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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips to Pursue Speaking Opportunities

February 20, 2024 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips to Pursue Speaking Opportunities
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BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips to Pursue Speaking Opportunities

Stone Payton : [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, in a previous Pro Tip, you mentioned, and we talk about it quite a bit with our own clients and our own network team members, but it’s getting speaking opportunities. What have you learned over the years about pursuing speaking opportunities?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:22] I think it’s important for a lot of us, especially professional services, who are selling kind of their brain to get out there and to speak, is a good strategy, but it’s important before you do all that is to understand the appropriate audience. Once you understand the appropriate audience and you got to find out what events, chambers of commerce, associations and conferences that those ideal clients attend, then try to get speaking opportunities there. You know, if you’re just starting out in speaking, then sure, speak anywhere. But if you’ve been doing it for a while, you better be strategic and show up to where your best prospects are.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] Number two, I’d choose a topic that exemplifies number one, your superpower and your ability to solve a problem for those ideal clients. You don’t want to make your speech a sales pitch about yourself, but you want it to be a place where you’re trying to inform and educate and entertain your audience about a pain point they’re struggling with. And that because you’re doing such a great job and you’re so passionate and you’re so educated about it, they’re going to want to hire you to solve the problem for them rather than them figure it out themselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:35] And number three, you got to kind of get the word out to a group of people that hire speakers. So you better get to know some event organizers, some meeting planners, some association leaders, so they know that you are available to speak on topics that are important to them and their members. And you got to remember to follow up relentlessly because these people are always working on their next event. So, they’re going to always have a need for insightful speakers that have great information. And as you do more speaking work, you’re going to kind of earn your way up the ladder and speak at larger and larger events.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:11] And a bonus tip is to maximize your visibility, to accelerate your growth by promoting your speaking before and after the event because this is a great piece of content for you to demonstrate your authority, your knowledge, and your higher ability.

BRX Pro Tip: 4 Tips to Get More Enterprise Level Clients

February 19, 2024 by angishields

Josh Fuller with Terminus Production Rentals

February 17, 2024 by angishields

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Josh-Fuller-Terminus-ProductionJosh Fuller is a former picture car coordinator at FOX, Apple TV and Marvel Studios, and is a current picture car coordinator and captain at Teamsters Union Local 728.

He’s a SAG/AFTRA actor and stuntman, having worked on various Georgia TV shows and movies. He’s the owner of Terminus Production Rentals, which provides rentals for entertainment and leisure, and Adult Filmz LLC, which provides professional window film installation, custom wall coverings, and a wide range of automotive enhancement services.

He and his partner are the proud parents of five children.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX Studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:16] And welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. And I’m your host, Sharon Cline. And today in the studio we have the owner of Terminus Production Rentals, as well as Adult Filmz with a Z, LLC, and he is a picture car coordinator. He’s worked with Marvel. He’s got just the most interesting back story and I cannot wait to hear about it. Um, please welcome to the studio, Joshua Fuller.

Josh Fuller: [00:00:46] Well thank you.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:47] How are you?

Josh Fuller: [00:00:48] Good. Tired. But we’re here.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:51] You were saying before the show, between you and the woman that your your partner, you have, like, five children, and some are in teens and some are still young, and I don’t know how you do it.

Josh Fuller: [00:01:01] It’s a madhouse some days.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:03] Yeah, probably. Just like everyone. Right? Like business owner. Dad, you’ve got several businesses that you manage. Yes.

Josh Fuller: [00:01:10] And then she has a business too. So it’s always business. Business. And then try to have fun and business.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:17] Well, hopefully this will be a little like 40 minute respite of just enjoyment, right? That’s what this conversation is all about. All right. So I wanted to ask you a couple things. One, you got into you’re an actor as well, which I forgot to mention. Yes. So you’ve gotten how did you get into the industry of acting?

Josh Fuller: [00:01:35] So it started with the picture car industry. I came in as a teamster, which is a driver, and then I moved to cars because it’s kind of my forte. And then since I was doing cars all the time, um. It was more profitable and made more sense to also get into the acting side, because in stunts, because I have to drive the car sometimes, so it’s kind of a double dip.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:01] How did you get into the car industry that you were helping with movies? How did that start? What did you call it? Teamster.

Josh Fuller: [00:02:08] The Teamsters. So that was a last minute thing. I was on a military leave. I came back from leave and I was working at United Rentals as a driver at the time. And the driver that we thought was going to be there until retirement was gone. All of a sudden I was like, something’s not right here. He was supposed to stay here for another 10 to 20 years. So I called him up and I was like, what’s going on? He’s like, I left and went to the movie industry. I was like, what is this? And this is like eight years ago. He’s like, this is a first time they opened up and they’ve opened up the union for a Teamsters in like ten years or something. I don’t even remember what it was. And I was like, cool, what did I need to do? And he’s like, you have to put your name on a list and pay like $1,500 and you may never work.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:57] Good lord.

Josh Fuller: [00:02:58] And I was like, um, I hate my job, let’s do it. And so at the time. I didn’t have the money because we had owned a company before that that didn’t go as well because of the industry. The price of fuel and so on and so forth. It was a trucking company. If anybody knows about trucking, they understand 100%. So I was like. We were starting over from that and saw upon the title on my car at the time to pay to get into the industry.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:25] Wow, such faith man.

Josh Fuller: [00:03:29] Sometimes the risk is worth it. And that that time it turned out amazing. I’ve never looked back since.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:35] So what was it like the first time you were on a set and, you know, driving a car? And I don’t know, I’m just trying to imagine myself walking in with absolutely no orientation of what it’s like.

Josh Fuller: [00:03:45] So it’s different for everybody. I’ve never had the whole fame like thing that some people have. Like, I don’t really care. They’re all people to me. So it was just another day. I was like, okay, cool, this is different. I got fed, they fed you, feed you like three times a day. So I was like, this is amazing. I get paid to come to work and eat. But other than that, I was like, all right, it’s just different line of work and make the best out of it.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:11] So have you ever seen yourself then on screen like you’re the one driving in a particular scene?

Josh Fuller: [00:04:17] Most of the time when you’re doing anything like that, your background or stunt or something like that. And so it’s all in the background. You you can catch quick glimpses of yourself. There’s a movie I was on, but I still can’t say it because it hasn’t came out yet. And this is like three years ago. So at this point I don’t think they’re going to release it, but who cares at this point, it’s what let me get my SAG card in the first place.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:41] So if someone were wanting to get into that industry, what would you recommend they do besides pawn their car?

Josh Fuller: [00:04:47] So for if you wanted them the movie industry period, you either join one of the unions and if you wanted to act in union, I just tell you good luck because it’s a whole world of who knows? Everybody has a different story. Like it’s never the same story twice for sure. Um, some people get lucky by doing the low background stuff here and there. Some people get they just do the, uh, classes and go to school for it. Some people just happen to be on a set or near a set, and the producers, like, they look perfect for the scene. Pull them in right now. So there’s literally no two same ways usually.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:25] Is there anything that surprised you about the industry, um, that you think the average person doesn’t know?

Josh Fuller: [00:05:32] It’s 90% headache with like maybe 10% fun at the end.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:36] Oh my gosh, that’s really, really bad statistic.

Josh Fuller: [00:05:41] That’s everybody asks me like how fun it is. Like even for the car, it’s like it’s 90% of back ground work or back work in the back pages, like budgets and running all the cars and make sure it’s going to work building stuff. Then they change the script hourly, sometimes daily, weekly. And so you’ll prep for 2 or 3 weeks and then it’ll change the last second. And everything you’ve done for two weeks is just going in the garbage can. Like it doesn’t even matter. We’ve we’ve built stuff and spent thousands of dollars to not even use it. So it’s.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:11] Crazy.

Josh Fuller: [00:06:12] It’s probably one of the industries where there’s the most wasted money ever.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:17] It sounds like it. You get paid regardless, right? I don’t work if.

Josh Fuller: [00:06:21] I don’t get paid.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:22] Nice. Okay, so.

Josh Fuller: [00:06:24] And then they say there’s a little small place in hell for all the pit car people like us. Because we’ll take brand new cars and blow them up.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:32] That’s just wild, isn’t it? Does it, like, hurt a little bit?

Josh Fuller: [00:06:35] Slightly. For car enthusiasts like me, it is slightly aggravating because we try to get parts and they’re like, nope, we’re just going to crush them.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:43] So I’m looking at your Facebook page, Terminus Production Rentals, and I see that you’ve, um, I mean, you’ve got motorcycles you work with as well, and you’ve got classic cars and newer cars. So has there been a favorite vehicle that you’ve had that you’ve been able to ride and or or drive?

Josh Fuller: [00:07:02] I’m a classic car guy, so I like classic trucks mainly. So like old t-10s and all are my favorite things. There’s none of the new sensors and so on and so forth. The favorite, the craziest car I drove was a Pagani. Just the the build behind one of those is insane. Um, but besides that, I’d still have to say classic cars all day, every day, because I don’t have to worry about the new stuff. I can take it in the backyard and work on it if I need to.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:28] That’s so cool. So, okay, you got into the Teamsters side and then you became an actor. And so. And now you have your. Is that how you got your company? Um, you decided to kind of just make your own, like, LLC kind of company, um, with Terminus Production rentals. Yeah.

Josh Fuller: [00:07:44] So that’s what that’s that kind of fell into that because we wanted to just capitalize on it. And I was making all these connections with all these people for networking their cars and hitting all the car events anyways, so it just made more sense to start capitalizing on that. And then we’ve added Private Jets now to the collection. If anybody wants to rent those to cars that we just flip and blow up and just use for stunt purposes, just for the fun of it, and then anything in between cars, bikes, trucks, planes, we build spaceships if you want it pretty much in between, we can have it done.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:19] That’s amazing because this is such a great town for it. I mean, I imagine you there’s no shortage of work.

Josh Fuller: [00:08:26] It’s definitely increased in the last few years until, I mean, movies have their ups and downs. The strikes that just happened didn’t.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:33] Help you.

Josh Fuller: [00:08:34] For any of that. Like we had equipment sitting around for like seven months with nothing to do.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:39] The worst feeling.

Josh Fuller: [00:08:41] There’s nothing you do on that one except for, I mean, just wait for it to pick back up. I mean, we had a couple music videos we just sourced a car for. I want to say it was a Lotto music video. I’m not even sure I talked to producers more than I do the people that work on the shows. So they call me and was like, hey, we need a car tomorrow. And I was like, got you, what is it? And we found it within the day. Wow. It had it delivered. Um, really good at last minute things. It’s not fun, but that’s why I was talking about the headaches come from.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:09] Yeah, but people know they can count on you. Then that’s like, um, I don’t know. What do they call it? A unique selling point of you, you know, something that you could stand out.

Josh Fuller: [00:09:19] Well, that and then our in our industry, we say chaos equals cash because the last minute stuff equals more money.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:26] Holy cow. That and you’ve got also your adult films, tints, wraps and coding. So can you tell me about the name? Have you had any flack?

Josh Fuller: [00:09:40] We get tons of good and bad. I’ll say as long as the hamster starts spinning, I don’t really care. I get questions about it regardless, good or bad, it’s good questions when it comes to marketing. Um, the name actually came from we were had another name. It started out as Astronaut Window Works, and then we started expanding to other things, and so I wanted to rename it as a more memorable name because people couldn’t remember it. So I was like, what can we do? What can we do? Being in the movie industry, for as long as I have been, when people would find out I was in the movie industry, the first question, I don’t know if it was just a joke to everybody or icebreaker or whatever you may want to call it. Oh no, but they would ask me, do you do adult films? So I’m like, eventually I was thinking about redoing the name. I was like, what can I do? What can I do, what can I do? And one day I was sitting there just riding in my truck and I was like, pink light bulb. I was like, I’m going to call my company Adult Films. And I called my partner. She was like, no, you’re not. I was like, it’s already done. I was like, I’ve already literally hit the button to change the name and started the process. She was like, okay, fair enough, but why? And I told her I was like, she’s like, well, I guess it is a good play on words and it works because everything we use is some type of film for the most part. So for like signage, obviously, but it works and then it gets people’s attention.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:00] I can’t believe adult films with a Z wasn’t taken as a, you know, as as a name.

Josh Fuller: [00:11:07] That was my next like as soon as I thought of it, I looked it up on all the business pages and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I was like.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:13] That domain name is yours.

Josh Fuller: [00:11:14] It’s like it was meant to be. I was like, whether how this goes from here, I don’t even care as like the fact that it’s not taken at this day and age. I’m taking it.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:24] So this is your premiere. I’m also looking on your Facebook page for this one. Your premier provider of professional tints, coatings, wraps, wall coverings, and vinyls. So how did you get into that? Did you find that because you already were sort of part of the movie industry, they were asking you to be able to do these kinds of things, wraps and things like that?

Josh Fuller: [00:11:42] Well, we were already doing that. So like, they would need stuff that last minute on cars that we already had. Sometimes we would have to knock out windows. We wouldn’t want the glass to bust on actor’s faces and so on and so forth. So we would do like the security films and stuff like that on that last minute. And then we’ve wrapped hundreds of police cars with police vinyls and put the police lights on them and stuff like that. So it was something that we were already doing, but I didn’t have my own company for it. So then I was like, well, why not take something outside of the movie industry since it’s so fragile of an industry and they take in its shuts down and we’re here in Georgia. So. It’s all based on tax incentives. If they were to take the tax incentive away today, the movies would leave today, not tomorrow. They would leave today, maybe be like 10% of film left in Georgia after that. But for 90% would leave today. They would literally pack it up. Same thing that happened in New Orleans, same thing that happened in Florida. I mean, tax incentive for movies counts for millions of dollars saved. So seeing that Georgia has such a amazing tax incentive, they will continue to film here until they take it away. So when they talk about that for law and for everything else and for the new governors coming in, if they were to take that away, you’re talking about taking away 10 to 12 billion a year, give or take, right now.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:05] I always think Georgia is so unique in that it’s got almost all the different kinds of landscapes that you can imagine. You’ve got beach and you’ve got mountains and you’ve got, if you go South Georgia, it looks like Florida, you know, um, I can’t even think of all the other. You’ve got like trees, you know, forests. I’m just thinking how this is kind of a great spot, this whole state.

Josh Fuller: [00:13:26] So the state is great for filming because it does have a lot of different locations. You have the beach and savannah and stuff. I mean, we filmed everything from Baywatch there to anything you can think of, like some of the old railroad movies, because it has the old town look to some of the cities here do are still like straight old school and have the old brick and stuff for the downtown areas. You do have any of the wood scenes? You have lakes here. You have pretty much any like Ozarks. I was part of Ozark season two and three. I mean, it’s filmed right here in this area. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:52] Um, yep. It’s right right around the corner. Um, from here, my son’s school.

Josh Fuller: [00:13:56] The blue Cat Lodge, which is JD’s barbecue now, um, I was there for two years, pretty much. Um, at the end of season three, they sold off the land to JD’s, I think. Or somebody else at the time. But it has a very unique thing. But at the same time, they’re looking at dollar signs. They’ll film anywhere to save millions of dollars. I mean anywhere, along with any other business. If I can save $1 million at the end of my yearly budget, I’m going to probably.

Speaker3: [00:14:21] So of course.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:22] I think cash is king. It is the driver. That’s why I have people on the show talking about their businesses. Because what is it like to have your own company and know that you really need to spend time with your wife because it’s your anniversary and you’ve got to put your phone down? And how do you balance, you know, being a small business owner and knowing that you’ve got to compete with other companies. And I have found a lot of people say that having just the right people around you helps so much, having people supporting what you’re doing so that you’re not sort of always fighting. But what is that like for you if you’ve, you know, trying to balance work? I was thinking the movie industry, don’t they film at night a lot? Like, I mean.

Josh Fuller: [00:15:03] They film day night, 15, 18 hours days. It doesn’t matter. Um, so that was that’s been crazy, obviously. And now that I’ve kind of moved up, it gives me a little bit more free time within the industry because I have to budget everything and find stuff. But I don’t always have to be there. So it saves me a lot of the time with the family. But like we said, we I have five kids together and so balancing sports, my companies and all that, it definitely creates a major headache. But having people that refer you, having friends that help out, having family members and friends there regardless they can help take you to practice or their kids to practices and so on and so forth. And then setting those boundaries of like like anybody that knows me, knows I’ll answer my phone at 2 a.m. and if you have a broke down car, I’ll come pick you up in the middle of the night. And I keep my phone on 24 over seven, but I don’t answer phone calls for work after a certain time. Like I’ll look at it and I’ll leave it there, but the phone’s always on for people that need help. Like, don’t call me at 8 p.m. for a work related thing, unless it’s for something like the movies and the sets are still filming. Obviously we have to answer, but if it’s for something other than that one of my other businesses, I’m going to tell you I’ll get back to you in the morning and then. But if you call me in the middle of the night and it’s like, hey, I’m in jail, I’m broke down, we’re going to come take care of you.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:22] Good to know. I’m going to keep you on speed dial for those moments when that happens to me. Fair enough, but no, that’s smart. Everyone talks about the challenge of trying to balance your life. I mean, it wasn’t always like that, but now, um, even with social media, people who are, um, having reviews in the middle of the night, there always is an opportunity for you to be looking at how your business is being affected on the internet and through social media, what that’s like. And most people have to just like, really shut their phones down and, you know, give themselves that peace of mind. And, I mean, I can understand, especially in your case, knowing that what you could do could be 24 over seven if you really wanted it to be. You know, it requires discipline.

Josh Fuller: [00:17:04] I feel like any business, if you let it, will consume you, whether it’s if you’re working for somebody else, if you let it consume you because a boss that finds somebody that works very well, it’s going to push them to work more because it’s more profitable that way. But that’s where it comes in to set the boundaries and so on and so forth to make sure that you have that work life balance because. I hate to say I don’t know if you’ve traveled a lot to other countries, but America alone is a fast paced country. It never slows down. It never sleeps. Pretty much. You go to work, you come home, you go to work, come home. And it’s not like some of the other countries where it’s family first and then that. As much as I love America, we are a fast paced and everybody wants more. More cars, better cars, faster cars, or better house or bigger. And so many people even grow up poor. They want more in life and they want to spend more money to make more money and so on and so forth. But they forget the balance. And that’s what gets people way off sometimes. And if you realize that the balance is right, then you can be more profitable in any ways because a lot of people, they offer discounts to try to make more money, but then they’re not. They’re cutting their self-worth right off the bat. So but then you have a lot of companies medical field. So a lot of greed because. We’re for profit country regardless of what people want to think, it’s for profit all the time.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:27] Did you want to be in this industry when you were younger? Is this what you sort of thought your life would, would be like? You’re you’re chuckling over there.

Josh Fuller: [00:18:37] Actually found a letter that I wrote. I don’t even know how old I was. I want to think I was like 6 or 7. And it was probably one of the like preschool or kindergarten things that we wrote. Um, it was a couple of years ago, I found it, and it said that when I grew up, I wanted to work at Walmart so I could have all the toys to play with.

Speaker3: [00:18:54] And made.

Josh Fuller: [00:18:54] Me think like, okay, what did we really want out of life? Like growing up as kids, you don’t think about all the crazy things like, yeah, we wanted some of the four wheelers or dirt bikes or such, but at the time you’re like, I just want all the new toys that come out so I can so I can sample them.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:08] So your dream was to work at Walmart. It’s very different what you’re doing, like sits.

Speaker3: [00:19:13] Yeah.

Josh Fuller: [00:19:13] I mean, as it grew up, I thought for a while there, I mean, I joined the military and stuff that we were thinking of. I guess I was looking at the public service stuff and everything else. But to be honest, support to all the public service people, they’re still out there because I wouldn’t do it to save my life anymore, because there’s so many political things that go into it, so many people that don’t like anybody that comes to help you. Nowadays, firefighters are probably always respected, but your police officers and some of your military, they’re not even respected anymore.

