November 29, 2022 • 55 mins
"I was late to my Shark Tank audition." Today's guest, Seneca Hampton, shares his journey of entrepreneurship -- and how it isn't always a linear path.
From starting more than twenty businesses before he landed on the "successful one," Seneca shared how being resilient and consistent eventually led to his multi-million dollar booming business, Hampton Adams.
Listen to our chat about using athletic tape, selling on Amazon, geeking out on marketing, and how keeping things simple eventually led to his success. Plus, if you've ever wanted to hear what the experience of being on Shark Tank is like (like I did!), you won't want to miss Seneca's story!
Click the "Send Krystal a Text Message" link above to send us your questions, comments, and feedback on the show! (Pssst...we'll do giveaways in upcoming episodes so make sure you leave your name & podcast title.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Krystal Proffitt (00:01):
What was it like being on Shark Tank? What a
fun question, right? And it isone that I could not wait to
hear the answer from today'sguest. So I have such a special
treat for you today, if you havebeen looking for an inspiring
story about entrepreneurship,being in business for yourself,
(00:26):
and what that looks like, andfrom being on Shark Tank, like
oh my gosh, Seneca Hampton storyis so fascinating. So Seneca is
an entrepreneur with multipleseven to eight figure
businesses, from E commerce tologistics, consulting and
speaking and he's responsiblefor over one quarter of a
(00:46):
billion dollars in sales, andhas touched over 5000 products,
and 20 different categories. Soif you have ever thought about
Amazon, or selling something onAmazon, or anything to do with a
physical product, you are goingto love today's conversation.
And we totally geeked down aboutmarketing and business and all
(01:13):
the cool things that he hasdone. And it's been really cool
to really reflect on thisinterview and go back and I was
just like taking notes listeningback to it because it was so
awesome. I could talk to him forhours, like we realize like, oh
my gosh, okay, we gotta we gotto tone it down. We have to stop
(01:34):
this conversation because itcould just have kept going
forever. I loved hispersonality, I loved his ability
to be so open. And I feel likegenuinely that he has a heart to
help other people that are justlike you that are trying to
start a business trying to run abusiness trying to really build
(01:57):
something that's going to havelegacy and last and I hope that
you walk away from today'sconversation with so many
nuggets of wisdom. So withoutfurther ado, let's get into
today's episode, the interviewwith Seneca. Welcome to the
Prophet podcast where we teachyou how to start launch and
(02:18):
market your content withconfidence. I'm your host,
Krystal Proffitt, and I'm soexcited that you're here. Thanks
for hanging out with me today.
Because if you've been trying tofigure out the world of content
creation, this is the show thatwill help be your time saving
shortcut. So let's get right toit, shall we? All right, profit
podcast listeners. I'm soexcited for today's guest.
(02:42):
Welcome to the show. Seneca. Howare you today?
Seneca Hampton (02:48):
I am good. I'm feeling really good. And I'm
excited. I'm pumped up and readyto go.
Krystal Proffitt (02:53):
Yes. Okay. So we just have to start like from
the top. You were on Shark Tank.
Let's just call it what it is.
We have this. It's funny,because I was like, how are we
going to intro this? Because Iactually met Mark Cuban last
year at a podcast Conference,which of all the places in the
world why would I ever meet himat a podcast conference, right?
But I was like, Okay, let'slet's How do I segue this like,
(03:15):
I'm gonna be all like, supercool interview and slip it in. I
don't know how to do that. Sojust you were on Shark Tank.
That's freaky deal. So let'sjust start right there. What was
that experience like? Like allthe things we have to know?
Seneca Hampton (03:30):
Ah, man, the experience on Shark Tank, I
would do it again in aheartbeat. I was very nervous
leading up to doing it. And itwasn't because I was going to be
on TV wasn't because I was goingto be standing for the sharks. I
was nervous because like anybusiness entrepreneur, business
owner, the narrative. Yeah, it'svery important, right?
(03:52):
Especially marketing, right?
It's like the narrative is soimportant, and how things are
are seen and the story is told.
And so I was really likenervous, like, Oh, my goodness,
I hope that they hope that theyportray this in an accurate
light. And so that was theprobably the most nerve wracking
part. But the experience waslike I don't I've never like
(04:15):
I've never done skydiving, but II almost equate it to some
extreme sport because youradrenaline is pumping. The
process to get from thebeginning to the end is a roller
coaster. And when you come offof it, your adrenaline is
pumping for hours after and thenyou finally come down and you
just you crash not in a likenegative way but in a like I
(04:39):
need to take about an eight hournap.
Krystal Proffitt (04:41):
Oh my goodness. Yeah. I'm sure I'm
sure. And I mean, so I'm surethere's like probably, you know,
trade secrets that you can'tshare when you're on the show.
But whenever you left, what wasthe first thought like did you
call your wife did you callsomebody in your family like
what what was the first thoughtrunning through your mind like,
(05:01):
that just happened. Like what?
What was that first moment?
Like? Like once you werefinished with your whole pitch,
you were done. Were you justrelieved, like walk us through
that?
Seneca Hampton (05:12):
I was relieved that I've remembered that
feeling. This is actually areally good question. Nobody's
ever asked me that question. Iremember feeling relieved. For
sure. The other question thatwent through my head was, was
Mark serious. That was as I wasleaving him, like, was he
serious? Or was he just joking?
Or was that like the did thatjust really happen? Yeah. And
(05:33):
then I'm walking out and I'mlike, okay, ah, I got through
it. I did it. And then thethought of, Okay, what's next?
And it was it was, it was likea, that was a big question that
literally took months to eatthrough. Yeah, after doing that,
(05:55):
that thing. But yeah, those weremy thoughts. When I left. I was
like, Okay, what's the seriousand, and he was, by the way,
like, I can't share a lot. Sothey say this on Shark Tank.
They say, Shark Tank is likeFight Club. Right? What happens
at Shark? Like, there is no suchthing as Fight Club. You don't
mention Fight Club. So there'sthings you can't talk about,
(06:15):
right, that led up to, etc, etc.
I do have funny stories, though.
I think I probably have the mostinteresting story leading up to
Shark Tank. I think I'll topeverybody's story. But, um, but
I mean, going through that thingwas was definitely a roller
coaster. The emotions arerunning high, you come off of
(06:36):
this high of this rollercoaster, and then it's back to
business. And it's almost like,okay, cool. That was great.
Wonderful. Put it on the shelf.
shine it up. Look at that.
That's cool. Boom. Let's keepgoing. Yeah, kind of the
approach that I took.
Krystal Proffitt (06:49):
Yeah, this is so awesome. I love hearing that.
I'm sure it was a big milestone.
And then you're just like, Okay,we got to get back to business.
Like we got to get back to work.
And people are listening rightnow. And they're like, Krystal,
what is his business? Like?
They're Googling your name.
They're like, what it's even doy'all been talking about shark
tank? So I want to talk aboutHampton Adams now because like,
(07:12):
I just want to, I want to getright to it as an athlete,
former athlete limitless, let'sgo back. former athlete and
someone who now like does likemental health stuff, like I do a
lot of walking. This is more butback in the day, like I was a
volleyball player. I was acheerleader. Like I did all the
things. And your product. I usesomething so similar to it every
(07:32):
single day. So tell everybodyabout Hampton Adams and what it
does and how it helps people.
Seneca Hampton (07:37):
Yes. So I was talking to my insurance adjuster
today because they were they'redoing an audit they typically do
if you have you know, business,they do an audit and your
insurance. And she goes so whatdo you guys do? And I Oh, we
sell flooding tapes. She goes,Wait, what? She looks at our
numbers because they need yourtop line revenue. She goes,
Wait, that's it? Yes, that'swhat we do. So Hanson Adams is I
(07:59):
categorize this as a sportsmedicine brand. Our goal is to
make products in regards tosports medicine, sports
recovery, that allow the theathlete to perform longer,
stronger, better. And so thereare a lot of products and start
so small with us with athletictape, specifically, if you've
used it before kinesiology tape,athletic tape, bandage, wrap,
(08:23):
all that stuff. The adhesive isimportant. And I think,
especially in today's kind ofclimate and generation people
are allergic to virtuallyeverything. Yeah. And so what
we've tried to do is remove alot of the things that cause
people to have allergicreactions from the adhesive,
which makes it healthier, andthen solve a lot of the just
(08:45):
quality of life problems thatyou have. If you're an athlete,
you know what I mean? Ripping,tearing tape, it's sticking and
staying it being too sticky ornot sticky enough. It not coming
off the roll all that stuff. Sowe really put a lot of time and
effort into solving it to makingit just like I love this stuff.
It's easy to use. It alwaysperformed.
Krystal Proffitt (09:03):
Yeah, this is so funny because I like I said I
was an athlete, my brothersplayed football and my oldest or
my, my middle. I have two olderbrothers. So one of them went on
to play college ball. And I havesuch vivid visual memories of
him, just yanking it, tearing itand coming off in pieces. And he
looks like a wild animal likebecause he's trying to wrap
(09:26):
himself up and he's doing allthese things. And I'm like,
okay, so I know exactly whatyou're talking about when it
comes to the adhesive and allthe challenges that you see. But
now you have this business andit's helping so many people and
I just have to give you kudosbecause I think it's such a cool
brand that you have and whatyou're moving forward with. But
I did kind of a deep dive onyour YouTube channel. And all
(09:50):
the fun things that you weretalking about because you are in
good company here was Senecabecause you said you're an
optimization nerd. Well, I'm amarketing nerd and I and
optimization and SEO and all thethings. And so I just wanted to
ask like, what is the thingabout creating a brand or
marketing a brand or businessthat keeps you going when things
(10:12):
get a little tough? Because I'msure you've seen some ups and
downs in your journey.
Seneca Hampton (10:17):
Yes, I have seen things that literally would,
would keep you up at night.
Example, I've had things held upby FDA, by customs customs or
federal agents. And I'm talking30,000 100,000 $200,000 worth of
stuff held captive, and they'reasking you for stuff that
you're, you're like my entirebusinesses. So I've gone through
(10:39):
that I've gone through peopleusing it and using it
incorrectly. And then it's justa lot of the list goes on. Let's
goes on. Um, I think the thingthat kind of keeps me going is
why I do what I do. The brand isactually named after my parents.
And so to me, it's a it's, it'smy head nod. It's me paying
(11:01):
homage to the both of them. AndI watched as a kid, I have eight
siblings, I watched them put uson their back and carry us
through life. And it was hard,it was not easy at all.
Everything, you know, the entiregamut of drugs, alcohol, all
that crazy stuff. And still tobe able to watch them. My mom
(11:23):
quit drugs and alcohol, alcoholwent to school. I think she was
like 3637. And I'm there I thinkI'm in middle school, and I'm
watching her graduate and shebecomes a nurse. And then I
watched my dad who worked oncrab boats and Alaska. He worked
construction he whatever hecould do to provide and send all
(11:46):
his money home, I watched him goback to San Jose finish his
degree to come to become aindustrial X ray technician. And
I saw I saw them literally dothis, as they're trying to
provide the best life that theycould for us. Eight of us living
in a one bedroom, and watchingthat progression going to
something bigger and just it wasit was something that I'll never
(12:09):
forget. And so for me to buildthis brand and when it gets
hard, it's not just about me,it's not about you know, oh, I
have a cool brand. And, and it'sreally funny before Shark Tank,
you've probably never heard ofme. And that was on purpose.
Because I it's not about me andme being in the spotlight.
Right? I'm out I have I have twokids a four year old and a five
year old. And I want to buildsomething for them so that they
(12:31):
can see and not just thebusiness. But who I have to
become in order to build thatbusiness is is what is so
important to me of like you gotto be a hard worker you got to
be consistent, you got to bepersistent, you there are things
that you have to be able to doand a person you have to be able
to come to become, especially ifyou want your kids to be that
(12:51):
you can't just, you know, preachat them and bark at them. So for
me it's a bigger why. With thebrand and I grew up playing
football, all my brothers playedfootball. My dad was a coach. My
mom was a nurse. So you kind ofget that sports medicine. It
just kind of all tied together.
