Ryan Alford:

I have a real blind spot with being judged, but I think about it for like half a second and I just move on. I was born without a rear-view mirror. It's great for a lot of things. I'll admit it, it's difficult with others. I have to be more empathetic because most people don't have that gene, but it's enabled me to press forward because I'm just always facing straight ahead.

Chris Do:

My next guest has the number one ranked marketing podcast, which just caught my attention immediately because naturally, questions were like, "What'd you do to be so popular?" My guest, his name is Ryan. Ryan, for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your story, please?

Ryan Alford:

Chris, thanks for having me. I appreciate you. I'm Ryan Alford. I'm the host of the Radcast. We are the number one marketing and business show on Apple. It's an interesting story, Chris, it follows a lot of what you talk about with personal branding. I did a lot in my career.

I've been in the marketing and ad agency business for 20 years. I'll age myself a little bit, even though my Caldera skin cream, who's one of our sponsor, [inaudible 00:01:32] the bags away, but I'm a marketer, Chris. Don't hate the player, hate the game, but look, if you know I'm going to give you, can you hear me, five words, Can You Hear Me Now?

That was the first campaign I worked on for Verizon Wireless. I've worked on every major smartphone campaign in the history of wireless, the first iPhone launch creatively, strategically worked on it with Apple, every Blackberry launch, the Droid, the first anti-iPhone campaign. Worked in Manhattan, largest agencies in the world on some of the largest tech brands, Samsung, Apple, Amazon, Verizon, Google.

Really ushered in the smartphone era, working on the marketing campaigns for some of the most iconic devices ever. Sold over 500 million smartphones with campaigns that I worked on and have had a career in the marketing side that started there. I came out of all that Chris, and no one knew who the hell I was and started three things at one time about six years ago, and they've all been on the same trajectory.

My personal brand, the Radcast and my agency Radical and so have devoted to all three of those the last six years. Now, we're an eight-figure agency. The Radcast is number one in marketing and business, and my personal brand has done okay. It's been a wild ride, but somebody's got to do it.

Chris Do:

Why not you? You do that all with the little southern charm as I can hear in your voice there.

Ryan Alford:

Oh yeah.

Chris Do:

[inaudible 00:03:17] recognize that.

Ryan Alford:

From South Carolina baby. I was the southern kid in New York.

Chris Do:

Represent.

Ryan Alford:

Trailblazing in Manhattan.

Chris Do:

All right. I used to work in advertising myself and there are many roles in which one plays. I just want to just for the record, just ask you a little bit there because I worked on the design production side. When the agency would come up with the creative brief, they would ask us to pitch creative ideas and we would do that. What did you do in those agencies where you were helping to launch all these phone campaigns? I don't know. Tell me, what role did you play specifically?

Ryan Alford:

I'm a hybrid chameleon. Agencies like to put people in boxes. I started in account management and then got into more of a strategy new business and always had a creative flare to me. Luckily, I worked at an agency that allowed that to blossom. Definitely played more in the strategy account management side, but I've always been a good writer and did develop, got to where I was developing campaigns, kind of bring it all together full circle and working directly with clients.

I wore a lot of different hats over my 20 plus years. I mean, I would dare say in today's environment, I play more creative director than anything else at my agency, strategy creative director, to kind of wear both of those hats. I'm maybe one of those few that has a left brain and the right brain. I watch an ad and I literally think I can see the creative brief. I see the creative brief and I think in headlines. It's like it's a little bit of both, maybe.

Chris Do:

It sounds to me like you are that hybrid person that you have this writing creative bone, but you came up through the agency world through the account management strategy side, right?

Ryan Alford:

Yes.

Chris Do:

Okay. I got to ask you this question. I remember this campaign. I'm also old enough and I think I'm older than you, but we'll get into that later, is the Can You Hear Me Now, which at first I was like, "That's it? That's a campaign?" Then, it becomes a thing. Tell me about the inspiration behind that. Where did that come from? Tell me the business insight or how you all developed that and how it turned into that tagline with that spokesperson.

Ryan Alford:

Marketing, at the highest level, comes down to two kind of categories. There's CDI and there's BDI. In 2001, the wireless industry was in a nascent period very early. Your brand mattered but it didn't. What mattered was defining the category and the category of cell phones was educating people why they needed it and why cell service mattered.

Those things had started to come together, okay, I need a cell phone. This is around '99, 2000. We'd go from bag phones to flip phones and all these things, but then there were pain points, consumer pain, very clear consumer pain points early on in wireless in the category, which were reliability. It was always about how do we translate having better reliability, and this was working with Verizon Wireless, in the strategy and the known pain point, the consumer behavior, which was telling us the pain point was my cell phone does not work where and when I need it to.

The transcendent line, which came out of that, which personified everyone's pain because everyone, at this point, this is before smartphones, this is before I'm doing even text messaging, your number one focus is call quality and going through and it working where you'd need it to. Everyone had in their vernacular when someone would, you picked up the phone in 2000, "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?" You're trying to find that spot, that location where people worked and everyone resonated with that line.

