Entrepreneurs: Transform and Strengthen Your Brand for Success with Doug Zarkin + Others

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. Brands, don't miss forecast
because you have stupid people at thetop. After sixteen years of working in
telecom, that was a dead income. I've been in natural foods, my
full adult light. I did theonly thing I really know how to do,

(00:23):
and I wrote a screenplay. I'mRichard Gearhart and I'm Elizabeth Gearhart.
You just heard some snippets from ourshow. It was a great one.
Stay tuned to hear tips about howyou can start your business ramping up your
business. The time is near.You've given it hard, Now get it
in gear. It's passage to profit. With Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm

(00:47):
Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm
specializing in patents, trademarks, andcopyrights. And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not
an attorney, but I do marketingfor Gearhart Law, and I have my
own startups and podcasts. Are youone of the two and five Americans wanting
to start your own business or alreadya business owner? Stay tuned. This
show is about starting and growing yourbusiness. Welcome to Passage to Profit,

(01:10):
the Road to Entrepreneurship, where welearn why and how ordinary people just like
you started and grew their businesses.And we also talk about the intellectual property
that helps protect your innovations. Wehave an absolutely amazing guest, Doug Zarkin.
He's an award winning marketing expert,author of the book Moving Your Brand

(01:30):
out of the friend Zone, whichis all about breaking free from the friend
zone that hinders success. And thenwe have some surprise presenters, Jason Anderson
and Justin Crosby with the Dreamcommission dotOrg. Very interested to hear what they
have to say. And then SadieBones and Sadie, what do I say
about her? What were you doingwhen you were nineteen years old? Were

(01:51):
you a screenwriter, director and actor? Well, Sadie is and she's got
a movie. I blown away bythis young woman, So stay tuned,
absolutely an amazing young woman. Andthen we have David Canter with Folk Revival
and I got to ask you listenersagain, have you ever eaten an acorn?
My inner squirrel wants to know.I am really anxious to try this

(02:12):
product because it's a breakfast kind ofcereal, kind of like oatmeal, only
better and it has different nutritional profilewith acorns, a really innovative creative food
product. More to come, Sostay tuned for sure, and don't forget.
You can hear Passage to Profit nowon thirty one radio stations across the
country. And we're also a toprank podcast. So we have a new
segment now on Passage to Profit.It's called Your Exciting New Business Journey.

(02:38):
And before we get to our distinguishedguests, it's time to talk about your
Exciting New Business Journey. Two andfive Americans want to start a new business.
So should you start a new business? Well, often our listeners ask,
how do I know if my ideafor a business is viable. Let's
turn to our guests to find outhow they decided that their business or project
was viable. Doug, welcome tothe show, so good to see and

(03:00):
hear you. How did you decidewhether your projects were viable? You know?
For me, one of the thingsthat I've enjoyed throughout my career,
back in my first career in theagency days and then moving through various roles
on the client side, is theopportunity to teach, train, and mentor.
I'm really involved in formal organizations likethe Advertising Education Foundation. I do

(03:22):
a lot of mentoring at high schoolsand colleges, and the opportunity to help
unlock someone's potential for me is incrediblygratifying. And so when I thought about
writing the book, I realized thatI had an opportunity to hopefully make a
difference to the lives of people ata broad level by putting thoughts and thinking
down on paper. And it's terrifyingand exciting because now everybody gets to judge

(03:45):
you for your belief system, whichis why I call it a guide,
not a manual, because there's noright way or wrong way to build brands
and build marketing platforms. It's reallyabout you finding your way. And for
me, the viability comes in thepeople that I've touched throughout my career and
the responses that I've gotten since thebook came out in October. So I'm
excited about it great. Well,thank you very much for that, Sadie

(04:05):
Bones, Welcome to the show.What are your thoughts? How did you
decide that your project, your mostrecent film, was viable. Honestly,
I wasn't thinking about that at all. I needed to tell this story for
myself, and I figured, youknow, I would just take that chance,
right. So, I mean,you didn't really put yourself in the

(04:25):
mindset is this going to work?You just felt it was something that you
had to do and wanted to do, and that was the catalyst for you
moving forward with the film. Ihad to do it for myself, and
I was lucky enough that other peopleresonated with it and wanted to be a
part of it and now want tosee it. Yeah, some pretty good
people, if I may say,somebody's actors are top not absolutely and we'll