Um, for me, so for me, it's abig, it's bigger than just the
(13:13):
business.
Krystal Proffitt (13:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, this is so great. I lovehearing people's backstories
because I think it just it does,it doesn't so well because I
actually went and I was lookingat Hampton Adams and I was
looking at, you know, yourdifferent content pieces that
you have out there. And it'sreally hard to find any of you
as far as like, this is Senecasbrand on Hampton Adams, like
it's very apparent that that'snot what it is like, it's like
(13:35):
you have awesome photography, bythe way. I mean, who knew a visa
tape could look so sexy on thewebsite, like, let's be real,
like the angles, it looks sogood. But I think it's really
interesting because like I said,I'm a marketing nerd. I love
looking at how products arereally presented out into the
world to solve a problem. And Iwanted to talk about another
(13:57):
piece of your story. And that'sselling stuff on Amazon, like,
oh my gosh, you have all thisincredible experience on the
world's largest platform. AndI'm sure that that also comes
with its pros and its cons. Sotell us a bit about that.
Because a lot of people in ouraudience aren't necessarily
selling products on Amazon. ButI know that there are some
(14:20):
stories or some lessons learnedthat you've had to learn about
marketing along the way. So doyou have any insights that you
can share?
Seneca Hampton (14:29):
Yes, this this conversation, just the Amazon
side of things. This is a fourto five hour conversation. It is
it when it was the Wild West itwas you know, imagine literally
just try and close your eyes andimagine you know, bandits
walking through town and noone's doing anything about it
and literally in like having asheriff and he's just kind of
(14:52):
there. It's It was literallythat when I started and it's
improved dramatically now. Butin terms of Mark Getting, the
beautiful thing about Amazon tome is that the there's the whole
supply and demand thing, right?
A lot of people I found try tostart a business or of any kind,
whether it be a physicalproduct, digital good, right?
Course whatever it is, andthey're trying to sell what they
(15:15):
like, and not what customerswant. And the beautiful thing
about Amazon is, it willliterally tell you if people
want what you have. And it'salmost an instant feedback you
get because of how you have tomarket or present your product.
One of the things that I foundto be very, very effective on
Amazon is is reviews right? I,regardless of the business, it
(15:39):
doesn't matter what it is likethis, this is gold like this,
this literally changedeverything for me. I literally
would jump on a Facebook, Iwould jump onto forums, I would
jump on wherever and I wouldliterally just look at what are
people talking about? What arethe things that they complain
about, with products thatthey're currently using? What
(16:02):
are the things they love andrave about what products that
they're that they're using? AndI just literally went okay, well
mine has to do all this. And itcan't do all of that. It's so
simple, right? In theory, butnow it's how do I articulate
that to somebody. And I thinkthat's the important part. And I
think for that that's eithereither got the gift of gab,
(16:26):
right, and you can translate itinto writing. There's some
people that are, you know,literary literary gurus, I hate
writing, by the way, my wifeasked me to write something the
other day, and I ever find itwith I dislike writing, I load
it with a passion, she goes metoo. Or, you, you you find a
template, a rubric that works,right, or you just go through
(16:49):
trial and error. And I think thebeautiful thing for me was is I
got the opportunity to work at abusiness that was selling on
Amazon. And so I got theopportunity to see or build a
rubric or standard whilestudying while trying. So I was
able to kind of, I rolled up mysleeves and Krystal I worked 60
to 80 hours a week because I sawI was like, oh my goodness, I
(17:13):
could actually build thebusiness. Like I could build one
I could I could do it leveragemy time. It was that was the way
to me. And so I put everything Ihad into it. And I had to learn
marketing, I had to learnspecifically direct response
marketing, specifically, directresponse marketing is a way to
get somebody directly to make adecision. And if you notice on
(17:37):
Amazon, depending on what you'relooking for, what's your
problem? Right, who am I talkingto? Who's my customer was there?
I think we all know this right?
Who's my customer? What's theproblem? How do I solve it? But
what is their what's their mainproblem? And what do they wish
(17:58):
they had instead? And that'swhat you sell now is this is
what this is what you want,right? People don't want tape
that doesn't, that that thatrips easily. They don't want to
have to deal with the hassle andthe headache, right? So it's
it's not selling tape. It'sselling ease selling peace of
mind. It's selling the outcome.
And I've learned that buy onAmazon very directly. You don't
(18:21):
need pretty pictures on Amazon.
If you literally just you showpeople this is the benefit you
get. Yeah. In your in theirmind. That's what I wanted.
That's what I've been lookingfor. It's exactly purchased.
Yeah. And because there's a 30day back write money guarantee
and all that stuff. Amazon'sit's, it's easier than trying
(18:45):
to, in my opinion going on, youknow, creating your own website,
doing your own funnels to yourown page. It's much harder
because you're talking intent.
Now people on Amazon theirwallets already in their
account, like it's just clickBuy. Yes, it's easier, right?
versus trying to get and so forme, it's like taking and before
I started Amazon, I think Istarted 22 businesses. Before I
(19:08):
started the one that works 22different businesses, they all
failed. They all failed. But Ilearned a lot along the way. So
when I finally got here, it waslike, Okay, I'm not starting
from zero. I can take all thelessons I learned and put it
into this. And specifically alot of it was it's just
marketing psychology, right?
(19:32):
It's how do people think andwhat are they looking for? What
what is their their state ofmind when they're looking for
what they're looking for? And ifyou can speak as if you're there
waiting, the purchase becomeslike so much easier. So much
easier. So I mean, I've one ofmy biggest challenges was the
people I'm competing with. I'mcompeting with Johnson and
(19:55):
Johnson. Mueller make David likeit Hey T tape, I'm competing
with big brands. And if you lookon Amazon and look at the best
sellers list, I'm beating bigbrands on Amazon. So it's, it's
it's been a ride. It's been.
I've been my own brand six, sixyears, but I've been on Amazon
for what, eight, nine years. Soit's been a journey for sure.
Krystal Proffitt (20:18):
Yeah, that was gonna be my next question is
What year did you kind of startdoing all the like Amazon and
learning it and like understandthat way people can kind of
contextually understand how longyou've been at this. And you
didn't just say, Oh, I'm gonnado this last year?
Unknown (20:33):
No, while No, I think I think that's the biggest. And as
I was like, myself, like tryingto figure it out, I think that
was one of the biggestdiscourages for me is I felt
like, it wasn't happening quick.
It wasn't happening quick. Andnow being here, literally 10
years later, I'm going, oh, itjust took time and persistence.
That's all it took. And I saythat's all that's not easy to be
(20:55):
patient and consistent andpersistent, even when it's like
this isn't moving or working.
But I was on the Amazonplatform, I want to say two to
three years before I even soldmy own products. So I had all
that practice and experience.
And I think before that I had aI touched around what 1500
different types of products. Andthen that grew over 5000
(21:19):
different types of products overtime of me actually doing it. So
I got a lot of experience undermy belt before I was able to
kind of jump on. So I was ableto have someone pay for my
schooling.
Krystal Proffitt (21:33):
Yeah, so to speak. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I
mean, I think that you just gaveso many people listening a huge
gift just then about saying, itwasn't your first business you
tried to start it wasn't yoursecond, it was your 23rd I guess
it was your 23rd business. Wow.
I mean, like, I think that thatis so inspiring. And like you
said, it's like that persistencepays off, and just keeping at it
(21:55):
and trying. But I have toimagine that you came to a point
where maybe your 21st businesswas like almost taking off, like
where was that like, kind ofposition where you had to say,
Okay, this is the thing like,have to go all in? Did you have
to make a big investment? Didyou have to get strategic? Like,
(22:15):
what was that kind of catalystto really say, this is the one
I'm gonna go all in on.
Seneca Hampton (22:24):
So I have on my phone, I sat down one day, and I
listed all the businessesbecause I was wondering, like,
how, how did I get here? BecauseI feel like whatever I was
doing, I need to continue tocontinue to do and not forget,
trying to see if I can find thatlist. If I can't, it's okay. I
(22:47):
remember I started a I started arecord label. I don't know what
I was thinking doing thatlooking back a lot of these
visits, I look back and I'mlike, what were you I started a
whole LLC, all this stuff out oforder. It's like I'm gonna start
a record label. I created mylogo. And then I created my LLC.
And then I got business cards,and it was like, You have no no
(23:08):
clients. Yeah. What are youdoing? I think I was like eight
teens, I was just, I had noidea, right? And then a few
businesses later, I tried tostart an app, right for the
iPad, when the when the AppStore first launched, it was
like, oh, it's called tutor menow. And it's a whiteboard app
(23:28):
where people can sit and this isbefore you had like, I'm gonna
say screen sharing, but like onthe iPad where you could
actually like write and someonecould see what you're writing
before all that stuff, right?
And so I was like, tutor me nowthis is gonna be it and I
dropped five grand onwireframes. And I'm like, wait,
and I got them back. I'm like,this isn't wireframe. I could
just so many lessons of thingsthat I was just like, Oh my
(23:50):
goodness. Yeah. That eventuallyled me to a clothing line that I
started. I started a clothingline. And we still hold the
trademark for it and theclothing line was a min right so
it was the AMD and Amen. Which Iwas like nobody's trademarked
amen for clothing like That'sinsane. And so I started
sculpting on the first month ortwo. It was literally me on
(24:11):
Twitter's is when Twitter waslike amazing. And I'm literally
like responding on Facebook. I'mresponding to every single
person who comments I'm postingI'm sending stuff to people. I'm
going to events I'm walkingoutside and like shaking the
like I'm hustling. This is likeme actually. I'm like okay, we
$30,000 in one month. Okay, nowthe financial illiteracy I spent
(24:36):
all that money paying off like Ithink it was like, Oh, I'm gonna
pay off my credit cards and itwas like But your credit cards
don't produce any money for thebusiness. You're just paying
that off because you don't wantso there were a lot of lessons
that I just had to learn alongthe way of like, Ah, okay, I
see. Oh, okay. So when I finallygot to In this process, funny
(24:59):
story, I'd never heard ofpassive income until I was like
2122. But I had always wanted, Ijust didn't know what the word
was. And that was just a lack ofvocabulary, education. And so I
sat once I learned that word, Ithink I spent, I want to say
three to $4,000. On my creditcard, yeah, 20 something year
(25:21):
old kids stupid. But I spent allthat money on books, on
seminars, on groups on courseson because I was like, I forget
where I read it, but it was likeyou are your biggest asset. So
you have to develop yourself.
And it took me developing myselfmy ability to understand how
(25:44):
spreadsheets work. And thatsounds so silly. But like Excel
is huge, like really, reallyhuge. Financial Statements how
those work? Oh, wow, that's hugeLLC agreements, how those work,
just expanding my vocabulary, sothat I understood what I was
looking at and what I wastalking about and how things
work. And so when I finally didjump into something, it was
(26:06):
like, Okay, I've got a whole newset of tools and experience to
jump into this thing tounderstand how to do it. So 22
businesses later, it might nottake people 22 businesses, that
was just my journey. I didn'thave somebody sitting next to me
pointing and going, Hey, youshould do this. Or hey,
straight. This is literally meall on my own. Trying to figure
it out. I wish I had somebody tosit down and say, Okay, look it
(26:31):
just go right here. Do this, dothat. But I think I needed that.
I think I did.
Krystal Proffitt (26:36):
Yeah. Oh, well. I love to hear you say by
the way, I don't look at that aslike you're spending money.
You're absolutely investing inyourself. Yeah, that investment
in yourself. And it makes mecurious, is that something you
still do today? Like do you readbooks? Do you like watch YouTube
channels? Like how do you investin yourself today as you
continue to grow your businessand just, you know, have like
(27:00):
just a life Northstar thatyou're going towards, like, what
does that look like?
Seneca Hampton (27:04):
Um, I said that this is a principle that I
created on my own that I follow.
