Jared Adams with MesmerEyes Media

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: [00:00:16] And happy, fearless formula Friday here at Business RadioX. I’m your host Sharon Cline and we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. And today on the show, we have the director and owner of a video marketing company in Woodstock and Marietta called MesmerEyes Media. Welcome, Jared Adams. Hello.

Jared Adams: [00:00:37] Hello. Thanks for having me. Although you didn’t tell me, I had to bring wisdom. I’m not sure how that’s going to.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:42] Just being a human makes us wise.

Jared Adams: [00:00:44] It’s a high bar to set. We’ll see how it goes.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:47] Well, I know you’ve been on the show previously with Stone Payton, so I appreciate you spending some time with me this afternoon. Of course. One of the things that’s kind of cool about your company, not only is it down here in downtown Woodstock, but you had just mentioned before the show that you are going to be in Marietta. Tell me about this.

Jared Adams: [00:01:04] So I started in this business about 20, almost 18 years ago, 2005. And I worked for a small production company for 12 years or so. And back in 2013, we found a really cool building in Marietta. And it was used to be a wood shop. It was really kind of a trashed out place. But we so which is why we got a really good deal on it in the day and fixed it up and made it a really cool space. It’s 12,500 square feet studio. We can build sets, we do all kinds of stuff, continue to work for that company until about 2017 and then went to corporate route, got a nice cushy corporate job that I was going to retire from. And then two and a half years later, me and 18 of my friends got laid off On the same day in 2020, somewhat COVID related, somewhat new leadership combination of things. So me and my business partner decided, you know, if someone’s going to tell us our jobs don’t exist anymore, how about that? Let’s that be us and let’s just go do what we know what we know how to do. So we started a Mesmerize Media and we do everything content creation, whether it’s videos, photography, podcasts, whatever it is, we can figure out a way to do it. And then, like you said, just just the way the world works, in a weird way, you’re just a little, little a little over two years after we moved into Woodstock, I was able to buy out the old company because the owner retired or he’s on his way to retirement. So we worked out a deal, and now I’m back to where I started and taking it over.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:34] Life is funny that way, how you can have a plan and then it gets diverted.

Jared Adams: [00:02:38] Yeah. I’ve been telling everyone this was my plan since 2005. It just took about 17 turns in the middle that I would have never expected and never thought it was going to actually come to fruition. And here it is. So we’ll see what happens.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:50] So what are the services that you provide so we can get.

Jared Adams: [00:02:53] That video production photography podcast? And anything else content. We we do training videos, social media videos. We’ve got we’re pushing really big on the kind of micro content, you know, 30 to 60 second Instagram reels, TikTok reels, all that stuff. Basically, we’re just storytellers. You know, I’ve got a lot of cool equipment to help me tell stories, but if you come to me and we also, Tim and I, my partner started a business partner started a DJ. We’ve had a DJ company for a long time too, so there’s not very much that we can’t figure out. You know, there’s people call us all the time, say, Hey, can you help us with this event? We’re we’ve, we’re about halfway decent event planners to, you know, we’ll we were just helping someone plan an event this morning. So, you know, we want to help people grow their business. Our core is through video production. But if if we can help you in any way, we’re going to help you.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:45] So that’s your you help with their communication needs? Yes.

Jared Adams: [00:03:48] What communications? We just yeah, we tell the story. You know, we we we help your story get out to the world, to the people that need to see it.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:54] Were you not I. I did see that you were a DJ. So it comes in so, so handy for your job right now. But what is it like to I mean, you’re drawing kind of from all these other aspects of your life that kind of make it perfect for your company, right?

Jared Adams: [00:04:07] Absolutely.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:07] It’s even. Voiceover You were saying voice.

Jared Adams: [00:04:10] Do a little voice over here and there. It’s it’s just one of those things that I guess it just I never really thought it came naturally, but I never really learned it. It’s just, you know, I like to talk to people and I like to help people. And if you put a microphone in front of me, I don’t get scared of it. So I can tell help you tell your story to the masses, whether it’s one on one or to one to a couple of thousand. You know, we can do it all. And I’ve always told, you know, probably could have made more money in a lot of other ways. But I’ve always had fun doing my job. And that’s there’s something invaluable to that. To me, it’s a I have a ton of great stories from what I’ve been doing, you know, and I’ve been, you know, as a DJ, having been a part of a ton of people’s lives on their wedding days, birthday parties, company parties, you know, in the video world, we do a lot of work for charities and stuff. So I get to do a lot of interviews with organ donors and people that are really making a difference in the world. So it’s it’s just there’s never really been a night where I couldn’t sleep at night knowing what I’ve done because it’s just it’s a it’s a it’s fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:07] That’s invaluable, isn’t it? Yes, absolutely. Do you feel like you’re really plugged into the community because of of all of the different media? Yeah.