Literally, it came out of, I remember being written on the board and then it made its way into one commercial and then it took a life of its own. It's like one of those things, but it was from that consumer insight of, I now know I need a cell phone, but now, it's clear that not all cell phones work ubiquitously. It became the vernacular with which people naturally said.

Having that test man who's testing the network quality, who's personifying the reliability that Verizon was building by testing and retesting, saying those things that everyone else said, the rest is history.

Chris Do:

I love that. You touched on a pain point that was a vernacular, something that we all said, you'd move into the corner of the bathroom, "Can you hear me now?" You're right. I remember those days and that was the biggest pain point, which is how many dead spots are there and can I make a call and receive a call from my home?

People would talk about the widest network and the "Can you hear me now" with your everyday person who wound up being the spokesperson for a gazillion years, how long did that guy wind up? I don't know the actor's name, but how long did he wind up being the spokesperson for Verizon?

Ryan Alford:

Paul.

Chris Do:

Paul.

Ryan Alford:

Just old enough, and it's been just long enough to forget Paul's name. It was right at 12 years, so it was a long time.

Chris Do:

Wow.

Ryan Alford:

Under the umbrella, he was used heavily for about seven, eight years. It died off as the smartphone came around and the networks got better and it was less about the quality of that. It was trying to find a home for him with network quality with data was always a struggle, but he was obviously tied to the brand. I will say this, I had moved on with working on other pieces of business, but someone left a clause out that allowed him to move over to Sprint. They had tied him up and paid him...

Chris Do:

Oh my gosh.

Ryan Alford:

... but there was a certain clause that was in one of the contracts. Luckily, it wasn't one we negotiated, that left that opening because they didn't intend for him to ever be able to go to another wireless network. Then, if you remember, Sprint got him for a couple years and he was touting their network quality.

I don't know if it ultimately ever moved the needle for them. It was more just embarrassment for Verizon, I think, that he was on someone else. The insider backstory there.

Chris Do:

That's why I felt like he had a longer life than 12 years because...

Ryan Alford:

He did.

Chris Do:

... I feel like I still see him from time to time and it's remarkable there. A couple of real quick questions to follow up, you mentioned CDI and BDI. I'm unfamiliar with those terms.

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, category development and brand development. That's old school marketing man. It's like here's what happens, and it's even true today, the best marketers will tell you if you romanced the category, you can win the brand game. Thee who pays most homage to category development, can win the brand game. What does that mean?

Well, if you think about Uber coming around, so the category of taxi direct through app without the friction of having to be a yellow cab that you have to call on your phone or hope if you're in New York City. Uber started a whole new category and when all their marketing came out, they didn't talk about, "Oh, we're Uber. We're the best taxi delivery service."

No, they magnified the category of on demand car service. When you do marketing, you have 100% budget, whatever that budget is, 100%. Category designers would tell you that 70% should be in category magnification discussion instead of brand. Instead of saying, "My brand Nike, then I'm going to talk more about the sport," or whatever it might be, the category underneath it. He, who owns the category, the brand will rise accordingly. Does that make sense?

Chris Do:

It does.

Ryan Alford:

When I came up, we always talked about CDI and BDI and you do research. The research studies we would do would be underneath who was owning category, who was owning brand, and share a voice, share of market, those types of things.

Chris Do:

More threads are opening up here. I want to close a couple before I move on to the next thread, which is based on the things that you're talking about here, when you were doing this, coming up with this insight for, Can You Hear Me Now, what agency was that at that you were with?

Ryan Alford:

I worked for Hill Holliday and Erwin-Penland. Hill Holliday was out of Boston, also worked with McCann. It was McCann Erickson then became McCann, then it became McCann something else. There was about eight agencies that worked with Verizon Wireless across the country. A lot of times, it was as, they would bring all the agencies together. I mean, it was kind of like they pitted us against each other at certain times. They brought us together at other times. It was an interesting dynamic.

Chris Do:

Lastly, did you have any role in casting Paul for that role of Can You Hear Me Now?

Ryan Alford:

No, I had no part in that. I did not have part in that. That was outside of my realm, but it was the perfect casting though.

Chris Do:

It was.

Ryan Alford:

Had the exact look of someone you thought that would be a guy like testing a network. He was kind of the every man but a little nerdy techie, but approachable. He was perfect.

Chris Do:

That's how I would describe him exactly without even knowing the casting specs, every man, kind of good-looking, friendly, relatable, not too nerdy, that would annoy you exactly who you think he should be.

Ryan Alford:

Yup.

Chris Do:

Now, I want to talk about Mr. Shoe Dog, Phil Knight and Nike because you brought up Nike and you said most marketers will tell you to do the category, spend your marketing budget on category defining versus brand. How do you break up Nike today? Are they more brand-centric or category-centric?

Ryan Alford:

It would probably surprise you that it tends to lean towards category, but it's definitely gone more towards brand for them over time because these categories are, and just to be clear, most marketers don't talk about it the way I'm talking about it. Don't talk about category. They talk about performance marketing and they talk about all these buzzwords that are now...

