Sense, Scale & Strategy: How Elite Companies Use AI, Data & Human Connection – with Nick Hiter - Charge Forward Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But then the other thing you guys showed me how to
do is I really struggled with.
It's a hamster wheel that neverends, and we were really good
at social and the data thing.
I had to learn it to be able toteach it, um, first and
foremost because, and?
But then I realized then thatit was like how stupid was I to
think that I didn't need to dothat because I was just leaving
all that meat on the bone.
And then you guys showed me howto literally have a collision

(00:24):
of worlds.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
We also closed the loop.
Something I learned in theMarine Corps was after action
reports.
You know what I mean.
So once they ran an appointmentthat we set for them, they sent
us an after action report.
Who owns it?
Do we own it?
You own it because someone ownsit.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Hey team, jim Cripps here with a charge forward
podcast and I've got a specialtreat for you today.
Uh, we're in the studio todaywith the man himself, nick
heider.
He is a serial entrepreneur.
He's the co-founder of the hithit lab studios, as well as he's
the voice of Sirius XM Radio'stwo channels, the Alternative

(01:11):
and Southern Rock.
Nick, it's awesome being in thestudio with you today.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Well, I couldn't agree more, man.
I'm so excited to kind of getinto what it is that we came
together to talk about todayBecause, again, I'm big on
speaking about what works.
I can only speak great on whatworks for me and, um, and
honestly, just working with youand your business partner my
leftover here um, changed, um,it changed my life and it
changed, uh, my ability to scale.

(01:35):
Like I mean, it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
That's right.
Well, and that's why this issuch a special treat is because
it's not hard for me to findNick in the studio, but Clayton
Geiser flew down from Illinoisand is here in the studio with
me today.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
When it's Nick and Jim, just say the word and I'm
on a plane that's right, andthat's really kind of how that
worked out.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Nick and I were talking and he was like what do
you think the odds of Claytonflying down next week and us
jumping in the studio together?
You told him I was a.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Delta diamond member.
With a million miles.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
And it was easy peasy from there.
But you know, I think oneimportant piece is you know why
are we sitting in this room, whyare we having these
conversations?
And it's because we figured outthat we can help more people
collectively than we couldseparately.
And I know anybody with anInstagram feed knows quite a bit

(02:29):
about Nick Heider.
But, clayton, please introduceyourself to the world, because
we're we're both a lot easier tofind you hide.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, I mean, I spent some time hiding, I don't you
know.
There's not much to say.
You know, my background was inmarketing and advertising,
specifically call centers.
Um, I owned a couple um, one wesold in 2009 and the other I
sold in 2015.
Yeah, From there, you know, I,I ran a software company for

(03:00):
about five or six years and then, uh, you and I went into
business together and it's beengreat.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, it's been fun.
And you know, one of the um,one of the hallmarks that I
think is just I truly believe in, and that is it's not uh, it's
not the next dollar, it's notthe next customer, it's it's you
are, you're looking for thepeople that help success and
just the way you feel aboutdoing work be either great or

(03:27):
terrible, right, and you guys,working with the two of you in
all of our many differentdisciplines, just makes it easy.
And so, nick, a lot of this hascome together because you had
some opportunities.
You had some people that werelooking for um help in certain
areas and then, as we startedtalking, I could see your eyes

(03:49):
open up.
You're like, oh you, you guys,you guys do that.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So well, you know, um , first of all, I'm I'm here
today because, like every time Iget on a call with you two guys
, I learn new things right.
So I get to learn for freetoday because we're wearing
microphones or using microphones, so I'm really excited about
that.
Um, no man, you know, jim, justin in my I have nothing but
respect for you and your abilityto grow and scale businesses,

(04:14):
specifically uh, culture.
And you know, one of the painpoints in in my world has been,
um, you know lead creation andlead nurturing and you know, you
know, speaking to it enoughtimes, um, you poured so much uh
wisdom and you guys have bothpoured so much wisdom into me
with that.

(04:34):
But, like, the problems yousolved for me were literally
like life changing, because notonly did it collapse so much
time that I was able to put backinto my business and go home,
but it made me have.
It made me made my ability toconnect with the people in my

(04:54):
network and my customers.
It made it where it was almosta seamless transition and it's
honestly, I'm still taking itall in.
It's blown my mind what youguys have done For what we were
already doing.
I thought really, really well,it turns out it wasn't that
great.
And now it's on the uphillclimb and I mean we're changing
everything.
I'm so excited.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, it's fun because, you know, several times
I've been in a conversationwith you or been in a meeting
with other people and they'redescribing a problem that is
just so easy to fix, but theydon't know who can fix it.
They don't know who has accessto that kind of volume or that
kind of data or to be able tolook at it.
And you know, that's really.

(05:32):
That's where Clayton'sexperience not because he just
loves data, but because he's hadto have his hands so just
ingrained in it that he dissectsit and makes it it looks easy.
So, Clayton, if you will.
Just I mean, you've been onthese calls and you know they're

(05:52):
overwhelmed or they're.
They don't know what they don'tknow and you just jump straight
in what?
What does that look like?
How has that been fun?

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, you know and I don't think I ever thought of I
you know I need to be in data.
You know I was never thatpersonality type type, but I'm
becoming more of that as as theyears go on.
But you know, I just lovesolving problems for customers,
the right ones.
I like hearing about theirbusiness, what they've done
that's unique, and then comingup with different solutions to

(06:19):
make sure that we grow with them.
And you know, as I've mentionedbefore, you know line of sight
is huge, so I like to see whatthe end goal is and help solve
the problem.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
To kind of get there, yeah, Well, and I got to tell
you I was a little bit spoiledin that, you know, I used data
for so long to make businessdecisions that it didn't really
occur to me that other peopleweren't or they didn't have
access to a lot of data.
But when you, when you starttalking to people, you know, I
met with a potential clientmaybe a year ago and I said so,

(06:52):
what are you doing with yourdata?
And she said, um, well, what doyou mean by that?
I said I said well, what aboutall your customers?
You know, I heard the wholereason that we were talking is I
was told that she did greatcorporate gifts.
I said, well, what about thosecustomers?
And she goes that's the stackover there.
And she pointed to a stack ofpapers.

(07:14):
Clearly, you're not doinganything with that data.
And and data is so valuablethese days whether we're talking
about with your customers, withyour potential customers, and
the big piece of it to me is, ifyou are not leveraging data to
be in front and to be at leastknown, the less ethical versions

(07:38):
of you are.
So you almost owe it to yourcustomers and your potential
customers to be out thereleveraging data, being in front
of that potential customer.
If you, if you truly have adesire to serve.
And so, nick, I know that'snear and dear to your heart
because you're on severaldifferent committees, several
different charitable groups.

(08:01):
What is it?
What is your idea of serving inthe future?

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well, you know, I go all the way back to Jesus, Jesus
and his disciples, and he saidyou go to, you got to go where
they're at, you got to go wherethey are, and and people are on
a screen or a device, right?
So you know, there's two worldsthat we live in the in-person
world and the world of Internet,the digital world, and you have

(08:45):
reputation and and and there's.
You know, the first thing datadid for us in the insurance
industry is it gave us somethingfor the agents to do.
Yeah, you know, because theydidn't have anybody who could
they call.
It's like, you know, prospect,where you breathe, I think, is
what I was told, and it's likedude.
So, you know, you've brought meon here and now you just want
me to call my own people and Idon't feel comfortable calling

(09:05):
them because I don't know whatI'm doing Right.
So I don't want to burn thatbridge, you know.
So data gave me the ability totake shot after shot after shot,
rep after rep after rep, andreally hone in my craft.
But, more importantly, itallowed me to do it to somebody
across the country.
I wouldn't get a bump into it,a Kroger at the grocery store,

(09:26):
you know which, which was a hugehelp.
But then the other thing youguys showed me how to do is I
really struggled with.
You know, once you get on thehamster wheel of data, of data
marketing, if you don't know howto to use that same data once
people become customers orbecome tomorrow's customers, or
really just filter them down andlabel who they, what they are
or what kind of buyer they are.
It's a hamster wheel that neverends.