And it was, I forget where I wasreading Robert Kiyosaki is Rich
Dad, Poor Dad, okay. And thiswas 10 years ago. So this is
like a 10 year thing. And hesaid something about going to
school or was Cashflow Quadrant,one of his books, suddenly about
going to school and blah, blah,blah. And this truth hit me of
(27:26):
like, Wait, we go to school, andwe study hard to do our
homework, because we have to.
And then we forget everything westudied, because it was just the
take the test, right? And we gothrough school learning,
studying, testing, learning,studying, testing, and we throw
(27:47):
it all away, because we justwant to get through it. And then
you get a job. And you you don'tdo any of that. Yeah, learn
study test. You don't do any ofit, you just do your job. And I
thought this is I was 22. And Iwas like, I want to be the
world's greatest marketer. Rightnow. I'm like, paraphrasing,
(28:07):
pokimane, I want to be a Pokemonmaster. I want to be a marketing
master. And I was working atthis job. And I'm like, wait a
minute, I need to studymarketing. It doesn't stop
because you're not in school.
And so that translates I'm like,Well, where do I learn? What's
my curriculum? What are mybooks? Where am I where the
world is. And so now you have,you have Google, you have
(28:27):
lynda.com. You have all thesewebsites you can go to to learn
whatever you want. You haveYouTube channels, you have
Facebook groups, you have freewebinars, you have, you know,
paid conferences, you have allthese places, you have books you
have you have podcasts, you haveso many. And so I literally
whenever I hear a book, I buyit. I literally just open up my
(28:49):
books, and I buy it. And I'mlike, what was that? And so now
every day, right, you get thelittle notification on your
phone, when you hit your goalfor reading for the day. I just
set us on time. If they have theaudio version, I love audio,
because I like to pause it andtalk to myself. But I will just
every day I'm always listeningto a book. And I'm stopping and
(29:09):
I'm like conversating withmyself. Like Wait, did that and
I'm processing what I justheard. I'm like, Oh, wow, really
interesting. I'm always readingand then I'll be you know, on
YouTube. I don't like themindless stuff on YouTube. It's
just not my forte. But I'malways learning. Believe it or
not, before we jumped on thispodcast, I'm learning how to
code in Python. Oh, wow. I'mlike, the future is computers
(29:32):
and AI and I'm like, why don't Ilearn how to speak their
language and like, do me youknow? So I'm now learning how to
code in Python. So I'm, I'malways learning something. I
think that's just the principlethat I have for my own life.
It'll never ever stop. I willnever know enough. I'm never too
smart. I'm never it everything'salways changing. Right? And plus
(29:55):
the United stay humble. I feellike people always like come
with people it's like, I don'tknow, you tell me. I just
learned something cool. And it'sjust, I don't know, much more
pleasant way to kind of gothrough things. So to answer
your question, that's, that's,that's, that's my principle.
It's how I live every day is I'malways learning there's, if I
ever stop learning, that's whenI get depressed. Yeah, yeah,
(30:17):
good, I've stopped. And sothat's something for me I've
learned. I'm like, Ah, I'mfeeling good. I'm like, Okay,
you need to go to the gym, andthen you need to start learning
something. And it wakes me rightup. And I'm excited about
something again, like, Ooh, I'mlearning Python. I'm gonna learn
how to code and create aprogram. And now I'm on a whole
new path. It's that's just me.
Krystal Proffitt (30:38):
And it's, it's funny to hear you say that?
Because I think that that's theentrepreneurial spirit. I really
do. I think that it's the, thereason why you've started, you
know, the businesses that youhad, and like, why you're doing
what you're doing today. Andwhile you're continuing to grow
is that it's, I think it's acuriosity that we have inside of
us. I know that we have a wholeaudience listening to us right
(31:00):
now. They're like, Oh, my gosh,that's me. That's exactly what I
do. Like, I can't be stuck forvery long. If I get stuck, I get
bored. And I get dangerous whenI get bored. And, you know, it's
like, just all the positivehabits that you can put into
yourself is that reinvestment ofit's just going to pay off, it's
totally going to pay off and foryour journey. I think that it's
(31:21):
paid off dividends. And now thatyou said that about AI coming,
I'm like, robots need athletictape, too. I mean, why are we
excluding them from your future?
Audience? I mean, they're gonnateach you how to run and do all
these other things. deliverpizzas? I mean, they may break
and who knows? Have you heard ofhere, the official sponsor of
your AI robot?
Seneca Hampton (31:45):
We're gonna partner with Tesla. Hey, we got
you got your robots? Yeah.
Krystal Proffitt (31:49):
See, we were just started out great business
and marketing ideas. Like y'allheard it here. First females has
it just trademark this podcast.
Okay, we sent it first. Oh, mygosh, syndicate. I get asked you
1000 More questions aboutmarketing and business. But I
want to really dive intosomething you said earlier about
direct response marketing. Andreally, it sounds like that,
(32:13):
from the beginning, you'vealways just been a person in the
community wanting to understandyour customers and what they
want and how you can deliverthat solution to them. So for
somebody that's listening, wehave a lot of people that are
just getting started in theironline business, or their
content creation journey. Andthey're like, I don't have an
audience at all right now. Howdo I start asking them? What
(32:37):
they really want? Do you haveany advice for someone that's in
that position?
Seneca Hampton (32:43):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be yours. Right? I think
there are customers, theircustomers buying from everyone
and all sorts of things justbecause they aren't your
customer doesn't mean what theyhave to say, doesn't matter. And
I think that if you were to, Idon't know, let's say you have a
(33:05):
course on. I don't know, basketweaving. It's my mom's favorite
example. Basket weaving, I'msure that there's a course and a
community out there. Where thereare pages where people literally
sit and talk about basketweaving in their free just join
them and ask questions and talkand provide them value, right?
(33:26):
Or just be curious and askmessage people. Hey, I'm really
curious. Why do you like basketweaving? What? What type of
baskets Do you like? Why are youguys and posting the survey? I
really want to let people aremore than happy to just kind of
help to give you information. Ithink the other side of it too
is there is no easy button.
There is no shortcut fast way.
(33:47):
There is no, just do this andeverything will work it there
isn't the most successful peopleis just there's a guy listen to
Alex for Mozi. And they say,they asked him hey, you know
what, what makes you successfulversus other people? He says
time under tension time underweight. It just takes reps.
(34:08):
There's no shortcut to it. Andso it's okay not to get it
right. It's okay. I tell mykids, my five year old and four
year old, if they're notbreaking something, or they're
not destroying something, orthey're not, they're not
learning. That's all they'redoing. Right? And it's just a
perspective shift. And I feellike for us as adults, we learn
to like, you can't break thingsand it's wrong to be wrong. And
(34:29):
it's that's learning literally,like I don't know, let me ask
oops, that wasn't it. Let me trythis. Oops, that wasn't it. Let
me try it. And you just giveyourself the room in the space.
So I mean, I hope this ishelpful, but you're brand new,
you're just starting off andeverything. There's so much
stuff. There's so much stuff forme to learn. Just pick
(34:50):
something. And there was a ladythat I worked with when I was 22
years old, my first big boy joband she said how do you eat an
elephant and I looked at her Ialways I'm like, I've never
heard that. I don't know whatyou're talking about. I don't
like elephants. They don't sounddelicious. And her point was, if
you have a big task in front ofyou, or a big project, how do
(35:10):
you how do you attack it? Andshe said, One bite at a time.
That's it. That's the answer.
There is no shortcut. And so forthose new people, I hope this is
helpful to you. If there's somuch in front of you, and you
don't know what to do, just picksomething and enjoy the journey.
That's it. Just enjoy thejourney as you go through it.
Don't be so hard on yourself,give yourself a goal. And just
(35:32):
set little goals and completethem and set little goals and
complete them and continuethrough what you're doing isn't
your life, right? That life ismade up of other things. But
this is something that you'retrying to do. So just give it
its time. You know, push throughas hard as you can with what
you're doing. Give it everythingyou can enjoy your life. Enjoy
your time with your family,enjoy your health, enjoy all the
(35:53):
things that you have, and thencome back and try it again.
Weave your business into youreveryday schedule. If that means
staying up to 11 or 12. Atnight, guess what, you got to
stay up to 1112 a night. That'sjust what it is. And that's
okay. There's nothing wrong orbad about that. You should be
proud about that. So hopefullythat that that's there's no
shortcut. But hopefully thatthat's, that's
Krystal Proffitt (36:16):
helpful. Yeah, yeah, I think that there's a few
little nuggets in there. The onethat I want to circle back to is
Seneca. I don't know if you knowthis, I have three young boys at
home and for you saying breakingstuff. I'm like, yeah, we've
gone through a few lampsupstairs are like the ceiling
fan. You know, the like theglass part. We've gone through a
few of those. And they havelearned and I've just learned
(36:39):
that we don't we don't have nicethings in our house. This is the
moral of the story. We don'tmaybe when they're all out,
maybe that'll happen, but Itotally hear me with that
Seneca Hampton (36:48):
one. Yeah, yeah.
My wife bought us white couches,and I still shake my head and
I'm like,
Krystal Proffitt (36:53):
wow, brave woman.
Seneca Hampton (36:54):
She's very brave. She's very, and yeah, I
just I I have to just let it go.
I'm like, they're, they're theirlittle scientists. Yeah. And
they're just exploring andlearning. That's it. Yeah. Okay.
I feel better. Yeah,
Krystal Proffitt (37:08):
exactly. Oh, my gosh. Well, Seneca This has
been so amazing. And I have onefinal segment that I want to go
into have a few rapid firequestions. If you're up for
those. Okay, hit me. Well, wekind of touched on this a little
bit. It was really centeredaround advice for a brand new
business owner or podcaster, orcontent creator, but I know that
(37:31):
you recently started yourYouTube channel. So do you have
any advice for someone that hasan existing business and you're
bringing it online for the firsttime or maybe revamping your
brand?
Seneca Hampton (37:45):
I would say Perfection is the enemy of
completion. It won't be perfect.
You'll look back and you go Ilook at all my videos like why
in the world did I think thatthat was then that's okay.
That's just what it is accepted.
It's okay.
Krystal Proffitt (37:59):
That's great.
Okay, my next one is a two partquestion. What is the dream
podcast you would love to be on?
And if you could sit down andinterview someone who would be
your dream guest
Seneca Hampton (38:17):
dream podcast.
Ooh, Joe Rogan has good fun one.
My dream guest that's so tough.
There's so many people that Ijust I would love to pick their
brain that's that's a hard one.
I can't I can't that's a hardone. And there's there's too
many people, too is too manypeople. I just list all I'm like
(38:39):
all six of you sit here areeight of you guys. I want to ask
all you guys questions. There'stoo many. There's too many ads.
I don't I don't. I feel badmentioning one. But I guess Elon
Musk could be a really great oneto just sit down. And what I
really admire about Elon Musk istwo things, his purposeless
purposefulness, like he's verypurposeful. And it seems that
(39:01):
his businesses serve a purpose.
Right? We want to make the, youknow, human species,
interplanetary, important tohim, Tesla, and all these
companies feed into the vision.
And I just I admire that somuch. And I'm like, Man, I want
my interplanetary vision. And sohow did you find yours is kind
(39:21):
of the question that I would askhim. And then the other thing
is, is his ability to beconsistent? It's just insane. I
have a couple of businesses andI'm like, how do you run these
multiboot This is insane. justdoesn't make sense. So do things
I really admire about that guy.
Krystal Proffitt (39:37):
Well, we're putting that out into the
universe. So Elon, if you'relistening, like Seneca has some
questions for you. Okay.
Seneca Hampton (39:44):
Follow me on Twitter Elon.
Krystal Proffitt (39:45):
Exactly.
Waiting for that blue check adday, right. And then my last
question is, do you consideryourself a perfectionist?
Seneca Hampton (39:55):
I used to. I used to, I used to very, very
much um, And I switched to autilitarian or things just have
to, it's just utility. If itworks, we'll make it pretty
litter. That's it. Just to getthe point across gets the point
across. Great. Okay, let'sfigure out how to dress it up
(40:16):
and make it cool later but justmake it work and then we'll make
it pretty. Oh, I can't if I feltlike I used to be a
perfectionist, it had to lookand sound and be just, I can't
does it work? Does it get thepoint across? Okay, cool. Great.
