Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hello, Amigo's I'm Alexander Halou and today we are in
for a treat as we welcome Jimmy Hawk, the executive
director for Blue Banded Digital. Jimmy's path from high school
speech and debate coach to digital marketing maven is a
unique as it is fascinating. Over the past six years,
Jimmy has been the driving force behind Blue Banded Digital,
helping clients not just grow their business and general million
(00:43):
generate millions, but truly chase their dreams. With a passion
for strategy, clear communications, and genuine storytelling, Jimmy brings a
fresh perspective to the world of digital marketing. We're about
to embark on a journey through the evolving landscape of marketing, entrepreneurship,
and community building. Jimmy's Jimmy, It's a pleasure to have
you here today. Let's get started. So, Jimmy, I know
(01:04):
I did a really long introduction there, but is there
anything that you feel like I missed out on or
something you want to point out at least you want
to add into your introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
No, No, that was perfect. I think at the core
of who I am. I think the easiest explanation the
way that people introduce me is Jimmy's a nerd. Jimmy
is a nerd in all things debate, marketing, and various
other things. So I think that was a perfect introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thank you, and if anything too, you're here with a
room of fellow nerds as well. Jacob loves manga. I
love manga. I also am a fan of Dungeons and
Daddies as well in terms of all that type of
fun podcast stuff. So if anything, you're in a safe space, awesome.
Well I guess in that case, how is your background
(01:54):
and coaching influenced your approach and running your marketing agency?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
So the biggest thing about coaching speech debate is it's
all about communication and storytelling. There are different aspects of debate.
There are various components that we do. So there's like
Lincoln Douglas Debate where it's one on one and it's
very value driven. We're debating about topics or morality. And
then there are events like oratory where kids are coming
(02:20):
up in there giving a ten minute speech about something
they care about. If the topic that and it could
be about anything in the world. But what I coached
my kid was my kids were if you could change
one thing in the world, what would it be, and
that that would kind of drive what they would what
they would want to speak about. That's not very far
off from what marketing is. It's storytelling. It's storytelling and
(02:42):
its heart, whether you sell chocolates online or you have
a local restaurant, or even if you are a cybersecurity company,
at its essence, it's what story are you trying to
tell and what problem are you solving for? And so
that it felt like a very direct translation. The audience
is a little bit different, but you know, does a
(03:03):
lot of.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The same, yeah, ever changing, like depending on what you're selling.
The general market changes based on that type of service
or product. Even like back when I used to do sales,
I would always kind of pivot the questions on like
if there was something that you like, what would it be?
Or if there's something that you would really like and
you had the chance to change it, what would it be.
(03:24):
So typically, like the way that you phrase those conversations
and debate correlate to that just to find like that problem. Absolutely, yeah, yeah,
and that's actually really cool to hear, Like I've never
really participated in debate when I was in school, or anything.
I don't know, Jacob, were you involved in that too, No, so,
if anything, this was kind of an eye opening perspective
(03:44):
on that type of front as well. I guess in
this case too, Like you know, transitioning from being a
debate teacher at your local school to where you are now,
I mean you mentioned that you face some type of
imposter syndrome, right, or you would expect there to be
some type of like what am I doing? How do
(04:05):
I train myself to kind of get to where I
want to be? Can you tell me of any positive
experience or can you elaborate on how you transform that
experience into a positive turning point for Blue Bandit in
any sense?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah? Absolutely, I think like you said, although a lot
like I said earlier, a lot of the aspects are
very similar, the transition was still very hard. I went
from seeing high school kids every day to going to
network events and there have been people that have running
their business for twenty plus years, and I felt almost
(04:39):
like a culture shock when I walked into these environments,
and I was like, you know, what do I know
that I can walk into this room and tell you
what you need to do for your business to grow?
And I dealt with that for a very long time,
and to this day, I still feel a lot of that.
I still feel like it's weird for me of my
background to come and see to walk into this room
(05:01):
and tell you like, Okay, this is what this is
a step by steps of what we need to do.
But honestly, I think that's also what makes us special.
Everybody in my company has been self taught, and I
feel like because we're self taught, we kind of have
that curiosity and drive to look at things differently and
to really explore, Like we're always looking for continuous learning
(05:23):
tools like doing branding conferences and yeah, yeah, doing various
other things. So that's been a really big turning point
for us, I think once we realize that our background
isn't a hindrance, but it's an asset for a lot
of these companies. Yeah, it just it changed everything for us.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I can imagine, like like you mentioned about branding conferences
up just for a point of contents to the audience,
that's actually how Jimmy and I met a Blue bandit.
