Randy Beck with Beckshot

Intro: [00:00:08] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:18] And a happy Friday. Fearless formula Friday here at Business RadioX.

Randy Beck: [00:00:22] Is there another kind?

Sharon Cline: [00:00:23] No, there’s not, because Fearless Formula Friday is my happy day. Welcome to Fearless Formula, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I am happy to have a gentleman in my studio who is the owner, creator, director, president of Beckshot. It’s a media company here in Woodstock, but also interestingly in New York. His name is Randy Beck. Thank you for coming in.

Randy Beck: [00:00:52] Hi, Sharon.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:53] Hello, Randy. I appreciate you taking the time to come here because I know you’ve actually were on another business radio show. You’re like in demand. So I appreciate you.

Randy Beck: [00:01:02] I cut a photoshoot short just for you.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:05] Oh, my goodness. Well, I don’t want to keep you, you know. So I wanted to talk to you for a couple of different reasons. One is, I think it’s kind of interesting, your back story. You you have you had a business in New York, which seems like people from Woodstock, Georgia, would almost seem as New York as their destination. But you came from New York to here. How did you do that?

Randy Beck: [00:01:29] It was more of a side hustle in New York. Because I had started doing photo and video for real estate at the companies I worked for. I really didn’t like what I was getting from the photographers or anybody that I worked with up.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:43] There, really.

Randy Beck: [00:01:44] So I kind of adopted the equipment, started doing it myself because I’ve been doing this my whole life. I kind of knew what I wanted and how to get it. And so it was growing into a business. And when COVID and all that mess happened, I was basically looking at what to do next. Right. I interviewed a few E suite type positions here and there, and they had like 800 applicants for the VP jobs. Gosh, it’s crazy. Is lunacy in the job market. You know, the effect on on the commercial real estate up there, which is what I was doing. And so I. In the course of deciding what I wanted to do and making my pro and con list and all that, I figured maybe I could turn this into a career. And then as it turns out, my friend here in Woodstock was retiring. He has health problems, really could not keep working. He was going to close his doors. So I called him and I was like, you know, why don’t you sell me your company? And that’s what we did. I wound up buying it from him and moving down. And, you know, back shot 2.0 is the new venture. Right after I moved down and kind of started making it into my own little game.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:55] So why didn’t you like what they were doing when you were when they were taking videos and photos of real estate up there? What was it that didn’t satisfy you?

Randy Beck: [00:03:06] Ultimately, it was just the the art of it. Real real estate photography is kind of a unique game. And then and I worked in in the commercial world, corporate real estate. So we were building big buildings and operating big portfolios of apartment housing and multi use buildings and land development and all that. So I was working a lot with architects and engineers, and the photography that goes along in that world is very different. If you look at an Mlss photo and then you look at something in, I don’t know, Residential design magazine.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:32] Right.

Randy Beck: [00:03:33] Night and day difference. Right, Right. What I found was that architectural style photography worked really well in the real estate world, really communicated more to people about what it’s like to be in the space, what it looked like and felt like, and what the design part of the equation stuck out. It’s not just standing in the corner, taking that big, wide angle shot, making that that making a closet look like a football field, which happens in real estate. Sure, sure. It’s never a good thing, right? A buyer comes in and sees a small room after seeing something like that. Now he’s mad at the agent and so forth. So there’s other ways to communicate. What’s so about a space? And that’s what I was always into. I just and I couldn’t find it nearly as often as I liked.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:16] So it clearly worked for you getting into this business so far. I’m not jinxing anything by saying that. I’m just saying in New York, you know, you have you were successful this way, so it made sense for you to transfer it down.

Randy Beck: [00:04:29] As soon as I started, people were like, Wow, you really made that look like something special, you know? And people responded, You know, the art of doing this has always been towards the top of my list. You know.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:39] Were you, you know, the shows fearless formula that we talk about fear a little bit. So was it daunting to come down here and start brand new with a brand new market?

Randy Beck: [00:04:49] Terrifying. Terrifying, Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:52] But you did it anyway.

Randy Beck: [00:04:53] Yeah. Which doesn’t really slow me down a lot. It just makes me plan more, you know? So I was a naval officer. I kind of learned how to deal with adrenaline, fear and confusion and frustration in the past and maybe, maybe have some training and resources that a lot of people don’t have. Right. Which makes it easier. But so I can call on that. Right. So for me, sequence and order, right, is the antidote to fear and frustration, right? So I start, I start putting things in sequence and imposing order on chaos and just move forward.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:23] That calms your emotions down.

