'm struck with some, one thing that the, the macro's great, but I'm struck with one little thing that you said that I'd love for you to expound upon. Is the art of a fair deal, I think is what you said. Mm-hmm. Right Brandon. And I think that's interesting because I think there's too many folks who feel like that they have to get over on deals. And I, and I love that Kevin has that philosophy because the best deals are truly win-win. So if you can talk on that, I love, Brandon T. Adams: There's a reason why it's so successful and there's a reason why I'm successful in what I do. Mm-hmm. is because I understood the power of a fair deal. And this goes way back. He actually read Thinking Rich when he was young too. We both read the book a long time ago. And if you do a deal that one side gets, feels like all they got the other person, the lifelong value that deal is, is not good. LT: Yep. Brandon T. Adams: Because one party eventually is gonna feel that the deal won't work and then there's no other future deals from that relationship, from referrals or anything else. Mm-hmm. . When you treat people good and you both sides are happy with the deal, here's what happens. The deal becomes very successful. Whatever they're going after is gonna have the best chance of success. Yep. But also, those people are gonna be more motivated to bring opportunity. One of the things I'll never forget is when I bring a deal to somebody, or let's say him, I'm getting taken care of or vice versa. One thing I do and the reason why I've been able to do the things I do is because the people around me that have helped me, I make sure they're taken care of and I treat like we're going to battle and I got their back. When you do that, you're gonna have a lot of success in life. The people that try to cut the corners or try to screw somebody over or anything, that will catch up with them and their reputation will, will take over. And so that's, that's so important for anything, a fair deal for all sides. LT: We violently agree. I'm, and I'm, and you spoke to that so eloquently. Um, that's, that's really an important point to make because I think too often people feel like they have to get over and, uh, and I, you know what underlying what you were just saying is if you do, if somebody does get over on another person, there's no trust. So to your point, of course there's no, there's no future value because the trust has been broken. But if you have a fair deal, you're building on trust and you know everybody's being taken care of. And that's exponentially great for all. Brandon T. Adams: A hundred percent. DC: If, if you don't do that also just pragmatically, there's no second. LT: That's right's. Brandon T. Adams: Exactly. DC: Don't, there's second deal. If you, if, if you, if you screw somebody on the first one, if it's not fair, I should say, why would they do a second deal with you? So there's that, there's that. Brandon T. Adams: People get greedy and it doesn't work out well for 'em. LT: Yep. DC: All right. Larry, anymore before I go to the next question, brother? Nope. All right. Brandon, I appreciated the story you mentioned about taking a job that you hadn't planned on taking, going from four, I think, I think it was, you said three or four that you were gonna manage. Three. Was it three? You were gonna manage? Brandon T. Adams: Three locations to eight. DC: And then you went to eight. Okay. And you're a kid. You're 22, you, you're 22 year old kid at this point. And then you talk about the fact that you had a nervous breakdown on the side of the road. Mm-hmm. , uh, Brandon, um, People don't talk about stuff like that. They, they want to tuck that away. In my family, we have a history of mental illness. I'm not suggesting you had any mental illness. Yeah, I'm saying we have it in our family and what I find is that when I talk about it with folks, it's far more common than I even knew before I started talking about it. So I just wanna applaud you for talking about that. Which leads me to the question. You're a young cat, you've had a lot of success. I don't wanna know about any of that. I wanna know about where you effed up your biggest singular wet danky, stinky, F-Up, okay. And it was because of you, Brandon, not because of what some other person did, some market conditions. You are the reason for the F up. What was it for you? Brandon T. Adams: You know, I look at any f. It all comes back to you, all back to me. Um, even if it really isn't quite really me, it's me because how could I, I take accountability for anything that I do or anything that happens with under my supervision because it is my responsibility. And the first one, I'll, I'll go back to when I was 22. I'm 32 now. So that was a decade ago. Um, July 19th, 2013, uh, where I had the, the side of the road thought I was gonna die. DC: Oh, you, you remember the date? Okay. Brandon T. Adams: Oh yeah. I don't forget that shit. So that, that happened. And I'll never forget because what happened is I give very specific, I'm driving down the road, I had a stick, um, truck shifting gears. No AC. I had three hours of sleep the night before. I was like running on fumes and I had like five calls back to back. Nothing was going right. One of the calls is one of my drivers just hit a building