(04:46):
hear more about that later. SoDavid, very excited to have you here.
How did you decide that your productwas a viable product. I think
it's all about identifying whether your ideasort of meeting an unmet in the marketplace.
So in my case, I waslooking for a breakfast that was high
protein, low carb FETO but alsohad like a sustainability focus, which is

(05:11):
something I care quite a bit about, and there really weren't a lot of
things out there available, so Istarted making my own sort of oatmeal alternative
made with nuts and seeds, includingacorns, and it was sort of part
of my regimen that I was thatI began to eat. I started sharing
it with family and friends, andpeople liked it. And I come from

(05:31):
the food industry, so I comefrom this business. I'm used to running
marketing, running innovation for natural organicfood companies. I saw that there was
a white space in the market.No one was really doing this, no
one was really focused on heirloom andheritage foods. And then you never really
know whether idea is viable until youput it out there. So I put
it out there and I started tosee that consumers were coming to our website

(05:55):
and they were ordering, and theywere reordering. It gave me confidence,
confidence based on not only your ideaand your knowledge of the market, but
also you tried it and it turnedout to be a success. Jason justin,
how did you guys get your foundationstarted? We really started the foundation
out of necessity. Right, whenyou talk about the need for something,

(06:16):
we talk about supply and demand.We're both from Mississippi, right, so
one of the lowest median incomes inthe country, but also one of the
highest poverty rates for Black Americans,right, so one of the things that
we recognized that people were starving forwas financial literacy, and again that's what
drove us to provide that need,right growing up from a family that pushed

(06:39):
education, but not necessarily financial literacy. Kenya. When it comes to deciding
whether your fitness business was a viableoption for you, what were some of
the things that you thought about,well, I thought about myself in terms
of that I needed to lose weight, and I saw the market right.
We're always looking for solutions to loseweight in a healthy way, and there's

(07:00):
there's no lack of market share whenit comes to health and wellness and what
that feels like and the value thatgets put on it. So that's how
I evaluated my decision to move intothe wellness space. Elizabeth Well. I
started a video directory of B toB businesses and I did some focused studies.
I had a friend as a professorat a university and we did a
focus group with her students from theconsumer and who said, yeah, I

(07:23):
think that we would like these,but we'd like them shorter. So I
made the videos much shorter. Idid run into an unforeseen problem. Even
business coaches and people who coach peopleto be on video. Hate to be
on video, so it's been kindof a challenge to get thirty seconds of
people on video. For this,I'm pivoting a little bit because I'm going
into podcasting big time this year andwe have a podcast studio we use during

(07:47):
COVID in New Jersey and we're redoingit so that other people can come and
do their podcasts there. And Irealized that they need a lot of help,
so we have that help to give, but I still want to do
the directory. So I think takingthe temperature of people and seeing it had
somebody tell me, oh, therearen't people that want a podcast. We
went to a seminar podfest. Itwas a big meeting and there were two

(08:09):
thousand people there, So I thinkthere are people that like to do podcasts
absolutely. And for myself as theowner of Gearhart Law, intellectual property firm
that we started eighteen years ago,I was in the corporate side and worked
with a lot of large law firmsand I really felt like the large law
firms weren't interested in working with entrepreneursand entrepreneurship had always been a passion of

(08:31):
mine and it turned out to bea great move. So focusing on unmet
need I think is really important partof deciding whether or not your business is
viable. So now it's time totalk with our very distinguished guest, Doug
Zarkin, Award winning marketing expert,and he's been named by Brand Week Marketer

(08:52):
of the Next Generation, and he'sa consecutive honoree in Crane's New York Notables
in Marketing. And Doug has catapultediconic brands like Avon and Victoria's Secret to
New Heights. And he's also anauthor Moving Your Brand out of the friend
Zone, which is about breaking freefrom the friend zone ban Hinder's success.
So welcome to the show, Doug. Such a pleasure to have you here.

