Building Communities and Trust with Brayden Tomicic

The Power of Building Authentic Communities with Braden Tomicic

In this episode, we sit down with Braden Tomicic, a remarkable community builder and entrepreneur, to delve into what sets apart followers from a true community. We discuss his journey from running a photography business to co-owning Static Marketing and launching Curated Collective, a limited-edition automotive enthusiast streetwear brand. Braden shares his insights on continuous learning, the importance of trust, and actionable strategies for young entrepreneurs. Whether you're just starting out or seeking ways to scale your business, this conversation is packed with invaluable advice on building relationships, maintaining focus, and leading your team to success.

00:00 Introduction to Community Building

01:09 Braden's Background and Early Entrepreneurial Journey

02:16 The Shift from Traditional Career Paths to Entrepreneurship

07:27 The Birth of a Photography Business

14:22 Continuous Learning and Evolution in Business

19:13 The Role of Teams in Scaling a Business

20:20 Static Marketing: Transforming Blue Collar Brands

31:03 Curated Collective: A Unique Automotive Streetwear Brand

34:55 Building a Community: The Power of Genuine Connections

40:41 Cars and Coffee: Cultivating a Thriving Automotive Community

43:55 The Importance of Community and Relationships

44:24 Earning Your Place at the Table

45:03 Providing Value and Building Trust

45:30 The Journey of Hard Work and Opportunities

49:19 Managing Multiple Ventures

49:56 Prioritization and Focus for Entrepreneurs

54:23 Investing Time and Mental Capacity

56:33 Strategies for Entrepreneurial Success

01:01:04 Overcoming Roadblocks and Bottlenecks

01:10:39 Building and Leading Effective Teams

01:26:31 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks 

Transcript

 What's the difference between having followers and building a community? I'm here with Braden Tomicic, and I'm gonna tell you he has a superpower that he probably doesn't even know he has. He is an excellent community builder, and I've been watching him over the last few years, uh, go from his own photography business to a partner in static marketing to owning a company called Curated Collective.

And his journey has been really quite remarkable. One of the things that's impressed me the most last week he sent me an e, uh, a message, invited me to an event. I show up to the event the next day. He has hundreds of people there. That's an impressive superpower, especially when people talk about the importance of building community in the AI era.

Now, you know that I believe trust is the defacto currency of the world, and obviously you've been able to cultivate a lot of it, so you're doing something right. Actually, I think you're doing a lot of things right. Uh, but I'm excited to have you on the show today, and I think that there's a lot that people can learn from you and your journey.

Well, thank you. I appreciate you having me. Absolutely. So I, I typically like to start with the personal aspect of you, right. It takes a, a very unique, strong, cultivated man to do the things that you're doing right now. So, would you mind telling us a little bit about your background and where you're from?

What you do? 

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we can go pretty far back, but we'll do the, we'll do the summarized version. The, uh, what is it? Call a bridge version of it Sure. Or SparkNotes. Uh, yeah. Grew up in Utah most of my life. In fact, moved out to Harriman from Sandy like 26 years ago. And I mean, we were pretty much your average family.

Dad was a mechanic, stay at home mom, grew up just loving cars, you know, uh, always was tinkering with things. Very curious by nature. Mm-hmm. Um. And that carried on through my teenage years and has never stopped then. And it's kind of what led me into opening my mind up to new opportunities, which eventually brought into this entrepreneur type career.

And yeah, it's just been, it's been really exciting. So, you know, it's, that's kind of like the really summed eyes version, if that works. Sure. So I 

guess my first question was gonna be, you know, how did you get into entrepreneurship? 

Yeah. So it's kind of funny because it's like I knew I wanted to be in business at some level.

I never really took the term like entrepreneur, seriously. In fact, even when it started to kind of get like thrown around, I was like, I feel like this is a very loosely thrown around word. It kind of is. It is. It really is. And so, um, you know, it's, it's interesting. I've always done my own things, right?

Like as a kid, I would go on the corner and sell my toys and lemonade or whatever I could, you know? Mm-hmm. To try to bring an income. When we did family yard sales, you know, I would make cookies with my mom to do it. Like, I was always kind of just driven to, you know, be self-sufficient, which ended up kind of leading into like, I guess what you would call like entrepreneur characteristics.

Sure. Um, so from the start of the journey, it was very early on, but in fact it was kind of interesting. I, I grew up in a very traditional and old school household, so my mom and my dad were basically like, you're going to grow up, graduate high school, go do the college route. Finish with a good degree, you're gonna go work for somebody, hopefully they got a good 401k or pension system, and then you'll retire and die.

And that's kind of the sum up version of that. Yeah. And uh, to be honest with you, like it never resonated well with me. But not only did it not resonate well when I was actually going to college for, uh, to be actually a pilot, um, I just, there was certain things I did not vibe with. I, in, in the midst of going to college.

Like I moved down here and I was just kind of young going with the flow. Um, you know, just hanging out with friends, doing classes during the weekday and then working on the hours that I could do mm-hmm. Do work. And I'm like, man, this is like awful. And I'm taking classes. I don't care about things that didn't pertain anything to my degree at all.

Like, I'm never gonna use biochemistry and flying planes. At least I hope I don't. Um, and so I was just like, you know what? This just does, this seems like I'm spending a lot of time and a lot of money into something that, you know, from an ROI standpoint I wasn't receiving whether, and that's not even like a, a financial ROI, it was more of like a, a mental ROI, like, you know, from my own standpoint of what I was learning, I didn't feel like it was gonna apply.

And so I'm putting countless amount of hours into it and I just didn't like it. Not saying that college is a bad system, but for me, I just, I didn't, it didn't connect the dots. 

Yeah. 

Um, and actually, kind of funny story, this is probably not great to tell, but I, I find it interesting. So in the midst of my college career, met my wife and I was also doing sales in the midst of that.

So I'm like my year and a half in, into my degree. And I started doing sales, started making really good money, um, got married and then switched to like sas. So I was doing sales in the SaaS place and I literally was making more in that timeframe on top of chasing this entrepreneurial career of opening my photography business and some other avenues to the point where I was like, I'm waking what I would make three or four years into being a commercial pilot.

And that at that point would've been, I would've been starting that career within the last couple years. Mm-hmm. And so I still would've been making less than I was making at that time. Yeah. Even right now, if I followed down that path. And for me, I was just like, this was an eye-opener. Now granted, like being a pilot's a great career, I still would love to go fly, but um, my eyes were opened.

I started doing a lot more car things, getting invited to a lot more car events, and just taking perspective from people who were doing much better than I was, and from people who were doing much worse than I even I was at that time. And then trying to pick. You know what, I could out and then apply it to my life.

So I knew what not to do and what I wanted to do. 

Definitely. 

Um, so yeah, 

we have a very similar journey in a lot of ways. It feels like I often say that the university taught me all the ways to be unsuccessful as an entrepreneur. 

A hundred percent. Uh, 

and here I am almost, uh, complete with my doctorate now, but I've continued education for the love of learning, not necessarily for what it gave me early on, and it's helped me with the more advanced degrees perhaps.

Uh, but especially in my undergrad, you know, they were telling me I was trying to start a business at the time and I was in a business management program. Uh, don't use more than five hashtags when you post and, and you, you need to only post once a day or you're gonna overwhelm and burn out your audience.

You know, those kind of things. Right. And especially back then, you know, this was 20 17, 20 18, that was the peak of like, Instagram's use all 30 hashtags, algorithm. You're gonna get more exposure and like. They taught you all the ways to be maybe a good employee for a Fortune 500 company. Mm-hmm. Not necessarily to have success in your career field.

So I also felt the similar, like the ROI just wasn't there for me, especially early on in my, my education. Uh, were there any experiences and, and you kind of touched on photography, I'd like to maybe talk about that too, um, because that was really from my, at least my perspective, what I saw, your first big entrepreneurial endeavor.

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, were there any experiences that kind of launched you into that? 

Um, yeah, actually, so it's kind of interesting because it was never something I ever planned on doing, like wholeheartedly. I always thought about finding or or inventing a product, you know, trying to solve a problem for people because I'm always been curious by nature.

You know, I pulled apart a lot of the DVD players growing up and then put 'em back together. Just understood how they work, and sorry, mom and dad about that. Uh, but they still worked great. So that's all that mattered. But, uh, with the photography stuff, there's the couple events that took place where one is, I was taking photos at the time, but purely as hobby.

Mm-hmm. Like it was just on my phone adding a few filters because I found it interesting. I found it very aesthetic and I was like, ah, this is cool. Like, it's fun. Um, and obviously it would, it was something I could do to capture the moment when I was out doing like these different car events, rallies and meets and, you know, you'd see something like, I mean, you know, you grew up here and I grew up here and seeing just how the automotive scene here has developed is insane.