Jared Adams: [00:05:14] For for sure. And Tim’s actually taken more of the driver’s seat on that over the last year or so. It’s funny, we do a lot of stuff in the Woodstock business Club, Kenton Business Club. He’s going to be and I grew up and I started I found all those places because I love community stuff and I started going to them and then kind of passed the torch and let him run with it. He’s really, really good with people and groups because he’s a DJ too, and it’s the same. We’re we’re very similar in a lot of ways. I’m a little more behind the scenes, but function well in front of the scenes too. He’s he functions way better out there in the world. And you know, people, people tend to love him for a while. So it’s a I kind of let him I want him up and let him go to all those things. But I miss it because we’ve been so busy lately, which is a great thing. But it’s taking me a little bit away from the community stuff. But we do try to be tight in as much as we can.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:01] And now you’ll be tied into Mariota potentially. Absolutely. That’s exciting.

Jared Adams: [00:06:04] That’s the plan. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:05] So it’s always exciting to see growth, don’t you think?

Jared Adams: [00:06:08] Oh, yeah, it’s exciting, scary, affirming.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:11] Yeah, but you’re in the right business.

Jared Adams: [00:06:13] Yeah, absolutely. And it’s funny because everything we’ve done since the day we got laid off. It we weren’t ready for. And I tell people that all the time. We decided to start the business. Like, I wasn’t ready to start a business. We didn’t really have enough capital. We didn’t really have enough clients. We had not we should not have started this business, but it worked. And then six or eight months later, we we had we were having a conversation with someone about something totally different about building the film studio in Canton or something like that. And we were on our way to meeting with this guy, and Tim drove by this building in Woodstock and it’s like they were like literally putting the four inch side up in the window. And we were like, And it was it was a way that he doesn’t usually go like it was a weird route that he had to take. Wow. So he was like, maybe we should call them, you know, call them. And we weren’t ready to have a, an office, but it was an insanely good it was a perfect deal. Perfect time. Just felt like a sign from whoever you want to believe in. And so we took on the office and we weren’t quite ready. But then it worked itself out. It got us. You got us really tight into Woodstock and got us a few really good clients and allowed us to get to where we were and even this most recent thing. And buying this business by my old business out, we weren’t ready for it. It’s way too big for us. But we made it work, you know? And so it’s all you talk about for years and all that stuff. It’s a lot of fear and stress, but it’s all so far, I’m going to knock on this nice wooden table we got here. It’s all working itself out, so.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:38] But that’s huge. I mean, that’s the the theme of the show Fearless Formula. And I was saying before the show started how important it is for people to understand or at least be able to identify with someone who’s had a fear but has been able to work around it or come up with tips and tricks or or even even just throw caution to the wind and take a chance. I mean, that that kind of can be that way. Like starting your business probably felt that way.

Jared Adams: [00:08:01] Yeah, that starting business and really this most recent acquisition because we did have to bring on another investor and it was it was some things that, you know, I’m, I’m a bit of an over thinker when it comes to the the which probably is a good thing when it comes to the big life decisions. But you know we spent weeks going back and forth like, well, if we do this, we’ve got to do this, this and this, and if we do, but if we don’t do this, we got to do this. And how are we going to do it? And this? And it was it was crazy. But at the end of the day, it just felt like the right thing to do. And it’s like, you know, if we’re going to if we’re going to be where we want to be in ten years, we’ve got to do something now. So let’s do it.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:36] And it’s cool because the relationship that you had with your former boss back in 2013, obviously you were able to keep that relationship and. And he came to you.

Jared Adams: [00:08:44] Yeah, it was funny because. Uh, I’d been with him. We moved. I moved from South Florida. I went to Florida for, like, two years. I went to film school down there. And when he called me the very first time, I was the guy going back to waiting tables because a few of the other jobs I was doing wasn’t working out. And he called me and said, I’ve got a one week job. I just need a production assistant, basically. He said, But, you know, there’s some small potential of a job that can come after this. But really, I just need you for a week. You know, if you there’s some potential, you can make it work for something longer, but really just need for the week. I hung up the phone and I called the restaurant and said, I’m not coming back. I’m going to make this work. And that was what, 20 years ago? And it worked. And so that was one of my favorite. I guess you could call that a bit of a fearless moment. At the time, I thought it was pretty stupid, but it worked. It worked out and and it worked itself out.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:36] It’s cool because you talk about Tim, your partner, and the strengths that he has, and then you have your strengths. How important do you think that is in terms of of success? Because I feel like I only have a certain wheelhouse that I’m good with. And so I imagine it’s it’s wonderful to have someone around you that can offset, like if you’re an open thinker like I am, I would love someone who’s not, you know.