(09:15):
What do you mean when you talkabout moving your brand out of the
friend zone? For all of us, whether you're single or married, I
imagine at some point in your lifeyou have had feelings for somebody that weren't
necessarily matched with a degree of intensity. No matter how handsome you may or
may not be, or how beautifulyou may or may not be, we
all find ourselves at one point oranother believing that perhaps somebody cares about us,

(09:37):
likes us a little bit more thanwe like them, And the same
thing is really true in business.Brands don't miss forecast because you have stupid
people at the top. What youhave is a misunderstanding as to the role
and the relationship that you have withyour consumer base. And the premise of
moving your brand out of the friendzone is really about strengthen that brand value

(10:00):
equation. How do you create fashionand trust so that regardless of what's happening
in the marketplace in your respective category, consumers are going to remain loyal to
you. They're not only going toremain loyal, but they're going to advocate
for you, because no matter howsmart or how technologically advanced you are,
your brand is today, tomorrow,and forever. The most powerful marketing tool

(10:22):
in a marketer's toolbox is word ofmouth, and that comes from building advocates.
And so the book really gets intounderstanding the brand value equation, understanding
how to look at your brand andfigure out where within the different relationship areas
you fall, and then most importantly, some things to think about, because

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as I mentioned, there is noright way or wrong way to build a
brand. There's just a way.And the goal of the book is really
to provide a set of things toconsider as you're building a brand and trying
to figure out how to move yourbrand into that incredibly intense place of brand
love. Well, dog, Ihave a question for you. So I'm
approaching this as a consumer. Iloved Zappo's shoes, which are bought by

(11:07):
Amazon, because I would get theshoes the next day, I had a
year to return them. It wasreally easy to do returns. But Amazon
is changing all of that, notonly for Zampo's but for Amazon itself,
and I am falling out of love. So what do brands do to keep
the love and still make money?Brand love is really tied to the brand
value equation, and I would callit Doug Arkins version of Einstein's theory of

(11:28):
relativity or the Pythagorean theorem. Andit's a very simple formula. Value which
everybody wants, whether you're making fiftythousand, five hundred thousand, or five
million dollars a year, is reallydriven by the experience as your numerator divided
by the price, which is yourdenominator, and the greater the experience,
the more you can charge your premiumprice and still have a positive value equation.

(11:52):
And the result of that very simpleformula, and I say that tongue
in cheek because it's anything but simple, gives you an idea of what you
need to do. Brands first haveto understand where they fall in in their
brand value equation. A brand likeAmazon, and I think Amazon is a
brand, has done an amazing jobin delivering an incredible experience. The price

(12:15):
that you pay for Amazon is continuingto evolve. They made a recent change
to Prime Video. You now haveto pay extra to get Prime videos without
advertising your Prime membership, which everybodythinks is free shipping. It's not free
shipping. Okay, they build thepricing into the model. Those all get
into the denominator. But as longas your customer experience and your shopping experience

(12:39):
is amazing, you don't really carethat they're charging you an extra five dollars
for Prime video. Kenya, Soyou mentioned word of mouth, which is
a great point, But my onlyconcern about word of mouth is it's not
controllable, right, So how doyou advise the brands that you work with
and what they can do tactically tomake sure that their reputation stays in the
right space with consumers? I liketo say, and I talk about this

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in the book, perception may notbe reality, but it's actuality. And
brands have to take control of theirbrand narrative, and that's becoming increasingly hard
in the feedback culture that we livein. Not all feedback is good and
that's okay, but brands have toinsert themselves in the dialogue. The most
powerful thing you can do with somebodywho leaves a negative review is turn an

(13:22):
adversary into an advocate. And theway you do that is not by admitting
fault, because look, the consumerisn't always right, but they're always important.
So if you show empathy, takethe conversation offline to find a solution
if there is one, and thenwhen that solution is found, challenge the
consumer to share that experience. Youcan start to reshape the discourse. The

(13:46):
challenge that I see, and it'ssuch a great question, is when brands
ignore the negative and focus only onthe positive, and the opportunity lost there
is to defend your reputation. Reputationmanagement social commerce is a real thing,
and marketers and leaders, regardless ofwhere you sit in the C suite,

(14:07):
have to be paying attention to whatyour star score is on Google and what
people are saying about you, inorder to ensure that you can bust fake
news and put the truth out therein whatever form you feel is the best
form. That is one hundred percentso true because we really focused on getting
more reviews from your Heart Law,and people reference those reviews when they call

