Stone Payton with Business RadioX®

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Kid Biz Radio. Kid Biz Radio creates conversations about the power of entrepreneurship and the positive impact that journey can have on kids. For more information, go to Kid Biz Expert.com. Now, here’s your host.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:00:19] Hi. Welcome to Kid Biz Radio. I’m Layla.

Austyn Guest: [00:00:31] And I’m Austyn.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:00:32] And today we have an amazing guest with us in the studio Stone with Radio X.

Austyn Guest: [00:00:37] Hi, Stone. Thanks for being with us here today. Can you tell us about yourself and your business?

Stone Payton: [00:00:42] Well, sure. How long do you have? So the business is called Business RadioX. We have a network where the Business RadioX network and our tagline and our mission is to amplify the voice of business. And so we invest a great deal of our energy and just capturing stories. There’s so many people out there doing such marvelous work. And candidly, traditional media is not always knocking down their door to give them a chance to share their story. So my business partner, Lee Kantor and I, we wanted to build a safe place where they’re not going to get grilled about last year’s taxes. And we’re not trying to. We’re not investigative reporters. We just want to give them a platform to talk about the work that they’re doing for, you know, for their market, the profession and the community. So day in and day out, in 18 other rooms like this around the country, there’s 19 studio partners who run these business radio studios. And every day they’re interviewing business people, small business people, large business people from larger businesses. And we just capture a ton of stories and try to get them out there so that they can get the word out.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:01:53] Did you say the country? Whoa.

Stone Payton: [00:01:56] Well, we actually we do some work internationally, but we don’t have an official studio partner on the other side of the pond just yet, but I’m working on it. That’s my day job. My business partner, Lee Kantor and I, we own the Business RadioX network. And so my day job is to to find and to try to support people who are running studios like this one. And then when Holly and I moved to Woodstock a couple of years ago, it’s been right at two years now, I decided to open this studio. So when I have that hat on, I’m a studio partner and I run the local studio. And so we try to we try to profile all the local businesses here in Cherokee County and surrounding areas. And not just the businesses, though we also we like to have nonprofits come in and we want to live into that mission of supporting and celebrating the community in general. So we’ll have local elected officials and leaders here. You know, we’ve had the mayor here, so we like to we that’s what we did. Beats the heck out of working, man. We love it.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:03:03] Okay. So how did you get started doing all of this? You just like wake up one day and decided that you were going to conquer multiple events, lead up to it?

Stone Payton: [00:03:11] Well, it was a little bit of a circuitous path, I guess. My previous life I worked in the training and consulting world. I worked for for mostly change management consulting firms. And when I left the last one, I went out on my own and I started doing keynote work. So I was out speaking on organizational and individual speed, and so I self published a book and I don’t know how you guys would be about it, but I know that both of you will write a book. There’s no doubt in my mind. Maybe you’ll write one together as well. You’ll probably write several. But you know, I would have talked to the high school newspaper. I talk to anybody who let me talk to them about the book. Right. And so I made the rounds and went on a number of radio shows. Back then, there wasn’t really podcasting and digital radio so much. So I went on the more traditional kind of local FM radio shows. And and it was it was fun and it helped me get the word out about my work. But it wasn’t like this kind of a radio show where we’re just having a real conversation. It was a it was a little more superficial. It was very highly programed. More formal. Yes. And and you had to break for commercial and you had to have your little three bullet points ready. And that one joke, you know, that you always knew would land. And so it was fine because I still knew I could I could use the fact that I’d been on the show to promote the work.

Stone Payton: [00:04:39] And so it was good from a credibility authority standpoint. We didn’t call it content marketing back then, but I guess that’s what I would do with it, right? I’d turn around and I’d share it with the people who are important to me, but it was, I guess, superficial is the right word. It was very programmatic kind of thing. And then I got invited to a show called Atlanta Business Radio. We weren’t a network back then, and my business partner, he’s been a business partner of mine for 20 years now. He already had this thing going. And it was it was such a different experience, right? We talked about me and the work and the why behind the work and other aspects of my life. It was just a real conversation. We had a couple of other business people in the room and I got to meet them. I got to really. Learn about them. It was a it was a cohesive show, but everybody had their own segment. And so I could just sit back and really listen to them. And again, those segments were they were real. They were authentic. You got to you got to hear about the person and the and the work. So so I was a guest and I really enjoyed the experience. But I was kind of a sales and marketing guy for my whole career. And I couldn’t figure out how this guy was making money. Right. Because he didn’t charge me to be on the show and he wasn’t running any commercials.