Chris Do:

Yes.

Ryan Alford:

... because they don't understand these things that we're talking about right now or they don't have the background and understanding of how this works. The category designers talk about it, and that's a very few small bunch, the best of which is Christopher Lochhead, he is the originator of category design, but I'll say this, Nike was definitely heavy, heavy category, believe it or not, even Just Do It became their tagline, but was in a way an empowering statement underneath the category of sport.

They now, I think, are probably 55, 45 brand versus category, but at one time, it was probably 70/30 category versus brand, but now, Nike is a difficult one to have this discussion on because they're so big and so ubiquitous as a brand that it could get hard to delineate which one is which, category versus brand.

Chris Do:

Now, you've spent 20 plus years inside the ad world as a marketer, as an account director, strategy person, also with copywriting, is it safe to say you're a ad nerd, like you?

Ryan Alford:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Chris Do:

Okay, because I want to geek out with you for a little bit. Is that okay?

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, 100%.

Chris Do:

There are certain brands that always come up in discussion as shining examples of how you build a multi-billion dollar brand. The two that come straight to my or the three are Nike, four, Nike, Apple, Patagonia and Tesla.

Ryan Alford:

Yup.

Chris Do:

When I sit down and I try to say, "This is what Nike sells, Nike sells you shoes, but that's not what you buy. You buy something else." This feeling, this idea, this connection to something much greater than just a pair of shoes because for which you have a lot of choices for. How would you describe what people buy when they buy a pair of Nikes?

Ryan Alford:

People think with their head and they buy with their heart. We're emotionally driven animals. I mean, it started, we've already broken some of the ice here with Just Do it. The empowering statement with which they started, "I want to be like Mike." You want to be like Mike and Michael Jordan, that campaign, I'm really aging myself. That's early '80s, '85, '84, '85, "Be like Mike," but just do it with him and then be like Mike was actually under the Gatorade, but it's all tied to Michael Jordan because every kid wanted to be like him.

There's your original influencer. We used to call them spokespersons. Now, they're influencers. Everybody is, but in all seriousness, building brand is an emotional exercise in consumer behavior and understanding what those things are.

Now, I have kids and all my kids want Nikes, the brand game, the shoe game, but it's because they've built the cachet, but it's an emotionally driven thing because they want their friends to like them, their friends like Nikes because they've been conditioned to believe that's what their peer groups know, like and want.

That's built the brand that Nike has created, the mantra, the aura that they've built that drives that emotional connection to it, but it still comes back to some very basic human things, which is I want to be liked by others. If I wear Nikes and others value Nike, then, they'll like me too, but it's these emotional triggers that the best brands in the world do. It's usually guided crisp by amazing product too.

I mean, think about the companies you just named, Apple, Tesla, and even Nike, I mean, their product quality has always been top notch for most things. Tesla, the first electric cars that really were viable and sexy and all the things are and the secrecy behind it and everything that Elon Musk did that made it desirable, but it's an amazing product, right? It's an amazing customer experience.

Apple, we always think it's okay, the iPhone and the iMac and Apple, it is, but it's the ecosystem system. The reason the iPhone was the best, the greatest smartphone of all time, is because they tied it all together.

They made it super simple for grandmas and grandpas and kids and everyone else to use a smartphone and to make that a necessity in your life because of the ease and the ecosystem that they built with all of the apps and all of it tied to there and the total customer experience. If you look at those brands, there's usually a customer experience portion that make up the affinities with those brands.

Chris Do:

I want your expert opinion on this, getting back to Nike, because tell people, they produce a shoe, but you buy something different. Then, I ask people in an audience, "What are you really buying?" They're like, "Well, the best, most technical shoe." I'm like, "Let's keep trying."

Ryan Alford:

You're buying [inaudible 00:19:56].

Chris Do:

Then, after a while, I think what the Just Do It thing in their campaigns, as a student of advertising myself, is that they're selling you this message that within each of us lives an athlete, whether you are out of shape, whether you're a kid or you're an Olympic medalist, that's what binds us together. Then, when it comes to Apple, I agree with you, I think Apple produces the ecosystem, but I think what we buy is a status, a cachet that I am saying transmitting to the world, I have good taste and I can afford this.

Ryan Alford:

Yes.

Chris Do:

Your thoughts on this?

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, I think that was the way it was, certainly. It's still that way now, but I think certainly 5, 10 years ago, 100% with Apple, that was definitely that status symbol. I feel like some of that's eroded a bit because I do think they're now in line with PC costs. Their computers are the iPhone and the Samsung and everything else are priced same, and the feature sets have diminished model after model, like the new feature sets.

When you think about when Apple was coming out with new feature sets five, seven, eight years ago, they were big leaps. Now, these leaps have gotten smaller, the prices are more in line with other things. I think that you are right as if you look at the history of the brand, I think you're 100% on. I think some of that's diminished now and it is more about ecosystem, ease of use and some of these other things that with the brand experience as a whole that started to take foothold to why the brand is still so relevant.

