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(mellow music) (uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Brandon T. Adams.

Brandon is a lot of things.

He's an author, entrepreneur, video marketing expert, and two time Emmy award-winning producer, and a good friend.

Welcome, Brandon.

- Hey, it's good to be on the show, buddy.

Always good to see you.

- So here's the thing, you do so many things, you have your hand in so many different buckets.

If someone was, you were just meeting someone off the street, like how do you describe yourself to someone when someone asks you what you do?

- That's a really good question.

And I say this, there's two sides of things.

For the most part, I help scale companies through video marketing, capital, and connections, but I also have an educational side of my business.

So I help educate people and that's through our events, like Rise & Record, through video content online, through masterminds and events.

And so there's really two sides.

Help grow companies, help educate, and they all kind of come together in the middle, down the road.

And that's why I see it as kind of synergetic.

- I gotcha.

So, I mean, let's start off with you.

We're gonna get back into the business here in a second, but where are you originally from?

You're originally from the Midwest, correct?

- Yes, I am.

Born and raised in Garnavillo, Iowa.

I'm proud of the state.

700 people in my town.

I grew up around cornfields, man.

It's crazy now to think about it because just a small town livin' and where I'm from and it's, I'm super grateful for where the journey's taken me.

- I mean, don't you think though that, you know, I grew up here in Illinois, and don't you think though that those roots are what make you kind of that thread that's woven through you that just, that grit, that grind that you are today?

- It a hundred percent is, man.

You know, in the Midwest, I don't know, it's just a different kind of thing, just work ethic and everything, but also like, because of where I grew up and my father's an entrepreneur, we grew up, I was in the ice business, packaged ice, as a kid, it was ingrained in me work ethic, and just like at that time it was manual labor.

At one point I was a delivery guy, I was a ice delivery guy, and that was my business.

And it just showed me like hourly wage work where I worked my butt off and I was working a hundred hour weeks and that really gave me a lot of insight to what I do today.

And I'm super grateful for it because it made me Brandon, it made me me.

- Yeah.

So talk about that.

So did you, you're saying you got your entrepreneurial spirit from your dad, correct?

- A hundred percent.

I mean, I always say this, my dad started a ice business in 1986.

I was born in '89.

I swear as soon as I got out of my mother's womb, I was working!

My father put me to work and this is what happened.

It wasn't so much what my father said to me.

It was, I watched my father, as a little kid, work hard, but I saw him do the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.

So it was like ingrained in me, him going through the battles as an entrepreneur, selling, customer service, all this.

And so as a little, a kid, it really was an ingrained in me and I didn't realize really the value of it until I got older.

And so that taught me customer service, that taught me work ethic, taught me marketing sales, and I just took that knowledge and translated it into different industries.

- Yeah, and it's interesting because now if you look at it, you have a lot of mentors.

You mentor people too, and coach people, and we're gonna get into that in a second, but, so your first mentor was really him.

- My father, you know, there's a handful of mentors.

We have a mutual mentor, Kevin Harrington, my father's one of 'em, and I have a couple others.

But my father taught me, literally just taught me business and caring and do the right thing and integrity.

And I'm super grateful for him.

He made me who I am.

- So when you're looking at a business, and let's say you're starting a business in this day and age, the video marketing piece of it is crucial.

And we've talked about it before, but you know, there's some people that really just don't know what that means.

So describe, and I'll say people, you know, I'm 53 years old, so I get it, I understand the value of it, I see all my friends scale their businesses and do this, but it's hard.

So what do you tell somebody that is getting, starting a new business and what are some of the most important steps in starting a business from the video content side?

- So first up, before I even go into video, just kind of give it perspective.

What even more is more powerful with video is the power of telling a story.

So whether you're doing that through posts on social media, you're doing it through a book, I know you've written multiple books, a podcast show, this show, when you can learn to communicate a story and a message for something, whether you as a personal brand or the story of your business and what the products do for your customers, that's what people buy into.

Now, video is just a way to communicate at a higher level because video and social media, more people watch video.

And also there's different senses to it.

You can see it, you can hear it, and also you can feel the emotion behind it.