(09:47):
And we were really good atsocial and the data thing.
I had to learn it to be able toteach it.
Um, first and foremost, causeand.
But then I realized then thatit was like how stupid was I to
think that I didn't need to dothat because I was just leaving
all that meat on the bone.
And then you guys how to, howto like literally have a
collision of worlds and takesomebody from the data train to

(10:09):
be able to, to get referrals andthen even leverage that into
social media and social mediacommunities.
I'm telling you, it's lifechanging.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, one of the things that I hate when people
say is you know, they'll saythat we're the best kept secret,
and to me that's that's aninsult.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
That's an insult.
It's not a good thing.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
That's right, and so you've got to be known.
You've got to be known ifyou're going to be successful
and if you're, if you've grown abusiness, you owe it, if not to
your customers or potentialcustomers, you owe it to your
employees to continue to grow sothat they have they have a
place to call, a call home or towork.
Fact, um Clayton uh, you know,in this and as we've gone

(10:47):
through this process and youknow we've, we've jumped on the
some of these calls with peoplethat have problems or need data
what's something that stands outto you as a problem that keeps
reoccurring?

Speaker 2 (11:12):
no-transcript is.
You know and you don't knowyou're not intentional and you
don't know why you're doing this.
You're just going blindly at it.
You're you're going to have athoroughly average result if
you're lucky.
Yeah, you know.
Once again, you need to beintentional.
You need to know what variablesmake sense or make a difference

(11:34):
and you need to exploit thoseand go after them.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, and you have a saying that you really like.
It's time.
Need Trust, timing, need moneyyeah, that's what time needing
money?
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, that's what people need in order to buy,
yeah, and consistency buildstrust.
So executive prospecting group,the second call center I owned,
that was a big part of it, andthis was 2010 to 2015 when I
sold it.
So in 2010 we were doing leadnurturing for our clients, so it
was telemarketer.

(12:05):
It was a point of settingcompany.
We were doing high-end stufffor very high ticket items,
right.
So it's hard to find atelemarketer that's going to be
able to call, get ahold of adecision maker you know in in a
large company and talk aboutsomething that costs six figures
, right.
Or get them to have a meeting,and so what we would do is
because these salespeople, youknow they're great at closing

(12:26):
deals but they were horrible atkeeping up with, you know all
the calls that you need to make,all the followups, keeping
everybody on your radar, and wewere just set up that way.
You know I knew whatpersonality type I needed to
have and when you hired us, youjust got appointments right and
we did generate leads of peopleI want more information or
whatever it was right and we didgenerate leads of people I want

(12:46):
more information or whatever itwas Right.
But we worked those Okay and wealso closed the loop.
You know, something I learnedin the Marine Corps was after
action reports.
So once they ran an appointmentthat we set for them, they sent
us an after action report.
Who owns it?
Do we own it?
You own it because someone ownsit and what's the system?

(13:07):
And then you know, just as ageneral rule, you know, yeah,
we'll call you next quarter, butwe call them every 60 days.
We email them once a month,right, until they become active
again.
You know, and what was great forour customers is we had that
whole system and really it camefrom.
Someone asked me they're likeClayton, we've got salespeople
that are productive.
You know how do you find them?

(13:29):
I said, well, you know, youlook for all the things that
they teach you in a book.
You know nice shoes, whatever.
But they also have to have asystem, they have to have a
process.
And I felt like executiveprospecting group gave them that
system, that process, so thatwe were protecting them from
ourselves.
And that translates intotoday's world very well, because
now there are so manyautomation tools out there that

(13:53):
you know you can set systemswithout the human intervention.
And you know, I think that'swhere you and I, jim, we're
going to shine, because you knowthis is 2030 marketing that
we're doing in 2025.
That's right.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
That's right.
Well, you know, and one of thethings that I love about the
group that really, nick, youhave put together here between
those of us sitting in this roomand others is kind of like a
sports team in that we all havea different role to play, mm,
hmm, and collectively we get tohelp more people in a better way

(14:29):
by joining forces and, uh, youknow, and as part of that
process, we also know who wedon't fit with.
Yeah, meaning, we're not outhere trying to help everybody.
In fact, I would say,collectively, we turn down more
customers than we take facts tomake sure that it's win-win and

(14:49):
that we're going to get not areferral but multiple referrals
from each of these interactions,because we know how we all work
together.
And so, you know, I feel likeit was really kind of your
brainchild.
What was the trigger?
How did you come around to that?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Well, any excuse to work with you was, first thing,
right, seriously, and that.
But the other thing was is, youknow, with the emergence of, of
AI, okay, ai creates a big timeproblem, exposes your, your,
your limits in data, right,whether it be bad marketing or
just you don't have enough oryou don't have the right data.

(15:26):
Right, that's right.
So um or just you don't haveenough, or you don't have the
right data.
So, with the emergence of AIand always wanting to be
innovative, well, first of all,ai is a pretty new product.
Most people don't know thedifference between high-ticket
AI and low-ticket AI, or premiumAI versus not premium AI, and I
feel like it's the same way.
The same problems exist withdata, but I mean mean, think

(15:47):
about that.
You know you buy premium ai torun low level.
You know it's like putting afour-cylinder engine in a
ferrari or something like thatjust refining your own gas and
putting in an audi.
That's exactly, that's exactlyright.
So, um, you know the emergenceof the emergence of AI.

(16:08):
It just made sense.
But I had to be with the rightcompany that's going to make
sure, Because, again, I've gotthis great AI system here and
again there's a lot to learn onthat.
But then how does it play withthe data?
And you know, I need an expert.
I need an expert Because, again, it's my time, it's my people's
time, but that data is peopleand there's people going to be

(16:31):
on the other end of those emailsand those phones man and
getting access to their inbox orgetting access to their cell
phone.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
I think people need to take a little more stock in
that and understand that it's agreat pleasure to have that
accessibility I think you, Ithink it's pretty easy to make
an analogy of racing, in that wecould be racing go-karts and
you know it's whatever.
Whatever you're able to, youknow, slap together in order to

(16:58):
come out here and have a littlefun.
But if we're taking thisserious and we're going to go
race formula one, well, um,we're not asking the engine max
engine manufacturer to make thefuel, that's right.
Nor are we going to the enginemanufacturer and saying, hey,
can you make the tires Like, letthem specialize in what they do
amazingly well, you know,because you know you, having

(17:21):
this podcast studio and reallyhelping people dial in their
branding is fantastic, great,now you've got a great brand.
So you, you got you can be outin front of more customers.
But how do we?
How do we get you out in frontof more customers?

Speaker 2 (17:34):
You need more data.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay, well, we got more data, but we got to have a
good engine to run it with.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Right.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
You know.
So think of the data as thefuel.
That's right, and so you knowdon't get me wrong I'm I'm all
about making sure that the racecar looks pretty, but it's also
got to be faster, otherwise whatare we doing here?

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Let's go.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
So it all translates to why.
Why are you putting all thesepeople together?
Well, it's it's to make surethat whatever problem or
whatever solution needs to comeacross in order to make sure
that this, this team, is raceready.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
We got it, it's, it's .
It's the closest thing to theAvengers I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Oh, I love it man, well, and you know, with just a
real quick with Nick, you know,I always heard.
You know, to use your racinganalogy, you don't make money on
the straightaways, you makemoney on the curves, right, you
know that's good, right, so when, when times are great and
everything's normal, that's notwhen you make your money, it's
the curves, you know that's whenyou hire, that's when you can

(18:30):
attract the best talent becausethey were let go or there's less
opportunities out there.
Ai is a curve right now.
Okay, and, like I said, youdon't make money on the
straightaways, you make money onthe curve.
So people that know how tohandle that curve, which Nick
identified months and months agowhen we had that conversation,
you know that's impressive andnow you and I, jim, have a

(18:53):
responsibility to make sure hedoesn't waste the curve that's
right, jim.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
I saw so many great people that could have been
really good in the insurancespace with me mm-hmm that that
couldn't get past.
Um, the the data issues that wehad it.
It costs me um, I won't sayrelationships, but I could.
Um, but it costs me definitelyworking relationships and um,

(19:21):
there's quality.
It costs me quality of life.
Yeah, it costs others qualityof life.
There's quality.
It costs me quality of life.
Yeah, it costs others qualityof life, and I was the one that
led them there.
Um, you just gotta be better.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah, you know, I think anytime you're leading a
team and you had how many agents, hundreds, yeah, and and when
you're, when you're leading thatteam and I know you think the
same way is you have aresponsibility to them.
It's that whole.
You know where this word haskind of gotten misused.
They were in your charge, notyou were in charge.
People get that backwards.
It's not about you being incharge, it's about your people
being in your charge, whichmeans you're responsible for

(20:00):
them.
And so to business owners outthere that's why a lot of them
get on the calls with us is theywant to do things better?
Or you know, they're gettingdata from a source and it's you
know, it's old, and so, yeah,they got volume, or maybe they
don't have volume.
They're getting good, good data, but they don't have any volume
, and so it's about solving thatfor them, so that all the

(20:23):
pieces come together.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Well, the AI.
In my opinion, clayton, tell mewhat you think about this,
because, again, the biggestproblem we had was, you know, on
average, depending on the year,because I'm not going to go do
that, but let's just say it'sbetween the 13th and 20th
contact attempt that a record ora lead became a true prospect,
like it was a two-wayconversation about possibly

(20:47):
closing a deal.
Once they had the middle of thefunnel or bottom of the funnel,
type, yep.
So but you know, but with withthe right AI engines, you know
it's, you can.
You know people get sick, theyget stuck in traffic, they're,
they're late there.
You know stuff happens and theAI does.
It has none of thoserestrictions, right and um, you
know.
So it's going to lower costsbecause so much of the data.