Speaker3: [00:19:42] Well, thank you.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:43] For your service.

Speaker3: [00:19:44] Well. Thank you.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:45] You’re welcome. Um, I was thinking I had just read something recently about how first responders that come with, you know, an ambulance, how abused they get from trying to help people. You know, it’ll be like, don’t touch me, things like that. But they’re there to help you, you know? So I can’t imagine the Constitution. You have to have to deal with it.

Josh Fuller: [00:20:02] Yeah. I realized after being in the Marine Corps and stuff, that wasn’t something I want to do anymore. And then if you’re wanting to live, it doesn’t really pay for it anymore either.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:12] Interesting. There’s a whole side I don’t know much about because I haven’t been in the military. So I imagine, you know, you have a whole story back there that you could talk about.

Josh Fuller: [00:20:20] Well, that firefighters, the police officers, I mean, if you look at the cost of living, especially today, over what’s happened in the last 2 or 3 years since Covid, the cost of living has raised like 300%. Those salaries don’t support that. If they’re not working afternoon jobs or those roadside jobs or whatever, most of them can’t support a family.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:41] How did Covid affect your industry?

Josh Fuller: [00:20:45] I sat at home for like seven months.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:47] Did you panic? Covid affected so many people in this town. And I was wondering, you know, what it was like on your end? Because, I mean, they’re essential workers, obviously, but like plumbers and restaurant owners, and everyone has their story about how.

Josh Fuller: [00:21:01] The movie industry shut down completely. And then once we started back up, I mean, the Covid protocols were insane. I mean, I probably had. Easily 500 Covid test. I mean, they would literally when we first went back to work, I think it was October of 2020 when I went back to work for the first time, it was on a marvel show. Um, we got Covid tested five days a week, every day, and they weren’t nice with it at first. Like, my nose bled every time they would shove it up to your brain almost, and just try to Covid test you. So. And then it went from five days a week to like six months in, you were still like three days a week. And then after that you’re like two days a week and then all the way up until probably the end of 2022, we were still getting tested at least once a week.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:46] So did anyone have a test as a surprise? Positive, because there were so many people that were so asymptomatic.

Josh Fuller: [00:21:53] So along the time, since I’ve had like 500 tests, I tested positive four times. Never once did I feel sick, but they sent me home regardless and told me stay at home for two weeks. I was like, okay, there’s like twice where once was like before a show. So you don’t get paid then because they don’t hire you. Once was at the end of the show was like literally the day I was quitting. So you don’t get paid then? We’re not quitting. It was just literally the end of the show is like the last week, but we were still getting tested and uh, then twice was in the middle of the show and I got paid for like the time off. So those weren’t bad at all. Yeah. Okay, cool, I feel good. Let’s just go home and take two weeks of pay.

Speaker3: [00:22:30] But the in.

Josh Fuller: [00:22:31] Between was definitely sometimes. And then the the nuisance of just being tested every single day, you had to show up for the test regardless, or else you weren’t allowed to work. The next day became a nuisance after a while.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:43] I think that felt the same for so many people, but it was. I remember the first time I went out without a mask. I think I went to like target like a mini panic attack. A lot of people were still masking up no matter what, right? But like for me, I kind of liked being able to wear a mask because, you know, I just didn’t care how I looked. Nobody cared. No one saw anything. I saved so much lip gloss. You don’t understand. But then walking through, you know, and being like, without without anything, I was like, I got to wear sunscreen again. It just was an odd thing how much I accepted and adapted.

Speaker3: [00:23:15] To all.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:16] Of it. Yeah. I just was like.

Josh Fuller: [00:23:17] Mask were the worst thing ever for me. I hate putting something over my face. It if if it. Slows down my breathing any. I’m like, oh.

Speaker3: [00:23:26] Start to panic.

Josh Fuller: [00:23:27] I just hate it. I feel hot, I’m a hot natured person, so like, a mask just makes me. My whole face instantly start sweating when I put it on. Um, and then during the movie sets, they wanted you to wear them all day. I literally hated life at first, having to wear a mask. I’m like. And then saying that we started back in like the cold season, like October, November. The allergies are the colds. People look at you like you’re insane for showing up to work. I’m like, I just got a cold.

Speaker3: [00:23:54] Come on, leave me alone.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:55] Yeah, it’s not real.

Josh Fuller: [00:23:56] It’s like we get tested five days a week. I think I would know if I had Covid at the moment. And I’m like, I just have a cold right now, runny nose or whatever. And people just look at me like I’m crazy. I’m like, this is crazy.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:07] It seems strange now when I think about it, because it’s been, what, a year or so maybe, or nothing. That nothing. So when I think about, like, I still have my mask in my car, but, you know, like I said, I adapted, I drank the Kool-Aid. This is what we have to do to go out sometimes. So, um, but now when I think about it, it seems kind of strange to, you know, I don’t know, to worry about that kind of thing I do. I do notice if I’m in an office, if people are coughing, I kind of am like, I wonder if that’s anything more serious than just a cold. I don’t know. My brain now is kind of on high alert, but, um, yeah, at some point we’ll look back and be like, oh, that whole thing, the pandemic. But now it’s like, it’s so nice to be able to move forward and not have to think about it at all, especially for your industry, I imagine. I know the writer’s strike was horrible. It affected so many different, um, industries, not just film, but TV as well. It was.

Speaker3: [00:24:59] Uh, none.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:00] No one really could imagine when it was going to end, but so nice when it did end. So it must have felt like things were running again for you as well.

Speaker3: [00:25:06] Well, yeah, it was.

Josh Fuller: [00:25:07] Weird because most people think it’s just the writer strikes. The writer went on, the writers went on strike last year in like May, and then at the same time the actors went on strike in June. And so the writers got down with their strike October ish November. But the actors were still on strike until almost December. And then everybody, like, still thinks that we’re all back full swing. We’re still not even full swing yet because the holidays happened right after that. So nobody wants to pay productions to start, pay all these people to sit around. So then when you come back, you think you’ve got to wait for all the producers to come in town, the writers to start writing the scripts and all that stuff. So we still have we’re maybe 20 to 30% back full.

Speaker3: [00:25:47] Really.

Josh Fuller: [00:25:48] We they’re saying March to April. We’ll be back in full swing right now. We’re still all the offices are prepping and back prepped and stuff like that. So we’ll still be kind of low until March to April and then we should be back full swing. But then you also have the possibility of the OSI and the Teamsters union striking this year because our contracts come up. And since everything that happened last year, they’re expecting the support from the unions we supported last year. So if we don’t get what we want, then not necessarily us. But you got between Ayatsi and Teamsters and they’re already planning on striking. So you’re talking about it could be another strike this year.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:28] I was just thinking how your busy season is about to come up. You know, if March and April is when it’s going to be back in full swing, then you’ll be like, okay, well, I’ll see you guys whenever. But I want.

Josh Fuller: [00:26:38] To say our contracts come up in June or July. So technically I think they have so much time to prep for them and they can do a little bit of delay. So. If we start back full swing in March April, you could go back in on strike in August September. Or if they know that shows won’t even start yet. That’s I think that’s kind of why we’re. So this year is because we figured that we would go back full swing already. But with everything looming over the air, people might not want to pay the money to start, because then if you rent a stage, you’re renting stage you’re renting all the equipment, you rent all the stuff, and you got to hold it like over a strike, I know. One of the Marvel shows that was filming at the time. I’m not a shrike, but over like Covid, they they held a location for like six months at like $15,000 a week to hold the location because it was halfway through a filming. But what can you do when they shut the world down at the time? So it was definitely crazy. But. When you’re as busy as we stay. Usually as long as you’ve kind of put a little bit cash away, which we all say in this industry, you put cash away because it can go up or down at any second and you enjoy your time off.

Josh Fuller: [00:27:46] Take the time with the family, because I tell anybody that’s wanting to get into the movie or film industry, period, it will consume your entire life if you let it, because they’ll work you 17 to 18 hours a day, 5 to 6, seven days a week. And it’ll just go on as long as you let it. You’ll go run off one show straight to the next show because it’s referral based. So as long as you’re good at your job, you will stay working. Um, some people will never work and then you get some people that never stop. So if you’re good and if you network, um, networking across every industry, every one of my businesses, the movie industry, the film industry, whatever, networking is key. Um, if you want to succeed, a lot of times they used to say, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. But at the same time, it is still what you know and what you can provide. Because if you suck at your job, they’re going to refer that you suck at your job and they’re not going to hire you.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:37] And the voiceover industry, um. Not everybody is easy to work with. Um, and I didn’t realize how valuable it is to be considered an easy to work with person, because I, I would so much rather work with someone who maybe doesn’t have the exact sound that I love so much, but I they’re easy to work with. They show up on time, they deliver their files when they’re supposed to their audio files. It’s super valuable. So I imagine it’s the same in your industry. Like if you’re an asshole, you know, I can’t imagine. I mean, well, maybe it does work. I really don’t know. How does it work like that for you? I mean.

Josh Fuller: [00:29:16] It depends across everything. I mean, first off, we want somebody who’s going to show up on time and be there at work every day. Because we all know these days it is hard to find some good people that will show up every day, regardless of what’s going on. Um, people will find every excuse, especially since Covid is completely through the work ethic. Crazy.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:36] Really interesting.

Josh Fuller: [00:29:37] But I mean, if somebody shows up to work every day, obviously if they can work good with you, it’s going to make it ten times better. Um, and that’s what kind of helped me excel across my industry is no matter what industry was in everywhere I’ve been and every person I’ve ever met was like, no matter how bad the day is, you bring a delight to the day. You make it better. You’re happy, you try to have a good joke or just make somebody laugh throughout the day. No matter if it’s the most stressful day we’ve ever had. You’re like, you show up and you’re just happy. And I’m like, I try to be because there’s nothing I can do to change most of the circumstances we’re in, but make the best of it.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:13] I was thinking, I imagine, obviously if there are actors that are, you know, they’re worth hiring because they have power this way, but like, they’re not really nice to work with. I mean, people are going to just deal with that. But if you’re replaceable, I imagine they would choose to have somebody who’s, you know, more positive.

Josh Fuller: [00:30:29] Well, with that being said, I’ve worked with a lot of major movie stars across the board, and, uh, there are some that you don’t want to talk to every day, but because of their status, they’re there and there’s nothing you can do about it. But keep on moving and wait till the next that show ends. Good thing about the movie industry is usually it’s anywhere from a month to six months to a year at the most usually, and you’re on to the next project. So if you can make it through one, you just kind of go one day at a time. You’re like, all right, this, this sucks, but it’s going to get better and the next one will be different. And you kind of pick and choose who you want to work with every now and again once you make it to a certain level.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:09] What do you think of the fact that TV has changed so much?

Josh Fuller: [00:31:13] So that’s what’s caused a lot of our strikes, because we went from everything being feature movies and all. We all knew that the strikes were eventually going to come because you went from the mainstream feature movies and all being in movie theaters for profits, and the points on the back end to where everything went streaming. And so when it first came out, nobody knew how big the streaming was going to turn, and we all knew that we saw it coming, but we didn’t know where it was going to go. And so every one of the strikes that’s pretty much happened has been because of the contracts were meant for feature movies, and they weren’t meant for streaming because there was never a such thing as streaming. And so now it’s changed a lot the way everything films, the way it works, the points, the pays, everything has changed. And that’s why the, the, the strikes are so needed, because the pays were so off between the industries, between the way they were filmed and the way they were released and so on and so forth. Just for instance, um. Just say for like Marvel, like some of the Marvel movies that were getting released on Disney+, some of the actors had talking points, so they would get paid on all the the movie features when it got released in theaters. Well, there’s a few of those that never released in theaters and went straight to streaming.

Josh Fuller: [00:32:27] So those actors lost out all of their money because they took like 90% points or something like that. I don’t know the exact numbers, but they took mostly points for pay, because if you’re going to do a big, huge Marvel movie, though, you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars across theaters, and then all of a sudden they release it on streaming and now you got nothing. So that’s the main reason all the strikes have happened to to make and try to justify and fits all the stuff. And now you have I, which is another reason. So like on top of Us still haven’t caught up to the streaming field. Now we’re dealing with the AI field. So you have double reasons for everybody to try to negotiate their pays and everything, because I mean, technically you could film a whole movie through AI. You don’t even need everything could be visually effect now, especially if you have a certain actor and you have their their digital files and you do a scan because we can scan anything in now and recreate it in the visual effects department. So. It’s according to how much you want to spend. It costs way more to usually do visual effects, but you could type it into AI, and if you have all the background in the information, it can make a movie.

Speaker3: [00:33:35] That’s so.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:36] Crazy when you think.

Speaker3: [00:33:36] About it.

Josh Fuller: [00:33:37] So yeah, it’s changing the whole industry and everybody is just kind of sitting back waiting to see where that goes.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:44] It’s crazy to imagine that I could be watching something where I think it’s you speaking you. Josh. Yeah, and it’s not really you, but it looks like you, and it sounds like you and. And it’s so realistic. I’m wondering how difficult it would be for me. I’m sure every day it gets more advanced, you know? So I imagine it must be at some point will be so difficult to discern what’s actually a real interview.

Speaker3: [00:34:07] Or between.

Josh Fuller: [00:34:08] That, I mean, for cars, for locations, if you scan in the location once or if you have a car driving down the road, we can take a car that looks like a little rail car, for instance, and put a little beauty. It looks like a camera type thing that spins around on top of it, but as it’s spinning, it’s registering what we’re wanting it to register to the camera. So we’re seeing a little rail car, the camera seeing a brand new Lamborghini or whatever they want. So it’s insane what they can do with all the facts.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:38] Now, do you think classic movie making will go away at some point? I know everything comes down to dollars, so if at some point it’s more feasible to hire a company as opposed to actors and all of the logistics and you know just how clunky people are.

Speaker3: [00:34:53] You know.

Josh Fuller: [00:34:54] I have no idea, because I think there’s always going to be people that want to see the real life versions of people acting and the art form in it and so on and so forth. But. At this point, I don’t put anything past anything, like anything could happen tomorrow. And it’s so true. Part of it, you just go with it.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:12] Who would have ever thought two years ago that I would be such a prominent feature on so many different aspects of our lives? I had a woman who, um, is an expert on I on the show, and she said she pretty much every day refers to ChatGPT for different problems that she has. And at one point, um, I the, the website was down for a little while and she was like, well, I’ll just solve this, you know, when it comes back up. Like she had actually gave her anxiety because she didn’t have access to it. And it’s just part of some people’s everyday. And I imagine I could be using it more than I do. But yeah.

Josh Fuller: [00:35:46] I hate computers. So if you talk to my partner, she would tell you every day, if you see me, I have to get on a computer for more than like 20 minutes. I’m going to get mad and have to walk away. I prefer to do everything in person, talk, still make phone calls. I don’t even like texting truly that much. If I can talk to somebody in person, I feel so much better. Um.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:08] You and your classic car ness, too. You know, it’s the old school.

Speaker3: [00:36:11] The old school stuff.

Josh Fuller: [00:36:12] I’ll stick with it probably till I die. Um, and as much as it’s changing and stuff for some of the things that I have to do for my businesses, I let people do it for me because I’d still rather pay somebody to do it for me than have the computer do it all for me. And I know I can call and say, hey, what’s going on on the computer? I can’t really ask the computer, hey, what’s going on today? Computer? I mean, I guess you could, but I don’t think it’s going to tell me the same thing if I go talk to somebody in person. So, yeah, it’s just not my my forte. And I don’t care for it so much. But I do have to understand that there is things like the automated emails and stuff like that, which I try not to automate email people because I get so much spam email a.

Speaker3: [00:36:50] Day to.

Josh Fuller: [00:36:51] Everything. So I don’t want to add to everybody else’s spam collection. Like hopefully our work does justice for herself. People see it populate and here and there because we do post pictures and so on and so forth. But I try not to spam people, I care.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:04] That’s nice. You have you have compassion. I mean, you’d be just one of millions, you know, mixed in there. So the fight is real.

Speaker3: [00:37:12] It is.

Josh Fuller: [00:37:13] I mean, and I mean, I guess it does create more sells and more, I guess they call it the sales funnels and so on and so forth, but. I’m hoping between my word of mouth and the websites we have and so on and so forth, it keeps generating our networking and community outreach that we’ve done. It’s worked thus far, so I don’t foresee it going anywhere. And obviously you are always going to have the paid ads and so on and so forth, but I prefer not to have to do everything automated by, uh, I mean, because everything now even people’s artwork, we, I’ve seen machines now that you literally punch in a graphic and it goes up to a side of a building and spray paints it like somebody just spray painted the side of your building. Now, like the art is changing everything. So it’s kind of up to society to keep the real art alive at this point, because you can make music, you can make songs, you can make paintings, you can make anything with the computer robot now.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:09] It makes me wonder. And I ask this to the woman that I had on who’s an expert on AI. Where is the value of a human brain? Then you know where? How valuable is a human brain? If you can ask ChatGPT to write the copy for this, I don’t know this thing that you’re selling, and then it writes it and then you just put it out there. It just makes me wonder.

Speaker3: [00:38:33] I mean.

Josh Fuller: [00:38:34] If we could keep the cost of living to where we could all just enjoy ourselves, then we would just all have a permanent vacation.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:39] But because ChatGPT or whatever’s going to run our life, AI is going to do it all for us and we can just enjoy.

Josh Fuller: [00:38:45] I just see that somebody making all the money on that and all the rest of us sitting around poor, and we’ll be like, hey, can we have something? Can I have bread today or something? But until then, I don’t I don’t know how that’s going to turn out. So we just kind of keep going with it every day. Um, and so I’m, I’m curious to see how that happens too, in another 50, 60 years because interesting.

Speaker3: [00:39:04] I mean.

Josh Fuller: [00:39:04] I solely work to enjoy my free time and I try to keep my, my balance and they and together and like we enjoy traveling and enjoy having some fresh food and stuff like that’s part of going to these other countries is you get straight fresh food off the trees and anything you can think of, yeah, it’s different. It’s a slower pace. You go relax for a few weeks and come back. It’s definitely the resets you need sometime. Um.

Sharon Cline: [00:39:31] Do you ever watch movies? Is movie watching or TV watching just kind of ruined for you? Do you ever get the impact of a movie the way it was supposed to be? Uh, you know, hitting, uh, someone who’s not in the industry, so.

Josh Fuller: [00:39:44] I try not to pick them apart. Um, I got some friends that will literally sit there and just pick them apart all day long. My partner said at first, sometimes if we were watching something, I’d pick it apart, but I try to actually just sit back and enjoy stuff. If I’m watching TV, period. I don’t really watch TVs at all, especially episodic. I don’t have time. Um, I will sit down and watch a movie with my kids, if especially if it’s like a cartoon movie. And to be honest, these days I almost enjoy the cartoon movies more than I do anything else because it’s got nothing to do with a lot of things in the world. Um, but yeah, I don’t have time to watch anything for long periods of time. So I’ll sit down with the kids, maybe watch one movie, and then be over with and kind of go back to whatever I’m doing for the day.

Sharon Cline: [00:40:23] Do you feel like you have, uh, a fearless formula, so to speak? Like, is there something that allows you to be so brave to just go out there and do what you do, start these companies and, um, kind of mix into a world that people think of as so glamorous. And I know glamor is not the right word, but so powerful and important. But you obviously have maintained such a humbleness about you, and you don’t buy into any of that. How do you not get I don’t know. So how do you keep yourself grounded?

