Down with adult Disney fans! With Adam DeGraide and Brandy Whalen – e42 – David Vs Goliath

Adam Degraide:

Coming up today on David vs. Goliath. With the adult Disney fan hating, Brandy Whalen.

Brandy Whalen:

When you get somebody talking about what drives them, they can get real fired up. Nobody’s an average human, we all have something, we just have to find it.

Speaker 3:

Welcome to today’s episode of David vs. Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem Business software, a three time INC. 500 recipient, and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam Degraide.

Adam Degraide:

Hey everyone. It’s Adam Degraide with a great episode in a special edition of the David vs. Goliath Podcast with Brandy Whalen, the founder of Kitcaster. You’re going to find this to be interesting and fascinating how businesses get their word out in 2022. It’s fantastic.

Adam Degraide:

Today’s episode is brought to you by Anthem Software, where you can find, serve, and keep more customers profitably with their all-in-one software marketing and consulting platform built specifically for small businesses. Take the 122nd tour today at anthemsoftware.com. You can visit us online at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. There you can subscribe to get our newsletters and also apply to beyond the podcast, which a lot of people have done, and this is how I ended up meeting Brandy and her team over at Kitcaster, because they have clients that they apply to beyond through the website. And they’ve been fascinating and fantastic interviews. If you’re a fan of DVG, which I know you are, you’ve enjoyed them.

Adam Degraide:

With no further ado, let’s get right into it today with Brandy Whalen. Brandy, welcome to the David vs. Goliath Podcast.

Brandy Whalen:

Hey, thanks so much for having on, really excited for this.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of fun. I love people that like podcasts, and clearly you’re one of those people that likes and believes in the value of podcasting. I’ve had some of your guests that you’ve actually brought to our podcast on. They’ve been fantastic, by the way, wonderful guests.

Brandy Whalen:

Good.

Adam Degraide:

I think what would be really great for the watchers and the listeners, because they tune in all the time to hear different ideas from different people, and have different size and different types of businesses, tell them a little bit about yourself and a little bit about Kitcaster, it’s a tongue twister, and we’ll let the conversation take us from there.

Brandy Whalen:

Great. Thanks, Adam. Really appreciate you inviting me on the show, and love to hear that we have brought some great guests to you. That’s our mission. I come from the world of public relations, and before that, just various careers that I think when I look at everything that I’ve done in my career journey, the common thread is storytelling, really, when you boil it all down.

Brandy Whalen:

Realizing that podcasting is just such a cool medium, and I was incorporating it into my traditional public relation campaigns. And every time that I would have a client go on a podcast, they would just be glowing afterwards. I think that the ability to really dive into their story, their why, and connect on a different level that just didn’t feel corporate canned. And they were being interviewed by industry publications or doing an industry focused article, it felt so prepped and canned, and podcasts allowed them to let their hair down a bit.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, totally. It’s fascinating you say that, I remember the first time I was ever on a podcast, it was years ago back in one of my first businesses. And I’m like, do people actually listen to these things? And I’m still amazed, by the way. I mean, my audience, we’re a fairly new podcast. We actually haven’t even celebrated our first anniversary yet. We’re a weekly podcast, and I’m going to start breaking it into even micro moments, and segments, and stuff pretty soon here as well, too, which is just to create content, right?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

But we’re already at 10,000 viewers and listeners in less than a year.

Brandy Whalen:

It’s incredible.

Adam Degraide:

And when I’m only targeting business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs, I consider that to be a wild success already. And I think, truth be told, it’s the spiky hair that people enjoy making fun of. And they’re also like, this guy’s talking about business, but he’s hanging out in this rock studio with guitars behind him. I think there’s an element of that. And you’ve got a guitar behind you, now do you play that or is that just there for show too?

Brandy Whalen:

It’s not there for show. I’m actually in my office and we’re in this old building in Denver. It was built in 1880. And most of our team, they’re musicians or creatives, so this is our quiet room. And so when anyone feels a need to just break away… We have a ukulele in here too… But people will just come in here and start playing the guitar. I played the trombone. We don’t have that in here.

Adam Degraide:

No, Brandy, you’ve got to get it. You’ve got to get a trombone. You’ve got to bring it in and you’re just going to start playing it in the quiet room because people got to be… Oh man.

Brandy Whalen:

It doesn’t have the same soothing effect as a guitar or ukulele. People will come in here and sometimes I’ll just bounce in, just because it’s so great to just see somebody reclining back on the couch and just strumming. It’s pretty cool.

Adam Degraide:

Do you know that I’m a musician as well? I mean, you can clearly tell from-

Brandy Whalen:

I wouldn’t know that, but I can see that. No, you have a real deal set up behind you.