(21:12):
Just it was stopped aftercontact attempt three or four.
You didn't get to that 15, 18,or 20th time when the deal
happens, right, and the AI canbe programmed that that doesn't
happen.
So not only can you fly through10 times at 10x the data, if
not, if that, probably even waymore than that but more
importantly, you're going to getto the bottom of is this, is

(21:34):
the person on the other end ofthis record, are they a buyer or
not?
Or are they a buyer later, oris it just a relationship I need
to have or what else it needsto be?
So I believe it's going todrastically lower customer
acquisition costs.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Well, it could, for sure, drastically lower um
customer acquisition costs.
Well, it could for sure.
The problem that they're goingto run into is, since there's,
since it's so efficient to yourpoint, about 10 X um they're
they're going to utilize thedata quicker.
Okay, so you're going to needmore of it.
All right, and I don't thinkthere's a lot of data brokers

(22:07):
out there that really want tolower their price or give you
more or anything like that.
So what you've done for us isyou've kind of put that um, that
spark in us Like, how do wesolve this problem?
You know, nick helped usrealize that people are going to
need a lot of this informationand it needs to be better.
Okay, it needs to be goodinformation.

(22:27):
We need to figure out what'sgoing to make a difference.
How are we going to bedifferent?
But how do we keep it so thatit's reasonable and our
customers can move forward?
And, nick, you've been great inframing that up for us.
I think it's kind of one ofthose things where you know, we
can't see the forest for thetrees necessarily.
And since you frame that up andjust based on experience, we've

(22:47):
gotta make sure that we findthe players out there that are
really interested in justcrushing it and coming up with
the right amount of data, yeah,you know, the right amount of
leads and making sure that thoseefficiencies, you capitalize on
them because you know, I thinkyou you can run those efficient

(23:08):
AI bots, or whatever you want tocall them assistants, and you
know they're going to do greatfor two weeks.
And then what?
I mean, they've moved the ballquicker than you could, you know
, because they're doing multiplethings at the same time, you
know.
So you just got to kind of keepfeeding it.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Does that make sense?
Oh yeah, that's big time.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, and I do think that that's an important piece
of it that people are going tochange how they do business to
know that my marketing dollarresulted in a sale or it did or
it didn't, so that we couldpivot.

(23:50):
We could, we could make changesreally faster than our
competitors.
And that's going to be moreimportant going forward than
ever before, because you'regoing to have to be looking at
OK, did the data result?
You know, did the AI do its job?
Did the data do its job?
What did that result in?
Am I going to grow faster?
Do I need more people?

(24:10):
It's just going to speed up somany things because you've got
race fuel in the engine.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
The biggest thing that made you guys stand out to
me with what you're doing atsurface level was you weren't
just asking like you were askingme who's your customer.
You're trying to help me targetthe right people.
You know I'm not walking up topeople saying you want a steak
and they're vegetarian.
Like that's, that's a, that's abig deal, um.
But the biggest value that Igot is by asking those questions

(24:40):
, you were literally helping mefill out all my like for my
campaigns to send the people um,to cause it's important that
you talk to the person thatyou're talking to, but then now
you know what are you going tosay, what is the purpose of you
reaching out to them?
For you know, and, dude, likeso I mean it was, it was just
like mind blowing when I'mhaving these conversations with
you guys based on the questionsyou're asking.

(25:00):
It's like dang, dude, they justget it, they just get it.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Well, it's fun, too, when you start having
conversations and you find outthat people had needs that they
didn't even know could be solved, or they didn't know that the
data was available for that, andthat's really what makes us
different and kind of why ourperspective is different.
Now we've all got eitherpreteen or teenagers.

(25:31):
What do you guys think is a tipor trick or something that you
would share or maybe you alreadyhave shared with your son or
daughter about AI or data or thefuture?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Good question, yeah, great question.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
You want to go first?
Well, I think we should go tocommercial break.
I love it.
Got to make a few phone calls.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
That's right.
That's right.
The Internet, for a kid, is nodifferent than a loaded gun, man
, because, again, it can beextremely toxic or it can be the
greatest thing to everythingthat you do, that you touch that
and affect everything that youdo.
Um, it's an unbelievablypowerful tool and, again, I
wouldn't put a loaded gun in a13 year old's hand, um, and

(26:16):
definitely give him free accessto it, Um, especially if that
gun could come back with evilguns that wanted to to do ugly
things to them.
You know, um, or or whatever,or not.
So you know it was um.
I want my, I'd never.
I don't want my son, um, scaredof it per se, but I do want him
to fear it, Right, Because Ithink fears are very powerful
too, especially if you're afighter.

(26:36):
It's healthy, Um, absolutely.
I think I just ripped off soRocky Balboa, as a matter of
fact, when I just said thatright, that's right, um, you
know, but I want them, I wanthim to use it and I think that,
again, the earlier you canmaster a skill that you can use
for the rest of your life, Ithink I think the better Right.

(26:56):
So you know, I didn't show himrated R movies when he was five
years old because he wasn'tready for that information.
So I don't know if there's aspecific age that you do it, but
I definitely think, like, kidsare fascinated with technology
and they're drawn to it.
And you know what, dude, I'velearned a ton from my son.
I'm going to throw that outthere right now.
My 15 year old son has taughtme a lot of stuff that I'm
making a lot of money with rightnow.
That's right.

(27:16):
And, um, he's going to be likedad, where's my finder's fee,
right?
So I got you, bro.
I got him, um, embrace it.
But just, you know, you'regoing to give a 16-year-old a
car.
They're going to drive one, andit can kill people and
themselves.
So how did you prepare them forthat?
Figure out those things and usethose same training elements
and informational deliveriesthat you give to those, that

(27:39):
exposure to those teens whenthey do that.
But I would say embrace it.
Man, you got to.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, well, I think you're absolutely right.
It's about embracing it andusing it responsibly, you know,
and making sure they have a lineof sight into what the options
are, you know, so they don'thave to try to touch the stove,
you know.
Is there a good way for us totell them it's hot, you know,
and not to do it?
Now, I'm sure all of us hereare one of those where we were

(28:03):
told not to touch the stove.
We touch it anyway, right, andour children are going to be the
same way, right?

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Well, they're going to push their boundaries.
That's just what part of beingan adolescent is.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Well, you know, you look back and you're like you
know, oh, you want your childrento have the knowledge you have
to avoid things, right, but youcan't teach them everything.
So you just got to lead byexample, you got to lead with
love and you got to make surethat you're going to trust in
their decisions.
You can't teach them all aboutthe past.

(28:34):
I remember when my brother hadchildren years and years and
years ago.
They're all adults now.
Right, we were sitting aroundat Christmas or something and
they got a box of old toys out.
We had a toy phone, right, kidpicks it up and it's got a cord
on it.
He rips the cord out and juststarts walking and talking.
You never saw a corded phone.
Well, we're not going to beable to teach our kids all about

(28:56):
quarter phones and everythingelse, but you know we can teach
them.
You know how.
You know how to recognize andbehave in an ethical way.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
So the reason I asked that question is really kind of
two or three fold one because,legitimately, with our children,
how are we having thoseconversations?
Because the things that we'retalking about, the things that
we're doing right now, willchange the opportunities and the
jobs and the roles that areavailable when, when they get
ready to enter the job marketand the workforce, right.
Also, I kind of look look at itlike um, we are in that

(29:27):
adolescent stage because this isa new technology even to us.
That's right, and you know,let's just say we've got a, a
potential client.
A lot of times it's likethey're our younger brother,
younger sister, etc.
Because they don't know what weknow about this particular area
.
They may be, you know level,they may be the equivalent of a

(29:49):
40-year professional in theirfield, but when it comes to data
, or when it comes to socialmedia, or how to leverage data,
social media, ai, all thesetools together to amplify what
they're already doing or to beable to serve more people, they
may be the equivalent of anewbie.
And so it's, it's our job toteach them enough that they can

(30:14):
make an informed decision.
And how many of thesedisciplines do they want to put
together?
Do they understand why theywork together?
Or you know, some are notinterested.
And if you're not interested, Iwould.
I would be remiss if I didn'tsay you're probably gambling
your company's future.
I'm not saying you've got tobecome an expert.