Stone Payton: [00:06:01] And so I’m scratching my head. And so I did like like so many of our guests. Do you guys have experienced this? They really appreciate being on the show for all those reasons I described. And they’re like, what can I do for you? So my first question was, Hey, this is great. Thank you so much. This is head and shoulders above all of my other experiences. You know, what can I do for you? And then my next question. And I waited till the other guests left and I said, You got to tell me how are you making money? And he shared the business model with me then. And it’s still the core business model for all of our studio partners and for my studio here. We have we have other revenue streams now and a lot of different ways to help people and make money than we did 20 years ago. But the core business model, this guy had like a half a dozen clients, high ticket B2B business to business sales, like a financial services person, an IT managed services person, a patent attorney. He had a like a home health care franchise. But all of these people were far less concerned with, well, I don’t even know if you had Facebook back then, but they weren’t really trying to get a whole bunch of anonymous eyes and ears hearing them and then hoping they called them or, you know, or went to their website. They just needed to build real relationships, you know, with people who were important to them, people who might write them checks or people who might tee them up with other people, you know, like be referral partners and, and and get them open some doors for them that might not have previously been been open for them.

Stone Payton: [00:07:37] And so and in doing so, I really got enamored with that business model and it clicked for me. So I, I wrote a check and I became a client. So I had my own show. It was called the High Velocity Radio Show because my the frame for all of my work was personal and organizational speed, right? So we did that show. It did exactly what he said it would do it. It still helped with the credibility and the authority. But I got to meet so many wonderful people through that. It really did help me grow my business. And I mean, it wasn’t 3 or 4 months and I sat down and I wrote a much larger check and I bought 40% of the company with the idea that we could replicate what he was doing in other communities. And I’ll be honest with you guys, it’s gone much slower than to me. We ought to be in a thousand communities, you know, and we’re in 57 markets. But we but we have operations like this in 19 communities. And so that’s how I got involved. And again, my day job is to continue to try to grow the network. But I also love being right here in this community and running the local studio.

Austyn Guest: [00:08:48] Wow, that is awesome. Laila, how did you get your business started?

Layla Dierdorff: [00:08:53] Well, you actually had a business and inspired all of your siblings and all of that stuff. And so I just saw you. I would go to the markets to like support you and stuff, and then I just saw how you were doing it. And I kind of like like how you just observed how she was doing it and how to do that kind of stuff. And also, I’ve just been around entrepreneurship forever because my papa and my mom are entrepreneurs and all that stuff. So I kind of just saw the whole process in the family. Yeah. And I kind of like, thought I could I could do that. So I’ve always loved the idea of like, making food. Not as much baking, but food for sure. And I was like, I like dips. My dad likes dips. Let’s see if I can make one.

Stone Payton: [00:09:38] Who doesn’t like dips.All God’s chillun loves dip.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:09:41] Yeah, it’s really good. It goes with everything.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:09:44] So then I made some. And then I made two flavors. And then there was like a little family gathering thing. And they said that they were really good. And so I was like, I’m going to try more flavors and more flavors, and they’re delicious. I started going to markets with you, Austin, and then Kid Kidby’s formed and now we’re at those markets.

Austyn Guest: [00:10:05] Yeah, it’s sort of exploded from there.

Austyn Guest: [00:10:07] Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:10:08] So this is kind of a two part question. What have you done in your past to help you become a successful entrepreneur and what do you define success as? Because that’s different for everyone. Yeah, there.

Austyn Guest: [00:10:20] Are multiple definitions depending on who you are.

Stone Payton: [00:10:22] Wow, what a great set of questions. So there are a lot of things that I’ve done in the past that didn’t work out well. I’ve had a lot of ideas that didn’t pan out, but I guess the mindset was always trying to figure out what to learn from that and being okay with falling on your face because I’ve done it plenty. Lee and I together have done it, have done it plenty. So I think that mindset was probably a product of of my childhood. The way that I was raised. My parents, I had a fairy tale childhood. My father early on was a high school basketball coach, didn’t make a lot of money. But but, you know, I was exposed to sports a lot and I understood teamwork. I understood what winning was like, but I also understood what losing was like and how to come back from that. So I think that was very helpful. I also had early in my career, I had mentors that I and I just tried to soak it up like a sponge on the in terms of financial success, which is and continues to be important to me. It is important to me to to make money. And one of the reasons is I find that the more money I make, the the more I can help people and the more I help people, the more money I make. And then it just it’s like the two things work so well together.