Like the coolest car I saw growing up was at an auto show at the Southtown Expo Center or. Mount American Credit Union Expo, whatever it is, that building, and it was like a four gt and then it would just be classic cars, like car shows, which are cool. And I absolutely loved those cars. I still have a huge passion for 'em, but like, you know, kind of that upper echelon that you'd see on the TV and early movies or anything in the video games we were playing.

It was like, we never saw that. And so to go to these shows, capture those moments, I was like, this is really cool. This is kind of leading up into the moment where I had a friend, his name is David. Really great guy, was getting into the, like being an automotive photographer, but like not just as a hobbyist like myself.

He was actually doing it on a professional level, making money, charging people to do photo shoots, working with different companies. And I didn't ever connect the dots until we went up the canyon one day. He did a photo shoot in my car at the time and was like, oh yeah, you, after some conversation, I should say it, the dots connected where I was like, you can do this and make money out of it.

I was like, oh. So I can essentially identify like, just something that I love to do. I can do this every day. It's in a space that I love and like I can help solve a problem for people and they're willing to pay me to do that. And so I was like, I gotta, I gotta dive in. So I took my old mom, or not my old mom, my mom's old camera that we had since like 2002, and just grabbed it and then went to work.

Dude, that's awesome. 

I, uh, I really believe you can take your passion, whatever that is, right. And build a business and a, a career and a way to earn around that. And it looks different for different people in different, uh, places or perspectives. But I absolutely love that an entrepreneur's journey can start anywhere with any experience that you're passionate about.

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, you're a little bit modest about the photography, but that's actually how I, I came to first know you and follow you, right? Was in that, that car scene. Uh, I was. Probably one of the first, if not the first person, to have like a GT three RS in Utah and be open about driving it around. And I took it to all the cars and coffees and things like that.

Uh, and honestly, that kind of launched my involvement in the car scene because I wasn't active in it before. Uh, I'm a enthusiast more than a, like a Motorhead or something like that. I enjoyed the experiences that you get while you drive the vehicles. And so the more I got involved in that scene, you know, you start becoming aware of like, people start reaching out, can we do a photo shoot?

Can I shoot your car? I'm like, I don't, I don't even know what you're talking about, dude. Like, you wanna take pictures of a car? Okay. Um, but as, as I started learning around that kind of world and space, I became familiar with your work and, and South Valley photography. And, you know, one of the things that stood out to me about, about you and your craft, uh, was that you were very passionate about it.

One. But two, you were always taking the time to get better at it. Mm-hmm. And so over the years, you kind of saw the evolution of the quality of the photos and the editing and like, it was very obvious that, that as an entrepreneur, you wanted to be a master at what you did. Mm-hmm. And I think that that's probably carried on with you now into your other endeavors.

So I, I think that's a really cool, um, kind of segue here, because even though you're not doing photography necessarily the way you were, that's still a big aspect of who you are and what you do when it comes to your social media presence and the businesses that you are involved in. 

Mm-hmm. 

Were there any, I mean, you kinda shared one already with that experience, but any big aha moments that set you up for success as an entrepreneur?

Like maybe as you got started on your path? 

I'll be honest. Uh, so I always find those questions, um. Interesting. 'cause when I look back at it, I would say there's significant moments that I cherish because it was like, you know, someone brought something to light. It didn't feel like an aha moment in that time, but like, I was like, oh, that kind of clicked at with me at the time, and it was enough of a click for me to kind of go down the path.

But even then, I'm very self-sufficient and for better and worse, sometimes a little stubborn. So sometimes those moments take a little bit longer to click because I'm working through it. Mm-hmm. And working past some of my own boundaries that, and, you know, personal barriers that I have set up mentally over the years 'cause of the way I was raised because of the way that like I was taught and, you know, so I, I wouldn't say there was like one, like specific aha moment.

I think it was a accumulation of multiple moments of inspiration. 

Definitely. 

Um, the thing like, you know, you mentioned like with photography, like the evolution of how it's been over the years, right. There's certain aha moments that I think I had in like my editing process as an example that I came across by doing my own research, by looking at other people's styles, by reading books, you know, doing online research, YouTube, obviously that was a great platform even though there was like no in the space.

So I had to take other people's information who were doing things in like the product and retouching side and portrait side, and then try to apply it into the automotive space. Um, so yes, there were multiple, I guess, moments of inspiration that kind of helped guide me down my path of why I'm here today.

But I wouldn't say there was one aha moment. Um, yeah, 

so you touched on something that I, I'm very passionate about, and it's the concept of continuous learning as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a, an organizational driver. Continuous learning isn't just formal education, right? You mentioned you were on YouTube, you were looking into what people were doing in photography and other fields to try and learn from that, to drive your field forward, right?

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, we can innovate as entrepreneurs and not necessarily be creating something from scratch. Mm-hmm. You can take something that's good and apply it into your own realm. Uh, so I love that concept, but I love the concept of continuous learning and like always looking for a way that you can be better at what you do.

I think that that is a skillset that separates winners from losers when it comes to business. 

Generally speaking, a hundred percent. I feel like a lot of people when they talk about like entrepreneurship or think about like, you know, when they at least discuss business, whether they're aware of it or not, it's kind of interesting.

I notice a lot of people talk about like, if I just get there. And it's like, well define there. Like what's that next level even? Yeah. Like when we talk with businesses, even we're helping them develop their brand and grow online, it's like, well, I'm ready to take the next level. I'm like, well, what does that even mean?

And they don't even know how to define it. And it's kind of interesting because a lot of people, I think on the continuous education side, they think that you just get this point of, uh uh, what are the, what do the Buddhists call it? Enlightenment. Enlightenment, yeah. It's like this moment of enlightenment and they're like, I made it.

This is it. This is, you know, I know one understand everything. And it's like, no, that's never from the truth. Never. It's so far from the truth. Because the moment you start to catch up and really take on new, you know, techniques or strategies, a new technology comes out, you know, this new tool comes out that automates everything you did.

Yeah. And you know, so things become more efficient, but then you gotta learn how to do that tool and then does that tool actually help you accomplish it in the right way? And then you're, it's always just working and learning. Mm-hmm. I think anyone who thinks that you have to stop learning or stops learning is you reach a point of stagnation.

That is just, I feel like a really interesting path, especially if you're trying to take the entrepreneurship journey. Definitely. Because when you, the moment you become complacent, you become in the past, like you become old news, in my opinion. 

Yeah. You, um, you touched on how AI is kind of innovating, you know, but maybe separate from that, I've never, and and I'm sure most people would agree, I've never run into a problem set in entrepreneurship or a business that couldn't be improved.

Right. So the concept of just knowing everything is so foreign to me because even if I get to a point where I'm doing really, really well in something, we're running really lean and efficient, I can look at it, I can assess the situation, I can still see ways to. Fine tune and improve. I don't think there's ever somewhere where you'll hit, you know, a level where there's just no improvement to be made.

Oh no. It's just unrealistic. 

It is. And I mean, so I've worked in all forms, right? I've worked with startups, I've worked with, you know, companies that have gone public, like I've worked in everywhere. And it's kind of funny because I've tried to always place myself in the right rooms to like be able to kind of take the knowledge, understanding and the things that they're talking about, mostly to gain perspective.

And it's been really cool even in my career with being in some of the rooms I've had because of photography and the marketing side, just discussing with these different business owners what's going on in their company. And from the outside perspective, you're like, oh man, they're killing it. Like they're doing so well, you know, they've got their processes dialed in, like everything's.

Running great. And then you kind of peel back the curtain a little bit and you're like, oh, oh, it's, it's actually just a well-managed dumpster fire. Like,

like it really is. And you know, everyone runs into constant roadblocks. And the moment you start to feel like something, like you, you're always, I don't wanna say putting out fires because there are good businesses and well run businesses. Mm-hmm. But there's variables that you have no control over and that you have to overcome and adapt constantly.

Definitely. And so when people think that it's just this kind of breeze past this like level of like quote unquote success, it's like that's so far from the truth. It, it really is. And if you can't wrap your head around that, then it's probably not something you should pursue or still pursue it, but at least take that lesson back and understand.

Mm-hmm. That's what I mean, anything in life, in my opinion, that's kind of how it is. And so, yeah, I don't know. It's, I. So, yeah, something that I really 

like and that I think helps with that kind of situation is, you know, having a really strong team around you, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, my whole, you know, me, my premise is, uh, that if you want to have a $10 million business, you have to have a $10 million team, right?