(30:37):
You've either got to hire oneor you've got to start working
with one.
Oh yeah, especially in a placelike Nashville.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, I mean, I'm all about getting to the
destination quicker, right?
So, in my opinion, you partnerup with you guys, you get your
experts fast track it and youlearn why you're having success.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Well, it's that whole analogyof you're going to pay either in
time or in money and it's up toyou to choose.
Either in time or in money.
And it's up to you to choose.
And and there again, that's whywe typically work with
successful businesses already,because they have revenue, they
are spending money in marketing,whether it's working or not,
and we can help optimize theirefforts.
And when I say efforts, it'snot only their effort, but it's

(31:21):
also their, their expenditure.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Well, when you're looking at taking leads that are
sold as a commodity, right, andmaking them good, but not
making the lead better, butmaking sure that it's just more
targeted, more focused on whatwas delivered to you, sure,
right, based on your variables.
You can probably figure thatout as one of our clients.
You're smart people, nick,you're brilliant.

(31:45):
You can figure it out.
But it's like changing anengine.
Do you want to learn that forthe first and only time you're
ever going to do it?
I mean the first time you, ifyou're in the engine changing
business.
The first time you did it ittook forever, it wasn't great.
It's like tying your shoes thefirst time you did it it took
forever and the knot wasn't verygood, you know.
But we tie shoes all the sowhen we do it then you know it's
done pretty quick and thenpretty dang good, not when it's

(32:07):
all said and done.
So you know you.
You can't be an expert at everyaspect of your business.
That's why you surroundyourself with with a good group
of people, and there's thingsthat we will never do, because
we're just not good at it.
We don't want to learn it, yeah.
Well it's not what you don'twant.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Well, we work with professionals too, yeah, uh, in
different disciplines, to makesure, uh, if you're trying to
become an expert in everything,you're going to end up, you know
, forgetting more than you know,and somebody's out there going
to be running circles around you, um.
So, again, there's there'stimes when you need to, you need
to spend some money in order to, uh, circumvent the time or the
effort or the bumps and bruisesthat we've definitely gotten
along the way.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Definitely don't take time for granted, man, because,
like again, we don't.
We don't know how much we got.
Again, it's it's the only assetwe, we constantly invest that we
don't know the current balanceof you know, so you know how
much time do you have, um, howmuch time do you actually have
to grow that business, but whileit's still a viable business or
a viable concept, before theworld changes, you know so,

(33:10):
before you get left behind, as amatter of fact, Well, the other
thing that I see too,especially in this particular
space, that we're in space andtime.

Speaker 3 (33:20):
You've got a lot of things at play.
Not only do you have AI cominginto the picture, not only do
you have opportunities, likewith us, with massive amounts of
data, um and targeting socialmedia at our fingertips, but
you've also got this massiveamount of boomer generation that

(33:42):
is aging out of theirbusinesses, Mm-hmm.
So you've got a workforce thatis nearing its end, that has
accumulated wealth like like noother has, and they have these
viable businesses.
You don't have necessarily thepeople to take them over,
because they're they're childrenor you know they don't have a

(34:04):
succession succession plan.
You, you have a generation thatmaybe is not interested in
learning that.
You have a somewhat decline inum, new population, and then you
have these new tools.
So are you going to leveragethose things, and how many of
those things are you going toleverage in order to maximize

(34:26):
the opportunity to change yourfamily tree or, to, you know,
increase the opportunities inyour company or for the people
that you're responsible for,that are in your charge?
Or are you going to be on thesidelines watching somebody else
?

Speaker 1 (34:39):
It would be a shame.
I was always told never takethe chef out of the kitchen,
Right?
He's not creating that nextgourmet masterpiece.
Learning how to how, learninghow to, how to, how to market
data.
You know how to, how to do, howto do, be a better steward of
their data.
It's just not going to happen.
But what could be great is whenthey, when that chef goes in

(35:00):
that kitchen and creates thatnext masterpiece, well then, his
data partners are like great,Now that you did that here's how
you tell them that's right,exactly Right, that's exactly
right.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah, exactly Um.
What do you, what do you see asthe biggest?
This is both of you.
What is the biggest opportunitythat you see?
Um, not just with, with ourgroup working together, but just
in general, like what?
What are you most excited aboutright now?

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Uh, I just man.
I've got an unbelievablenetwork.
I'm blessed with some amazingrelationships with some very,
very um, uh, high performingpeople, um, and high performing
businesses, and they all needthis, unanimous, like it's
unreal right.
They need this.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Well, you know.
On that same note, yeah,surrounding myself with myself,
with, with a plus operators isis really key for me, like nick.
But I think where we're goingto turn a corner and what I'm
excited about is, you know,we're talking about all this
automation and it seems likethere's just going to be a lot
of phone calls the same personor something.

(36:02):
Well, it could be that.
Or if you figure out a scale itdoesn't have to be it could you
just get the relevant stuff,and I'm excited about seeing how
we can make it relevant notonly for our customer but their
customer.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, if it.
You know, if this was a retailplace they're always trying to
figure out.
You know the, the placement onthe shelf is extremely important
, you know?
Can the customer find what theyneed, um, in the right place?
It's always frustrating whenyou go to the grocery store and,
like you know, they always hadthe Krispy Kreme donuts.
They're never in the pastryaisle or with the donuts, are
always in the middle ofsomething somewhere else and you
gotta like.
It's always a mystery to me whythey do that.

(36:49):
And, um, you know, at the end ofthe day, the we're, we're
finally starting to realize that, that the, the data or the
digital information that we haveabout other people, is an
actual asset of the business orthe brand that you know.
Again, when you have an asset,assets can gain value, right,
just like the home that I livein, um, and, and, and you know.
So, when you exit the companyor anything else, the asset can
go into the price point of thesale and everything else.
But, more importantly, as youaccumulate more and more and

(37:11):
more data, just like, the retailstore is going to constantly
rearrange where they put stuffto get better performance, to
make it better, to make iteasier for people to find so
they can consume more of it.
I believe you should be doingthat with your data all the time
.
Cause it.
You know, a year from now, howmuch more am I going to have and
how much more am I going toknow about it, right?
So I would want to work withyou guys and be like all right.

(37:32):
So here's the mountains of datathat we have and, like you know
what's the best way toreorganize it and reuse it, and
and over and over again to it,burning it, moving to the next
thing.
It's like nah, dude, it's anasset, like you know.
Again, if the people moved, Iwant to update it, you know,
because I want to be able to.

(37:53):
I love being able to tellstrangers or clients happy
birthday.
I love being able to buildrelationships just from the data
that I have, with theautomation and the amazing
digital tools that we have atour, at our fingertips.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Well, that's really how you leverage data, is you
build relationships with it?
Um, I mean, if you, if youthink about it from a standpoint
of the goal with data, is is todo a couple of things.
One, get in front of morepeople to remove the obstacles
that keep them from buying orfrom being able to make a
decision.
You know them, them hiding theKrispy Kreme donuts, you know,

(38:25):
is that strategically, becauseyou're going to buy more, or is
that, um, because somebodydecided?
to change shelves because theythought it looked better
somewhere else.
You got to have the data inorder to be like in your own
business as well as from amarketing standpoint, you need
to be leveraging data as to whyyou make the decisions you make.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Well, you know, nick, you just you did it again.
I think I have an idea.
It's probably not a good one,but to your point, on the
grocery stores you go into, Ihave two Walmarts in my town.
It's a small town right, but Ihave two.
There's completely differentproduct placement because one's
the west side, one's the eastside.
Different people we havecollege kids on the east side

(39:04):
and we have different people onthe west side.
So you go in and you're notgoing to find the same stuff.
On that note, you're talkingabout wishing people happy
birthday.
With our insurance data, wehave their birthday.
Why don't we just figure outevery day who it's their
birthday and we'll send them abirthday message and we'll
generate leads that way?