(14:28):
us up as leads. But onequestion I had for you, you're kind
of going opposite the whole AI revolutionbecause your book says, unlock the power
of thinking human, authentic connections.Thinking human really comes down to a very
simple concept. If you've treated everycustomer that walked into your store, that
visited your website as if they wereyour only customer, how would you behave

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small businesses win, Big businesses losebecause they stopped understanding that was that single
customer who helped to build their business. Thinking human is really about getting back
to basics. I love that becausethat's so true. Our clients are loyal
because they have relationships with everybody inthe firm. You know, you learn

(15:13):
about their family lives, you learnabout all sorts of stuff. You learn
about what's going on in the business, not just the intellectual property. I
think that's a great insight, andeven in today's world where we are so
digitized, I think that is themost important thing, because you really can't
get that kind of connection from atext or from an email unless you already

(15:35):
know the person. Ken you.Yeah, I'm just curious because I mean
I'm reading through your bio. Isee all these wonderful accolades, like how
did you get into this marketing space? Initially? My dad still has no
idea what I do for a living. So you know, the celebration of
your accomplishments come from recognizing that thoseaccomplishments are possible without a superpower about how
to build a high performing team.Most of those awards sit in a box

(15:58):
in my basement, not because I'mnot proud of them, but because I
don't want to ever let it getto my head about how I got there.
I've been very blessed to work forsome terrible leaders because they have helped
shape the kind of person that I'dlike to be. And I'm not perfect,
far from it. I have gooddays, I have terrible days.

(16:18):
But the one thing that I learnedfrom working for some not great people in
the course of my career is whata great leader could and should be.
And for me, it kind ofgoes to the philosophy about how I build
a high performing team, and itcomes down to three very simple things.
And I talk about this in thebook I Hire for Passion. I can

(16:41):
teach you the skill, I can'tgive you the will. I require purpose,
which is whether you're working virtually orin an office. I want you
to go about your day with asense of trying to get stuff done.
How you conduct yourself, how youlead yourself, how you reflect yourself as
a reflection of me. So Iwant somebody who has that intent in mind.
And then, most critically, it'sabout celebrating progress. Perfection is unattainable.

(17:03):
Anybody who tells you they have theperfect marketing plan, the perfect brand,
the perfect advertising is full of it. If you set a sales goal
of five percent and you achieve twopercent, the inclination is to talk about
the fact that you missed goal bythree percentage points. Where I like to
start is, let's celebrate the factthat we increase by two percent. All
right, Now, let's figure outwhere the delta is what could we have

(17:25):
done better? And I think thatphilosophy is inspiring. It also allows me
the permission to give real time feedbackpassage to profit with Richard Ana Elizabeth Gerhart
back with more discussion with Doug Zarkin, award winning marketing expert right after this.
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forty six. Now back to Passageto Profit once again. Richard and Elizabeth
Gerhardt and our special guest Doug Zarkin, who is a marketing expert. We've
been talking with Doug. If youmissed the first part of our conversation.
You can catch it on our podcasttomorrow wherever you get your podcasts. But
Doug, we were going to talkthis time about where do brands go awry?

(20:00):
Being a marketer, you instinctually haveto have a degree of arrogance because
marketing, at its core, you'dstrip out all the textbooks. Marketing at
its core is about motivating the consumerto do what we want them to do
when we want them to do it. You have to have a bravado about
yourself to believe that you can dothat. With that, though, is

(20:22):
where marketers go awry and brands goawry, which is understanding that there is
a natural path to humility that comeswith that objective. Brands go awry when
they believe that they're untouchable. Brandsgo awry when they're focusing so much on
not losing that they're not focusing onwinning. One of the things I talk

(20:45):
about in the book is this notionof the challenger brand mindset. Think about
a race. If you're in firstplace and you're running a distance race,
what are you doing? You're alwayslooking at you over your shoulder to see
where the person behind you is.If you're in second place, what are
you doing? You're always looking atthe person in front of you and trying
to figure out how to close thegap. What is the person in third
place doing? The person in thirdplace is trying to figure out how to

(21:07):
win. It's not about what's goingon in first place and second place.
It's about how am I going towin this race? And it's that challenger
mindset that brands need to have inorder to not go awry. The challenger
mindset is about embracing the fact thatthere is an opportunity a niche. A
niche is not a bad thing.A niche is an opportunity to win.