Josh Fuller: [00:40:56] I mean, we I actually grew up super poor. Um, and then being in the military, like I stuck in the reserves, in the National Guard and stuff even long after that because I would have to go back and be humble for the weekend. I would go work for somebody else or so on and so forth, just to keep myself super humble sometimes. But then at this point, I’ve realized in my life 90% of the things that people consider luxury items to me, I consider them a tool. They’re a networking tool. They’re a tool so I don’t have to spend as much effort. So I can say with some of our high end cars, I’ll use a high end car to go to an event. And the only reason I’m doing this, some people are like, oh, you’re showing off. I’m like, no, it’s not a show off. I can show up one of the cars. I don’t even have to get out of the car. And people come to me because people, most people in the world are. Are wired to think that if you have this certain thing, then you have money or you’ve made it somewhere. Um, and they don’t give people the chance of the day without that. So now I realize that 90% of that is tolls, and that some of the most humble and the best people you’ll meet are some of the poorest people you can find. And then if you go to some of these other countries and stuff where there isn’t the money, there is here or there isn’t the opportunity as there are here, you’ll find these people.

Josh Fuller: [00:42:11] They have a community where it’s like when you think about the way we are here, everybody is so judgmental and there’s no community. So I mean, networking here in America is like kind of the the only thing that keeps you kind of like the humbleness and the community vibe because you don’t get those vibes from, oh, I’m the biggest, baddest entrepreneur out there. Like those people most of the time aren’t fun to be around, like some of these stars that make millions and millions a year. They’re not fun to be around. They think they’re better than everybody else. And I hate to say, every day we all get dressed the same way. I mean, even for the handicapped people or the people like that, like we still all get dressed the same way and we help each other out for them. Like we help them out more, like there’s no sense of treating them different than anybody else. Like, we have people. I have friends that have died from military. I have friends that are triple and quadruple EMTs and stuff. It doesn’t matter at this point. Like we’re all still humble and try to show each other that every day. I can help you as much as you can help me, and I will give you anything I can, if I can give it to you. As long as you’re a humble person, you have a little bit of drive, because these days the hardest thing you can find is drive and motivation.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:25] Wow, that’s so interesting to me. Um, especially in your industry. I mean, I was thinking how how difficult it must be to feel like I’m going to make it, you know, and you just if you don’t have a constant thought process behind it of fighting and fighting and fighting to be seen or to audition, that you you won’t make.

Speaker3: [00:43:41] It or you won’t if.

Josh Fuller: [00:43:42] You think about it. Um, and I’ll say this and it’s kind of rude of me how you want to put it. The 90% of the people that I meet on sets that are background are extras. They act like they they’re the best ever. I’m like, you’re a background or an extra right now. You haven’t even made it. And you’re telling me all these things that you’ve done and you’re going to do. Most of them don’t even realize who you are at first. They just come up and talk to you and they ask you things. And most time I don’t even give them. I mean, I talk to them, but I don’t tell them exactly what we do, and I just kind of want to see what they’re about. Um, but they don’t even understand that, like the amount of effort it takes to get to be one of the major people. If you look on the movies and stuff today, the major ones that you see that have made money substantially. Are in every single movie and TV show out there. It’s the same main 50 people, give or take. Like it doesn’t change like those people have made it. And the rest, like I have some friends, they’re actors and they’ve probably been in 200 projects and I could tell you their name. You wouldn’t even know their name because the average actor is starving.

Josh Fuller: [00:44:44] It’s just the way it is. Um, and they’re doing auditions daily. 4 or 5. Auditions daily. Always traveling for work, always doing this. And still haven’t made it to that top tier yet where they don’t have to worry about work the next week or the next month or whatever. So as far as that is a very hard industry to break into. And I’m not saying you won’t make it, but if you don’t push harder than most people do, you’re not going to make it. Unless you’re just lucky. I mean, there are some few people I’ve met that showed up to set one day and bam, they’re there. But it’s just. I want to say this. Look, but we all have a destiny at some point in time. If you believe in destiny and stuff, there’s certain things. And obviously if you pass up chances, you pass up a chance. But there’s always a chance, an opportunity. And from you. And not everybody’s meant to do the same thing. But we all have opportunity. And most people just they say, if you don’t, if you’re not on the lookout for opportunity, it’ll pass by you all day, every day. And I think that’s what most people do. They think especially nowadays. People think that they’re entitled to an opportunity or to money or to whatever, and they expect it just to come.

Speaker3: [00:45:52] Yeah, they’re just waiting. Just waiting.

Josh Fuller: [00:45:54] It’s not going to come. And then even if it does, most of those opportunities aren’t easy. You have to stick with them. You have to push. You have to go through the failures, and you have to go through the learning and the critique and sometimes the critique. Most people can’t handle that because, uh.

Speaker3: [00:46:08] We’re all.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:08] Snowflakes and.

Speaker3: [00:46:09] Special.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:11] But I think about how you took an opportunity. That’s how this happened for you, is you found out somebody was going to go do that, and then you said, how do you do that? You know, and the next thing you know, you’re here at the Business RadioX studio. Well, the biggest thing that’s ever happened to you so far.

Speaker3: [00:46:24] If you push that even.

Josh Fuller: [00:46:25] Further back, even to get to that opportunity, like I said, I own the trucking company that didn’t succeed like it should have. So I went from a trucking industry where we were making a couple hundred thousand a year to going almost bankrupt and starting over and getting rid of all the equipment we have just to go work for another company and just trying to get back on our feet and then getting there and you’re like, okay, cool. You go from one risk and you’re like, all right. The thing is, I’ve talked to a few people that are millionaires. You have a few people that are given money and they can invest and they’re taught how to invest and so on and so forth. And then you have the people that are going to take a steady job that winds up doing very well, or a career path that turns into a CEO and does very well, or you have the people like us that have been poor and we’re not scared to be poor. We know that we can still survive being poor. So if we take a risk and we lose it all. What’s the worst we’re going to do is go back to where we were and then start over again. And so that’s how.

Speaker3: [00:47:21] Many times I love that. How many times can.

Josh Fuller: [00:47:23] You get beat up and get back up again? And that’s what it kind of boils down to.

Speaker3: [00:47:26] Resilience.

Josh Fuller: [00:47:27] Yeah. You got to have a little bit of resilience to get knocked out. Maybe take a year, maybe take a month, or maybe take six years, or maybe take the next day and be like, all right, get knocked out today. Am I going to go back to training and figuring this all out, or am I just going to lay here in defeat? And so that’s what it kind of boils down to. I mean, as far as that industry, business.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:49] Anything that you’re.

Speaker3: [00:47:50] Into fighting.

Josh Fuller: [00:47:50] In general, I mean, we’ve bought some stuff before. I mean, anything you can either lay there and take it or you can get up and fight back. And that’s what it boils down to in the end.

Speaker3: [00:47:59] That sounds like.

Sharon Cline: [00:48:00] That’s your fearless formula. It does. I think this is wise for any industry that anyone is in, is you’re going to have these setbacks, right? You’re going to struggle. And just knowing that’s one of my biggest lessons for my kids is, is resilience, is we can do all the things that are right and then it can still go wrong.

Josh Fuller: [00:48:20] And when would that be? And I said, when I was a kid, there was growing up poor. I used to look at some of these other kids and be like, why do they get to go on trips? Why did they get to do this? Why did they get to have all this? Why were they growing up with a silver spoon? And I look at some of them now, and because they grew up with that, they don’t know what to do. They’re lost because they don’t have the parents anymore, or they’re lost because everything was given to them. And now they have to go out and work for it. And so as much as I say, for even the kids, if kids listen to this show, there is a part of growing up with that type of environment that just makes you resilient. And then you can grow more as you’re older. And then if you can pass that down to your generations of children and stuff it, it turns out very well.

Sharon Cline: [00:49:06] I had someone on the show last week, Presley Gray, he’s a owns a shop in Dawsonville, a mechanic shop. And he said part of the reason he got into the industry is because he was they they were poor. They had to figure out how to fix their cars on their own. And there’s just something so organic and like, pure about that. Like you, you fought for yourself and now you’ve got these skills and you can take them, you know, if you want and use them to, to build your life off of. So I think there’s something that’s like, um, it feels like you’re fighting for yourself and there’s just something that I can get behind. And I almost feel as opposed to someone who’s just given things. So knowing that you had that same feeling, um, I mean, it’s exciting to see where you’re going to go. You’ve got the heart, you’ve got the spirit. You know what it’s like to not have those things. And and then you’re trying to manage your life with all the kids and then the businesses. So, um, I feel like, I don’t know, you’re just fighting the good fight.

Josh Fuller: [00:50:06] Oh, yeah. It’s every day a fight. But we enjoy as much as we can. I mean, that’s the whole point is, if you’re fighting, you got to enjoy what parts you can and go on about the next day and just look for the look for the best part of every day. And then also, um. We. So part of my military career, when I had knee surgeries, they done a sequester. And it’s a crazy thing, but it gave me a completely outlook, different outlook on life. We were doing autopsies, um, for part of the military. And after you see so much of that. You understand? You are not guaranteed tomorrow. So I mean, for everybody it’s different. But when you understand, you’re not guaranteed the next second, you’re not guaranteed tomorrow. It makes it a lot easier to enjoy what you do have. And I mean, even for my kids now, they sometimes complain about what they have or don’t have. And I’m like, you literally aren’t guaranteed what you have for one, and you’re not even guaranteed the next day or the next minute. I was like, so you might as well make the best of whatever you have because it’s what you have.

Josh Fuller: [00:51:11] You can’t change what you have and what you don’t have. So the only thing you can do is make the best out of every single situation. I mean. For us. I mean, part of us working so hard is so that in the next ten years we can partially retire or slow down so we can go live on like a tropical island where it is a slower pace. But for now, we have to keep up with all the sports and stuff like that, which is fun for the kids and fun for us to watch and watch them grow and learn and enjoy things. But. The fast pace. What are you? You also have to ask yourself, what are you doing the fast pace for? Because if you have no reason at the end of day, why would you stay resilient anyways? Like what are you really fighting for? Like for some people living a slower, less paced life and you don’t need all that stuff. There’s no sense in having it. Like why waste all your money on stuff you don’t need? So you have to evaluate yourself and see what what you really want?

Speaker3: [00:52:03] What’s your why? Yeah, some people don’t.

Josh Fuller: [00:52:05] Even know what their why is people just go from day to day living and they don’t. Even if you ask them why are they doing that. They they wouldn’t be able to tell.

Speaker3: [00:52:11] You what I did.

Sharon Cline: [00:52:11] Yesterday.

Josh Fuller: [00:52:12] Society. They’ve fell into the society of everybody else. Oh what are we going to do? Uh, well, they’re doing this. Well, why are you doing that, though? And that’s another thing. Like, I know what I’m doing, what I’m doing. I want to retire early and I want to enjoy life and I want to travel, and that’s how we’re going to fund it. Is the businesses running themselves eventually and all. And some people don’t understand how to take their hands back from their business and put people in place to run the businesses. So that’s another thing. Like if you’re going to create a business or entrepreneurship, do you want to be there every day running it? Do you want to sit back? Do you want to build it up so you can sell it off? How do you want to do it and why are you doing it?

Sharon Cline: [00:52:49] Such good questions. I think for anyone who’s listening in considering any different kind of industry, why? Why do you do what you do? And I love that you already know and I’m excited to see where you go. This is really fun for me because now I’ll be looking for you in like the back of trucks or driving or whatever. I’ll be like, I recognize that beard.

Speaker3: [00:53:09] Well, hopefully.

Josh Fuller: [00:53:10] You won’t see me too much. I enjoy being in the background on that and running the production from the background and running my businesses from the background, and we have a lot of amazing people that do stuff for us and amazing people we build things for. And it gives me more time to spend with my family. Uh, some people want to be in front of the stuff, but to be in front of the stuff, you have to be out there more. So that’s where you have to decide why and where you’re going to be. So for me, if I want to enjoy the time with my kids right now, yeah, I got to let somebody else take the spotlight sometimes, but I don’t mind that at all. As long as we stick to like, our code of ethics and the way we work and we keep up the quality, I don’t really care who’s doing it. The whole point is for the quality to be where we want it to be.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:52] So if someone were interested in some of the services that you provide, how could they get in touch with you?

Josh Fuller: [00:53:57] Uh, we have websites for all of them. So you have the adult films with a Z. Llc.com. Terminus is terminus production. Well, it’s terminus pr.com. Um, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. We answer pretty much any of it. If I don’t answer personally, somebody else answer. I mean, and then you can ask your friends, usually a lot of your friends, if you’re especially if you’re from this area, you’re going to know who we are.

Sharon Cline: [00:54:20] Well, Joshua, thank you for coming in. I feel like I learned a whole lot today. I’m really excited to see a whole other side of an industry that I didn’t know anything about. So like, I’ll pay attention a little bit differently, but I’m excited to see where you go. It’s really fun, and if I know some people, I would be happy to refer them to you as well.

Speaker3: [00:54:37] So thank you very much. Thank you for coming, for having us.

Sharon Cline: [00:54:40] Of course. And thank you again for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you with knowledge and understanding we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day!

 

Tagged With: Terminus Production Rentals

Chuck Burge with Airaoke

February 17, 2024 by angishields

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Chuck Burge with Airaoke
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aChuck Burge has been in the marketing industry for over 30 years. He became one of the hosts/emcees for the Diet Pepsi “You Got The Right One, Baby” Uh-Huh Girls…. transitioned into a corporate DJ.

He was invited back into the marketing world to create marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies…GM, Dunkin Donuts, Pepsi and many others. After the downfall in economy in ’08, he started doing everything locally that he was doing nationally… helping companies with branding and sales.

Today, he still creates events for non-profits selling sponsorship for and producing them. Airaoke.org is the website for his biggest event. He hosts two sports podcasts to raise money for a cancer support group and NIL money for the 2nd largest college in GA, Kennesaw State University.

He is very involved in his community through Chamber of Commerce, business associations and volunteering for MUST Ministries.

Connect with Chuck on LinkedIn and follow Airaoke on Facebook

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:05] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX Studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:19] Welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I’m your host, Sharon Cline. And today in the studio, I have a gentleman who has spent over 30 years in the entertainment and marketing business. He has been a host and emcee for the Diet Pepsi Uh.huh girls, which has been a minute since they’ve been around, but still amazing credit. And he’s created grassroot fortune 500 companies like GM, Dunkin Donuts and Pepsi. His. Today he creates events for nonprofits and his biggest nonprofit is airaoke.org/, which is why he is in the studio today. We’re going to talk about that today. So please welcome Chuck Burge. Hello.

Chuck Burge: [00:01:00] Hey, Sharon. How are you? Good. How are you? Good to see you. Good to be out with you.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:05] Thank you. On a nice, somewhat warm Thursday afternoon, which is so crazy. Crazy.

Chuck Burge: [00:01:10] It’s beautiful, I love it.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:11] I know, me too. Thank you so much for coming in today. Oh, you bet. We, um, had previously spoken. At some point we would talk about the Airaoke competition that happened in October and September, September 30th. And then life gets in the way.

Chuck Burge: [00:01:27] And then my life, not yours.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:29] Yeah, no, but I appreciate you reaching out and reminding me that we were going to do this. So thank you. I’m very happy to, um, to go over the the other side of getting ready or talking about what you’ve done in terms of success with Arioch, because we talk about getting ready and getting sponsors and, and trying to promote this event, but it’s not often I get to talk to someone about the after afterwards and how you felt about it and how successful you felt. It was not just for sponsors, but like for the the nine over 11 Fallen Heroes project, which is who benefits from the karaoke competition?

Chuck Burge: [00:02:06] That is correct. Uh, Susan and Mike. Course, Mike is, uh, was actually spent three months at ground zero after nine over 11 recovering bodies and stuff. And Mike and his wife Susan run the nine over 11 Fallen Hero project here in Atlanta. And Mike is actually contracted cancer from being on site at nine over 11. So he’s the first person to contract it from being on site. They’re just fabulous. Guy. I can’t speak as well as he used to, but he used to be a very good speaker around town and used to do, uh, keynote speaking. And now he leads to talking to others and he just comes to the event, which is great. Uh, Susan and I now have a four year partnership. We had our first meeting of the year last Friday. Went very well. Uh, we’re going to make some changes, which is kind of interesting. Um, yeah. So, uh, yeah. So looking forward to getting keyed up about, uh, September 28th this year of 2024. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:59] So this will be the fourth karaoke. That’s correct. That you’ve had. So I know you’ve spoken about Arioch on other shows, but I’m wondering if you could give the listeners an idea of what Arioch really is.

Chuck Burge: [00:03:10] Arioch is just a fundraiser for the 9/11 Fallen Hero Project. Uh, all all nonprofits do golf tournaments and five K’s. And I wanted to do something different. Um, and having been a karaoke host, probably one of the first 10 or 20 karaoke hosts in the country when it came here in the early 90s, I’ve always had a passion for karaoke, even though I hadn’t sang karaoke since 2000 until about three weeks ago. I did it at a birthday party.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:38] Oh, what did you sing?

Chuck Burge: [00:03:39] Uh, me and, uh, Sandra Glenn sang. Uh, I got you, babe. Oh, I got down on my knees so she would be taller than me. So we’d be like Sonny and Cher. And it was a blast.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:48] Oh, it’s fun right?

Chuck Burge: [00:03:49] A lot of memories rushed back. It was fun. It was a long time since I’ve been on a mic to sing, but, uh, we had a good time, and that’s all that matters. That’s anything I do. If I have fun, I’ll assume everybody else is having a good time.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:01] That’s awesome. So you had created Arioch is a combination of, like, an airport and karaoke. So let’s talk about how you came up with that. Yeah, the whole concept.

Chuck Burge: [00:04:10] I was on the board for the Marietta Aviation Museum for a while, and they had this big C-130 out at the Aviation Museum, and I was just standing there one day in the parking lot. And it’s a very unique place to have an event, and it’s kind of slopes down towards the plane. And I said, well, great for viewing and all that stuff. And I said, how cool would it be to wrap a stage around the nose of that C-130 and have people sing karaoke in front of the plane? And everybody loved the idea. But the more we looked at it, there was a railroad track across the street and, uh, 72 trains a day come through there and you never know when it’s going to happen. So we just decided that that wasn’t the place. And I went to Jim Cook that owns, uh oh. I can’t even think of the name of his company. I’ll think of it here before we leave. Uh, he owns a hangar up at, uh, Cobb International or McCallum airport, and we decided to have have it in there. And he had a smaller plane than the C-130, but we still wrapped a stage around the nose of the plane and karaoke, and the view was beautiful. You could see Kennesaw Mountain behind the planes and planes were taking off and landing behind the stage. And it was really an awesome venue. Uh, it was so good that we. We almost doubled our capacity or doubled our crowd size in the second year, and we ran out of room. So there’s just not enough parking at the airport. Um, it became a nightmare for the airport people. The elevations restaurant, I think, who I love, Diane Bowman and Mike Bowen, so no issues with them, but, uh, we took over all their parking spaces, so they were a little concerned. So we moved it to the Strand Theater on the square in Marietta, and we’re even considering changing it to Square Aoki since we’re on the square.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:49] Oh, gosh.

Chuck Burge: [00:05:49] We don’t know. But we’re thinking about it. But we don’t want to lose the branding. Um, so. And we obviously did not want to lose the karaoke portion of it. So we had to do something with air, and as you well know, because you sang in it and you came in third place, um, we made the stage look like a runway, so it looked like the performers were coming out on a runway and singing like they were the airplane. So we still had the karaoke tie in. Uh, the one thing that we lacked, we we could have used a bigger crowd. And the reason being, when we did it at the airport, we had, uh, we had over 25 sponsors, and each sponsor brought ten people, and we had table rounds of ten for them. There’s no place for rounds of ten at the strand. So we did a little, uh, adjusting this year. So we’re going to give the sponsors more tickets so they can come, and we’re going to do a couple of other things differently. Uh, but that’s how I came up with Arioch just. When you get as old as me, you lay in bed and you think and you think and you think. And just one night karaoke, maybe kind of fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:49] Divine inspiration is what we’re going to call that.