and I'm like, trying to figure out what I'm gonna do. And, and then I felt like, I was, like, my vision was unclear and I felt something was wrong. So I pulled over and as soon as I pulled over and put a park, my whole body shut down. So what happened is my body locked up, my hands went like this, and I couldn't, I couldn't do anything. I started screaming. Wow. And so I had a ear piece in my head. I'm by myself. Yeah. Man, this is crazy because I, I remember my secretary had called me as soon as it happened, and I'm screaming on the phone and she, I first said like, just talk to me. Talk to me. And so I talked to her and, and I, I got so bad that I thought I was gonna like be done, like, Oh wow. Like, you know, it's kind of, I've seen things and I'm like, Wow. In my mind I feel like I'm gonna die. I almost passed out. Yep, Yep. My heart was going like crazy. And, and, and so I told her on the line that tell my father that I love. I remember it because I, in my mind, thought I was gonna die and say, tell my dad, please tell my dad I love him. And, and so the ambulance came, they found me. 15 minutes later, they pulled me out of the truck. They put me in the ambulance. And that's when my, I realized how fucked up I was, because I said I basically went back to work that night. Mm-hmm. , but here's my mess up. I was trying to do everything myself. I was 22 and I didn't understand the real power of delegation. Mm-hmm. and realizing that, yeah, maybe I can do it all, that's myself, and nobody can do it like me. But that doesn't allow you to scale, And so I worked myself. My dad said, He, you're gonna work yourself into the grave and be the richest man in the grave. He said, mm-hmm. . And so that was my lesson. I cannot do it all myself. I have to let go and let people take control and give them, I've learned to give people freedom to do things on their own and give them guidance and allow them to figure it out on theirselves, because if I don't, there's no way I can scale. And they gotta be very independent. They gotta be motivated, They have their own ideas, and I just gotta give 'em a little bit of guidance and direction to help them propel the ship forward versus me doing myself. That was one of my biggest f ups, um, that I learned at a young age. LT: Love this D. DC: Wow. Wow. And he, he and he got that lesson at 22. LT: Yeah. Right? Yeah. Brandon T. Adams: Yeah. LT: Wow. Be, before we go to the next question, d I just want to have you all, did you also learn, Brandon, you went back to work and all that? Did you realize like, not only, I love your your second level of, of delegation and whatnot, but do you also realize like, I just physically, mentally, emotionally can't do that shit anymore? Brandon T. Adams: Well, it, it made me realize that, I mean, I'm a, I was 22 year old kid. I, I'm in shape. I'm like, feel like I'm a machine. I realize I'm not a machine. LT: Right. Brandon T. Adams: And I realize that there is a point of, of me breaking and then made me realize like if I want to achieve something, I have to learn how to get other people to do work that I don't need to do. And be smarter. Not work harder. Work smarter still work hard, but in the right way. LT: Yeah. But you gotta take care of yourself too. That's where I'm going. Brandon T. Adams: You do. I I was sleeping four hours a night. Um, I was, uh, yeah. Life was not good for me at that things I was doing to my body. DC: Mm. I'm glad. I'm glad you're, uh, I'm glad you're with us, brother. LT: Yes, me too. Brandon T. Adams: Thank you. DC: Yeah. Cause you, Cause you could, you could not have been, You're welcome. LT: That's right. Not at that rate. DC: Yeah. You cannot, You could not have been. All right, Larry. LT: All right, Brandon. So regarding technology and marketing, with your great entrepreneurial background, you have a wonderful perspective on this. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech versus areas that they should be leery? Brandon T. Adams: Yeah. I mean, technology is here. It's not the future, it's the reality of us. Um, understanding how to leverage exponential growth of technology. I mean, I'll give you example. Uh, I'm a shareholder in a company called Vacodia. And I'll tell you what this technology does. It is a AI system that does outbound calls and the people don't even realize it's actual AI talking to them versus a human. DC: What? Brandon T. Adams: And it and it, and it does sales. And so think about that. How you could exponentially grow a business. You no longer have to take a human's needs or their emotions or anything in the picture. The script will always be right. And so that's one example. There's other technologies out there like Specificity Inc. that allows you to super target into a niche and, and marketing for be able to reach people and get better ROI. There's, I can name all kinds of companies that have technology that allows you to scale. If you're not leveraging technology to make better use of your time and your energy, you're losing out. Going back to that story; if I understood better how to utilize technology, I could save more my brain power and my energy to focus on things that only I can do and allows, allow technology to do other things I don't need to do. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: and so, that's, there's a million stories I could give here, but you have to leverage technology, especially in the marketing. You think about how you can hyper target into somebody, or you can do digital marketing campaigns or you can use these, these technology systems and LinkedIn or whatever it is. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: to be able to reach people exponentially through messages. Like, it just blows my mind thinking about it if you're not leveraging it. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: You are missing out. LT: Yes. Yes. Well said. And it's cool that you brought up Specificity. They're are our friends and partners too. We've done, we've introduced them to a lot of, Brandon T. Adams: Shout out to them. LT: Yep. Big shout out to, to Jason and Jerry and, and and Brit and all the gang, um, because they've, they've done wonders for our clients, um, in, in a great way, Brandon. Brandon T. Adams: Uh, so same for us. It's, it's crazy what the technology does and those, those are the kind of people I wanna work with. The people that are, not only are they good people doing things the highest level, but they have the, the cutting edge technology that allow people to live a better life, to have more success in their life, but also allow them more time to do what means the most to them. Spend time with family or whatever that may be. Yeah. LT: I will say D, before we go to the next question, that AI company sounds a little trippy to me, man, that sounds very big brotherish; but it probably works great. Brandon T. Adams: It's crazy. DC: Larry and Brandon. I'm sitting around here looking, look around and, and I had the same thought, Larry. Here's what I thought. Sometimes a product design for one thing can have another use. So baking soda was designed for food and for cleaning. All right? Right. Baking, like baking baking uh, baking powder rather. The other use is you can put it in your fridge, right? In order to, uh, eliminate any smells. No one knew it was gonna be used for the latter. It was created for the former. This this thing that you're talking about, Brandon, I could easily see it, It starting be for sales and then some dude's gonna be like, you know what? I need like 10 different options for dates tonight and go BOOM. Brandon T. Adams: I knew you were gonna say that. LT: I knew Where you going dude? DC: That's, I got three daughters. I don't want that Ai out there. Oh, all. Uh, final question of the five, Brandon, what are you most proud of, Brother? Brandon T. Adams: You know, I, from the film projects and shows we've done, I, I'm very obviously proud of them. I'm proud of, uh, married to my, my wife. Um, that's a huge achievement. You know, I think LT: What's your wife's name? Shout out to your wife. Brandon T. Adams: Samantha, Samantha is my wife's name. DC: Shout Samantha, one time. Brandon T. Adams: Yes. So to to Samantha. You know, I would say in terms of professional level, um, beyond, let's say personal of, of getting married, um, the other side is we created a, we created the show Success in Your City, a docu-series around the country. But then we went on to do a documentary on her life called Red Flags. And Red Flags is like, it sounds, it's what are the red flags in your life? And it's, it's sharing her story of how she overcome, um, drug addiction and, and left domestic, uh, violence, left the relationship and, and never looked back and then went on to achieve what she's achieved today. And we, we've won Emmy's together. We've wrote books, we've, we have our own event, we do together. And so that story is very inspiring to me. And, and so that's for one, being able to tell that story, but that story relates to so many people in the world. How many people are dealing with drug addiction? Yeah. How many people are dealing with domestic violence? How many people wanna live that, leave that relationship? Yeah. But they can't, They watch something like this and they, they see that and it helps them overcome it. It helps them achieve whatever they're trying to do. And so that's like the side of the, the creative side where we create something that makes impact. It's not about the money, it's about, it's actually helping people. That's, that's what I'm most proud of. LT: You should be proud of that. That's, that's amazing. Yeah. DC: Indeed, indeed. That's powerful brother. Brandon T. Adams: And in the, by beyond helping people, it did win a Emmy. So it's, it's definitely a, it's a powerful, The whole thing is, and it changed how I looked at things, how we do business, how we do life, um, storytelling, filmmaking, shows. Uh, there's a bigger purpose than just, hey, trying to get seen and, and create something really kind of changed my perspective on everything. LT: I can see why. That's really cool. Brandon T. Adams: Yeah. LT: Do you have anything else? Should we go to next segment? DC: I don't. What, what am I say after that? Except, respect. LT: That's, That's awesome stuff. Or Brandon. So Brandon, now we're onto the next segment called What's Popping? What's popping, D? DC: What's popping? LT: Hey Brandon, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air, something happening in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion. So