By the way, I love the mask. I love the
branding that you guys are doing. You guys were hosting
it and in the conference that the branding conference that
was happening recently, I did an introduction and Jimmy was
inviting anybody that was in Houston, like any aspiring creatives
(06:02):
to come by the studio to watch some of those
sessions that were happening live and meet the team. And really,
I love the culture at least that you're you're developing
right now. If anything, I do like that idea of
how you're inviting people to just come and connect. And
typically that's what I would say at two or A
or any trade association should really aspire to do, if anything,
(06:24):
inviting people, setting an open environment and learning and growing
and sharing that information too. It's one of those key
elements that really just should be done more frequently. Yes,
not being done enough, and hopefully you know that becomes
more of a consistent thing. But if anything, too, like
attending some of these events, did you ever have to
(06:46):
travel for any of those in particular?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Or I did so. We actually we have a couple
of clients around the US. So we have some clients
in Wyoming, and we have some clients in New York,
some in LA.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
They don't pay for your trips, do they?
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Some do Okay, I think my trips too. I made
frequent trips to Wyoming for quite a while, and yeah,
that was a different version of culture shock I faced
pretty quickly coming from Houston, where I think our population
is like four or five million people to Gelett, Wyoming
with the population I think was like thirty thousand. So yeah,
(07:25):
they definitely got an introspection when I get to go
on these trips. One of my favorite trips was my
first trip to lay Yeah, so it was I was
invited to a fire side chat between two creators that
I have been following for years and I love watching
their content. Crystal from the Future, who I've been watching
(07:46):
while I was teaching in the high school. I can't lie.
I used to put on movies sometimes for the kids
to watch, and I would be working on websites and
watching stuff in the future. It's been a while since
times I think statute limitation, but yeah, and Jamie Brindle
was the other creator. He created a huge series on
(08:07):
TikTok about freelancers and how to go about, you know,
running their business. So I joined Jamie's community and he
sent out to invite to everyone in this community that
he was doing a local fireside chat in LA with
him and Christo and I had time and we were
doing well. So I was like, Okay, I'm flying to
(08:29):
LA because I need to see this in person. And yeah,
that was one of my favorite trips because not only
did I get to learn a lot, but I met
a lot of great people. Yeah, it was just it
was amazing.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I imagine like me and Cristo in the flesh, if anything,
every time whenever I attend the conference. And I remember
there was another guy I attended this Animation Guild event
and we had a speaker who had the same name
as Chris. I was like, but I'm not Christo or anything.
So everybody's like, I hope nobody's disappointing. I'm not Christo
or anything. When it came upside, So I thought that
(09:07):
was funny, and yeah, I mean I love Chris's the
future content as well. I thought his stance on pricing,
like when you're trying to let's say you're freelancing and
you're trying to place a bit or you're trying to
at least be transparent on your pricing, and you're trying
to negotiate what's right you and your client and the
way that he processed it. It kind of reminds me a
(09:28):
little bit of spin like situation problem implication and need
need I believe that is that's what it's called. Sometimes
it goes around it, and sometimes he kind of does
some other things based on what he's learned. And if
anything like that type of interest that you mentioned, like,
do you feel while you were at school you were
(09:48):
kind of just gaining all that knowledge and before you
were starting your own adventure and blue bandit and stuff or.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, So I spent a lot of time learning, you know, online,
taking courses and trying to figure out exactly what I
wanted to do in the marketing space. I knew that
I wanted to be in marketing and be involved in
that process somehow. And actually what I did while I
was teaching was after school, the days that we didn't
(10:15):
have practice, and sometimes after practice, I went door to
door to the businesses in our neighborhood and I introduced myself.
I said, Hey, I'm learning about marketing right now. I
have a weird proposal for you. In exchange for me
just doing any free marketing work for you, would you
(10:35):
just give me creative control? Would you just kind of
let me do whatever I wanted, and I you know,
obviously I got a lot of the nose, but I
did manage to get a few yesses. Actually some of
them are still clients to this day. They're paid now obviously,
but yeah, that was I think what gave me the
(10:58):
push or the nuts just to really jump into it.