Teams are what help you scale effectively, efficiently, and put out those dumpster fires like you're saying, or manage them so they never even get to that point. 

Yeah. 

Um, I find a lot of entrepreneurs end up bottlenecking their business and their growth and their scalability because they're not willing to trust and develop a team around them to help them manage those kind of things.

So I've been kind of watching, you know, you static. Uh, I know a lot of people that are, are working with and around you guys. I. I know that you are putting together a really good team there of solid individuals, trustworthy individuals, uh, that take pride in what they do. So that's kind of maybe my segue into tell us about static a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. So static, we're essentially a marketing company and creative agency who is basis and foundation is around media. Mm-hmm. Um, right now it's, we're, we're in a consumption world. We're in a consumption nation. Hence why the tariffs were such a hard hit on a lot of e-commerce businesses, which, you know, yeah, yeah.

It's fighting through, fighting through, and it's a crazy climate and there's some strategy behind it. Unfortunately, it hurts kind of the US guys, you know, who are, you know, not government officials with a salary, but aside from any of the, you know, government con controversy behind that, um. We come in and we help build blue collar brands.

We've worked in the automotive industry for a long time. We still entertain that side of the industry, but static is a foundation of how we take people's businesses to that quote unquote, like next level. Mm-hmm. We're a consumption nation and people consume media constantly. I mean, you can't even drive down the freeway even if you don't have a phone or any social media.

Yeah. 

If you're gonna get hit with it, you're gonna digital billboards. Yeah. It's wild. 

You are visually, unless you're stuck up and even in the nature, like you are constantly collecting data in your brain of all the visual environment around you. Mm-hmm. And people understand that, you know, marketing is just real estate and how can I fill this real estate with my brand or company?

So you recognize it and want to potentially use me. That's it. Like at its core. That's it. Geez. 

I, no one's ever phrased that to me before. I love the concept. Marketing is real estate. It's mental, real estate. It is. That is awesome and powerful. So, I guess, uh, if, I mean, don't divulge your, your, uh, secrets here, but what is the, I guess, real impact, the power that you see with static marketing helping these, these brands?

From my perspective, right. I watch, and I, I, like, I've never even heard of marketing agencies for construction companies before. Mm-hmm. 

But 

then I see, you know, like GS out on the work site, they're pouring concrete behind him or something like that. That's kind of a, a, a cool thing. It's something that I wasn't exposed to previously that I wasn't aware with.

Um, but, you know, what kind of impact are you guys seeing with the, the brands that you represent? 

It's, it's pretty substantial to be honest. Um, you know, kind of going back to what I've mentioned as far as like marketing being real estate. The thing that people forget often is if I'm not top of mind, I'm on the back burner.

Mm-hmm. Right. And for construction companies, a lot of these guys are very old school, so they work in, you know, an avenue where it's a hundred percent referral based. I have a relationship with you as a builder, I have a relationship with this individual and or I've done enough work for enough people over the years and grinded my way through that.

I have people constantly referring me, oh, who did your basement? Who, you know, who helped you guys with your electrician, you know, to set up all of your guys' wiring for the house. You know, those types of things. And so these guys are very old school in the sense of they have just been working off referrals.

Um, we've come in and there's kind of a new wave of entrepreneurs and builders and, you know, these blue collar guys who are just grinders, but also understand the impact of what social media and other forms of media can do for their business. Yeah. That are starting to make its small ripples right now.

Like even us, we're still very early on helping this industry, especially teaching this industry on what they need to do. But the impact is enormous because, you know, if you're a custom home builder, you're, you're, you're doing multiple different things. You're inspiring a younger generation. You're inspiring people.

You know, like for example, Corey Robinson, he's not one of our clients, but he's one of the guys that we've talked to before and he started to do this, especially on social media. Most people aren't gonna be able to ever afford his homes. He's doing three, four, or $5 million plus homes. Like these are insane.

Mm-hmm. And maybe he does, like, I think I, I mean, don't, if you should watch this, don't quote me, I don't know, but I think it's only like three or four homes a year. So the likelihood of you or me, or some Joe Schmo off the street who's gonna hire him is probably minimal. So you're like, why do you even need to market then?

Well, what he's doing is he's creating brand awareness because. You never know. What if my business takes off, I come into some money because of our business, and I'm ready to build that next dream home. 

Mm-hmm. 

I might wanna hire somebody like him, you know? And likewise, it creates a presence among other subcontractors and other builders of the quality and what people can do and are capable of.

You're inspiring a younger generation on maybe ideas that they want in their home. You know, like I'm very goal oriented and so if I see that I can have a whole separate house, or like call it a wellness center and a pool and a TV that comes outta the ground, that I can watch one sitting on my pool. I do like that.

Like that's pretty cool stuff. It's not the whole purpose that's gonna drive me there, but it's stuff that I can go, that's exactly what I want. Like I want to be able to Yeah. You know, partake in that. Those kind of things. And so, as far as impact, it, it's fairly heavy because we're bringing exposure to brands to help not only generate new business, but create new relationships.

For example, one of the people we worked with last year, they didn't even care about getting new business, which is how a lot of people pitch. You know, Hey, I'm a marketing company. Let me bring you all these business. I can bring you these leads. We're gonna get you this much traction, followers, et cetera.

This business we talked with, he's like, I just need high quality employees. He's like, and if my company doesn't represent high quality work, I'm only gonna attract low quality people. He's like, I need to attract high quality people and if my work and how people perceive our company is going to bring that in, because then if you're looking at the guy who does the most amazing work, it's pristine.

It's stuff you're like, I wanna be a part of projects like that. Yeah. If it's not presented in a light that emulates that narrative, it's gonna be really hard to hire and it already is hard to hire in this industry. And so even that kind of opened my eyes and perspectives. So we, at its core, we bring people in, we figure out what they want, and then.

We help them accomplish that goal. So, 

so I really like how you, you're taking a, an industry that has essentially been ran on referrals since time immemorial, and you've plugged in a way to like actually have sustainable lead generation. Right. A lot of people don't realize, YouTube, for example, YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

Mm-hmm. 

Right? Like you mentioned, people consume a media, media is real estate in your head. It's also perpetual lead generation. So I think something like that, I mean, you, you totally hit on, and that's not something I would've thought of before you said it, but, but, uh, your social media, your content development then as a marketing agency is lead generation into perpetuity and not just for the.

The, uh, construction companies with blue collar companies and workers that you're representing, but also for yourselves, then 

mm-hmm. 

That's a pretty sick gig. 

It's pretty sweet. It, it genuinely is. Like, the thing that I love about what we do is reason why we even call ourselves, not necessarily marketers.

We're more just like brand strategists because building a core brand and an audience and an audience that is engaging with you and is caring about you and your business that is interested every time they pull up their phone, what project they got going on today, what's happening in their lives, and is really like dialed in to what you are doing as an individual, as a company.

That's what creates a legacy behind that brand, and that's what's gonna continue to bring you more business and you're bringing like a, I mean, call it a cult following if you want, but a group of people that want to constantly engage with you, and that's more powerful. The guy who just wants to, you know, sell a couple things and then call it a day.

Right. Um, and it's cool 'cause we're plugging into a very archaic, uh, you know, business mindset. Mm-hmm. Like for example, there's a roofer who literally still to this day, operates on a calendar on his wall and a journal next to his bed. That's how he schedules everything like that. He, but he does 450 roofs a year.

But it's very archaic. It is very archaic. So we're able to plug in these new systems, keep that top of mind, and yeah, it, the impact for their business, again, goes beyond even probably the lifespan of what we've done with them because what we're setting up as a foundation for their business. Like, if they can keep that consistent for years, like you're talking about Coca-Cola's style brands that just have the name, you hear the name, you know it, you can resonate with it, you know what it's tied to.

Yeah. 

Well, and even if you op, like, think about that. If you optimize your content now, right? That content, once it's posted on the internet, it's not going away. Right. You post a YouTube video, that'll be on there until you delete your YouTube video. Yeah. So I think, I mean, and you think about YouTube as the search engine, then you have some really good content.

It's out, it's posted. 

Mm-hmm. 

Forever that thing is working for you. So I love that, that you're able to take that asset. Um, you, you talked about community, just barely you touched on that. Okay. So that's, I think like I, I set up in our, our hook at the beginning. That's a really awesome superpower that I see that you have, you're doing it with a curated collective as well.

Mm-hmm. So, I, I mentioned last week, Braden invited me to an event. Uh, I go out there. I don't know how big it's gonna be. I know, I know the venue is relatively, you know, small. Doesn't have a big parking lot or anything like that. You probably had 200 to 300 people out there. One I wanna ask, how do you do that?