And so when you create great video assets, you can tell a story that gets people to understand you and they're more likely to buy from you.

And it doesn't have to be a full production.

If you're just starting out, a lot of my content is with my phone and I'm just recording, saying who I am, what I do, how I help people, and repeating that and then just posting on social media consistently, which builds a brand.

It's branded into people's brains because they constantly are seeing it.

- I think building that brand piece is important no matter what business you're in.

And I just think sometimes people don't understand what that social media piece is.

And you used the word consistency.

I think that's probably one of the most important words that you just said was consistent.

Because I myself fell into that trap before I had a good team around me.

I was doing it solo and there wasn't consistency.

So my brand would just tail off and it never got traction.

I couldn't figure out why until I started talking to you and some other people, other mentors with me.

But I think a lot of people fall into those traps of really not having that strategy or that game plan and that consistency word's huge.

- I mean, everything takes time.

I mean, the thing is you can start today and you just start one video at a time, one post at a time.

I started a decade ago, or maybe even 12 years ago, as time goes by, and I started just creating content and fun videos and just sharing who I was, what I believed in, and over the years, my brand has transitioned.

But here's the thing.

As your brand transitions, and what I mean by that is what you're known for or what you do, how you provide services.

So for example, for me, early in my career, I was an inventor.

So people knew me as an inventor.

Well, I transitioned into crowdfunding.

I was raising money for companies.

And so a lot of people knew me as a crowdfunding expert.

And so I then transitioned into video production, investing, advising companies.

And so then I transitioned to that.

The thing is, I still have all those talents for everything, but the people that followed me, just because, if they followed me for crowdfunding, they still followed me for video production.

But with the brand, it's beyond what people know you for, but it's that like and trust.

It's no different than a celebrity that pulls out a product and posts about it.

People that follow that person have a like and trust for them.

They believe in them.

They built a relationship over years, and it doesn't even really matter so much of what they're offering.

At the end of the day, they're gonna buy from them versus somebody else.

So as I transitioned my brand, people still bought from me in different areas from the invention process, crowdfunding, video production, and now events.

And so that's why a brand's important.

Building like and trust with the right audience.

- Yeah, I like that.

Like and trust.

But I think it's interesting, at your time in your career right now, you did that over a short period of time.

I mean, you did that in a 10 year period, it seems like.

And I was reading your book, and your book is interesting because it tells the story of what an entrepreneur really is.

(Brandon laughs) It has the, it's that wave, right?

It's that ups and downs.

And then you hit that goalie again.

You're sitting there going like, "What am I gonna do to get back up?"

And I think that's what's interesting about your book, is that most people just think, "Well, it's gonna be great to be my own boss, but you've gotta have some thick skin and some grit in you, don't you?

- You know, people talk about entrepreneurship and I think I did a video on this the other day, and it was, do you think everybody can be an entrepreneur?

Is it learned?

Is it taught?

And here's the thing.

I think for me I was born an entrepreneur.

There was no other way.

And there's intrapreneurs too.

It's people that are more of a entrepreneurial within a company, but they need an entrepreneur leader to lead them.

Nothing wrong with that.

You look at like a Gary Vaynerchuk or these other influencers online, they make entrepreneurship sexy.

And so everybody thinks that they wanna become an entrepreneur, they wanna become an influencer, a YouTube star, and go make a bunch of money.

I give this example because somebody I got to know years back was a guy named Jake Paul.

Jake Paul, most people don't realize, I mean now he's fighting, he's making millions of dollars and everything else, well, Jake Paul did thousands of videos with his brother.

Nobody really even watched him, and then one day one went viral.

But even then he had to do more things and more things, and he was a hard worker.

And over years, eventually he became that Jake Paul.

That's for anything.

You have to put in the work and not everybody's gonna be willing to put in the work and sacrifice to entrepreneur.

You read the book, you know that the obstacles I had.

I mean, I almost went bankrupt, my car got repossessed, they took my land from me, they took everything I owned.

I sold my TV off the wall.

I sold my guitar so I could get some food.

I sold everything just to keep going.

But the thing is, what really separates the entrepreneur from somebody that wants to be an entrepreneur is I still didn't quit.

