The Tips & Tricks Revealed! The All Stars – Q2 Part 1 – David Vs Goliath – e43

Adam Degraide: 

Coming up today on David Vs Goliath, nothing but the hits, the all stars, quarter two of 2022 part one. 

Suke Ridler: 

The surname is Ridler. As in Batman, I say. 

Rick West: 

I probably only have a few guests you’ve ever had Adam that can pay people cold, hard cash. 

Adam Degraide: 

So I decided to name the project, The Adam Project. 

Joe Amaral: 

Stubbornness is a virtue. 

Christie Morrow: 

I think it’s all about your people. That is your business. 

Adam Degraide: 

These songs were inspired by one of my favorite video games I’ve ever played. 

Clay Cook: 

Regret is embedded in the risk you didn’t take. 

Speaker 7: 

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 free time Inc. 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find served and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam Degraide. 

Adam Degraide: 

Hey everyone. It’s Adam Degraide with one of my favorite versions of the David vs Goliath podcast with nothing but the hits the all star quarter two of 2022 part one this week on DVG. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Adam Degraide. In 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 solution of software, which is CRM Software, marketing solutions and services that get you results. And then a training lab that helps you make the right decisions to grow your small business even quicker. Take the 120 second tour today @anthemsoftware.com. Every business has a song, let their software and marketing system sing yours. You can visit us online at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com, where you can subscribe to be receiving newsletters about the podcast and also apply to be on it. 

Adam Degraide: 

Many of the people, these all stars that you’re going to be seeing today and next week have gone through this exact process where they applied through the website, they were vetted by our team and we had them on DVG for our watchers and our listeners. We hope you have a great time. Couple of personal items. My book, the Adventures of Jackson is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, check it out. It’s great. It’s beautifully illustrated, teaches kids about gratitude, attentiveness, and then bravery, how to face things that are scary to them and get through it. Now for weeks, I’ve been teasing the fact that many of you know that I made my piano and my string album, which we’re going to be showing a little bit later on in this episode. I want to have these episodes filled with music and entertainment, as well as great business and interview practical advice. 

Adam Degraide: 

I told you about a project that I was working on. It’s a rock and roll project, the exact opposite of what I’ve been working on. And today I’m going to give you a little sneak peek on that. So I decided to name the project, the Adam Project, A-D-A-M. So it’s A period D period, A period, M period Project. Should be out in a few weeks if you’re watching this episode, which I believe is middle of July, is when you’re going to be watching this episode or beginning of July. And so at the end of July, beginning of August, the album should be out and available and the project is called Apex Rising. And it was funny. I was talking to my wife and I’m like, “I want to make a hard rock album and I want to have some fun with it. But I don’t have like teenage danst. I don’t have anything major, I really want to say.” 

Adam Degraide: 

I said, “I got this crazy idea. I love playing this game called Apex Legends.” And you can look it up. Apex Legends has about 200 million players worldwide, has different characters in it. It’s a Battle Royal. I play it every day. I love it. I might be the oldest person that plays it. But nevertheless, I said to my wife, “I’m going to do a seven song EP, and I’m going to base the songs on a character from the game.” 

Adam Degraide: 

So the one I want to show you right now is based on a character called Pathfinder. And the song is called Pathfinder’s Lonely Mountaintop. I’m going to show you the intro through the first chorus. And like I said, the album should be out in a couple of weeks. This character is a robot. And this song was built in written specifically about a specific game that I had playing this character, which is why it’s called Pathfinder’s Lonely Mountaintop. I ended up all by myself in this match on top of a mountain raining destruction down. I hope you guys enjoy it. Here’s a little bit of the Apex Project, Apex Rising part one, the song Pathfinder’s Lonely Mountaintop, will be right back. 

Adam Degraide: 

And that was a little bit of Pathfinder’s Lonely Mountaintop sung by Damien Miranda. I played guitar bass. I had Jeff Hall play drums and I had Damien Miranda sing. And Gabe Miranda did background vocals and Damien Miranda as the lead guitarist in that song. It’s going to be a ton of fun. Check it out. Well, I’m going to show you a little bit of my choir to music a little bit later on, and I’m also going to bring back another track of one of the heavier things and a little bit later as well too. But right now let’s get into our first interview on the all stars quarter part two. And let me just grab my sheet to make sure I get it right. 

Adam Degraide: 

And I’ve got it right here. This was episode 31. It was a lady by the name of Suke Ridler who invented a company called mylifejars.com. This interview was so much fun as my dad said, Suke was no fluke. Here you go with Suke Ridler on DVG, enjoy. So for the watchers and listeners who are just tuning in, they have no idea what My LifeJars is. And I think the concept is fascinating. Why don’t you tell them a little bit about who you are and you have a very interesting story as to how you came to realize that this was a need that we all have. And then tell us a little bit about your business and we’ll have some fun from there. 

Suke Ridler: 

Sure. So I guess my entrepreneurial life started owning a vineyard and putting in some vines and starting from scratch, building up a business. And I was doing that for a few years and living up on a farm. And I was feeling pretty healthy and plenty of time left ahead of me. And then one day I actually started getting really sick and it wasn’t long before I was being airlifted from the country to the city in septic shock. I had one of those [inaudible 00:08:23] and my colon was about to explode. 

Adam Degraide: 

Oh boy. 