I'm gonna lead us off. So check it out, Brand Nerds. Crowdfunding is popping. So in 2021, the global crowdfunding market was valued 13.64 billion US dollars and is forecasted double by 2028. So Brandon, you are immersed in this world. Can you tell us and our entrepreneurial Brand Nerds out there, your thoughts for what we should know about crowdfunding, both the positives and the potential traps. Brandon T. Adams: Leverage it, embrace it, use it to your advantage. Use it for good. Um, I saw the power of crowdfunding back in 2012, 13, and I leverage it for my own invention, but then I saw the opportunity to be, become the best in the field and I started be building a brand around the crowdfunding expert. LT: And that was new at the time, right? Brand. That was when it really was just coming at the being. Brandon T. Adams: It was new. I was, I was ahead of the curve, right? And I saw my opportunity to be ahead of the curve, right? And so I, I did some pretty massive campaigns and success and all that. And, but here's the thing. Crowdfunding relates to everything. Like there's so many crowdfunding campaigns and beyond a kickster.com Indiegogo or a Start Engine, Republic. The presidential election is a crowdfunding campaign. LT: Yep. Brandon T. Adams: The amount of money, whether it was Donald Trump or whoever it was, doesn't one the greatest, even Barack Obama back when he, Yeah. One of the greatest crowding campaigns in history. Oh, give $5, we'll give you a button. Give $10, give this. Hundred. That's one side. Raising money for causes, crowdfunding. Raising money for a company, whether you're traditional investors, everything I look at is crowdfunding. You're raising money from a crowd, you're getting money outta people's pockets, and you're putting it towards a cause. You put it towards a business, you put it towards whatever. So I took that crowdfunding perspective, and I apply that to every company I'm an investor advisor to. I apply it to anything I do for a film, a TV show. Mm-hmm. Because at the end of the day, you need the resources and money to be able to get something to happen. Mm-hmm. So if you can understand how to raise money, You can do anything. I story in this a throw off. I was sitting down with one of my friends, uh, last night. I've always talked about running for president like five or seven years from now. And I've talked about get into politics, but I, politics is a whole nother thing. But I asked him, I said, "What do you think it would cost if I ran for governor in the state of Iowa?" And the reason why I say this is because that's my home state and I think I could win. Yeah. And, and the projections are anywhere from 50 to a hundred million. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: But here's the power of something like that. If you can communicate, if you have a good heart, if you have the ability to raise money, business mind, you could, you could win in politics. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: And so I look at that in all areas of life. I look at how do I use these crowdfunding expertise to achieve my goal of mind. And that's, crowdfunding is popping. Crowdfunding is the future. It's here. And if you can understand how to utilize it through storytelling, video marketing. You can raise a lot of money. You can get money for your charity or cause you can really achieve whatever your goal is out there. So it's a big thing. I'm glad you said that because it, it is probably one of those powerful things we have in history right now. LT: Yeah, No, and and, and that's why, that's why I brought it up because just, you know, in talking to you prior to this podcast and then looking through, you know, uh, your bio, it's like you were real early on this. And so we love to bring things out to our Brand Nerds and quite honestly also for our learning because, you know, this is, this is stuff we candidly don't know much about. So, uh, so anything you can provide here i, i is wonderful. And if you don't mind me asking, just a follow up question, I would love to understand like, how does inflation impact crowdfunding? Um, because obviously that's something that's, that's, uh, that's. Going on right now as it pertains to the economy, and then also, uh, when it, when it, when you think about investors and you've, you've done it successfully, it seems like you have a lot of investors. When you have crowdfunding, how do you keep them happy? That's more, that's more important than the inflation? Brandon T. Adams: Well, you gotta, you gotta look at the crowdfunding inside. So like, let's, let's just look at, uh, Republic, that's a crowdfunding platform out there, and nonaccredited investors can give towards a cause. And so nonaccredited, means they don't make, I can't remember if it's, um, you have to make at least, uh, 200 or 250,000 a year, two or three consecutive years to be considered accredited. So people that don't fit that bucket, they can donate towards a cause or they can invest in a company and get a small piece of it. And so you get, let's say, hundreds of people that are putting, usually they have a minimum over 100, $250. If you get hundreds of people, thousands of people putting in amounts that much. It could be so powerful. For one, they're buying into