That's fricking awesome. Uh, but also I think you're doing something really cool with Curated Collective. So let's talk about both of those things real quick. Sure. Uh, tell me about Curated Collective, why you're doing it. Um, the purpose behind it. I love that it's limited edition drops. I'm sure you'll touch on that too, but I'm reminding you so you don't forget.

I appreciate it. Uh, and then, and then tell me about how you're able to build the community around there. 

Yeah, so Curate Collective at its core is an automotive enthusiast, like street wear brand. Um, that's pretty much it, like summed up. The cool part about what we do is a lot of, like the automotive, like brands and styles of streetwear that I've seen are so cheesy.

It's always either like fast and furious related or it's like. Motors, horsepower, you know, like it's using like just these keywords that we all associate with, with cars. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, I feel like this is just some guy who looked up common search word, like keywords online. What's the pop? SEO? Yeah.

What's the most popular car right now? And then I'm gonna throw a whatever. And then, yeah. It is just so cliche and I hated it. 'cause like, I'm not saying I'm good at fashion, but I wanted something that if I had in my closet, I'd be happy to wear it any occasion. Yeah. And so there wasn't really anything out there that I like, genuinely loved.

So initially it kind of started as that. Um, it's also kind of the test subject for, I kind of mentioned a future brand that we're gonna do the soft launch for here in July. But what I created around Curated was a very stylish, very, like, I wouldn't call it futuristic, but forward thinking as. Part is design of street wear that was affordable.

And the kind of the cool key aspect that makes it fun is whatever car that we base that piece of clothing around, we only produce as many merchandise items as, as many of the cars was manufactured. So, you know, like for example, one of the first drops we ever did was a Ferrari F 40, which I took pictures of.

We turned into digital art, which also was kind of a part of the reason why we started is I wanted to do something better than just like taking photos. Mm-hmm. I wanted to implement it into like street wear and art, make it really cool that like next step of creative, um, of my creative endeavor. And anyway, it was a Ferrari F 40, it had the, uh, it's like plexiglass windows, I think they call it like lexicon or something like that, that those kinda like plastic race style windows.

Very lightweight. Well, there was only 90 manufactured in the world that first year, which is actually kind of interesting because. It was originally supposed to be glass, but they couldn't get the glass done in time. Mm. So we made 90 F 40 shirts based off of this photo I took of this F 40 and curated this whole design together, did a drop, did an event, and then sold out.

And that's kind of how we based every car. So I usually like to take photos of that car, incorporate it, you know, into some of the design aspects. And then we do a drop and, yeah, very limited. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. 

Okay. So you, you mentioned, uh, you know, you did an event. Mm-hmm. You sold out, obviously then you had 90 people or so at more at the event.

How did you, how do you build the community around that to get those people out of their homes? To come to your events? Yeah. I think it's because it's not just followers, right? No, it's not. It's not just having people on social media and you say, Hey, come to this thing. Obviously there's a connection.

Mm-hmm. Right? Like, uh, I come to your event because I'm like, okay, I know Braden is doing some really cool things. I want to see what he's doing. Like this dude is, is honestly inspirational. I'm sure you are. To me. And then obviously other people. So it's not just you have a good social media presence and following.

Right. You're building a sense of community and you, you're doing something to get these people to wanna have trust in you and what you're doing. 

Mm-hmm. 

Um, but also to feel that sense of belonging around curated collective. 

Yeah. The thing about communities that I find interesting is it's not something you can build overnight.

Mm-hmm. People talk about virality. I've had viral posts myself, like we've had millions of views on videos. Like I had a post where me and my wife took pictures with a supercharger and it went international. Ah, yeah. That was a really good one. Yeah, that was a pretty good one. At the time I was working sales and doing this career.

And so it's kind of interesting. The thing I learned is when I was even selling, and this is kind of the precursor to it, just to provide some background, when I was doing sales, most of the time when people bought, I thought at least in the beginning of my career, was because of the product. Mm-hmm. If I can present a really good product and it solves a problem.

'cause that's how they taught us what business is. Yeah. Businesses finding a, identifying a problem and providing a solution that it would sell. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I'm like, oh man. I was so far from the truth. It was so far from the truth. I couldn't wrap my hand around it because I was like, well they taught me this is what business is and this is why people buy.

But like no buying in the human psychology behind it is a totally different thing. And I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but why people buy isn't typically not even just because of the product. You have some products that are like that, like milk. Great. Water. Even like you've got smart water right here.

That is proof that people don't buy because of what the product is like. Yeah, I'm thirsty. But you know, if that was Aquafina and I present that to a couple of my friends, they'd be like, Ew, no. It's like, but it's water, you know? And it's thirsty and Exactly. I'm solving your problem a hundred percent. So someone taught me on early on in my sales career that facts tell, stories sell.

Yeah. And that when I could tell a story that resonated with them and typically even like build a relationship with them and build that rapport, they're buying the product because of the stories I I told because of me as an individual, not because necessarily the product, like yes. Did the product still provide a solution?

Absolutely. And so when we're building a community and kind of building this group, I realized that I need to just communicate with as many people as possible, build rapport with that, because. People who I can meet and I have a relationship with. 

Mm-hmm. 

Like, they're gonna back me on anything I do for the most part.

Right. Yeah. And, you know, one of those, I guess aha moments, going back to the question earlier that helped me realize that is there's a big YouTuber here in Utah that I got introduced, uh, before he kind of even hit some of his bigger strides. Uh, the Stratman. Mm-hmm. Shout out to James. Thanks James. I got introduced to him through Clayton and that was kind of like what confirmed everything that I've been, was learning and seeing around the world as far as like my experiences of can people who just are endear to you passed a le like at, at a level that I didn't even think was possible.

Like literally he, he, he could sign a napkin, throw it up on eBay and people would pay for it. Yeah. Now. Objectively, I'm trying to get there. Yeah. For real. Yeah. Objectively it's a napkin with a piece of Sharpie on it and ink. Yeah. At the end of the day, if, you know, when everyone puts their head down, that's all it is.

But because of who you are as an individual, because of what you do, the community, the inspiration that you've given people, that goes so much farther and so much deeper because it's a, it's a human connection, which you cannot replicate. 

Mm-hmm. 

And so I realized then, okay, if I can build a community, create enough relationships with people, it's gonna allow me to do the things I'm passionate about.

But that's not the reason why I did it. I just realized the power of it. Definitely. 'cause the power goes so, so deep in it. And so to answer your question, as far as like what I did to build that community, I just spent years, like the last 10 years of my life, going to places, meeting people, having genuine and authentic interactions.

Conversations, you know, taking note of things that they're interested in, remembering little things that they mention in conversation, like, oh yeah, you know, my sister just had a kid. And then the next time I see them remembering, hell yeah, how's your sister's kid? Or you know, details like that. And then just building the community.

And then the other side of it too is being involved with people who are making impacts in the community and then associating myself with them. And not by just being like, I'm gonna surround myself, I'm gonna be at the dinner table where they're at. Like, no providing value for those individuals. Yeah, like that, that, 'cause then now I'm associated with them, I'm providing them value, they want me around and then now I can get plugged into even more people.

And it just became this like domino effect. And this wasn't my mindset going into it. This is just me like verbalizing this kind of like reflection over the past years of what I've been doing. And anyway, if you can build a community where people genuinely care about you. I'd rather have a thousand people who genuinely care about me and will go wherever I go than a hundred thousand people who just thought I was funny in one video who followed me because of that one video.

And that's the distinction even in social media, which is a whole nother rabbit hole of a conversation. We can discuss that. People I think get twisted. 'cause they see the big following, they see the number. And it's like if that person dropped a product tomorrow or told people to come out to an event, would anybody come out?

Probably not. Yeah, you might get a few. But like when you're talking about like cars and coffee is a perfect example. Me, VES and Todd have spent the last five years literally doing that exact thing, building relationships. We're not asking anything of people. Getting in the community and having interactions with people telling 'em, thank you for coming out, doing all of that.

Mm-hmm. And now we host one meet a month that brings out thousands of people. 

Yeah. Yeah. That's been really cool to see. Oh my gosh, dude, there's so much to unpack in that. Um. I know that I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna watch this video and then I'm gonna be like, ah, I should've asked 20 more questions around that.

The cars and coffee thing has been really cool to see. Um, not to derail maybe from the value, but I, like, I got my GT three RS in, uh, 2019. Mm-hmm. And cars and coffee then was like 50 to a hundred cars. 

Mm-hmm. 

And now it's like 800 to a thousand plus cars. Like just people, like that's not even people that's cars coming out and, you know, a lot of those cars have two, three people and I'm some like, like I take my family out there.