Stone Payton: [00:11:40] Once you get that kind of flywheel going, you couldn’t stop it if you wanted to. But one of my early mentors taught me he did more than teach me. He just he really ingrained in me. Setting aside a portion of your money to be invested, right? Like just right off of the top. And that financial discipline of doing that, it made all the difference in the world because I, I was able to, to grow financial wealth at a very early age setting. So that helped a lot. And then just being around people who have already kind of cracked the code on things you want to do from financial success to being known in the community to for to being positioned as a strategic resource. It’s definitely a snowball effect. It is. And and just to if you if you are willing to not feel like you’ve got it all figured out and just open your mind and your heart to the way other people are doing things. And I was very fortunate. So it’s a it was a mix. It was it was the good fortune of finding myself in those circumstances where I had exposure to those kinds of people. But I will say, I think it was also the personal accountability of making sure that I that I squeeze the juice out of all of those opportunities. Now, for me, success is financial. Success is an important component of my definition of success. For me personally, I don’t hold other people to that definition of success.

Stone Payton: [00:13:19] And there are a lot of people in my life, in my family and my circle of friends that success for them may not involve what I would call it, may not involve a lot of money. And they’re perfectly content and they’re and they’re happy. But also success for me is like the lifestyle that I have now. I live in a community where I know a lot of people, right? Everyone knows everybody. The financial aspect of it. I for me plenty of money. I’ve got all the resources to do what I want to do. I don’t. Have debt. So the money piece of it really is important to me. I have enough resources to. To help other people when I choose. And so that’s a big piece of it. But also my kids have turned out just wonderfully. I have a great relationship with them. I have a great relationship with my wife and both sides of the family. We have, you know, when family comes to visit Woodstock, not only do they want to stay a while and they love it, you know, I’ve got family moving here because they seen a great community. But but to me, that, too, is a is a very important part of the success picture for me personally is all the great relationships that I have with with family and friends and. So, yeah, that’s I guess that would be success for me.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:14:42] For me personally, it’s just being the happiest I can be because like, yeah, money is important to me, but it’s not probably as important. Huh? Yeah. Happiness. It’s just because if you’re happy, then nothing really else matters to me at least. So that’s what I try to strive for in life. So how do.

Stone Payton: [00:15:00] You get happy, though? Do you. Do you. Do you. Do you start with happy and then the other stuff falls into place? Or do you or do you feel like you have to pursue something? Like when this happens, I’ll be happy?

Layla Dierdorff: [00:15:10] No, because that’s like what’s detrimental, I think because it’s you’re never going to get to your main goal because you’re going to keep having more goals. So if it’s like, if I get here, I’ll finally be happy. But once you’re there, you feel like you have to get the next goal to finally be happy, right? So I feel like if you start with being happy because like feel good and all that stuff and then you’ll kind of figure the rest out.

Stone Payton: [00:15:29] I agree. But I think some folks find that very difficult to do. They feel like, you know, once I get this achieved or, you know, then I’m going to be.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:15:38] Yeah, you can feel better about yourself, but you still have to be happy even without that.

Speaker5: [00:15:43] Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:15:44] Like you can be, like, feel like proud and accomplished and stuff.

Speaker5: [00:15:47]

Stone Payton: [00:15:47] Do you think hanging out with happy people is part of it too? Like, Definitely, yes, and I do. I am more selective than some about who I hang out with. I think that’s I and happy people are more fun to hang with. I mean and I mean I hope this doesn’t sound conceited. I think I’m fun to hang out with because I’m a happy guy.

Austyn Guest: [00:16:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austyn Guest: [00:16:09] When you’re around happy people, you’re happy. It just. It feels great.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:16:13] Yeah, it might be a little random, but somewhere the five closest people in your life are who you’re going to be.

Stone Payton: [00:16:21] I think there’s probably a lot of.

Austyn Guest: [00:16:22] Truth to that. There’s a lot of meaning to that.

Speaker5: [00:16:24] I just thought of that. Okay.

Stone Payton: [00:16:25] And I’m told back to the money aspect of things. And again, the money thing is important too, to me. And it doesn’t have to be to everybody. But it’s my understanding that for people who are on that kind of pursuit, that your income will often kind of be in that same range of the people you hang out with, I think there’s probably some truth to that. I think it’s because of the energy and the the the ideas and the influence that that that group of folks have. That’s probably true. And if I think about it, it’s it’s true about me. Yeah. Yeah.

Austyn Guest: [00:17:00] So when you were starting up your business and as you were growing it, were, were there any like, just small little regrets you had as you were starting it up and growing your business?