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And so what happens to the runnerin third place? They're thinking four steps
ahead of the runner in first place. And that's why inevitably, challenge your
brands always win because they're not afraidto lose. Brands that go awry or
afraid to lose. Just quick questionfor you, So how do you help
brands like find their niche or developtheir niche if they're not really sure how

(21:52):
to position themselves in the marketplace?It starts from a human truth. If
you look at marketing, marketing isreally about positioning, which is about the
art of sacrifice. That art ofsacrifice is the mixture of what the human
truth is. What's the void thatyou're trying, what's the need state,
the intellectual need state that is missing, or the emotional need state most critically,

(22:18):
because consumers make emotional decisions before theymake rational choices. If you don't
connect with somebody emotionally, unless youhave a product that's going to cure cancer
or solve the world's economic crisis ortransport you without having to take a red
eye flight, you're focusing too muchon the rational or you're not connecting with
somebody on the emotion, and theemotion is the power. The emotion is

(22:38):
the path. Where brands need tostart is understanding what is the need state
emotional first that they're solving, thenrationally, what's the solution, and then
the fun part, which is tofiguring out how to put your brand on
the brain of that consumer. Sowhat are some of the tools that an
entrepreneur could use to kind of harnessthe philosophy that you just discussed. I

(23:00):
would say be guided by the notionthat the solution the complexity often is in
the simplicity. You don't need tobe filling massive research studies. Okay,
talk to people in your community.Talk to people in the target audience,
friends and family, Invite them overto dinner, show them your idea,
get feedback. It's important to thinksmall in order to win big. You

(23:21):
don't need to put yourself into aposition of tremendous risk in order to identify
great opportunity. Be humble enough tostart small, test kitchens if it's a
food product, giving things out tofriends and family and getting a reaction.
Then go a little bit larger,doing things like street fares, community opportunities
to see if you can get abetter sample size. Always so listening feedback

(23:44):
along the way, because when youdecide to go for broke and you go
big, the more money on theline, the greater the pressure, the
greater the need to really win.Allow yourself the certainty to refine your model
when your out of pocket cost islow, so that you can sploit the
opportunity when the opportunity is big.To win big, there's always going to
be a certain amount of experimentation anda little bit of flexibility too, And

(24:07):
as you try to grow your business, it may be that you have to
tweak your message a little bit toreach different consumers, although it's a perfectly
viable strategy to simply try to reachmore of the people that you've successfully reached.
Right, So, if you're anentrepreneur, you're trying to decide should
I try to expand my client baseby focusing on different needs or should I

(24:29):
just try to attract more clients orcustomers who are satisfied with our service the
way it is now? How doyou make that kind of decision? Though?
At the intersection of dumb and stupidare fast food chains that live in
the world of let's say, Hamburgersthat all of a sudden decide they want
to sell pizza, or places thatsell pizza that all of a sudden want
to sell fried chicken, or howabout how about this one the ones that

(24:53):
want to do peak period pricing.I think, you know, the folks
at Wendy's had the idea dea correct, but the way it was communicated was
incorrect, Which is peak period pricingcould be about how to offer savings to
consumers that want to buy breakfast ateleven o'clock at night or you know,
at four pm, getting rid ofthe fresh cookies and breads by reducing the

(25:15):
discount. It's not about raising pricesbetween it's about them. So I think
they didn't think that through. Butkind of going back to the point of
you have to resist the urge totry to be everything to everybody. Brand
positioning is all about that sacrifice.I mean, think about this. We've
all been to a buffet before.Have you guys all been to a Las

(25:37):
Vegas buffet? Right? Nobody physicallyfeels good after eating at a buffet,
and the reason is is because thehuman body is not designed to consume seafood,
Italian food, ice cream, pie, and a Chacruderi board all at
the same time. It's the samething with brands. When you try to
do everything, brands get indigestion andconsumers get sick from it. So the

(26:00):
idea of really focusing narrow and deepis a pathway to win. It's like
when your favorite music group releases analbum that doesn't have their sound. It's
the same thing in brands. Yougotta be really careful when you stray away
from your comfort zone of what yoursexpect from you. You're taking a big
risk. Absolutely. Doug's Arkin Awardwinning marketing expert fantastic. I hope you'll