Suke Ridler: 

And there I was in the back of the plane and with my life kind of hanging on by a thread. And believe it or not, I wasn’t thinking about dying. All I could think about was, what a mess I was going to leave behind for everybody. Look, sure I had a William place, but I couldn’t even remember where I’d put it. More importantly, I was going to leave my former husband with such a mess, sorting out the business because I run everything. He wouldn’t know where any of the access credentials were. 

Suke Ridler: 

He wouldn’t know how to get onto all the accounts. So I was really worried about that. And the other thing is I hadn’t shared the details of my life story, my purpose, my feeling, my what ifs with my family into any detail. And I thought, “Well, my story’s just going to crumble and vanish forever from here.” And all those mementos I collected over the year that were really important. And the family heirlooms, I hadn’t kind of categorized them or shared them with my family. I thought they’d just kind of be tossed away with all that history gone. So lying in the emergency room. I really thought I’d let everyone down. 

Suke Ridler: 

Luckily with the help of powerful antibiotics I pulled through. But if I hadn’t, it would’ve been a different story. So I kind of made a vow to myself that I needed to be prepared, but it felt very overwhelming at that point. But there’d been another couple of things that in my late twenties, my dad had died of [inaudible 00:10:15] and the doctors had asked me what they should do if he’s heart stop beating. And it left an onerous feeling of responsibility. We knew he was dying, but none of us were prepared to discuss that with him. And particularly my mom. My mom just really didn’t want to know. And that was really hard. And then when my mom died, we couldn’t find her will and we didn’t know who the executors were and it was in the middle of the Christmas holidays period. 

Suke Ridler: 

So there became a lot of friction in our family that was kind of fueled by grief. So I knew of some of the problems if things hadn’t been said and done yet, I still hadn’t been prepared for my brush with death. So I guess I started looking around for something. I mean, it had to be really safe and secure for me to leave vital documents. I didn’t want them being shared across the internet. I mean, that was really important stuff, but I still wanted people to have access, because I have relatives in the, sorry, in the UK. But my daughter also lives in the US in Austin. So it was really important that everyone has access to the information they needed, but it had to be securely. And I wanted everything, the practical side and the business side and the personal side all in one space. So that’s how my life just came about. 

Adam Degraide: 

And before the interview, I had no idea how to pronounce your name. And here in the states, you said your name would be short for Susie. My mom’s name is Susan, short here in the states would be Sue or Susie. But I guess where you’re from Suke is short for Susan. And that was a fascinating thing. And you also started talking about these poems and things like that. So share a little bit with the listeners and the watchers about your name and how it’s abbreviated and where it comes from. 

Suke Ridler: 

Okay. So my name is Susan Ridler and I was at university and I was always drinking a lot of tea and there was a poem and old nursery rhyme called Suke Put the Kettle On. So I became called Suke or Suke and then I left university and I started to just be called Sue again. And then kind of in my late fifties, I thought, “You know what? I really enjoyed being called Suke. I’m going to go back to be called Suke.” So I started doing some, I pushed myself outside the box and did some standup comedy. And I thought, “Well, if I call myself Suke I can say it rhymes with puke. Everyone will remember that.” And the surname is Ridler. As in Batman, I say. So it kind of suck. 

Adam Degraide: 

Oh man, I love it Suke rhymes with puke. And you know what’s funny, you say that you did stand up comedy. I turned 50 Suke and it’s almost like my midlife crisis has become me being the most productive human being I possibly can be. I’m have an album coming out of piano in string quartet, all instrumental. 

Suke Ridler: 

I saw that. That’s gorgeous. 

Adam Degraide: 

Thank you very much. All instrumental. I have a hard rock album coming out that’s being done under a pseudonym. Nobody’s really going to know it’s me doing it, but it’s a really cool project. I can’t really get into too many details about it. And I wrote a book and I’ve just been, I did a podcast, all these things all these years I’ve wanted to do. And you want to know one of the other things that I’ve always wanted to do. I fancy myself a comedian a little bit as well too. 

Adam Degraide: 

And I’ve always wanted to hit that stage and tell a few jokes because my name is Adam Degraide. And I always tell people they haven’t lived until they’ve been degraded. So we’ll see how that plays out as time goes on. But good for you. Suke Ridler, thank you so much for being on the David vs Goliath podcast. Well, coming right after that was a gentleman by the name of Rick West, it was episode 32 and he was a fantastic interview as well. He basically worked in retail for so many years and he asks the question, do you like the spy on people? Here’s Rick West from Field Agent, enjoy. 

Adam Degraide: 

I actually want to start right in because our listeners love to know, should I spend some time on this interview or not tell them a little bit about Field Agent and exactly what you’re doing to help retail? 

Rick West: 

Yeah, a couple of things. One, if you’re the everyday person that just loves to play around with apps, I’m probably one of the few guests you’ve ever had Adam that can pay people cold, hard cash by downloading my app, no badges. You’re never going to be the mayor of Field Agent, real cash coming your way, kind of a mystery shopping engagement app to take photos and stores, et cetera. 

Rick West: 

But where we flip the industry upside down, where we change things is that our marketplace has tools for people to win at retail. So whether you’re trying to figure out pricing at retail, you need a sampling program to happen. You want some ratings and reviews. Our 2 million strong agents that are out there shopping and engaging every single day can do simple task to complex surveys. And we can engage in a way that gives you coverage, cost and speed, unlike anything you’ve ever seen. And whether you’re a one SKU person that’s just really humping it as hard as they can at retail or you’re doing something an e-commerce we could come alongside, or you’re a large multinational with 300 skews. We can help you as well. 