Chris Do:

Whenever I go to the mall and I cross the Apple Store versus say, the Microsoft store, no shade thrown, it's a completely different experience and you can tell by the number of people in this store and for whatever reason, the obsessive nature of the Apple people in terms of thinking through every single bit and how they've evolved and changed so quickly where you can go in basically every single person who works at an Apple Store can ring you out.

What could be a log jam of frustration is a pleasant experience and everything from the unboxing, pulling it out, the way that I hear from cardboard engineers, how they engineer to make a very specific sound, when you pull that box open, that's attention to detail that most people don't know but they feel.

Ryan Alford:

Yes.

Chris Do:

Conversely, I remember a couple of years ago, going to the Microsoft Xbox store to buy something, there's nobody in the store. There's like three customers and I'm waiting in line 20 minutes. This is ridiculous. It's a very frustrating experience. Why don't companies get this that if you give people an amazing experience, they'll remember it. Why aren't they so easily duplicated and copied in the marketplace? What do you think makes them so different?

Ryan Alford:

I think that it comes down to some rudimentary things like the decisions that it takes, the bravery that it takes to invest in that total experience. It's now easy for Apple to do it because they've done it and they've proved it, but that's where it took Steve Jobs' bravery and guts and chutzpah, when he did this, when no one else would, when Windows phone and Blackberry and/or Microsoft or whoever, would not have done these things, they would've laughed him out of the room to spend the money on that customer experience on the boxes and all that stuff, he had the bravery to do that.

Even now, I think, when people try to duplicate it, you can see where those things push over and other industries, you'll see the boxes and the experience and it's never quite as good as the Apple experience. They clearly are trying to copy it, but they take shortcuts. You can see where they like, the cardboard's a little nicer and it's got the little flap that you pull on and then you're sitting there and you're still pulling it harder than you want to and then it breaks or something and you're like, you can tell they tried to, but they took a shortcut somewhere.

Apple's still one of the few that delivers it from top to bottom, and a lot of that becomes just execution and you can all talk about it and we can all do it, but at the end of the day, you got to execute and you got to have the precision and the people and the processes to make that happen.

I mean, I say the same thing, not every day, but I have children and I had love to say I never eat fast food, but if you live in the south or live somewhere where there's a Chick-fil-A, Chick-Fil-A's excellence in drive-through and management, why can't that be duplicated at McDonald's or Burger King? Well, whatever. At Chick-fil-A, it's always my pleasure. My pleasure.

Chris Do:

Right.

Ryan Alford:

It's like a total different customer experience that doesn't seem to be able to be duplicated.

Chris Do:

That's true. There's the cult of Chick-fil-A because every time you go there, there is a line and it's a massive line, but you're okay with it because they've expedited as much as they can.

Ryan Alford:

They've convinced moms that it's healthier than McDonald's when really it probably isn't.

Chris Do:

No, a fried chicken sandwich? Come on. Let's get rid of it.

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, exactly and French fries, right?

Chris Do:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Welcome back to our conversation.

Let's shift gears. You talked about a couple different companies. Radical is your agency, Radcast, which I really want to talk to you about, is your podcast, number one ranked podcast for marketing and business on Apple. Here's the thing, this is an enviable position to be in and I checked your chart just right before we got on, I think you slipped to number two, but just even being the top five is an amazing feat. Couple of questions for you, why did you start the podcast?

Ryan Alford:

I have been podcasting for 10 years. I did one, I saw The Medium 2014. I did a car show that had 50 listeners, but it was hyper niche and I've always liked The Medium and believed in The Medium from I was a, whatever you call it, early adopter of The Medium, both listening and playing with them.

When I started my agency, it's the same answer for personal brand, anything else, I saw the groundswell coming and I believed in and knew, and I actually own the trademark for, it pays to be known. How better to elevate my persona if I've been so slack in it. I've done these amazing things and I'm tired of hearing about marketing gurus and ninjas on Instagram that have done nothing compared to what I've done in my career. I'm not mad at them, I'm mad at myself.

I got to get out there and share my knowledge but do it in a different way and I just wanted to have a platform to share knowledge, to grow awareness for myself and knowing that that would bring opportunities, and I wanted to build relationships with some of the amazing guests that you see behind me on the wall because I know that relationships create opportunities and so that's what it's done.

Chris Do:

What year did you launch? You said you're like 400 episodes in or something like that, what year did you launch the Radcast?

Ryan Alford:

2018. We're in year six of the show, but we started at the early 2018, like February of 2018.

Chris Do:

You've been busy.

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, we produce two shows a week and sometimes we record a lot more than that. I also have a secondary show now called, the Vaycay podcast, but it's a health and wellness show, but yeah, man, it's been good though and I've met a ton of people and it's opened a lot of doors.

Chris Do:

I love that. Let's get to the part where, when did it start to connect where you start moving up the charts because to get featured on the top 100 and then top 20 and something has to happen here. What insights can you share with people who are trying to grow their personal brand to cash in on this idea, it pays to be known?