It was almost like a creative standbox where I would
watch something during the day and I would learn about,
you know, techniques or something to do, and then I
would come to my client I say like, hey, have
you heard about email marketing? And then we would just
you know, and we would try it. We would test
(11:18):
it for like two to three months and see how
that goes. And oh my god, Yeah it was. I
really appreciate those guys for, you know, letting us.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
That flexibility and the openness to do it. I feel
like having clients that are willing to know, like and
trust you. Yeah, it really kind of helps build up
on that, on those fundamentals to kind of build your expertise, right,
and even like just experimenting because sometimes, like you mentioned,
certain demographics are different, right, and depending on how a
(11:47):
successful campaign can translate towards one approach, which could be
email marketing could be completely different for another one, whether
you're selling I guess you're working with a bakery, yes,
or you're working with like a multimillion dollar brand. But
if anything, I'm really fascinated about your perspective in the
(12:08):
future of marketing as well. Like you mentioned, you know,
you're constantly looking to expand your knowledge and speaking of
the brand conference that we attended to, the biggest topic
was AI. Yes, I mean speaking of AI, I mean,
what do you feel like has been the most interesting
development in that space while also maintaining I would say
story to storytelling and community building. I mean, I hope
(12:32):
that question was clear. I think I kind of like
had a short circuit there, but.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
No, no, I follow I think, yeah, AI can like
a lot of things like social media and kind of
the tools that we play around with in marketing, can
do a lot of good, and it has the potential
to do a lot of good and the potential to
do a lot of bad. It's almost like an equalizer
in that sense, right, And circling back to like you know,
(12:57):
how it's different jews that we play are different depending
on what businesses that we're working with. I think AI
it needs to be addressed in the same way. At
the end of the day, it's a tool that you
use to leverage your expertise to get to the endpoint
where you want. And I think the problem that we're
(13:18):
going to see with the proliferation of all these AI
tools is people are going to say, oh cool, I'm
just gonna I'm just going to copy and paste and
directly put out.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
It's a They're going to treat it like a Carol.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yes. And some of the toughest conversations I have with
my clients are when they say, like, hey, I saw
something on social media and it worked for this guy,
or like hey, just work for my buddy down the street,
like let's go and do this, and uh AI is
very similar. It's like you need to leverage it to
(13:52):
where it makes sense for you, Like don't forget all
the years of history or all of your your branding
and don't trade that for whatever you know.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I can imagine it like fun
context as well with like the Branding conference, like they
showed how people could develop brand voices and making some
sort of database to develop that. But I think like
the main thing is how you use the tool. Like
similar to how somebody would hire you for your service,
They're not hiring you based on just like how can
(14:28):
I say, they're not just hiring the tool, They're hiring
the person that knows how to use the tool exactly.
So it kind of also makes it, like you said,
an equalizer in my perspective. I remember I had a
client that just would use chat GPT to write general
captions for social media, and sometimes the idea of like
how do you position that software or how do you
(14:49):
position some their product or their service to their to
their audience wasn't really tying in, and sometimes I would
have to like say, okay, based on like current materials,
let's reference it, let's put it into the system, let
it analyze it, know your general demographics, and from there
we can kind of focus on specific things like, oh,
you're trying to do this, tell it you want to
(15:09):
create a social media ad based on this particular demographic,
this function of your software, and then generate some captions, right,
And then it was able to do all of those things,
and you're able to stack it and I'm sure like
at the same time, like with what you're doing right now,
it also speeds up the development process right absolutely, like
website captions or website copy I think website copywriters are
(15:30):
not happy about AI.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, I think it's very careful because I maybe because
I'm in the industry, but I feel like it's very obviously.
It's very obvious when something's written by AI. You can I'm.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Sorry, yeah, you can still tell. I always make the
comment all the time that, like a lot of the
good thing about AI right now is that you can
tell it's AI. And when people notice it's AI, they
call it out real fast.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
We see it with trailers, we see it with video
and copywriting and everything else. But it's so detectable right now.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I was even going to say, I remember the conference
or at the conference, he had like a podcast segment
and there was a segment where he was with a
copywriter and he told he actually bloaded it out last
saying like, oh, yeah, you say I had to write
the whole format of the conference. And I was like,
I knew it because there was this one phrase that
always pops up whenever I'm like working on captions or
(16:23):
stuff for at too. Yeah, it's not just it's not
just this, it's this.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right, And then it had that, or when it goes
like whether if you're like blank, like and then it
starts listening now adjectives. There's very key tells, and I
think it's the job of the professional who knows how
to use a tool to navigate like through that. Ye.
My one of my favorite analogies that I tell people
(16:50):
is like when you pay a plumber to go to
your house to like to fix your pipes and they
you know, they come out in five minutes and they
you know, they were just knocking in a bunch of pipes.
You didn't pay the plumber for the time that it
took to solve that problem. You paid the plumber because
he knew where to look. And so it's it's our
job as professionals, as marketers or advertisers to know what
(17:12):
questions to ask these AI tools or what inputs to
to put in to get your desired result and make
sure that at the end of the day that output
is still solid. And yeah, you know, like when we
mess around with AI tools on our side, we're probably
iterating with it for like an hour sometimes hour was
(17:33):
trying to get it the fine tune into where we
wanted to be versus like I've seen my clients, Like
I had one client try to build an app. Yeah,
I remember trying to build an app through AI, and yeah,
we took a look at the code and my developer
he was gave me a side eye. And then after
(17:55):
that call, he was like, dude, we got to start over,
like this is none of this is usable?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You know?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Same?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I mean I can say I can attest to that too,
like with some of the back end stuff with that too. Lately,
I've been using perplexity to help me out developing like
database entries to kind of replace the need for like
a CRM, like right now, like I'm I'm familiar with
using like Google sheet to Excel because really the general
idea with like the the idea of functions, which is
just like the equivalent of saying like, oh, you know JavaScript,
(18:24):
but you can work with functions and Excel. But yeah,
the ideas were similar and the information like I knew
were to look like similar to like the Plumber story.