And within a couple years, I went from in the hole to building my own kind of empire and business, is because I kept pushing forward.

And I think the biggest thing in entrepreneurship is our obstacles and our big, like, defeats are a lesson that allow us to grow as an entrepreneur.

You need them and the only way you're gonna get to them is you actually go after big things.

- Yeah, interesting.

So talk about winning two Emmy awards like that- - Yeah.

- To me that's crazy.

And I've had this show, I think I'm going into my fourth year and I interview CEOs and entrepreneurs all over the country and athletes and it's a fun show, and I'm sitting here thinking, wait a minute, he's got two, I need one.

(laughs) Joking, but joking, but how did you, how did that come about?

- So, the best part of it is my wife has two as well.

- That's awesome.

- So we both have Emmy's.

And there's two different stories.

And one was for our show "Success In Your City," which was a show, I traveled in the country on the whole mission to figure out the true meaning of success.

And then the other one, which actually is the one I'm most proud of, it's called "Red Flags," which is on my wife's story of how she overcame drug addiction and left an abusive relationship and now became who she is today.

And so those are just very impactful stories.

So how do you get to that point?

For one, I mean, I invested a lot of money.

I put it all on the line and I went all in.

You really have to commit everything.

You have to have great stories, but also you need the right, the great team in place.

I give a big shout out to Shawn Vela.

He was my director.

Shawn helped us communicate the story, ask the questions, and he had been doing it for a decade.

And then you have the right cinematographers.

But then you have to find the right talent and find the right stories.

I mean, we were finding stories in different cities.

You put all that together, even then you're not promised an Emmy.

- Right, right.

- I've been at the Emmy's and got the nomination and sat there as I did not win and it hurts because you put so much time into it.

But I went back the year after and I won and I went back two years later and got another one.

And so it really comes down to, like anything in life, I say, we all have our own Emmy's and maybe you're not gonna go win an Emmy for your show, but what is your Emmy in life?

- Right.

- Is it being the best husband?

Is it doing, what's that thing that you win a Emmy in?

And it really comes down to commitment, giving it everything you got.

- Yeah, and let's not forget, you mentioned her, but your wife, you know.

That's the best teammate that you have because after reading your book- - Oh, amen.

- Yeah, I mean, you couldn't, you really couldn't do what you did without her and vice versa.

- I mean, everything I have today is because of her.

She's pushed me beyond belief.

I sometimes, I can't even believe after a decade of putting through hell sometimes that she's still here, but we are stronger together, and we've done so much.

- Talk about Kevin Harrington for a minute.

And you know, you talked about Gary V, and you know, Kevin is, like you said, a mentor to both of us, but you really spend a ton of time with him.

You live by him.

What are some of the things that he has that you learned from him characteristic wise, brand wise that you've taken and said, "Man, this guy is a beast," because of what?

What is that?

- Yeah, I would say this and I love Kevin and Brian and they are my family.

They really are.

And I look at, first off, for anybody watching, like how do you, they probably ask, "How do you get into business with somebody like that?"

Well, I knew years ago that I wanted to find somebody that already achieved what I wanted to achieve.

And I wanted to find a way to get in business with them.

So I went into proximity and actually hired somebody Kevin did a deal with on "Shark Tank" and then worked with him and eventually got to Kevin and then I became a person of value.

And then eventually my next tip is, beyond helping the person, find ways to get into business with them because that's the ultimate way to grow together.

What I see the values in Kevin, was he understood how to scale companies and he was a business icon, titan investor.

I've always wanted to be that in my own way.

And so what do I do?

I go to the person at the highest level.

He had done product launches, he'd taken companies public, he had got on shows.

These are all things that I wanted in my own way.

So what did I do?

I went into business with him and then I learned the business, like all the business tips and negotiation and what Kevin talks about as a fair deal.

I understand how to put fair deals together.

I understood how to get the right dream team in place and allocate it towards a common goal.

And now fast forward, that was eight years ago when I met him, we've went, we've won Emmy's together for our shows, we've done major business deals and I'm investing in companies and I'm becoming my own kind of Kevin, right?