Ryan Alford:

I joke and it's maybe getting long in the tooth, but I love to say it was an overnight success in six years. I'm going to tell your people, the listeners and the viewers and everyone else, probably something they don't want to hear, but it takes time. The first 50 people, I had probably 50 to 100 listeners the first six months of my show and 49 of them were my mom, my dad, and three of my cousins. They're like, "Hey, we really liked that episode." I was like, "Did you hit play more than once?" "Yeah, I have to listen to it like 12 times." Say, "Okay, [inaudible 00:28:50]."

Now, I'm like counting how many plays I've had and I'm doing the math and I think, I had four organic plays if I took away the family members that had listened. Hey look, here's what happened, I went big immediately probably six months in I go, "I'm going to go big. I'm going to invite big guests." I've got no credibility. I had credibility as a person.

My personal brand was starting to grow a little bit and I had done all the things that we've been talking about on this show, so I had credibility and connections to make those phone calls or DMs or whatever it might be, and I'm like, "Wait a second, I don't want to play small anymore." The first six, eight months of the show, I just played small ball and I'm like, "I really don't have to play small ball," the show.

I took on the persona of we're going to go big and I devoted to two episodes a week. I asked all the way from Mark Randolph, the founder of Netflix, who came on my show very early on to, it snowballed from there and I just always played at a bigger level than we were necessarily at and started to just say, "If I don't believe it, then no one else will."

Look, here's what happens when you do 400 shows, you get better at it. The shows get better. I mean, I keep a few of them up. We've removed some of them because they just didn't make sense to the library anymore, but go listen to an episode 40 and go episode less three, I'm better on the mic. I'm better at asking questions. The guests are better and the process and everything sounds and looks better.

It was an evolution, but if I was going to give someone advice and we work with personal brands and podcasts now that we manage, go big. Don't go small and look, I wanted to be, I could have been top whatever in some niche, it took me longer because we played the main stream, education entertainment route with the show. I didn't come on and just go heavy, "Today, we're going to learn about SEO and this SEO tactic you have to get after." It's an entertaining marketing and business show.

If you listen to our Friday episodes, we cut it up, we have fun, but if you really listen, you take away some marketing knowledge too. It's very much edutainment. That was a longer fuse to build an audience, but then once that fuse got going, referrals and other things happen, but it's been a climb, man. I mean, we go from top 200 to top 150.

I will say the last eight months, we've gone from top 40 to number 1. It's snowballed because I think of just, once you kind of get to a certain position, it starts to take on a life of its own on some level.

Chris Do:

Here's what I got from you so far, helps to be in a big family that loves and supports you. The bigger the family, the better get you off the ground, so your ego doesn't take a huge hit, right? Thanks mom. Thanks dad and cousin Vinny, whatever. If you have really big family in the south, you're good.

Next is you said, if you're going to do this, do it with all of your heart, all of your might. Don't be shy about reaching into your vast network of people that you know and getting on the phone or emails and hitting up people that you think would make a better guess.

The next insight was, you got to do the reps. Put in the reps. What you repeatedly do, you improve upon. It takes 200 to 300 episodes for you find your sea legs, if you will, and become good at being a host, but something has happened in the last eight months. Do you attribute to anything else besides you being a better host, the repetition, the deep catalog, the kinds of guests that you're getting? Have you done anything else that you can attribute to how we get from top 100 to top 20 to number 1?

Ryan Alford:

Heavy relationships. I've leaned and into relationships that I've made and gleaned from this and been more intentional in the development of those relationships. I think it's gotten me on different stages, different platforms, different shows, and it's a gold rule. I've been very intentional the last 8 to 12 months about being very giving of my time, my energy and trying to spread it around and to not make it so transactional. I think that is paid dividends.

Chris Do:

Next thing is there are thousands of people, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who have a podcast who never really make a dent. They're still stuck in the, I got 100 downloads per episode. What do you think makes you so unique? What is it about you that people are drawn to, that listen to this organically, who enjoy the conversations with you? You don't need to be humble here, just like really, let's call it out, what do you bring to the table that makes you you and what's your secret sauce?

Ryan Alford:

You said, I'm a southern guy and there's an authenticity, I think, that comes with that, and I'm real. You're going to find, I've never someone gone, very few people will come and go, "You remind me of." I can't think of the last time those words were uttered and I'm just different. I think I have this worldly edge to me, but I'm a southern guy.

I've lived in Manhattan, in LA and Chicago and world traveled and worked on some of the largest campaigns in the world, but I also can go eat fried chicken and green beans and sitting on the dock with my fishing pole and have a beer with anybody. I hope and I think that that comes across that there's an authenticity and a realness there.

Chris Do:

Is that a worldly guy next to door beer drinking, fishing buddy?

Ryan Alford:

Maybe. I guess. I don't know. I mean, some people think of me as bougie and then some people think of me as a southern redneck.

Chris Do:

Bougie, redneck?

Ryan Alford:

I don't know, I guess.

Chris Do:

Okay.