Adam Degraide: 

It’s funny. You mention so mystery shopping’s been something that I’ve done for clients over the years. I’ve had a consulting piece of my business for many years in my previous three businesses where we would literally off mystery shop their phone process, mystery shop, how well they handle leads, looked at their analytics comparatively speaking to other relatively similar size businesses. And I had a buddy of mine years ago in back in Rhode Island. There’s a sub shop there all over new England called D’Angelo’s Subs. And my buddy’s job, he got paid to eat subs and he was a mystery shopper. 

Adam Degraide: 

So his whole thing was he’d have to go to all the different locations. And as he walked in, you’d have to look around now he let them not give it away that he’s mystery shopper. Right. Was he treated friendly? Was the store clean? He had to rate the store based on the scale. So I’m assuming that’s kind of some of the things that you’re doing and you’re empowering multiple people to be agents on behalf of a brand. Am I correct in assuming that is that kind of what you’ve done? 

Rick West: 

Adam, the differentiation for us, let’s take your buddy again. He should continue to go down that path. If we want to employ him, it makes sense. But now imagine a world instead of sending in Adam or your friend where they see him coming and they call their buddies, “Hey, Adam’s in the market.” 

Adam Degraide: 

Yeah, because that’s exactly what happened. So would happen was, he would lose routes because they’d get onto him. And then he’d have to shift routes and they’d have to bring in new people. It was a very interesting, I mean, I’m dating myself now, Rick, but- 

Rick West: 

No. It’s still the way it happens today. So now imagine today working with Field Agent instead of sending in Adam or your friend, what if I send in a mother of two with her kids and I’m getting her mystery shopping experience, random person. Here’s the second thing. And I’d love to tell this. This is a great changing table story. Your buddy knows on a scale of one to 10 as to whether or not the bathroom is clean if the changing table is clean and if it would meet standards and he’s going to say, “Oh yeah, it was eight, eight and a half.” He’s going to rate it. 

Rick West: 

Meanwhile, mother of two comes in and she says, “No way, I’m putting my kid on that changing table. I’m going to give it a three.” So if you are the retailer, which review is more apt to be true. I would argue that the real near real time from mother of two gives you that rating of a three or a four is more important than I’m at the scale. And so that’s where people are coming along and says, “Oh, I get it.” These are everyday people. And it’s my core consumer. It’s not a professional. And that’s where we’re changing the game with ratings and reviews, insights, mystery shopping, changing the game. 

Adam Degraide: 

So it says here that you worked with Procter & Gamble in various assignments in the United States for 16 years. I can’t imagine myself doing anything for 16 years. I’m on my fourth software company, Rick. I’ve sold three. None of them have lasted longer than eight years for me because I start to glaze over, they get to a certain scale and I start not knowing everybody that’s working in my business. And the next thing you know, I’m like, “I need to move on. I have to do something different.” 

Rick West: 

Sure. 

Adam Degraide: 

So I’m truly a serial entrepreneur. But you must have learned a ton working at Procter & Gamble. Give us a little bit of insight as to, what did you do there? And that led you quickly, don’t belabor the point, but quickly from Procter & Gamble all the way to where you are today. 

Rick West: 

Sure. For those people that are listening now that work in the corporate America, there’s a great article that was written some time ago by Dave or John Piper talking about, don’t waste your cancer, you got it. You have cancer. My wife’s a breast cancer survivor. And she read the article, says, “Rick, this is me. I know I have it. This is going to happen for a period of time. Don’t waste your time.” And so I’d encourage folks that in corporate America today do not waste your time. Adam, you and I both know the worst thing you can do is run away from something you need to run to something. 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s right. 

Rick West: 

And while you’re waiting to run to something, how are you using your time? In my case, starting out in Procter, I was in product supply, which was not cool then, but now everyone wants to be in product supply because everyone’s trying to fix it. Right? So it started out there, but it was primarily team driven. And so every two to three years, to your point, I had a new assignment. So you spend two or three years, you master that, you move along, get a promotion, move along. 

Rick West: 

And then you reach a point in corporate America. Again, people that are listening to this, the whole David Goliath thing. You reach a point that you say, “I’m going to stay and make a career or I’m going to leave before it’s too late.” 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s right. 

Rick West: 

Because you reach a point where just you’re in there so deep that you may as well stay and get your 30 in. And I knew that wasn’t me, Adam. I was the wrong answer. And so the company was looking for a couple of thousand volunteers to take separation packages. They wanted to get expatriates, which I was wanted Asia out, because we’re expensive. We raised our hands along with two other guys from P&G and the four of us used our separation packages as angel money. 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s awesome. 

Rick West: 

And so we used that and started our first business in the first 10 years of my career, outside of Procter, at one point in time, I’m managing five LLCs, shopper marketing company, shopper research company. I got a distributorship. We had tailgating innovation. I’m managing brands, all kinds of stuff until we got to the conversation where we started Field Agent. 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s great. Man, it’s interesting. You said something, business owners need to listen and people right now in the corporate world need to listen. You don’t run from problems. I have always said, there’s two things, Rick, I’m going to give you a little tidbit, little wisdom from Adam Degraide, although, you probably think I’m an idiot. But I think these are the two most profound things you never run from. And people run from them all the time. Number one is problems. And number two, praise. People run from praise as much as they run from problems. 