Mm-hmm. So 

I'm like, man, that's an event now that you guys have cultivated and generated the community around where you have thousands of people showing up 

just to hang out. Just to hang out in a parking lot. Yeah. Like, it's crazy. It, I'll tell you what, it's been the most cool ex, I'm horrible with words, but.

If I'm being frank, it's been one of the most eye-opening things that we've done because A, you gotta realize we just did this because no one else was doing it. Everyone else was doing it on a Sunday. We just realized let's do it on a Saturday. Yeah. And let's just see where it goes. It's Utah. Yeah. We're trying to tailor it to the market.

Right. And you know, it just grew and grew and grew. And I mean, we, we always wanted it to be big. 'cause obviously that means that there's a lot of really cool cars and there's a lot of really cool people coming out. Mm-hmm. And if it wasn't for the community, none of it would be possible. But when, when you talk about community, we have done zero marketing.

We have put zero amount of money into it. In fact, to be honest, the amount of effort that it takes to run a social page for it, it, it's a little bit, but like, it's not insane. Yeah. In the last month, we've got half a million views all organic. All authentic and it, it shows in our meets. And so it, like, it, it's really cool.

And I think the thing that a lot of people forget about, and this is a point that I do feel like is important to make, is I can say, yeah, it's our efforts. I can be like, ah, we work so hard tirelessly, we spent time meeting with landlords. We have to meet with police officers if it's large enough.

Sometimes the city requires permits. We're working, you know, all all of these different inner workings trying to get sponsors and booths out there to help cover our insurance costs. And 

Yeah. 

You know, correlating with food trucks like it, it is an endeavor. And I could say it's because of those efforts that we get the people out and it's like, no, it's because of the community and the interactions that we have within the community and the people we've met.

Because, you know, you talk to one or two or three people and they talk to two or three people and so on and so forth. They've got their group of friends that they wanna bring out. Yeah. Now it's their whole group. Their group has outside friends who've got other hobbies that fit in that niche that bring their friends and.

You have to remember at, it's the people around you that make it possible. And I feel like a lot of people end up forgetting about that and they just look into words in themselves. 'cause it is hard work. But at the end of the day, if I can do all this hard work and if no one shows up, then what's it worth?

Yeah. 

It's a lot of trust that goes into those relationships. 

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, you mentioned something a minute ago, sorry to go backwards a little. No, that's great. About, uh, you know, getting a seat at that dinner table with those people that are maybe operating at a higher level and how it's important to provide value.

Right. Getting a seat at that dinner table is probably not worth anything at all. If you can't sustain the seat at the dinner table, you have to earn that spot, essentially. 

Yeah. 

Uh, so the, the value added piece is necessary, right. Your relationship is gonna be ba based on trust. But what gets you in the door with that relationship is the value that you provide.

Mm-hmm. So I think that, that we're maybe unpacking a little bit of your secret sauce on why or how you build the communities is it's that one, you're providing a value to people. 

Mm-hmm. 

And you're not even charging for that value. Right. That community is value in and of itself. Uh, and then you're maintaining trust via the relationship that you build with the individual and the group.

Mm-hmm. 

That's a, a, a really cool strategy. 

Did I hit that right? Yeah, no, absolutely. It's actually kind of funny 'cause it bleeds. What allowed me to realize the, the value of that was when I first moved down to Orum to go to UVUI was starting off, you know, in college is like I, I was taking some of these business classes and I was trying to get into some of my aviation classes and I was just like, how cool would it be if I like sat down?

Someone saw how hard I was working and then realized. This guy's working hard, here's this opportunity. Let me help come run this Fortune 500 company with me. Or here's all this money. Let me invest in this idea. And it was the dumbest idea because like literally I'm sitting in a McDonald's, it's 7:30 AM I'm finishing writing up a paper for my class at 11.

Like no one's gonna walk into a McDonald's and be like, Hey, this guy looks like some serious, he's working hard. Yeah. Yeah. It was super dumb. And I, I, the mentality behind that was I figured if I just showed that I was a hard worker, that the opportunities would come to me. 

Mm-hmm. 

And it was actually kind of interesting.

It took a few years to really recognize, and even now I probably wouldn't say it's completely fully set in, but when I started creating opportunities for other individuals and just, you know, opportunities in general and I was even just doing things on my own endeavor. People at that level are attracted to other people because that's what they did.

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

And so if they see me going hard or grinding, I'm growing, I'm getting, you know, working within people, within their, their network and you know, doing something that's kind of cool, that's starting to make some waves. People catch onto that more than I think a lot of people realize. And then they want to start surrounding themselves around you.

Definitely. And then you just, that table becomes like, instead of a seat, you have to fight for 'em. Be like, oh, like how do I get invited to this? It's just like, instant. Come here, here, here. It is like crazy. It's 

earned. So I have this mantra, um, at my last house, I had a big chalkboard in the gym and I just wrote it in huge prints across the middle of the board.

Nothing is given. Everything is earned. Same concept here. And, and you're touching on this, uh, principle, but it's the free value. The principle of free value. Um, when I was starting my entrepreneurial journey, uh, I was like just soaking in as much content as I could from the big name entrepreneurs on social media.

And Gary VI think was the guy that popularized this, but it was the concept of just go to work for free. And it's a mind blowing thing for a lot of people. And you're like, ah, I can't do that. I can't afford to, to go to work for free. But the catch is, it's an investment. It's a long term, you know, the payout will come, but it's gonna take a while.

So if you can, like you said, you're providing opportunities for people, you're providing value to individuals, and then they see that value and they want to keep it around. All of a sudden you're in a position where opportunities will come to you from those around you that you've been providing value to because they know the worth.

Yeah, they've 

experienced it. Right. So it's almost like, you know, you go to Costco, you get your free sample and you taste something and it's really good, so you buy it. 

Mm-hmm. 

It's the same concept, but applied at a much higher scale in your service and the quality and the, the effort and the value that you can provide people.

So I, I absolutely love to hear that because I'm, you are doing that. I did that. I coach people now that are doing that, and the big names are talking about it. Obviously. That is a principle that works. It is. Yeah. So I, I love to, to talk about that and share that, um, just to kind of keep things moving.

We've talked about static marketing. Mm-hmm. We've talked about curated collective. Those two businesses are totally different. As an entrepreneur, I struggle because I run a handful of businesses now. They're all in a different world. I get absolutely overwhelmed and scatterbrained and like. My calendar is just freaking swamped with events.

Mm-hmm. How do you manage working in two different worlds? 

It's, and really 

it's three with the, uh, the car meets. 

Yeah. It, it's a bit, I mean, there's, there's some bleed over, right? There's some gray area that they all share. Um, it is hard because a lot of people want to do multiple things at once in the early stages because they see the people who are at the top having multiple businesses, having their portfolio scattered across.

And I think that's, there's a time and a place for that. But if you're early on, even including myself, and I think I'm still very early on, it's about prioritization for sure. Like you have to have your priorities straight. You have to have the direction of where you want to go. Like that path doesn't have to be defined.

But you have to know that like, when I'm working on that, that's the only thing I'm focusing on. 

Mm-hmm. 

And so I try to allocate only times of my day. And I'm not saying like I, I don't think there's like one method that necessarily works, but like for me personally, if I'm going to sit down and do that, I remove any other distractions from any of the other businesses or opportunities and only allocate time to that business during that time of the day.

Um, because, you know, like static for example, we are a growing company and we like it, it takes a lot of time. I'm doing, I'm running the sales and revenue portion of it, you know, as well as strategy and working with a lot of our clients. And so if I get distracted because I'm thinking about a design of the next shirt drop, or you know, a photo shoot that I want to do, my mind's gonna be off here and I'm not gonna be able to focus here.

And it, it's received like people can see through that, especially if I'm trying to like, you know, hey, here's what our services are and we're working through that. But if they can tell I'm distracted. 

Yeah. 

Because I'm not answering the questions the way I should be, you know? And so I try to, in any of my endeavors, split up my week and usually just for me, I have to write it down and then say, this is what I'm doing for the week.

Now, it doesn't always play out that way, but at least I'm like, I know going into those hours what I'm gonna be focused on. Yeah. And what needs to get done. 

So I have a saying, um, dude, I use a Google calendar religiously. 

Mm-hmm. 

And I tell my wife it's, if it's not on the calendar, it's not real. And if it's not on the calendar, it's not happening.

Uh, fair enough. Just because that's the visual representation I can have, where I can segment my time for the different tasks, the different businesses, those kind of things, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, the focus bit. That's critical. Yeah. If you are a young entrepreneur, focus on one task. Focus on one thing. Don't try to run six businesses at once.