Adam Degraide:

I do, and I’m my primary instrument is piano, although I play guitar pretty good as well too. I’m currently making a rock album that’s going to be coming out under a pseudonym, which I will tell people in the future, but I actually just released-

Brandy Whalen:

Oh, you’re not ready to release it yet?

Adam Degraide:

No, I just released… Actually, a couple of weeks ago when this episode comes out, I released my first solo project ever at the age of 50. I decided I was going to take my Steinway piano I have and I was going to compose 10 instrumental songs, and then I got a string quartet to go along with it, and then I also performed an acoustic guitar on it. It’s 10 songs and I named it The Com.

Adam Degraide:

Now if you know me Brandy, the last thing I am is the com, but people-

Brandy Whalen:

It’s the opposite.

Adam Degraide:

It’s the opposite, but people don’t know I have this more sensitive, relaxing, side. And so I released the album and it’s been a lot of fun. It was a bucket list, as they say. And you’re glowing after you make it.

Adam Degraide:

I had a record label. I used to promote independent record artists. I was a musician my whole life in many of those bands. And that was a small business that I didn’t have a lot of success in, but I had mild success in it. And actually, one of the bands still tours with Daughtry, and Three Doors Down, and all those bands as well.

Brandy Whalen:

Oh wow.

Adam Degraide:

A band called [inaudible 00:07:14], who I’m working on the project with, but there’s nothing quite like interviewing creatives that have their own businesses. On David vs. Goliath, I’ve had some people recently that are fantastic. I’m wondering if one of them came from you, his name is escaping me right now. Eric, he was from a software company that works with piano teachers in music schools to score, [inaudible 00:07:38].com, does that sound familiar to you?

Brandy Whalen:

That doesn’t sound familiar.

Adam Degraide:

Anyway, he was an awesome interview and he started my string of creatives. Because what’s fascinating about creatives, people that have musical and talents, and skills, and artistic talents and skills. When they start their own business, they tend to bring that into the business, but they also tend to struggle with some of the most important parts of business, which are asking for money.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

And asking for people’s business, because it’s anthema to somebody who’s more creative and artistic who just wants to express.

Brandy Whalen:

To give.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, to give.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

Versus, you owe me this pal, sign of the line that is dotted. Now this is rolls into my next question with you, because you interview and you work with so many different types of business owners… They come to you and they may be influencers or business owners, and they want to have that message get out on podcast, and your company goes out, matches the right audience, the right host to that particular business. Not all people are created equal with how articulate they are or how well they can speak, how do you vet them to see if they’re a good fit for you? And what do you recommend to someone like myself that’s never done that before, would be reaching out to somebody like you? What should I have prepared before I come to you so I’m not wasting your time or my time? Because not everyone is made to do this, right?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. No, it’s so true. I mean, there’s so many different mediums out there and some people are stronger writers, some people just have different strengths. Some people are really good at putting together a creative blog post versus a more technical white paper. But those who are good at speaking, tend to gravitate towards this medium. I would say it’s very rare that we have to almost talk someone out of going on podcasts most of the time.

Adam Degraide:

I’ve had do it over the years. I used to work with 1,800 car dealers, and I’d have a car dealer that would say, “I need to be on my own TV and radio commercials.” I’m like, “Dude, if you put yourself on TV and radio.”

Brandy Whalen:

No, you don’t.

Adam Degraide:

“You think you’re having a hard time selling cars now? Just wait till you do that.” Anyway, just go ahead.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. I mean, we’ve been in business for over three years now. We’ve worked with close to 300 clients and I would say I can count on one hand clients, or potential clients, that are like, you know what? This maybe not be the best fit for you, for us. But it’s really cool, because when you get somebody talking about what drives them, what makes them swing both of those legs off their bed in the morning, they can get real fired up.

Brandy Whalen:

And I truly believe that everyone has a story. I think that some people are natural born story tellers, but I think you can absolutely pull and find a story out of everyone, and so that’s really what we’re working to do. If we are working with a client that may not be the most natural storyteller and maybe has a hard time, I don’t know, what is my why? We work with them to find it, and it takes a bit sometimes. I have found, and I don’t know if you found this in podcasting, but sometimes it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to break somebody down. And I don’t mean that in a bad sense.

Adam Degraide:

I’ve had people cry on this podcast.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

That’s going to be my goal today. My goal today is going to be to get you to cry. No, I’m just kidding.

Brandy Whalen:

That won’t be hard, I’m pretty easy. I don’t mind crying.

Adam Degraide:

I’m going to show a picture of a puppy dog. There you go. My producer’s actually showing people the picture of the cutest puppy dog. Now a picture of the cutest baby. All right, there we go.