it because they believe in your product or service. DC: Mm-hmm. Brandon T. Adams: and they believe in you. And they maybe can't put a minimum in 25 grand in, but they can put 250 bucks in because they wanna be a part of your journey. And they get a small piece. They feel like they're a part of it. LT: Right. Brandon T. Adams: And they are in a way. But you look at it from the powerful side on the perspective. Those people, the lifetime value of that, let's say a hundred dollar investor, could be worth a million dollars. Yeah. Now if that hundred dollar donation person tells their friend, they put some money in and that person puts a million dollars in. Yeah. Or they buy your products and services. That's why crowdfunding's so powerful. It's more than just the money they put in. It's their referrals. It's the testimonials they share with the world. They tell their friends, I'm investor in this company. They're helping you market it. Market validation. When we did some of our crowdfunding campaigns, we example, we did a crowdfunding campaign at Indigogo. We only raised about 40,000 for the campaign, but one of the people that backed our campaign ended up being a client we worked with, which went on to go from a couple hundred thousand dollars a year revenue to lifetime value over a hundred million in revenue for that product. DC: Wow. Brandon T. Adams: Because that person backed our campaign. LT: Right. Brandon T. Adams: And so that's the power of crowdfunding. There's so much more than what the I see. Is that most people don't realize. LT: Wow. That's a great story. And one of the things I'm gleaning from you though is that most people, most investors, most crowdfunding, whether they're putting in five bucks or a hundred bucks, they're not doing it for the return per se. They're doing it to be part of the cause. That's what it sounds like you're Brandon T. Adams: saying. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. It's, they're doing it for the cause. And the people they're gonna put a lot of money in, they're gonna be somebody that, that knows you or you're gonna have multiple calls. Like no guys is just gonna randomly put. 25 grand in. 50 grand, you're gonna have a conversation with them. But random people will put $2,250, a thousand dollars. I've seen it at $5,000. LT: That's awesome. DC: Wow. Brandon T. Adams: Yeah. LT: All right, Brandon, you have a what's popping for us? Brandon T. Adams: So what's popping? You know how, think about this. I was gonna say, what's popping? Nashville, Tennessee's popping . LT: Hey, that's true. We have a client there, our friend, our Dan Fachner our friends at J&J Snack Foods, uh, who have Icee Brand. I don't know if you're familiar with them. And, and another, and we, we've spent some time there. It's a, it's the, the Uber drivers left to tell you the right D? We, how many people have moved there last yesterday or whatever. DC: Yes. Yes. It's incredible. Brandon T. Adams: Nashville's popping. I mean, it's like, it's like a Vegas. It's blowing up. I mean, I, it is. I I, I'm in that city right now, but I'll tell you what's popping is, is this thing right here and I, I'll repeat it and keep saying it. This is a phone that not only has a database for you to make a lot of money, but it has a camera. It allows you to create a photo, or even more importantly, allows you to create a video. Mm-hmm. a video that tells a story. And if you have this phone, if you can create a video and if you have social media accounts, you can publish that video on social media and you can reach a wide audience. Mm-hmm. . And it allows you to be able to build an emotional connection with people that follow you and don't follow you yet, which means you can influence them in the right way to give towards your cause by your book, invest in your company, give to a charity, all that stuff. And so, if you can learn to use your phone, and the video, in the power of telling a story, in the right way. This is all you need. I don't know what a regular phone bill a month is, but you got this. Yeah. You're good to go. LT: You, You know what Brandon, we're, I'm struck with, we, we talked about this on a recent podcast. There's the world pre iPhone and because again, the iPhones, you know. DC: Oh yeah. LT: Samsung Galaxy just copied, they, they just copied it in, in, in terms of what it can do. There's the world pre iPhone and post iPhone and it, it's incredible. The difference, uh, I'm struck with, um, our son is, our son Jake's 19, and my wife's best friend's daughter is 30, so they're 10 years apart. Right? Yeah. And Kaylee grew up where she, her first phone was not an iPhone, it was just a cell phone and it was used DC: Interesting. LT: For pickup and for, you know, and again, Yeah, yeah. Similar age to you, Brandon, for pickup and, and just for communication. Then the iPhone comes around and these kids, my son's generation, to them it's a toy. That's what it was at first. Whereas for parents looked at it as a communication vehicle. But it's such a demarcation, to your point. It has such power. And think of all the things that have happened over the world. Even think about what's going on in Iran right now. We're seeing videos come out. How do those videos come out? They're that it's very difficult to