Jared Adams: [00:09:58] It’s it’s that’s a perfectly perfect way to sum up how I work a lot is I definitely would not be where I’m at today without Tim. I feel like I probably had we both late gotten laid off that same day. I probably would have just gone out and put my resume out there and got another corporate job. You know, I always said I wanted to do what I’m doing now, and I but I would have overthought myself into into not doing it. So he really pushed me in that way and got me to get out of my own way quite a bit. And even even with taking over this business, it was you know, it was it was a deal that was almost there, almost there. And then it kind of died off. And I was just okay. I was like, look, we’re we’re doing okay with what we’re doing. It’s fine. We’re going to make this work. And he had he pulled a few other strings out of his out of his back pocket somehow and found a way to make it work. And it’s like, cool. And here we are. So then I also calm him down a lot to where he’s like, Let’s do these 17 things. It’s like, Well, let’s figure out this one first. But yeah, it’s a very good, you know, we’re anybody that knows us. Usually think we’re very similar and we are in a lot of ways like outwardly in crowds and in networking groups and all that. We’re both mostly uninhibited. We try to be we’re funny all the time, see, almost. I try to be, but I know we’re funny. We’re we’re, we’re funny. Did yourself try really hard to be funny all the time? We’re just we’re just people, people. But behind the scenes, I’m definitely more of the overthinking and analytical kind of guy. And I’ve got more, more experience in the actual work that we do, the actual video production and scriptwriting and voiceovers and all that stuff. And he’s more of the networking friendly. We’re going to make everything work for you kind of guy. So it’s definitely been a good partnership.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:40] So you went to the University of Tulsa?

Jared Adams: [00:11:42] I did.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:42] How did you end up here in Woodstock?

Jared Adams: [00:11:44] So. Right. When I was graduating, I was I played hockey in Oklahoma, which I know it sounds silly because.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:50] I didn’t know they knew about.

Jared Adams: [00:11:51] How they did. They didn’t. When I was a freshman in high school, it was the first year hockey even existed.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:55] Oh, interesting.

Jared Adams: [00:11:58] And when I graduated, I was I had a marketing degree and the Florida Panthers were hiring for. It was an entry level ticket sales job. But, you know, when you’re just out of college or whatever, and being a hockey player and enthusiast, I thought, well, the know that that doesn’t get better than that. So rip the Band-Aid off. And I’m in. My entire family lives in Tulsa on one hand, Oklahoma City, but everybody lives within like three miles of each other. And here I am moving to Florida.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:26] That took a lot of faith.

Jared Adams: [00:12:27] And it did. And while I was in Florida, was the strike year for the NHL, if anybody remembers back then. So my job was to sell tickets to nothing, which was very strange, and mostly people trying to get their money back and the company wouldn’t let us give their money back. It was just a terrible situation all around. So I almost tucked tail and moved back to Oklahoma. But one of the people I knew from University of Tulsa worked for Hilti Tools, and they had a job opening in Florida, which was there. So I took that for a minute. And then while I was down there, I went to film school and it was just a little six month kind of right, shoot direct, edit your own short film. Fell in love. I was already in love with it because in college I was the guy that always did the presentations. I let all the smart kids do all the smart kids stuff, and then I made it look really nice and that got me through. And so I always had a passion for it. And then when I found the film school down there, I just went to there and the guy I ended up working for, he called the film school director and said, Hey, I need a guy. So they.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:25] Recommended you were.

Jared Adams: [00:13:25] The guy. Yeah. So I ended up and then and when I was that company was based out of West Palm Beach, Florida. I was only working there maybe two months. And he called me and he said, Hey, you know, me and my wife decided to move to Atlanta because that’s where my wife’s from. And I was like, Oh, great, now I’ve quit all the other stuff. I’m going to have to start over. And but he brought me up here with him. I literally lived in an RV with my boss for like.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:50] No way.

Jared Adams: [00:13:50] For like a week.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:51] Sounds like a movie. It’s like a sitcom. Yeah.

Jared Adams: [00:13:53] And it’s funny because I don’t even remember this stuff until I start talking about it. It was like, Oh, this. This is weird. It’s kind of weird, but live with my boss in an RV and an RV park and Marietta for probably a week or two. And then he had an old family friend that had a house down on North Side Drive in Atlanta. So I lived with him there for, I don’t know, three or four months probably before I kind of got my feet planted and all that stuff. And he gets weird. I tend to forget about that, that few really weird six months of my life. But it was neat because, you know, like I said, I’d only been working for him for like two months. He could have easily said, Hey, sorry, I’m out. You know, me and my wife are out, you know, good luck to you.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:28] Yeah. Who wants to live with their boss or or or their employee, I should say?

Jared Adams: [00:14:32] Yeah, it was. It was weird, but it worked out. So here we are.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:36] That’s a small environment. Sorry, I’m just having, like, a visual. Like, how would I do that? Small, but still. How interesting your life has been.

Jared Adams: [00:14:44] Yeah, it really has.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:45] You know.

Jared Adams: [00:14:46] You see, maybe. See, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll need to write a book about it, and you can do the voiceover.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:51] I’ll be happy to.

Jared Adams: [00:14:52] You can read my life story.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:54] You heard it here first. All right, So you. You’ve been in the business since 2005. What changes have you seen?

Jared Adams: [00:15:02] So obviously technology is and that’s the business that I’m in is technology. So when I when I first started in this world, we made our biggest product was digital CD business cards. So I remember CD’s, obviously I do, you could get miniature CD’s and if you ever saw those that were about, you know, miniature business card size and we would go do marketing videos and company videos, they would put them on that CD, put a little label on it, and instead of handing out a business card, you hand out this little CD and it was a So my boss at the time, he he was a realtor and he had just put together one of those as a way to introduce himself. And every time someone got it, they were like, Wow, this is really cool. And they didn’t listen to anything he said about real estate because they were looking at his cool business card. So he said, Well, there’s my business.