Stone Payton: [00:17:09] It’s probably not fair to characterize it as a regret because again, my mindset is, boy, I learned a lot from that or I learned a lot from from this. The biggest challenge I have always had in business, I thoroughly enjoy the consultative sales process. So and I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at it over over the years and even good at teaching other people how to do it over the years. I have never enjoyed and still to this day do not enjoy at least the traditional approaches to the prospecting, those very initial conversations. It’s why I got so enamored with what Lee Kantor was doing 20 years ago, because this for business is the thing we do. It solves it eliminates the prospecting problem. If you want to get to know someone and build a relationship with them and you have a radio show or even underwrite one of our shows, or even if you’re like a sponsor and you reach out and you invite someone to come on the show. Now this really works best if you’re a business to business, like if you call on other businesses. But if you reach out and invite them to come on the show and it’s not the stone show, you know it’s not. It’s about highlighting them about their story. Then first, what a gift you’re giving them, Right. And they’re happy to do it and you get to know them. And then so the prospecting thing, this absolutely solves the prospecting problem, which is why I wrote that first check. Right? But so and I have done the thing where you have to just pick up the phone and call somebody out of the blue and but I don’t regret doing it. I think it helped me build character and helped me have some empathy for people that have to have to do that. But man, I don’t know that I have any.

Speaker5: [00:19:01] Do you have any.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:19:02] Things that you wish you did.

Speaker5: [00:19:03] Sooner? Oh gosh, yes.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:19:04] Okay. Yeah, that.

Speaker5: [00:19:05] Counts.

Stone Payton: [00:19:06] Yeah, Almost everything, I’ll tell you. Right. Right up top. I wish I’d have moved to Woodstock sooner. I mean, this is such a wonderful community. I mean, the timing probably worked out right, Because we lived in a bigger house on a cul de sac and a good school system, and it was a great place for the for the girls to grow up. But there’s a piece of me that wished that I had moved to Woodstock sooner. I in retrospect, because I’m enjoying it so much, wished I’d have set up my own studio sooner like I used to. Only focus on that on that main job of growing the network. So I guess I would I wish I would have done that kind of thing sooner. I wish I would have learned more about digital marketing sooner because there’s so much to be learned there. And again, so many ways to help our clients leverage what they’re doing in the room so much more. So I wish I would have done that sooner.

Speaker5: [00:20:02] Um, I’ve watched my.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:20:03] Mom like her whole business thing. Isn’t that I’ve just seen how important it is. Oh, yeah. It’s pretty scary to watch. Like people go from just, like, mediocre to absolutely crushing it.

Stone Payton: [00:20:15] And I was very standoffish. I was like, Oh, no, what we do is too personal. It’s all face to face. And that is an important element of our business. But it’s there’s there’s so much you can do to augment that with the social media platforms and with with the with the digital marketing. And fortunately, I’m learning more about digital marketing because we’ll have digital marketing experts come in here. And that is a cool way to to, to leverage this platform, right? Like if you want to know something about breeding dogs, invite somebody on the show that breeds dogs. Yeah, not everything. Learn a ton. Or if you like to read, write, have a have a whole show or a series or something dedicated to people who write books and bring authors in here. So that’s, that’s fun. But yeah, there’s a ton of stuff I guess. I wish I guess I wish I had done sooner. And and then you try to tell your kids and young people that they should do it sooner.

Speaker5: [00:21:13] And speaking of.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:21:14] That, do you have any advice for any aspiring entrepreneurs to help kind of prevent.

Austyn Guest: [00:21:19] Some of your maybe? We could call them.

Stone Payton: [00:21:21] Wow, what a great question. I would definitely encourage them. That whole notion of setting some money aside and investing it in your wealth as an expression of that is a discipline. It’s a book. It’s a movement called Profit First. And it’s, you know, in most if you go to a traditional accounting class, they will tell you that they’ll put it up on the whiteboard. I remember sitting in the class in college, you know, revenue minus expenses equals profit. And that’s a that is a way to look at that. And that’s the way that that traditional accounting works in my world, since I was exposed to this. For us, revenue minus profit equals expenses. Right. So that work. Yeah. So, so, so the very, the very first thing we do, we take right off of the top is profit. So for every dollar that comes in, we’ve assigned a percentage. And I mean, before we pay the light bill, before we do any of that, we take that, we sweep that right off the top. And so we ensure that we’re making profit. All of our almost all of our expenses are variable. So that that that same idea and look, it’s biblical too, like for people who people of faith you know, they’ll have they suggest that you set aside a percentage and you you use that to invest in the community or to tithe to your to your church. That same concept in business, I say, yeah, for, you know, figure out your percentage. Maybe it’s 10%, maybe it’s 5%.