get those things out, but they're happening through the phone. That's the way that, the way it's going down. So it's incredible what you say. Brandon T. Adams: I mean, think about just in Nashville, like somebody could have somebody record them on the phone and they could be an overnight sensation that allows them to take their career literally to the top of the charts. Yes. And they go from a nobody to a somebody just because they leverage the power of the technology with phone. LT: So true. Amazing stuff. Hey, D. What a great show! Brandon, dude, you were, you were amazing man. This was so much fun talking to you. And I love we, Brandon, just so you know, our, our backgrounds, um, I think, you know, we're, we grew up in corporate, you know, we were at Coca-Cola and we, and, and so, you know, I was thinking as you were saying, you're 32. When I was 32 I was running Power A at Coca-Cola and it's such a different track. And so, you know, we have such great respect and admiration for you forging the career you have. Mm-hmm. It's such a different path than ours. And, um, we, we've just loved having you on the show because that perspective is, is so different than ours and it provides our Brand Nerds a whole different picture of what marketing is. Cause it's not just, you know, brand management in the Fortune 50 world. Brandon T. Adams: Yeah. LT: You know? And so, um, I can't tell you how much we've enjoyed having you on the show, Man. You've been incredible. Brandon T. Adams: It's fun. You guys are great. LT: Thank you. Thank you. DC: Good duo. LT: So we're gonna go, we're gonna go to our show close here, Brandon. And this is where, um, we start to posit our learnings from the, from the as D would like to say, jew-els that you drop. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with my learnings and I'm gonna, I have, uh, I have three with a bonus. We laugh. Our, uh, our, Jeff Shirley, our other producer likes at odd numbers. So I've got three with a bonus. So my first one is Brand Nerds. Open up the aperture to your life. Like Brandon was talking about how he saw the ice business in Iowa. Nothing wrong with that. His dad made, Randy's made an incredible living on that. But when you open the aperture, perhaps there's things out there that you wouldn't have seen. And Brandon, um, uh, I'm gonna date myself, but uh, uh, growing up in New York, there was an incredible DJ at WBLS who's world famous named Frankie Crocker. And he DC: Oh, yeah. LT: Respected his show by saying, Shoot for the moon and you'll be among the stars. Yeah. And, and so that's what you've done. And I think that's great learning. That's my first one. Um, number two, so like, Brandon did, Brand Nerds, early in your career, perhaps the most important currency is not dollars. It's learning. DC: Yeah. LT: So Brandon was saying, I'm not gonna work for anybody, but he said, he rethought that said, You know, if I go work for that company, there's a lot of learnings I could get. I'll make money, but I'm going there for the learnings. Mm-hmm. So the most important currency early in your career is not dollars, but it's how much you can learn. So that's number two. DC: Strong. LT: Number three, the best deals are fair deals for all. I love what Brandon was saying and coming from Kevin Harrington. Just love that. So go with this approach and if you feel the other side that you're dealing with isn't down with this, just get out. Get out that quickly. Yes. Right. And then the, And then my, And then my bonus one is you gotta take care of yourself Brand Nerds. You gotta take care of yourself in every way, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You can't do everything yourself. And you must bring people in and inspire them too. So those are my learnings. Great. They're good Brandon. Awesome DC: Brand Nerds. I hope you listening carefully. Larry's breaking it down. LT: So Brandon, so anything you learned from, uh, this wonderful conversation we had with you? Brandon T. Adams: I, I learned there's so many story angles somebody can go with and today I shared different angles I haven't shared in a while, which is always great as a podcast guest. Um, and it goes back to storytelling like, yep, if you can ask the right questions, you can get the right output. The same goes in life. Mm-hmm. if you can ask the right questions in sales business or whatever you're doing, you can get the right answers, which can help you get the right output and success that you want in life. So make sure you ask the right questions and do something with it. Yeah. And so I feel like today that's the right questions were asked. The right answers came out, and hopefully your audience got some good, good takeaways. LT: Oh, for sure. DC: No doubt. LT: D could you, could you, Brandon brought up the ask the right questions. Can you illuminate, you've said it before in the podcast, but I think it's worth saying again about, about your thoughts, about good questions. DC: Oh yeah, I'll do that. Thanks. Thanks, Larry. Uh, earlier in my career, Brandon, I was impressed with people who had what I considered to be great answers. It's like, Oh, wow. Don't they sound smarter? They know that. But as I matured, Brandon, I became far less impressed with people with the right, what I consider to