Speaker 1 (39:22):
there you go.
That's exactly right, so let'sdo a birthday campaign isn't
that why krogerroger started theKroger Plus card came from is
because they're literallytracking everything that you buy
, so now they know when to letyou know when it's on sale and
trigger transactions.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Right.
Well, like I told you earlier,it's not the government that's
tracking you, it's ProcterGamble.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
They know everything about you Well even if you think
about it, even their strategyof giving you 10 cents or 20
cents whatever it factors off ofyour gasoline is to get you
back to their parking lot sothat you go.
Oh, I needed to pick up thiswhile I was here.
Are you, as a business owner,leveraging your data the same
way?

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Um, I would say I'm going to throw a number out
there and it may be totallyfalse, but let's just say, on a
revenue perspective, I'm goingto say if you're doing eight
figures, 10 million or more,you're probably doing at least
an average job with it, and ifyou're doing below that, you're
not and there's a lot of meatleft on the bone or you're just.
You just haven't been aroundlong enough to do that, but
you're doing it Great.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, absolutely Well , again you've got to.
I mean, if we think about, whyis Amazon so successful?
Well, cause it's easy that youdon't have to enter your credit
card in, and every time it'sjust you click the button that's
already got your informationsaved, right?
Um, it already knows whatyou're looking for.
Before you know what you'relooking for.
It's making suggestions anddelivered to your house the same

(40:45):
day.
The delivered to your house thesame day, all of those things
they are making it easier to buy.
If you are out there, you'renot leveraging data, you're not
getting in front of yourcustomers, whether it's it could
be from a very noble place youcould, you could be like well, I
don't, I don't want to bugpeople.
Okay, your competitors are, andif you have a quality product

(41:08):
and you are a better product,whether that's from a pricing
standpoint, whether that's froma quality standpoint maybe it's
both then you're competitors.
You're actually saying thatyour customers or your potential
customers are not importantenough for you to either engage
with that discipline, learn thatdiscipline or hire somebody who
can help you with thatdiscipline.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
I'm going to throw something else out there for
everybody today, and because AIis a big hot topic, a talking
point right now and again.
The average Joe doesn't knowmuch about AI.
They don't know how the premiumversus not premium, right,
right?
Well, how are they going tofind that out?
Well, they're going to use thatAI for their data.
So I would say like, if you're,if you're on the verge of or on

(41:48):
the, you know, trying to makedecision, we know, I feel like I
should get to know AI a littlebit, learn more about it, or
whatever.
Who better else to talk to thanyou guys about?
Because you've got performance,you've got analytics, you've
got all this stuff, you'vealready got the relationships in
place.
So, how much time can you savepeople earning the AI industry
just because they can talk toyou guys, because they're
already working with you on adata perspective?

Speaker 3 (42:11):
A ton.
The other thing that I thinkties directly into that is this
misconception there's a lot ofpeople out there that are afraid
of AI or think it's the big badwolf or whatever that is, and
so they're intentionally notlearning it because they think
it's going to go away.
Well, I'm here to tell you it'snot going away and your
competitors are going to beusing it.
And do you want to start off atwhere everybody was two years

(42:32):
ago, trying to figure it out?
Or, nick, to your point, do youwant to circumvent those hard
knocks or those those things youdidn't even know it could do,
and kind of get to the point ofit helping your businesses,
helping your customers, helpingyour team members, helping their
families, et cetera?
Now, um, I forget who said it,but somebody likened it to, uh,

(42:53):
the tractor and how, when atractor first came out, there
were a lot of farmers that saidno, no, no, it's going to take,
it's going to take my farm hands, uh, their job away, so we're
not using a tractor.
Well, what ended up happening?
The guy that said this is atool, I'm going to use it.
Now he's farming thousands ofacres of land and those other

(43:16):
farms are gone away.
The same thing is going tohappen in businesses businesses
that leverage data and AI andthose that don't, and you will
no longer remember the ones thatdidn't.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
I just figured out what it is that makes you guys
so unique, and that is, you know, whether it's AI or data, at
the end of the day it'scommunication between humans and
you make sure that that isfront and center, that these are
people that are, that are, thatare being considered here, that
are on the line here.
These are.
These are all data, is it's,it's it's on a spreadsheet and

(43:50):
it's names and all this atbirthdays and all this other
stuff, but it's people and AI is.
So you guys have a unique wayof humanizing something that
that is quickly forgotten.
That it's that there's humansinvolved.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Right?
Well, I mean, we're talkingabout ai doing prospecting.
You know, I think the timingfactor is going to be huge, you
know what I mean.
So making sure that it's it'sreaching out when it's supposed
to, and and all those thingsthat make humans good with it
and also make humans bad.
It's going to pick up on those,it's going to leave off the

(44:24):
shortcomings and it's going toadd something new.
So with that, you know, you'vegot to be very deliberate and
intentional in who it's reachingout to, what it's trying to
accomplish, what the main goalis.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Yeah, does that make sense?
It does, and you know, I knowI've told both of you this story
, either collectively orseparately.
But you know AI video, forinstance.
We know that when we get thatvideo that says thank you for
your order and it says our nameand it says what product we

(45:00):
bought, we know that that's notreal.
We know that that was createdby AI and it was sent to us my
brother-in-law so this is ashout out to Ammo Ceramic
Coatings I think they're out ofNew York.
So we had had this conversationand we're talking through it.

(45:21):
We had recently been working onan AI project together.
And so he buys some products forhis Jeep and 10 minutes later
he gets this video.
This is hey, greg, just want tosay thank you for ordering from
us.
This is the product you bought.
Uh, this is how you're going toapply it.
Oh, by the way, let me show youwhat we got in the shop.
And the guy walks through,shows you the new car that's in

(45:43):
the shop and this and that, andhe called me and he goes man,
shows you the new car that's inthe shop and this and that, and
he called me, and he goes.
Man, I know that it was AIgenerated.
I know that he wasn't talkingto me, but, man, it made me feel
so good.
That's right.
That's right.
So it does, if you're doing itright.
It includes the human element.
It helps build the relationship.

(46:04):
It helps you continue to buildthe relationship with your
customers, or with yourpotential customers, in a very
systematic way that you haveconsciously decided upon.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
So I agree with you.
So let's talk about like leads,right?
So what, nick?
You know this better thanprobably anybody even me, right?
Who's been in the lead business.
So what we used to do is youwould get a bunch of leads, you
give them to a salesperson right?
And they work them right,supposedly, supposedly right.
But now you've got the AIthat's accountable and it does

(46:39):
its own thing and it works themright.
So what's going to change?
Are the lead vendors going tochange?
Because something's got to bedifferent, right?
You know, you can't just thisperson's filling in for a human.
The data has got to follow that, right?
So you can't just replace thathuman with AI.
In my opinion, the wholestrategy has to be changed, and

(47:01):
I think that comes down to youknow where are you finding the
people that you're going to talkto?
You know where are you findingthe people that you're going to
talk to?
You know, do it through leads.
You know how does that groupplay into your social media?
How's it?

Speaker 1 (47:15):
playing to all the other things that are in your
marketing mix.
And yeah, I mean and, and youknow again, when you, when you
have that, that, that, that,that lead or that that group of
records about some one person,and when you do, the more you
learn, you can add to it.
So you might not have birthdayincluded, maybe something so
simple, but you can ask them andyou can make it and you can get
more information.