Done. Phase one, then worryabout phase two. Okay,
Krystal Proffitt (40:33):
this is so good. And you're among many
recovering perfectionist andthis audience so you are you
found your people if you werelooking for them Seneca here we
are. We are yours. You're morethan welcome to be here and be
imperfect. Because this has beensuch a fantastic conversation.
Where can everybody learn moreabout Hampton Adams and what
you're up to? And what's yourfavorite place to connect with
(40:55):
people?
Seneca Hampton (40:56):
Yes, so if you guys want to check out Hampton
Adams, we are in Amazon. But ifyou'd like to make a purchase,
really appreciate it. I wouldsay go through our website
Hampton adams.com. And in termsof getting in touch with me, I
am managed to do way betterabout being on social media. I
used to have a job as a socialmedia specialist. And my job was
(41:16):
to grow accounts after that job.
I like washed my hands. I waslike, this is just it's
draining. But if you guys wantto get a hold of me, you can get
a hold of me on Instagram atSeneca Hampton probably be the
best place.
Krystal Proffitt (41:30):
Okay, awesome.
Thank you so much for your timeand all of your wisdom and the
amazing business tips that youshared here today. They were so
incredible. So thank you forcoming on the show.
Seneca Hampton (41:39):
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. They
were so nice Krystal, they wereso nice to me. And it felt like
like I don't know, I think thethe the entrepreneurial like
SWOT analysis guy inside of mewas like, kid gloves, kid
gloves. Like I just felt likeI'm like, Are you guys really?
In this way? Yeah. So after theshow, they have a a therapist,
(42:02):
you talk to you, they justeverybody. And he said, I've
been on the season. I've been onthe show for 13 seasons, I've
never seen them. I've never seenthem let someone down in the way
they let you down. That was thenicest I've ever seen them talk
to anybody and not give them thedeal. He's like, I've never seen
(42:23):
it before. And I'm sitting therelike still high on adrenaline
and I'm like, okay, okay. Allright. All right. Yeah. And then
I finally get home and I playthrough. I play through all of
the conversation and everythingthat happened. In hindsight,
2020 I'm like, okay, okay, coollesson I learned I learned, I
(42:44):
wouldn't say learned it was justlike, I'm like, Okay. I see.
There's certain spots in theconversation where I think I
could have clarified things forthem. Because it was like a two
and a half hour conversationthat they trimmed down. Yeah.
But I was like, okay, cool.
Yeah, I really, I really learneda lot. And I didn't get to tell
(43:04):
you my story. I, I was late.
Krystal Proffitt (43:10):
I was still recording, we can add this.
Seneca Hampton (43:14):
So So I was I was supposed to be there like 12
o'clock in the middle of theday. And I'm supposed to be
there 12 o'clock in the day. ButI thought the email set to be
there at like six o'clock thatnight. And so I'm actually in
Nevada, and I'm in Reno and I'mworking on a separate business.
(43:35):
And so I actually own alogistics company. So we do last
mile delivery deliveringpackages. And I'm setting all
that up. And so I'm I'm flyingback and forth, California and
Nevada. I'm setting all thisstuff up while having to talk to
the producers and write myscript and build my all this
stuff. I'm like, I'm exhausted.
I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can'twait for this all to be over.
(43:57):
I'm so tired. And so I'm inNevada. It's the last day I'm
supposed to be in Nevada. I'mlike, okay, cool. I don't come
back here for another week. Ican go home and rest and then
Shark Tank is in like a day. SoI'm like I get to sleep and then
go. And so I get a call andScott is like hey, where are
you? I'm like What do you mean?
Where am I am? I'm not I'mworking? Why? He goes you're
(44:18):
supposed to be here. Like, wait,what? He goes, Yeah, you're
supposed to be here at 12. It'sfour. I'm like, Oh my goodness.
Ah, I'm in Nevada. I mean it'san hour and a half flight and
I'm like, I'm okay. I'll bethere. If I can get there an
hour and a half. It's an hourand a half drive to La I'll be
(44:39):
there in three hours. He goes,Wow, okay, that's cutting it but
okay, because you got to gettested for COVID. And so I'm at
the airport. Now I'm like, I'mgonna say I'm anxious but I'm
like, Oh, crap. Okay, we gottago. And then literally as I hang
up the phone they say sorry yourguys's flight has been delayed
(44:59):
and And then was like 30minutes. I'm like, okay, okay,
and pacing a little bit. 30minutes turned into three hours.
And so I'm sitting there like,Oh my goodness. So then the guy
calls me back. He's like, whereare you? I'm like, I'm on my
way. And he goes, Okay, how longhave you here? And I'm like, Ah,
(45:21):
like, two hours. And he's like,alright, level with me, man.
Where are you? At? I'm on aplane. I'm leaving Nevada. He
goes, okay. Okay, what time canyou get here? And I said, as
fast as I can. And so I we flyhome. I have to get an Uber. The
(45:43):
Uber driver has no idea can'ttalk about it. So he's just
galavanting home like taking histime and I'm in the backseat,
like having a full like, oh mygosh, like, we gotta go. So I
finally get home. I don't haveany more props like the Wait,
you guys saw all that stuff isnot ready. And so I like have to
run and grab it off, throw it inthe car and get it all ready.
(46:04):
And then I drove veryresponsibly. And within the
speed limit. Wait, wait, yeah,legit li it's a legit that I was
oh, you know speeding, it's alegit but. And so I'm like, fly
into LA. I get there. And I getto this hotel and I'm like, this
(46:26):
can't be the hotel. This is thiscan't this cannot be the hotel.
It's it's, it's it's a word I'duse. I'm
Krystal Proffitt (46:38):
scared that it's taking this long.
Seneca Hampton (46:39):
Yeah. It's it's, it's it's raw. I'll use the word
raw. It's raw. And I'm like, soI pull up and I'm like, this is
where we're staying. Okay,whatever. Okay, I'm not one of
those pinky in the air people.
But I'm like, this is a littlerough. So I walk in, I get my
COVID test, like cool. Swaby forCOVID. Great. I walk into my
room. If this was Yelp, theywould not get a good review.
(47:06):
Let's leave it at that. And sothe room was so bad that I
slept. And I put my hoodie onand I pulled my string and slept
in the middle of the mattress.
Oh, it was that bad. I was justlike, mind you. It's like one
2am And I have to be up at 5amfor the next day, so I wake up.
(47:27):
i It was so bad. I birdbath. Itso I'm like birdbath thing.
Krystal Proffitt (47:31):
Don't touch anything. Yeah,
Seneca Hampton (47:33):
it was bad. I walked downstairs, and they're
serving food. And I'm like,hesitant. I'm like, this is not
it was just, it was rough. Sothen, you know, the arrived
arrives, we're taken there. I'mwaiting and waiting and waiting
in our, you know, our trailer.
And I'm like, Okay, are we goingto go and hours go by, and I'm
(47:54):
waiting. And I'm like, I couldshower. And so I have I went to
sleep at like one or two o'clockwoke up at 5am. I had just flown
all the way from Nevada. So whenyou guys see me on TV, I'm
exhausted. And I had been doingthis. This this, like, I can't
talk about it all but likeyou're talking with, with with
(48:14):
the Shark Tank people and you'rebuilding and doing all this
stuff. And there's a lot ofinformation they need. And
you're verifying stuff andtalking to lawyers and you do
all it's a lot. And at the sametime I'm sitting in this
training. And the training wasduring the same week, 12 hours a
day as I'm trying to hire forthe new business. I'm starting
with no employees. And I'm like,it was exhausting. So when I'm
(48:35):
up there standing there, sharks.
I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Andso I get through this two and a
half hours and when I come off,I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm so
relieved. That's why I said Ifelt relieved because I was
like, okay, I can finally rest Ican finally rest. Finally rest.
(48:58):
And I finished. And it was backto this new business that I have
that I've been running for alittle over a year now. 50
employees. It's insane. I thinkthis business does like 2.5
million. It's it's it's tough.
Dealing with is tough. And I'mlike, Okay, I've been running
ever since. So it hasn't beenone of those things where it's
(49:18):
like, hey, we you know SharkTank was you know, my cool great
so on the wall. Great,wonderful. stuff. I gotta do
Yeah, so it's a funny story.
Yeah, that was I was I was latearriving to Shark Tank. But in
my in my defense, the email readreally weird, really weird. And
(49:42):
I was like reading it over asI'm on the phone with this guy.
I'm like that there's no way noway that happened. That's not
true. And I'm reading it. I'mlike I can see how you can come
up with that time. But you alsosaid right here that I had to be
there tomorrow at six. What thetomorrow at six. Why do I have
to be there today at 12 Oh, theafternoon like it doesn't make
sense. Yeah, but I made it I gotthrough it. And surprisingly, it
(50:05):
didn't cause any issue.
Krystal Proffitt (50:07):
So we're gonna title this episode. I almost
missed my shores.
Seneca Hampton (50:13):
Yeah, yeah, I really did. I really and it
wasn't like, purposeful or like,uh, you know, you're just, I'm
one of those people where I'mlike, I don't lose my keys. I'm
like that guy, where I'm like,No, Cross my T's top. I know.
Yeah. And when I saw that, I waslike, okay, either you're
exhausted from all of thisstuff? Or they can't, right? I
don't know. But it was.
Krystal Proffitt (50:33):
It was unique.
Or maybe it was a gift to notoverthink the all the other
things that you're doing in yourpitch. You're like, I'm going to
the universe's like, I'm gonnathrow all this extra stuff at
him that he's not going to havea chance to overthink. He just
just go yeah, go like Yeah, butyeah,
Seneca Hampton (50:49):
there was a moment when you're standing
there before they open thedoors. That's the highest level
of of let like nerves. Mm hmm.
It's quiet in the studio. Andthe doors open. And you walk in,
it's quiet. So there's no darkdark down there. You're okay.
(51:11):
And then you stand. And it'sawkward. It's awkward. So
awkward. It's great. You go. Andyeah, I after I got through my
pitch. It was downhill. Becausethat's the biggest piece of the
whatever you film they can use.
(51:35):
So if you botch stutter in thatforget, ooh, oh, that's the
narrative. Yeah. So I finishedthat. And I was like, okay,
cool. Now ask me the businessquestions. I've been doing six
years. It's easy. What's up?
Yeah,
Krystal Proffitt (51:48):
we're good.
We're good. Yeah, well, and I'mgonna link to that clip too,
because I have like, it's likethe minute 45 second clip or
whatever that we have. So we'llmake sure and put that in the
show notes too, for everybody.
Thank you for the bonus story.
That was fantastic. We I mean,we couldn't have we couldn't
finish this. Without that.
Outro (52:08):
I told you it was going to be such a great conversation.
I hope you enjoyed that. I hopethat you hit up Seneca and like
ask him all the questions thatyou have. Because this was so
much fun to talk to someone whois building businesses and never
gives up. I think that that wasthe biggest takeaway from this
(52:29):
interview. It wasn't his firstidea. It wasn't his second idea.
It was 20 something ideas intotrying and failing and making
mistakes and pivoting andcontinuing to go after something
that you know you're capable of.
And it was just such anincredible conversation. So I'm
gonna link two ways that you canconnect with Seneca go follow
(52:49):
him on Instagram, go subscribeto his YouTube channel, they're
all going to be in the shownotes. So
KrystalProffitt.com/episode380to check him out. And if you are
in athletics, like support him,go to Hampton Adams and check
out all the cool things thatthey are doing I'm gonna link to
their website as well and gocheck out I told you like the
(53:13):
who knew that like athletic tapecould be so sexy looking at the
different pictures and the waytheir website is laid out. Like
it's so simple and yet verypowerful. And so I hope that you
enjoyed today's interview withSeneca I had so much fun, but
that's all I have for you today.