Ryan Alford:

I mean, I get like 500, I don't know how many DMs I get a week and I can't even keep up with them anymore. My assistant can barely keep up with them. We try to respond at once, but I don't know. I think it just resonates on some level with people that I don't seem made up or that I'm answering to anyone other than just whatever the hell I want to do.

Chris Do:

Right. No corporate master to please. You just do what you got to do.

Ryan Alford:

Yeah. I have a few sponsors now, but I'm very particular about those too.

Chris Do:

Sure.

Ryan Alford:

If they don't work, I don't talk about them.

Chris Do:

We have an international audience from all over the world and there are people who are going to listen to this. We don't know what it means to be southern in the United States. What are some of the southern isms like, edumacate us a little bit here? What does it mean to be southern?

Ryan Alford:

If it's the right southern, I think there's a natural friendliness and ability to relate with anyone. I've never met a strange, I'm kind of an extroverted, introvert on some ways. I am truthfully, I mean, I can talk and do it, I can turn it on, but I'm not always Mr. Chatterbox on my own, but I will say in a discussion, I never walk into just, I think southern charm or southern things like that, I don't walk into every discussion with a cynicism and a chip on my shoulder.

When I was in New York and I'm just going to compare, north to south, there's an edge to you in New York and there's, what are you trying to get out of me. Not every single person, but this was in Manhattan. There's a little bit of just that edge. What are you? You couldn't possibly be that nice. You can't be real.

Then, I just walk into discussion, I'm just a dude, let's have a beer, let's talk or what's going on? Asking about family and asking about, it doesn't immediately become so intentional. I think in the south, there's a little bit of just, we don't have to have an end game in mind for this conversation or for this interaction. We could just be shooting the shit.

Chris Do:

There's a general stereotype. People from the north talk fast, always on the move. It's a little bit more transactional. What are you going to do for me? What have you done for me lately? Career climbing in the whole rat race of things. That's New York, the city that never ever sleeps, where everything's always open and you can get everything in a New York minute. We get that.

Then, the southern stereotype is slower, down home family dinners, let's talk, let's get together. It's a different pace. There's a lot of y'alls, bless your heart, that kind of thing. There is such a thing as southern hospitality. I've been to the Carolina's before and it's a little bit different. People don't have their guard up. They'll talk to you and there's just random conversation.

People from all walks of life, we're talking about the good people, some not so good people, but the good people, they're like, "What do you do?" You just have a conversation and you can talk to a stranger for 30 minutes and walk away and just feel like, "Wow, I just really connected with somebody for a minute." Is that the southernness you're talking about?

Ryan Alford:

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't always have to have an agenda and you can let your hair down, unless you're going to some southern pageant or something and then, it's real serious in a hurry. That's a whole other pageant-zilla, but, hey look, no, you're on. There's some fake Southern people too. I mean, it's not all butterflies and rainbows with some of the southern charm of Charleston can be a little up to the top.

I relate well to people. I feel like people relate to me once they get to know me. I mean, I think some of the things that can happen when you build a brand and you're doing things and you're out there, it can seem, we can all come off more unapproachable maybe than we are, but I think when people come hang around, myself or other people from the south, I think a lot of that stuff gets disarmed pretty quickly once they really get underneath the hood.

Chris Do:

Well, let's transition into personal brand. You mentioned it a couple of times. How do you define your personal brand? When did you start developing it?

Ryan Alford:

I mean, whatever you want to call it, I mean, your personal brand is your reputation and it's your digital reputation. It's what you're known for. Social media has afforded this ability of amplification and reach and frequency to use media terms, how many people see you, how many times. When we lived in a world of mass media, was the only way to be. You had to be on TV, you had to be a TV star 15 years ago, 18 years ago. Time's starting to all fly together, Chris.

Chris Do:

Mm-hmm.

Ryan Alford:

Now, with social media, we have this ability to amplify and to be known and to share our credibility. Mine is built around marketing and being a father and being a husband. There's a personal level and a business level, and I try to share both. I try to be authentic in my opinions, which I am, but I'm also going to show you, I don't show you every crevice in every corner of my life, but there's nothing really hidden.

It's all kind of there and I'm not afraid to put it out there because I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. My wife would tell you all about them, but I want to leave a legacy and I want to help as many people as I can, learn from what I've learned. If I can have an impact on someone, I'd rather risk being embarrassed to make an impact and leave a legacy.

Chris Do:

It's like if the price of personal and professional embarrassment is the price you pay to make an impact to the world, you're happy to pay it?

Ryan Alford:

Yes, and I think that's a lot of people get stuck and don't do "personal branding" because that fear of judgment. I have a real blind spot with being judged. I care. Don't get me wrong. I mean, we all look in the mirror, we're all human. We all have blood. I'll get offended. I'll be like, "Damn, I was stupid," or I wonder [inaudible 00:42:57] people thought about that, but I think about it for half a second and I'll go, and I just move on.

I was born without a rear-view mirror. It works. It's great for a lot of things. I'll admit it, it's difficult with others. I have to be more empathetic because most people don't have that gene, but it's enabled me, I think, to press forward because I'm just always facing straight ahead.