Brandy Whalen:

Oh yeah, that would do it for sure. Yeah, I really do. I mean, I feel very passionately about finding folks stories and I think it’s really empowering, especially if you feel like… We’ve had a lot of clients that are like, I don’t know, I’m just an average human. I’m like, no, you’re not. You’re not an average human, nobody’s an average human. We all have something, we just have to find it, and sometimes it’s just not right there.

Adam Degraide:

That’s a really good point. Everyone does have a story, some people are better at telling it than others. Some people don’t know what their story or how to articulate it is, and that’s fantastic that you do that. But you’re right, everyone is uniquely… And I believe, divinely and inspiringly made for a purpose and a reason to be here on planet earth, on the spinning ball of awesomeness. Were you working in a PR firm or did you own your own PR firm, and what was that transition for you?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah, I was doing contract PR work and then the firm that I was working with… It was really cool, I worked for this really awesome woman and she was like, you should start your own agency. And she started kicking me over clients that just weren’t quite big enough for her to engage with. I really attribute the growth of my PR agency to her, because I was doing work for her and I still continued to do that, but once I started my own agency… And really looking at podcasting, I’ve been obsessed with talk radio forever.

Adam Degraide:

Me too. Totally. Who was the first one that got you into talk radio for you?

Brandy Whalen:

I love Terry Gross. She’s on NPR. She has the most soothing, sleepy, the way that she interviews. I love wait, wait, don’t tell me. I was just an NPR nerd.

Adam Degraide:

I was the exact opposite. What got me into radio is my parents, my grandfather was a disc jockey on my mom’s side. My grandfather was a disc jockey on my dad’s side. And my dad is a disc jockey. And my grandfather, both my grandfather from my dad and my dad are in the Radio Hall of Fame in New England.

Brandy Whalen:

Wow, that’s cool.

Adam Degraide:

My grandfather on my mom’s side was on radio back when he would play albums and he would sing along, he was a crooner. He would literally spin an album and he’d go… And he would sing along with it on the radio.

Brandy Whalen:

You were born into this.

Adam Degraide:

I was, but what really got me into it in, whether you like him or not politically, I’m a huge Rush Limbaugh fan. And when he died, it was very sad for me because I thought he had the perfect blend of sarcasm, entertainment, education. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but I liked the way he said it. I found myself just a junkie, and I still to this day, listen to probably more talk radio than anybody I know, because I think people learn three primarily ways. And I think you know this Brandy. People either learn visually, by what they see, right? [inaudible 00:14:53], by what they do. And then hearing, through actually hearing.

Adam Degraide:

We learn all three different ways, but each of us has a primary learning preference to us as people. For me, it’s just hearing. It’s interesting that you deal with people like me. Do you ever dig into that with them? What is their primary learning lesson method? One of the things I try to do with my clients is I try to say, okay, how do your customers primarily learn? And then, how can we go and reach them in those environments? Because some people have products that are very hands on and if you don’t get that kinesthetic interaction with their potential customers, they’ll never sell anything. Others are very visual, and that’s why video has always been one of the most powerful forms of media, because it deals with all three.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

Now with the internet. With the internet now, on the podcast, you can see, you can hear, and you can immediately interact, which is I can be looking up Brandy Whelan right now, and I can be going to kitcaster.com right now, and I can be researching you. Are there any negative reviews from your customers, right? Are there any positive reviews for your customers? I think the internet and podcasting provides a very unique situation for people that makes a huge difference.

Adam Degraide:

Now, we got to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk about your team, because I know you don’t do this alone and I want to talk about your branding as well too, because I think people will love that. You’re with Brandy Whalen from Kitcaster, your handsome host, Adam Degraide from the David vs. Goliath podcast. Here’s a very special message from our corporate sponsor, Anthem Software. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 3:

Anthem Business Software system is designed to specifically help small businesses just like yours find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. We do this by providing you with the most powerful software automations and marketing services to help your business compete and win in this ever changing digital world. Take a short video tour at anthemsoftware.com. (Singing).

Adam Degraide:

And we’re back with Brandy and Adam. Once again, manifesting my gregarious nature and personality, which I can’t stop myself. That’s just natural. You think that this is made up. This is actually… If you watch me walk around my house, I drive my wife and my kids crazy because this is exactly what you get when I’m awake.Now, when I’m asleep, the best things happen because I’m asleep.

Adam Degraide:

Now Brandy, your team… Your website’s awesome by the way.

Brandy Whalen:

Thank you.