(47:35):
You can find out are they onInstagram, are they on Facebook,
and you can connect them tothere, and so on and so forth.
So again, it just starts.
It's a whole lot of handshakes.
It's a whole lot of handshakes,it's a whole lot of handshakes.
But again, a handshake onlygoes so far if all you do is
introduce yourself and you neverget past that.
Right, hi Nick, hi Nick, HiNick, hi Nick.
And that was in the old days, um, and I'm sure it's still
happening today.
Um, especially with insuranceagents, was is they were just

(47:58):
making a whole bunch ofintroductions and not having any
conversations.
Um, they weren't serving anyproblems.
And this is how I kind ofdumbed it down and you guys can
tell me what you think aboutthis.
But, like you know, I literallyhad a conversation with an
insurance agent the other day.
That's a client of mine and theinsurance agent was basically
like I just want to.
I want my leads to be like whenI call them, they're ready to

(48:21):
buy.
I'm like all right.
So all right, I hear you.
That's great buy.
I'm like all right.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
So all right, I hear you.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
That's great, um, but that's not a lead.
Okay, no, that's, that's a sale, that's right.
That's right, that's it.
That's it, that's a deal.
No, so let's just dumb thisdown to say, say, if this is a
restaurant, all right.
So the server doesn't have tocall anybody, they don't have to
invite anybody in, theyliterally just have a, they have
a section.
People just magically appear attheir tables and order Right,
all right.
So the owner of the restaurantpaid for the location that the

(48:49):
hundreds of thousands ormillions of cars drove by every
so often and people saw it.
They took the time to advertiseand do all the things that make
those people.
Let them know that thatrestaurant was there in the
first place to be able to placethat order, to be able to place

(49:10):
that order.
So again, the word lead getsmisused.
So bad, because somebody that'sright about right now isn't
necessarily a lead.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of like I'm thedetective and I'm standing over
the body and Clayton walks up,he goes.
He did it Right, I saw him.
That's not, that's not a lead,that you just helped me solve
the case.
Yeah, that's that's it.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
That's right.
Well, and is that change like,um, you know you used to have
like a lead life cycle and nowit's more of a journey, right?

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
And again, you know we, weunderstand that these are
digital assets now.
So again, it's maybe that thedigital assets that I have on
this group of people or thatperson right now isn't relevant,
but again, they may not bebuying.
But do they have kids?
That might be a customer.
Do they have friends and family?

(49:52):
That might be a customer?
Did I let them know that?
Hey, if you have anybody thatneeds my services, I actually
pay you X.
That's like affiliate marketingis big for me.
I love affiliate marketing,changed my life and that's like
you guys have given me a greatopportunity with that.
Um.
But because I have a greatnetwork of people that need your
service.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
They need it.
Well, our ideal client is onethat is open to a conversation
that is deeper than their normalconversation with a lead
supplier, and what I mean bythat is, our goal is not just to
sell them leads.
Don't get me wrong, that's ourbusiness model.
That's how we generate revenue.
Right, sell them leads, don'tget me wrong, that's our
business model.
That's how.
That's how we generate revenue,right?

(50:30):
But so much of the the leadbusiness has been turn and burn
and then and then that's olddata, right, and there's nothing
.
It's just piling up over in thecorner.
They're literally burningpeople, or or they're or it's
gone, like they just got rid ofit.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
They don't stick around forever, right?
I mean, how many like thinkabout your very first.
Don't say the name, but thinkare they even around anymore?

Speaker 1 (50:54):
The first people you buy age leads from, do you think
?
I doubt it and like you know.
And then the people, the leadsthat I bought, the information
changed.
They're now married or theymoved and you know, and stuff
changes.
So but but again, the peopledidn't change, just some
information about them did, andI would have had to buy that
lead again if I had just keptkept in contact and kept it
current, you know.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Well, if you're in this business or whatever
business you're in, if you're init for the long haul, you know,
let's just say you're.
You're talking about a leadwhere they're interested in
health insurance and they're 50years old At and they're 50
years old At some point thatbecomes a Medicare potential
customer right, but if you'renot doing anything with your
data, if you just look at it aslike oh, I tried to call them,

(51:35):
they didn't answer.
Guess they weren't interested.
Yeah, what are you going to dowith that?

Speaker 1 (51:40):
data in 12 years.
That's exactly, and this justdawned on me.
This just came to me, right.
So again, you follow people onsocial, you friend request them
or follow them on Instagram,whatever it may be.
So you have opted in to wantingto see what that person's up to
.
But we don't do that with datajust because it's not on an

(52:01):
Instagram platform or a Facebookplatform.
But imagine if you did you knowwhat I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Good salespeople do.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
All social media did is take data and connect people
and make it where it justconstantly refreshes Right you
know, and is current.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
See, I'm glad you had him on, man, I learned so much.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
Well, again it goes back to if you think about what
sense development does.
It is a data-driven strategy.
It's about what what sensedevelopment does?
It is a data driven strategy.
It's not just data and it's notjust strategy.
It's how the two are marriedtogether, so that it's not just
banging away like we're doing um50 first dates.
It's building that relationshipover time because there's an

(52:41):
evolving strategy.
So you can't yeah, you can buytons of data and you can use it
one time and throw it away, buthow do you use it?

Speaker 1 (52:52):
going forward.
Well, clayton, like I you knowI would I would say the thing
that has stood out to me themost about you is like dude,
when I present a problem to you,it's, I believe and I might be
wrong, wrong, but I don't thinkyou stop thinking about helping
me solve that problem until thesolution happens.
I think it's literally on yourmind 24, 7 until it gets there.

(53:14):
And I can feel it when I'mtalking to you like dude, it's
like you won't even let me pushthat problem to the side,
because you know how importantof it is for me to solve that
thing and how big of adifference it's, it's going to
and like I'm just I'm tellingyou like you know, I've I've
known Jim and worked with Jimfor a long time, but like
there's something so specialabout y'all, two guys, and how

(53:35):
you compliment each other in thebusiness.
It's literally the, it's theperfect storm.
I've never seen anything likeit.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Well, that's awesome for you to say and it means a
lot, especially coming from you.
And, on that same token, youknow, jim and I, we work very
well together and we have acommon goal, which I think you
have, that goal too which is tomake sure that our customers are
taken care of.
You know what I mean and thatwe're building, you know, a

(54:03):
community and a family with ourcustomers and with our business,
and we have a responsibility toour current customers to make
sure that we're still inbusiness, right?
So we're going to keep comingup with different solutions,
we're going to keep movingforward, and it's times like
this where it really helps ourbusiness and I'm sure yours as
well, just to kind of hash thisout.
But getting back to leads, whatwe're doing today is not what

(54:27):
we're going to be doing tomorrow, and we we've just got to
figure it out.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Exactly yeah that, that his Clayton's like um
marketing IQ is off the radar.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
It's it's.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
It's unreal.
I think I fooled him.
Nah, I love it.
All I know is I've, and again Iput you guys in front of some
very successful people.
The feedback's been unanimous.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
You know what I'm saying?
It's the proof's in the puddingand you went through it with me
first so that I could feelcomfortable to do that.
And again, this has been arelationship that we've been.
So, as we're recording thistoday, it's March, but we were
having our first conversationsin September 24.
Like, we didn't rush to marketwith this, it had to get right,
right.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
Absolutely, that's right.
Well, you know, I think theother thing too is you know,
nick, you've given us a lot ofcompliments over the last.
I'm just getting started aswe're talking.
But you know, this thing onlyreally works with the right
partners and your network issecond to none in my opinion.
I mean because you know thatit's gotta be somebody that

(55:30):
cares about their business, hasa strong backbone, uh, is is
providing a quality service andit was not one of the bad actors
out there, and so you know whoyou've introduced us to, to a
lot of people who out therestands out as to you know
somebody that you're like man,these guys over here are doing
it really well and kind of leadsto why you've made those
introductions.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Well, you know, in the, in the, I have a big
background in the world ofinsurance and the insurance
industry is unbelievable,because when you see like I, you
know I I gotta be careful whatI say, cause I had some very
access to some very sensitiveinformation, but just tens of
millions of dollars spentannually on duplicate leads.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
One company, yeah, you know 40, 50, $60 million on
duplicate information and just,you could just stop talking
right there and be like wait aminute, what?
And?
But the companies do so good,they still are prosperous and
they still do great things.
I know insurance companiesmight have a little bit of a bad
, a bad rap word on the streetsor whatever, but they're.

(56:30):
The good that they do Isn'tgetting, isn't getting
recognized, cause that's stillhappening.
You know what I'm saying and ittruly is and, and and I believe
in it as a customer and as a asa business owner.
But I'm, marketing isfascinating.
Marketing, you know, moneychanges hands when problem are
solved, right, and.
And people can't put money inyour hand and let you solve

(56:54):
their problem if they don't knowthat you are there.
So marketing is, is fun, and Iremember there was episode of
friends when Chandler got intoadvertising oh yeah, man, right.
And I remember thinking I wantto be an advertising.
Justin Timberlake played a starand I think friends of benefits
and he was in advertising and Ialways thought you get to
create things that make peopletake action.