(26:22):
stick around for the rest of theshow. How do people find Doug.
You can go to Dougsarkin dot comand go to my website. You can
find me at Doug's Ark and onLinkedIn. Most importantly, you can find
the book Moving Your Brand out ofthe friend Zone on Amazon and Kindle.
Well that sounds good. Now it'stime for IP and the News. Today
we're going to be talking about AIand copyright and a court in California made

(26:45):
a ruling recently. I don't likethis ruling. We're going down the rabbit.
What was that first music streaming sourcethat never paid the artists and everybody
got married at Napster or something.Yeah. Yeah. A court in California
made a ruling recently on the sideof artificial intelligence. Three creators sued the
artificial intelligent company chet GPT open AI, and they had made the claim that

(27:10):
AI had used their creations as abasis for making more creations. And the
court didn't say that that was wrong. The court just said, well,
you guys didn't prove your case.And these were relatively small creators that had
filed this lawsuit. I look atthis and I say, well, there
wouldn't even be an AI if peoplehadn't been creating, if there weren't human

(27:32):
creators in the first place. Andso these companies are making huge profits by
taking the creative work of other peopleand massaging it and coming out with something
new and claiming it as their own. That was one judgment, one ruling.
This whole area of the law rightnow is really jumbled, and it's
really a confusing spot for creators.Kenya, what do you think about all

(27:52):
this? And that's why I'm notthe biggest AI fan. I mean,
I think I've spoken about that vocallyon the show, about just being concer
learned about things like this and theusage of creators and just their ideas.
I mean, who's to say thatwe're not being listened to and our ideas
aren't being stolen and put out inthe marketplace. So again, one of
my faux paus when it comes tothe world of AI. If they take

(28:15):
the incentive away from creators to create, who's going to be creating exactly,
Well, nobody. We're going tohave robots that are just creating the same
stuff over and over again. Creatorswill always create. Because I got to
tell you, Richard and I werebrainstorming and we have a new segment at
the end of the show, andthe name of the segment just popped into
my brain from the universe. I'mlike, oh my gosh, that just

(28:37):
came from the universe. I don'tthink the universe is going to grant AI
those kind of thoughts. Well,yes, there's lots of thoughts that the
universe may not grant AI, andwe don't know about that. Creators will
always create, but are they goingto get credit? Well, they have
to support themselves, So how areyou as a creator going to get paid
for what you do? And thathas to be let I guess. And

(29:00):
it's not that I don't like AI. I'm amazed by AI and all the
amazing things that it can do.But the question is is that the AI
is drawing from something right, Andso if you kill the goose that lays
the golden egg, then we're notgoing to have anything, and it's going
to be so much harder for peoplewho are creators to make a living.

(29:22):
You create something, and AI createssomething that's eighty percent the same for practically
no cost. That completely undermines themarket for creator world. Yeah, but
AI has to get a lot betterbecause, for instance, I do these
stories and this one story had thesetwo men with dogs, and I had
AI create the image and they mixedup their faces. I remember saying that

(29:48):
my daughter had nightmares out of thatwhen you showed it to her, right,
she couldn't. So person isn't goingto do that. But I mean,
it's only a matter of time beforethe AI does get better with that.
So then but we're where did itget the picture of the dog in
the first place. It was froma creator, Yeah, so painting or
something. So anyway, obviously thisis a sore point for me, and

(30:10):
I really hope that this ruling getschallenged. I don't think we need to
stop the development of AI, butwe at least need to make sure that
the people who are the creators aresomehow getting compensated for this. And there
was also a case when the NewYork Times sued open AI. Open AI
was like consuming all of the newspaperarticles that the Times had written and they

(30:32):
weren't paying for it, you know, And the New York Times was mad
about that. So anyway, moreto come, stay tuned. So we
have to jump off now, it'stime for a commercial. We'll be right
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(32:42):
two four forty five ninety six.Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth
Gearhart. I am Kenya Gibson,and we are joined in the studio with
some very special guests today. JustinCrosby and Jason Anderson of the Dream Commission.
Welcome to passage. How are youdoing good? Thank you for having
us good, very good today.So we kind of stole you out of

(33:05):
the hallway because you were here,you know, kind of visiting some of
our other radio stations and talking tosome other folks about what you're doing.
So tell us about the Dream Commissionand how you all are involved. Yeah.
Sure, the Dream Commission really gotstarted again out of necessity being from
Mississippi, one of the most impoverishedareas in the United States, and also
doing a lot of work in Memphis, Tennessee. Again, we grew up