Stone Payton: [00:23:03] You know, in our case it’s 20%. You know, we just right off the top, take that number first and then deal with the with the rest of it. I would encourage people to entrepreneurs to do that. I would also. Remind them or help them understanding, Help them understand. The most important thing for a for a business, especially a new business, is to get a customer. You know, there’s a lot of folks that work on the strategic, the business plan, and they go get the, you know, the LLC and they file with the with the county or whatever to get the business license. And they think they do all the officey stuff. I would say first go out and get a customer and and going out and getting a customer. If you’re talking to a potential customer, ask them what they would like. Right? And it’s the I think if you can focus more, if the priority can be who is the group I want to serve and not be as invested in the idea like the the idea that you’re going to use to serve them as you are in the group because you might decide to to change, you know, to alter your product or service to meet the need more effectively. But if you can stay, stay focused on who you’re going to serve as opposed to get overly invested in this, this one idea of the thing you’re going to sell. Right. So I don’t know, maybe that’s helpful.

Austyn Guest: [00:24:33] That could be very helpful to some people. What would you say some of your maybe future goals for your business could be?

Stone Payton: [00:24:39] So on the network side, we feel like there should be a Business RadioX studio in every community, and I know I sound like Business RadioX is going to solve world peace. Yeah, so that very.

Speaker5: [00:24:51] Much you never.

Austyn Guest: [00:24:52] Know. It could. It could. It could one.

Speaker5: [00:24:54] Day. Exactly.

Stone Payton: [00:24:55] But I do. I do believe with all my heart that we’re doing good work. And and I do. There’s so many great stories out there that, you know, we’re not capturing. I mean, we’re probably the most prolific publisher of business programing on the planet. What does that mean the most? We probably publish more original business material than any of the big magazines and news channels you’ve heard of, because that’s our our focus. And yet we’ve only scratched the surface. So it is my desire, my next kind of milestone is 100 studios. And so I shared with you, you know, we have 19 and we’re in 57 markets. But to me, that’s my next. But I mean, I think we ought to be in a thousand here domestically. And I think there’s plenty of opportunity internationally. So that is kind of the the brass ring on that side that would and that’s also kind of moves into a legacy. That’s something that, you know, when I pass to to know that I that I set that in motion that that’s important to me. At a more tactical level, we started something here in this market that I think as we prove it, refine it, bottle it, we’ll you’ll see it in other in other markets and other studios. When I got here two years ago and opened this studio, it did what it always does. You know, it’s a it’s a lucrative business.

Stone Payton: [00:26:17] The margins are good and they should be good because we’re helping people. But the focus, the Business RadioX business is designed to serve Back to who? High ticket B2B businesses, you know, business attorneys, CPAs, professional services, marketing consultants or like Big Shot. You see the logo on the wall. This guy does high end video and photography work. He has a niche of serving real estate and architectural firms, but he can also help other businesses just capture really good, high quality video and photography. And he helps them with the strategy of how to leverage it. Well, it makes perfect sense for him to be a client, and he is. He has his own he has his own show that he launched recently, and it even has a sub series. And in the same breath, I’ll tell you, because now I’m part of this community, there are a lot of folks here in town that have some marvelous small businesses. They’re solopreneurs, they’re startup shops, they’re retail, they’re B to see their business to consumer, it doesn’t really make sense for them to invest in a custom weekly show. Like like it just does it doesn’t make sense. So I, I was scratching my head for like a year and a half. How can we serve that group? Because I’ve got this platform. I still have plenty of capacity. There’s got to be a way to serve those small business folks.

Stone Payton: [00:27:44] So we built this thing with the help of Diesel, David and Sharon Cline and some folks to kind of help me think it through. And what we did, we built a membership structure. Just to give you some context, all of our studio partners have they have discretion on their own fee structure, but it ranges about where mine is here in this studio, the fee structure for a, you know, what we do for these high ticket B2B folks ranges from 1250 a month to $5,000 a month. And they’re happy to pay it because they’re going to get at least. And more often at least, you know, more like Forex, and some of them get eight and ten X, so they’re happy to do it because people are going to, you know, they’re going to get their return on that investment. But so a lot of the folks I’m describing, you know, maybe are one person running an insurance agency or maybe they are retail, they’re running a dress shop, right. Or they have a small consulting firm or they a graphic designer. Maybe they’re a contract graphic designer. They can’t afford to do it. Right. It doesn’t matter how well it works. Yeah. So instead of 1250 a month, they pay 1250 bucks for the whole year and we can pool those resources and they don’t get like Custom Weekly show, but they can invite people to some of our house shows.