be astounding answers, and those who had what I consider to be astounding questions because the great, the best questions to which you alluded, they extract, pull out, compel the, the, the best answers. So that's, uh, that's why I'm aligned with that. Brandon T. Adams: So good. DC: Thank you. Brandon brother Larry has broken some things down. You have broken some things down. You did say some things that scared me, like that AI thing that can call up with a sales pitch and has scripts for responses, uh, that scared the, the, the, the, the be Jesus out of me. But, but I get it. But I wanna go, I wanna start at a place and then end at a place with you. Um, you're not an AI creation. You're a human being. And, um, I, I, I felt you today, brother. I felt you. Thank you. And you're welcome. And so with that in mind, here is. What I have gleaned from Brandon T. Adams, the human. I wanna start with Randy, your father, his quote. Use your mind, not your back. Use your mind, not your back. Last week, a grand master chess player named Magnus Carlson, he accused another master chess player, Hans Newman of cheating. Now he, he levied this before this accusation at Hans. Magnus did of Hans. So when they were playing, uh, Brandon and, and Larry, Magnus made one move and quit in protest. One move, uh, he says, I'm not playing. What this got me thinking about is how the minds of grand chess players work and your father's quote just now of use your mind, not your back. Couple of examples, you, Brandon, were doing Kickstarter back in the day. You're an OG Kickstarter 2012, 2013, and while you were in it, you recognize, ooh, kind of down the road, this can become something far different than it is now. And that's what started you down the path of creating, uh, your second company, if you will, after the, uh, after that company, you saw what it was while you were experiencing it, and then you, you extrapolated out number two when you talked about the fair deal, which is what Larry has talked about in here as well. You didn't just talk about the fair deal in terms of its value at the moment. You said if you do a fair deal now, over time, there will be more value. So again, fair deal at the moment, looking out. And then the third example is you had a nervous breakdown in a truck and they were trying to, the paramedics were trying to get you into a back of an ambulance or a car to take you to the hospital. In that moment, even with everything was going on, you're locked up, you're screaming, you were able to think ahead and go to your friend, Hey, why don't you tell them you're gonna take me to the hospital? Now you knew you weren't gonna go to the hospital, but that got you out of that situation. So those are three examples where you were in the moment and the last one, July 19th, 2013, where you thought ahead, Okay, let's bring this home. Why are you able to do that? How is Brandon able to think ahead? It's because of your father. Your father started his business. He worked it for 30 years and it was he, Brandon, not you, looking at his son sleeping in a meeting saying to himself, This is my next chess move. Telling my son you need to stop doing this other shit and you need to buy my business. That was your father's chess move and I believe he showed you many moves like that through your pubescent years and that allows you to do what you do now. So in summary here, um, you are a grand master business chess player. That is what you are, that's your gift to the world, Brandon. Brandon T. Adams: That's good stuff right there. DC: Yeah. Yeah. That, that's what you are. And you have been reared to do this. Thank you, Brandon. And then finally, I will say this, what allows you to do it is, I think something that happened in your lowest moment. You now, you now know when to drive and when to pull the fuck over. LT: That's right. DC: Okay. That's you brother. That's what I think is you. Brandon T. Adams: That's so good that that was worded in one of the most powerful ways you have away with words, LT: He does. Brandon T. Adams: And how you took everything I shared with you and put it into, Are you a musician? DC: I I I, I did go to school on a, on a scholarship. I used to play percussion no longer. Brandon T. Adams: Wow. Well, I'm impressed my friend. LT: Yeah. That's, He has away with this. He, he, he puts you on the couch and you don't even know it. . DC: Yeah. Shout Randy one time. That's right. Randy did this for you. Randy did this for you. Brandon T. Adams: He's gonna listen to this show. I'm gonna get it to him. LT: Oh, please do, Please do. Well, that's, that's, that's a wrap, guys. DC: A wrap, brother. LT: Thanks for listening to the Brands, Beats and Bytes recorded virtually on zoom and a production of KZSU Stanford, 90.1 FM radio worldwide at kzsu.org. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, myself, Larry Taman, Joseph Anderson, Jade Tate, Hailey Cobbin, and Tom Dioro. DC: The Podfather. LT: And if you are listening to us via podcast, it would be great if you can please rate and review us. Additionally, if you do like the show, please subscribe and share. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. And we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing with another great business leader as our guest.