(33:28):
probably second generation students to graduate fromhigh school, and again we had education,
but not financial literacy right. Soagain, even as we progressed in
our careers, we were still strugglinguntil again we learned about financial literacy.
So one thing that we tell peopleis that we cure cancer, and people's
like, oh, well, howdo you do that? And it's really

(33:50):
again systemic cancer. And again I'llpitch that to Justin and it you figure
out to answer the hard question.Sure, So when you talk about curing
cancer, right, that can bekind of a catch praise. But what
we're really talking about is the systemicissues involving financial wealth and equity and making
sure that everyone has that path.What I talk about a lot of times
is that many of us, youknow, were given an equation, but

(34:15):
incomplete equation. You were told togo to school, get a degree,
get a job. Then what therewas no more roadmap, right, And
many of us that went to college, right, we were on the highway
of success. And you get tograduation and then that road goes to gravel
and then it goes to mud becauseno one has told you anything about how

(34:35):
to actually exist in the world beyondthat. So that's what we try to
do, is whether again you maketwenty thousand or twenty million, what's the
plan, what's the education? What'sthe vehicle by which you're going to have
success? So what are some ofthe vehicles that you help people with?
Are you guys financial advisors yourselves?No? No, no, no,
absolutely not. Please do not hitI stock. So what we do is

(35:01):
we throw we do financial literacy programming, and we work with municipalities and institutions
of higher learning, and again webring in resources, So we bring in
banks, We work with the Cityof Memphis financial Literacy coordinator. We bring
in again people that are our financialanalysts. We do bring in attorneys,
we do bring in small business owners, and we bring in celebrities. And

(35:24):
like Justin said, it's a systemicissue because again, when you talk about
financial literacy, it's at the heartof everything that our country is dealing with,
specifically in the black community. Forlarge Black cities like Memphis, which
is one of the top five cities. Right so head over three hundred and
ninety murders last year, three hundredand ninety seven murders. Those murders were
directly tied to poverty, which hasan over thirty percent poverty rate in the

(35:47):
black community. So again, whatwe do is we say, hey,
the only way to address this andhealth disparities in the community is to address
the economy. So what we dois we bring in celebrities, we bring
in financial analysts, in free resourcesand get sponsors and provide free summits for
the community and for students so theyhave the vehicle to change that diaspora for

(36:09):
their families and for the next generation. And so that's what we do.
That's a little bit different than othersbecause how are you going to tell someone
or charge someone three hundred or threethousand dollars to come to a summit when
they're living in poverty to change theirlives. Right, But banks understand that,
hey, if we donate to thiscause and other organizations, that people
are going to have more money toinvest in their banks to help small businesses.

(36:31):
And we know what banks do withthat money. So again, they're
happy to help change that dynamic becauseit's good for us as a country.
So to what extent do you emphasizeentrepreneurism as opposed to maybe more traditional corporate
paths for earning a living or havinga career. So that's a great,
great point. That's actually something thatwe're working on more. But this being

(36:52):
our second year, I think weunderstand that we're better together. So one
of the things we've been working onis trying to approach that go up.
Me myself, I have an Amazonfreight partnership based out of Atlanta. I
do not have a background in logistics. I went to school for journalism and
psychology. Oddly enough, however,I realized that after sixteen years of working

(37:14):
in telecom that was a dead incoming. And so what we try to do
is make sure everyone understands that educationis important. Going to school is important,
Every resource of the tree you cangrab is important. But what about
having your own and what about takingyour best friend or your sister or your
brother, whoever, and saying let'sdo this together. I think that's a

(37:34):
part in wealth generation. We're notconsidering and not taking to advance. So
yes, that's a big part ofour platform to let everyone know that,
yes, you can do it,even if you have to do it by
yourself. So I have a questionfor you. The Dreamcommission dot org is
your organization? How are you fundingthis? Are you getting sponsors? Because
it's not cheap to put on eventsand bring all these people together. It's
not so you can say that thismany times as you want. Dream Commission