Randy Beck: [00:05:25] Yeah. To me, that’s the management challenge, is just just imposing order on the chaos. And as you do that, everything calms down. And so now it’s not a fear question, Now it’s a logistics question, it’s facts.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:36] That’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of kind of like you’re saying, putting things in sequence A plus B equals C, You know, it’s like logical. I’m such a non logical person. So it’s I really appreciate that nugget for me to take, you know, because I tend to get overwhelmed with the feelings and the logic. It all kind of shuts down for me. So thinking about it, I’m switching it from right brain brain to left brain. I can imagine that being kind of what you’re talking about.

Randy Beck: [00:06:02] That’s the imposition right there is. It’s a learned skill to pull back from the emotional view. And take the rational view, make that switch right And then but if you can do that, then because there’s order there, then you can develop a plan to deal with yourself essentially.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:23] How did you learn that skill, though? Was it the military?

Randy Beck: [00:06:26] Mainly, yeah. I did some very we did some very complex things in the military. So when I when I you remember in officer and a gentleman, he’s asking them where they’re all from. And that one guy, the little the short Hispanic guy he says Texas Tech University math major. And he was like the only two things come out of Texas is steers and queers. Right. The reason they picked Texas Tech is because there was no ROTC at Texas Tech. And so it’s like there’s a safe school to mention. Eventually, there was one. I was the first officer commissioned out of that ROTC.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:00] Oh, well, congrats.

Randy Beck: [00:07:01] And so I went in the Navy. I started doing the things they make you do. And I was completely you know, I’m a dirt kickin, redneck kid. I did rodeos in high school, and most people are playing football from Texas.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:13] You’re from.

Randy Beck: [00:07:13] Texas? I’m from. Cotton field and oil oil country. Right. And, you know, I didn’t know anything when I got to my initial training up in Rhode Island. I was claustrophobic for three weeks. I was uncomfortable. I couldn’t sit still for three weeks until I finally figured out it’s because all the trees and I couldn’t see see anything. You know, I was used to being able to see for miles.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:31] Oh, interesting, right? Yeah. So the thought landscape would impact someone like that, but it makes sense. I never thought about that.

Randy Beck: [00:07:37] So I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Right. So I’m this green bucket headed, insane, showing up, trying to. Trying to be a leader and. It’s a very methodical plan. Everything on a ship is very thought out and very, very structured. And so for me, it was I was able to take that structure and make it work for me and learn my way along very quickly without having to have somebody hold my hand. So I guess that was the beginning of the process. And then later on we got to be doing very complex things. The ship I was on was the first vessel’s equipped ship, so we were loading. We developed a way to load Tomahawk cruise missiles at sea from a barge. Extremely dangerous, first time ever. But we were able to develop that.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:18] What was the name of your ship?

Randy Beck: [00:08:20] Fife. Fife? Yeah. It’s a reef. It’s a reef now. It’s sunk in in 97, I think.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:27] Oh, how weird.

Randy Beck: [00:08:27] Right? Decommissioned and so on. So that was one of the things that I did was develop that, that at sea load. Right. And so logistics is a thing for me and being able to plan things and put them in sequence. So then later when I was in the SEAL teams, that was an essential skill because you’re dealing with subject matter experts. They don’t need to be told what to do or how to do it. All they need to be shown is what’s the objective, and they’re spread out over the the globe, right? So it’s really a logistical challenge.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:58] So you feel like these things translated so well for you regarding business? Absolutely. Do you think people are too emotional in business?

Randy Beck: [00:09:08] Maybe yes and maybe no. But what they are not is what I see. The biggest shortcoming I see a lot of times is just the ability to put a plan in action and follow all the way through with it in an expedited way. Right. We used to say things like an OC plan put in practice is better than any perfect plan that you never get into into.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:28] Right? You’re just thinking about it and it’s never been executed.

Randy Beck: [00:09:30] So I think some of this is about being able to adjust on the fly too. But ultimately the better planner and the better you can adjust and the better you can put things in action and make them move and move yourself forward faster, I think is a real advantage in the marketplace.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:42] Well, how different is the market? Tell me how different. Woodstock, Georgia or Atlanta is from New York. Is are people’s fundamentals the same? What their needs are are basically the same. It’s just what you’re shooting is different.