Grow one business until it's a win. And then you, once that's established and self-sufficient and growing, then you can move on to the next. Right. 

Yeah. In fact, one of the things I, and not to interrupt that train of thought that I've come to realize over the years, 'cause there was at one point where I was trying to do four or five different things.

And you know, the interesting part is when you're creating opportunities, people see you and what you're doing and you know, you start getting around those circles mm-hmm. They start presenting you opportunities. And the thing that nobody tells you, at least in this process is how to say no to those.

'cause you're so excited about 'em. Yes. And you want to be involved with them and you feel honored that they even thought of you to be a part of those projects. But knowing that this is what you're trying to build, like, and this is where the term comes down to, and I haven't fully again, materialized this into a really good way of explaining it, but anytime you, like I look at, I'm almost, almost different pots.

If I'm focusing on building this, I can only deposit so much into this pot. But if I try to also focus on this, well, I'm technically robbing this pot and put it into this. 

Yeah, 

right. Like anytime I distract, like I'm scrolling through reels, like I'm taking the time and money that I can invest in the business and my efforts and I'm dumping into this and which one has a better ROI, clearly the business does 'cause consuming social media for me, even though I work in the industry, doesn't truly have an inherent value that pays my bills.

Yeah. And so it's like I'm, that's the thing I think a lot of people need to realize when they're in early on in that journey is if you're focusing on a bunch of different things, even though they're all business forward, they're all supposed to be revenue generating, you're robbing one business to pay another business.

Mm-hmm. With your time, mental capacity, like we only have so much we can offer. There's only so many hours in the day and there's only so much willpower and mental capacity that we can actually. Contribute to these every day. And if you max that out for so long, you're gonna burn out. All of 'em will die.

So you talked about three points there. You talked about time, money, and mental capacity. Now a lot of entrepreneurs starting off, they're not gonna have money, but what they do have is time and they have mental capacity. 

Mm-hmm. 

Just to touch on those, those are investments, right? Mm-hmm. Your time. I'm a firm believer, your time is the most valuable asset that you have as an individual.

I respect and value my time to the point where I am not going to do things half-assed, haphazardly. Uh, if it's something worth doing, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. I would recommend to all entrepreneurs that you invest your time and when you are investing your time into something, you need to be doing it to the best of your ability, to the best of your capacity.

And you need to be efficient, right? Don't waste time. Social media is a hard one for me. I have to be on it to grow my business and my organizations, right? Like, uh, I do a lot of that through one paid advertising and Facebook presence and posts two uh, groups and interacting with people on social media.

So that's an aspect of work, but it's also my biggest distractor and time waster. Yeah. So being cognizant of that, I think is a key to success for entrepreneurs. You want a social media presence. You don't wanna waste time on social media. Yeah, I know. And then the mental faculty, there's a drain on your mental faculties while you're on social media as well.

Right. You only have so much cognitive load and cognitive space available every single day. Right. And obviously there's some factors that influence that. Your sleep, your diet, whatever, you know, your caffeine intake to some degree, but. If you are wasting your cognitive faculty capacity load on things that don't move the needle for your organization, there's no way you're gonna find success.

So invest your time and invest your mental faculties towards things that are important, that move the organization forward, that actually move the needle for you, that help you earn money. Right? Don't waste them on things that are gonna be inefficient and ineffective. Yeah. Cool. So we've talked about you, your personal journey.

We've talked about your business and, and how you're, you know, involved in these different worlds. Let's talk about strategy a little bit. The things that will actually move the needle for some of these entrepreneurs that are listening. Every entrepreneur has a little bit of a different journey. Mm-hmm.

And with that, every entrepreneur, lo lords, lords, learns different things. Uh, what are some of the lessons that you've learned in your journey? That would help an entrepreneur succeed that's just starting out today. 

Oh, I think we've hit 'em the, at least the majority of 'em. Focus on one thing. Make that your only focus, dive into it.

Because the thing is, is you can't become an expert overnight. Mm-hmm. It's incremental success. You're gonna learn new things as you're growing the business, you're gonna, you know, run into new obstacles. So I think definitely focusing on one thing and then sending it. Yeah. You know, send it. Yeah. Send it.

Because it, you know, sure. You can come up with a cool product. It hits a trend. You know, you success overnight for sure. But that's here and gone tomorrow. Yeah. And if, unless you're that smart of a thinker, innovator, and you're catching on the trends that early, I'm sorry, you're not that guy or a girl, you're not that person.

So focus in on one thing. And then I would say just the other side of it is just continually sit back and realize that you can never not stop learning. Definitely. And you have to be doing things that give you that competitive edge. Because this point with 8 billion people in the world, like the, the cool part about what we do is like, yes, are we innovators in this particular industry?

Yes. But we're not really reinventing the wheel, we're just repurposing it, right? Mm-hmm. And applying it into a different application. And so like, because of that, we just need to focus in on that and then stay with that industry long enough. And we, it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.

Right. Um, one of my favorite stories that I heard is, you know, this guy who, uh, I think Trump talks about it. He was on a plane with this individual for years, and he'd fly first class and he is like, you're not in a place to fly first class. And he is like, this is the way I remind myself of what I can have.

And then, you know, after eight or just like 10 years, something like that, just the company that he spent all like eight to 10 years building finally took off. And it was like a major, major success. Like hundreds of millions of dollars worth. Right. And if you're starting out, seeing that is hard because you're micromanaging the every day.

Yeah. And you need to look at the macro and, and celebrate the small wins, which I'm horrible at doing. So I'm a little hypocritical even in saying that. But celebrate the small wins, realize how far you're coming, but just making sure that if you're putting in the right efforts and you are cognizant of the time that you're putting into the business every day, that it's, it will work out.

Mm-hmm. So you've, you didn't use this phraseology. But you're talking about taking continuous action. 

Mm-hmm. 

I refer to this as the success formula for entrepreneurs continuous action plus continuous learning equals success. 

Mm-hmm. 

Alex Hormoze, uh, wrote a, a Twitter post the other day, I guess it's X now, uh, that I really liked.

He said, take so much action that it would be statistically impossible for you to lose. 

I like that. 

That's the secret as an entrepreneur, like if you, if you really boil it down, if's, those two things, it's taking continuous action every single day. Do what moves the needle every single day. Do what you need to, to advance towards your goals, and then never stop learning.

Finding more ways to be efficient, finding better ways to improve your processes, your systems, right? Systems are what scales an organization. Teams are what builds you to success. So find ways to improve on those things, right? Via learning and action. If you can do those things, I think you win a hundred percent.

Okay. Uh, we've, we've talked about lessons now. What roadblocks or obstacles are you currently facing that you're working to overcome? I like to talk about this question just because there's people out there, there's maybe somebody listening right now that can learn from us, and if you're moving, working through an obstacle or a roadblock, um, they can hear, they can say, oh man, it's so good to know that I'm not alone in this.

Because there is, there is a little bit of this entrepreneurial, you know, isolation. I call it like, just to tell the, the story. When I started my first company, um, I guess my first real adult company, uh, back in 2017, I gave up. Weekends with my friends. I gave up going to parties. I gave up cutting school on Fridays to go snowboarding, you know, things like that.

And people kind of made fun of me for it. Um, I lost a lot of friends and relationships just because I wasn't putting anything back into those relationships. I isolated to work and to grow my business. Obviously there's pros and cons to that, but it's a tough thing as an entrepreneur to recognize that there's other people out there that are going through similar struggles, similar obstacles, that are working to grow in line with what you're trying to do.

And, you know, me isolating in my little corner office trying to grow a business, staying out till 7:00 PM so I could be on the phone talking to Chinese manufacturers, you know, is. Separate from you growing your photography business and, and refining your craft. And like, we don't necessarily see the work that each other are doing, but I'm sure a lot of these obstacles are common for entrepreneurs across niches and genres.

Uh, so is there anything that you're working through right now that might be beneficial for the listeners? 

Oh, where do we want to start? Um, no, honestly. Um, yeah. Some of the, some of the biggest obstacles we're kind of running into right now is bottlenecks in the business. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, we immediately, as we solve one problem, another one identifies itself.

Yeah. And I think it's, it's good to be able to hyper-focus on one problem, find it, work through it, and then keep working. You know? And one of the things I really like that you said is like bringing in a team of people that can help you work through those problems and, you know, overcome those different obstacles.

And your business. 'cause like for example, with us, like one of our biggest bottlenecks that we run into is we need to come up with idea generation for all of these different types of blue collar companies. Mm-hmm. Who, you know, they, they tailor to different audiences. The narrative that they tell is different.