(53:34):
So if this is your first timetuning in, make sure that you
hit the subscribe or followbutton wherever you are
listening to today's episode andI would love it if you would
take a screenshot tag me tagSeneca let us know what your
number one takeaway was fromtoday's episode or if there's
something similar to this thatyou want to hear more about. Let
(53:58):
me know I'm looking for ideas aswe're going into a new year and
I would love your feedback onother things that you want to
hear on the profit podcast. Butagain, the show notes for
today's episode,KrystalProffitt.com/episode380
for all the ways that you canconnect to Seneca and that's all
I have for you. So as alwaysremember, keep it up. We all
(54:22):
have to start somewhere.
What was it like being on Shark Tank? What a
fun question, right? And it isone that I could not wait to
hear the answer from today'sguest. So I have such a special
treat for you today, if you havebeen looking for an inspiring
story about entrepreneurship,being in business for yourself,
(00:26):
and what that looks like, andfrom being on Shark Tank, like
oh my gosh, Seneca Hampton storyis so fascinating. So Seneca is
an entrepreneur with multipleseven to eight figure
businesses, from E commerce tologistics, consulting and
speaking and he's responsiblefor over one quarter of a
(00:46):
billion dollars in sales, andhas touched over 5000 products,
and 20 different categories. Soif you have ever thought about
Amazon, or selling something onAmazon, or anything to do with a
physical product, you are goingto love today's conversation.
And we totally geeked down aboutmarketing and business and all
(01:13):
the cool things that he hasdone. And it's been really cool
to really reflect on thisinterview and go back and I was
just like taking notes listeningback to it because it was so
awesome. I could talk to him forhours, like we realize like, oh
my gosh, okay, we gotta we gotto tone it down. We have to stop
(01:34):
this conversation because itcould just have kept going
forever. I loved hispersonality, I loved his ability
to be so open. And I feel likegenuinely that he has a heart to
help other people that are justlike you that are trying to
start a business trying to run abusiness trying to really build
(01:57):
something that's going to havelegacy and last and I hope that
you walk away from today'sconversation with so many
nuggets of wisdom. So withoutfurther ado, let's get into
today's episode, the interviewwith Seneca. Welcome to the
Prophet podcast where we teachyou how to start launch and
(02:18):
market your content withconfidence. I'm your host,
Krystal Proffitt, and I'm soexcited that you're here. Thanks
for hanging out with me today.
Because if you've been trying tofigure out the world of content
creation, this is the show thatwill help be your time saving
shortcut. So let's get right toit, shall we? All right, profit
podcast listeners. I'm soexcited for today's guest.
(02:42):
Welcome to the show. Seneca. Howare you today?
Seneca Hampton (02:48):
I am good. I'm feeling really good. And I'm
excited. I'm pumped up and readyto go.
Krystal Proffitt (02:53):
Yes. Okay. So we just have to start like from
the top. You were on Shark Tank.
Let's just call it what it is.
We have this. It's funny,because I was like, how are we
going to intro this? Because Iactually met Mark Cuban last
year at a podcast Conference,which of all the places in the
world why would I ever meet himat a podcast conference, right?
But I was like, Okay, let'slet's How do I segue this like,
(03:15):
I'm gonna be all like, supercool interview and slip it in. I
don't know how to do that. Sojust you were on Shark Tank.
That's freaky deal. So let'sjust start right there. What was
that experience like? Like allthe things we have to know?
Seneca Hampton (03:30):
Ah, man, the experience on Shark Tank, I
would do it again in aheartbeat. I was very nervous
leading up to doing it. And itwasn't because I was going to be
on TV wasn't because I was goingto be standing for the sharks. I
was nervous because like anybusiness entrepreneur, business
owner, the narrative. Yeah, it'svery important, right?
(03:52):
Especially marketing, right?
It's like the narrative is soimportant, and how things are
are seen and the story is told.
And so I was really likenervous, like, Oh, my goodness,
I hope that they hope that theyportray this in an accurate
light. And so that was theprobably the most nerve wracking
part. But the experience waslike I don't I've never like
(04:15):
I've never done skydiving, but II almost equate it to some
extreme sport because youradrenaline is pumping. The
process to get from thebeginning to the end is a roller
coaster. And when you come offof it, your adrenaline is
pumping for hours after and thenyou finally come down and you
just you crash not in a likenegative way but in a like I
(04:39):
need to take about an eight hournap.
Krystal Proffitt (04:41):
Oh my goodness. Yeah. I'm sure I'm
sure. And I mean, so I'm surethere's like probably, you know,
trade secrets that you can'tshare when you're on the show.
But whenever you left, what wasthe first thought like did you
call your wife did you callsomebody in your family like
what what was the first thoughtrunning through your mind like,
(05:01):
that just happened. Like what?
What was that first moment?
Like? Like once you werefinished with your whole pitch,
you were done. Were you justrelieved, like walk us through
that?
Seneca Hampton (05:12):
I was relieved that I've remembered that
feeling. This is actually areally good question. Nobody's
ever asked me that question. Iremember feeling relieved. For
sure. The other question thatwent through my head was, was
Mark serious. That was as I wasleaving him, like, was he
serious? Or was he just joking?
Or was that like the did thatjust really happen? Yeah. And
(05:33):
then I'm walking out and I'mlike, okay, ah, I got through
it. I did it. And then thethought of, Okay, what's next?
And it was it was, it was likea, that was a big question that
literally took months to eatthrough. Yeah, after doing that,
(05:55):
that thing. But yeah, those weremy thoughts. When I left. I was
like, Okay, what's the seriousand, and he was, by the way,
like, I can't share a lot. Sothey say this on Shark Tank.
They say, Shark Tank is likeFight Club. Right? What happens
at Shark? Like, there is no suchthing as Fight Club. You don't
mention Fight Club. So there'sthings you can't talk about,
(06:15):
right, that led up to, etc, etc.
I do have funny stories, though.
I think I probably have the mostinteresting story leading up to
Shark Tank. I think I'll topeverybody's story. But, um, but
I mean, going through that thingwas was definitely a roller
coaster. The emotions arerunning high, you come off of
(06:36):
this high of this rollercoaster, and then it's back to
business. And it's almost like,okay, cool. That was great.
Wonderful. Put it on the shelf.
shine it up. Look at that.
That's cool. Boom. Let's keepgoing. Yeah, kind of the
approach that I took.
Krystal Proffitt (06:49):
Yeah, this is so awesome. I love hearing that.
I'm sure it was a big milestone.
And then you're just like, Okay,we got to get back to business.
Like we got to get back to work.
And people are listening rightnow. And they're like, Krystal,
what is his business? Like?
They're Googling your name.
They're like, what it's even doy'all been talking about shark
tank? So I want to talk aboutHampton Adams now because like,
(07:12):
I just want to, I want to getright to it as an athlete,
former athlete limitless, let'sgo back. former athlete and
someone who now like does likemental health stuff, like I do a
lot of walking. This is more butback in the day, like I was a
volleyball player. I was acheerleader. Like I did all the
things. And your product. I usesomething so similar to it every
(07:32):
single day. So tell everybodyabout Hampton Adams and what it
does and how it helps people.
Seneca Hampton (07:37):
Yes. So I was talking to my insurance adjuster
today because they were they'redoing an audit they typically do
if you have you know, business,they do an audit and your
insurance. And she goes so whatdo you guys do? And I Oh, we
sell flooding tapes. She goes,Wait, what? She looks at our
numbers because they need yourtop line revenue. She goes,
Wait, that's it? Yes, that'swhat we do. So Hanson Adams is I
(07:59):
categorize this as a sportsmedicine brand. Our goal is to
make products in regards tosports medicine, sports
recovery, that allow the theathlete to perform longer,
stronger, better. And so thereare a lot of products and start
so small with us with athletictape, specifically, if you've
used it before kinesiology tape,athletic tape, bandage, wrap,
(08:23):
all that stuff. The adhesive isimportant. And I think,
especially in today's kind ofclimate and generation people
are allergic to virtuallyeverything. Yeah. And so what
we've tried to do is remove alot of the things that cause
people to have allergicreactions from the adhesive,
which makes it healthier, andthen solve a lot of the just
(08:45):
quality of life problems thatyou have. If you're an athlete,
you know what I mean? Ripping,tearing tape, it's sticking and
staying it being too sticky ornot sticky enough. It not coming
off the roll all that stuff. Sowe really put a lot of time and
effort into solving it to makingit just like I love this stuff.
It's easy to use. It alwaysperformed.
Krystal Proffitt (09:03):
Yeah, this is so funny because I like I said I
was an athlete, my brothersplayed football and my oldest or
my, my middle. I have two olderbrothers. So one of them went on
to play college ball. And I havesuch vivid visual memories of
him, just yanking it, tearing itand coming off in pieces. And he
looks like a wild animal likebecause he's trying to wrap
(09:26):
himself up and he's doing allthese things. And I'm like,
okay, so I know exactly whatyou're talking about when it
comes to the adhesive and allthe challenges that you see. But
now you have this business andit's helping so many people and
I just have to give you kudosbecause I think it's such a cool
brand that you have and whatyou're moving forward with. But
I did kind of a deep dive onyour YouTube channel. And all
(09:50):
the fun things that you weretalking about because you are in
good company here was Senecabecause you said you're an
optimization nerd. Well, I'm amarketing nerd and I and
optimization and SEO and all thethings. And so I just wanted to
ask like, what is the thingabout creating a brand or
marketing a brand or businessthat keeps you going when things
(10:12):
get a little tough? Because I'msure you've seen some ups and
downs in your journey.
Seneca Hampton (10:17):
Yes, I have seen things that literally would,
would keep you up at night.
Example, I've had things held upby FDA, by customs customs or
federal agents. And I'm talking30,000 100,000 $200,000 worth of
stuff held captive, and they'reasking you for stuff that
you're, you're like my entirebusinesses. So I've gone through
(10:39):
that I've gone through peopleusing it and using it
incorrectly. And then it's justa lot of the list goes on. Let's
goes on. Um, I think the thingthat kind of keeps me going is
why I do what I do. The brand isactually named after my parents.
And so to me, it's a it's, it'smy head nod. It's me paying
(11:01):
homage to the both of them. AndI watched as a kid, I have eight
siblings, I watched them put uson their back and carry us
through life. And it was hard,it was not easy at all.
Everything, you know, the entiregamut of drugs, alcohol, all
that crazy stuff. And still tobe able to watch them. My mom
(11:23):
quit drugs and alcohol, alcoholwent to school. I think she was
like 3637. And I'm there I thinkI'm in middle school, and I'm
watching her graduate and shebecomes a nurse. And then I
watched my dad who worked oncrab boats and Alaska. He worked
construction he whatever hecould do to provide and send all
(11:46):
his money home, I watched him goback to San Jose finish his
degree to come to become aindustrial X ray technician. And
I saw I saw them literally dothis, as they're trying to
provide the best life that theycould for us. Eight of us living
in a one bedroom, and watchingthat progression going to
something bigger and just it wasit was something that I'll never
(12:09):
forget. And so for me to buildthis brand and when it gets
hard, it's not just about me,it's not about you know, oh, I
have a cool brand. And, and it'sreally funny before Shark Tank,
you've probably never heard ofme. And that was on purpose.
Because I it's not about me andme being in the spotlight.
Right? I'm out I have I have twokids a four year old and a five
year old. And I want to buildsomething for them so that they
(12:31):
can see and not just thebusiness. But who I have to
become in order to build thatbusiness is is what is so
important to me of like you gotto be a hard worker you got to
be consistent, you got to bepersistent, you there are things
that you have to be able to doand a person you have to be able
to come to become, especially ifyou want your kids to be that
(12:51):
you can't just, you know, preachat them and bark at them. So for
me it's a bigger why. With thebrand and I grew up playing
football, all my brothers playedfootball. My dad was a coach. My
mom was a nurse. So you kind ofget that sports medicine. It
just kind of all tied together.
Um, for me, so for me, it's abig, it's bigger than just the
(13:13):
business.