Randy Beck: [00:09:57] I say that people pay more and get less up their. Huh? Everybody’s in a hurry all the time. The use of time is insane up there. People schedule down to five minute increments. You know, it’s crazy. 5 minutes down here. Down here. Nobody’s in a hurry.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:11] We need to drink our sweet tea. I don’t know.

Randy Beck: [00:10:15] It’s a much more comfortable lifestyle. And of course, we have space here. We haven’t ruined our cityscape here. Like. Like some areas up there. Ah, which is good.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:28] But are you are you finding. It’s okay. How about this? Is it. Is it. What’s the most satisfying part of your job since you’ve been here with Beck Shot? What’s your. What makes you the happiest?

Randy Beck: [00:10:42] I like to see when when a project goes well and it changes the relationship that a business has with their clients. Because I’m B2B, my job is to help you change the relationship you have with your clients. And so where you used to do advertising and everything was salesy and it was all your your website was an electronic flier, right? Right. Or bulletin board. Now it becomes an interactive and interactive thing. We use video and photos in a way that give people a real sense of connection, and we communicate in ways that generate emotional impact. And so your client now is is having an interaction with you on a personal level. This is all part of content marketing. One of the reasons that advertising model is obsolete now and. And so to watch that transformation and watch, watch people get it. Watch them start nodding. Watch them smile. Watch those emotions hit. Watch that relationship with their client change, you know, where they’re generating loyalty and commitment from their customers to. It’s a really neat thing.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:45] It’s interesting that you’re talking about emotion when you when you need to not talk about emotion in terms of business, but you’re trying to connect with people emotionally with your product, which is must be I mean, that’s a skill you have to be adept, I suppose, at being able to do both.

Randy Beck: [00:12:01] Well, certainly in any creative field, any kind of media field or anything that’s got a creative aspect to it, you really got to be able to go back and forth.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:09] So do you have people here that are sort of a mentor of yours, or do you who are your mentors, who are people that you look to to kind of navigate? As you said, the the advertising model is different, right? So as it’s changed, do you look toward any other kind of company or group that kind of gives you ideas about how to. I’m talking like. Social media even being the advertising, I guess, model.

Randy Beck: [00:12:36] I learn a lot from a lot of people, right? And so like when I bought this company and went into this business, my predecessor Michael, helped me get off off the ground, on my feet, get run in the right way. Right. And things that I needed to know about operating the business and making video and doing the things that where I had not been exposed to it yet, but on a broader scale, on that marketing sense, there’s people that I read or listen to that that make a lot of sense. I’ve been exposed to them from I’m an MBA, I have a graduate degree, so I’ve been exposed to a lot of people. I do a lot of study and a lot of reading, and I’ve found people that resonate with me that I think are really on the right track for future marketing. There’s an architect that I listen to that does podcast, and he’s always talking about how to have a creative type business in this modern environment. I find that very useful.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:32] Who is.

Randy Beck: [00:13:32] He? Simon Sinek is another one. His motivational aspects of marketing, you know, on on why and how and how businesses either do communicate or should communicate is really groundbreaking. One of the reasons he resonates so much is because it pulled a lot of things together that people were observing over the last 20 years and maybe unable to explain. But he did a really good job of putting that in context for people and work enormously from the sign framework.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:00] What are what are things that you think people don’t understand about your industry or that have a misconception about that you would like to clear up?

Randy Beck: [00:14:10] There’s an old joke in music about how many drummers does it take to change a light bulb? None. We have machines that do that now. So? So it’s like, Oh, well, I have I have a cell phone. I’ll do video. Good luck with that.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:26] You don’t think it just takes me to my cell phone to. I mean, All right, so you have kick ass equipment.

Randy Beck: [00:14:31] I think you’ll hit the limits of the of the knowledge and experience in equipment very quickly if you try that. Right.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:38] Right.

Randy Beck: [00:14:39] Well, it’s not that it’s bad to get started. Of course it’s not. You know, I mean, and you can do video that way and but what is your brand? How do you want to show up in the marketplace? You know, what type of messaging are you trying to do? There’s a lot of ways to show up. The periodic table of marketing shows hundreds of combinations of ways to appear in the marketplace in ways to communicate to your market. So. One of the big challenges is tailoring your presentation to fit that. It’s all it’s all part of branding. What is that sum total of experience that your clients. Receive. When they deal with you.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:19] Who’s your ideal client?