Stone Payton: [00:29:02] And again, so they get to we were describing earlier what a great way to to to begin a new relationship. Right. By reaching out and so they can reach out as kind of almost like as an ambassador of the Business RadioX Cherokee business Radio, invite someone to come on a show that they sponsor because they are sponsoring it. We can let them sponsor that episode. So, you know, we can do a live read. Today’s episode is brought to you in part by blah blah, blah. We can put their logo on that episode. We let them organize quarterly at that level, at that 125 bucks a month or 1250 for the year, they get a little bit of a break. If they do the the year thing once a quarter, they can organize a quarterly like dedicated special episode where the whole thing is them. They can help host co host. It’s just their guest. So they can do that. And then but those those funds are pooled right. And so we take 20% of all of that revenue and we set it aside for grants and scholarships and sometimes just cold, hard cash to nonprofits, young entrepreneurs. And and so now, while maybe they can’t donate a lot of money to kid biz Expo right or right. Well, the program I’m describing, we call it Main Street Warriors. Okay. That’s what I.

Speaker5: [00:30:23] Thought. But all.

Stone Payton: [00:30:23] Right. So but let’s say we’ve got a local business and they’re really fired up about what Kid Biz Expo is doing. They might feel like they can, you know, write you a $25 check, but they don’t feel like they can write you a $1,000 check or a $2,000 check. Well, we can pool their money. And then so when we do provide a grant or a scholarship or fund a show like Kid Biz Expo, one of the reasons we’re able to do this, it doesn’t all have to come out of my pocket. We can pull it. It’s the Main street Warriors is the reason we’re able to do this show. Yeah, right. So they can pool their resources. So you asked me about, you know, my goal A, I want to get that program to, to where we my goal, my near-term goal is to have 100 Main Street warriors. Right? So that’s 12 five a month. Right. And we’re not a nonprofit, so there’s still margin in there for Business RadioX. But that whatever 20% of that is, then we can we can we can help other nonprofits. But now these small business people, if you’re running a small business, $125 a month, if you’re serious, you can find that and you’re probably spending that on something that doesn’t work as well as this. Right? And so we want to continue to refine that program here. This is kind of a kind of a what would you call it, an experimental, you know. Greenfield But it’s working. I got to tell you, it’s taken off like wildfire. So I want to really refine and bottle that, and then I want to license it to the other studio partners. And I want to make it so that they can do that in Phenix, you know, or Saint Louis or in South Florida if they want to. So right now on my mind, near-term goals grow the network and and tighten refine the main street warriors program is that that’s probably more than you wanted to know but that’s what’s on my mind right now.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:32:08] So you talked about wanting to reach that goal. What are you doing right now to help you get towards that? Just keep networking or.

Speaker5: [00:32:16] I.

Stone Payton: [00:32:16] Keep networking and I try to balance all of the advantages of the social and digital that we talked about with some old school. Right. And I try to leverage our platform like today when our guests couldn’t come and we said, Well, let’s just interview Stone. I’m thrilled to talk about Business RadioX in general, but I but I thought, oh, what a great opportunity. One more time to talk about the Main Street Warriors. So I will share this interview and but I’ll do some old school stuff too, so we’ll get it out on all the platforms. It’ll get automatically published to all the podcasting platforms, like all of our stuff does. But I’ll also I will mention it to people, but also I’ll also share a note. I’ll write a little two sentence email and say, Hey, I got a chance to talk about Main Street Warriors on The Kid Biz Show and thought you might enjoy. And it’s amazing. That’s another thing I would tell young people. Yeah, take full advantage of all the digital stuff, but do some of the old school stuff too. Talk about it. Mention it.

Stone Payton: [00:33:17] And so I will do that. The other thing that I will do, we got a golf cart. Holly and I got a golf cart, but we got a red and black golf cart that matches the Business RadioX logo stuff. And we’re going to start doing a lot more on site broadcast and just showing up, especially here locally, where I’m allowed to drive the golf cart. So you’re going to see me parked at Reformation a lot more with the Business RadioX logo on the golf cart and we’re going to set it up. It’s black, right? So I can also and the in the sub brand, the main street warriors, we’re going to have like this Foot Locker thing on the back of it on the golf cart. The back seats fold down and I’ve got this camo blind thing from I like to hunt and fish, as most of my listeners know, and I can lay that over the seats and then I can put that Foot Locker there and we’re going to do, you know, hand out Frisbees, hand out water and just be at stuff and be seen.

Speaker5: [00:34:14] Like.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:34:14] Kind of like part.

Austyn Guest: [00:34:15] Of the community more present.