I knew what I needed, I knew how to relatively
do it or to troubleshoot it. Let's get the AI
to just get those initial steps in place to help
me like list out, Oh, colin titles and then build
out a form that automatically sinks and then populates it
(18:46):
in every And you know that's just me nerding out now.
But anything back to the topics at hand. I mean,
as somebody that is deeply committed to helping small businesses,
what is the most rewarding aspect to the work you
do with Blue Bandits so far?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I think there's two pivotal moments that we have
when we talk to small businesses. I think first is
when we have our initial discovery and we get to
hear about all the things that they want to do
and all the things that their current challenges are and
watching that sparkle in their eye almost like they're getting
(19:25):
like validation. It's almost when you meet somebody who has
the same hobby as you and you're like, oh my god,
I can find I have somebody to talk to you
about all this crazy stuff that's going on in my head.
And watching these entrepreneurs talk about their passion is one
of the most rewarding things. It's like, you know, it's
watching somebody talk about something that they love. Yeah, And
(19:47):
you know, for being an entrepreneur and being a business
owner can sometimes be a very isolated path.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of struggles that you have that
you know other people that unless you're an entrepreneur, like
you just might not have that right, Yeah, that same
residence you might not understand. And so we get to
have that moment of like, oh yeah, like no, we
totally get it, like either I went through that problem
last week or we're still struggling with that. So almost
at that moment of validation when we talked to a
(20:18):
lot of our clients that that's one of the really
rewarding moments. And then the second is obviously after months
of work, when a project is complete or when we
hit a goal for a client, it's it's watching them
have that realization of like, oh we made it, Like cool,
we hit our goal. What's next? What can we do now? Yeah,
(20:39):
And it's like now you're seeing them unlock like all
these opportunities. It's almost like opening the matrix. They're like,
oh my god, can we do this? Can we do that?
And it's like yeah, like let's sick of one at
a time, but you know we can we let's let's
eventually get there.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And you know that actually kind of brings up a
fun topic in the terms of or in the case
of like brand consistency or building it. After providing a
service to a brand, how do you continue to maintain
that service right just out of the sake for the
extension of the commerce or the topic itself. What do
you feel like are some key steps that you feel
(21:12):
like after you provide you help your client reach that
initial stage where like, oh my god, I did it. Yeah,
where do you start to plan for the next steps
in the process.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, absolutely so. I think what's given us a lot
of success in this area. I think was realizing two things.
Genuinely caring about the client, like it's like cool, now
I'm invested in your success. What do you realistically need
to do moving forward? And kind of taking a step
(21:43):
back from being the especially as an entrepreneur, like being
the person like I need to drive sales to my
agency instead of instead like where our branding and I
know you've seen a lot of like our iconography and
kind of our brand message is like truly being their sidekick. Yeah,
and saying you know, whether or not you do something
(22:03):
with us, you know, what is the next step that
you genuinely need to take? And then second, like being
a part of that, and like having to really let
that go is like, okay, cool, I have a community
of people that I can refer you to. Even if
I'm at the best fit, I'm going to introduce to
the people who are going to be And I think
(22:25):
that goodwill is very important because not only does it
show that you care about the client, but it also
shows like these are people that I trust and I
can vouch for. And I think it makes everybody look good.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, especially it makes I think in that case, like
it helps build your network, and it also kind of
expands on that good will, like if you scratched their back,
they scratch yours, they give you. They might even give
you an introduction for another big client in the future. Absolutely,
or yeah, if anything, Like, I really do think it's
a really interesting case where being entrepreneurial minded opens a
(22:59):
lot of paths. Whether you're trying to start your own
business or you're trying to grow a community. A lot
of it comes down to just your experience as well
as the people you know to help really get that
vision across. And you know, speaking of being entrepreneurial minded,
you've mentioned that, well not that you mentioned it, but
you told us. Your parents are, they have an entrepreneurial
(23:22):
background as a first general as first generation Americans. How's
their experience shape your approach to supporting other small businesses
in your community.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah? Absolutely so. Growing up, my dad had a landscaping company,
and it was really interesting to watch him run that
as a small business owner, because it was, Yeah, my
dad now doesn't speak a whole lot of English because
he doesn't practice as much as he used to. Oh really,
but growing up he spoke English, he spoke Spanish, and
(23:53):
he spoke Vietnamese, and it was like, it was amazing
to watch him interact with people. Yeah, watching him run
his landscaping business, and watching my mom, who had a
restaurant and before she would cut hair and do various
other things. I really got to say firsthand, like what
being a small business, I don't know, can do not
only for your family, but for your community. We watched
(24:16):
people come into our restaurant and they were locals or
they were regulars, and it was just interacting with people
every day, and you know, there was a whole lot
I could do as a kid. I could be the
occasional translator, which I think most first first generation Americans
can kind of align with like when you're growing up,
(24:36):
you translate medical documents, to translate legal documents, you translate
you know, litany of other things. And so being the
you know, occasional translator to dishwasher, to order take her.