Randy Beck: [00:15:21] My ideal client are people that either own businesses or run them high up decision makers that are brand conscious and understand the value of broad based branding. And then what they want to do is communicate directly to their clients and communicate that they have shared values, shared lifestyles and shared goals so that the lifestyle of their client and the purpose of the business resonate with you. This is pure Simon Sinek now. Sure, Aria is the best example. I use this all the time. I, as a company, lives the life that their client base lives and they have from day one. They’re an outdoor equipment maker. They they started off as a group of climbers buying in bulk so they could save themselves money. They were buying the things they actually used on the mountains. The company was run by Jim Whittaker, by a mountaineer who attempted to climb K2, went to Everest, all those all the big stuff. And over the years, they’ve developed this reputation and this presence in the market where if you’re an outdoors person, you know that you’re going to get the best of its kind from area. So number one, if you want to save time, you really don’t want to do all the research. Go to Aria and find out what they’re selling because it’s the best of its kind. Whatever it is, you don’t have to do all that work they’ve done. It takes the guesswork out of it. Plus their pricing is good. They give they give money back if you’re a member, Right. Based on the level of your purchases. So it’s a co-op business. It’s a co-op.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:43] It’s got you.

Randy Beck: [00:16:45] It’s that concept is useful for people who want to belong to something, right? Then they they do all the things you would expect a company in that business to do. They’re involved in conservation efforts. They their customer service is. Beyond anything that you’ll find.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:03] Anywhere better than Nordstrom. Just curious.

Randy Beck: [00:17:06] I think so.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:07] Wow, that’s awesome. I’ve never I’ve never shopped there.

Randy Beck: [00:17:09] Clearly, I don’t. If you weren’t there and you feel like, you know, there’s a need, like I want to teach people how to build, how to clean up the river by using beaver dams. Right. They will make resources available to you to have that class and go help people do that or hold the class in the store or whatever. You can take a leave of absence to go do that. You know, the company walks the walk, right? So their client base knows that and they’re fanatically loyal.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:32] And they so they mark it correctly and effectively.

Randy Beck: [00:17:35] You mean very effectively, Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:38] In coming down here and starting this company, taking over this company, what would you say? You have something that’s your biggest mistake. What’s a mistake that you wish you had or been able to navigate differently?

Randy Beck: [00:17:50] I wish I’d done it five or ten or 20 years sooner. All right. I was too slow.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:59] No, you know, there’s there’s divine timing. Do you agree with that?

Randy Beck: [00:18:02] Yes. Yes. Yes, I do. All right. And apparently managed to hit divine timing this time around, which I’m happy about that. Well, that’s.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:11] Exciting.

Randy Beck: [00:18:13] Mistake.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:15] I can name ten and just 5 seconds really easily.

Randy Beck: [00:18:18] It’s like, where do we start? I know I charged too little. I tried to do things maybe wasn’t quite ready to do. I tried to cover too many too many market segments at first instead of specializing at first.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:30] So you would recommend that I would.

Randy Beck: [00:18:33] Any time. You need to get your name known quickly, it’s better to go deep than to go wide.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:39] Okay, that’s interesting. But you know what? There’s something that I do a lot, which is fake it till you make it. So I mean, I’m still faking it, by the way, in case you’re wondering, I. I do think this like, Well, I’m going to seem like I know what I’m doing and then kind of go back and figure out how to do it before I actually officially do it. In other words, even starting a voiceover company, I didn’t know if I would be successful doing that, but I started it. And then once I got hired, I figured out, Oh my God, now I’ve got to go back and figure out exactly how I’m supposed to sound. And all of the I guess all the back story behind being a successful person. So I didn’t I don’t recommend that, generally speaking. But I do have an energy of, yeah, I’ll try that. Even this radio shows. Sure, I’ll try it. We’ll see what happens.

Randy Beck: [00:19:22] How long have you been doing?

Sharon Cline: [00:19:23] Voiceover Well, I started recording audiobooks in 2017 six. So how many years is that? Six. Six years? Yeah. Five, five years. Six years.

Randy Beck: [00:19:37] Do I remember you telling me you put a booth in?

Sharon Cline: [00:19:39] Yeah, I have a booth in my garage. That’s true.

Randy Beck: [00:19:43] Taken all the right steps, right?

Sharon Cline: [00:19:44] Yes, but, you know, I guess what I’m asking is, like, would you. You were kind of had that energy. If I’m going to make. I’m going to do what I think is right. I’m going to throw myself out there and see what what sticks and what hits.