And so being not only keen to what's receptive to what people are looking for from like those types of businesses and people and personalities, but also being able to then go out and film and then distribute that efficiently is very difficult. 'cause you know, we're going out, we have production teams, we have people that are on site and we want to deliver outta quality.

That makes you stand out from the rest of the competition. 

Definitely. 

And so, you know, a big bottleneck we have is actually one of the coolest talks I heard recently was from someone I look up to, his name's Andrew Smith runs the savory fund. He says mm-hmm. People, systems and process. That's how you scale your business.

That's what will take you. And you kind of mentioned it, you know, people in systems. Yeah. And in that order, I think. Yeah, a hundred percent. And so we run into the issue of, you know, is this person going to help us take this business to the next level? Do we have the right systems in place to not only help them and support them so that they can do what they do best as efficiently?

And, you know, at the level we need to, which for us is a very high quality. And then, you know, does our process of that and how we deliver that to the client, you know, work well. And that's honestly like our biggest struggle right now is we'll run into small bottlenecks where, you know, projects get delayed because we might have overworked somebody when they said they could take on Yeah.

That amount of work or those types of things. So it's, yeah. I would say those are kind of like our biggest roadblocks when I specifically even talk about static. And it's kind of funny 'cause my partners probably wouldn't even like me mentioning that type of stuff, but I'm like, I feel like it's good to talk about.

Well it definitely humanizes, you know, you and the company. Like if somebody's only exposure to you as social media and they see all of the awesome content that you produce, right? I mean, you're familiar with it. There's this concept that we get a false sense of reality because of social media and everyone is experiencing that right now.

You know, I, our generation, I think we didn't, you know, have social media really as kids. So it's, it was foreign when it hit and everybody was obviously keen to share the highlights. Mm-hmm Your stories, your best, you know, events and experiences and you take pictures of the cool things you're doing, but nobody ever shared the struggles and it's still, it's rare, right?

But I think it's important for one being authentic and authenticity. Builds trust, and I've said it before, trust is the defacto currency of the world. 

Mm-hmm. So 

I think it's necessary, if you wanna stand out, if you wanna be successful, if you wanna build those relationships like you, you've been talking about, that's your superpower, man.

You have to share the obstacles. You have to share the struggle, right? Oh, yeah. Uh, something that I struggle with has been the community and relationship building, which is weird for me because as a leader, I think my superpower is relationships based leadership. The people that work for me that I lead in the military or in business, you know, I, I build those relationships.

I talk to them. I, I get to know them. I coach them, I develop them. I help them achieve their dreams because I recognize that one, maybe being a soldier for me in the National Guard is not your lifelong dream. And two, being a call center representative for me isn't necessarily your lifelong dream. Uh. But I invest in those relationships and that development.

And you know what? It's honestly a little bit of a badge of honor. When people can promote or leave my organization, go do something else that they've dreamed of because of the development that they've received while they've been, been working with us. I really like the concept that you shared about people and systems.

Everyone recognizes that systems scale empires. Mm-hmm. But I don't think that it's possible to really grow an organization without people. So, uh, one of my, my dear friends, his name's Zach Ache, his, uh, whole concept is, I'm gonna do what I do best. I'm gonna outsource the rest. And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to outsource to other companies, and, but it means you could outsource to other people.

Mm-hmm. 

You could develop or hire, you know, this a player team that's going to. Help your organization become more lean or efficient. It's weird to talk about hiring and lean in the same sentence, but they go together. They really do. And, and people don't always think through that. Um, but if you're inefficient, because like you said, you're, you're, uh, overworking somebody, or maybe they're the individual is overconfident in their capacity.

I know that's one of my weaknesses. I always think I can do more. And so I just keep taking on more and more and more. And then I have 20 hours of my day scheduled and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't keep doing this. Yeah. Um,

so in a way, there is a, a threshold where hiring people or developing people, investing that time into coaching and developing and mentoring makes your organization more efficient. Yeah. So I, I love the concept of having the right people. Um, I recognize that my successes in business. I've got an MBA, I'm working on my, my doctorate in business administration, organizational leadership, right?

Um, so I have that formal education behind me, but my successes in business weren't because I was good at business or because I was, you know, educated on how to track metrics or do marketing or anything like that. My successes in business all stem from developing unstoppable teams, and I recognize that my teams are what has propelled me to levels of success, both in e-commerce and in the military.

Um, I'm a huge advocate for investing into people and the people that you have around you, and that solves a lot of problems, that helps overcome a lot of obstacles. And then when you have the right people in place, the systems are easier to refine because the person closest to the problem is the person who has the most incentive to solve it.

So as an entrepreneur or as a a business owner, right? You might be a couple steps removed and you can look down at a problem and just dictate a solution, but that's probably not actually the best solution because you're removed from the issue. So I try to put a lot of trust into the people that work for me or that I coach and mentor, because they're the ones that are gonna be the, the problem solvers and the move the needle movers.

Right. 

So can I ask you a question into that? Yeah, please. So I feel like when building a team, especially when you're scaling a company, there's multiple factors that come into play, right? Like we're talking, you know, are they not only a good worker? Are they skilled in that labor? Are they gonna bring like the value to the table?

Sure. Because I mean, it's hard. Everyone can talk, but the people who can actually do it, like that's, it's hard to find depending on what industry you're in. Then you also deal with the culture side. 

Yeah. 

Because you're gonna have an a plus player who's determined, who's the best at what they do, but could be completely toxic to a culture and completely disassemble a whole team.

And obviously I understand that at the minuscule level that I have and from the people I've surrounded myself with. And I find it very interesting because you also bring the military aspect to that. And I feel like that is one of the most intense team building and trust you have to have in an individual.

Yeah. 

Because one toxic person who doesn't follow orders isn't willing to, you know, isn't a team player. Like you cannot have them on that. 'cause that, I mean, in some scenarios can mean life or death. 

Yeah. 

Right. Like business life or death is fine. Like I can, a business can die and you can still go on the next day.

But if you're in a, if you're in a field. You know, and you don't have someone who's who is, um, how do I even wanna word this? Just like is is a negative or plays a negative effect against your team? Like, I feel like it's hard. And so how do you work through that? How do you A, identify it? But then b, build a culture, build a team that is reliant on each other, can communicate with each other.

Like again, there's all these factors that come into play that continue to keep it effective and growing. 'cause I mean, even us like, like, you know, people attach that term to culture and it's hard. 

It's a concept that is very common and prevalent in the military. It was popularized for maybe civilian use by Simon Sinek.

My little chart here, if the camera can see it. Uh, but you have high performance. You have high trust. Draw a little arrows. Okay, who do you wanna hire? Obviously you want the high performance, high trust individuals, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

But there are people out there, just the reality of the situation, who are really high performers, but they're horrible people.

Mm-hmm. 

They cheat, they lie, they take advantage of the situation to make the sale. Right? Those people will kill your culture, and if they kill your culture, you lose your people, your good people, your strong people, the people that lead the organization, right? So you never, never hire a high performer, low trust individual.

Additionally, out of the the low trust, low performance people, you probably don't want those, right? The commonality here though is the trust. 'cause I'll take a low performance, high trust individual. You can train someone to do a task, you can train someone to do a job, but you can't coach trustworthiness, especially not when you initially hire someone.

So I try to, as a, as a point of emphasis, actually, I hire 100% based on do I feel that this individual is trustworthy and are they a good fit for our culture? 

Mm-hmm. 

That's the, the box that I hire. So a lot of people ask, um, and actually I just spoke at, um, Akbar Sheik's Mastermind last week or maybe two weeks ago now.

Uh, and I got this room of entrepreneurs and all of them raise their hands with the exact same question. And they're like, well, how do you hire a players? And the truth is, I don't hire A players. That's not what I'm trying to do. If I can, great. But what I hire is high trustworthy players. People that I can hand the keys to the organization over to, and I know will represent us well, that will take care of me, my family, things like that, right?

If I hire someone who's super trustworthy, I can coach them up on everything else. If you're bad at, like, for example, the majority of people that I hire are in sales or they're in customer service, right? But I don't want a low, trustworthy person to have access to all of our, you know, financial data or customer billing information, things like that.

Obviously yeah, there's, there's a risk there, right? Simultaneously. I don't want to trust somebody with giving my customers and my clients a really good experience if they're not going to be a trustworthy person. So I focus totally on how well they're going to integrate with our organization. The trust level.

And there's some ways that I do that, that are, that are kind of unique to a lot of people. I exclusively hire based on referrals that blows a lot of minds. And you're like, well, you're gonna get a lot of unqualified people. Yeah. I will get unqualified people and I'm totally okay with that because I can coach them and make them qualified.

I can teach them how to do the task, but I can't teach them to be a good person. 