Chuck Burge: [00:06:51] You never know.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:52] Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:06:52] How did definitely up in the air. Oh, yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:56] Another dad joke that happens in this. We have dads in here all the time, so I’m sure dads who are listening are like, oh, cute. Uh, all right. So how did you get associated with the nine over 11 Fallen Heroes Project?

Chuck Burge: [00:07:06] I called, uh, Randy Kreider, who at the time was the fire marshal and then became Cobb County Public Safety director, and I had known him since he was 4 or 5 years old from church and McEachern High School. And I said I really wanted to do something because nine over 11 meant a lot to me. Two of my best friends were supposed to be in the towers that day, and through God’s grace, neither one of them wound up there. And, um, and when it happened, I ran off to a church and sit there and prayed, and I knew the 20th anniversary was coming up, and somebody said, you know, everybody’s starting to forget. And I said, well, let’s do something about that. And I called Randy and didn’t want to do a. Didn’t want to, uh, couldn’t give it straight to the firefighters. So he directed me to this organization to talk to them directly. And that’s how we had to give to the firefighters through there. And now it’s to all first responders, not just firefighters.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:00] Well, there were so many, right? So many different ways that people were being rescued and helped during that time.

Chuck Burge: [00:08:06] Just look at what happened in Kansas City yesterday and 800 900 firefighters and policemen there. It’s crazy. Crazy stuff. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:14] Have you been to New York since this has happened?

Chuck Burge: [00:08:16] Have you? No, I don’t think I have. I think I think I flew by there like a couple of days after, actually. I flew out of Boston on nine, nine. Oh, wow. Two days before. And I, you know, I may have been up there, I can’t remember, but. And I remember seeing the hole where the tower was, but I, I’ve never visited the site.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:34] I’d love to I haven’t either. I would love to as well, I’ve heard. All right, let’s go. Yeah. I’ve heard it’s really sacred, you know. Road trip. Yeah. And they have the museum there as well, which I’ve wanted to see. I mean, I don’t know, there’s just something, um, so solemn and sacred about what happened, you know, in these people’s lives. And when you think about the fact that your friends could have been part of that, it just hits closer to home, you know, than someone. Like where? I didn’t know.

Chuck Burge: [00:08:58] Anyone. Like I said, one of them called, um, she had had her fiance died like, the week before, and his funeral was the day before, uh, 911. And she called that morning and said, I just need one more day. And everybody in her firm was killed except for her that day, two hours later. And then my best friend was supposed to be at a meeting there, and he missed his flight the night before in Atlanta. So that stuff just gets to you. It’s personal. Yeah. And it became very personal to me because of those two people. And of course, the more I learned about Mike and everything he did, I mean, he just tears my heart up when I talk to him, so. Susan two I mean, it’s an amazing thing what they did.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:40] I think it’s a wonderful thing to. To turn something that’s tragic and, you know, horrible and beyond what we can really even comprehend to make something positive out of it. And I think that’s one of the challenges that I find for my life, is the things that I can blame as negative and difficult. You know, if I reframe it, it can be something that is beneficial to my spirit or someone else’s spirit or journey. Um, and I can get down about things. So it’s it’s not easy, but I love the notion of being able to say, here’s something awful that happened, here’s how we can make it better.

Chuck Burge: [00:10:14] And absolutely, I.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:15] Know what is it? I want to say? It was Mister Rogers who said, always look for the helpers. Have you ever heard that?

Chuck Burge: [00:10:24] You know, I don’t think I ever watched Mister Rogers, other than seeing the farce gets done by Johnny Carson on his show, but. Well, I know it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and that’s about it.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:35] That’s funny. That’s good. Um, I think he was the one who said that, you know, children would sometimes say, how do I or actually, no. He went to his mother and said, when bad things happen, what do we do? How do we look? How how do we think positively about the world when you see bad things happen? And his mother told him, look for the helpers, look for the people that help. Um, and then that gives you hope, I guess. So it’s like choosing to look at the positive, which is what you’re doing.

Chuck Burge: [00:10:59] I try. I try, yeah, it’s a great event. It’s a fun event. Uh, the last two years we have had, uh, one of our clients, American Signature Family Furniture, uh, had WSB come out and cover it. So that was great that we’ve got two years of exposure on WSB on their people to people show the week after. It shows on Sundays at noon. And if you go to karaoke Org, you can watch those videos of past events. They were very good. I think you’re in one of them. I think I called you and said, hey, do you see yourself on TV?

Sharon Cline: [00:11:30] Yeah, I was really surprised. Yeah. Uh Sharon.

Chuck Burge: [00:11:34] Cline. Seeing people.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:35] She nothing like the woman who won Hillary McDermott. My goodness, I just my mouth was just open the whole time. I’m like, why is she not have a record deal and is like on videos and, you know, the most famous person.

Chuck Burge: [00:11:47] Any of any of the three of you were just as good.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:49] Oh that’s awesome.

Chuck Burge: [00:11:50] Well, I can’t even remember who the second place girl was. I know she was blond, I can’t remember her name.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:54] And I can’t think of her name off the top of my head either.

Chuck Burge: [00:11:56] We had a hard time getting her, uh, jukebox into her car after the event, I remember that.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:01] So what’s so cool is you get these gifts to give to some of the finalists, and it’s just, you know, what a what an honor to feel like. I’ve got this company that’s helping me to honor the people that have done.

Chuck Burge: [00:12:13] And that’s American signature family furniture that gives us the gifts every year.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:16] Yeah. I mean, how special is that? And is it is it any challenge at all to find sponsors? I mean, what is that like for you? Well, there’s.

Chuck Burge: [00:12:22] Always a challenge when you’re looking for sponsors and it’s a sales game no matter who it is. There are so many good charities out there. I mean, most ministries out there, there’s tons of good charities, people that help with, uh, homeless kids and, and, you know, hungry kids and just police. And every company has their own passion and somebody’s gonna say, nah, I support other charities and that’s and that’s fine, but you just have to talk to enough that first responders mean a lot to them. And to me, 911 was the deal clincher, you know, and for some people that we talk to it is you know, that’s I want to give to these people, um, Uncle Andy for plumbing. Now, uh, talk to him about returning this year. But he was on board last year, and he sat and talked with Mike Kors for about a half hour at the event so much I didn’t even get to meet him. We’ve talked some on Facebook and stuff, but I didn’t even get to meet him while he was at the event. But, you know, it meant something to him, and it meant a lot to Mike for Randy to sit there and talk to him. So, um, sponsorships range from 250 to 5000. If you want to go look at archive.org, that’s a I r a o k e.org, and you can see all the sponsorships available on there.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:33] So you’ve also got some postcards that you’ll hand out occasionally over time to help people to understand that they have an opportunity potentially, if they want to be part of it. This is where you go and what you do. So I’m glad that you brought some today. I’ll be back. Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:13:47] Let me show it here on the radio. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:49] I hope you can see it. But they’re not on right now, which is the way I like it. No.

Chuck Burge: [00:13:54] So, yeah, we’ll leave these with Sharon. We’ve got her some, uh, basically to save the date. September 28th, 2024, the only date the strand had available that month. Oh, wow. So we have to work around their schedule and getting to that. And I’ll talk a little bit about some of the changes we’ve made. Uh. It’s it’s very difficult to find a place to do this. The benefits of being at the strand are number one, the acoustics, number two, the acoustics, and number three, the acoustics. I mean, it sounded so much better in the strand than it does in a hollow airport with all this ambient noise going on. But it was, from a technical perspective how long it lasted. It lasted right at three hours, which is what we were shooting for. The first singer came on at seven and we announced the finalists at like 945, and then they performed and and then left. Now we’re going to do something a little bit different this year. Uh, I know we had 25 singers and then three finalists, and I don’t know if you noticed it or not, but when the three finalists were announced, everybody else left.

Chuck Burge: [00:14:54] So we’re not going to have finalists this year. We’re just going to have 25 singers, and then we’re going to do a raffle instead of silent auction. So if you’ve got a raffle item, please contact me at Chuck karaoke org. And and then we’re just going to announce the raffle winners and then we’ll name the three winners and then it will be over. So so that way we’ll hope to keep the crowd there longer. And we also are going to do a better effort of trying to get schools involved. We are dropping the age participation down to high school. Excellent. So any high school that wants to participate, they can have a student there. And our thinking behind that is that will bring people. So if you have a daughter that’s in the course, everybody in the course will come. If you have a son that’s sings, all his friends and stuff will come. So that’s kind of our thinking behind that. But it’s still karaoke. It’s still the coolest nonprofit event going in town because it’s not like anything else you’ve seen.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:47] It’s not. It’s the most unique, for sure. But what I love that you’re having for you’re having younger people, um, there’s so many talented people out there who just haven’t had a chance to really shine. So it’s wonderful that you’re giving them this opportunity.

Chuck Burge: [00:16:02] Yeah. And Hillary is scheduled to be a judge, so I hope she’s still going to be a judge. Um, the previous winner always becomes a judge because we’re not going to let the same person win two years in a row. Gotcha. Uh, which I think is a good marketing idea because we want everybody to have a chance to win as long as we have the event. So, uh, and then, uh, Madeline Montgomery, who was one of the judges last year, instead of just getting community leaders, we’re going to get four other people that know music and they know what they’re looking for because, like, I had a friend, I wanted to name his name John Keller, but, uh, but he was just I don’t know what I’m voting for. I’m just voting because I think they sound good. So. So we’re going to get people that know what they’re doing. So I guess in a way we’re going to step up the judging a little bit. So Madison’s going to take over that. And again, that’s one little thing off my plate. And I got a lot of good committee that everybody does a little. And I like to say, you know if everybody does a little nobody has to do a lot.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:57] Perfect. Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:16:57] Right.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:58] So so what other, uh, how was it at the end of karaoke? Did you feel like the money that you raised felt significant? Did it feel worth it? Um, I guess I have no idea what that side is like for you.

Chuck Burge: [00:17:11] Yeah. Um, as long as Susan’s happy, I’m happy. And, you know, we have a great relationship, and, uh, she keeps coming back, so she must not be unhappy with what we’re doing.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:21] That’s amazing. Perfect.

Chuck Burge: [00:17:23] Yeah. And, you know, we’ve raised we we grew, uh, we doubled in size from year one to year two. Uh, year two to year three. It wasn’t quite that, but we did have an increase in the money that we gave to Susan. So, uh, you know, it’s not it’s not that hard if you’re going out trying to sell sponsorships, as long as you tell enough people. I’ve been in the sales business long enough to know that if you tell your story to enough people, you won’t fail. And that’s my bottom line. I will tell everybody I know until I get where I want to be. So that’s kind of my mantra, I guess.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:58] Have you always had a heart for nonprofit?

Chuck Burge: [00:18:01] You know, uh, for 17 years I refereed and coached basketball at the upward organization at my church. And, um. Sometimes I was trying, but I did it for 17 years, every Saturday. You know, during basketball season, I did it. And I also volunteer at Gobbledok every year for Mus ministries. Um, and also, I don’t know if you want to mention this, but I also do two sports podcasts.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:30] I did want to ask you.

Chuck Burge: [00:18:30] About them, so I do one called Three Guys Who Love Sports. Uh, at 5:00 at Wednesday’s at Miller’s Ale House on Chastain Road in Kennesaw. So, uh.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:39] Across the street from Kennesaw State University.

Chuck Burge: [00:18:40] Across the street from KSU. So we do that because I’ve been playing poker once a month for close to 40 years with a bunch of guys, and two years ago, one of them contracted prostate cancer, and me and one of my other friends took him out to dinner one night. And all they wanted to do was talk about prostate cancer. And I said, Steve, you got you got to stop, buddy. You’re going to kill yourself worried about it. And so we got him talking about when he played baseball at Murray State and when he and I used to play church basketball against each other, and his whole demeanor changed, his face lit up. It’s he started smiling and laughing again. And I said, you know what? We’re going to start a sports podcast show just for you. I said, we’re going to do it once a week, and it might only be an hour, but, you know, I’ve helped somebody an hour, and somebody else helps somebody for an hour. This world will be a better place. So we started that and two weeks ago we had our 100th show. Oh, congratulations. Two year anniversary. Yeah. So it was awesome. And about six months into that I had a friend of mine, Carrick Martin Carrick is the co-owner of Dogwood Golf Club out in West Cobb, and I knew he was a sponsor and donor in the Hall of Fame of Kennesaw State sports, and I wanted to have him on the show to see what was going on at KSU, because I went to Kennesaw Junior College when there were five buildings on campus, and so I had Carrick on the show and he pulled me and Robert.

Chuck Burge: [00:19:52] I said, you guys are great. This is a lot of fun. He said, would you be interested in coming out and broadcasting at, uh, Dogwood Golf Club next week for the US open? I think it was in June. And we said, yeah, we’ll come out there and do a road trip. So we did. And again, he pulled us all aside and said, you guys are just fantastic. Would you be interested in doing a show all about Kennesaw State sports? And Robert had looked at and said, well, we don’t know anything about them now, but we’ll learn. And so now we’ve been doing that show 18 months. So at Miller’s Ale House on Chasteen Road, Kennesaw, we right across from Kennesaw State University. We do, uh, three guys who love sports. At 5:00, we always have a guest on and we mail them agenda a couple of days ahead of time and so they’ll know what they’re going to be talking about. And then at 7:00, well, Miller’s feeds us at six, which is a terrific thing because their food is delicious. And then at 7:00 we do the owls who live sports all about Kennesaw State sports, and we have fans and guests and coaches and players and on it’s a lot, a lot of fun. And like I said, we’ve been doing that show since August 17th of 2022. So about 18 months now.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:54] Can you even believe it?

Chuck Burge: [00:20:55] No.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:56] Like, who would have thought you would be doing a show about Kennesaw State University? You know, every Wednesday and it’s just the way life unfolds sometimes just cracks me.

Chuck Burge: [00:21:03] It’s just crazy. I mean, uh, and in my opinion, it’s God’s hand and he’ll he’ll lead you where you need to be. And we just we have so much fun. We have so much fun. Um, we had a little trouble yesterday because it was Valentine’s Day. We had a couple that was supposed to be on, and they begged out because she was sick. So. So they said. And, uh, we didn’t have a guest yesterday for the first time. So we brought Larry the engineer on, and he was the third guy who loved sports. But that’s the first time we’ve had to do that. But, uh, we’re back on schedule next week, and I think it’s called it’s not Valentine’s Day, and everybody wants to come back on and be on. So it was tough. But, uh, yeah, two years. We just got a new sponsor, uh, Brain Train. Do you know them? I don’t, um, yeah, train, brain train incorporated. So they look at your mind and tell you what’s going on in your brain. Oh, boy. Very cool people. Melissa Hergert and Meg Thompson. Hey, if you’re listening, that’s awesome.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:54] I can only imagine what they would find in mine. Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:21:57] They could look in mine and look in one ear and see through the other one, so that’s okay.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:02] No, they’d be like, would you just relax? I’d be like, what do you mean?

Chuck Burge: [00:22:05] So they’re going to be a sponsor starting March 1st. But now we have like Kennesaw Express lube, uh, American Accents with Dan Fisher, uh, Brian Bristow on the Kennesaw Express lube. And then Alvin Jameson has his own mortgage company. And so they’ve been sponsors for 7 or 8 months now. So, yeah, it’s funny.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:23] You’re talking about Kennesaw Junior College, and now it’s the second largest university in the state.

Chuck Burge: [00:22:28] 13th in the country.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:29] 13th in the country. I did not know that.

Chuck Burge: [00:22:31] Yeah, 40 over 43,000 students.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:34] Wow. Yeah, amazing I know, but, you know, I was thinking how wonderful it is that you’ve got these friendships that you’ve had for 40 years or however long it was. But how nice is it to be able to draw from some of the people that you’ve gone through life with, to be able to help promote things that you’re passionate about now?

Chuck Burge: [00:22:53] Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s, uh, I’ll tell you a little. I’ve never used an ATM. I’ve never used a debit card. I go in the bank and I build a relationship with somebody, so if I have a problem, I can go in and say, hey, something’s here. Can you fix it for me? And that? Works. I mean, I try to impart that to my kid. I’ve never ordered one thing on Amazon in my life. I want to touch it. I want to feel it. I want to see what it looks like before I buy it. And I know that’s not today’s world, but that’s my world. It’s so funny. Robert and I, Robert Kinney, my co-host on the On the Owl Show, and the three guys who love sports. We got in the biggest argument yesterday on the show. The first time we ever been in an argument I think about, he told me that I told him that I had never heard a Taylor Swift song. He said, oh yes you have. I said, no, I’m telling you right now, I cannot name one. I have not heard one. He said on the radio. I said, don’t listen to the radio. I listen to my CDs. He said in the store, I said, I think I know it. I know a song that I didn’t know if I heard it, but everything I hear in Publix, I know I sing along with it. So. And then we went to commercial. We came back, I said, you know what, Robert? We’re doing this two years and the only time we’ve ever had a disagreement about whether or not I heard a Taylor Swift film. So that was fun. Yeah. And and people even texted in that exchange was hilarious.

Speaker3: [00:24:09] I know. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:11] Taylor Swift I know has been causing a little bit of a stir, a little bit of a stir. Yes. In the sports world these days. Did you watch the Super Bowl?

Speaker3: [00:24:18] Oh yeah. Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:24:20] Gotcha. We got to talk about it. So we, uh, of course you’re right.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:23] Sports related. I don’t know why I even asked that. That makes sense. Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:24:27] Yeah, but I it was a good football game.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:30] Is there anything that you’ve learned that surprised you about Kennesaw or the sports program there?

Chuck Burge: [00:24:35] Uh. The best thing that I’ve learned is there are some really loyal fans, and there are some that aren’t because there are. They’ve got 43,000 students and they can’t fill up a 10,000 seat stadium. And that has got to change. They’re moving to conference USA July 1st, which means they’re stepping up in grade and in everything, the schedule. We’re looking at the schedule last night and they go to San Jose State. They go to Sam Houston. They go to uh, UTEp in western Texas, and they make some long trips now to where it used to be, Jacksonville State and Furman and Jacksonville, Florida and all that. But now they’re they’re stepping up. But the purpose of our show there is to help raise the Nil money to keep the athletes there. Uh, one little girl, Kylie, uh, she probably hates me calling her a little girl. Carly Turza is, uh, she’s the hammer thrower at KSU, one of the hammer throwers, and sets a record every time she throws the hammer for KSU. She fabulous. She got an nil deal with WWE. So now when she graduated from KSU, she’s going to WWE. And she has just. About five, four five, five. Beautiful as can be and, uh, and hard as a rock. She has. She has, like 250,000 followers on TikTok or Instagram or something. And when she was on the show the first time, she took our intern and put him on her shoulders and did squats.

Speaker3: [00:25:58] Oh my God.

Chuck Burge: [00:25:58] And that’s that’s what she does online. She’s hilarious. So, uh, yeah. And it’s funny, you know, that, uh, the people you meet, I’ve made so many good friends now from, uh, from them now coming to the show, you know, almost every week to spend time with us and listen to what we have to say about KSU sports and coaches. And the track team has been great. Uh, basketball team’s been good. We had a couple of coaches on and the players and stuff. It’s been really, really cool, uh, to get involved and, you know, that’s me. I want to be involved with what I’m doing. So, you know, we’re hoping to raise money for, uh, prostate cancer awareness for the first show. And I owe money for the KSU athletes in the second show. But karaoke is still my biggest passion. Just because what it meant to me and, uh, and we, uh, we want sponsors, we want singers, and we want people to donate, uh, raffle items. And we want we want people there.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:50] So what’s been the most satisfying part of being part of karaoke, of creating karaoke and being part of what’s been the most satisfying part of it?