And so I'm super grateful.

He's a great human being and he wants the best for everybody around him and sky's the limit.

I think we're just getting started.

- Yeah, and I think that's what I love about him too, is he wants people to succeed.

- Yes.

- It's like his number one goal and I love it.

- That's why he's successful.

That's why he's successful because he wants other people to grow and ultimately you grow together.

- Yeah, so let's take another guy and probably the biggest brand out there when it comes to followers, there may be somebody bigger, but Mr.

Beast.

So there's a lot of people that know Mr.

Beast, they know of him, they see his crazy videos sometimes.

But is consistency or uniqueness or all the above, what makes him so watchable?

- Well, I look at obsession.

I look at some of the people I've met over the years and even myself.

Mr.

Beast is obsessed with creating, and I've never met him, but he's obsessed with creating the most valuable content.

He's obsessed with getting people and doing things above and beyond.

And for him, I can almost bet it's not even so much caring about the money.

- Right.

- And so what does he do?

He wants to set the standard.

They'll spend a couple million dollars on a shoot and put that video up.

They'll crush cars.

They'll do all these things.

And I'll say one big thing I know they focus a lot of time and energy on is the photo, the clickbait, basically the photo preview photo that they use on top of the video.

They'll spend hours on that because that is what gets people to click.

And then also you think about attention span.

We're like goldfish.

Like there's different clips, in some cases you have every couple seconds, every three seconds.

So you have to constantly keep them going and wondering what, what's next?

What is this?

Wow.

Whoa.

And then before you know it, you're through the whole video.

You can't stop watching.

That's powerful.

- It is powerful because the reason why I asked about him was he's one of the few people that you actually watch the whole video of.

- Yeah.

(Brandon laughs) - You know how like when the ads come up and it'll say four, three, two, and you're ready just to hurry.

(both laughing) - Skip!

- Skip.

- Go to that.

- Yeah.

You know, one of the things that I love about you is you talk a lot and you talked about it in your book, but we've had conversations, you care about charitable causes.

- Yeah.

- And that's part of that thread that's in you and I love that piece of it.

Talk about why that's important to you.

- I think it should be important for everyone.

- I agree.

- I mean, we're put on this earth to be of value, in my opinion.

And how are you serving others?

And the more, obviously the more value you give to the world, the more comes back to you.

But I believe you need to give back.

And so I give to multiple charities every year at our event, Rise & Record, we raise for a charity.

Last year we raised, I think it was like 12 grand for a shelter, helping really women, battered women, to get a job.

Raised for a company called World Youth Horizons, a nonprofit for children in orphanages.

Heck, last night I was in Indiana for a worship session and I sponsored a kid in another country.

Everything my wife and I do, we find ways to give back to the world and we expect nothing.

I think it's very important.

I think it's our gift and our ability.

We need to do that.

And the more you give, the more you get.

And I'm not saying get in return money, but just the more you get in your soul.

And so I always try to find ways to contribute towards causes.

And sometimes it's not money.

Sometimes it's just my time.

Sometimes it's just my insight from business.

Have you ever thought about this?

Because that little insight could help them go raise a bunch of money for a great cause.

- That's right.

Yeah.

And so I love that.

And you know, you know that's what all I think about.

- You're the king of that.

- Well, I just, I think about it a lot because I think it's, you know, I always say it's your job to take care of the community you live in.

But what's interesting is, a guy like you, you're in every community.

You were in California.

Then you went from California to Indiana, now you're back in Nashville where you have a home.

It's caring about every pocket of the world that you go to.

And that's what I love about it.

- When you think about it, it's not about you.

It's about other people.

And you take away your feelings and late nights and all that out of it, it's how can I help more people and really do it in justice for them?

- Let's switch gears and talk about Rise & Record, because I love how you map it out.

Like, it's intimate.

It's special.

Why don't you tell our viewers what Rise & Record is?

- Yeah, so Rise & Record is about rising up and sharing your story and recording video content.

And how it even came about is when we did the TV shows, documentaries, everything, the biggest thing we learned was the power of a story.

When people were sharing on camera, we're filming them, it was very therapeutic for them, but also like it helped them as human beings.