Sharon Cline: [00:15:52] Interesting.

Jared Adams: [00:15:52] So that’s really how it got started. And then in this world, you meet the right kind of people and I believe. He started relatively small, doing some odd jobs here and there, and we somehow got into the world of country clubs. So we ended up doing kind of a day in the life of a member of a country club videos for probably 15 or 20 different country clubs down there, really. And those they paid really well. It was fun. So that was kind of our niche for quite a while. But we that was back before drones were really around. So that was we would fly around in helicopters and do all the cool stuff. And once drones kind of became a thing, that business kind of went away. You know, we still did some of the foot, the filming, but it got a lot cheaper for them to use people with drones for 200 bucks a day instead of us with a helicopter for 7500 bucks a day kind of thing. Wow. So that was a big change. We actually started down the path into the real estate. One of our biggest clients was, I believe it was called Syntax Homes. We are. We had a whole strategy mapped out for probably two years worth of work, and that was in 2008.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:57] Oh, gosh. Right at the time, trying to.

Jared Adams: [00:16:59] We were. We had not heard from him for a minute and we were like, Hey, we’re supposed to start shooting next month, blah, blah, blah. And he said, Oh, we called, finally got ahold of the guy, and he said, Oh, yeah, tomorrow’s my last day. We’re shut down. So we had to completely.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:11] Come back.

Jared Adams: [00:17:11] To you. No, no. I mean.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:12] Housing market.

Jared Adams: [00:17:13] Probably. Yeah, that was. But we had kind of moved on to other things and that was so that was oh eight. So that was shortly after we had moved here and just started getting the little a few more short films and some doing some stuff for film school students and things like that. And really the biggest change, honestly, is technology, because I re inherited a few cameras that we used to use and when we bought this camera it was the best. It’s what they filmed. The Hobbit with. All that kind of stuff was just the camera. Nothing else was $50,000. I might be able to get five grand for it today. Like, it’s just not. It’s still an amazing piece of gear. It’s an amazing camera, all that stuff. But what I can shoot in my iPhone right here, for the most part, for what we do in the business world, you can’t tell it apart. I can because I know how it works. I know what all it looks like. But if you’re let’s just say all my coffee. I’m looking at the alma coffee side of your alma coffee, and you need someone to come do a commercial for you. The gear that is used is not near as important as the story you tell. So but back in the day, the our marketing spend was always, hey, we’re using the highest in gear. It’s going to look the best they can look. People cared about that more. Now you see so many selfie videos and so many in the phones. Just I mean, and again, the bigger iPhones are $50 phones, so they should be pretty good. But, you know, you can you can shoot I can shoot an entire commercial on the phone and it’ll look awesome. So that’s the biggest change is technology. You know, we still use better gear than that just because there’s lots of reasons to do it on our end, too. But realistically, when people are watching it, they don’t know if you shot it on a phone or read or whatever you name your high priced camera, it’s it’s just not necessary. So.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:58] Well, if you’re just joining us, we’re speaking with Jared Adams of Mesmerize Media. Do you find oh, hello. Do you find that you are more apt to bring your phone and just use that for different kinds of. I do.

Jared Adams: [00:19:11] I do. And I don’t I try really hard not to. Mostly just because we’re not cheap. We’re not the cheap guys. We’re definitely far from the most expensive guys out there, but we’re not we’re not cheap. So I never want my clients to feel like I cheap out on them.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:24] I think you’re just using your personal phone and just.

Jared Adams: [00:19:27] Oh, cool. I showed up with nothing. Here’s my phone, you know? So I want to make sure my clients are getting what they need. But at the same time, there’s there has been I was just doing a job last weekend. Where we were doing interviews with my nice camera set up and I needed to go catch something real fast because it was happening and I didn’t have time to reset up and change all the configuration. But I pulled my phone out and I got some amazing footage because and you still have to, you know, I know the right angles to use and I know the techniques and all that. But it’s amazing to have that in your in my pocket, which is great. So yeah, but I would never show up with just my phone. But I will say and I also have some gear that makes your phone even better, you know, certain apps you can use and I’ve got some camera gimbals and very specific film gear to put your phone into that turns a new better camera. But yeah, it’s I have used it plenty.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:16] I used to produce some stories for CNN and I have like a DSLR camera, but the lenses were everything.

Jared Adams: [00:20:23] Oh yeah. I tell people all the time, if you have whatever your budget is, spend most of it on the lens. Because if you have a $50,000 camera and a $200 lens, you have a $200 image. If you have a $200 camera and a $2,500 inch, you probably got a 20,000 hundred dollars image. It’s it’s you know, they all play well together. But, you know, the lenses we used to actually used to run the little film school for a little bit. And we had a student come in. He said, I’ve got $100,000 to make a movie. I’m going to go buy a read, which is the camera. You’re going to spend half of your entire budget on just the camera. Then you’re not leaving any room for lenses, audio, all that other stuff. And the lenses are more important, you know, just, you know, the lenses I shoot with right now, I think each each lens is close to four or 5000 bucks just for the one lens, which is crazy and silly to even say that out loud.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:13] But but when you look at the difference, oh yeah, it’s amazing.