Chuck Burge: [00:27:01] The relationships I built with Susan and Mike. And, uh, all my committee members that have given so much, you know, of course, to me, uh, that’s what I’ve done for 30 years now, is create stuff. And when you create something and then you run it to, it’s a lot different than creating it and handing it off to General Motors or Dunkin Donuts or whatever. But, uh, when it’s your baby, um, I get pretty passionate about it. So I love just the fact that. I’ve kind of left a legacy. If we keep doing it, you know, it’s something that I created and that my sons can look back and say, hey, dad, that was pretty cool, you know?

Sharon Cline: [00:27:40] Maybe he’ll run. Run it.

Speaker3: [00:27:41] Someday.

Chuck Burge: [00:27:42] Um, I doubt that.

Speaker3: [00:27:44] I doubt they’ll.

Chuck Burge: [00:27:45] Live here, but, uh. But I’m already in the search for somebody to kind of take it over when I’m ready to hand it off. The plus side of that is, I believe it’s. It’s worthy of sticking around for a while. So as long as we can get doesn’t take that much to put on this event, I won’t. I don’t want to give you the amount, but it’s not a huge number. It’s the beginning of the strand and the prize money, and that’s basically about it. And, uh, we can do a lot of great things for the 9/11 Fallen Hero Project. If we can get more people to come out and participate, I think we’ll I don’t think we’ll have an issue this year filling out the 530 at the strand.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:21] I was thinking about how as as you were speaking, about how what you’ve done has so much heart to it in so many different ways. Um, not just Arioch, but with the the KSU show and the fact that you have this. Passion for helping and creating an event that has in its own merit is worthy to watch. But then the benefit of it being for something good as well. It always feels like there’s such a positive momentum and positive result that goes when your heart is involved in something that you know is for something good.

Chuck Burge: [00:28:57] Yeah, I mean, it’s great if we raise 5000 for them, it would be just as great as we 50,000 for them, you know. It’s it’s the process and doing it and being consistent. I made a promise to the committee last Friday. I said every day, every day between now and then, I’ll ask somebody to sponsor karaoke. Except on Sundays. Sundays I take off. But, uh, but every day I will send an email. I will talk to somebody about being a sponsor of karaoke, and I hope you will, too. And if we all do a little, like I said, if we all do a little, nobody has to do a lot.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:32] So what’s the best way that I could help you or anyone that’s listening can help you?

Chuck Burge: [00:29:39] You’re talking about personally or with.

Speaker3: [00:29:40] This.

Chuck Burge: [00:29:42] God? Personally, I need a lot of help.

Speaker3: [00:29:47] No.

Chuck Burge: [00:29:48] You know, it’s funny, I tell the committee members because some of them are very hard workers and they love to be at the event and they love to do the event, but they’re not salespeople. And I said, all you have to do is say, hey, can Chuck come talk to you? Can Chuck come talk to you? And I’m there. I mean, that’s all it takes. Phone number and an email and I’ll talk to anybody about Oryoki. So that’s that’s how Sharon Cline can help me from a professional standpoint.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:13] I can help get people to know that you have this opportunity for them. Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I’m not a sales person either. Yeah. So I find.

Chuck Burge: [00:30:22] I find that hard.

Speaker3: [00:30:22] To believe.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:23] No, I can talk about things, but I’d like to ask someone to do something for me. That’s a challenge. So. But I love the idea of being able to have a postcard that I could give to someone and say, hey, this is coming up in the fall. You may want to consider and get in touch with you. Who is this natural sales person? So you’d be able to tell the story way better than I could, I’m sure.

Chuck Burge: [00:30:41] And believe it or not, that’s what salespeople do. And salespeople, uh, when I used to sell life insurance and health insurance for mass mutual insurance company back in the early 90s, I always told people, I said salespeople aren’t the best talkers. They’re the best listeners. If you don’t listen and know what somebody wants to buy, you can’t sell them anything. So sit there, ask a question and sit and listen. And if this is their passion, then tell them the story. If not, say, hey, I suppose, well, you know, that’d be great. Let me tell you a little bit about this event and then move on. But if that’s their passion, they’ll become a part of it. People buy from people they like, and that’s something that I’ve learned over the years, that people like you, they’ll buy from you as long as you’ve got something they they want or need. And if you don’t. There’s no reason why you can’t still be friends. And you know that’s. Don’t burn your bridges. I’ve done that once, but don’t burn your bridges. And, uh. And everybody will be just fine. Just get along with everybody. Um, and that’s that’s kind of my story. I like I like helping these guys. I love helping Susan and Mike. Uh, great people, Wes, their family and Ren and all of them, uh, they do so much for the community, just like the firefighters do, and just like the first responders do. And those are the people that I support. Every time I see one of them on the street, I thank them for what they do, and that means a lot to them. Um, I’m sure some other people do it, but I wouldn’t say the majority of people do it.

Speaker3: [00:32:08] That’s true.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:09] I would imagine that’s true. Yeah.

Chuck Burge: [00:32:11] So take care of these first responders. They’re they’re here for a reason, and they’re and they’re here for you. And that’s why they’re here. Because they care about you.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:21] You almost hope that you don’t need them.

Speaker3: [00:32:22] Absolutely. You know, unless.

Chuck Burge: [00:32:24] You have a flat tire or something, that.

Speaker3: [00:32:25] Would be good.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:27] Well, I mean, I hope, I hope I don’t, but if I ever do, you know, I’m grateful that they’re there. Um, not just for me, but obviously sometimes I’ll see fire trucks going on, you know, the road, and I just. Where are they going? Where are they going? You know, I’m usually frustrated being stuck in traffic. But the truth is, I’m grateful I’m not the one that’s needing the help that created the issue with the traffic.

Chuck Burge: [00:32:47] So that’s why great people like you care. Because a lot of people don’t.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:51] Oh that’s nice. Well thank you. No.

Speaker3: [00:32:53] Thank you.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:54] Well, I wanted to ask you briefly about marketing. When you watched the Super Bowl commercials, were there any that just stood out to you as you thought they were just amazing, given that you were in the industry for for many years?

Speaker3: [00:33:04] You know.

Chuck Burge: [00:33:05] I got up in eight during most of the commercials. I didn’t watch a lot. I don’t watch the halftime show because that’s just not me. I did watch some of the dunking commercial was okay. I watched it because their former client, um, uh uh, all the people that were washing feet, I didn’t know what that was about till the end of it, but that was pretty cool.

Speaker3: [00:33:22] Um.

Chuck Burge: [00:33:23] There were some that were okay, but nothing that really stuck out to me. Great. Of course, I’ve been watching these for 30, 40 years, however long they’ve been paying $7 million to be on the Super Bowl. Yeah, my favorite commercial. And I’ll tell you this, it wasn’t Super Bowl, but over the holidays, John Travolta being Santa Claus, that was the coolest commercial I’d seen in.

Speaker3: [00:33:44] 30 or 40 years. Walking.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:45] Yeah, on the street.

Speaker3: [00:33:46] And he’s dancing.

Chuck Burge: [00:33:47] On the Saturday Night Fever floor. And the girl that’s actually behind the counter was actually in Saturday Night Fever two.

Speaker3: [00:33:52] So did that crack you up? To me.

Chuck Burge: [00:33:54] That was the most clever commercial I’ve seen in a long, long time. So more John Travolta, more ties into the 70s and I’m happy. Camper.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:03] Well, Chuck, I can’t thank you enough for coming in and talking to me about Arioch. I know we were talking about this for a while, and I appreciate your reminding me because life just happens. I mean, it’s already almost March, April, May, June. It just comes and goes. So thank you for reaching out and, um, and for being having such a generous heart and a caring heart for people in the community. And your friendships obviously matter to you as well. So having like a relationships like you’re building and knowing that you are giving people an opportunity to benefit not just in an entertainment way, but in a way that supports what’s important to them, it’s invaluable. So thank you.

Chuck Burge: [00:34:41] Well, what you put into a relationship is the best thing in life, because if you put something into it, you’ll get something back. That’s why I look at it. And I think you’re saying that just because you came in third, but I don’t know.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:51] I didn’t think I’d come in anything.

Speaker3: [00:34:54] If you haven’t heard Sharon saying, find her and make.

Chuck Burge: [00:34:57] Her sing to you.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:57] That’s that’s very generous of you. But I would say you need to go to visit Hillary McDermott and her band, alibi, which apparently is amazing. I’ve been wanting to see them live, but, uh, yeah, I really appreciate that you gave me a shout out, but I’m telling you that these there’s there are some amazingly talented people right here in our community, and I can’t wait to see more of them. And we’ll find.

Chuck Burge: [00:35:16] Them between now and September.

Speaker3: [00:35:18] Heck, yeah. Thank you Sharon.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:19] Thank you Chuck, and thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.

 

Matthew Silverman with Silverman Consulting

February 16, 2024 by angishields

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Silverman Consulting is a boutique digital “not an agency” focused on providing digital marketing fiduciary services. We focus on SEO, digital & social ads, fractional CMO, ABM, strategy, and growth marketing.

Matthew Silverman is an ambitious and creative digital marketer and is no stranger to internet marketing of all flavors. As a veteran online marketer, he’s worked with a wide range of clients, including: Inc 500 retailers, small mom and pop businesses, Fortune 500 global consulting firms, and startups.

This experience has spanned across multiple industries: jewelry, recruiting, lead generation, fresh fish, niche videos, clothing retailers, and service providers.

Bits of Sunshine is Matthew’s daughter’s baking business. They started it before Covid, and officially were in business in 2020. Matthew is the operations lead – aka he makes sure there is flour, sugar, yeast, and butter. They baked to pay for sleep away camp.

Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here with Rachel Simon. This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Connect the Dots Digital. When you’re ready to leverage LinkedIn to meet your business goals, go to Connect the Dots. Dot digital Rachel. So excited to be part of this show. This is such an important topic. It’s so excited to be learning from your guests. Who do we got?

Rachel Simon: [00:00:47] Thanks, Lee. Happy to be here and happy Valentine’s Day.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Well thank you a special day. Any gifts? Uh.

Rachel Simon: [00:00:56] I should have brought some chocolate today. We’re really excited. We have Matthew Silverman with us today of Silverman Consulting, which he describes as a not agency. So what is a not agency?

Matthew Silverman: [00:01:08] That’s a great question. I’ve worked for some of the big agencies, and they come with a lot of people and a big price tag, and you have to sign up for a full year and all this fun stuff. And a lot of clients don’t necessarily want that. They want get in, do the work and get out of my way. And that’s kind of the way I pitch myself, is let me just do the work and leave you alone to run your business.

Rachel Simon: [00:01:30] Very interesting. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about sort of what your area of expertise is, your focus, what the kind of work you’re doing for your clients?

Matthew Silverman: [00:01:36] Sure, absolutely. So my focus is on SEO, which is basically search engine optimization. And it’s not just Google, it’s also LinkedIn and social media and anything else, even podcasts, to making sure that when someone’s searching, you actually show up in the right spot where you want to be. The other part of my services includes digital ads, paid ads. So that would be Google ads, LinkedIn ads, email marketing and growth hacking, ABM, all these fancy buzzwords Azure. Like whatever it is, I get the leads and sales for you.

Rachel Simon: [00:02:07] Well, what’s good for me to know is I can call you when I have someone who needs the LinkedIn ad stuff, because that is not what I do. Yes, we’re a good pair on the organic and the paid side. Yeah, it’s really interesting, I think with SEO and where where that industry has gone in the last, you know, ten years and then where it’s going. So I mean, you’ve been doing this for a long time. Like what are some of the trends that you have seen since this all started, you know, in what, 15 years ago maybe?

Matthew Silverman: [00:02:37] I think some of the big trends are that Google is trying to force people to be authentic and real. They want real content by real people. They’re filtering out bad content, like if someone is pretending to be medical doctor but they don’t have the degree, they’ll try to filter that stuff out. Um, that happened a couple years ago. Same with financial. If you’re not really a CPA and you’re giving tax advice, they’re going to hopefully filter you out and push you down in the search results. Um, nowadays, the concept of AI, that’s a big concern. If you go in there and you create AI content, will Google filter out, will they allow you in Stpd? I mean, some topics I’ve seen, there’s a lot of AI content, but people don’t know that.

Rachel Simon: [00:03:22] Yeah, we’re definitely going to talk about AI today. I feel like every show we’ve had this year, we have talked about AI because it’s just touching every aspect of marketing. Well, really every aspect of sort of our, our business practices. But that’s interesting about the ability to filter based on real qualifications, like how are they determining who is real and who is kind of pretending to have that expertise?

Matthew Silverman: [00:03:49] That’s a great question. And Google’s not going to tell you. So that’s that’s a tough thing. To help people out is to help them understand that the algorithm is not there to read like a book. I mean, we’ve got some great books on the bookshelf over there about connections and business and doing all the good things you need to do to run a business. But Google is not going to tell you how to display yourself as a professional. Um, there’s guidelines, so if you have a medical degree, you need to make sure that you describe where you went to school and where you got a degree from and your fellowships and all the other stuff. As an example, um, a couple of years ago, I worked for one of our local, um, big pest control companies, and their biggest complaint was one of their competitors that was not in the pest control business was actually grabbing their search traffic because they were doing a better job at describing medical conditions related to bugs. But my client was not. And the big difference was that their people were medical doctors saying, I’m a medical doctor and blah blah, blah, whatever it was. And this particular bug looks like this and it causes this issue. And here’s my credentials. And I’ve been working in the field for X number of years, but my client didn’t do that.

Rachel Simon: [00:05:01] So is is this coming from like what’s on their website. So like all the blog content and like the uh, all the various like what’s on the different pages describing. What they do, how they do it. I mean, or are they pulling in from other sources? I mean, I’m kind of fascinated by that because I will say in the LinkedIn space, there’s a lot of people who say that they’re one thing, but they’re actually not really necessarily right. Uh, putting out the full true story of who they are as a professional. Yeah.

Matthew Silverman: [00:05:32] I mean, it’s akin to walking into any professional office, like your doctor office. You walk in and there and you expect in their waiting room, there’s going to be some type of medical certificate or diploma. You expect the office will look and feel like a medical office. You’ll expect like certain things. And I think the same thing goes for online, especially LinkedIn and also someone’s blog or website. Um, LinkedIn, you want to see a link to where they go to school, where are their credentials? Do they have a link back to their exam grades or any other certifications? Whatever it is, blogs should be the same. So if you are pretending to be a doctor or are a doctor or whatever it is, you should have a link back to here’s your medical school, here’s when you graduated, here’s your fellowships, here’s your specialty, here’s all the papers you’ve written. Um, like, literally prove who you say you are using words.

Rachel Simon: [00:06:21] That’s fascinating.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:23] But you also have to prove it, um, using those backlinks. Right. Like that’s part of your proof is that if people of authority are linking to you, that is a signal, maybe that you are who you say you are.

Matthew Silverman: [00:06:38] Exactly right. And to go with what you’re saying about people on LinkedIn, pretend who they are. I received a number of outreach requests from people that say they went to Stanford. Um, worked at some fancy brands for like a couple of years, and then they want to sell me a franchise, and you start looking at their picture and where they came from and was like, no, you didn’t go to Stanford, and there’s no way for me to verify that someone went to Stanford or not.

Rachel Simon: [00:07:02] Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, LinkedIn is definitely plays up the honor system because there is really no you know, schools are not going to verify that this person actually went here. I mean, I always say this, you know, I could say that I went to Harvard and worked at Coca-Cola for 30 years, and neither one of those are true, but nobody can prove it otherwise. Yeah, just by looking at my profile. But there is definitely the honor system. Um, that’s and generally what you’re describing are those fake profiles that we can have a whole other show about that one, believe me, talking.

Matthew Silverman: [00:07:34] About, I mean, that would be an amazing use of AI. Like go in there and filter out what are the criteria for real profile and prove it. How do you prove that you’re human versus a fake person?

Rachel Simon: [00:07:45] Yeah, unfortunately we’re seeing the opposite use of AI, which is um, how can we build fake profiles with fake AI photos? And, um.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:53] But now try.

Rachel Simon: [00:07:54] To sell people franchises?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:55] Isn’t LinkedIn trying to address that? At least with that partnership with clear to have a verified that you are at least who you are named? Yes.

Rachel Simon: [00:08:04] If you’re if users are willing to to do that, I would say that is that verification. If anybody is not sure what we’re talking about, where you might see a prompt to verify your account. Um, if you’re a clear user, I would really, really recommend just doing it. Clear already has your information. It’s so simple. Like I have clear and it took about two minutes to get my right verification done. But some people get real nervous about personal information, even though it’s probably all out there.

Matthew Silverman: [00:08:33] It’s definitely all out there.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:35] But it’s one of those double edged swords, right? Like you, the consumer wants to know you are who you say you are. So as a business person, it’s in your best interest to, you know, have proof that you are who you say you are to combat all of these people that are who they’re not, who they say they are. So you have to do something, I think, to elevate yourself amongst among the rest of the people, or else you’re just going to be lumped in that pile.

Rachel Simon: [00:09:01] Yeah. Agree. Completely agree. Um, I want to ask a question about sort of back to the AI and SEO and I know, um, just from. You know my husband other the way I have used AI tools. Um, almost as search tools. So how do you think that that’s going to impact SEO moving forward when you know, we’re going to ChatGPT or Barred or Claude to ask a question that we would maybe gone to Google a year ago to do.

Matthew Silverman: [00:09:34] It’s a great question. I think a lot of it’s still TBD. Um, I think Google is still trying to figure themselves out and trying to figure out how they fit in the ecosystem, because it used to be customers would have a question and they would go out to Google to answer the question because Google had the knowledge. Now ChatGPT and all these other places have the knowledge. They’re scanning the web, they’re creating the connections. They’re saying, well, we know all these questions that people are asking and are curious about. We can provide the answers. And I think that Google is trying to figure out the business model of, well, how do we do that? I think naturally people will still go to Google, but I think there’s going to be a large contingent of people going to ChatGPT or other places to get those answers.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:16] Yeah, yeah, I know my behavior has changed. I use the I use this called perplexity and perplexity. I what they do is they have the sources. So they they take and aggregate the information and answer your question in a conversational way that AI does, but they also have. Here’s the sources I use to come up with that. So I can go back to the link to where they pulled some of the information. If I want to dig deeper. And I think that that’s kind of a way to thread that needle with having that conversational AI thing that humans like to talk to other kind of humans, rather than a listing of potential places where your information can be found.

Matthew Silverman: [00:10:55] Yeah. I think the thing with Google is that Google has been indexing the web for so long, and they have so many data centers, and they have so much indexed in their system that that’s their value add that ChatGPT and some of the others don’t have, because the newcomers can’t index everything so quickly. It takes time to process all that data and scan the sites and figure out, um, who’s a real doctor who’s not. Why someone a real doctor who to go to, who to trust, things like that. They’re still trying to figure out those algorithms.

Rachel Simon: [00:11:24] I think it’s going to be really interesting to sort of see, because I know, you know, again, I think to your point, Lee, of like the ability to converse with those tools, but if it is giving you sources, then that’s going to tie in to the the ranking component, right? Because it’s like, well, you want your your website to be one of the sources, be one of those sources. Right.

Matthew Silverman: [00:11:48] Um, but does that make the answer correct?

Rachel Simon: [00:11:51] Correct. It depends.

Matthew Silverman: [00:11:52] And that’s the problem is that if you go on to ChatGPT or borrowed or whatever and you ask it a question, you still have to check to see, is that answer correct based on what actually is out there? Yeah, because it’ll spit out whatever it wants but not might not be correct.