Adam Degraide:

I love branding and marketing, it’s a passion of mine.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

Beautiful website. I saw some of the team members, we’ve worked with some of your team members. Tell people a little bit about the, you went from PR, you now have your own business. How big is your team right now? You’re growing, you’re three years. What are some of their roles? How do you source clients? Stuff like that. People love to learn that stuff.

Brandy Whalen:

Absolutely. In my traditional PR agency I had a colleague here in Denver who was a podcast host and also ran a marketing agency. We would group up occasionally and just brainstorm different ideas. We were like, what are we going to do together? We need to do to something together someday. And we thought about producing podcasts for companies, but we’re like, it’s a lot, that’s a huge undertaking. I’m like, why don’t we just tap into kind of what I’m doing already and just place people on podcasts? You may know this, but the longevity of most podcasts, it’s rare for people to make it past episode eight or nine.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, exactly. It’s a lot of work.

Brandy Whalen:

It’s a lot of work, so why not to put our guests… Our clients on podcasts are already established. They’re still kind of getting that end goal of using podcasts as a medium to get personal and professional brand exposure, but just without having to do the heavy lift of producing a podcast.

Adam Degraide:

Which you do not produce podcasts by the way, which is a misconception. People think you produce podcasts.

Brandy Whalen:

Yes, all the time. People think we produce podcasts. We do not produce podcasts. We have wonderful people that we collaborate with that handles that side of the business, but we just find podcasts that you can be a guest on. Ryan and I-

Adam Degraide:

You could almost create a podcast about being on a podcast that is a podcast about being on podcast. It could be the circular thing about podcasts.

Brandy Whalen:

I know, absolutely. I mean, we do have a podcast now called hosted, which I would love to get you on, and it’s all around podcast host. Anyway, Ryan and I started Kitcaster, really just testing the waters. We were just like, let’s just see. He sent out all the people that had ever been on his podcast, because it was a business podcast. It was all people who were founders of companies. He sent an email out and was like, “Hey, we’re doing this, who’s interested?” And immediately had 10 people raise their hand. Initially, we were just starting beta. We were like, can we even make this work?

Adam Degraide:

Is there a market?

Brandy Whalen:

How can we scale this?

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, you didn’t even know if there was a market for-

Brandy Whalen:

Is there a market?

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, that’s great.

Brandy Whalen:

We were taking on beta clients and kind of figuring out what we didn’t know. It was hard. In the beginning we were like, this is a terrible idea. It’s so hard to find contact information and to hear back, and how are we ever going to scale this? But then we started to kind of figure things out. We retrofitted a CRM system so that we could kind of build our own database of contacts and start to work through that flow, and then we started to slowly grow our team. I had a team member at the time with me already and so she came over to Kitcaster and is now our director of operations, and she’s amazing. And we have just grown from there, we’re up to 23 employees now.

Adam Degraide:

I think about that. That’s amazing.

Brandy Whalen:

It’s incredible.

Adam Degraide:

Just wait till you get to 50.

Brandy Whalen:

It’s funny, because we are doing some interviews this week and one of the folks that we interviewed, they were like, “What’s your vision?” And I was like, “To not get above 50.” There’s just something about that. I love the way that we flow right now. Our team is amazing. I think when you were talking about interviewing creatives, I would say that is another thing that everyone here has in common, is that they have passions outside of this. I think it’s really important, because everyone’s bringing a different perspective. Because it really takes creativity to connect with a host and take somebody’s story and make it appealing. That’s what we’re selling, we’re selling stories to a podcast host.

Adam Degraide:

That’s awesome, man. I think if you’re watching and you’re listening to this, she said some fantastic stuff. Number one, she had an idea, they had a hypothesis. They didn’t even know if there was a market for this, right? But they believed there possibly was. Her experience… And it’s Ryan, right? Ryan’s your partner?

Brandy Whalen:

Ryan, yeah.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah. You had awesome experience in marketing and you had all this client base, you went to market and sure enough, bang, there was a market there, and magic happens. You just never know until you try.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

Did you have any plans and goals or did you just kind of wing it?

Brandy Whalen:

Initially, we were 100% winging it and really trying to figure out where are we going to price this service at? And what is a package look like and how can we almost SAS model this service? Could we create a monthly sort of subscription package? We were playing around with a lot of different things, we didn’t really know at the time. After we were about six months in and when we were like, oh right, I think we’ve got something here, we need to really sit down and… Ryan built our website, by the way.

Adam Degraide:

He did a great job, make sure you let him know. Ryan, nice job.

Brandy Whalen:

I will.

Adam Degraide:

Beautiful site. Guys, go check it out.

Brandy Whalen:

He’s incredible.