Krystal Proffitt (13:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, this is so great. I lovehearing people's backstories
because I think it just it does,it doesn't so well because I
actually went and I was lookingat Hampton Adams and I was
looking at, you know, yourdifferent content pieces that
you have out there. And it'sreally hard to find any of you
as far as like, this is Senecasbrand on Hampton Adams, like
it's very apparent that that'snot what it is like, it's like
(13:35):
you have awesome photography, bythe way. I mean, who knew a visa
tape could look so sexy on thewebsite, like, let's be real,
like the angles, it looks sogood. But I think it's really
interesting because like I said,I'm a marketing nerd. I love
looking at how products arereally presented out into the
world to solve a problem. And Iwanted to talk about another
(13:57):
piece of your story. And that'sselling stuff on Amazon, like,
oh my gosh, you have all thisincredible experience on the
world's largest platform. AndI'm sure that that also comes
with its pros and its cons. Sotell us a bit about that.
Because a lot of people in ouraudience aren't necessarily
selling products on Amazon. ButI know that there are some
(14:20):
stories or some lessons learnedthat you've had to learn about
marketing along the way. So doyou have any insights that you
can share?
Seneca Hampton (14:29):
Yes, this this conversation, just the Amazon
side of things. This is a fourto five hour conversation. It is
it when it was the Wild West itwas you know, imagine literally
just try and close your eyes andimagine you know, bandits
walking through town and noone's doing anything about it
and literally in like having asheriff and he's just kind of
(14:52):
there. It's It was literallythat when I started and it's
improved dramatically now. Butin terms of Mark Getting, the
beautiful thing about Amazon tome is that the there's the whole
supply and demand thing, right?
A lot of people I found try tostart a business or of any kind,
whether it be a physicalproduct, digital good, right?
Course whatever it is, andthey're trying to sell what they
(15:15):
like, and not what customerswant. And the beautiful thing
about Amazon is, it willliterally tell you if people
want what you have. And it'salmost an instant feedback you
get because of how you have tomarket or present your product.
One of the things that I foundto be very, very effective on
Amazon is is reviews right? I,regardless of the business, it
(15:39):
doesn't matter what it is likethis, this is gold like this,
this literally changedeverything for me. I literally
would jump on a Facebook, Iwould jump onto forums, I would
jump on wherever and I wouldliterally just look at what are
people talking about? What arethe things that they complain
about, with products thatthey're currently using? What
(16:02):
are the things they love andrave about what products that
they're that they're using? AndI just literally went okay, well
mine has to do all this. And itcan't do all of that. It's so
simple, right? In theory, butnow it's how do I articulate
that to somebody. And I thinkthat's the important part. And I
think for that that's eithereither got the gift of gab,
(16:26):
right, and you can translate itinto writing. There's some
people that are, you know,literary literary gurus, I hate
writing, by the way, my wifeasked me to write something the
other day, and I ever find itwith I dislike writing, I load
it with a passion, she goes metoo. Or, you, you you find a
template, a rubric that works,right, or you just go through
(16:49):
trial and error. And I think thebeautiful thing for me was is I
got the opportunity to work at abusiness that was selling on
Amazon. And so I got theopportunity to see or build a
rubric or standard whilestudying while trying. So I was
able to kind of, I rolled up mysleeves and Krystal I worked 60
to 80 hours a week because I sawI was like, oh my goodness, I
(17:13):
could actually build thebusiness. Like I could build one
I could I could do it leveragemy time. It was that was the way
to me. And so I put everything Ihad into it. And I had to learn
marketing, I had to learnspecifically direct response
marketing, specifically, directresponse marketing is a way to
get somebody directly to make adecision. And if you notice on
(17:37):
Amazon, depending on what you'relooking for, what's your
problem? Right, who am I talkingto? Who's my customer was there?
I think we all know this right?
Who's my customer? What's theproblem? How do I solve it? But
what is their what's their mainproblem? And what do they wish
(17:58):
they had instead? And that'swhat you sell now is this is
what this is what you want,right? People don't want tape
that doesn't, that that thatrips easily. They don't want to
have to deal with the hassle andthe headache, right? So it's
it's not selling tape. It'sselling ease selling peace of
mind. It's selling the outcome.
And I've learned that buy onAmazon very directly. You don't
(18:21):
need pretty pictures on Amazon.
If you literally just you showpeople this is the benefit you
get. Yeah. In your in theirmind. That's what I wanted.
That's what I've been lookingfor. It's exactly purchased.
Yeah. And because there's a 30day back write money guarantee
and all that stuff. Amazon'sit's, it's easier than trying
(18:45):
to, in my opinion going on, youknow, creating your own website,
doing your own funnels to yourown page. It's much harder
because you're talking intent.
Now people on Amazon theirwallets already in their
account, like it's just clickBuy. Yes, it's easier, right?
versus trying to get and so forme, it's like taking and before
I started Amazon, I think Istarted 22 businesses. Before I
(19:08):
started the one that works 22different businesses, they all
failed. They all failed. But Ilearned a lot along the way. So
when I finally got here, it waslike, Okay, I'm not starting
from zero. I can take all thelessons I learned and put it
into this. And specifically alot of it was it's just
marketing psychology, right?
(19:32):
It's how do people think andwhat are they looking for? What
what is their their state ofmind when they're looking for
what they're looking for? And ifyou can speak as if you're there
waiting, the purchase becomeslike so much easier. So much
easier. So I mean, I've one ofmy biggest challenges was the
people I'm competing with. I'mcompeting with Johnson and
(19:55):
Johnson. Mueller make David likeit Hey T tape, I'm competing
with big brands. And if you lookon Amazon and look at the best
sellers list, I'm beating bigbrands on Amazon. So it's, it's
it's been a ride. It's been.
I've been my own brand six, sixyears, but I've been on Amazon
for what, eight, nine years. Soit's been a journey for sure.
Krystal Proffitt (20:18):
Yeah, that was gonna be my next question is
What year did you kind of startdoing all the like Amazon and
learning it and like understandthat way people can kind of
contextually understand how longyou've been at this. And you
didn't just say, Oh, I'm gonnado this last year?
Unknown (20:33):
No, while No, I think I think that's the biggest. And as
I was like, myself, like tryingto figure it out, I think that
was one of the biggestdiscourages for me is I felt
like, it wasn't happening quick.
It wasn't happening quick. Andnow being here, literally 10
years later, I'm going, oh, itjust took time and persistence.
That's all it took. And I saythat's all that's not easy to be
(20:55):
patient and consistent andpersistent, even when it's like
this isn't moving or working.
But I was on the Amazonplatform, I want to say two to
three years before I even soldmy own products. So I had all
that practice and experience.
And I think before that I had aI touched around what 1500
different types of products. Andthen that grew over 5000
(21:19):
different types of products overtime of me actually doing it. So
I got a lot of experience undermy belt before I was able to
kind of jump on. So I was ableto have someone pay for my
schooling.
Krystal Proffitt (21:33):
Yeah, so to speak. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I
mean, I think that you just gaveso many people listening a huge
gift just then about saying, itwasn't your first business you
tried to start it wasn't yoursecond, it was your 23rd I guess
it was your 23rd business. Wow.
I mean, like, I think that thatis so inspiring. And like you
said, it's like that persistencepays off, and just keeping at it
(21:55):
and trying. But I have toimagine that you came to a point
where maybe your 21st businesswas like almost taking off, like
where was that like, kind ofposition where you had to say,
Okay, this is the thing like,have to go all in? Did you have
to make a big investment? Didyou have to get strategic? Like,
(22:15):
what was that kind of catalystto really say, this is the one
I'm gonna go all in on.
Seneca Hampton (22:24):
So I have on my phone, I sat down one day, and I
listed all the businessesbecause I was wondering, like,
how, how did I get here? BecauseI feel like whatever I was
doing, I need to continue tocontinue to do and not forget,
trying to see if I can find thatlist. If I can't, it's okay. I
(22:47):
remember I started a I started arecord label. I don't know what
I was thinking doing thatlooking back a lot of these
visits, I look back and I'mlike, what were you I started a
whole LLC, all this stuff out oforder. It's like I'm gonna start
a record label. I created mylogo. And then I created my LLC.
And then I got business cards,and it was like, You have no no
(23:08):
clients. Yeah. What are youdoing? I think I was like eight
teens, I was just, I had noidea, right? And then a few
businesses later, I tried tostart an app, right for the
iPad, when the when the AppStore first launched, it was
like, oh, it's called tutor menow. And it's a whiteboard app
(23:28):
where people can sit and this isbefore you had like, I'm gonna
say screen sharing, but like onthe iPad where you could
actually like write and someonecould see what you're writing
before all that stuff, right?
And so I was like, tutor me nowthis is gonna be it and I
dropped five grand onwireframes. And I'm like, wait,
and I got them back. I'm like,this isn't wireframe. I could
just so many lessons of thingsthat I was just like, Oh my
(23:50):
goodness. Yeah. That eventuallyled me to a clothing line that I
started. I started a clothingline. And we still hold the
trademark for it and theclothing line was a min right so
it was the AMD and Amen. Which Iwas like nobody's trademarked
amen for clothing like That'sinsane. And so I started
sculpting on the first month ortwo. It was literally me on
(24:11):
Twitter's is when Twitter waslike amazing. And I'm literally
like responding on Facebook. I'mresponding to every single
person who comments I'm postingI'm sending stuff to people. I'm
going to events I'm walkingoutside and like shaking the
like I'm hustling. This is likeme actually. I'm like okay, we
$30,000 in one month. Okay, nowthe financial illiteracy I spent
(24:36):
all that money paying off like Ithink it was like, Oh, I'm gonna
pay off my credit cards and itwas like But your credit cards
don't produce any money for thebusiness. You're just paying
that off because you don't wantso there were a lot of lessons
that I just had to learn alongthe way of like, Ah, okay, I
see. Oh, okay. So when I finallygot to In this process, funny
(24:59):
story, I'd never heard ofpassive income until I was like
2122. But I had always wanted, Ijust didn't know what the word
was. And that was just a lack ofvocabulary, education. And so I
sat once I learned that word, Ithink I spent, I want to say
three to $4,000. On my creditcard, yeah, 20 something year
(25:21):
old kids stupid. But I spent allthat money on books, on
seminars, on groups on courseson because I was like, I forget
where I read it, but it was likeyou are your biggest asset. So
you have to develop yourself.
And it took me developing myselfmy ability to understand how
(25:44):
spreadsheets work. And thatsounds so silly. But like Excel
is huge, like really, reallyhuge. Financial Statements how
those work? Oh, wow, that's hugeLLC agreements, how those work,
just expanding my vocabulary, sothat I understood what I was
looking at and what I wastalking about and how things
work. And so when I finally didjump into something, it was
(26:06):
like, Okay, I've got a whole newset of tools and experience to
jump into this thing tounderstand how to do it. So 22
businesses later, it might nottake people 22 businesses, that
was just my journey. I didn'thave somebody sitting next to me
pointing and going, Hey, youshould do this. Or hey,
straight. This is literally meall on my own. Trying to figure
it out. I wish I had somebody tosit down and say, Okay, look it
(26:31):
just go right here. Do this, dothat. But I think I needed that.
I think I did.
Krystal Proffitt (26:36):
Yeah. Oh, well. I love to hear you say by
the way, I don't look at that aslike you're spending money.
You're absolutely investing inyourself. Yeah, that investment
in yourself. And it makes mecurious, is that something you
still do today? Like do you readbooks? Do you like watch YouTube
channels? Like how do you investin yourself today as you
continue to grow your businessand just, you know, have like
(27:00):
just a life Northstar thatyou're going towards, like, what
does that look like?
Seneca Hampton (27:04):
Um, I said that this is a principle that I
created on my own that I follow.
And it was, I forget where I wasreading Robert Kiyosaki is Rich
Dad, Poor Dad, okay. And thiswas 10 years ago. So this is
like a 10 year thing. And hesaid something about going to
school or was Cashflow Quadrant,one of his books, suddenly about
going to school and blah, blah,blah. And this truth hit me of
(27:26):
like, Wait, we go to school, andwe study hard to do our
homework, because we have to.