Adam Degraide: 

And if you do that… If someone says, “Hey, that’s awesome.” You’re like, “Ah, no, no.” Take that in man. If you’re running a business and a client has a great result. Yeah. Let that feed you because it’s only a matter of time until someone doesn’t, and you can feed off that. Right? And that helps you, gives you energy to run towards the problem. You can’t run away from these things. You got to run at them. That is absolutely the key. And we’re back, and Rick, thank you so much for joining us on DVG. Right now we have to take a special break for our corporate sponsor, Anthem Software. Will be right back. 

Speaker 7: 

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 @anthemsoftware.com. 

Adam Degraide: 

And you’re back with Adam Degraide on the all stars, quarter two of 2022. And this is part one. It’s going so fantastic. As I promised, I want to share a little bit more of the music that has been running through my veins over the last several years. And now I’m going to take it down a notch, calm you down a smidge and show you a clip, a little bit of a song called expectation off the album, The Com, which you can find right now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you stream and play music. Here it is. And that was a song called expectation on my album, The Com. And I hope it relaxed you to get you ready for the next interview, which was episode 33 with my business partner, our co-founder of Anthem software who went from being a chatty to the COO of powerful high paced, high growth software companies. Here is Joe Amaral. 

Joe Amaral: 

Stubbornness as a virtue. So I’ve got a very inquisitive mind. I like a lot of different things. My interest is peaked, tends to be towards more the analytical and history side of the world. But either way I’m very inquisitive and I like to learn and not afraid to put my hands in something and figure it out. So I would say I started my journey from employment perspective in the Navy. I mean, everyone’s done odd jobs when they were a kid. I caddied. You would appreciate this. And you know that I was a caddy for a number of years. 

Adam Degraide: 

I had no idea that you were a caddy for a few years. You probably have told me at some point over a couple of years, but- 

Joe Amaral: 

I don’t mention much. That was probably, I mean, cutting grass in the neighborhood was probably my first employment gig at maybe nine or 10 years old, cutting neighbors lawns. And then maybe by 11, 12, 13 in those years, I was going to the local private golf course with my cousin. Generally we’d walk up there and usually either do one or two, do an early or early morning and afternoon and did caddy for a while then obviously after. So I mean, I’ve working all my life. I can’t come from an immigrant family and so work ethic is a very important thing in our family. And so always encouraged us to go out and work, figure it out, make money. And so I did anyway, but later on I joined the Navy. And so that was a really, I didn’t know what I exactly wanted to do in high school. 

Joe Amaral: 

I went to vocational school, did a lot of auto body actually had a job for a while at an auto body shop in [inaudible 00:28:46] Massachusetts then decided I was just going to join. And actually I went and visited oddly enough, I something I sometimes forget. But my parents almost went to an autobody post vocational tech school in Connecticut, went and visited and came really close to doing it. It was at the same time I was considered going in the military, in the Navy and then decided to go in the Navy. So just really didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. Probably like many young men and women sure at that time. People tell you a million things, but didn’t quite know, but I knew that sounded good. And I have a long history of many family members who were in the military. 

Joe Amaral: 

So I decided that would be a good thing for me. And travel seemed like fun, which is what really intrigued me about the Navy is being able to go out and see a lot of places in the world. So I really, really got to do that. And I would say I really learned a lot of not only technical stuff in the Navy that helped me a lot in the coming years. After that ended up working for a fire protection company, which I’ll briefly get into. But I think one of the most important things I learned when I was in Navy, aside from the discipline and you got to do all that is the sense of reward for hard work. So one thing that the military does really well is you have advancements, you have tests you got to take, you have a lot of trainings you got to do and you get certificates and you qualify for this, you qualify for that. 

Joe Amaral: 

So that worked out really well because as you work hard, you will be rewarded. There are many, many ways you can get rewarded. And even as a young man, there were many ways for me to put my energy in, put my mind into and then be able to be rewarded for it. Someone to tell us, “Congratulations, you qualified for this.” Or as I did, when I was in the Navy, you got a couple of letters of accommodation. And I got a Navy and Marine Corps achievement medal for a project that I worked on there. So that really kind of boosted my confidence in my ability very early on that if I do work hard and I do something, not just monetary reward, but people recognize the work that you do. 

Joe Amaral: 

So that’s thing that was really important. And in the Navy, I was what would be considered the rate of [inaudible 00:31:03] which is a ship’s fire flooding and chemical biological nuclear warfare defense team. And the firefighting part really helped me because after that I got out of the Navy and I ended up working for a small fire protection company. And that’s what I did, commercial fire protection in some capacity first in the shop and eventually as a manager salesperson. 

Joe Amaral: 

And then when I moved to Florida, as both the branch manager opened up a new branch and I was also the primary salesperson for that branch. So I did that, I think it was like 12 years. 11 or 12 years, I worked in the fire protection industry. So that was like my first career. Then my second career, so obviously I knew you and you knew me and you knew what I was doing. And I think you probably saw my worth and my ability to grasp and learn things and advance in the career that I was currently in. And you were like, “Well, you’re probably a good person to manage this new division that we have set up.” And I’m like, “Well, I know nothing about digital marketing.” 

Adam Degraide: 

Yeah. You absolutely nothing knew zero [inaudible 00:32:05] and what I remember the most about you in our years of getting to know each other was you loved our country. So thank you for serving in the Navy, appreciate that. You loved rugged individualism. You were a big believer. You and I would talk about that often, right? Politically, we were aligned more than we were not aligned. 

Joe Amaral: 

Correct. 