Adam Degraide:

Just from a design perspective and an interactivity perspective, I thought it was great. Now, Ryan, I’ll speak to him directly so you don’t have to say this, brandy needs you to figure out a way for people to know right away that you don’t create podcasts. And if you can figure out how to visually and graphically represent that quickly, it’ll save people a ton of time.

Brandy Whalen:

I think part of it too, Adam, is education. Nobody even knows that a service like this exists. That’s one of the things that we battled in the beginning, people would ask who our largest competitor was and I was like, just that nobody knows, that is our largest competitor, that nobody knows.

Adam Degraide:

I want to ask you about that, because you probably have very good SEO because there wasn’t a lot of competition originally, right? Did Ryan go and look how many businesses are looking for digital PR or what would you try to rank for as a business? What phrases are you going after right now? Because a lot of people that watch this, that have their businesses, they’ve hired SEO people, they’ve spent all this money, it doesn’t really work. It’s typically because they’re not targeting the right phrases or the right questions. What are you trying to get right now from content marketing?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. Something that’s really interesting, we definitely tap into the marketing world and also just kind of key search terms in marketing. But one of the things that we’ve identified as being a huge search term is, how to book yourself on podcasts.

Adam Degraide:

Pretty simple term. How to book yourself on podcasts.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. A lot of people are searching that term, come to find out.

Adam Degraide:

I’m writing that down right now. How to book yourself on a podcast.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah, and we actually wrote a blog about it because that is one of the things that people ask us. When we’re getting on a call with a prospective client they’re like, “Well, why can’t we just do this?” And I’m like, “You absolutely can.”

Adam Degraide:

That’s awesome.

Brandy Whalen:

If you have the time and the bandwidth, and the resources, the contacts to do this, you should, you should do it. But if you don’t, then we’re here for you, and we’re happy to help. But I’m all about, if you can do it, you should do it.

Adam Degraide:

That’s great. I think that’s a great point, by the way, if you can do it, you should do it.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

And hesitancy, I always say, is the death of an entrepreneur, but action is the life of an entrepreneur. There’s no doubt about it. If you hesitate, death, action, life. Now, when you’re doing search phrases and things like that, I think this is important, content is king. And one of the things I will tell you is I would probably try to write 15 blogs, about 2,000 words each, for as much as you can surrounding that one question, because you could probably start to get really good rankings organically, as well as obviously paying for placement. Now, has LinkedIn been a good source for you because you’re B2B?

Brandy Whalen:

It’s been a great source for us.

Adam Degraide:

Surprising, right?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

It’s a great surprise. It’s a challenge, but it is definitely a positive thing. And the nice thing about what you’re doing is it’s fun, right?

Brandy Whalen:

It’s fun.

Adam Degraide:

You’re talking to people that love their business, or they should their love their business, otherwise they don’t belong on a podcast. They love their business, and so you’re saying, “Do you love your business? We love your business. Let me help you get the word out there.” Let me rephrase the question in a different way, out of every 10 clients you get, how many found you and how many did you find?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. Out of 10, I would say probably two to three found us.

Adam Degraide:

Okay.

Brandy Whalen:

And then the rest is all outbound, through LinkedIn. We also use PitchBook, big fan of PitchBook.

Adam Degraide:

What is that?

Brandy Whalen:

I’m not sure-

Adam Degraide:

No, I’ve never heard of it.

Brandy Whalen:

It’s an amazing resource database, because we know that the clients that we typically engage with are startups, founders, going through whatever phase of raise they might be in, and PitchBook monitors all of that, and gives you all of the information. What companies are getting funded, who are the VCs that are backing these particular organization.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah, because that’s important for you, right? You got to find someone that’s got money, and funded, and needs to get their message out, right?

Brandy Whalen:

Exactly. Yeah, and especially freshly funded, it’s a good time to start ramping and really [crosstalk 00:28:43]… expertise.

Adam Degraide:

It’s burning a hole in their pocket. It belongs to you. It deserves to be in your pocket, go and get it, is the advice of Brandy.

Brandy Whalen:

Yes.

Adam Degraide:

That’s good. That is really good.

Brandy Whalen:

Yes. And it’s a really great thing too I think for… What we hear from a lot of our clients, if they have a board of directors, they have their VCs, it’s good to show they’re gaining momentum, they’re getting exposure. It’s also a great way for the board of directors, for their VCs, to connect with what they’re doing. They get to listen to them on a podcast for 60 minutes and help explain some of the new technology they’re working on.

Adam Degraide:

They can learn that they play the trombone. They play the trombone in their quiet room.

Brandy Whalen:

Yes.

Adam Degraide:

That’s not going to come out in a pitch meeting.