(57:14):
You get to bring products tolife.
That's always been something inthat was important to me and
that that I, that I enjoyed, andthen just life led me in into
the places that I'm in now.
And now we get to createcontent and so on and so on.
But again, I could have thegreatest commercial in the world
, but if I can't get it to thepeople, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
And again you got to go wherethey're at, just like Jesus told

(57:35):
his disciples, and people areon devices and um, and I want to
make sure, like you know, whatyou guys can do with, with your
innovation and everything else,is the content that my agency
can make.
You can give it new purpose,right, you can give it new
purpose and, honestly, like Iwouldn't consider myself a CRM
expert I probably know more thanmost people, but, like you know

(57:57):
, I'm leaning on you guys forthat stuff because you know what
the hell is going on.
The CRM is the tool thatdistributes man, like you know,
so it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
It truly is Well on.
You know, in the same vein asJesus, jesus taught his
disciples how to pray Right.
And you know I think that's alot what Nick does.
You know, he teaches people howto.
You know, do those things.
You know those meaningfulthings that lead to success and
take care of their employees andall that stuff.
So the real question is iswhat's next?

(58:24):
And you know, how do we do itin the right way?

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah, well, I know, collectively we've got some big
things that we're working on andthen at the same time, we've
got other things that are in theworks.
Nick, what are you most excitedabout outside of what we're
doing here with leads and withdata?
What do you got cooking thatyou're fired up about for 25?

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Well, you know, the SiriusXM Southern Rock Channel
just went live.
It just launched, which is veryexciting.
So it's.
You know, having one station inthe alternative that I got in
20, I guess it was 2023, isgreat.
Having a second one isphenomenal.
I love the relationship withSiriusXM.
It's such a great company.
I learn from them all the time.
Xm it's such a great company.
I learn from them all the time.

(59:06):
I'm really excited about, again,affiliate marketing, and people
come to my agency to get theword out.
So this fills a big hole for me.
So I'm really excited for whatwe're doing with the agency.
You know, brad and I areworking on a joint studio space
here in town, which, again, thisis huge.
Oh my gosh.
This is front and center inthat whole project for me.

(59:31):
Under the covers a little bit,but, um, I, I'm, I'm, I'm most
excited, I think, cause I get toreconnect with some really, uh,
really successful folks.
Um, and I have new things totalk about.
I like, I like being the onethat brings ideas to the table.
So, um, you know, on, on, onthose fronts, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm

(59:51):
definitely excited about those.
And then, but again, this hasbeen something that, as an
insurance, a high producer ininsurance, for a number of years
.
This was the thing that I waschallenged with that I really
couldn't solve.
I marketed on social and 99% ofthe other agents marketed with
leads, and there was a big,gigantic gap there, and we're

(01:00:13):
finally, with the help of youguys, I'm figuring out how to
close that gap.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Well, yeah, what are you excited about?
Well, I mean just our businesscontinuing to move forward.
And just as I look back, youknow, in a reflective kind of a
way, you know I've just kind ofseen how it's evolved.
But you know, with therelationship with Nick, you know
he's like, hey, you know I'mtalking to people that have this
problem and we thought we couldsolve it and hopefully we are
moving forward.
I hope we grow that because youknow we want to change people's

(01:00:45):
lives for the better on bothsides.
You know our customer and theircustomers.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, again, that's where wedrive the satisfaction in what
we do and the fun and all thosethings.
I'm excited to learn the nextthing, the next piece that we do
, and the fun and and all thosethings.
Uh, I'm excited to, to, tolearn the next thing, the next
piece that that we're able tobring in, and I don't have any
idea what that's going to be, uh, but you know, as these, we're
in an interesting time wherethings are moving very quickly,

(01:01:11):
and if you don't have data, ifyou're not leveraging data, if
you don't have leads, whatever,whatever, however you want to
call it, obviously data can beall types of different things,
depending upon how much intentthere is there, but some people
are going to be left behind andsome people are going to grow
like crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
There's not as much separation between the big giant
and the little guy anymore.
Nope, because the tools are thesame.
It's just you know at whatlevel are you able to use them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Well, give us about another month and there's going
to be some disruption in themarket.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
That's right.
That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
And it's fun too, um, but you know it's just going to
speed these things up and youknow where you run into trouble.
At least, what we've seen iswith some bigger companies,
where maybe there's more redtape in order to make a decision
.
They're losing ground becausethey didn't make the decision
fast enough, because it involvesso many people, even some that

(01:02:12):
are just and we won't name anynames here for multiple reasons,
but you know, clayton and Iwere on a call with one of our
other products and for thisparticular company, it was going
to save them $10 million a yearand it was going to save their
employees $3 million a year.
Wow, but because the person onthe other end of the phone was

(01:02:34):
not revenue impacting, no stakein the outcome.
Yeah, no stake in the outcome.
No stake in the outcome.
They, they just said we'll lookat it for 26, so essentially
saying it's not worth it.
Enough for me to have aconversation to pursue this any
further, even for 10 milliondollars or for the three million
dollars that our people are setwill save, because I don't want

(01:02:55):
to be, um, the I don't, yeah,you don't want to walk the plank
.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
the gatekeeper yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, I mean the guy that owned the software company
that I was I was running.
You know he had like this bigidea of this big company was
going to do.
I was like no one's going towalk the plank.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
You know what I?

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
mean so that's that different tactics, because that
may or may not happen.
You know, and you don't want tolike discourage it, but you
gotta be real, you know and yougotta, you gotta know who the
decision maker is the only thingI would add to.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
That is like I'd be like hey man, I tell when she,
when that person said that youknow they're not revenue
impacted, I don't want to dealwith it right now.
Basically, totally understand,I totally get it.
I just have one favor to ask Um, can I be in the room when you
tell your boss that you said noto $10 million?
Oh yeah, Could I just be therefor that?
Can I be a fly on the wall?

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Well, it was.
It was interesting because Ithink we were both so caught off
guard that somebody was wouldwould actually say that yeah,
that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
I mean, yeah, it was going to be millions of dollars,
but it's okay.
You know, we should have saidoh, you're just the asset
custodian, not the owner.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
But, but you know this is an interesting time
because you've you've gotbusinesses that will absolutely
be saved in the next two yearsbecause they were willing to be
open-minded about a newtechnology or about a new way of
thinking about their business.
And then you will have way morethan that in businesses that
were lost because they failed toact.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
You know, god has uh, god works in mysterious ways,
they say, but like you know bothyou guys' life history leading
up to this point to kind of getthere.
It's just, you know, when I metyou, jim two, two and a half
years ago, I would have neverthought that we'd be having this
conversation today.
It wasn't even on my radar,like not even close.

(01:04:55):
The whole, as a matter of fact,the conversation that we had in
September that kicked all thisoff wasn't even on my radar in
August.
I mean, it wasn't even like itdidn't even exist, right, but
the problem did.
But again, I was, that problemwas on the back burner, like it
is for most.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah Well, and that was just a in passing, you know,
you know what's going on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Oh, we got this thing going on.
You know the kind of a thingand well, you know we can do
that.
I'm going to, I want to.
I want to just throw a littletestimony out for you, for you
guys, because and again, you, ifyou need to cut the edit this
out, you can.
It's going to be the only thingleft.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Um, because you know, I don't know if you could
necessarily do it for everybody.
Maybe it was because I hadearned it to a certain degree.
But I brought you guys anopportunity, a pain point from
somebody else, and you guysthrew massive skin in the game
to help solve that problem,meaning you guys went out and

(01:05:53):
spent your own money on certainassets that needed to happen for
that to even be considered adeal.
That might happen or might not.
It wasn't that.
Yeah, we're going to do thisand we get the deal.
You, you put skin in the gameand you did it, that you cared
that much and like there's justso few companies that will do
that.
And, and again, you, if, if, atanything else, everybody has a

(01:06:17):
care meter how much, how muchyou're getting.
As my granddad would say, givea shit meter, right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Right, right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Nobody's going to beat y'all's period, love it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Well, thanks for saying that, and it was a
deliberate decision.
You know it was conversations,it wasn't just like, oh, we can
do it.
When we make those decisions,we're all in and we know what
the risks are and we'veevaluated it and it was a
calculated decision.
Just, it was a data-drivendecision.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
That's right well, and and for, you know, for
companies out there that aretrying to decide whether they,
you know, take on a newtechnology, start working with
us, start working with you,whatever that looks like.
Um, you know there's, there's.
It's not free and there's,there's an investment.
You know, I think of what.
You know.
It's not free and there's aninvestment, you know I think of.
You know, when I startedpodcasting, you said it's going

(01:07:06):
to cost you money the first twoyears and then, if you do the
right things, it might makemoney by the third year.
And I said, okay, well, I'mready.
Mm-hmm, it took a little whileto get ready for that, but I got
ready for that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
Now we're in season two, mm-hmm, and that's a
significant time investment andmoney investment, all those
things.
And so are companies going tobe serious enough in order to
take the leap, to make aninvestment in order to do better
business, to do more business,whatever that looks like for
them?
For us, it wasn't just a hope,it was okay.