And then we forget everything westudied, because it was just the
take the test, right? And we gothrough school learning,
studying, testing, learning,studying, testing, and we throw
(27:47):
it all away, because we justwant to get through it. And then
you get a job. And you you don'tdo any of that. Yeah, learn
study test. You don't do any ofit, you just do your job. And I
thought this is I was 22. And Iwas like, I want to be the
world's greatest marketer. Rightnow. I'm like, paraphrasing,
(28:07):
pokimane, I want to be a Pokemonmaster. I want to be a marketing
master. And I was working atthis job. And I'm like, wait a
minute, I need to studymarketing. It doesn't stop
because you're not in school.
And so that translates I'm like,Well, where do I learn? What's
my curriculum? What are mybooks? Where am I where the
world is. And so now you have,you have Google, you have
(28:27):
lynda.com. You have all thesewebsites you can go to to learn
whatever you want. You haveYouTube channels, you have
Facebook groups, you have freewebinars, you have, you know,
paid conferences, you have allthese places, you have books you
have you have podcasts, you haveso many. And so I literally
whenever I hear a book, I buyit. I literally just open up my
(28:49):
books, and I buy it. And I'mlike, what was that? And so now
every day, right, you get thelittle notification on your
phone, when you hit your goalfor reading for the day. I just
set us on time. If they have theaudio version, I love audio,
because I like to pause it andtalk to myself. But I will just
every day I'm always listeningto a book. And I'm stopping and
(29:09):
I'm like conversating withmyself. Like Wait, did that and
I'm processing what I justheard. I'm like, Oh, wow, really
interesting. I'm always readingand then I'll be you know, on
YouTube. I don't like themindless stuff on YouTube. It's
just not my forte. But I'malways learning. Believe it or
not, before we jumped on thispodcast, I'm learning how to
code in Python. Oh, wow. I'mlike, the future is computers
(29:32):
and AI and I'm like, why don't Ilearn how to speak their
language and like, do me youknow? So I'm now learning how to
code in Python. So I'm, I'malways learning something. I
think that's just the principlethat I have for my own life.
It'll never ever stop. I willnever know enough. I'm never too
smart. I'm never it everything'salways changing. Right? And plus
(29:55):
the United stay humble. I feellike people always like come
with people it's like, I don'tknow, you tell me. I just
learned something cool. And it'sjust, I don't know, much more
pleasant way to kind of gothrough things. So to answer
your question, that's, that's,that's, that's my principle.
It's how I live every day is I'malways learning there's, if I
ever stop learning, that's whenI get depressed. Yeah, yeah,
(30:17):
good, I've stopped. And sothat's something for me I've
learned. I'm like, Ah, I'mfeeling good. I'm like, Okay,
you need to go to the gym, andthen you need to start learning
something. And it wakes me rightup. And I'm excited about
something again, like, Ooh, I'mlearning Python. I'm gonna learn
how to code and create aprogram. And now I'm on a whole
new path. It's that's just me.
Krystal Proffitt (30:38):
And it's, it's funny to hear you say that?
Because I think that that's theentrepreneurial spirit. I really
do. I think that it's the, thereason why you've started, you
know, the businesses that youhad, and like, why you're doing
what you're doing today. Andwhile you're continuing to grow
is that it's, I think it's acuriosity that we have inside of
us. I know that we have a wholeaudience listening to us right
(31:00):
now. They're like, Oh, my gosh,that's me. That's exactly what I
do. Like, I can't be stuck forvery long. If I get stuck, I get
bored. And I get dangerous whenI get bored. And, you know, it's
like, just all the positivehabits that you can put into
yourself is that reinvestment ofit's just going to pay off, it's
totally going to pay off and foryour journey. I think that it's
(31:21):
paid off dividends. And now thatyou said that about AI coming,
I'm like, robots need athletictape, too. I mean, why are we
excluding them from your future?
Audience? I mean, they're gonnateach you how to run and do all
these other things. deliverpizzas? I mean, they may break
and who knows? Have you heard ofhere, the official sponsor of
your AI robot?
Seneca Hampton (31:45):
We're gonna partner with Tesla. Hey, we got
you got your robots? Yeah.
Krystal Proffitt (31:49):
See, we were just started out great business
and marketing ideas. Like y'allheard it here. First females has
it just trademark this podcast.
Okay, we sent it first. Oh, mygosh, syndicate. I get asked you
1000 More questions aboutmarketing and business. But I
want to really dive intosomething you said earlier about
direct response marketing. Andreally, it sounds like that,
(32:13):
from the beginning, you'vealways just been a person in the
community wanting to understandyour customers and what they
want and how you can deliverthat solution to them. So for
somebody that's listening, wehave a lot of people that are
just getting started in theironline business, or their
content creation journey. Andthey're like, I don't have an
audience at all right now. Howdo I start asking them? What
(32:37):
they really want? Do you haveany advice for someone that's in
that position?
Seneca Hampton (32:43):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be yours. Right? I think
there are customers, theircustomers buying from everyone
and all sorts of things justbecause they aren't your
customer doesn't mean what theyhave to say, doesn't matter. And
I think that if you were to, Idon't know, let's say you have a
(33:05):
course on. I don't know, basketweaving. It's my mom's favorite
example. Basket weaving, I'msure that there's a course and a
community out there. Where thereare pages where people literally
sit and talk about basketweaving in their free just join
them and ask questions and talkand provide them value, right?
(33:26):
Or just be curious and askmessage people. Hey, I'm really
curious. Why do you like basketweaving? What? What type of
baskets Do you like? Why are youguys and posting the survey? I
really want to let people aremore than happy to just kind of
help to give you information. Ithink the other side of it too
is there is no easy button.
There is no shortcut fast way.
(33:47):
There is no, just do this andeverything will work it there
isn't the most successful peopleis just there's a guy listen to
Alex for Mozi. And they say,they asked him hey, you know
what, what makes you successfulversus other people? He says
time under tension time underweight. It just takes reps.
(34:08):
There's no shortcut to it. Andso it's okay not to get it
right. It's okay. I tell mykids, my five year old and four
year old, if they're notbreaking something, or they're
not destroying something, orthey're not, they're not
learning. That's all they'redoing. Right? And it's just a
perspective shift. And I feellike for us as adults, we learn
to like, you can't break thingsand it's wrong to be wrong. And
(34:29):
it's that's learning literally,like I don't know, let me ask
oops, that wasn't it. Let me trythis. Oops, that wasn't it. Let
me try it. And you just giveyourself the room in the space.
So I mean, I hope this ishelpful, but you're brand new,
you're just starting off andeverything. There's so much
stuff. There's so much stuff forme to learn. Just pick
(34:50):
something. And there was a ladythat I worked with when I was 22
years old, my first big boy joband she said how do you eat an
elephant and I looked at her Ialways I'm like, I've never
heard that. I don't know whatyou're talking about. I don't
like elephants. They don't sounddelicious. And her point was, if
you have a big task in front ofyou, or a big project, how do
(35:10):
you how do you attack it? Andshe said, One bite at a time.
That's it. That's the answer.
There is no shortcut. And so forthose new people, I hope this is
helpful to you. If there's somuch in front of you, and you
don't know what to do, just picksomething and enjoy the journey.
That's it. Just enjoy thejourney as you go through it.
Don't be so hard on yourself,give yourself a goal. And just
(35:32):
set little goals and completethem and set little goals and
complete them and continuethrough what you're doing isn't
your life, right? That life ismade up of other things. But
this is something that you'retrying to do. So just give it
its time. You know, push throughas hard as you can with what
you're doing. Give it everythingyou can enjoy your life. Enjoy
your time with your family,enjoy your health, enjoy all the
(35:53):
things that you have, and thencome back and try it again.
Weave your business into youreveryday schedule. If that means
staying up to 11 or 12. Atnight, guess what, you got to
stay up to 1112 a night. That'sjust what it is. And that's
okay. There's nothing wrong orbad about that. You should be
proud about that. So hopefullythat that that's there's no
shortcut. But hopefully thatthat's, that's
Krystal Proffitt (36:16):
helpful. Yeah, yeah, I think that there's a few
little nuggets in there. The onethat I want to circle back to is
Seneca. I don't know if you knowthis, I have three young boys at
home and for you saying breakingstuff. I'm like, yeah, we've
gone through a few lampsupstairs are like the ceiling
fan. You know, the like theglass part. We've gone through a
few of those. And they havelearned and I've just learned
(36:39):
that we don't we don't have nicethings in our house. This is the
moral of the story. We don'tmaybe when they're all out,
maybe that'll happen, but Itotally hear me with that
Seneca Hampton (36:48):
one. Yeah, yeah.
My wife bought us white couches,and I still shake my head and
I'm like,
Krystal Proffitt (36:53):
wow, brave woman.
Seneca Hampton (36:54):
She's very brave. She's very, and yeah, I
just I I have to just let it go.
I'm like, they're, they're theirlittle scientists. Yeah. And
they're just exploring andlearning. That's it. Yeah. Okay.
I feel better. Yeah,
Krystal Proffitt (37:08):
exactly. Oh, my gosh. Well, Seneca This has
been so amazing. And I have onefinal segment that I want to go
into have a few rapid firequestions. If you're up for
those. Okay, hit me. Well, wekind of touched on this a little
bit. It was really centeredaround advice for a brand new
business owner or podcaster, orcontent creator, but I know that
(37:31):
you recently started yourYouTube channel. So do you have
any advice for someone that hasan existing business and you're
bringing it online for the firsttime or maybe revamping your
brand?
Seneca Hampton (37:45):
I would say Perfection is the enemy of
completion. It won't be perfect.
You'll look back and you go Ilook at all my videos like why
in the world did I think thatthat was then that's okay.
That's just what it is accepted.
It's okay.
Krystal Proffitt (37:59):
That's great.
Okay, my next one is a two partquestion. What is the dream
podcast you would love to be on?
And if you could sit down andinterview someone who would be
your dream guest
Seneca Hampton (38:17):
dream podcast.
Ooh, Joe Rogan has good fun one.
My dream guest that's so tough.
There's so many people that Ijust I would love to pick their
brain that's that's a hard one.
I can't I can't that's a hardone. And there's there's too
many people, too is too manypeople. I just list all I'm like
(38:39):
all six of you sit here areeight of you guys. I want to ask
all you guys questions. There'stoo many. There's too many ads.
I don't I don't. I feel badmentioning one. But I guess Elon
Musk could be a really great oneto just sit down. And what I
really admire about Elon Musk istwo things, his purposeless
purposefulness, like he's verypurposeful. And it seems that
(39:01):
his businesses serve a purpose.
Right? We want to make the, youknow, human species,
interplanetary, important tohim, Tesla, and all these
companies feed into the vision.
And I just I admire that somuch. And I'm like, Man, I want
my interplanetary vision. And sohow did you find yours is kind
(39:21):
of the question that I would askhim. And then the other thing
is, is his ability to beconsistent? It's just insane. I
have a couple of businesses andI'm like, how do you run these
multiboot This is insane. justdoesn't make sense. So do things
I really admire about that guy.
Krystal Proffitt (39:37):
Well, we're putting that out into the
universe. So Elon, if you'relistening, like Seneca has some
questions for you. Okay.
Seneca Hampton (39:44):
Follow me on Twitter Elon.
Krystal Proffitt (39:45):
Exactly.
Waiting for that blue check adday, right. And then my last
question is, do you consideryourself a perfectionist?
Seneca Hampton (39:55):
I used to. I used to, I used to very, very
much um, And I switched to autilitarian or things just have
to, it's just utility. If itworks, we'll make it pretty
litter. That's it. Just to getthe point across gets the point
across. Great. Okay, let'sfigure out how to dress it up
(40:16):
and make it cool later but justmake it work and then we'll make
it pretty. Oh, I can't if I feltlike I used to be a
perfectionist, it had to lookand sound and be just, I can't
does it work? Does it get thepoint across? Okay, cool. Great.
Done. Phase one, then worryabout phase two. Okay,
Krystal Proffitt (40:33):
this is so good. And you're among many
recovering perfectionist andthis audience so you are you
found your people if you werelooking for them Seneca here we
are. We are yours. You're morethan welcome to be here and be
imperfect. Because this has beensuch a fantastic conversation.