Brandy Whalen:

Absolutely. Get to really know those human interests are and who that person is and what drives them. And those things are really important, not just your business idea, but who’s running the business.

Adam Degraide:

I love that. I think the personal element of business is so neglected. And one of the things I try to do here on DVG is really try to dive into that a little bit. Brandy, this has been great. I got to take another break for another sponsor, who’s actually tapping me on the shoulder right now.

Brandy Whalen:

Getting the tap.

Adam Degraide:

Saying, “It’s my turn to get promoted.” We’re going to take a quick break. We are with Brandy and Adam Degraide on the David vs. Goliath podcast. Here’s another message from another great sponsor. We’ll be right back.

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Adam Degraide:

And we’re back with the adult Disney fan hating Brandy Whelan. Now Brandy, I got to-

Brandy Whalen:

That was really terrible. It sounds terrible.

Adam Degraide:

I guarantee you my guy’s editing this just probably made that part of the trailer, there’s no doubt in my mind. Adult Disney fan hating. No, one of the questions that we ask folks on my little info form here, or as my friend Rush Limbaugh used to say, my formerly nicotine stained hands. It says, what are your pet peeves? And hers were, adult Disney fans, white pants. I was going to wear white pants today just to drive you crazy.

Brandy Whalen:

I’m so glad you didn’t.

Adam Degraide:

But I didn’t, I wore shorts. As you know, you probably saw me, I wear shorts and sandals and I do a business podcast. Everyone else is like-

Brandy Whalen:

Buttoned up.

Adam Degraide:

No, I earned my way out of a suit many years ago. Matter of fact, I don’t own a suit.

Brandy Whalen:

Good for you.

Adam Degraide:

And so every time I have to wear one, I rent one.

Brandy Whalen:

That’s great. That’s perfect.

Adam Degraide:

The nice part about that Brandy is, if I get thin, it fits. If I get fat, it fits. The nice part about renting suits is that they always fit.

Brandy Whalen:

They always fit and they’re always on trend.

Adam Degraide:

And I also don’t have to worry about it, because at the end of the day, if I have that extra pizza, no big deal, I can squeeze into it because I just got fit for it. What is this? Tell me a little bit about adult Disney fans. I think I kind of know what you mean by that. I live down the street from the house of the mouse, but I’d love to get your opinion.

Brandy Whalen:

I actually didn’t really realize what… I grew up on a Turkey farm, and so I didn’t travel when I was young at all. You don’t just leave 30,000 turkeys and go on a trip.

Adam Degraide:

Did you just say 30,000 turkeys?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah, I did.

Adam Degraide:

That’s going to be the name of this episode. 30,000 turkeys.

Brandy Whalen:

I have three boys and I was like, you know what? I didn’t get to do this stuff as a child. I want to make sure that they have these warm, fuzzy, experiences, these adventures that I never got to do and I was always jealous of everyone. We took them to Disney World and they were just kind of like, eh, and I was like, wow, this isn’t fun at all. And then I started looking around-

Adam Degraide:

Let me ask you a question, when did you come?

Brandy Whalen:

Oh gosh, it was a while ago.

Adam Degraide:

It had to be in the summer, right?

Brandy Whalen:

It was towards the end of May, early June.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah. No.

Brandy Whalen:

And it wasn’t the temperature, it was all the other things. I just assumed that everyone who was there would be there because they had children, they kind of like had to be, but then I realized that they’re just adults that were just there for fun. And there were weddings happening. And I looked at my three boys and I was like… And they were young at the time and so they were like, what is she talking about? But I was like, “Do you see what’s happening over there? If you get married in Disney World, we are done. That’s it.”

Adam Degraide:

You’re cut off.

Brandy Whalen:

That’s it. That’s a deal breaker for me.

Adam Degraide:

You know what’s so fascinating to me Brandy? I’ve always loved parks and amusement parks. And I used to live in New England, and when you live in new England, you always come down to Florida because it’s too cold there, right?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

But 90% of the people that go to Disney do it in June, July, and August. Not 90%, but some crazy majority of people who end up here.

Brandy Whalen:

Sure.

Adam Degraide:

It is the worst time of year to be in Florida, period.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

September 30th to May 1st, Florida’s like heaven.

Brandy Whalen:

That’s the dream time. Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

And then after that, there’s many other places you could go to enjoy yourself. But it’s funny that you say that because I was one of those adulting Disney fans. On my first marriage, my ex-wife and I, we did our honeymoon at Disney World and I was one of those dudes walking around with the hats on. And it’s so funny because I’ve grown out of that so much. And there’s so many things I love about Disney and there’s so many things I hate about Disney.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

But at the end of the day, I could see you telling your kids, now kids, remember your mother’s telling you, if you get married at Disney, you’re cut off.