Adam Degraide: 

And we valued people with great work ethic and we lamented to each other often, how you would struggle with people in your business at the time that you had a bad work ethic. I was telling you about the teams that I’d built and some of the people that I thought would have some of the best work ethic. They had some of the worst work ethic. And when the time came for Tim and I to decide, “Who do we want to run this division?” Work ethic was the number one thing that came to mind. 

Joe Amaral: 

I remember sitting, you and I [inaudible 00:33:03] basically the same thing we’re doing we did with Anthem, but sitting in your living room at Park Royal and building our Crystal Clear website. You remember that? 

Adam Degraide: 

Wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t that bad. Yeah. You and I- 

Joe Amaral: 

Wasn’t that good. Wasn’t that bad. 

Adam Degraide: 

Yeah. You and I built the very first website because we decided we were going to go for it and we would decide we were going to go tackle another industry. We didn’t have any clients. We didn’t know if it was going to work. But we had a business plan. We had an idea. And most importantly, we had work ethic and we got to work. Yeah. I do remember that, Joe, it was fun. 

Joe Amaral: 

And first couple months we just got together ad hoc. That was probably like September, October, November, a number of times we got together and put together our budget, put together projections for the next number of years, what we were going to offer. We put together all of that. And in December started Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, which was as I’m sure if anyone’s heard any previous episodes was geared towards the aesthetics medicine business, digital marketing software. And for the next seven years, I hunkered down and put my head to the grindstone and worked hard and we built up a great business together that served, I don’t know. I mean, over the years we signed up for- 

Adam Degraide: 

Yeah. It was well over 800 providers at the end. It was- 

Joe Amaral: 

At the end. We’re yeah. 800 providers. But I mean, over the years you probably- 

Adam Degraide: 

You used to have a sign. And so Joe was the COO of Crystal Clear as well, by the way. So you think about his whole career from being a caddy, you’re putting out fires on the golf course. You go to the Navy, you put out fires on ships and around the world, you go to Squid, you’re starting fires. You’re putting fires out. You go to Crystal Clear, same exact thing. You have a t-shirt. Do you remember what your t-shirt says? The one that I’m talking about? 

Joe Amaral: 

Yeah. It actually said it was general manager. So being a general manager is kind of like riding a bike, except the bike’s on fire, you’re on fire and something like you’re in hell. 

Adam Degraide: 

The bike’s on fire, you’re on fire and you’re actually in hell. Joe Amaral thank you so much for making some time to be on the podcast. We really, really enjoyed it. Well after Joe came an amazing woman on episode 34, named Christie Morrow. Christie Morrow is the managing director and owner now of one of the owners of the Mariposa Med Spa in Oklahoma City. I’ve known Christie for many years because of my last business that I ran called Crystal Clear. The company still exists today as a company called Patient Now. And Christie was one of our early clients at Crystal Clear. And I watched her go from being a small med spa to being one of the fastest growing companies in Oklahoma City. She became the Inc. 500 fastest growing two years in a row or 5,000. I can’t remember it was either 500 or 5,000, one of those. But nevertheless, an amazing story. Here’s Christie Morrow, enjoy. 

Adam Degraide: 

So back to Mariposa, building the team over the years, training the staff, you dialed in the marketing, I know that you started getting people and then you had to train a team. You actually do a lot of training and a lot of speaking about how to build a med spa. What advice would you give to business owners in general about A, building the team and then B training your team. What do you do to help them? Motivate them, inspire them, mentor them. So you don’t have to micromanage them. I think people would love to know that. 

Christie Morrow: 

Yeah. Isn’t that the question, right? I always would love to know that from other people as well. And I guess for me personally, I think it’s all about your people because that is your business. Your team is that extension of you. And if they don’t know who you are and what the identity of your business is, they can’t represent it. It’s just a bunch of individuals. So my goal is to bring people on that fit our culture and who understand an abundance mindset. I believe there’s a lot of people in our industry that have a very, what I call a scarcity mindset, that are so worried that what you’re going to run out of people with skin, that it’s all about the competition, competition that there really can be kind of cutthroat and it doesn’t serve the industry very well and it doesn’t serve the patient very well. 

Adam Degraide: 

It actually devalues what you’re doing. 

Christie Morrow: 

Yes. 

Adam Degraide: 

And that’s not healthy for them or for you or for the industry at large. 

Christie Morrow: 

Yes, it’s true. And so I look for like-minded people. I look for people with an abundance mindset, positive attitude, a good strong work ethic, who it’s just intrinsic in them to work hard and to want to be the best at what they do because the customer service level in our industry has to be phenomenal. There has to be something that sets you apart from your competition. So I want that to be our customer service. And when people hear the name Mariposa, I want them to think, “Oh, they do it right.” 

Adam Degraide: 

Now. Some of the things you do at Mariposa really rippled throughout the industry, because you were one of the earlier med spas that started doing larger events. Now every med spa in the world for them not to have specials, for them not to have events. And we help lead that way by the way too. It’s like, if you’re not running monthly promotions or having some big quarterly event or semi-annual event, you’re missing the opportunity to really love and serve your patient. Right? And for the watchers and listeners, you may not own a med spa, but your company, you got to learn how to celebrate with your customers and events are a great way to do it. And you were one of the forefronts, tell the watchers and listeners about your first event and what’s happened since then. 