I played a lot of different roles in these small businesses,
and although those businesses don't exist anymore, it really kind
(24:57):
of instilled that value in me seeing the mistakes that
my parents made or realizing back now. Obviously as a
six year old and it was like I didn't know,
I didn't know what was going on, But looking back now,
it's like, oh my god, Like if they had marketed
this way or they did this and that, and you know,
like would they still have the business now, and where
(25:19):
would we be at? And that's a question that I
think about a lot, and I talk about with my
siblings sometimes, and it's like if I knew what I
know now, obviously you know what would be different. And
I kind of take that knowledge and I take that
experience and I turn it around to when I work
with my clients. It's like, you know, I understand where
(25:40):
you're coming from. Not only do I have a small business,
but you know, I come from a family of it,
and so it's like where what are your where are
your current challenges and how can we fix that and
how can we just move forward from there? So again,
I think it's circling back from the beginning. It's like
that experience or something that I didn't originally think about.
(26:04):
And my background, which I always thought was like, Okay,
I don't have any technical background like most people in
the industry do. I thought was a hindrance. Sounds like,
I think that's our biggest asset because a lot of
people on our team are the same way. We come
from a family of immigrants and entrepreneurs, and it's like,
how do we take that experience and then drive that
into what we do every day?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, I can relate at least coming from I didn't
grow up here in the US. I grew up abroad.
My father started his own business after stepping down from
a big corporate role, and he basically became a He
positions himself to be the sales doctor in the eleast.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
It's yeah, it's interesting. And he always envisioned me either
like taking over the company in the future, and you know,
there's always that type of whenever it comes to starting
a business, you always think about like succession, right, and
it always comes down to that, and I think it
takes a lot of courage to take your own. Yeah,
and if anything like that's kind of where I feel
(27:03):
like I can relate in your side of the story too.
You decided to continue, well, start something new with Blue Bandit,
and if anything, you're helping other small businesses that you
know need that type of coverage in marketing and kind
of build out that space for them. And you know,
if anything too, I guess it kind of goes back
around to the topic of imposter syndrome. You know, sometimes
(27:24):
you feel like you're playing a character, yes, and you
have to act the role. So, if anything, given your
passion with tabletop role playing games, have you ever considered
how this interest might intersect with your marketing expertise.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, absolutely, And I think looking back at that now
and then kind of with our discussion today, it's just
another form of storytelling, which is why I really love it.
I one of my team members, he got our whole
company into Warhammer. At some point, Oh really, Yeah, I
(27:57):
realized very quickly that is such an intensive hobbies.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
You got to paint those things and then you gotta.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Get that, Yeah, those figures are are not cheap, but
I have a three D printer now so that problem
is solved. But anyway, yeah, it's just another form of storytelling,
which which is why I love it and I think
a lot of people on our team love it. And
you know, leaning back to the marketing side, it's like
it's literally the same thing. It's the same concept, just
(28:26):
the applications different. Especially when I find an entrepreneur that
I can I can nerd out about that with It's like,
how do we draw an allegory to the tabletop space
or the D and D space?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, and you know, really like lately D and D
like even during the pandemic, those programs or there have
been a lot of channels have been popping off, you know,
like it's crazy. Like I mentioned the intro, like Dungeons
and Daddies that was pretty big. I don't know if
I haven't been listening to that as often as I
should be, Yeau, It's like I'm always bored at the
office part. But if anything, there's also like that Amazon
(28:57):
show that's based off of D and D s playing.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I forgot what it was. I think that's the macht
vox macht n.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, Yes, that one's amazing. They did the second see
I'm looking for my wife and I are actively looking
forward for the third to come out, because it's always
fun to hear like their renditions because sometimes they altern
they change the story just to match the thread of
the plot thread to fit like a visual story, like
with animations and stuff. I know that that part of
the conversation about talking about animation all that's like completely
(29:25):
not leaning towards where we need to go moving forward
from this conversation. But that's really cool to hear, at
least in the sense of how you're you're building a
community within your team on a joint interest. So the
next part of the questions that we have here in place.