Rachel Simon: [00:12:08] Yeah I think it’s it the this that this question a year from now. The answer I think will be very interesting to see how things have progressed. And I think they’re going to progress very quickly, um, as these tools get smarter and hopefully don’t take over the universe.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:25] Now getting back to your, uh, agency or non-agency, um, who is that ideal client for you? You mentioned, uh, pest control. Is there a niche that you serve or a size that you serve?

Matthew Silverman: [00:12:36] That’s a great question. So it’s more of the mentality, um, I’m looking for to work for a grateful clients, clients that, um, are looking for an expert, someone to come in and get stuff done and get out of the way. Um, someone on a fractional basis. Um, I’ve worked with clients across the spectrum. Everything from crypto to jewelry, um, business services, B2B, lead gen, um. Apple computer was a client a couple of years ago. So it’s it just depends what.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:09] So it could be B2B, B2C and it could be any size. Exactly. But as your work typically done for you. So like it’s I’m hiring you to do something for me or is it something where you’re teaching me to do this for myself?

Matthew Silverman: [00:13:23] All the above. It could be I could backfill for an agency or company. I could teach you how to do something, and then you do it. I can teach your team how to do it. I could fill in and do a particular tactic, or just take over all of it and handle the all the marketing.

Rachel Simon: [00:13:37] Do you have something that’s like your favorite, you know, of all of those various things like a sweet spot, the best.

Matthew Silverman: [00:13:43] I think that sweet spot would be combining all the different things together, because I think that if you’re looking talking about I, there’s definitely an eye with the paid search side. And then you combine the knowledge with that with the organic, and then you can figure out, well, if there’s ten spots that someone’s searching for, whatever it is like, I want pest control and you’re able to take the top spot with paid, and then you’re taking the next two spots with organic. Now you’ve got three out of ten spots.

Rachel Simon: [00:14:10] That’s so interesting. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, marketing is. Such a. Interesting slash challenging area to be in. You know, a lot of companies have a lot of expectations. Sometimes those are realistic, sometimes maybe not so realistic. Um, you know, what do you think as far as like when it comes to marketing, you know, we’re at the beginning of the year, like, what are some of the where do you think this marketing is headed this year? And what are what do you think some of the things businesses need to kind of prioritize?

Matthew Silverman: [00:14:45] Based on the news that I’m seeing in LinkedIn, looks like a lot of businesses are trying to figure out, well, how do we cut costs? How do we generate more leads? How do we get in front of more customers? It looks like businesses are trying to. Spray and pray. They’re going out there with content and they’re or ads and they’re just hitting everybody over the head with it, even though that that particular person or segment of people is not right for that business or there won’t be a lead. Um, they’re working on a numbers game. Um, I think for businesses, what I’m advising a lot of clients is take a step back, figure out who your clients are, and don’t go one channel. Go omni channel. I think some old school things are still valid, like direct mail. Still works like. And it works really well because you have to see it, touch it and then throw it out. So psychologically speaking, that name of the business or service goes in your head. Um, and then you follow it up with an email or digital banner ad or something. And now the person has seen you three times, four times. And it’s like, oh yeah, well, if I need LinkedIn consulting on the organic side, well, now I know who to call.

Rachel Simon: [00:15:56] So it’s back to the old fashioned of like multiple touches. Exactly. Yeah. And it’s interesting because that’s sort of um. You know, you’re on the your point of being omnichannel. You know, again, my my primary focus is working with clients on LinkedIn with this idea sort of to your point of being that multiple touches of just top of mind, like you just want to be top of mind, right? Right. So people like, oh, I need this. I know somebody who does that.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:24] Right? Because I think that’s the part of marketing that people miss. Is that just because you’re saying, I have this service, you’re assuming the person needs your service at that specific moment that you’re interacting? Exactly. And you have to be kind of ubiquitous so that you’re there all the time because you want to be there when they do need the service. So you can’t do this like once and think you’re done. This is kind of a, you know, you got to keep pumping the lever to make the water come out constantly. If you want to keep getting a pipeline filled, right? Yeah.

Matthew Silverman: [00:16:53] I mean, a classic example is pretend you’re driving down the street and you see a bus, and there’s a banner ad on the side that says Drink Coke. And then there’s a bus stop that says Drink Coke, and you’re reading a newspaper that says, Drink Coke, and you’re listening to a radio commercial that says, drink Coke, or you’re.

Rachel Simon: [00:17:10] Really thirsty.

Matthew Silverman: [00:17:10] And you go to lunch and what do you order? What do you order? You drink a Coke, which is enlightening to think about the past Super Bowl. There was no cockettes.

Rachel Simon: [00:17:21] There weren’t.

Matthew Silverman: [00:17:22] No.

Rachel Simon: [00:17:23] Right, were there? Pepsi ads?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:25] There was one for starry.

Matthew Silverman: [00:17:26] Starry.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:28] And Dunkin. Dunkin Donuts.

Rachel Simon: [00:17:30] So that is so interesting, right? What? I didn’t even notice that until you brought it up.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:36] So. But does that work for B2B as well? Because those are B2C kind of interactions. Like does it work like if I need an accountant or I need a, you know, a professional service advisor of some kind, even somebody like you, like, um, I don’t need to marketing. Maybe I do need marketing help all the time, but it’s like at a certain point there’s going to be a thing that comes up that’ll be like, oh, I need marketing help. And now I’m going to hire a marketing helper. You know, like, how do you kind of do that in the B2B world is the same strategy as the B2C world?

Matthew Silverman: [00:18:07] I think B2B it’s similar but different. Um, so depending on what industry and what you’re doing, I think having omnichannel definitely makes sense. Um, so the companies I’ve worked with on the B2B side that have done omnichannel seem to be able to get more leads better than if they do a single channel and they’re trying to put all their eggs in one basket. Um, so an example was a couple years ago, I worked for a promotional products company, and we did an omnichannel win back campaign where we actually mailed people something. We did a email blast, digital ads and stuff like that, and it was a 10 to 1 ROI versus I’ve had other clients that actually just finished an engagement. The client would just focus on LinkedIn. And small little segments. I don’t think they had enough impressions of the ads and didn’t get enough leads, so they stopped it.

Rachel Simon: [00:19:01] Yeah. That’s, um, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think I kind of look at it from the relationship point of view. So the idea that on the B2B side, like let’s just use, you know, a you need marketing support. So somebody refers you to someone and then you go, yeah, you know what? I’ve seen that person and I’ve seen them on LinkedIn or I’ve seen I’ve gotten an email from that person. So it’s like that social proof ties in with the the referral component of it. But, um, I totally agree with like, I don’t think anybody should put everything in one channel. I think that that is way too much pressure for that one channel to handle.

Matthew Silverman: [00:19:38] And even talk about social side on LinkedIn, you have to be present. So you have to generate enough content so that enough people see it, so that if you’re looking for accountants or whatever it is that. Whoever is creating that content, you’re a lawyer or an accountant. You show up for your audience frequently, not once a month, but like every day, every other day.

Rachel Simon: [00:20:01] Yeah, you definitely have to show up to stay top of mind. Um, so I want to shift gears a little bit to something a little bit sweeter, which is tell us about bits of sunshine.

Matthew Silverman: [00:20:13] That’s a great. So, um, pre-COVID, my wife, um, got my daughters baking and my then 13 year old daughter was baking cakes, and she’s like, all right, well, now we’re going to bake and pay for camp. And they’ve been baking ever since we got our cottage license. So we’re all legal. And we used to buy flour and 5 pound bags. Now we buy it in 50 pound bags, 150 pounds at a time. Um, sugar we’d buy in 5 pound bags years ago. Now it’s 25 pounds at a time and a very large dog food bins, um, to keep it all fresh. And they bake. Um, so my eldest is baking custom cakes and cookies and cupcakes and stuff like that. She’s ninth grade in high school, tahmima and my middle spicy lady is seventh grade, and she bakes collard bread every week.

Rachel Simon: [00:21:01] That is so awesome. What’s like the specialty on the sweet side?

Matthew Silverman: [00:21:06] People love, um, snickerdoodle cookies. Um, that seems to be a big seller. Um, chocolate chip cookies are big. Um. Chocolate cakes go fast.

Rachel Simon: [00:21:17] Oh, fun. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:18] So let’s get a little bit in the weeds of the marketing behind it, because I’m sure you were involved a little bit in the marketing, um, advising from afar, maybe.

Matthew Silverman: [00:21:28] So the marketing, what I do is make sure that they’re present on LinkedIn so that when my eldest turns old enough to actually run it herself, she has a LinkedIn profile that’s been going for years. It’s kind of like a gift of, oh, now you actually have a company that’s been out there being present for the past X number of years. So every time they bake, I put a post up there with a photo of, here’s all the stuff that they’re doing, and cake of the day, or cookie of the day or whatever it is. Um, so last night my eldest actually baked, um. Um. A cookie that looked like fish on purpose.

Speaker5: [00:22:07] Yum. Yes.

Matthew Silverman: [00:22:11] I didn’t think about it there for a second. She’s made some of these, like, impossible type cookies where it looks like something else, but this one looked like gefilte fish.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:18] Now, but, um, how do how do they get sales? Like, what is their. I’m trying to create a lesson for aspiring bakers or people out there that have a small business. How did they get their first clients? How did they get to the point where that you’re now ordering, you know, 50 pounds of flour like that doesn’t happen accidentally. You know, it’s doing taking some action to make that happen.

Matthew Silverman: [00:22:39] So my wife does, um, promotions on WhatsApp groups. She’s like, it’s the sunshine. It’s, um, things to sell, fresh baked cookies and hollow bread, if anyone’s interested. And people, is it all local?

Lee Kantor: [00:22:49] So is it locally based or is this people are ordering from all over the country.

Matthew Silverman: [00:22:53] It’s all local. We don’t, um, shop right now. I think shipping would be a lot more complicated. Um, my eldest daughter aspires to be baked by by Melissa. Um, and she shops all over. Um, and that’s a great story of how this lady was working for somebody in New York. She fired, and she spoke to her brother, and he’s like, you’re not fired. You’re baking your own cookies. And she bakes these delicious cupcakes and cookies.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:18] So, so they’re how do they get the product to the customer.

Matthew Silverman: [00:23:24] Delivery or people pick it up?

Lee Kantor: [00:23:26] And then so it started out organically, like friend group like, hey, my kid’s doing this. And no, I want to support that. And I like that. And it’s high quality enough for them to have repeat orders. It’s not a one time thing. And then it just kind of kind of word of mouth has spread and your.

Matthew Silverman: [00:23:41] Word of mouth. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:41] You’re just doing things from a marketing standpoint to encourage word of mouth. Are you doing anything to kind of judge it up in terms of getting more word of mouth, or is it just relying on the community?

Matthew Silverman: [00:23:53] It’s relying on the community. So success is very difficult because there’s a limit of how much they can make. Right? Um, so my daughter can eldest can typically bake like maybe three cakes a week on a really busy week. Most of the time it’s like one cake or maybe like two, three dozen cookies, depending on like how much homework there is, because unfortunately, school gets in the way, right? Um, and then the my little lady, she, I think the most she’s done is probably about 15 pounds of, um, dough, um, in a week, which is a lot. It’s like three big batches. Once she gets to 15 pounds, she’s like, I’m done.

Rachel Simon: [00:24:28] It’s a lot of kneading. I just have to say, looking at some of the pictures, this apple cinnamon pull apart collar looks absolutely amazing. No, it looks amazing.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:37] And obviously if you’re getting repeat orders, they’re doing something right. Right. Exactly. Like somebody will buy something once to help your cause. But if they’re coming back for more, they’re obviously on to something here that you know, you want to encourage as a parent and you want to encourage as a business owner, right? I mean, that’s a that’s a lesson of business, right? If something’s going well, you want to double down on what’s winning.

Matthew Silverman: [00:25:00] Right?

Rachel Simon: [00:25:00] That’s really fun. I see Kids Baking Championship. I bet they like that show.

Matthew Silverman: [00:25:04] So my eldest actually applied for that. But there was a lot of roadblocks to get through. They have to go through an interview, and it’s a pretty extensive application. And you have to know about all these esoteric baking techniques, which are very fancy, but no one’s really going to use them except if you’re in like, a fancy restaurant. Um, so she knew how to bake, but not some of the techniques. So she wasn’t couldn’t get didn’t get through the first round.

Rachel Simon: [00:25:25] I think that’s really fun.

Rachel Simon: [00:25:26] Yeah, she’s gonna be real. All of her friends in college are gonna love her, and she’s baking things for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:32] And it’s a skill that they’re going to have for their whole life. Like, this is it’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing for them now. Is there any actionable tips you can share for our folks listening right now that I want to improve my SEO, especially local SEO, I want to be found. I want to be that go to thing of whatever niche that I’m in. What are some of the basics that I can do today that could make a positive difference where I show up in search? Yeah.

Matthew Silverman: [00:26:00] Great question. So I would basically refer to my daughter’s baking business as an example. Um, find out where your limit is, what you can do and stick to that. So if you’re a business and you’re doing local SEO or LinkedIn, even you can do one post a week, do it. If you can do five posts a week, fantastic. Do it, but be consistent. Don’t say you can do 30 posts a week. Do it for a week, burn out and then never do it again. I think that’s worse. Um, in terms of the quality, I think the quality is important. If you’re baking chocolate chip cookies and you’re baking one batch or 500 batches, that first cookie or the 5,000th cookie should all taste the same. And I think that’s important. Your quality of your content should be high quality. It’s grab your business, describe what you do, why you do it, how you help people, whatever makes you different, that type of stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:51] Um, should you be inserting like your daughter? Um, like, should she be saying things like Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, like, really get talk about neighborhoods and things like that in terms of if that’s her target area that she wants to sell into. Like, should you be using that kind of language to signal to the search engines, this must be a local thing. This isn’t just a chocolate chip cookie, and that could be Rachael Ray or Ina Garten, but this is happening here locally in this market. So it would show up locally if somebody in Dunwoody was looking for it.

Matthew Silverman: [00:27:24] Exactly. So in Google my business, there is a way you can select your service area and you need to actually select where you do services, but you do need to follow back and put in your content now servicing XYZ neighborhoods or areas.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:38] And then so within a post you would want to mention that in an elegant non fake way, right? You can’t just say you used to call it keyword stuffing where they would hide invisible words that were important to them, but that isn’t valid anymore, right?

Matthew Silverman: [00:27:53] Yeah. And the other bit of advice I tell people is pretend you’re a customer, put on that customer hat, put on the customer clothes, and look at the business to think, if I wanted this particular service or product, what would I want to see? How would I want to see it? How do I. Make it look good. Look at competitors to see what they do, what are their customers experience look like, and then figure out what do you like about all these competitors? What don’t you like and make the best of all that?

Rachel Simon: [00:28:22] Yeah, that I mean, that makes so much sense. And like I completely agree on your consistency. Point is much better just to do what you can do right and be consistent. Just like I always use the example of like going to the gym, you know, you can only go to the gym twice a week. Just make sure you show up twice a week. Just do it. Just do it. Because otherwise if you miss for four weeks, it’s so much harder to get back into it. Like just keep it up and you can always do more but maintain that consistency, right? Um, well, this has been a really fun conversation. Matthew, what is the best place for people to find you?

Matthew Silverman: [00:29:02] Uh, best place is LinkedIn. Um, so I’m one of those weird marketing people that does not have a website yet.

Rachel Simon: [00:29:10] Which is kind of funny.

Matthew Silverman: [00:29:10] It is funny. So it actually is in draft mode, but I just haven’t clicked the play button because I don’t like the way it looks right now and haven’t quite figured out exactly what I want. So. And that’s okay. Um, a lot of my content’s on LinkedIn. That’s where I share stuff. I try to put value add information there that is helpful to people, non salesy. Um, try to present myself as the digital marketing fiduciary. Um, kind of like akin to financial fiduciary people where they will tell you, well, this is good or this is not good, and basically help people not to jump off a cliff if they think the sky is falling and I is going to take over the world because it’s maybe, maybe not. No one really knows.

Rachel Simon: [00:29:51] To be determined.

Matthew Silverman: [00:29:52] Right?

Rachel Simon: [00:29:53] Um, awesome. Well, we will find you on LinkedIn and definitely also follow. It’s a sunshine I already did. I’m gonna. I can always use pictures of cookies in my news feed, but you can’t.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:04] Get enough of that.

Rachel Simon: [00:30:05] No. Um, awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a really fun conversation.

Matthew Silverman: [00:30:10] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:10] Thank you for being part of the show. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you. All right. This is Lee Kantor for Rachel Simon. We will see you all next time on Sandy Springs Business Radio.

 

About Your Host

Rachel-SimonRachel Simon is the CEO & Founder of Connect the Dots Digital. She helps companies ensure that LinkedIn is working for them as an asset, not a liability.

Rachel works with teams and individuals to position their brand narrative on LinkedIn so they can connect organically with ideal clients, attract the best talent, and stand out as a leader in their industry.

Rachel co-hosted LinkedIn Local Atlanta this week along with Phil Davis & Adam Marx – a networking event focused on bringing your online connections into the real world.Connect-the-Dots-Digital-logov2

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn.

Tagged With: Silverman Consulting

BRX Pro Tip: 5 Tips to Improve Your Local SEO

February 16, 2024 by angishields

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Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, what are some ways to get better, to improve our local SEO?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Yeah. We just got off of a call with Ed Bardwell, our partner at Rainmaker Digital, and he’s the one that helps us with our website. And he spent a lot of time explaining to us these ways to improve our local SEO, which I’m going to share now.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:30] His number one tip was to optimize your Google My Business listing. That is so important to make sure that that is done correctly and is just filled with photos and frequently asked questions and whatever they’ll let you fill out. Please fill that out to make sure you’re optimizing your Google My Business listing so that people locally can find you and know exactly what you do.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] Number two, he said to make sure that your full local address is on your website so the search engines understand the geographic area you’re in and you serve.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:06] Thirdly, and I think this is so important and that people should be doing this on a regular basis, it’s get more reviews, get more local reviews on Google, Facebook, any industry sites; you need at least 30 reviews and you should be growing that every single month. There should be targets for your team to make sure you’re getting reviews every single month. This should be a relentless pursuit of reviews. That is the social proof you need. You need that kind of customer to say, “Hey, these people are good people. Look, they got 100 reviews.” So definitely, invest time in getting reviews.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:41] Fourth, build local links with your local business partners and local associations and local community pages. Make sure there’s a backlink from your site to their site, their site to your site, all that good stuff. The more relationships you have with authoritative local resources, the better.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:59] And five, make sure you’re producing local-based content and you’re sharing it with the community that you’re building in the neighborhood resources that you’re partnering with. That kind of content is valuable and that’ll help you be found locally when people are looking for you.