Randy Beck: [00:19:55] You know, there’s always a body of knowledge, right? And then there’s always room for a little bit of experimentation or individual expression. And some of the some of the pathways are a little hidden till you get on them. So I would say it’s it’s not a bad idea to just get started, right? I don’t know if fake it till you make it is what I the way I would describe it. But you walk the path that’s laid before you and you’re learning as you’re going, you know, and figuring out what to do, what the next best thing. Yes, you can always backtrack a little and change a decision. You know, very little of this is is permanent.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:24] Right.

Randy Beck: [00:20:24] So if you make a mistake, you can always back up and try again and do something different.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:28] Yes. Is there anything that you wish you could have known that you know now that you wish you could have known when you got started? Besides the don’t go as wide as making your market smaller and making a name for yourself in a smaller way.

Randy Beck: [00:20:44] I wish I had started studying marketing in a deeper way before I did. So I would have more knowledge and more expertise in that field because it turns out that practically everything I do now is marketing based. And so I’m.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:59] Just very much filming.

Randy Beck: [00:21:00] Right? I’m very much in the marketing space. And so the art of building a campaign and how to what makes marketing campaigns work and what makes branding special is all stuff I learn as I go. And I wish I had studied that deeper sooner.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:15] I don’t know. I find that inspiring too, because if I don’t, if I try to get all my ducks in a row and know everything before I actually do something, generally speaking, I’m never going to be ready because I always think there’s something I’m not going to be prepared for.

Randy Beck: [00:21:28] The trap you fall into is that perfectionist trap, right? Like, I can’t I can’t move until I know every detail. It’s all.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:34] Like, you know, me.

Randy Beck: [00:21:35] Nailed down.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:35] Like, you know me. That’s my brain.

Randy Beck: [00:21:37] I have a friend that way back in, back in Texas. And his name, you know, he’s such a perfectionist that he has he has turned down lots of opportunities because he couldn’t lay out the entire plan from the very beginning. And as a result, he just he never has done much. And it’s really kind of heartbreaking to see. He’s a talented guy, but he just can’t get off the starting mark until all the answers are in place and they never are.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:01] So how do you how do you navigate perfectionism then?

Randy Beck: [00:22:04] I don’t have any.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:07] No problem. Me neither. By the way.

Randy Beck: [00:22:10] I don’t even look for perfection.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:12] You look for good enough. I look for good enough.

Randy Beck: [00:22:14] The Navy taught us day one. They said, Listen, good enough is good enough. It’s just pain, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:19] It’s the fix of pain.

Randy Beck: [00:22:20] And they said if the minimum wouldn’t be the minimum if it wasn’t good enough, you know, it’s like, okay, so I don’t I don’t like that mindset. But but there’s a useful lesson there, which is get going.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:30] Just do good.

Randy Beck: [00:22:31] Enough, get going. You’ll improve as you go.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:34] Truth. Truth. Well, so what do you think has been the biggest challenge for you? Besides, I know that you had mentioned not knowing exactly marketing as well as you know now, but is it the biggest challenge is is becoming a starting a business where you don’t really have a huge network like you would have in New York? What was what’s been the biggest challenge for you?

Randy Beck: [00:22:57] I didn’t find I just so this business has a huge component of networking. It’s a it’s a creative business, right? People don’t really know what they’re going to get till the end.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:05] It’s interesting.

Randy Beck: [00:23:05] I have to trust you.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:06] I was going to say, you probably have to show them things, try to make them see things that aren’t tangible yet.

Randy Beck: [00:23:12] Or visual examples. And, you know, so they have to trust you. And so that means a lot of personal contact. So it’s a long sales process and it’s all all based on referral on who? Who knows you? Nobody. Nobody orders this stuff off the web by remote control. It just doesn’t work. So I kind of knew that that networking was going to be a huge part of this coming in, and I just planned to do it that way.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:34] So you do you do networking? Yeah, a lot. What are some of your networking events that you go to.

Randy Beck: [00:23:40] Woodstock Business Club to shout out to the Woodstock Business Club? Hi, Darren. Hi. John Whipple, young professionals of Woodstock. I do, Powercor. I go to some architecture and commercial real estate oriented groups in Atlanta. Things like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:00] How do you market yourself besides networking? Do you do you do any kind of advertising?