You shared an interesting story when we initially talked about
(29:46):
doing this segment about filming at an underwater welding academy.
How do you unexpected experiences like this influence your approach
to client projects and storytelling.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah, so one of the key takeaways of that was
having to be Flexiborld, having to pivot as a business owner.
There are going to be a lot of crazy things
that happened to you that sometimes feels like it's the
end of the world, and you know, it's like you
have to take that into perspectives sometimes to take that
(30:17):
into stride. And with that story, like, we had no
idea what to expect that day. We are clients. They
sell welding hoods and they were partnering up with a
local underwater welding academy school here in Houston, and we
were told that we were They flew out a bunch
of welders to the space and we were going to
(30:39):
be shooting almost like a brand video, just like a
talking head brand video where the welders talk about their experience.
And so we brought all of our film equipment and
we we had one expectation of what that shoot was
going to be. We wrapped up the shoot and then
the owner comes out and says, okay, are y'all ready
to test? And I was like, okay, cool. They're going
(31:01):
to go underwater and they're gonna go dive. So they
have these big, like twenty foot tank diving pools where
they weigh you down and you go and you literally
weld underwater. Okay, And that's how they train their students
to go out and be a professional underwater welder. Okay,
and so all these wilders are like, oh yeah, yeah,
(31:22):
let's do it. Like I'm so down, so we you know,
we were gonna I was like cool this week with
some cool b roll. So we'll just get footage of
them gearing up and getting ready to go down. And
then my client comes out and walks up to me
and my Crave director and he goes, okay, he's going underwater.
We're just kind of look at each other and we
look at him. We're like, what do you what do
(31:42):
you mean? It's like I want to record what I'm
down there? Yeah? Wow, and yeah we one. We didn't
have any official gear that we could take down the
twenty feet deep so I was like, okay, I'm not
gonna be a moment. We went out, we about to
go proad it really quickly. I came back and I
was like, okay, well, I looked at my current director.
(32:03):
He looked at me, and he was like, I have
assigned this infection, so I can't do it. So so
I ended up going underwater. I was wearing my company shirt,
which worked out really well because they're like, do you
want to put on the scuba gear or the underwater gear,
and I was like, you know what. I was like,
do I need to And I was like no, it
doesn't really matter. So I was like, let's keep it.
That'd be cool. Because so they gave me this like
(32:25):
seventy pound like helmet to put on that like it
has like a line that goes back up to a
funnel air unto you, okay, and I also has like
a radio system so they can talk to you to
make sure everything's okay. So they put the weights on me.
I went down and yeah, I was just filming these
underwater welders and like the whole time, you can't hear anything.
(32:46):
You can't like there's not really anybody to talk to
you except for the operator up there, and yeah, he
just wants to make sure you're alive, so like you
guys are talking about your day or anything, so okay.
The whole time, I'm thinking, like how did I get here?
Like what am I doing right now? And it got
to the point where like each welder would probably be
down there for about twenty minutes. They would and then
(33:09):
once they were done, they would bring in the next welder,
and every time they did that, they brought me back
up and they brought me back up enough times they're like,
you know, we don't really need to keep bringing you
back up here. How about you just stay down there
for the rest of the time. So I think I
was down there for like four to six hours. Really, yeah,
I'm not gonna lie. There was there was probably like
a time or two that I just like dozed off
(33:30):
because there's literally nothing else to do. Oh, you have
these weights wrapped around your waist and you're holding a
GoPro and a little tripod and there's like there's nothing
to do. There's like so I'm like eighty percent positive.
I like fell asleep once or twice. But yeah, it's
like it's times like those that it's like you're gonna
run into an interesting scenario or a problem and it's
(33:54):
like how do you fix that problem and how do
you get out of it? And so for me, I
got a really interesting story out of it, and I
got a really cool photo, like a little selfie out
of it.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I can't imagine if anything that was really good thinking
about getting a GoPro to go underwater with you, did
you have to buy did you only just get the
one or did you get another one? So you had
two different angles.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So we the tank isn't as big as it sounds.
We were like, pretty honestly, it's about the size of
this room, which is yeah, it's pretty very comfortable. Yeah. Yeah,
So there wasn't enough for us to yeah go and
like get really fancy with the angles.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah. And I can imagine with it being just like, oh,
this is a general marketing video where we're just talking
about our workers' experiences and I enjoyed the job, and
then some simple rolesay, yeah it makes sense. I Actually
I remember one time I somehow I got into this
situation where one of my friends got me a gig
with like this gas pipe and fitting company where they
(34:53):
wanted me to record their whole process where they were
showing me like heavy industry machinery, and I had like
I only have one camera and I was like using
my what was it? I did have a gimbal, but
the gimbal didn't work, so I had to use my
tripod angle it onto my hips, so everything was like level.