Yeah. 

Not as easily. Anyways. So, uh, interesting stories. I really do genuinely only hire 100% based off referrals. And even the people that leave my organization to this day, which, you know, seven plus years now of doing this, 100% of people who have left my organization have referred people to come and work for me or to take their place.

And that's a huge testament to what we're doing. And I think the reason that happens is because I'm willing to, and my managers are willing to put in the time, effort, and energy to develop and coach those people. 

Mm-hmm. 

It's not just developing and coaching them for the task, though it's developing and coaching them to be the best version of themselves that they can be.

I'm on a mission, a goal perhaps to achieve self-actualization. And for the people that maybe aren't, uh, knowledgeable about what self-actualization is, it's becoming the best version of yourself. For me, that means I have to get a little bit better every day. It's the continuous learning aspect, right?

It's the trust and relationship building aspect, but it would be selfish, wrong, entitled, perhaps, to do those things for myself and not help my employees on that same journey. So if you come to me and you like, I have work to do that needs to get done, I'm going to hire you. But you have a goal to be a marketer.

Dude, I'll coach you on marketing all day. I'll, I'll teach you how to run ads. I'll show you how to build creatives, right? I'm not necessarily the best at that, but I'll get you to my level and then you can continue to learn from other people and then take that and go and grow and learn and be that, be what you want to be.

So that's typically how I, how I approach how hiring. And then as far as the developing a team to be the A players that you want, that are gonna move your organization forward. It's really a multi-step process. I start with trust. Trust is the defacto currency of the world, but that means I give a lot of trust to the people that I hire.

And I, I'm enabled to do that through the the referrals, right? Because if you refer someone to my organization, I trust you. I know you're not gonna refer someone who sucks to me. 

Yeah. 

Because you don't wanna ruin that relationship, right? You wanna be known as the person that made that good connection. Um, and the people coming in subsequently.

They want to have a good connection too. They don't wanna misrepresent their friend, their family member, whoever referred them to us, right? 

Mm-hmm. 

So I, I can already start with a high level of trust in that situation. I give them that trust, I teach them, you know, the role, and then I let them take the action and I let them take the ownership.

And that's the scariest part for a lot of entrepreneurs, is how do you give up ownership to someone else for their task, their role with their purpose, right? And for me, it's kind of what I, I mentioned earlier, I recognize the person closest to the problem is the best equipped to solve the problem. I wanna let them do that.

Mm-hmm. And I'll give them, you know, what our non-negotiables are and their left and right limits, what they need to operate within. And then I'm gonna trust them to operate. And if there needs to be a correction later, it's a conversation, right? It's, Hey, I saw that you were doing this. I would really would appreciate if you operated more like this.

You know, um, if the KPIs aren't where they need to be. Again, a conversation. It's not a dude, you suck. You're not getting enough phone calls. It's, Hey man, I noticed that these, your, you know, your outgoing calls 15% lower than everybody else in the office. Let's talk about why that is, and maybe we look at some of the surrounding, you know, situation and nuance that goes into those kind of things.

Actually, just to share, I had a, a, uh, employee, he's a relatively new employee in my organization and he has a lower call volume than everyone else, but he has a higher talk time, like on the phones higher call average, if that makes sense. When, when I, sorry. Time. Average of phone calls, so obviously he's just spending more time on the phones, talking to the employees.

That's not inherently a bad thing, but it means he's being less efficient with how he conveys the information that solves the problems. Right. But then that's a situation that I can coach. Mm-hmm. Right? I can coach him how to be more efficient. I can coach him how to overcome objections. Um, that's how I, I tailor that.

So we start with trust, we coach and develop the performance. It's hard as an entrepreneur because you get in your head what your vision is, what right should look like, where you want to go, but are you communicating that efficiently and effectively to the teammates, to the, the organization, so that they can take the action to actually get you there?

A very common problem that I I see in entrepreneurs is, you know what? Right? Should be, you know, where you want to take the organization, and then you're frustrated that your team isn't getting it there. But the reality is, have you ever actually taught your team what that vision is? So I I, I like to start with a process called, um, command philosophy, right?

In the military, a command philosophy is how you as a leader want, not just want to, but how you're going to lead. Hmm. How you're going to be perceived as a leader. And that's your philosophy of leadership. Then I teach, uh, civilians and entrepreneurs, business executives how they can develop their command philosophy.

And I, I base it on three pillars. So this is the freebie for everybody here. Your mission statement, it has to be crystal clear. Your mission statement is why you exist as an organization. Once you have that narrowed down and it's clear, concise, and can be replicated and understood by everyone in the organization, you work on your vision statement.

Your vision statement is where you are taking the organization, and I like to add in why that matters. And then third is your non-negotiables As an organization. For example, mine is that I'm only going to hire high trust individuals and then I'm going to put in the work, the time, the energy to develop the people.

But your, your non-negotiables are your left and right limits. That's what you're going to operate within. That's how you're going to get to that vision statement. And when you have those three things, they're those guiding pillars, those supporting structures for you to develop your command philosophy around how are you as a leader?

And people don't always think about that as an entrepreneur, you're a leader. If you have employees, you're a leader. If you're driving an organization, you are a leader. Mm-hmm. But nobody learns leadership in business school. Right. Take those three pillars, that's your framework for where the organization is going and how they're gonna get there, why it's important you lead around that your leadership philosophy should support those pillars and then those pillars should support you as a leader.

I think when you get those things down, the team development aspect becomes so much easier because everyone understands who you are, what you're trying to be, and where you're trying to take them. And when they understand that they can actually have buy into the process, they can contribute. It that was like a fire hose just going for so long.

Oh, awesome. 

Hope it was good. It was perfect. I mean, you opened my eyes to a few things that I've heard before, just, again, didn't make that like conscious to subconscious connection with, but, um, no, I loved it. I, I, I think that's very important. I liked the point you touched on of like having a crystal clear vision of your philosophy, your ideas, and then being able to communicate that.

'cause that is one hard thing I think I've realized in this journey, especially as you're scaling. 'cause you're bringing in people who are there to fulfill a role, who are excited to be a part of it at some level. But again, it's hard to translate exactly what we want and where we see the company going and getting them equally as passionate about 

it.

Yeah. Well, and the 

hard part is as an entrepreneur, right, you're the most invested in your organization. No one is going to love your business the way you love your business, right? Because nobody. Nobody has the reward and the benefit that you have as an entrepreneur. 

Mm-hmm. 

But how do you get them to take ownership of their individual role?

How do you get them to own and love and be passionate about what they do? The concept that I teach around that is a concept called Disciplined Initiative. And simply put, disciplined initiative is the empowerment of individuals to take action at their level to drive the organization forward. It's that ownership piece that I was talking about.

So like, I have a, a warehouse fulfillment manager, right. I wholly trust him and expect him to do whatever he has to do to make that warehouse the most efficient, lean, best operating warehouse it can be. And I don't get in the way. Right. I think if you can have disciplined initiative, if you can implement that in your organization, you'd be amazed at how far your people can take you.

General. George S. Patton famously said, when I want something done, I tell people what to do. I never tell them how to do it, and I let them surprise me with their ingenuity. I try to take that same concept and just implement it. Tell people what needs to get done and let them figure it out. Let them show you how to do it efficiently.

I like that. And then you supervise and refine, right? If there's something that wasn't good, you can look at it and say, ah, that really wasn't that great, but mm-hmm you can improve upon it. Like we mentioned earlier, there's never been a situation or a business that I've encountered or that I've coached where I haven't been able to see a way to improve it.

As long as you sit down, you assess the organization and the system. There's a way to, to get better. A 

hundred percent. 

Okay, man. We've covered a lot of stuff. Uh, I do want to ask, we talked about value earlier, the importance of giving value. Is there anything that I can do for you to give you some value back?

Ooh, 

I 

feel like you just did. I feel like you just did. No, I mean, honestly, I might call you with a couple questions, but Dude, please do. 

And I love to see, you know, you, you're getting into Curated Collective and you know, your, your top secret project that's dropping in July, you said July. Yep. If you have questions about the e-commerce side of things, really even just the business development and growth side of things.

I put my little Shopify award here just so I had something cool as a centerpiece. Um, but obviously that's my, my background and my passion and I love to help people who are doing it. So 

I appreciate 

it. Dude, thanks so much for coming out. Love to have you. Uh, I'm sure that the viewers got a ton of helpful.

Information from this and we'll look forward to doing it again sometime. 

I'm excited for the next one. Thanks, man. Yeah. Sweet. Cool. We did it. We did it. Let's lock it down, brother. I'm getting, uh, we're getting back to people. Dude. We are.