Jared Adams: [00:21:16] And I can put I can put that lens on every camera I have, ranging from a 1500 dollars camera to a $40,000 camera. And it looks pretty darn close to the same because you’re using the nice lens.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:27] So very interesting. Yeah. So how important do you find video content these days? Like obviously with we’ve got Ticktalk, we’ve got all the different social media’s right.

Jared Adams: [00:21:38] I’m obviously biased because I want everyone to have video for everything that they do, but it really is when we’re a video driven world, it just in audio obviously now with podcasts and you know what we’re doing right here, radio there’s you know there’s there’s. We’re just a content consuming society. I mean, I, I hate it because I always get on to my daughters and I’m like, Hey, get off your phone. And as I’m on my phone, you know, it’s like we’re all addicted to them. So the video is insanely important. It used to I would say I’ve always used to say having a bad video is worse than having no video. But I’m not sure that’s even true anymore. You got to have some kind of video content. And I’m I’m not even that great at our own our own stuff because we’re so busy with our clients. I haven’t posted near enough of our own videos, but for everybody, you’re not going to get even if it’s just a validate. That’s the biggest thing. Like. If you catch someone somewhere and they sing, they say, Oh, they seem pretty cool. I’m gonna do business with them.

Jared Adams: [00:22:38] Let me go check out the Instagram. Let me go check out their Facebook. They’re going to go to your website or your socials to see if you’re even doing anything. And then and it helps you build a relationship without even knowing someone you know. I’ve done it. I’ve been victim to plenty of Facebook targeting and where I see someone ten, 15, 20 times and they seem like an expert, I’m like, All right. And if I have that need, my brain immediately goes to that person. So I’m going to seek him back out. That’s what we’re pushing and won’t be salesy, but we do have like a micro content stuff, which is the tick tock reels and all that. And we we tell all of our clients, don’t do sales pitch, you’re not pitching, you’re helping people, you’re adding value to someone’s lives. That’s what’s going to make them stop and watch. That’s that’s the Alex for mosey All those guys, all those big guys, they’re just adding value to your life. Not Hey, come by myself, come by my stuff. It’s like, Hey, have you thought about this? Do this, and if you need help, call me.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:30] You know who’s your ideal client?

Jared Adams: [00:23:32] Everyone know, honestly, people that companies that are that understand that video is an investment and it should be part of their marketing. The, you know, your solopreneur hours that are struggling to even stay afloat every day. I want to help them in the worst way. And we have started we’ve got a few smaller business kind of packages that I want to really help. But realistically, we’re not the right fit because again, it’s not cheap. Not expensive, but not cheap. I would hate to have someone invest in what we do because it’s usually what we do, especially on that level. It’s more of a long game. So it’s something that’s going to take three, four or five, six months to really see any benefit from. And if they’re hanging on, if someone’s hanging on by a string, they’re going to get mad at you and blah, blah, blah. So realistically, an ideal client for us is the medium small to medium businesses. But we do work for Fortune 500 companies too. We’ve got just got off a really good call and we’re doing a project with Home Depot. I’ll be in Hitachi on Monday. We’re doing some big, big name stuff too, but. So somewhere in the middle, you know, I want to help people tell their story, but I don’t want to make anybody mad because they spend too much money with me.

Jared Adams: [00:24:45] You know, I’ve turned I’ve turned plenty of people down where they say, we really want to do it, and I think we can come up with this. I’m like, Then I don’t want you to come up with it. If you haven’t a really pull it together. You know, when I throw out a number like three or four grand a month for a while, if your head explodes, I don’t want you to. I don’t want even if you can come up with it, I don’t want you to spend it with me because it’s never going to be a good relationship. It’s the people that understand marketing is a big deal. And. You know, there’s so much data out there in the world that says that it’s the right thing to do. But because even us, we’re a small business. And someone came to me and said, You owe me five grand a month, I’m like, Right this very second, that might be a little tricky. So I get so I know I understand it. And so in the in the growth part where we’re really more of the established or people that have some good capital in the beginning.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:29] So what form of advertising do you feel like is just dying is not necessary at all to to invest in?

Jared Adams: [00:25:39] I have some friends in the space, so I hate to even say it. For me personally.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:42] For you personally, For.

Jared Adams: [00:25:43] Me personally, I don’t feel like print magazines are the way to go. Now, I know there are some industries where it still works. Obviously, the magazines and all, they’re all still around. So it has to be working.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:55] For something like local ones.