Speaker5: [00:34:16] And personal. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:34:17] And just be seen out there and just and try to again live into that mission of, of just being there for people. So I will tell you a quick story on me though. So one of the ideas is to get Frisbees, right? So I thought, well we’ll print the Main Street Warriors logo and website on the on the Frisbees or maybe get stickers or something like that. And so I got to thinking about I’ll go, I’ll park behind Reformation and then like on a Saturday or when you guys are doing something, anything that’s going on and I’ll have fun and I’ll throw the Frisbees to people. And so it seems like a good idea, right? Yeah. And then I got to thinking about you guys may not be old enough to to have seen this show. There used to be a show called WKRP in Cincinnati. Nope, never. It was a comedy show. And they had this. This great idea of giving out turkeys, frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Speaker5: [00:35:07] I know this is going. So they.

Stone Payton: [00:35:09] Rented a helicopter.

Speaker5: [00:35:10] Right?

Stone Payton: [00:35:11] They rented a helicopter and they dropped frozen turkeys all over town. Well, they caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage. Yeah. So. So then I got this vision. I’m out there trying to be cool guy, right? Have fun throwing people Frisbees, you know, handing out water. And I thought, you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to throw that Frisbee over there in the backyard and it’s going to knock over some guy’s beer. It’s going to make him mad. Yeah.

Speaker5: [00:35:33] And so I think I’ll.

Stone Payton: [00:35:34] Just I think I’ll walk up to people and hand them.

Speaker5: [00:35:36] The Frisbee.

Speaker4: [00:35:37] Yeah, it might be a bit safer, but we’re just.

Speaker5: [00:35:39] Going to try to get out.

Stone Payton: [00:35:40] There and be seen more. And if I can figure it out, like golf tournaments, how cool would it be to show up in the Business RadioX slash Main Street Warriors golf cart and be present? So that’s that’s one idea. But the the concept of it is just get out there, be seen and try to do some fun stuff and just keep telling small businesses about it. And then and I think one of the cool things about the idea is they’re just automagically organically ambassadors for Main Street Warriors. If they are a main street warrior because they get to come along for the ride on anything Main Street Warriors are doing. So I don’t know when we’ll have the funding to do it, but when we present Kid Biz Expo with a nice check, it’s not going to be stoned or really even business radio. It’s going to be the main street warriors who are presenting the check. So yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:36:28] So.

Austyn Guest: [00:36:29] Sort of a deeper question here. If you had the attention of the whole world for five minutes, they were all listening and paying attention to you, what would you say?

Stone Payton: [00:36:41] I don’t know how much impact it would have. The thought, the discipline I would love to somehow get across to them is serve first, serve early, serve often. I just I feel like that is one of the reasons that the network has been so successful that our studio partners are able to live into their personal dreams and serve their communities. That idea of that’s the default position, you know, serve first and the rest of it will fall into place and it may not always fall into place in a direct. It doesn’t mean you’re going to serve someone and they’re going to write you a check, but it just always seems to come back ten fold when when you lead with that mentality and.

Speaker5: [00:37:27] Karma.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:37:28] Almost like.

Speaker5: [00:37:28] Like I do think there’s.

Speaker4: [00:37:30] Something to.

Speaker5: [00:37:31] That. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:37:32] And then I listened in on a show that I love to produce called Kid Biz Radio a few weeks ago and a young person who has wisdom beyond her years shared something that I do wholeheartedly believe in. And I think I’m pretty good about living into. And I would like to find a way to to instill this in other in other people, too. And just relax.

Speaker4: [00:37:57] Just just calm down.

Speaker5: [00:37:59] No, I just really.

Stone Payton: [00:38:02] Think if you can have that energy and mindset of serving and letting things unfold, shining the light on other people, all these things we try to do. My experience so far, you know, maybe the other shoe is going to drop and the bottom is going to fall out. But man, my experience stuff just usually just has a tendency to work out the way it’s supposed to.

Speaker5: [00:38:22] Yeah. Yeah.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:38:25] Okay. That was kind of deep. Okay. So this one’s a little bit less. Um, so this is not gonna figure it out. Okay. If you woke up tomorrow without your business. So it was just completely. Just poof. Gone. Gone. As if it never exist. You do. To help build it back up again or just. Just recover from that.