I was like, Okay, here we go, smooth footage, and
then wrote not rot was it warp stabilized? Yeah, warp
(35:14):
stabilize or some stuff like that it's it was crazy
if anything like I can imagine like from your perspective,
like you can, you can imagine yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I what was it?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
That was even me? During college? That was me? I
was doing that in college. So I was just like,
how did I get here? I was supposed to do
an essay today? But you know, if anything that's really
cool like I I I would have been freaking out
if you had to tell me, Oh, I have to
you might have to be underwater for six hours? Yeah
where your hands pruned?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Oh yes, but yeah they were so pruned, and I
you know, and it was there's a lot of chemicals
down there and you're there with and they're welding, so
there's a lot of like this offput that coming out
from the like from the well.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Well, yeah, from the metals and stuff. Like was the
water getting like black as they were?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Oh yeah, the water is being so murky. So by
the end of it, I was the last thing I
want to go do is go deal with more water.
We had to go shower myself off and you get
all that stuff, and it was like, yeah, I was
I was a whole another tent coming out of that
pool because there was so much excess from from just
the welding. But yeah, it was it was a time
where it was like one of the very many times
(36:20):
is like how did I get here? And it's like
this is this is insane, this is not what I
thought it was going to be. And there's a lot
of times where yeah, the scope might change on a
project or you know, you might be running into a
client issue, but it's like a just pivot.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, you do what you can. Like sometimes you might
be asked to do I don't know, like I'm trying
to think, oh, you need to add some special some
crazy new special effect shot into a project, and you
and your team don't not have the experience, so you're
just like, okay, tutorial kind of get it, Okay, try it, Okay,
fix it, and then you do it. And if anything,
(36:55):
that's like that's just me tying it into my personal experiences.
But if anything, speaking of fun and personal experiences, I
mean we earlier we talked a little bit about you know,
table top role playing games and you know, like you
mentioned Boulder Skate, like how or even what was the Warhammer? Yeah,
like how your team start bringing in Warhammer into the
(37:18):
space and everything too could you ever imagine yourself working
on a marketing campaign for one of some of those companies,
Like I know Hasboro actually recently did like a job
posting for like marketing directors, And yeah, if something like
that were to pop in front of you, Like, how
would you feel like you would approach that project?
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Oh my god, I think there's so much fun we
canna have that project. I think obviously there's the inherent
like lore that we get to play around with, but
also it's it's like from our perspective, just like from
what we do day to day at the office or
even like just in our own personal lives, Like I
would have such a fun time like with like Warhammer specifically,
(37:57):
I mind the army that I played with Orcs, and
I loved Orcs because they're they're the impulsive like uh,
they kind of do whatever, And yeah, that feels very
indicative of of what I do as a as an
agency owner. But yeah, it's like like just going back
(38:18):
to like the lore for a little bit. I don't
know if you guys have any experienced Warhammer, but they're
they're like I don't want to call it magic, but
it's like their belief is what drives them to do
what they do. So, like for example, they're fighting a
war and they paint their tank red, it'll go faster.
(38:40):
Like in their in their mind it's like red red
equals fast. So if I paint this tank red, it'll
be fast. And then but like literally in the in
the game, you get a special effectism, Yeah, it's faster.
And so it's like, I don't know if it's fun
quirky stuff like that that I think we have that
like firsthand because we're fans of the game and we're
(39:02):
fans of the concept that I think we could bring
in a lot of really interesting like lore and little
like you know, experiences that we've had. Ye, there's actually
a brand that we're working with right now in the
TTRPG space. Really they are in their startup. They're just
now like getting their bearings. I can't go into too
much detail of bit right now, but it's called Dungeons
(39:25):
and Doobies that can give you a give you an
idea of what they do. So it's been really fun,
like id E and like we've been helping them come
up with like product names and we've been helping them
come up with like the their branding and their packaging,
illustration and stuff, and so some of their products are
going to be in the shape of like D twenties
and stuff like that. So yeah, it's been really fun.
(39:48):
I would love to work with more brands in that space.
There are a few that we're looking at right now
that we'd love to reach out to and figure that out.
But yeah, it's stuff like that. That's like, you know,
whether we're doing with something that we have a lot
of experience with, like stuff in the Teachers Peace space
or like welders, it's like we we try to bring
(40:09):
that same curiosity.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Also, I just remember it's the Wizard's Coast that does
dungeons and Dragons, right, Yes, yeah, so bad. I mentioned Hasbro,
but that's completely I know.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I think they have, uh that they do something.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, they have like a bunch of card games. I
know that there was like some they were recently in
a controversy because they were price they were overcharging for
like just simple cards or like they were reprinting some
specialty cards that were like highly collectible.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
And that was magic, wasn't that Ye?