Brandy Whalen:

We’re done.

Adam Degraide:

Don’t ask me for anything. And you know what? The only problem Brandy with that is, one of them’s going to get married at Disney.

Brandy Whalen:

Oh I know. I sealed the fate right there. I mean, as soon as those words came out of my mouth. And here’s the deal, it was totally fine. I think I wasn’t prepared for that and I just didn’t really enjoy it that much. I just don’t think I’m an amusement park person. It’s not my jam. I’d rather be out camping. And then I realized, thankfully, that my kids are the same way.

Adam Degraide:

Yeah. Take them to the 30,000 turkeys and set up a tent.

Brandy Whalen:

That’s all they wanted. That’s all they want.

Adam Degraide:

That’s all they wanted.

Brandy Whalen:

That is all they want.

Adam Degraide:

I love that. I love it. I never know what these segments are going to hold and I think this has been a lot of fun. This will end up being a micro moment on DVG I’m going to promote calling-

Brandy Whalen:

Awesome. I hope I don’t offend too many people.

Adam Degraide:

You probably offended about 80% of the adults listening to it right now, because they’re probably Disney adult fans. But you know what? I think it’s awesome. And if you can’t speak your mind in America, where can you speak your mind? You’re supposed to be able to speak your mind here. Anyway, that’s really great.

Adam Degraide:

Well transitioning to my last question.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

When you think about, you’re working with a lot of these businesses that just recently got funding, right? And then you think back to yourself, yours and Ryan’s time, when you were sitting together and you’re saying, you know what? We got to do something. We got to do something together and we got to make it unique. You probably had good paying jobs. You probably had good careers at the time. And then to start something on an idea and to throw yourself all into that takes what I call courage.

Adam Degraide:

And you know the reason why I named David vs. Goliath, the podcast, is that all small businesses are fighting a giant, right? Sometimes it’s a big competitor. Sometimes it’s corporate BS. Sometimes it’s corporate regulations. Sometimes it’s just the giant that you need to face personally, but we’re all facing a giant that needs to be slain. And if you read the story in the scriptures, it talks about how David… It’s fascinating, because I never really noticed it until I was reading it a couple years back and I really wrote this down. That Saul, the king at the time, offered him a bunch of armor. He said, “I don’t need that armor. I’m going to be fine.” And he went down to the stream, he grabbed five smooth stones, but it only took one to slay Goliath, but there’s a reason why five was in there, right? He had backup, right? He had other plans.

Adam Degraide:

What I try to do on David vs. Goliath is talk about plans and goals, the right people, the right technology, the right processes, your people leverage the technology and the tools to hit the goals, right? So it backs into it. But the fifth stone I liken to courage, which is belief really, faith, right? And that’s the stone that I believe slayed that giant.

Adam Degraide:

When you and Ryan started Kitcaster three years ago, not knowing what would happen, it does take courage. This is a two part question.

Brandy Whalen:

Okay.

Adam Degraide:

Part one is, what was it for the two of you that gave you the courage? Was it doing it together? I don’t know. What was it? And then number two, because you work with a lot of businesses and you meet a lot of successful people, for those that are watching and listening right now that haven’t taken that step or they’ve just recently taken that step, how would you encourage them to take the step or to stay in it?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. Okay. I like those questions. First part is, for Ryan and I, a big part of both of our businesses that we experienced was scope creep. Our services were broad enough and we were kind of in this position where if a company was like, oh, could you write copy for us? Oh, sure. Can you do website design?

Adam Degraide:

Yeah.

Brandy Whalen:

Maybe, sure. That’s just a terrible place to be. And that’s lessons learned, right? It certainly didn’t need to happen that way, but it did. And I think for me it was my first business so I was like, you want to work with me? That was so fantastic. We’ll do anything.

Adam Degraide:

You want me to run to store and get you food, and bill you for it?

Brandy Whalen:

Happy to, yes. I’ll do your laundry. Yeah. I mean, you just kind of opened the door wide open. I think for Ryan and I both, we wanted to create something that was just, this is what we do. And we’re going to stay in our lane and we’re not going to do anything else, because we realize that can be a huge detriment to your business, by trying to be a master of all.

Brandy Whalen:

That was a huge push for us. Also, we still had our other businesses and we bootstrapped Kitcaster. We were feeding into the company from what we already had. There was some-

Adam Degraide:

Security.

Brandy Whalen:

Security there that we kept that. And we kept our businesses until we were at a place where we could pay ourselves at Kitcaster, but we had to pay other people first because we needed people on that side of the business. Even though that’s against what everyone says, it’s always like, pay yourself first and then worry about the other.