BRX Pro Tip: 6 Important Things an Entrepreneur Should Work On Every Week

February 15, 2024 by angishields

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Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I’ve got a question and it’s as much for my personal benefit as it is for our Pro Tip listening audience. But how do you decide, like where are you going to put your energy, what you’re going to work on each week?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Yeah. Energy and priorities are so important. And for some people, priorities should never be plural. It should always be priority. But these are six important things I think that a business leader or entrepreneur should be working on each week.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] Number one, the most important thing, and I think this is the priority, is revenue-generating activities. This is where you focus on building up your leads, your sales, your cash flow pipelines, making sure that all of those are full. That is, to me, the priority in all businesses, because without that, you’re not going to be able to serve many people and do much work anywhere.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:58] Secondly, I would invest some time each week in improving whatever your core product and services to better serve your current and future clients. You always want to be pushing the value line and improving on whatever it is you’re doing, and you have to be relentless about that because there’s people out in the market right now that are trying to find holes in your swing and try to penetrate your client base by serving them through those weaknesses you might have.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] Third, I think you have to invest some time in networking with your strategic partners. You have to stay in contact with your clients. You have to stay in contact with your referral partners. You have to stay in contact with your former clients because they could become your current clients if you keep doing that enough. So make sure that you’re investing time in these relationships with the people important to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] Four, I think you have to invest a little bit of time in long-term planning, looking ahead, investing some time in those future goals. Those are the key initiatives that are down the road. You got to move the ball a little bit in those things or they’ll never happen. I think it’s very important.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:04] I’m listing this fifth, but it probably deserves to be probably second, is investing time in your team and your culture. I mean, that is critical. If you want a team that is all aligned and is clear on what the mission is, you have to invest time in them.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:19] And lastly, and probably most importantly for your own health and well-being, is self-care. You have to sharpen the saw. As Stephen Covey says you have to invest in your health and make sure you’re eating right. You’re hydrated, you’re exercising, you’re clear-headed. You have to invest time in yourself if you want to grow your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:39] So, those are six important things that every entrepreneur should be doing every week.

BRX Pro Tip: 3 Tips to Get Your First 100 Listeners

February 14, 2024 by angishields

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Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, when it comes to building that coveted pool of listeners, what are some ideas for getting that first group, man, that first set of listeners?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Yeah. I was reading some things, some thought leadership that Spotify was putting out, and they had some interesting suggestions or recommendations and there are three tips. And what I got from Spotify was these are the three things you should be doing to get those first hundred listeners. And getting those first hundred listeners and subscribers to your podcast are really critical when it comes to creating that escape velocity if you want to build a substantial-sized audience that’s provable to sponsors and things like that. So if you’re not doing these things, then you’re not really serious about it. So, anybody who has a podcast or anybody who’s trying to build a listener base, these are must-do activities.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] So, first and foremost you have to reach out personally and invite at least ten people you know, friends, family, team members, clients, vendors, prospects, anybody that you know personally, and encourage them to subscribe and share each of your episodes. Okay. You have to do this on a regular basis to get that escape velocity.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:24] So, every week reach out to ten people and say, “Hey, I just posted this episode. Please listen to it, subscribe to it, and share it with people you think that would benefit from it.” This kind of personal outreach is critical to get that escape velocity for the show. This is a must-do. You have to do this if you’re serious about growing your audience, and if your client who’s hosting or sponsoring the show isn’t doing it, then they’re not really serious. If they haven’t really made an effort to get their friends, family, team members, clients, and vendors to subscribe and share the show, they’re not really serious about growing an audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:01] Secondly, make sure every episode you’re doing is solving a listener’s problem. The content has to be worth people’s time, and they should feel like they can’t get this kind of information anywhere else. So make sure your content quality is good enough and that you are solving a listener’s problem. And that means that if you’re interviewing just people and spotlighting their business, make sure you capture information and intelligence from them about what makes them unique and make sure that they’re sharing advice to help other people. You have to have valuable content if you want to build an audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:37] And then third, invest some time and energy in repurposing highlights from each episode and share them on all your social platforms, your website, your blogs, your newsletters, your emails, everywhere. You have to be evangelizing for the show or else nobody is going to even know it exists.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:54] So, the first step is the people you know. And then secondly, make sure the content’s great. And third, you have to repurpose the content in a variety of ways and a variety of platforms. And you have to do that relentlessly.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:09] Now, a bonus tip is to make sure that the guests of your show are doing everything I just said that you should do. If your guest will do all that stuff, and they’re going to share it to ten of their friends and family and team members and they’re going to go into the episode to make sure they’re going to share valuable advice and then they’re going to repurpose the content and they’re going to share it on all their platforms, then you have a shot of growing an audience and building an audience that will reach more people.

Ask the Expert: Navigating the Mortgage Market with Eric Hoffner from StrongBox Home Loans

February 13, 2024 by angishields

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In this episode of Ask the Expert, hosts Randy and Robert interview Eric Hoffner from StrongBox Home Loans. They delve into Eric’s background in the mortgage industry and his approach to consulting clients on personal finance and credit improvement.

The discussion covers the current real estate market, the influence of interest rates, and the trend of people relocating southward. Eric also explains loan options for self-employed individuals and investors, and the challenges of securing insurance in Florida. The episode concludes with Eric offering mortgage shopping advice and emphasizing the importance of credibility in the industry. Listen in to gain valuable insights into navigating the mortgage market.

StrongBox-Home-Loans

Eric-HoffnerArmed with a degree in Economics and Finance from Florida Atlantic University, Eric Hoffner embarked on a career as a stockbroker and financial planner in 1995 – where he first honed his skills as a consultant, and learned how to manage assets.

A move from Florida to Atlanta in 1997 brought a career change, leading him to the mortgage realm with JP Morgan Chase – where he grew from Senior Mortgage Broker to Lending Manager over the course of 20 years.

He briefly joined the team at IBERIABANK as Mortgage Market President – overseeing four states – before answering the call to launch his own company. Eric wanted to offer something different in the mortgage industry – something that combined his skills as a financial planner, debt manager, consultant and broker.

With the launch of StrongBox Home Loans in 2018, he was able to merge his love of helping people with turning houses into homes. His deep knowledge of the banking and mortgage industries paired with his ability to build an effective, knowledgeable team are only part of StrongBox’s many differentiators.

As a boutique mortgage firm, StrongBox can run tight, with very little overhead, so it’s positioned to pass those savings on to the clients it serves. Without the many layers of management involved in a traditional bank, StrongBox is nimble – paving a faster route to the closing table. And yet, Eric and his brokers have access to a broad product mix – allowing them to find the best home loans to fit their clients’ needs.

Eric’s dedication to staying at the forefront of technology to provide a seamless mortgage loan experience to clients in Georgia and Florida will ensure his company’s relevancy and industry impact far into the future.

Connect with Eric on LinkedIn and follow StrongBox Home Loans on Facebook and Instagram.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Excel Radio’s Ask the Expert. Brought to you by Beckshot Photography and Video. It’s your story. Make it awesome! For more information, go to beckshot.com. Now here’s your host.

Randell Beck: [00:00:30] Well, it’s not beckshot.com anymore, uh, they’re Stone. It’s Studio Lensa and studiolensa.com. So we’re going to have to get that changed. And uh hi everybody. It’s Randy and Robert, the recidivist radio hosts here on Ask the Expert. Hey, Robert. How’s things going?

Robert Mason: [00:00:47] Good. I think our guests are trying to ascertain who is the actual expert. Who? Yeah. Really? Is their expert, or is there just one?

Randell Beck: [00:00:54] It’s actually up in the air right now. It’s a hard question to answer at the moment.

Robert Mason: [00:00:57] We’ll arm wrestle for it later. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:00:59] You know, there’s no expertise in evidence yet. Today.

Robert Mason: [00:01:03] Not yet. Nothing intelligent said yet.

Randell Beck: [00:01:06] So you invited a guest for us today. Tell us about your guest.

Robert Mason: [00:01:09] I did Eric Hoffner, uh, StrongBox Home Loans. Uh, Eric’s done a lot of good deals for me over the years. He’s a very smart guy in the mortgage and the money industry. Um, I lean on Eric pretty hard because I’ve got questions, obviously.

Randell Beck: [00:01:26] Well, you know, we talked the other day with Eric, and I got questions after that discussion, too.

Robert Mason: [00:01:30] Yeah. Uh, and he’s he’s way ahead of a lot of other mortgage guys in this industry. He, he, he knows what’s going on nationally. He knows what’s going on locally. Um, he does his homework. And when he talks to my clients, uh, they come away with a, a very good understanding of what it is that they need to do. What are the steps? And, uh, I can’t say enough good stuff about Eric, and, uh, he’s going to do a good job for me.

Randell Beck: [00:01:54] Cool. Welcome, Eric. Uh, glad to have you. Would you, uh, start by. Just tell us a little about yourself and Strongbox, you know, what are you what’s going on over there?

Eric Hoffner: [00:02:02] And thank you for those kind words, Robert. Um, I’ve been in the mortgage business since 1997. So close to or exceeding 25 years. Spent most of my career at at Chase before they was even a Chase Bank, um, top producer producing sales manager. Eventually, they asked me to step away from my production to manage the state of Georgia. And then in 2018, I opened my own company, uh, to be a mortgage broker. So I’ve seen both sides of the business, the most conservative of conservative banks, and then the mortgage broker world, which is the more liberal model in the mortgage industry. Um, I was a series seven licensed, was a financial planner at some point, went to school with a finance degree. I consider myself a little bit of an economist, geek and personal finance expert. Help people to improve their credit scores, maximize their credit scores, that kind of thing. And so I can kind of give people a different perspective other than just mortgage. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:03:00] So when he he’s helped out some of my clients, it’s not just fill out this piece of paper. He actually has an in-depth conversation with them, which is very nice. He guides them, gives them the steps that they need to make to get to the finish line to get that mortgage. And he can talk about, uh, a lot of different things. That is really helpful.

Randell Beck: [00:03:20] So if, uh, one of our listeners wants a $3 million house and their credit score is 247, you’re the man.

Robert Mason: [00:03:25] Yeah, probably not. But.

Eric Hoffner: [00:03:28] You know, in a lot of times they people come to you, uh, asking if they’re pre-qualified. And the truth is, um, it’s not always what you can buy, but but what your budget allows for. So you could be qualified for $1 million house, but your budget says 500,000. And so those are the types of conversations we have with people. Um, oftentimes mortgage people are order takers. The people dictate what exactly they’re looking for, um, where I listen to them and try to figure out what’s in their best interest and maybe can steer them in a slightly different direction to maximize their opportunity. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:04:04] I mean, people have questions, man. It’s it’s not an easy business. It’s not an easy conversation sometimes. And Eric has had to say to some of my folks in the past, look, now is not the time, but here’s what you need to do to set yourself up to be ready six months, nine months, 12 months down the road. And, uh, I really appreciate that aspect.

Eric Hoffner: [00:04:22] Well, you know, people will come to you and they, they’ll say, I want to put 5% down, but they might get better terms at 10% down. Or they come to me and say they want to put 50% down when it’s probably not in their best situation to do that. Um, do you pay points? Do you not pay points? Do you take an arm or do you take a fixed. Um, and so there’s more of a consulting point of view. I’d like to consider myself more of a consultant and less of a sales person.

Robert Mason: [00:04:48] Yeah, that I’d agree with that. That’s exactly the the description.

Randell Beck: [00:04:53] What would people need to know about strongbox? I mean, do you guys originate the loan? Do you warehouse the loan or are you a broker?

Eric Hoffner: [00:04:59] So there’s different models in the mortgage industry. I came from the largest of large banks, trillion dollar chase. Um, the banks have a purpose, but they’re the most conservative of all lenders. They have what’s called bank overlays. So when they underwrite a loan, it may make it just a little bit harder to get loans. For example, they might say minimum credit score is 620 when when that’s that’s self-imposed. Or they might say we’ll do less than 660 credit scores, but we will only lend a 43% back debt to income ratio. Um, a lot of lenders, mortgage companies, really anybody that underwrites their own loans adds guidelines to guidelines to make it just a little bit harder to get a mortgage. And especially for realtors, a person will say to you or a mortgage guy, I’ll be like, hey, this guy’s only got 619 scores. Let’s put him in credit counseling, call him in six months. Where that’s a loan we can do today. So what a mortgage broker does is, um, it’s just a little bit easier. The underwriting is they may. A slightly smaller reserve requirement. We have access to lots of different programs. No income verification. Um, it’s it’s less expensive. I’m a self-employed guy. Work out of my house. I have no commercial real estate. I have no layers of management. I have no compliance people. My cost to originate just less. And we pass those savings on to your to your borrowers. And so it’s it’s less expensive. Um, the technology we have is just easier. We don’t have the same infrastructure. The great thing about being a mortgage broker is I have access to 280 lenders nationwide, and these people have to earn my business every day. Right. So there’s a race to the bottom when it comes to interest rates. There’s a race to the bottom when it comes to underwriting. And if they don’t make us happy, we move on to the next one. So you don’t have to shop. We shop for you. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:06:51] So interest rates, let’s talk about the cost of money. Now where are we at in the marketplace? Tell me about an FHA loan. Tell me about a conventional loan.

Eric Hoffner: [00:06:59] Yeah. So of course interest rates are based on credit score, loan amount, loan to value. And, um, some of my borrowers are getting rates that start with a five right now. There’s a lot of people that are easily in the mid sixes. We have a lender right now that is trying to buy the market to refinance people. That’s offering below market interest rates for the next 60 days. And so we are seeing rates that start with a five easily in the mid 60s. Investors could be high sixes, low sevens, second home rates. And the trend seems to be downward. Um we see rates dropping just about every day. And where rates are today, there is no reason for anyone to put off purchasing a home, right?

Robert Mason: [00:07:43] I agree.

Randell Beck: [00:07:44] So last year, uh, the common wisdom out there is that low rates were fueling the real estate bubble, if you will. I don’t think it was a bubble, but they used that firm. And then, uh, rates went up for whatever reasons. And everybody expected the real estate industry to kind of slow down, crash, whatever. Apparently it did slowed.

Robert Mason: [00:08:06] Down kind of.

Randell Beck: [00:08:07] Yeah. And then, uh, we are now in a declining rate market again. So. How influential were the interest rates on that, really?

Eric Hoffner: [00:08:16] I mean, last year, from a volume standpoint, was one of the slowest years we’ve had since 2008. Demand is still ferocious. We’re still seeing multiple offers, um, in spite of what anyone thought the economy was doing or interest rates going up. Um, uh, you could list your house if it was priced right. It was selling in the first Sunday. Um, and as I’m not I’m not a real estate expert. I’m a mortgage expert. But I’m not seeing any foreclosure pressure. I’m not seeing, um, any values going down. All the statistics that are coming through the news is year over year. We’re exceeding expectations. And there are probably two years of people on the sidelines that keep saying, I’m waiting, I’m waiting, I’m waiting, and we’re going to have something similar to we did after Covid. In my opinion, we’re going to have three years of demand all happening in one year. We’re going to have fear of missing out as rates drop. Um, more inventory is going to pop up. And, um, I think we’re going to have a banner year.

Robert Mason: [00:09:21] Yeah, I think so too.

Randell Beck: [00:09:22] And like a bond rates down, prices up.

Eric Hoffner: [00:09:24] That’s right.

Randell Beck: [00:09:25] So right right now is the time for the early.

Eric Hoffner: [00:09:27] Movers I mean it’s it’s it’s now and I think as rates I mean what do you think’s going to happen to prices when rates drop. You know are they’re going.

Robert Mason: [00:09:35] To go up I.

Eric Hoffner: [00:09:36] Mean there’s no choice. And and then please tell me where the foreclosures are coming from. They’re not coming. Please tell me how the real estate market could go down.

Robert Mason: [00:09:46] What we’re seeing I think people talking about foreclosures, as you see, a lot of layoffs, the Googles, you’re seeing some of the big companies out there that are laying off people, but people still have a lot of equity in their homes, and they’re certainly not going to foreclose on they’re not using their homes like an ATM, ATM, like they did back in, say, 2007, 2008 when the crash occurred. People are a lot more fluid in their in their equity levels on their homes. So they’re not going to give them up. They’re going to go borrow money from Peter or Paul or Mom and Dad or whatever the heck.

Eric Hoffner: [00:10:20] They have to do in the market, or.

Robert Mason: [00:10:21] Put it on the market and sell it and go rent until they get a new job or whatever it is. I had that conversation with a doctor today, okay. And and we’ll be talking about her later. But, um, she’s layoffs where she’s at and the city she’s at, she’s like, Rob, should I start buying now? Well, maybe. Let’s look at.

Randell Beck: [00:10:41] It. You know, another factor driving prices up besides the rate decline. We talked about this on a couple of other episodes, and that is, uh, you know, over 100,000 people a year moving into the Atlanta area.

Robert Mason: [00:10:53] Well, we only had 80 last year. Oh, only.

Randell Beck: [00:10:55] 80. Yeah. And in a good year, we might bring.

Robert Mason: [00:10:59] 120,000.

Randell Beck: [00:11:00] 10 or 12,000 housing units out of the ground. Right. Let’s just say we could do 45,000 half half of the people moving in, basically the town of the size of Woodstock, coming out of the ground every year.

Robert Mason: [00:11:11] You mean like Cartersville.

Randell Beck: [00:11:12] Which is physically impossible, as you know. So now what you’ve got is you’ve got this big pile of people moving in every year, and only a few of them get serviced with housing, and the rest of them are still looking. And then in comes the next, next pile. The next year. It’s a growing problem. Interest rates alone aren’t going to fix this.

Robert Mason: [00:11:28] So new construction that. That’s a good segue. New construction. Are you doing any new construction loans?

Eric Hoffner: [00:11:33] Yeah, sure.

Robert Mason: [00:11:34] Okay.

Eric Hoffner: [00:11:35] I mean, it seems like every builder I know, if they can get it out of the ground, they sell.

Robert Mason: [00:11:40] Are they still offering points?

Eric Hoffner: [00:11:42] Are they still are. So, um, you know, builders will build and build and build. And when the market softens up, rather than reduce the prices because they want to keep their comps high, they’ll offer buy downs, they’ll pay closing costs. That way the market recovers. Their comps are still high. Yeah. And so builders are offering incentives. They’re corporations. They don’t have emotions. And they got to keep they got to keep their product moving in order to make money.

Randell Beck: [00:12:08] Yeah. And I like the sound of that. Every builder that I know, I think I need to take you out and buy you a bourbon or two.

Robert Mason: [00:12:14] We’ve done that once or twice, have.

Randell Beck: [00:12:16] We I think I don’t remember. Well, it was your.

Robert Mason: [00:12:19] Birthday, old man. Last weekend. I think we celebrated over a few Bourbons. Did we not?

Randell Beck: [00:12:22] You know, 37 is a horrible age to 38.

Robert Mason: [00:12:25] I thought it was 38. No, no.

Randell Beck: [00:12:26] No, I’m going down now. I’m on the downhill slide. All right.

Robert Mason: [00:12:29] So the real estate market for 2024 in my opinion we’re going to see prices going up of houses values. We’re going to see we already are seeing interest rates coming down. So money’s getting cheaper. Do you see any cities that are stronger than other cities just based on money.

Eric Hoffner: [00:12:50] You know. You know real estate’s not my area of expertise. Um, but it seems like it’s hot across the board. Um, second homes, beachfront properties. Um, Florida has softened up a little bit because they’re struggling getting insurance. So for the first time in a 25 year career, people are not getting insurance as easily. Yeah. Um, they have, uh, some companies will inspect your roof and they won’t insure a roof greater than 15 years. Um, some of them will.

Robert Mason: [00:13:21] That’ll make our next guest happy.

Randell Beck: [00:13:23] It will. As a matter of.

Robert Mason: [00:13:24] Fact, we have to bring that up.

Randell Beck: [00:13:25] Listen up for next time. We got Essex Roofing in next time.

Robert Mason: [00:13:28] Yeah, yeah, we’re gonna bring that up.

Eric Hoffner: [00:13:29] So it used to be that insurance was the last thing we did. We would shop it. And the final week of the purchase, it was a formality. Um, there’s nothing in the, uh, Georgia Association of Real Estate contract to protect people if they can’t get insurance unless they do it during due diligence period. We’ve had people clear to close, subject to insurance, and they can’t get insurance.

Robert Mason: [00:13:51] And you’re talking mortgage insurance? Not private.