Where can everybody learn moreabout Hampton Adams and what
you're up to? And what's yourfavorite place to connect with
(40:55):
people?
Seneca Hampton (40:56):
Yes, so if you guys want to check out Hampton
Adams, we are in Amazon. But ifyou'd like to make a purchase,
really appreciate it. I wouldsay go through our website
Hampton adams.com. And in termsof getting in touch with me, I
am managed to do way betterabout being on social media. I
used to have a job as a socialmedia specialist. And my job was
(41:16):
to grow accounts after that job.
I like washed my hands. I waslike, this is just it's
draining. But if you guys wantto get a hold of me, you can get
a hold of me on Instagram atSeneca Hampton probably be the
best place.
Krystal Proffitt (41:30):
Okay, awesome.
Thank you so much for your timeand all of your wisdom and the
amazing business tips that youshared here today. They were so
incredible. So thank you forcoming on the show.
Seneca Hampton (41:39):
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. They
were so nice Krystal, they wereso nice to me. And it felt like
like I don't know, I think thethe the entrepreneurial like
SWOT analysis guy inside of mewas like, kid gloves, kid
gloves. Like I just felt likeI'm like, Are you guys really?
In this way? Yeah. So after theshow, they have a a therapist,
(42:02):
you talk to you, they justeverybody. And he said, I've
been on the season. I've been onthe show for 13 seasons, I've
never seen them. I've never seenthem let someone down in the way
they let you down. That was thenicest I've ever seen them talk
to anybody and not give them thedeal. He's like, I've never seen
(42:23):
it before. And I'm sitting therelike still high on adrenaline
and I'm like, okay, okay. Allright. All right. Yeah. And then
I finally get home and I playthrough. I play through all of
the conversation and everythingthat happened. In hindsight,
2020 I'm like, okay, okay, coollesson I learned I learned, I
(42:44):
wouldn't say learned it was justlike, I'm like, Okay. I see.
There's certain spots in theconversation where I think I
could have clarified things forthem. Because it was like a two
and a half hour conversationthat they trimmed down. Yeah.
But I was like, okay, cool.
Yeah, I really, I really learneda lot. And I didn't get to tell
(43:04):
you my story. I, I was late.
Krystal Proffitt (43:10):
I was still recording, we can add this.
Seneca Hampton (43:14):
So So I was I was supposed to be there like 12
o'clock in the middle of theday. And I'm supposed to be
there 12 o'clock in the day. ButI thought the email set to be
there at like six o'clock thatnight. And so I'm actually in
Nevada, and I'm in Reno and I'mworking on a separate business.
(43:35):
And so I actually own alogistics company. So we do last
mile delivery deliveringpackages. And I'm setting all
that up. And so I'm I'm flyingback and forth, California and
Nevada. I'm setting all thisstuff up while having to talk to
the producers and write myscript and build my all this
stuff. I'm like, I'm exhausted.
I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can'twait for this all to be over.
(43:57):
I'm so tired. And so I'm inNevada. It's the last day I'm
supposed to be in Nevada. I'mlike, okay, cool. I don't come
back here for another week. Ican go home and rest and then
Shark Tank is in like a day. SoI'm like I get to sleep and then
go. And so I get a call andScott is like hey, where are
you? I'm like What do you mean?
Where am I am? I'm not I'mworking? Why? He goes you're
(44:18):
supposed to be here. Like, wait,what? He goes, Yeah, you're
supposed to be here at 12. It'sfour. I'm like, Oh my goodness.
Ah, I'm in Nevada. I mean it'san hour and a half flight and
I'm like, I'm okay. I'll bethere. If I can get there an
hour and a half. It's an hourand a half drive to La I'll be
(44:39):
there in three hours. He goes,Wow, okay, that's cutting it but
okay, because you got to gettested for COVID. And so I'm at
the airport. Now I'm like, I'mgonna say I'm anxious but I'm
like, Oh, crap. Okay, we gottago. And then literally as I hang
up the phone they say sorry yourguys's flight has been delayed
(44:59):
and And then was like 30minutes. I'm like, okay, okay,
and pacing a little bit. 30minutes turned into three hours.
And so I'm sitting there like,Oh my goodness. So then the guy
calls me back. He's like, whereare you? I'm like, I'm on my
way. And he goes, Okay, how longhave you here? And I'm like, Ah,
(45:21):
like, two hours. And he's like,alright, level with me, man.
Where are you? At? I'm on aplane. I'm leaving Nevada. He
goes, okay. Okay, what time canyou get here? And I said, as
fast as I can. And so I we flyhome. I have to get an Uber. The
(45:43):
Uber driver has no idea can'ttalk about it. So he's just
galavanting home like taking histime and I'm in the backseat,
like having a full like, oh mygosh, like, we gotta go. So I
finally get home. I don't haveany more props like the Wait,
you guys saw all that stuff isnot ready. And so I like have to
run and grab it off, throw it inthe car and get it all ready.
(46:04):
And then I drove veryresponsibly. And within the
speed limit. Wait, wait, yeah,legit li it's a legit that I was
oh, you know speeding, it's alegit but. And so I'm like, fly
into LA. I get there. And I getto this hotel and I'm like, this
(46:26):
can't be the hotel. This is thiscan't this cannot be the hotel.
It's it's, it's it's a word I'duse. I'm
Krystal Proffitt (46:38):
scared that it's taking this long.
Seneca Hampton (46:39):
Yeah. It's it's, it's it's raw. I'll use the word
raw. It's raw. And I'm like, soI pull up and I'm like, this is
where we're staying. Okay,whatever. Okay, I'm not one of
those pinky in the air people.
But I'm like, this is a littlerough. So I walk in, I get my
COVID test, like cool. Swaby forCOVID. Great. I walk into my
room. If this was Yelp, theywould not get a good review.
(47:06):
Let's leave it at that. And sothe room was so bad that I
slept. And I put my hoodie onand I pulled my string and slept
in the middle of the mattress.
Oh, it was that bad. I was justlike, mind you. It's like one
2am And I have to be up at 5amfor the next day, so I wake up.
(47:27):
i It was so bad. I birdbath. Itso I'm like birdbath thing.
Krystal Proffitt (47:31):
Don't touch anything. Yeah,
Seneca Hampton (47:33):
it was bad. I walked downstairs, and they're
serving food. And I'm like,hesitant. I'm like, this is not
it was just, it was rough. Sothen, you know, the arrived
arrives, we're taken there. I'mwaiting and waiting and waiting
in our, you know, our trailer.
And I'm like, Okay, are we goingto go and hours go by, and I'm
(47:54):
waiting. And I'm like, I couldshower. And so I have I went to
sleep at like one or two o'clockwoke up at 5am. I had just flown
all the way from Nevada. So whenyou guys see me on TV, I'm
exhausted. And I had been doingthis. This this, like, I can't
talk about it all but likeyou're talking with, with with
(48:14):
the Shark Tank people and you'rebuilding and doing all this
stuff. And there's a lot ofinformation they need. And
you're verifying stuff andtalking to lawyers and you do
all it's a lot. And at the sametime I'm sitting in this
training. And the training wasduring the same week, 12 hours a
day as I'm trying to hire forthe new business. I'm starting
with no employees. And I'm like,it was exhausting. So when I'm
(48:35):
up there standing there, sharks.
I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Andso I get through this two and a
half hours and when I come off,I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm so
relieved. That's why I said Ifelt relieved because I was
like, okay, I can finally rest Ican finally rest. Finally rest.
(48:58):
And I finished. And it was backto this new business that I have
that I've been running for alittle over a year now. 50
employees. It's insane. I thinkthis business does like 2.5
million. It's it's it's tough.
Dealing with is tough. And I'mlike, Okay, I've been running
ever since. So it hasn't beenone of those things where it's
(49:18):
like, hey, we you know SharkTank was you know, my cool great
so on the wall. Great,wonderful. stuff. I gotta do
Yeah, so it's a funny story.
Yeah, that was I was I was latearriving to Shark Tank. But in
my in my defense, the email readreally weird, really weird. And
(49:42):
I was like reading it over asI'm on the phone with this guy.
I'm like that there's no way noway that happened. That's not
true. And I'm reading it. I'mlike I can see how you can come
up with that time. But you alsosaid right here that I had to be
there tomorrow at six. What thetomorrow at six. Why do I have
to be there today at 12 Oh, theafternoon like it doesn't make
sense. Yeah, but I made it I gotthrough it. And surprisingly, it
(50:05):
didn't cause any issue.
Krystal Proffitt (50:07):
So we're gonna title this episode. I almost
missed my shores.
Seneca Hampton (50:13):
Yeah, yeah, I really did. I really and it
wasn't like, purposeful or like,uh, you know, you're just, I'm
one of those people where I'mlike, I don't lose my keys. I'm
like that guy, where I'm like,No, Cross my T's top. I know.
Yeah. And when I saw that, I waslike, okay, either you're
exhausted from all of thisstuff? Or they can't, right? I
don't know. But it was.
Krystal Proffitt (50:33):
It was unique.
Or maybe it was a gift to notoverthink the all the other
things that you're doing in yourpitch. You're like, I'm going to
the universe's like, I'm gonnathrow all this extra stuff at
him that he's not going to havea chance to overthink. He just
just go yeah, go like Yeah, butyeah,
Seneca Hampton (50:49):
there was a moment when you're standing
there before they open thedoors. That's the highest level
of of let like nerves. Mm hmm.
It's quiet in the studio. Andthe doors open. And you walk in,
it's quiet. So there's no darkdark down there. You're okay.
(51:11):
And then you stand. And it'sawkward. It's awkward. So
awkward. It's great. You go. Andyeah, I after I got through my
pitch. It was downhill. Becausethat's the biggest piece of the
whatever you film they can use.
(51:35):
So if you botch stutter in thatforget, ooh, oh, that's the
narrative. Yeah. So I finishedthat. And I was like, okay,
cool. Now ask me the businessquestions. I've been doing six
years. It's easy. What's up?
Yeah,
Krystal Proffitt (51:48):
we're good.
We're good. Yeah, well, and I'mgonna link to that clip too,
because I have like, it's likethe minute 45 second clip or
whatever that we have. So we'llmake sure and put that in the
show notes too, for everybody.
Thank you for the bonus story.
That was fantastic. We I mean,we couldn't have we couldn't
finish this. Without that.
Outro (52:08):
I told you it was going to be such a great conversation.
I hope you enjoyed that. I hopethat you hit up Seneca and like
ask him all the questions thatyou have. Because this was so
much fun to talk to someone whois building businesses and never
gives up. I think that that wasthe biggest takeaway from this
(52:29):
interview. It wasn't his firstidea. It wasn't his second idea.
It was 20 something ideas intotrying and failing and making
mistakes and pivoting andcontinuing to go after something
that you know you're capable of.
And it was just such anincredible conversation. So I'm
gonna link two ways that you canconnect with Seneca go follow
(52:49):
him on Instagram, go subscribeto his YouTube channel, they're
all going to be in the shownotes. So
KrystalProffitt.com/episode380to check him out. And if you are
in athletics, like support him,go to Hampton Adams and check
out all the cool things thatthey are doing I'm gonna link to
their website as well and gocheck out I told you like the
(53:13):
who knew that like athletic tapecould be so sexy looking at the
different pictures and the waytheir website is laid out. Like
it's so simple and yet verypowerful. And so I hope that you
enjoyed today's interview withSeneca I had so much fun, but
that's all I have for you today.
(53:34):
So if this is your first timetuning in, make sure that you
hit the subscribe or followbutton wherever you are
listening to today's episode andI would love it if you would
take a screenshot tag me tagSeneca let us know what your
number one takeaway was fromtoday's episode or if there's
something similar to this thatyou want to hear more about. Let
(53:58):
me know I'm looking for ideas aswe're going into a new year and
I would love your feedback onother things that you want to
hear on the profit podcast. Butagain, the show notes for
today's episode,KrystalProffitt.com/episode380
for all the ways that you canconnect to Seneca and that's all
I have for you. So as alwaysremember, keep it up. We all
(54:22):
have to start somewhere.
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