(01:07:47):
Let's look at this sixdifferent ways, let's argue
about it, let's have a debate,and then we're going to make the
best decision we can make withthe information, the data that
we have at hand, and that's whywe pull the trigger on that, I
would challenge everybody to getto know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Try to get to know your vendor, your data supplier,
and when you realize thatthey're not interested in that,
that tells you everything youneed to know.
That's right, that's true,that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Well, Clayton, I'll throw this one your way.
So somebody out there right nowhas been listening to this
podcast and they're between arock and a hard place.
They've got the way they'vebeen doing business for the last
10 years, 15 years, 20 years,whatever that looks like.
They're not sure if this is forthem or not.
What do you tell them?

(01:08:36):
You mean as far as like leadsare concerned, leads or
leveraging data or AI, what?
What's just one bit of advicethat you'd give them in order to
make that decision?
Or to pull the trigger, or, um,or even just look the other way
?

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Well, they need to surround themselves with people
they trust, they need tocommunicate and they need to
take a step back and evaluatewhere it's going next.
So, like like with Nick, likewhat's next for for the studio
world?
You know, I mean, what is next,what's going to happen next?
And I see what you do and Iknow you're already on your way

(01:09:14):
there.
So you know, I mean, this isjust an amazing operation, thank
you, you know what I mean andand I see what you're doing with
your packages and those kindsof things and wow, it's great,
you're gonna nail this, we'rehaving fun yeah, well, you're
already nailing it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
We're having fun nick .
Same question to you, likesomebody out there uh, whether
it's they need to be doing abetter job branding, whether
it's they need to now combinetheir brand and their online
presence or their social mediapresence with data, or whatever
that looks like, they're at acrossroads right now and they're

(01:09:51):
trying to decide do I takeaction right now?
How do I evaluate whether Itake action?
Or they're getting ready to,you know, put their lounge chair
up on the sideline and and letit go bomb.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
What advice do you have for them?
Well, first of all, you knowit's not a matter of of.
If it's a matter of when, okay,you're either going to do it or
you don't.
Right, you're going to live oryou're going to die.
But people don't do things likethis for two reasons.
One of two reasons Either oneit's a mindset issue, where they
don't believe that they canactually do it.
It's a disbelief in themselves.

(01:10:25):
Success isn't for them.
They're never going to outlivetheir own self-image.
The other one is that theydon't believe the hype is real.
There's still people out therethat don't think that social
media works Right, whenliterally billions of people.
If you have wifi, if you haveaccess to internet, you have a
social media profile pretty muchalmost everybody, except for my

(01:10:46):
buddy, jordan, and I'm going tocall him out real quick.
He's still not on social, butum, but so it's.
It comes down to one of thosetwo things.
If the belief is in yourself,there's ways to fix that.
If your belief, if you don'tbelieve the hype is real, like
dude, you know, eventually thisparty is not going to be free
anymore.
Like you know what I mean.
Social media ain't going to befree forever, like everything
that we've talked about todaysocial media, data, management,

(01:11:07):
reaching out everything butphysically shaking a person's
hand can be done from this phonein my hand, right, and we all
carry a phone in our hand or ourpocket Like I can't even go
from the bedroom to the livingroom without picking it up
anymore.
It's gotten that bad, that'sright, so that's at the end of
the day.
That's where we're at.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
And then along those same lines.
So one of the big things thatis kind of I'm going to say the
entry point for the hit labstudios piece of your business
is kind of nailing downsomebody's brand, what it is
that they're about, and helpingthem with that image.
How do they get in touch withyou?
What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Man, any DM on social , me and my team get it.
They can email Nick at NickHeider or just simply go.
Everything is the hub isnickheidercom and anything and
everything.
Even if it was an introductionto you guys, I can make that
right through those channels,right?
So um, I'm I'm really easy tofind it's.
You know, h I T?
E R, there's not anL in there,man.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
People try to put an L in there.
You're just talking about that,not about you, but oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Yeah, they do it all the time.
It's you know it's calledreading Um it's you know it's
start at the top left, work yourway to the bottom right, work
from left to right.
Group words together assentences and it works great.
There's no L in Heider man, sonickheidercom, make it easy,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
And it's amazing what he's doing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:28):
Amazing, Absolutely Well the introductions, just the
network that you've builtintentionally, because it hadn't
been that long ago that youdidn't have a podcast and you
were on a podcast that reallykind of was the catalyst to what
you're doing right now.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
That's exactly right.
And building a brand buildinganything starts off with a
strategy, right?
So?
Which is why, again, I pushpeople to you guys.
The world of data can get veryexpensive, very quick, and it
can be bottomless and endlessand with no reward.
You got to have a good strategyfor what the data that you buy
and then what you do with itafter you get it Right.

(01:13:04):
And it's the same thing withbuilding a brand.
At the HitLab, we have multiplepackages, but it starts out
depending on your budget andwhere you're at in your journey.
Are you in fourth grade, fifthgrade or ninth grade, you know?
On the way up?
So?
But just to get in the door atthe at the hit lab, it starts
with just a strategy package,right, cause most people, most

(01:13:25):
businesses, are living off therevenue and they don't have
marketing money yet, right?
So, again, if you're wearingall those hats as a small
business, I promise you you'retripping over money.
You can't see the forest forthe trees and that's what.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
And usually about 90 days we help you find that money
that gets you into into contentand everything else.
It's the same thing with data.
Well, I think one of thegreatest assets you have is
you've got the aggregateexperience of everybody you're
working with and you bring thatto the table.
You know you try to do it onyour own.
I mean, it's just you, but youpartner with somebody like Nick

(01:13:53):
and you've got all thatknowledge brought together and
it's very organized, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
So it's great, absolutely.
We're having a good time,fellows.
I love it.
I mean we're having fun.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
Uh, clayton, I let people know where, where we can
be located, how you can startdoing business with us.
What, what kind of well, jim?

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
you're super easy to find because you're bold
backwards that do so.
You can get a hold of Jim.
If you need to talk to Nick,get a hold of Jim.
And if you need to talk to Jim,get a hold of Nick.
But sensecustomcom orsense-leadscom great spots to
find us.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
Yeah, that's it and team.
So I know this is a little bitdifferent flavor for the Charge
Forward podcast, but this is oneof those important times,
important topics.
If you own a business, if yourun a business, if you're part
of a business, it could be thatyour business future is
dependent upon having this typeof conversation.
And so, again, we don't workwith everybody, we're very

(01:14:49):
selective, but at the same time,we are very honest with people.
We point people in the rightdirection.
So if you need to reach outagain, that's sense-leads, or
sense-leads for the lead side ofthings and then sense-custom
for our consulting andmanagement consulting business.
There, again, this is theCharge Forward Podcast.

(01:15:10):
I want to say special thanks toNick Heider and his team here at
the HitLab Studios in Nashville.
Nick, thank you for being on.
Thank you for putting all thistogether.
Always a great pleasure.
Bang bang, absolutely.
Clayton, thank you for being on.
Thank you for putting all thistogether.
Always a great pleasure.
Bang bang, absolutely.
Clayton, thank you for flyingdown and being a part man.
It's been great.
You guys are awesome.
I love it.
Well, until next time.
Team.
I'm Jim Cripps with the chargeforward podcast.
Again, special thanks to ourthe team here at hit lab studios

(01:15:31):
in Nashville and uh sincecustom development.
Be safe and have a great time.
Hit us up if you need some helpwith your data.
We'll see you later.
Team is Jim Cripps here withthe Charge Forward podcast.
I just want to tell you I loveyou.
I appreciate you listening, Iappreciate you for subscribing
and sharing the Charge Forwardpodcast with people you know and

(01:15:52):
you love, because that's whatwe're here for.
We are here to share theamazing stories, the things that
people have been through, theways that they were able to
improve their life, so that youcan take little nuggets from
theirs and help improve yourstory and be better tomorrow
than you were today.
I hope that this is the toolyou needed at the right time and

(01:16:14):
that you find value in theamazing guests that we bring
each and every week.
Thanks so much and don't forgetnew episodes drop every
Thursday.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sense, Scale & Strategy: How Elite Companies Use AI, Data & Human Connection – with Nick Hiter