Jared Adams: [00:25:56] Yeah, it has to be working for somebody. I personally. That I can remember in my entire life. I’ve never read anything in a magazine and then called that person. I just it’s not. And I get part of his branding, you know, maybe I’ve done it and just subliminally didn’t realize it, but, um. So I got but the caveat of that also, if, if I was running a print advertising company, I would also offer some social media stuff. Hey, get in our magazine and we’ll also post on social. That’s probably a thing that could be advantageous. But but realistically, if it works, I’m not going to you know, if it’s working for you, it’s working for you. Know, obviously I speak video better than anything, so I want everyone to go to video. But. You know, even if it’s as simple as getting the sign spinner out, you know, if if it were if it’s bringing people in, just just, just do it. That’s I try really hard not to shut anything down. Overall, you know, I know what I know what works for me in my company and what I think will work for most of my clients. But if you want to throw something at the wall, if it sticks, it sticks. You know, more power to you.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:05] Well, that’s good to know, because a lot of businesses that we have a lot of, you know, small businesses here in Woodstock who may not think that it’s that vital to invest in something as sophisticated sounding as like a real video.

Jared Adams: [00:27:17] Yeah. And we do like I said, we do a lot of weird stuff like events and all that stuff, too. And there’s plenty of times where we actually have a little networking event that we put on a little cigar and bourbon night.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:26] I’ve been to it.

Jared Adams: [00:27:27] And I thought you had and, you know, we had a few sponsors in the last couple of times and, you know, that is technically advertising. That’s and it was best I can tell. You know, they keep clamoring to come back. So I’m like, you know, it got them in front of a group that they wouldn’t have been in front of. You know, there’s a I’m sure plenty of your listeners not sure if you do, but like Grant Cardone, the whole ten X thing, you know, I went to his growth conference I think last year and one of the main guys that was talking was talking about getting on other people’s stages. So whatever that means, you know, someone stages that magazine, someone stages are a little bourbon.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:01] Or.

Jared Adams: [00:28:01] This this right here, it’s one of them, you know. You know, I was probably you know, I have plenty of stuff I should be doing back in my office, but I know that’s another stage I can be on. I need to be on it. You know, whether if if, if one person hears something and thinks it’s cool, if nobody does, if 100 people hear and think it’s cool, it’s it’s another time to talk and just get out there and be on someone else’s stage.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:22] You know, you’re cool. You’re cool. Jerry, I have a quick question about some surprises that you’ve kind of learned along the way or experienced along the way because you kind of like you said, you weren’t ready to get into this industry. So what are some surprises that you encountered?

Jared Adams: [00:28:36] So. Just the honestly, the day to day stuff, because obviously I was always I was worked for this other guy and there’s plenty of times where I was like, Well, why aren’t we doing this? Why aren’t we doing this? Why we should do this? This? If we do this, it’ll work. And now that I own it, I get it a lot more. There’s a lot of things where I’m like, Oh yeah, it would be great to go do that, but that’s a couple thousand. And where does that coming from? That’s going to come out of my pocket now that’s different. That and.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:06] Financial pressure.

Jared Adams: [00:29:07] Yeah, financial pressure. The, the amount that you can get done in a day and the amount that just amount of stuff that’s on your brain constantly, you know, I will never complain about what I do because I absolutely love what I do and I love that I’m doing. It is stressful as it is, but there’s my brain doesn’t turn off, which is probably good, probably bad, I don’t know. But it’s a little surprising in that even when I’m doing something like watching Yellowstone for 3 hours.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:36] I’ve been wanting to catch up on that one.

Jared Adams: [00:29:38] We’ve been bingeing. We just finished season two. But, you know, even when you’re doing that, like somewhere in my brain is going on that I email that person back. Did I do that? Did I? Oh, I forgot. I was supposed to call someone today. And you know, when it was when you’re in a big giant corporation, not that big a deal because the wheel keeps turning. But if I miss a phone call, I might miss out on half a year’s worth of revenue. You know, if I. If I don’t respond to an email. Right. So it’s just the.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:02] We talk about that, too, here with the guests on on Fearless Formula. How do you balance it? How do you shut? How do you make your time at home and family time priority when you are the owner and you don’t want to miss the 50,000 call that could be coming?

Jared Adams: [00:30:19] So I think I think how is an interesting question because I don’t know that you could ever. Truly tell someone else how to do that. I personally just. I probably don’t really.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:31] Like the honesty, though. That’s what this is all about.

Jared Adams: [00:30:33] I try really hard to like if I’m at home with my kids or if even if it’s just me and my wife, I try really hard to keep my phone off. Or at least on silent, where if I’m going to check it, I know I’m in the right headspace to check it.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:46] It’s smart.

Jared Adams: [00:30:47] But there is plenty of times, especially we are still new. I mean, we’re technically we’re three years, not even three years old as a company as this business. So, you know, they always say that kind of three years is that threshold of whether or not it’s a real thing or not. Oh, I feel like I’ve kind of passed that.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:01] Point where, yeah, you’re growing.

Jared Adams: [00:31:03] It’s as real as it’s going to be. It’s a I’ve I’ve signed a few pieces of paper that say, I got to go at least another five, so, you know, so but yeah, I am still a little bit tied to it where, you know, and occasionally in our, in our world, not very often since we do more corporate stuff, but plenty of times people call me or email me at seven, eight at night and you know, if I try really hard to say, okay, if this is if I answer this email tomorrow morning.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:27] Will it make a.

Jared Adams: [00:31:27] Difference? Is it going to make a difference? And you know, because there’s also a part of that where if you’re always, always on, it could reek of desperation a little bit. And they say, yeah, and I don’t know, it depends on who the client is and all that.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:40] But that’s a very.