Christie Morrow: 

Okay. Like I said, I started in January 2009 and we had a phenomenal first year. It absolutely exceeded all of the goals that I had set. And we were just incredibly grateful, really, really grateful for how successful it had been. And so that holiday season, we set out to do a client appreciation event. Some people would go, “Oh, that’s your Christmas party.” But it really isn’t a Christmas party. It is always our annual client appreciation event. Because as I said, without them, you’re out of business. I mean, Dr. Aro is completely right. You have zero without them. And so you have to establish that culture of gratitude. We want them to be grateful that we serve them well and happy and appreciative of that. But we have to give back and say, “We know it’s about you, not about us.” 

Christie Morrow: 

So we set a goal because I always do of what we wanted to accomplish out of that event. How many people we wanted to come? What amount in sales? Because we offer great incentives and things like that for them to take advantage of and save for their services next year. Right. And every single metric I had set, we exceeded. We were like, “Please let us [inaudible 00:40:59] $35,000 in sale.” We were like, “Please.” Okay. We had over 80. We were like, “Oh my gosh.” For our first year and we had 125 people show up. We were hoping for 40 or 50. Now of course our parties do well over 500 people in a four hour time span and have a million dollars in sales and whatever. 

Christie Morrow: 

I mean, so I look back then and go, “We were so thrilled with 80,000.” And we would still be because what it did, the most fun thing about it Adam is that our clients kind of got to know each other. 

Adam Degraide: 

Totally. 

Christie Morrow: 

And we have people that met at our first or second party who come, what, 10 years? I guess we’re almost in our 14th year now down the road and go, “Hey, is so and so here?” And the only time they see each other is at our event once a year, 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s awesome. 

Christie Morrow: 

And they catch up and they share their stuff and it’s just, they all work together. They eavesdrop on each other’s conversation to go, “Oh, you did that service?” And it’s a great third party testimonial among peers of people that want the same thing. They want to look good, feel good and put out their very best for their families and for work and everything. And it has just built into this really beautiful event that honestly, everybody knows about. Everybody in town knows about it. We do it same time every year. 

Adam Degraide: 

[inaudible 00:42:29] forward to it. And if you think about what Christie just said guys. This is amazing. The first event she had goals, they stretched her faith a little bit in her business. She not only met them. She exceeded them. If she didn’t have a goal, she’d have no idea how to benchmark, whether it was successful or not. And you might have missed this. It went from 125 to well over 500 now. And they do close to a million dollars in sales. That benefits Mariposa, it benefits their customers, because their customers get discounts and specials. They know they’re going to be there. It creates customer loyalty. It creates stickiness to the brand. These are things that you can do for your business as well. And Christie is fantastic at it. Christie, thank you so much for being on the David vs Goliath podcast. We appreciate you sharing your wisdom and life stories with us. It means the world. Well it’s time for another break right now from another very important corporate sponsor. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back. 

Speaker 7: 

At ISU ARMAC Agency, we want to be your one responsible source for all of your insurance needs, from a rocket engineer in California to several hospitals in Illinois. Our personal lines team specializes in hard to place risks and high net worth clientele. With two locations and 20 plus agents, we can write in all 50 states to better serve our clients with needs in multiple states. Family owned and operated since 1962 and four generations carrying on the tradition of insurance. Celebrating our 60th year in the industry. We are truly proud of where we have come from and where we are going. With over 300 carriers nationwide, our agency can offer individuals and businesses more choices and better prices. ISU ARMAC brings a wide variety of solutions to the table. For more information, visit us online at www.isu-armac.com. 

Adam Degraide: 

And we’re back with David vs Goliath. The all stars quarter two, 2022 part one. And we’re getting ready to interview at this point in time on episode 35, Clay Cook. What I love about Clay Cook is not only is he an amazing photographer, he’s a fellow rock and roll fan and used to be in a band years ago and he played rhythm guitar traveled the world. It’s an amazing story. And before we get into it, I’m going to show you another little sneak peek of the Adam Project, Apex Rising 2. This is a song called Light Up the Sky, which is about a character named Gibraltar from the game, Apex Legends. These songs were inspired by one of my favorite video games I’ve ever played. And so therefore all these songs were written about the characters in the game. Here is Light Up the Sky. Once again, performed with Adam Degraide, Jeff Hall, Damien Miranda on vocals, Gabe Miranda on background vocals, Damien Miranda on lead guitar. I play bass guitar. Here’s the first verse and the first chorus and the intro to Light Up the Sky. Enjoy 

Adam Degraide: 

I hope you like that as much as I did, I’m having so much fun making this project. I can’t wait to finally release it on the world. But with no further ado, let’s get right into with the interview with Clay Cook. Here’s some of the best segments of that interview. Check it out. 

Adam Degraide: 

Man. You’re like an international man of renowned in mystery as I was, first of all, you’re like clothed in black over there and I love it man. And what I love about DVG, I don’t know how much you’ve watched the show. 

Clay Cook: 

Little bit. Yeah. 

Adam Degraide: 

I’m an artist myself, a musician myself. I have a soft spot for creatives in general. So people that have creativity just oozing out of them. I love the visual arts. I love the musical arts. I love just about any art you can imagine. And that’s why I’m so excited to have you on here and for the watches and listeners, just listen to this really quick. I don’t want to steal his thunder, but you know, he talked about how he’s an advertising and portrait photographer. He’s a coach, author, director, social influencer. I guess I would be that too. 

Adam Degraide: 

Now that I’ve started this podcast, I’d be considered that. He’s an entrepreneur. He’s a commercial photographer who’s been across the globe from the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the Nineveh Plains in Iraq to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. It is awesome. And claycookphoto.com. And I know we don’t start out of the gate promoting a website, but I was spending some time on it this morning before the podcast. Your work is fantastic. And I’m assuming I have permission throughout this podcast to show some different images when we’re talking about different things from the website. Is that okay? 