Stone Payton: [00:38:47] Yeah. So I don’t know is the honest answer. I have some luxuries in my life that I have a lot going for me in my life and maybe that’s why I’m so happy. I have such a marvelous support system, friends, particularly in this community. But I’ve got friends. I’ve got friends in business in this community. I have such a marvelous support system. I’m 59 years old. I’ll be 60 in August. I could go down to Pensacola, Florida, where my folks still live, where I grew up. I can knock on the door and I can say, Mom, dad, the bottom fell out. Holly left me the business is gone, you know, And I’ve got a pillow and a plate. Now, they would expect me to get back on my feet because that’s just that’s just the value system of the of the family. I and I have built that for my kids. They always they know they have a pillow and a plate no matter what, unconditionally. So I have that support system. I’ve got a safety net that maybe a lot of people don’t have. But I think tactically, if I try to put myself in that scenario that you described and I and I and I do have Holly, she hasn’t left me, that’s good. So I have that. I think I would I certainly wouldn’t discontinue and I might even double down on getting out there and hanging out with all the wonderful people in this community and particularly the business people in this scenario.

Stone Payton: [00:40:13] And I might have some design on trying to to reboot some version of what we’re doing here and or I might just, you know, connect with the diesel. David or, you know, or Bronson or any of these folks who are doing, you know, marvelous work and see if there’s a way that I could tap into what they were doing and try to serve them in some way and start working with them. And I might find a completely different vehicle to to serve people. But I would still you know, it wouldn’t be as easy, I don’t guess, but I would still try to maintain that that operating discipline, that mindset of just get out there and work on somebody else’s problem and try to help them. And I got to believe it somehow, some way. What it might not do is get me back in the digital radio business. And I and I think I would have to find a way to be okay with that. But yeah, I would I guess I would double down on on that. I wouldn’t rest and just hang out at the house. I would definitely get out and double, double down on that.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:41:27] That’s kind of cool how that question kind of like summed up everything that we’ve been talking about, like everything.

Austyn Guest: [00:41:33] So sort of starting to wrap things up here. We’re going to do a couple speed round this or that questions.

Speaker5: [00:41:39] Oh, my gracious.

Austyn Guest: [00:41:40] Answer as fast.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:41:41] As you possibly.

Speaker5: [00:41:42] Can. All right, I’m.

Stone Payton: [00:41:42] Gonna put my I’m going to put my eyes on here and see make sure that I’m ready for this, all right? And I’ll open my ears.

Austyn Guest: [00:41:50] All right, You ready? Ready. All right, here we go. Cats or dogs?

Speaker4: [00:41:53] Oh, dogs. Spider-man or.

Speaker5: [00:41:54] Batman.

Speaker4: [00:41:55] Spider-man books or movies.

Speaker5: [00:41:57] Yeah. Yeah, man. I just. I believe so much in the.

Stone Payton: [00:42:01] Okay, I can’t. I’m not supposed to talk. I’m going to.

Speaker5: [00:42:03] I’m going to.

Stone Payton: [00:42:05] Gosh, I’m going to go.

Speaker5: [00:42:06] Movies.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:42:07] Waffle or curly fries?

Austyn Guest: [00:42:08] Curly fries. Mountains are the beach. Wow.

Speaker5: [00:42:10] Beach.

Austyn Guest: [00:42:11] Sweet, salty, salty. Chocolate or fruity candy Chocolate.

Speaker5: [00:42:14] Cake or pie. Pie, pie. Bar pie.

Speaker4: [00:42:16] Thank you. Lower high rise jeans. What?

Speaker5: [00:42:22] I don’t even know if I know the difference. Okay.

Speaker4: [00:42:25] Guys are the ones that are like it.

Austyn Guest: [00:42:27] It lays on your waist and the other ones come up a little higher.

Speaker5: [00:42:30] Oh, low. Okay. This is a very like.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:42:32] That’s. That’s more like a female question. Yeah. And then finally, comedy or horror?

Speaker5: [00:42:36] Oh, comedy.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:42:37] Okay, so we’re going to wrap it up.

Austyn Guest: [00:42:40] All right. Well, thank you, Stone, for hanging out with us today. We really appreciate it. Can you tell everyone how they could get in touch with you and check out what you’re doing?

Speaker5: [00:42:48] Absolutely.

Stone Payton: [00:42:48] So my email is stone s t o n e at Business RadioX dot com. Go check out what we’re doing with Main Street Warriors at Main Street warriors.org. My phone number is (770) 335-2050. I’m not great about picking up the phone, but I am pretty good because I have it on silent most of the time because I want to. I want to be able to interact with people I am good about. I am good about returning text and then connecting. So (770) 335-2050. Leave me a voicemail if you want. Or just shoot me a quick text and let’s go have a beer under the elm tree.

Layla Dierdorff: [00:43:30] Well, we enjoyed our time with you today. We know our audience will get so much out of hearing your story. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you on the next one.

Speaker5: [00:43:38] Thank you.

Speaker4: [00:43:39] Bye bye. Bye.