Jared Adams: [00:31:41] Good point, because if, if, if every time I actually had this come up last week, if every time someone calls you and you’re ready, what does that mean? You’re not doing anything else for anybody else. And then they can think, you know, they could turn. If they’re a client that needs to come back, they can say, well, you’re obviously not that busy. You know, give me a discount, you know, because you’re going to keep my business. So me and Tim had that conversation last week about a client. We had someone so psychological. We had kind of been working with him. We had a bit of a plan to film on do something on Wednesday, but we had a conversation and we pushed it because of weather. So we made some other plans and then we got a message that morning and said, Hey, we’re shooting this afternoon. And I’m like. I mean, I probably could make it work, but then I got to push other stuff off. And who am I going to make mad today? But, you know, you can’t we can’t always be at your beck and call. Now, there’s probably a price point where we can’t be. But for most of our clients, it’s like it can’t be that desperate and realistically in the world that we’re in. I try to try to really put it in perspective, like. It’s been a long time now, but I remember even back when I was doing some similar stuff, the girl I was dating a long time ago, she was a nurse and even my ex-wife was a nurse. And it’s like, Hey, what’d you do at work today? Oh, I’ve made some pretty pictures for this company. What’d you do today? I saved three people’s lives. You know, it’s like, okay.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:53] You’re not curing cancer.

Jared Adams: [00:32:54] The picture that this company really wants to have done for this billboard, it can wait for tomorrow. It’s not the you know, no one’s getting fired or getting sick or hurt or anything like that for anything that I can ever do.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:05] But clients don’t like to hear that, correct?

Jared Adams: [00:33:07] Yeah, they don’t. They always want to be top priority. But I think if you it’s one thing we’re working toward also is setting a little more realistic boundaries with our clients in the beginning. Hey, we love you guys. You’re definitely our clients. But you know, there is a procedure here. You know, if you want something done, it’s got to be done in a certain way for all the right reasons, not just because we’re lazy and don’t want to do it, but, you know, we want to make it. And we try to be we try to be there. And we’ve we’ve bailed a ton of people out of a bunch of problems like that where they say, Well, can we shoot this afternoon? It’s like you’re lucky enough. Yes, we can. But at some point you’ve got to it’s.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:39] Like setting a tone and that.

Jared Adams: [00:33:41] Expectation and again, you don’t want to seem desperate, like, well, every time I call him, he’s doing nothing and waiting on me. It’s like, is he doing anything else? I can get him cheaper, you know? So I try to be cognizant of some of that stuff.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:52] Would you say that you’ve had a sort of a a hard lesson that you learn through a mistake? Because, you know, fearing, making a mistake, fearing, making a mistake stops people from doing a lot of things, including myself.

Jared Adams: [00:34:05] Yeah. So in in this. I’m going to give any real numbers, but in this acquisition of this business. I may we have made we made the mistake of spending some money that wasn’t officially in yet that we thought was coming. It was a project that was going to shoot in November and it was all everything had. It was a deal. Everything everybody said it was a deal that was happening. So we went in and we in the initial investment that we had done in our first start of the company, we had racked up a little bit kind of bad debt and credit card debt and stuff like that. So we were like, Cool, this is perfect. We got a little cash flow. We’re we’re set. Let’s go ahead and pay off all this debt. Because we’re going to catch up next month, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, a week or two before we’re supposed to shoot, I get an email. Oh, the project’s not going to happen. So now we’re back into some of that credit card stuff. And it’s we’re we’re ahead of it now again. So it all worked out. But that was a massive kind of freak out moment to get that email. And the lesson is it’s a stupid, simple lesson.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:09] No, it’s an.

Jared Adams: [00:35:10] Important everyone should know this lesson. Don’t spend money you don’t have. It was you know, it’s like, you know, you don’t don’t do anything unless the money’s already in the bank or at least the contract signed, you know, things like that. And this particular client, they don’t really do contracts and they’re much bigger than us. So we work with that. But we’ve learned to not not count your chickens before they’re hatched, if you will.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:32] Do you feel like you have to be an advocate for yourself with the bigger companies that way? And then you know what I mean? Like, I would defer, I think, well, they know what they’re doing and it’s their deal.

Jared Adams: [00:35:40] It’s funny, I just said this week or two ago, I always feel like those bigger companies because they’re bigger companies, they’ve got their stuff together. They know what they’re doing. It’s not the case. It’s just not because a having that the two or three year run I had at the corporate job, we were no one knew what they were doing half the time and we were making it up as we went, just like we are. They just happen to have more money in the bank because they’re $1,000,000,000 company or whatever. But, you know, like we do a lot of like training videos and stuff and I’m always of the mind where, oh well they’ve already got they’ve surely they have a system in place. They just need us to come help and we’ll get into it. And they’re like, they’ve never done any training. They have no idea how to train anyone. They need us more than we think they do or more than I even thought they did. Yeah, there was something else. Just something that literally just happened like two weeks ago that I came back and I was like. How do they not have that? Like, how is that not a thing in this multi million, multi billion dollar company? How do they not have this simple process in place? I can’t wrap my brain around what it was. But but yeah. So. It’s I do think about that a lot and it’s like, okay, we’re all just out here winging it. Just some you know, unfortunately now if we do something wrong at our company, I’m the one that’s really, really, really fighting it. But, you know, my wife’s company, she works for an apartment complex and they’re a really big family owned business, if you will. So there’s a lot of things that they do that sometimes she’ll tell me about. And I’m like, You don’t have a process in place for that. Like, how could you not? That’s Business 101. It’s like you guys have been in business for 70 years, but it’s never came up.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:13] I’m like.