Chris Do:

What do you attribute that to, this ability to kind of set your own direction, know what your compass, your true north is, is something in your childhood, the way you were raised, a community, a mentor or something? How's it you're able to have that kind of healthy mindset?

Ryan Alford:

Steve and Mary Linda, that's my parents. They were there. They gave me what I needed. They gave me some of what I wanted, but they didn't try to force me to do anything other than guide me towards healthy behaviors.

I think some parents today and some of my friends had heavy-handed parents that were just too heavy-handed and my parents had a real deaf touch of, they were at every game. They put the opportunities in front of me. My dad would say, "Hey dad." I mean, he would be direct with me. He was a military guy. He was in the Air Force. It wasn't like I grew up with an easy time of it per se, but they had their own lives.

My parents had their own lives. My dad played in a band my whole life and they didn't try to make my life theirs, but they guided me towards the right things and course corrected me when needed, but they let me develop my own talents and skills and never over judged me when it went off the rails.

Chris Do:

That does sound like a pretty good recipe.

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, and that's what I'm trying to do with my kids. I've got four boys and trying to do the same thing. It's a delicate balance because trying to guide and say you do these things and knowing when they have a skill and then they don't necessarily want to work hard enough for it. I won't tolerate that they don't want to work hard for it, but I will allow them to make decisions if it's based on something that really makes sense.

Sometimes it's hard to know that exact moment. It was why I respect my parents more now, and they weren't perfect either, but it's a really difficult balance, but I think if it's guided in the right premise and the right, I'm not going to live my life through them.

Chris Do:

I think that's a mistake a lot of parents make that, and I think it was some yogi that I heard say this, it's like, "Your children's lives are for them to live. Stop trying to punish them for the mistakes you've made," because we're trying to now rectify that like, you didn't take piano lessons. Well, now you have the kids doing piano. You didn't go to graduate school. Now, it's their thing. It's like you're trying to correct for those mistakes.

My feeling, and it seems like it's your parents and yours as well is, you got your shot. Let them have their shot. Whatever they want to do, let them do their thing and it's a dance, for sure, between too much discipline and control versus complete freedom and autonomy, because that could lead to chaos too. You're constantly pushing and pulling.

Sometimes, okay, we got to ease up on the control part and the discipline because this person's got it and they need to let loose a little bit, versus one who's a free spirit, but a little discipline could really help you get to where you want to be.

Ryan Alford:

It's personalized, for sure.

Chris Do:

Yes, it is. Isn't it wild that same parents, same DNA, same gene pool, same environment for different human beings completely?

Ryan Alford:

Totally, 100%. Totally.

Chris Do:

That goes against nurture and nature. It's like...

Ryan Alford:

I know.

Chris Do:

... it's the same nature, same nurture, but they're just going to be who they're going to be.

Ryan Alford:

That's right.

Chris Do:

We're running out of time. I want to ask you this and you might need a minute or two to think about it, but I want to get Ryan's three rules for living a good life, since we're talking about raising people, but the things you've learned, reflected on. If I want to live a good life and you get to find out any which way you want, success, happiness, good relationships, whatever you want, three rules.

Ryan Alford:

Number one, our only finite resource is time. We can always make more money. We can always meet more people. We can always do more things, but we can't make any more time. Time or money and money or time, we'd all have the same amount, but we don't, because we don't know, so time is limited. I will respect you, but I don't let anyone control my time.

My whole in my drive and what I do and why I do it is because I value my time. I think if you recognize that, it'll change your life when you really wrap your head around. It doesn't mean that you'll never work for someone else, by the way, It's not meant to be like the Entrepreneur's Code. It's more, time is fleeting, time is limited, and you need to recognize that. A lot of people don't. That's a big one.

Look, I'm guided by freedom. People say, "Well, man, you've done pretty well. I saw you in that car and all that." I'm like, "Yeah, I got nice things." I'm guided by wanting to control my time. The more money I make, the more freedom I have, not the more things I can buy. Control your time. Recognize that it's finite.

I lived my whole 20s and early 30s around being very selfish individual, a very self-centered person that I didn't rely on a lot of other people. I just trailblazed. At a certain time, it flipped on me and realized that the more you give, the more you get. That has never been, some of these things become very cliche. You see everybody posting quotes on them, but when you live 46 years like I have, you start to experience these things and you start to gain wisdom. There's a lot of truth to that notion and it will pay itself. Pay it forward baby.

Then, family's everything. I am talking about your most intermediate family. There's cousins and all those things. There's great aunts and uncles and all, that's fine, but you're blessed with one family and if you nurture that and protect that and guide that, that's another resource that can't be replaced.

I have probably as much empathy for people that don't have close family than I do anything else. I mean, I know a lot of really wealthy people that have no family and it's sad. If you need to appreciate that, I don't think enough people do.

Chris Do:

It sounds to me like they're financially wealthy, but probably emotionally bankrupt?

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, 100%, because they're not sharing it with anyone else.

Chris Do:

Right.