Randy Beck: [00:24:06] I do social media work. Social media advertising.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:09] How big is this? Because I talk about social media with every person.

Randy Beck: [00:24:12] So now we’re going into what I do, right, which is content marketing, right? And so the presentation I give all the time is that marketing changed used to be an advertising model. So you had you had three basic channels of reaching out to people, you had print, you had radio, audio broadcast, and you had TV broadcast, right. And. There’s a few others like billboards and stuff like that. But I mean, essentially it was it was broadcast, it was radio or it was print. And so what you would do is competition was fierce for that space. It’s very expensive. And and it’s necessarily generic. So you would develop a slogan, you develop a product, you develop a message, and you make your ad a little bit in the blind. Ad agencies were all about coming up with a creative way to put out what you were saying. And then and then you walk out there on a street corner with a megaphone and you shout it to the world and everybody that goes by, you’re hoping it resonates with some of them, right? And every industry, every type of marketing had its own measures of.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:15] Their analytics.

Randy Beck: [00:25:16] And how many people are going to respond. Right. So along comes the Internet revolution and we get bandwidth and we get social media and we get things like YouTube. And so now you can host high resolution images and video and blog posts, and there are all these ways to communicate directly to somebody if they can find it. And so by pushing out what you’re doing on social media and on and you got social, you’ve got search engines with SEO and all this stuff that they can search out what they want. So now the job is not to shout your megaphone to everybody. The job is give your primary client something to find, right? Because they’re looking for what matters to them. So you give it to them to find. So that’s all about story, That’s all about communication. It’s all about shared values. They’re looking. Simon Sinek again mentioned that people are now choosing companies based on Do they Think Like me? So if you can do that, you give them the information to show that the way you’re thinking and the way they’re thinking. Have a match. Then they like you and they’re doing all the work. They’re finding you. So your job now is putting out good content that illustrates that. So this is all a social media or primarily a social media function in various different channels, and there’s a lot of ways to do it. But this is where that periodic table I was mentioning comes from. How do you want to show up? What’s what’s the format? You can’t be good at everything. So you pick a few ways that you know you can be good at to put that information out there for people to find. And then that’s what you roll with. That’s a that’s a big sea change in the marketing world.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:54] Well, if you’re just joining us, I’m speaking with Randall Beck of Big Shot to Media company here in Woodstock, also Long Island. How do you manage Long Island?

Randy Beck: [00:27:02] So have a. Snowboard house up there. That’s a production facility, right?

Sharon Cline: [00:27:11] Yeah.

Randy Beck: [00:27:11] Got you. Keep some gear there. Keep some equipment. I can travel back and forth. And so if I need to do some work up there, I can base out of that. That’s on. And I have basically the company fits into my grip truck, so it’s a complete inventory of all the gear. I need a minimalist movie set, essentially lights, reflectors, cameras, drones, it’s all there. And so I can carry that with me, either location or anywhere on the road to any location I want to be in and work in a complete and complete way.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:41] So nice.

Randy Beck: [00:27:42] So there’s a facility there where I can sleep, eat and and hang out and do the work as well as here.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:48] You keep those those contacts as well up there. So that’s I mean, it makes sense. I’m sure not everybody has that. So it’s kind of cool that you’ve got two different places.

Randy Beck: [00:27:57] And I could do that in Texas too. I haven’t been, but I can.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:02] Take a.

Randy Beck: [00:28:02] Little place, a little place back there. So yeah. World domination. Pinky. Same thing we do every day.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:07] Pinky Well, you know what you’re talking about content and the quality of content. What do you think of the quality of content that is out there now that people are using? I mean, we we talked briefly before the show started about how people use our phones for everything. I mean, it’s true. I could potentially do a little bit of videoing for myself, but there’s a huge limit to what my phone can do.

Randy Beck: [00:28:30] There is.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:31] But it’s not just.

Randy Beck: [00:28:32] Fits your brand, then, you know it can work, right? I mean, it’s not like it’s not like it’s a useless tool. It’s just got its limitations. It’s not a professional marketing tool, right? But there’s plenty of guys that use their hammer in their PSAs and they build their dog house. Right. And so and their dog is fine in their dog house. So there’s a lot of ways to show up in the market. Basically boils down to what is your brand, Right? And if your brand is kind of DIY, cheap and cheerful, hey.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:56] Listen, cheerful.