Jared Adams: [00:37:13] Cool. So yeah, it’s not just it’s not just us. It’s not just those small guys that struggle with that stuff.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:19] Well, no, I think I fake it till I make it. I pretend I know what I’m doing or I pretend that I’m someone who knows, not myself. I’m like a totally different person. But yeah, there’s something about it that kind of makes me feel like if. If I make it look like I know what I’m doing, well, then maybe I sort of do a little bit. I don’t know. But that pressure.

Jared Adams: [00:37:37] We ran into that a lot. Especially with having the office in Woodstock. And we I can’t tell you how many times people would say, man, like, we’re just trying to get to your level. And I’m like, Man, if you had any idea, trust me, you’re there. I promise. I promise.

Sharon Cline: [00:37:53] You. Did you say that to them? Oh, no.

Jared Adams: [00:37:55] Well, a few of the guys that were in our same space, they were like, Man, I’m just really trying to get to where you are. And I was like, Trust me, you’re already there. You just. You haven’t made. But, you know. But to your point, that probably means we do know what we’re doing as far from a branding standpoint. And we and I tell people that all the time until prospective clients like y’all found us, because you think we’re the big guys. And we can do that for your company, too. You know what we do for what we have done for us to make you think we’re big. It’s what we do. It’s branding, it’s marketing and stuff like that.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:25] So you kind of advertise for yourself because of how well you’re doing.

Jared Adams: [00:38:28] How did you find us?

Sharon Cline: [00:38:29] Yeah. Well, that’s what we trust.

Jared Adams: [00:38:31] That I’ll make other people find you.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:33] Kind of perfect.

Jared Adams: [00:38:34] Yeah, it kind of works out.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:35] Everybody wins.

Jared Adams: [00:38:36] Yeah, pretty much.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:38] Well, Jared, thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I don’t know. I feel like I.

Jared Adams: [00:38:43] Already flew by. I didn’t realize. What time.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:45] Is it? 40. Oh, yeah? Well, look at that. See, that’s what happens in the studio. We get chit chatting and it’s really fun. I mean, I’ve had the best time doing the show and.

Jared Adams: [00:38:53] Just so.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:53] Much fun. Yeah. Getting to know people. And also, I really appreciate your words of wisdom for people. Thank you. As a parting word of wisdom, what would you recommend for anyone who’s interested in getting into your industry? Do you have some kind of tips and tricks that you could kind of give someone?

Jared Adams: [00:39:05] Um. Use the Internet. There’s if you’re just starting out. And I was I felt I got to be careful because I have a college degree and I loved it. I loved my entire college experience. These days, I feel like college is too expensive. I’m sure that’s a whole nother political thing to talk about later. But there’s there’s a ton of resources to help get into this world, and you just got to do it. I mean, you know, I’ve had a kind of young kid that was working for me and he was trying. All he wants to do is this. And he’s like, I got to go to school and do all these other crazy classes. So I’m like, Here’s I found a really nice website and here’s how you can learn everything about this business. It takes a little bit of money, but a lot less than college. And you can get into it and start making money right now. And I feel like it’s going that way. So I’m just obviously I’m not that old, but my generation is different. You know, my kids right now, they’re on their phones all the time. They know how to do stuff that now all the apps do it in 10 seconds that it took me three days to do before. So just, you know, you want to have you don’t want to be completely stuck to your phone all the time. But, you know, when you’re when you’re take talking and Snapchat and and all that stuff like realize people will pay you for that. You know, there’s, you know, don’t just do it learn how to do it and monetize your skills.

Sharon Cline: [00:40:27] The future’s bright.

Jared Adams: [00:40:28] Yeah it’s it is. But at the same time. You can’t rely on technology only you still have to build relationships. And and really that’s all marketing is is getting people to like something so. Not only work on the technical skills, but work on the personal skills, because I wouldn’t I would not be anywhere near where I’m at today. Not that I have made it by any means, but we’re doing pretty darn good. And it’s mostly because we’re just good people, you know? We know how to we know how to tell a pretty good story, but it’s just people can trust us. Because when I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. And that’s the that would be my advice. That was a weird long answer to your what should have been a short answer question. But. Be good. Be a good person and learn your stuff. There you go.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:09] Those are really good.

Jared Adams: [00:41:10] My wisdom is my wisdom is not formula.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:12] That’s your fearless formula.

Jared Adams: [00:41:13] Yeah. Be good. People learn good stuff.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:16] Well, 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.