When they started sharing those stories, when we started sharing those video assets, people were drawn to that.

It helped more people, from a business standpoint also, more people wanted to work with them or get it in their world.

And so for us at Rise & Record, my wife and I do it together.

We were co-hosts of a TV show, we were co-authors of the book and now we're co-hosts for this event.

And so we bring in speakers, we bring in entertainment, workshops, everything.

And it's all about helping people understand the power of their own story, helping them understand how to communicate it to the world, and then showing them how to actually deploy that storytelling through video assets, documentaries, film, content on your phone, social media.

We have our annual event we do in Nashville and then we do quarterly masterminds where I fly in my film crew or the crew that we use for our TV shows that won Emmy's, and we film with every member at every meetup across the country.

And so it's experiential, it's fun, it's connections, but it's helping people tell their story in the right way.

- And you always have some special guests and names that people know all too.

So, that's a cool additive.

- Gotta be fun too.

- Yeah.

- You got a bunch of people and it's definitely it a cool experience.

- Yeah, and so when people, when I, I was looking around and you didn't even send this to me, but I was looking around and, you know, I'm looking at "Brandon T. Adams, Forbes Magazine."

And then you're over here and your top 10 entrepreneurs, 30 and under.

And then, you know, you've got all these great things.

But again, it goes back to what our conversation's been about is brand.

- Yeah.

- That's interesting.

So, how do you look at, if you take you and kind of put you in the middle of a, you're writing down your strategy and you've got, over here you've got Rise & Record, and then you've got a podcast, then you've got your, like how many tentacles do you have or do you even keep, how do you keep track of what you do?

- You know, it's crazy.

I have systems and processes and teams in place and to look at the tentacles.

So Brandon T. Adams, this is like a branding kind of structure.

So Brandon T. Adams is a brand, a person, an individual.

That's me.

Brandon T. Adams is also the CEO of event or a company called Accelerant Media Group where we build and scale brands.

That's actually, which has funded and created all my other brands over the years.

And then you have Rise & Record, which is its own separate thing.

It's an event business where we do annual events and masterminds.

But Rise & Record, that drives the other brands.

And then I have one more, which is, it's actually KABAT, it's the investment advisory firm with Kevin Brian where we invest and advise companies.

And so I have these different tentacles and there's teams for each tentacle.

And then for me, I've always said, they all have to supplement each other because if they don't, then I'm like getting too scattered.

I have my own talents that I have and I stick in my lane.

And then I have teams that have their own talents.

So once you focus on your talents and what you're good at and let them focus on what they're good at, you can really grow things.

And synergetically, they can all help each other.

And so that's what I did.

It took years to get to this point and I'm still growing, but that's how I built multiple brands and also have a lot of investment companies.

And now I have companies that can just bring value to these investments and I don't necessarily have to do as much.

I have the team to help.

- Okay, lastly, I wanna ask you this.

So you go, you're all over the world and you meet, let's say in a typical day, I'm just gonna throw out a number, let's say you meet 150 people, 200 people.

- Yeah.

- How do you corral those people and collect those people to where it's part of your brand and you can reconnect with them down the road?

Like how do you do all that?

- I think the easiest thing for me is I tell them to follow me on social media at Brandon T. Adams.

And what happens is they start getting into my world and what I call Brandon T. Adams reality TV show.

It's a contact posted on social media, everything else.

And they might message me, but once they start following me, they're gonna see who I am more.

And what happens is, down the road, those people eventually hire me, they attend my events, and that's the easiest way for me to do it.

I mean, some people, I'll get their number, I'll text 'em, I'll stay in contact, but a lot of 'em, I'll tell 'em, "Hey, follow my stuff.

Check this out."

- I gotcha.

- And then they're in my world.

- Well, you're a great guy.

You've got podcasts, website, advisory, social media, workshops, coaching.

You do all of it.

Brandon T. Adams, thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you.

- I hope to see you very soon.

I'm talking to Kevin here at the end of the week and I'm sure you're gonna be one of the topics and thank you so much for coming on.

- Thanks, buddy.

- I'm Matt George and this is another episode of "Business Forward."

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