Clay Cook: 

Of course. Yeah, absolutely. 

Adam Degraide: 

All right. Awesome. So, we have a lot of business owners here that have tons of employees, but I also have a passion for solopreneurs people that have their own business. They’re using their primary talents to build and sustain a lifestyle. And that’s exactly where you fall in. So without belaboring the point and listening to me gab for the rest of the thing, let’s get to you, which is the most important, the interviewee. So Clay, tell us a little bit about your journey and how you discovered you had creativity in you know, to some of your fun projects and we’re just going to let the conversation lead us as it goes. 

Clay Cook: 

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, you kind of have to go back to my teenage years. I’ve always been fascinated with movies and music and I used to make little short films with my old eight millimeter video camera growing up and then always wanted to be a film director and inspired to have some position in the movie industry and then kind of music took over my life and became just utterly obsessed with Metallica and all these oh awesome bands. I was getting out that teenage angst at the time- 

Adam Degraide: 

By the way, I still rock Metallica, man. I mean- 

Clay Cook: 

I did too. 

Adam Degraide: 

My dad always used to tell me I was 17, 18. He’d be like, “When you get older, when you turn 50, you’re not going to listen to that music anymore.” Well, not only am I not listening to it, I’m writing it. So I still write hard rock and I still listen to it on a daily basis. If I don’t get my dose of metal and my dose of adrenaline rush, it just doesn’t work for me. So that’s interesting. That’s fascinating. 

Clay Cook: 

Yeah. I still listen to it. I took a break for a long time. I was really kind of just phased out from the music industry, but yeah, I’ve recently just gotten kind of back into some of the harder stuff recently. But anyway, so I got into the music industry pretty hardcore and I was in a hard rock band called In The Clear for about 10 years and we did pretty good. We toured a lot, all over the United States and played some pretty big shows and toured with some relatively large bands at the time and did pretty good, but I was always fascinated with the graphic design and then we would do promo shoots and things like that where we’d hire photographers. And it was always a really interesting thing for me. 

Clay Cook: 

And I would have these long conversations with these photographers along the way, like, “What do you do? How do you do this? What is this lighting?” All that. So I was always interested in the process because of going back to my younger years, wanting to be a film director. And so music, I was in it for a long time. And then when the band broke up, I had kind of formed a plan B, which was my graphic design business. And I was mostly working for record labels and other bands in the industry. And I did some ad work here and there, but for the most part, I was working still in the music industry. And I was getting these crazy requests for the implementation of stock photography. Right. So these bands wanted this [inaudible 00:52:39] with a bald eagle on their shoulder. 

Clay Cook: 

And I’m like, “I don’t even know how to source this in stock photography. Where do I get this?” So I received a camera for a Christmas gift actually because I wanted one so bad because I just wanted to shoot things to just implement in my graphic design business. And it kind of just changed everything for me. I started out shooting just like that, those random requests for graphic design. And then I started shooting more and more, just different things like people. And I was photographing my friends at parties and they’re newly born babies and families. And then I get into weddings and all that stuff and then it just kind of snowballed into what it is today. 

Adam Degraide: 

What was it in you that gave you the determination to turn this into a business? And then the second part of that question is what advice do you give to someone who might be in a similar position? Maybe they’re not an artist or a photographer, but they’re working for somebody else and it’s time for them to go on their own. So, number one, what gives you the strength? Number two, what advice do you give to them? 

Clay Cook: 

Yeah, I grew up being in a household where I had a dad that was incredibly talented businessman and took a business from the ground up. And so in many ways I always just wanted to be like my dad, except I didn’t want to be in the flooring industry. I was always creative. And so I think the ultimate driver for me is always, I just wanted to be my own boss. I didn’t want to wake up to an alarm. I didn’t want to go in the office and grind it out day after day and have that type of lifestyle. And so I wanted to be sort of my own vehicle for whatever I wanted to do. And that’s always been the ultimate goal for me. It’s changed obviously now I’ve been a business for 11 years. And so- 

Adam Degraide: 

It’s awesome. 

Clay Cook: 

Now the driver for me is just using my passion and my creativity to tell stories and to use my talent for the greater good. And I think that’s very important, obviously I’m in it to make money and make a profit, but I also have a humanitarian side that’s vastly more important to me. 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s great. 

Clay Cook: 

And so that’s what the driver is for me now. If there’s somebody in the position that’s yeah, photo assistant or their young photographer, I’d say the biggest piece of advice I could give is to take risks. I always believe that regret is embedded in the risk you didn’t take. And so I’ve always been one to just do it. And the most effective- 

Adam Degraide: 

Regret is embedded and the risk you didn’t take. I always tell people, hesitancy is the death of the entrepreneur. The go action is the life, but yours is way more eloquent and I’m stealing it. 

Clay Cook: 

Do it. 

Adam Degraide: 

Clay, thank you so much for being a part of the David vs Goliath podcast. It was awesome. Well, last but not least was a gentleman by the name of Aaron Salter from Furug, F-U-R-U-G.com. Nobody likes cow hides more than him. Maybe me after this interview. It was awesome. Here’s Aaron, enjoy. So why don’t you tell the watchers and the listeners a little bit about yourself and how you ended up being on this podcast today? 