Eric Hoffner: [00:13:53] I don’t know, I’m talking about hazard insurance. Okay. The kind of insurance that protects your house in case it burns down, um, Florida, especially, um, flood zones. Uh, there are people in Florida where the insurance has priced people out of the market that the insurance is so expensive or they can’t get it, um, that it makes the house unaffordable. But even in the state of Georgia, uh, insurance companies want to see the roof. Some of them won’t insure a house over 15 years old. Some of them take a look at the roof and say you have too many trees hanging over. And so now we’re encouraging people to shop their insurance at application. So if there’s a problem, they know during during the due diligence period and.

Robert Mason: [00:14:31] You know, that’s brand new to the marketplace, I mean, insurance companies were they never even come out and look at the house, you would just call your your representative. They would write the policy. Um, so that’s a change. And they saw.

Randell Beck: [00:14:43] Houses, you know, as fungible. But now, um, lost experience from all the hurricanes and all the different things that people have been talking about the last couple of years. I imagine they’re tightening up a bunch.

Robert Mason: [00:14:53] California, I think, had two large carriers move out. Um, and they cited some stuff. The reasons why, um, you’re seeing a little bit of that in Florida as well. Um, the, the, the difference in Florida and California is the expected income somebody’s going to, going to have in California is drastically higher than Florida. Yeah. And so when you have people working at Disney, working at surf shops, you know, you have more tourist jobs in Florida, it’s going to be a little bit harder for Floridians to be able to afford that and shop around.

Eric Hoffner: [00:15:25] Yeah. So so some areas close to the beach have softened up in Florida because insurance can be $20,000 a year. Yeah. You know.

Randell Beck: [00:15:33] Sure. So you ask Eric about, uh, areas a minute ago and, you know, he’s watching where the money goes, but you’re watching the sales activity. You’re the real estate expert here. What are you what are you thinking about? Areas especially for the investors.

Robert Mason: [00:15:46] So I’m an STR investor short tum rental uh investor as you are as well. Um, so I get this question all the time. Um, I know Georgia, I know the North Georgia mountains. I know the Georgia coast, I know South Carolina. I know a little bit about the North Carolina mountains, um, a little bit over in Alabama. So many lakes over there. There’s some hot spots. So that’s my expert. Uh, that’s my expertise. As far as STRs. Now, California is losing people by hundreds of thousands. I think I saw something that we’re going to lose 350,000 people. People who create jobs. They’re moving out of California now. California is going to penalize them through some type of taxation that I haven’t heard. Uh, if you move out, you still owe us taxes.

Randell Beck: [00:16:30] So I saw an article on that. And basically it’s a two year. Exit tax. So for two years, you’re supposed to report back to California. What you’re making now in Georgia. That’s crazy. And pay taxes on it to California. I don’t I don’t know how they’ll ever make that stick.

Robert Mason: [00:16:46] I don’t know how they’re going to enforce that.

Randell Beck: [00:16:48] It’s it’s not even a matter of enforcement. It’s a matter of you can’t pass a law like that, right?

Robert Mason: [00:16:53] They’ll try.

Randell Beck: [00:16:54] They’ll try, they’ll.

Robert Mason: [00:16:54] Try, um, New York there are people are fleeing New York. People are fleeing Illinois. People are fleeing new Jersey. Now, there’s some spots in new Jersey and upstate New York and some spots in California that are growing. But as a state as a whole, those 4 or 5 states are the ones where they’re purging the most people. People are coming south, people going to Texas. And there’s a variety of reasons why, from weather to taxation to politics, it runs the gamut. So it’s going to be if you’re investing in the South in Georgia, Atlanta or in the greater Atlanta area, you’re going to do well. I mean, we’ve got plenty of space. We see the construction. I just said Cartersville a couple minutes ago. Yeah, we see what’s going on up there. And you and I are looking at.

Randell Beck: [00:17:37] Massive amounts of construction.

Eric Hoffner: [00:17:39] Going on out there. I think it’s fair to say, generally speaking, the North is losing population and the South is gaining population.

Robert Mason: [00:17:45] Nobody retires to New York. Nobody even tires retires to Michigan or Minnesota. They’re the young people are starting to come out of there.

Eric Hoffner: [00:17:52] Nobody moves there. I think you’re born there.

Robert Mason: [00:17:54] Yeah. And like my wife, you move, you get out of there because it’s cold. I’m from Wisconsin, I moved, I was cold, I was small, I got lost in a, uh, you know, a snowdrift. I said, dad, take me south.

Randell Beck: [00:18:05] Well, I moved off out of there because of traffic and and taxes and lifestyle. And I moved to Atlanta. So I gained on lifestyle and taxes. Anyway, two out of three ain’t bad.

Robert Mason: [00:18:16] Yeah, he lost a little hair, though. Yeah.

Eric Hoffner: [00:18:18] So what do you do in Atlanta?

Randell Beck: [00:18:19] Traffic.

Robert Mason: [00:18:20] Yeah.

Eric Hoffner: [00:18:20] So I know that the whole, uh, telecommuting thing is changing and evolving as we speak. You know, Covid allowed people to work from home. So you see areas like Cumming and Dahlonega and Dawsonville, Cartersville getting more popular. It’s more affordable to live because you don’t have to drive to work. Yeah, they’re asking some of those people to come home, but are you seeing any trends like that?

Robert Mason: [00:18:41] You know, that’s a really good question. And so my wife, she works for a fortune 500 company financial services. Well Covid hit, they all worked out of their houses and everybody got used to working out of the houses. And now these corporations are looking at their their sheets, their spreadsheets. They’re like, wait a minute, we’re losing money. Well, they’re losing on the commercial real estate assets. So the wisdom is let’s bring all these people back. I don’t know, it’s not really wisdom. I don’t know how that’s you’re going to recover, you know, capital monies.

Randell Beck: [00:19:12] A bunch of them are, are just demanding that they come back, which is not wisdom.

Robert Mason: [00:19:16] And a lot of those employees are like, no, when I took this job or, you know, you said, we’re going to be able to work remote. You know, I didn’t think this was going to be a one year deal, you know, so people are living in big canoe, people are living in the mountains and their their job is in New York or Ohio or something. And they don’t care. It doesn’t matter.

Randell Beck: [00:19:35] Well, our, our producer and I stone. Hey, Stone, say hi to everybody.

Speaker5: [00:19:40] Say hello everybody.

Randell Beck: [00:19:41] We were in a meeting this morning with the Cherokee Economic Development people. Yeah, there’s a program they have about the workforce.

Robert Mason: [00:19:49] Darren, were you with Darren’s group?

Randell Beck: [00:19:52] No. Somebody else. This was a guy from the county. Okay.

Speaker5: [00:19:55] Cherokee County. Tell him I think we should brag. That is, the young professionals of.

Randell Beck: [00:20:00] Young professionals of Woodstock. Yeah. Okay. And because we’re only 37, we fit.

Robert Mason: [00:20:05] Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:20:06] And yeah, we’re accepted by by the millennials and Gen Z.

Robert Mason: [00:20:10] I could see this group of gray hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:20:13] So the one of the themes that came out, you know, uh, Cherokee. Cherokee County Office of, uh, Workforce Development was there and talking, you know, as an open conversation, kind of meeting, talking about problems in the workforce. And one of the things that came out was this work from home revolution that has occurred. And I choose those words carefully because it has. Yeah, it’s real thing, and it’s changing the power dynamic between employee and the corporate environment. Yeah, right. And so you don’t have the power to demand that somebody come back to the office anymore, uh, or, you know, be be big authoritarian, daddy, about how you’re going to work.

Robert Mason: [00:20:52] Some of them are trying now.

Randell Beck: [00:20:54] They’re trying the employees now they got options, right.

Eric Hoffner: [00:20:59] Well, as long as the job market is strong, then the employees in control. Well, that’s.

Randell Beck: [00:21:02] Part of it too. But part of it is the fact that they can sit there at their nice little apartment or home with their computer and do, I don’t know, social media management. Yeah. And, you know, knock down 80 or $90,000 a year if they’re if they’re good and smart and they can do that, you know, without being 50 hours of work a week down in the traffic and the big office. Well, you know, one of the things so you don’t have the power to demand things from them anymore. Not as much. Right, because they got options.

Robert Mason: [00:21:28] And one of the things they found, like at my wife’s company, was people weren’t spending two hours in traffic going there, going home. They weren’t taking an hour for lunch. You know, they’re eating at their desk at their house. They were actually getting more work done by the employees working out of their homes than coming into the office and spending all that time on the road.

Eric Hoffner: [00:21:48] More productivity.

Robert Mason: [00:21:49] The money, my understanding.

Randell Beck: [00:21:51] Is productivity is off the charts in the companies that have have embraced this idea of people working from home.

Robert Mason: [00:21:56] Well, people want to work for for corporations for the most part.

Randell Beck: [00:21:59] Not every not every industry, not every company.

Robert Mason: [00:22:01] But yeah, you just said it, man. They’ve got choices. People have choices.

Eric Hoffner: [00:22:04] They fill in the gaps with conference calls and zoom calls.

Randell Beck: [00:22:06] And and you’re familiar with the brand with Patagonia. So they’ve always been sort of a cutting edge thing. They’ve never gone public. It’s always been owned by the one guy, etc., etc. and he’s been kind of a leader in that. Their thing now is work from anywhere you want to work from. Yeah. Why not unlimited time off. You know, something else that was unlimited PTO this morning? Yeah, right. Uh, they do a lot of things there. Uh. Surf’s up. They take a midday work break and go surf and come back and work. You know, that’s you’re free to do your job the way you feel like you need to do your job. As long as you get.

Eric Hoffner: [00:22:38] A cool environment.

Randell Beck: [00:22:39] And of course, they’re.

Eric Hoffner: [00:22:40] Getting ping pong. They get them bicycles, they have dance parties.

Robert Mason: [00:22:43] If you’re getting your job done, why not?

Randell Beck: [00:22:44] And they’ve been a highly profitable company. They’ve been a leader in all these areas for as long as they’ve been around, you know, since the 70s.

Robert Mason: [00:22:49] The one negative that I see out of this work at home, uh, scenario is I see more people walking around Kroger’s in their pajamas. Why are people walking around the mall in their pajamas? When did it become acceptable to walk around in your pajamas? Covid are we going to be showing real estate in our pajamas? I hope not, it’s not going to be me.

Randell Beck: [00:23:09] You won’t be making much money then?

Robert Mason: [00:23:11] No, but I see it. The dressing down of our office started a long.

Randell Beck: [00:23:16] Time before Covid casual.

Robert Mason: [00:23:18] Friday in the 90s, IBM before.

Randell Beck: [00:23:20] Covid and work from home. That standard’s been slipping for a while.

Robert Mason: [00:23:25] It has. So you go to the airport, you get on a plane and you get you’re sitting next to a guy with a tank top and flip flops on. You know, it’s just disgusting.

Eric Hoffner: [00:23:31] And his blanket and his teddy bear. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:23:33] He’s like a 400 pounds and you’re just like, oh my God, get out of here.

Randell Beck: [00:23:37] Are you going to Disneyland or go into the showers?

Robert Mason: [00:23:39] Or do you have any concept of what you look like? Did you look in the mirror? Apparently not. Yeah. Did you look in the mirror? No.

Eric Hoffner: [00:23:46] Well, there’s no doubt. I remember, um, growing up and, uh, having some success early on in my 30s and finally getting up to the custom suits and the custom shirts and the the big the big ties and the the pocket square. And then by the time I got there, everyone started losing the tie and losing the shirt. You know, they’re wearing golf shirts and slacks and now it’s jeans and a polo.

Robert Mason: [00:24:11] Ibm was the first one to go casual Friday and then NAFTA, which all the apparel business got taken offshore out of the big cities and everybody just undressed. And then we haven’t gone back to it. Not that we.

Randell Beck: [00:24:25] Bond. Bond always wears a tie.

Robert Mason: [00:24:27] And bond looks good. Yeah. Yeah. So what else can you tell us, Mr. Hoffner? You know.

Eric Hoffner: [00:24:33] One of the things I want to tell everybody is, um, for self-employed and investors. And so we, I emphasize we do all the easy loans just like everybody else. You know, all the cherry W-2 pay stub, 20% down, 800 credit scores. We we do those, but we do a lot of the hard stuff too. And so there there was a time where self-employed people, to this day, they take advantage of the tax code. They make a lot of money. They have a good CPA and they write off all their taxable income. It’s it’s common. And there was a time where those people couldn’t buy houses because Fannie, Freddie all they care about is taxable income. And so now if you’re self-employed we have no income verification products. We got about a half a dozen of them. And it’s not like the old stated stated from yesteryear where the teacher was buying a $600,000 house. Um, there is a a law part of Dodd-Frank says it’s the lender’s burden to provide evidence of the borrower’s ability to repay. It’s called ATR. If the lender does not do their due diligence and they put somebody in a loan that they shouldn’t be in and they foreclose, that borrower can sue the lender. And if successful, if they can provide evidence that the lender did not. Provide evidence of ability to repay, they get a severe penalty.

Robert Mason: [00:25:44] So give me some examples of you. You have to verify ability to pay.

Eric Hoffner: [00:25:48] Yeah. So for example, um, uh, one of the most popular programs is a bank statement loan. So we’ll take uh, I’ll give you an example. I have a, a client that had 11 Amazon trucks. He had $5 million in revenue, but he only had $100,000 in taxable income. He wanted to buy $1 million house. He was making money. He just had a really good CPA. And the depreciation on all the trucks and everything and the depletion. And so what we do is we take, uh, that $5 million, we assume a 50% expense ratio and we give him 50% credit for income. So for that borrower, we gave them $2.5 million in qualifying income. And now he’s able to buy a house. Now today’s rate for that borrower, if he could document his income could be five and a half, 6%. So he might pay seven, 7.5%. So he’s going to pay about a point or two above market.

Robert Mason: [00:26:38] For a little bit of the.

Eric Hoffner: [00:26:38] Risk. Yeah. Because it’s a it’s a more risky loan for the, for the lender because they don’t really know.

Randell Beck: [00:26:44] That a guy with money like that can buy the rate down a little bit.

Eric Hoffner: [00:26:46] Too, right? Yeah. And then they also require a decent reserve requirement. So he’s got to have money in the bank. He’s got to be self-employed for a certain amount of time. But we know those people are making money. Uh, another program we have, which is similar to you and I, is a 1099 program. Same deal. For example, truck drivers today are making a lot of money. I had a truck driver. He made $175,000, 1099 income. He only had $40,000 in taxable income. Under normal circumstances, he doesn’t qualify. We take 175 and divide it by two. Now he was able to afford a $500,000 house. We have something called asset depletion. You take maybe someone who recently retired. Their IRA hasn’t kicked in yet. They’re sitting on a bunch of money, but they have no income coming in the door. Uh, if they have enough money to cover the loan, they could have. Cash 150% of the loan amount. That’s enough for the lender to be satisfied. That’s a good loan. Yeah. And then we we do have a true no dock, which doesn’t really fit the ability to repay laws, but no income, no employment. You can buy a house. All these loans have a slightly higher down payment starting at 15% down. The rates are higher. But these people can buy a house when they normally can’t. And then we have one more program for investors only where you take an investor, he’s a gunslinger. He’s buying, selling, flipping, keeping short terme, long terme. And he doesn’t have any income, but he has a down payment. Well, we take the property, we do an appraisal. They do what’s called a rental analysis to determine what the long Terme rent is for that property. And if the rent covers the mortgage, you’re approved.

Robert Mason: [00:28:25] Dsc our loan.

Eric Hoffner: [00:28:26] Dsc our loan. So we we have a lot of different loans for people out there. We like.

Randell Beck: [00:28:31] Those deals. Yeah. Um, are there any is there any such thing anymore as a non-recourse commercial loan. No no no they’re gone.

Eric Hoffner: [00:28:38] Well there’s definitely nothing in the residential world that’s non recourse.

Randell Beck: [00:28:45] For.

Eric Hoffner: [00:28:45] Investors. We do business loans. We can do loans titled in an LLC but always on the residential side. You have to guarantee personally on the commercial side there are non recourse loans out there. But they’re predominantly reserved for the best of the best people that have tons of money, large down payments, huge track records, relationship with a bank. Normally you have to do a personal guarantee. So it’s not that there’s no non recourse, but there’s not a lot of them. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:29:17] So let’s say Eric. I’m out there in Woodstock and I’m looking to buy another property, and I have a really good mortgage agent right down here on the street in downtown that I like a lot. But you come to my attention and I’m considering doing business with you, and I’m not really sure how to make that decision. What would you say to me? About why I should work with you.

Eric Hoffner: [00:29:39] Yeah, well, first of all, this is your sales pitch. I encourage everyone to shop. Question. And what I find is that 80 over 20 rule, there’s no barriers to entry to get into my business. And both of our businesses and 80, over 20, 80% of the business people in our business, they really just don’t know what they’re doing. They’re weekend warriors. They have a full time job. Uh, you can usually tell by talking to somebody, uh, what kind of credibility they have. Now for me, you could look at my LinkedIn. I’m in the business 25 years. You can see my career. You can go look at my Google reviews. Five star. Um, you can see I have no complaints for MLS or Georgia banking and finance. Um, and then it comes down to who’s got the best terms. The one thing I would caution people when they’re shopping is there are some people out there that are not honest, and they use smoke and mirrors and, um, they do different things to make their situations look more attractive. In fact, sometimes the harder people shop, the more they outsmart themselves. And I can tell the public, this is how you shop a mortgage, its rate, its points and its junk fees. Nothing else matters. The closing attorney’s, the closing attorney, the taxes, the tax. The recording is recording. Taxes and insurance are no different. None of those are competitive items. But if you’re dealing with someone who’s dishonest, they’re going to make their attorney fee look just a little bit lower. And what consumers, the biggest mistake they make is looking right at the bottom line. Um, that’s not how you shop. There’s three things rate points and junk fees, and then maybe private mortgage insurance on occasion that could be different.

Robert Mason: [00:31:24] That’s a good question. That was a good question. Good answer. Well, you.

Randell Beck: [00:31:26] Know, everybody needs to get their sales pitch out there, you know, because somebody we’re listening to is in that situation right now. Right. And like, you know, who do I really want to work with. And it might just be that you’d be the right fit.

Robert Mason: [00:31:36] You know the reason why. Mhm. So other states do you do business in other states. I do.

Eric Hoffner: [00:31:42] Business in Georgia and Florida.

Robert Mason: [00:31:44] Okay. But you have if somebody we needed a recommendation for, say, New York. Could you help me with that?

Eric Hoffner: [00:31:51] Oh of course. Yeah. So, um, I there’s a couple of things you can do. You can come to me and I can go to my number one lender. They know who’s good. Um, they know who’s credible, uh, who has a good track record, does good clean business that’s reliable and trustworthy, and I can get a referral. The other thing you can do is go to a website called find a mortgage broker.com. So let’s find a mortgage broker.com. And my number one lender, who’s the largest lender in the country puts together a list of mortgage brokers per zip code. But they stack rank them based on productivity based on file quality, uh, based on turn times. And so the people on the first page are are the are the really good people that you want to work with?

Robert Mason: [00:32:37] Yeah. That’s good information.

Randell Beck: [00:32:39] Yeah. That is good information. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:32:40] Because we’ve got people that listen to us and ask us questions from all over the United States. So this is not just a local. This is a national audience sometimes as well. So we’ll get that. Yep.

Randell Beck: [00:32:53] Eric, thank you for coming in and spending time with us today.

Eric Hoffner: [00:32:55] My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Robert Mason: [00:32:57] Great interview, great stuff. Eric is a tough guy. He’s he knows what he’s doing. He can answer all the questions. And you’re going to walk away with a good feeling about what he’s told you.

Randell Beck: [00:33:08] Watch for the next episode where we’ll have Adam Humphries from SW roofing. Thank you. Enjoyed it guys. See you next time.

Robert Mason: [00:33:15] Right on.

 

Tagged With: StrongBox Home Loans

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