Adam Degraide:

No, I think that’s great advice. I mean, knock on wood, in my four, five, businesses I’ve owned and operated I’ve never missed a payroll for my employees, but I have missed-

Brandy Whalen:

So important,

Adam Degraide:

But I have missed many payrolls for yours truly. And people don’t think about that, because you don’t broadcast it. It’s not like I walked around in my employees and my first few businesses and said, “Oh, by the way, I’m not getting paid you dirt bags and I’m paying you.” No, that’s not going to motivate them, right?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

These are things that people don’t realize, man. The people that don’t get paid a lot of the times are the people at the top.

Brandy Whalen:

Totally.

Adam Degraide:

Until it’s time to get paid, then we get paid.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah, and you should, because you’re taking the risk. We didn’t get paid for a year and it all worked out. I mean, I think encourage everyone to just… You mentioned a lot of different aspects to a successful business and that was something that I think Ryan and I both come to the business with different skill sets. And I don’t have that process oriented mind, I’m getting better at it, but that’s what he came with. It was really important piece that I never had in my business and I struggled really hard. And now that we have processes in place, it’s just like, oh, this is great. You just go to this loom video over here, it’s all documented, and we’re good to go.

Brandy Whalen:

I think that if you have an idea, test it, why not? Why not test it? See if there’s a place for it. Talk to people about it. I would say that’s one of my biggest pieces of advice for folks, is sometimes people get really cagey about their ideas, that they’re afraid to share and they hold them in. They don’t want anybody to steal their ideas. Ideas are ideas, it’s hard to implement them and implement them successfully. Share your ideas, get feedback from people, see what their reaction is. Start to beta test it. If you have something, give it away.

Adam Degraide:

That’s a good point by the way. But one of the important things is who you ask, because I had a few podcasts back one of the women she said, “Don’t take advice from somebody who’s not where you want to be.”

Brandy Whalen:

I heard that one.

Adam Degraide:

It was awesome.

Brandy Whalen:

That was a really great show. Yeah, she’s fantastic.

Adam Degraide:

Think about that folks. If you combine that two pieces of advice to Brandy and what Christy Morrow said… [inaudible 00:43:37] so many people at this point. I even said to my wife that day, “Oh, I didn’t remember I interviewed that person.” That’s just gotten over 50 now and every day’s going to bleed out something else. Brandy said, talk to people, Christy Morrow says, talk to the right people, and I think the blend is where that magic comes in, right?

Adam Degraide:

If you’ve got an idea, talk to people that are more successful than you and run the idea by them, or somebody who you know is where you want to be, because so often we become who we spend time with. If we keep spending time with those that are going nowhere, before you know it we’re going nowhere.

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah.

Adam Degraide:

But if you’re always reaching up above you and then reaching down to help somebody below you, that’s where the magic sweet spot in life comes. That’s the magic of the David vs. Goliath podcast, because I have been successful because I’ve reached out to people who have been greater than me and they’re even more successful than me now. And I’ve had the ability to have somebody help me up, and I’ve had the ability to help others up. And Brandy, I have people that have worked for me that own their own businesses now, that have built their businesses 14 times the size that I’ve ever built any of my businesses.

Brandy Whalen:

That’s so cool.

Adam Degraide:

And that’s what life is all about.

Brandy Whalen:

Yes.

Adam Degraide:

The human element of business cannot be lost in this and “everyone has a story”, quote from Brandy Whelan from Kitcaster. Brandy, have you had a good time?

Brandy Whalen:

I’ve had a blast. This has been awesome. It’s Friday.

Adam Degraide:

Is it Friday?

Brandy Whalen:

Yeah. What a great way to wrap the week. Yeah, it’s Friday.

Adam Degraide:

Perfect, I didn’t even realize that. How can people find you?

Brandy Whalen:

People can find me at kitcaster.com.

Adam Degraide:

Kitcaster’s with a K. K-I-T-C-A-S-T-E-R.com. It’s been awesome Brandy, thank you so much for joining me today.

Brandy Whalen:

Thank you, Adam.

Adam Degraide:

I would love to come on your podcast. Keep sending us great quality people that are passionate about their business. They’re not uncomfortable talking about these things that we talk about here on DVG. It means a lot to me, it means a lot to our audience. It’s been an honor to have you. Have an awesome day, thank you so much.

Adam Degraide:

And to the watchers and listeners, another amazing episode is in the can, where you get education, inspiration, and most importantly, activation in your business. I’m Adam Degraide, I’ll see you next week. Have a great day.