Randy Beck: [00:28:57] Enlists cell phone updates, right? Every day I’m going to get on that cell phone. I got to tell you something interesting. Well, that can.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:03] Work, does work.

Randy Beck: [00:29:04] And then there’s and then there’s other industry. But look, there’s a lot of industry that understand the idea about visuals, Right? There’s a reason that that they spend so much money on visual branding, on high quality imagery and video is because that conveys something, emotion about their product, about their brand, and it conveys something to their client, right? So you have to kind of choose where in this spectrum you want to fall. I do a lot of work with like real estate people and real estate people. They need to be both quick and current with information and they need some really high quality material that really sets them up as a as a local expert in their field. So one of my clients does quarterly series of video content that’s produced. We do very high quality work that basically illuminates topics of interest to his market, to his sellers and his buyers. And then in between those times, he’ll jump on the cell phone and be like, here’s something that just happened that you might be interested in, right? So there’s a mix of this legacy content and this casual content, and it’s very effective that way. It keeps him top of mind to all of the people that are interested in working with him.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:14] So someone who would be interested in getting into this industry, do you have some words of wisdom for them?

Randy Beck: [00:30:19] Don’t.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:20] Yeah.

Randy Beck: [00:30:21] I’ve got it all locked up.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:24] Don’t compete with Randy. You might go to a different market. You can’t complain. Oh, good Lord.

Randy Beck: [00:30:29] My my best advice would would literally be to take business courses. I mean, look, it’s easy to learn the cameras. It’s easy to learn the drones. That’s mechanical, right? It’s machinery. I was having this conversation this morning with somebody. It’s easy to learn the tools. What’s hard to learn is judgment messaging, impact the emotional qualities that you’re looking for, what a business is need, what’s the business billing cycle? How does it work? What is what does a business need to do in the marketplace to make to set itself apart? Right. Those are things that the more you can know about that, the better you can be at that, the more value you’re going to deliver to your client. As opposed to their nephew who went out with his drone and captured some content. And now he’s going to try to stitch it together to a story that’s kind of random. And business messaging, at the very least, is not random.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:19] So take some business courses to understand the back side of this. Not only your own business, but the businesses you’re looking to impact. Interesting.

Randy Beck: [00:31:26] I would recommend that. And then and then at the early stage, specialize in a market so that you get very familiar with it. Right? You can you can work deep. You can become a subject matter expert for your chosen clientele. You can branch off from that easily. But if you’re trying to work in every direction at once, all at once. That’s a lower strategy of success.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:48] What’s a project you’re working on right now? I know you had mentioned real estate, that you’ve got something you do quarterly, but I know you’ve done other things and I know you’re working specifically with someone who writes motorcycles, which is exciting.

Randy Beck: [00:31:58] I’m doing a documentary on John’s John Clunes comeback from from his. He used to be a racer, at least semi-pro or professional sponsored racer, and he had a series of I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but has series of health and life challenges that took him off the track for 15 years. And then this past year he made a comeback to racing. So our film is, you know, racing as a metaphor for life, right? Oh, how original. It seems like a lot of people do that, but it’s a it’s a real unique story that I really when I heard him tell it, it resonated with me. And I said, Let’s do this little film about you. And so not to give away the end, but we’ve tracked his progress through this season now and and how he’s doing in his first season back in 15 years.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:48] Well, that’s fun, isn’t it? I mean, that’s I think the goal, like anything that I’m doing, I’m trying to have fun with it, which this is very fun for me. But I just mean being able to follow someone else’s sort of own hero journey is fun, you know, and it’s inspiring for your own self, I think. Or at least.

Randy Beck: [00:33:03] That’s where you find it, right? It’s all around you. Heroes are all around us. All you have to do is be open to the idea and looking for them.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:09] I don’t know. I always look. I just think about myself all the time. I’m not kidding.

Randy Beck: [00:33:13] I’m kidding. No, you. A little bit. I know that’s not true. Not entirely true. Well, mostly not. It might not be true.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:21] I appreciate you giving me a little out there. That was really nice. Well, if anyone wanted to find you and are interested in kind of working with you, what would be the best way?