Aaron Salter: 

All right. Yeah, no problem. And if you want to put up a light, if I start going too long, because I can sit here and talk about cow hides and stuff. To me, I’m excited about it, but- 

Adam Degraide: 

There’s nothing we enjoy talking more about on DVG than cow hides. That’s why we have you here today. 

Aaron Salter: 

So anyway, yeah, I grew up in the Panhandle, Florida. I’m from Destin originally, bounced around Florida a little bit, moved to Nashville, started working for Glasso. They make vitamin water, smartwater. Loved it, great company culture. It was a lot of fun. I really busted my hump as I was working there. And then Coca Cola ended up buying them out. So things started to change a bit. Culture changed. There was a lot of repetitive positions within the company. So they started doing rounds of layoffs. And so they got to me and they were like, “Do you want this job at Coke or do you want this severance package?” And the guys that Coke worked really hard but I also saw some that didn’t. So what I saw was I was out there busting my butt, but I was making the same amount of money as the guy who was just skating by and not really putting effort into it. 

Aaron Salter: 

So I thought, “I want to work for myself. I’ll take the severance package, but what am I going to do?” So I had a cow hide on the floor, loved it. I’ve had it for about 20 years now. And I thought, “Oh, you know what? That’s cool. I love that. It’s unique. It’s one of a kind. It’s a high quality product.” So I said, you know what? I don’t know a thing about hides. So I’m just going to go for it. Lots of internet research. I found the absolute best cow hide in the world. It’s actually from Southern Brazil. So on a leap of faith, I reached out to some tanneries down there. You pinch them tight when you transfer a lot of money to another country and you kind of got to cross your fingers about what’s going to come in. 

Aaron Salter: 

So I was living in Nashville, hides started coming in and again, I didn’t know anything about interior design, nothing. So what I would do, I’d put these hides under my arm and I’d go into like the high end retail stores and interior designers. And I go, “Hey, listen, my name’s Aaron, I’m local. If you’ve got five minutes, I’d love to show you what I have.” So I would just throw down hides and they would go, “Oh my God, your hides are beautiful. They’re large, they’re gorgeous. They’re so soft. We’ll start buying from you.” So I started in Nashville and I got probably a five or six great clients who most I still have today. And then I would go to different cities, Lexington, Atlanta, Birmingham, and I’d kind of do the same thing just under my arm. Just, “Hey, here I am. This is what I ha

ve love to show you what I can do for you.” 

Adam Degraide: 

Bringing in the hides and importing them into the states and distributing them out there. Is there other products that you haven’t been able to bring in that you want to bring in yet? Or are you pretty much able to get everything you need now? 

Aaron Salter: 

I’m able to get everything I need. Yeah. Again, if I can’t bring it in, I don’t want to be selling it. 

Adam Degraide: 

Do you sell furniture as well too, or is it just rugs, pillows or are there actual furniture pieces? 

Aaron Salter: 

I don’t do furniture. My guy in South Africa is really wanting me to get- 

Adam Degraide: 

You should, man. I’ll tell you why. Let me show you something really cool. Check this out. So I’m actually going to get up right now and I’m [inaudible 01:00:07] the watchers and the listeners this chair. So as I get up, if this is pretty cool, watch this. So as you can see here, folks, what you’ve got is fully leather chair. This is made of leather jackets and I’ll put it back here so you can see. So the chair actually is made of leather jackets and on the back it’s got tails. So I’m going to put up for the viewers in the watchers a little bit about the chair. It’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world, but- 

Aaron Salter: 

I bet it looks like metal studs. 

Adam Degraide: 

Yeah. Metal studs. So my butt gets a nice massage as I’m actually doing it. But the funny thing is about this chair guys is that I walked into a place called Dizzy Rock Furniture, who by the way, you should probably reach out to down in Delray Beach in Florida. And I saw the store was just filled with the most eclectic, cool furniture, throw rugs, pillows. I’m telling you should call him, Dizzy Rock Furniture. And I saw this chair and I went up to him. I said, “Hey, how much for the leather chair?” [inaudible 01:01:08]. 

Adam Degraide: 

That’s his personal chair. Those are his leather jackets from his younger years when he used to go on tour, he had all these ticket stubs of all the bands he went and saw from Judas Priest to Motley Crew to Rat, to all these different bands. And they’re like, “It’s not for sale.” I’m like, “Well, everything’s for sale. So could you call him and tell them that there’s a crazy guy that would like to buy the chair?” So they probably thought I was going to say no. They came back with the number. I’m like, “I’ll take it.” And to me, when you- 

Aaron Salter: 

And that guy regrets it. 

Adam Degraide: 

I don’t know man. I told him it’s going to be on a podcast. I’ll probably send him this episode so he can see that I’m piping out his chair. But the funny thing man is like, if everyone has the same stuff, nothing’s unique. And so one of the things that I try to look for is maybe not necessarily everything that’s in our house is unique, but those certain key pieces that stand out. My wife and I as we modernized our home. One of the things that happened, Aaron is we modernized our home. We realized that there was certain areas of the house that we needed to have really cool accent pieces. 

Adam Degraide: 

And so we would go, and we went to the store that had these imports from India, and I’m showing a few pictures of this right now. Just some really cool, unique pieces that accent throughout the house. And it makes all the difference in the world. And I’m sure that’s the way people feel about your product as well, too. And that rounds out the episode today of the all stars, quarter two, 2022 part one with your host, Adam Degraide. Remember right here on David vs Goliath podcast, you get education, inspiration, and hopefully most important, activation for your business. We’ll see you next week with part two, have a great day.