Ryan Alford:

That's the thing, at the end of the day. When all these things, you get wrapped up, the cliche, did it mean anything? Were you truly happy if you didn't share it with somebody else?

Chris Do:

I heard, I think it was a podcast on this, I think it was on Radiolab, and it says, "There's this notion and it's a popular idea that money can't buy happiness." Well, we've conducted a science experiment that says the opposite, money can buy happiness, but it's not what you think. It's when you actually give the money away to some other people to help them out, whether you know them or not, it doesn't matter.

It's like when you are giving five bucks and you spend it, it's diminishing return. Every time you spend that, you get a little less joy each time. When you buy enough cars or whatever it is that you want to buy, your indulgence, not as joyful, but when you give it to other people, just the act of giving is such a wonderful feeling.

You talked about you're driven person. You talked about, at least in your bio, going from zero to eight figures in four years and all of that was to do two things for you, as far as I could tell right now. Number one, to buy back your time, to have the freedom to choose to do what you want when you want with who you want.

Number two, is to be able to use that money to help and support and love on the people that you care the most about, your immediate family or those that you want to aid in this life. Is there another reason or those two pretty good reasons?

Ryan Alford:

That's 100% it. If you ask my friends and if I died tomorrow, I know what they would say. I'm very generous and I always pick up the tab secretly. I am that guy not because I'm trying to brag or show off, it's because I take great joy in being able to do that and it mean very little to my bottom line, but make someone else's day.

It's exactly that and things with family too. Nothing brings more joy than being able to take your family where you want to go and get away when you need to do it and do those things, but it still comes back to those fundamental things of freedom and choice, the choice and ability to do that. It's a privilege.

Chris Do:

I'm going to ask you before we go one serious question and one not serious question at all. I think you mentioned you're 48. I'm 51 by the way, so I'm going to ask you this question. You're on an airplane. You're traveling for business and the captain makes an announcement, "You're not going to make it. This plane's going down." What are your last thoughts before you die?

Ryan Alford:

I think if I've got everything in the order that I had intended, and I'd like to think that at this stage, I'm close to that, if not there. I'm probably thinking that this would make a radical story and that you know what? I'd rather that than I died on my deathbed and suffered over six months with terminal cancer. That sounds pretty radical.

Chris Do:

I laugh not because we're [inaudible 00:53:55], but I feel like the marketers, I still got one more story to tell. This is the last story.

Ryan Alford:

Yeah, I mean, it feels like a good story to me. I mean, look, I'm be sitting there praying and you doing things that we're naturally doing, but I think in the back of my head, I would have some semblance of, this is the way it was supposed to go out.

Chris Do:

Yeah, you lived a good life. You did what you could in the time you had. Your house is in order and you can go down with peace?

Ryan Alford:

Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm sure you're scared is all get out and there's a lot of fear. I mean, I don't know. I feel like I'd have a wink of cynicism that this was kind of how it was meant to be.

Chris Do:

Very good. Last question for you, the not so serious question is, I just want you to say whatever's on the top of your mind, don't overthink this one, what's a guilty pleasure that you have that you're not afraid to admit?

Ryan Alford:

I have several. I mean-

Chris Do:

You're going to say, I'm a swifty.

Ryan Alford:

No.

Chris Do:

No? Okay.

Ryan Alford:

I'm a country music guy. That's not really a guilty pleasure anymore. There's pop music these days. I mean, energy drinks and Bud Light NEXT.

Chris Do:

What's your favorite energy drink?

Ryan Alford:

The one that is in a can.

Chris Do:

You don't care?

Ryan Alford:

I don't care. If it's got caffeine in it, I'll drink it. I don't drink coffee. Energy drinks, and I've been known to drink 1 to 20 Bud Light NEXT. They're the only carb-free beer. Even with their little snafu and everybody not liking Bud Light for a little while, they're the only one that makes the total carb-free beer. If I'm going to have 15 of them on a lake on a Saturday, it's going to be those because I got to keep this girlish figure in order.

Chris Do:

You're southern but you don't want to be a big southern guy.

Ryan Alford:

All [inaudible 00:56:02], but it's true. And I get shit from it from everybody at my lake. We have a houseboat on at the lake and everybody gives me crap because I'm looking in these Bud Light NEXT, but there you have it.

Chris Do:

Well, it's been a real pleasure talking to you, Ryan. I've been spending the last hour talking to Ryan. He's the host of the number one marketing business podcast on iTunes called The Radcast. He also has an agency called Radical, running an eight figure business. How do people get in touch with you if they want to follow up with you?

Ryan Alford:

Yeah. I'm at Ryan Alford, R-Y-A-N A-L-F-O-R-D, on all the social media platforms. You'll see the check next to my name on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram. I had it before you could buy it.

Chris Do:

Nice. Well done. Thank you very much.

Ryan Alford:

Thanks, Chris. Enjoyed it. I am Ryan Alford and you're listening to The Futur.

Stewart Schuster:

Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Futur podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced by me, Stewart Schuster. Thank you to Anthony Barro for editing and mixing this episode. Thank you to Adam Sanborne for our intro music.

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