Randy Beck: [00:33:31] My website is best shot, and I’m on Facebook as best shot. And Instagram is best shot in media and. Those are the best ways.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:43] Well, I can’t thank you enough for spending some time with us. I mean, I know that you’ve been here a good bit, so it feels really nice that you took more time out of your weekend filming to at least give me some tidbits of information that it’s like when whenever I’ve chatted with you in the past, I haven’t really been able to kind of hone in on your story. And that’s kind of what I love about Business RadioX is like, this is an opportunity for us to even kind of know each other better. But but for you to be able to explain a backstory that someone may not know, I feel like that’s everybody’s got their back story. And when you understand someone’s backstory and their journey, it’s almost like you become like you want to root for them a little bit. You know.

Randy Beck: [00:34:20] Like my career story is a long one of error, miscalculation and frustration until all of a sudden you find something that could actually work.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:29] But it’s probably most people listen. That’s very inspiring for anyone who’s listening who’s like, yes, that’s me. But I do think that’s most people, you know, nobody’s career path seems to go in a straight line. No one that I’ve spoken to has been like a, A, plus B, We’ll see.

Randy Beck: [00:34:44] What do they say? Plans are what we make while God laughs.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:47] Well, yeah, I’m just rolling with it too, you know. But how how fun and how inspiring and exciting for you to see how well you’ll do as time goes on. And you, you’ve even got another venture. You’re about to start in radio, right? Do you want to talk about that at all?

Randy Beck: [00:35:01] Well, here on Business RadioX, some of my real estate partners and I have been putting a show together that we may be we may be going ahead with sort of an interview style Joe Rogan style interview based. Podcast, if you will, broadcast for four local community leaders, business leaders and stuff where we can talk a little more about thought leadership, not strictly business. It’s more about community and business and ways for people to talk about their causes and what’s important to them as well as just what they do.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:37] Well, I love that because when you understand someone’s thought process behind why they’re putting a building where they’re putting or why this road is changing or why this initiative is happening, it’s exciting to it almost your emotions get involved in it because you can understand why as opposed to being annoyed that this change is happening. But there’s real thought behind what’s coming. And a lot of times I don’t even know, you know, it’ll just be, Oh, I see that now there’s construction here or there’s a decision that’s been made, but it’s I think that’s awesome because it can it can get people to understand the thought behind. It’s not an inconvenience to your life. It actually has a real big purpose.

Randy Beck: [00:36:13] Right. And we want to deal with topics that that resonate with people like lately. You know, interest rates in the real estate market in Atlanta is all of the rage, right? It’s all of the story. So Robert and Stacy both were in here earlier this week. And we we spent quite a bit of time on the outlook and how people can navigate the interest rate changes and what’s going on and how to make the best decisions. Right now, what it looks like looking out six months, that sort of thing, because those are those are topics that hit us all. Yes. Whether we’re homeowners or renters or whatever living in our community, those things affect us every day. And there’s 150,000 people a year moving into the Atlanta area.

Sharon Cline: [00:36:55] 150,000 a year. I didn’t know that.

Randy Beck: [00:36:58] That’s why the housing is so in short supply and prices have been running up. And, you know, it’s hard to hard to build new housing fast enough for a for in-migration like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:06] And then with the interest rate going the way it’s going, it makes it even a smaller market that can even afford to buy a home, I imagine.

Randy Beck: [00:37:13] Well, it’s like bonds, right? If the interest rates go up, prices have to go down for a for a fixed level of income or I guess we should say, for a fixed level of buying power. And so prices and interest rates are interlocked like that. But then there’s also the supply equation. There’s very low supply of housing right now. They can’t build it fast enough. So even though prices try to come down based on interest rates, they’re being pushed up by demand and by lack of new housing. So it’s very complex.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:44] Well, it is. Well, I have spoken to a couple of different realtors and it’s been a fascinating conversation each time because they all have different I mean, they’re dealing with the same things, but their personalities and how they manage these challenges can be vastly different. But at the same time, the goal is the same for everyone to be able to sell their house well, make a profit, and for your buyer to not have to spend an exorbitant amount.

Randy Beck: [00:38:07] So so those personalities and those different methods of dealing with things is is basically what I mean when I say, how are we going to show up in our marketplace, Right. What is what is their plan that either will work or that they hope will work? It’s not not the same as mine would be or yours would.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:21] Right?

Randy Beck: [00:38:22] But everybody has to find the key that unlocks the way forward.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:27] Well, Randy Beck, thank you for coming in. Beck Scott, thank you for coming into the studio today. I really appreciate it. And again, this is Sharon Klein with Fearless Formula, reminding you that with knowledge, knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day. Thanks, Randy.

Randy Beck: [00:38:43] Thanks.