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Okay, So it's like kind of like a shared brand
or shared partnership possibly yeah, we're exploring it. Well.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Has has a lot of like collaborations like that, so
I know they like, again, we're not so we have
like they they've done stuff like Babe Blades and we've
been that's how we settle off disputed.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, so I don't have their hands a lot of
different property, so that could be the case. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
If anything, though, I think it's a really cool space,
like just having the opportunity to do a project that
you know, like and love, even for the sense of
like you're you're building up something that's starting fresh, Like
developing packaging. I think that's really cool, Like you can
go really far, whether it's just kind of customizing the
the graphics that are in each respective character that you're
(41:28):
trying to buy, or the way that each package could
reflect the type of race or the character that it is.
You can have like a different shape box or a
different type style of presentation that could be got that
can compliment it. This is just me nerding out about packaging,
but if anything, I think it's it's really cool and
I I could even imagine in a sense of like
(41:52):
what was it what was that game called? There was
a there's a there was like this game that's on
the phone, Clash of Clans, Like have you ever seen
those commercials? Like, yeah, I think they're always interesting. Like
typically they try to include the narrative in like three
D animation, and they always try to build a story
or something that's just fun. Yeah right, Yeah, I can
(42:13):
imagine like in the sense of like building a narrative
like lately, even like in D and D games, or
like certain people that are recording their their role play
or their games or sorry I forgot their sessions or
their sessions with their friends. They usually sometimes they animate
it in a funny way. Yeah, Like that's been trending
(42:35):
on TikTok a lot, Like those type of experiences I
think would be good building that type of culture absolutely, yeah,
if anything, it's Yeah, it's the people that you bring
along the journey and as depending on how much they
love it, they the longer they stay, the better, And
that's what really builds a brand, not just something short term.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Like that's one thing that we can learn a lot
from about that space is like they're really great at
building a community, like they do such a good job.
Like one of my favorite brands is a Dimension twenty Okay.
They it's a D and D series, a part of Dropout.
They used to be college humor, but they're okay, Yeah,
(43:13):
their community is so big. They've done something that most
brands have, like we had to figure out how to do. Yeah.
I can imagine their community is so strong that they've
like successfully created their own streaming service. Oh really yeah, yeah,
And streaming services is like one of the most competitive
things that you could do right now. It's so saturated.
It's it's even if it's five, it's hard to get somebody. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Even with like getting somebody to subscribe to you, like
either on a Twitch channel or like even YouTube live.
Sometimes people pay for like those type of years just
so that they can get on the top of the
chat or something along those lines. Even like you know,
like I was trying to remember, there's a fun story
with like you know how Rooster Teeth recently got sold out,
Like they had to close down because Warner Bros. Was like,
(43:58):
this isn't working for us. Yeah, they so much buying
them done. What was it death Battle? Like recently the
hosts of like Kickoff, Yeah, like they raised so much money.
They were like with this money. Initially they were just
going to try and get like maybe five episodes done.
So they just said like a low benchmark and then
they just exceeded it because the thing, I guess, like
(44:19):
the impact they had on the community and their loyal
fan base, it really just kind of brought up their
bottom line to like a place where it can be
and typically, like a lot of brands try to set
something up. I know this is just me ranting now.
I know this is supposed to be something mainly with Jimmy.
So if anything, Jimmy with what we talked about so far,
(44:39):
I mean, like, what do you feel like was the
most or what do you feel like would be the
best way to kind of put a close to the
conversation if there is somebody here that is listening to
this episode and you wanted to kind of give them
some input and advice on their personal journey through the
space of what would it be?
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, I mean I think for me, the theme that
we kept coming back to today was the stories, you know,
whether it was storytelling and the TRPG spased or storytelling
for me being a teacher, or even like running with
marketing agency. Now it's like what story can you tell
whether you're a freelancer or you're another business owner, what's
(45:17):
your story? Where problem were you solving or what problems
have you faced that are relevant to who you want
to talk to. Just don't think of marketing as like
one size fits all. It's yeah, it's it's different for
everybody to describe. Everybody has a different story to tell.
You're going to have a different solution for you from
everybody else, So that would you might take away awesome.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Well have you heard it here first, folks, Jimmy hah,
thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Now, thank you for having me, Thank.
Speaker 4 (45:46):
You for joining us today. The add to Houston Arido's
podcast is produced at Very Lounge. Add to Houston is
a collaborative collective of young communication professionals three two one under.
We're looking to make a difference in the industry. You
would like to becoming at mego join us at at
the Number two Houston dot com. You can also follow
(46:07):
us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at add the Number
two Houston. Thank you for listening.