(38:00):
today day. So we were luckythe City of Memphis worked with us last
year and they brought in resources forits venues. The National Civil Rights Museum,
Tennessee Valley Authority was a great sponsorAutoZone. So again, too many
to name, but those play ahuge benefit in what we're doing. I'll

(38:22):
say this. So yes, wedo all the fundraising ourselves. And last
year was a bit of a learningcurve for us because we were so happy
to have all those groups come,and we had individuals give us discounts to
fly in and all of that,and Jason won't say it, but I'm
a realist. We still lost money. Jason and myself actually wrote checks to
make sure we cleared the balance becausewe believe in what we're doing, which

(38:43):
is why we definitely hope people willcome find us on the Dream Commission dot
org. I'm always asked this question, what would have happened to me had
someone given me this opportunity? AndI'm thankful for the life that I have.
I'm thankful for where I am,but I have to ask myself how
much much further would I be?How much further will the next child be?
I have a three year old daughter. Do I have her further enough

(39:06):
along? And so that's my goal, of my inspiration and my drive for
doing this, and what brain powerare we leaving behind because there's some really
smart kids that don't get opportunities.Do you have another event planneder? Yeah,
yeah, absolutely so. Again,we were having a June teenth Dream
Summit this year, June fourteenth andJune fifteenth. Definitely go to our website.
The Dreamcommission dot org to find outmore. But again we're looking for

(39:29):
partners. If you'd like to bea speaker, definitely submit an inquiry.
But juneteenth Dream sum is definitely againon the first thing on our list.
Again, we're looking to partner witheven more HBCUs to have an HBC Dream
Summit, and we're working with afew more organizations knob Co and a few
other organizations with their events this year. So just really excited about the year.

(39:50):
Justin Crosby and Jason Anderson of theDream Commission, Passage to Profit,
the Road to Entrepreneurship with the Riginal, Elizabeth Karhart and our Media Mave and
Kenya Gibson. Yeah, we areso happy to have on the show.
Sadie Bones. Her website is asadibonesfilm dot com. What were you doing
at nineteen? I know I wasn'tdoing what Sadie's doing. She is a

(40:13):
screenwriter, director, and actor andwe're gonna hear all about it. Welcome,
Sadie. Tell us about your movie. I wrote it when I was
in my last semester at the LeeStrasburg Theater in Film Institute. I went
to high school for film. Iwent to the Frank Sinatra School of the
Arts in Astoria. But I graduatedearly because I was like, I just

(40:35):
want to I just want to doit. I just want to do it
for real. And my parents werelike, you're sixteen, so you have
to go to school. So Iwent to Lee Strasburg, and as I
was wrapping up my time there,I was like, gosh, what's next.
You know, I was just aboutto turn eighteen. I had a
certificate in method acting and a highschool degree. So I did the only

(41:00):
thing I really know how to do, and I wrote a screenplay. And
you know, I was lucky.I have really good friends and teachers and
family who supported me, and Iguess they liked it because they pushed me
to pursue it and I just shotit and edited it over a spring and

(41:21):
summer. Well, you have alot of people in that movie. I
looked at your IMDb profile and it'son there and there's a lot of people.
How did you manage a big grouplike that? Well, I went
to method acting school, so alot of people in the film are my
friends. One of the associate producers, she's my roommate's older sister and an

(41:42):
incredibly talented actress and we really connectedand I wrote the part for her.
So that's how I got most ofthe young cast. A lot of really
really talented actors from all over theworld come through the least Strasburg Institute.
So my lead actress, she isSpanish and American, but she grew up
in Germany and we just happened tooverlap for a semester and this is her

(42:06):
first film too. She's incredibly talented. And then for the adult cast,
I think like five or six ofmy teachers agreed to come play small parts,
and then you know, family friends, you know. I was really
lucky. A lot of people reallycame through for me. But yeah,
no, it was like a communityeffort. What is method acting? What

(42:28):
I was taught at Strasburg was it'sacting using your own emotions and your own
life experiences to inform you. Ithink i'd be good at that. That's
very interesting. So it's called Ifthat Mockingbird Don't Sing, And a lot

(42:52):
of people are really liking it.So what's it about? Can you tell
us a little bit. It's abouta girl who's just about to graduate high
school and she's planning on taking agap year and traveling, and then she
gets dumped and that kind of derailsher plans. But then she finds out
she's pregnant, so she's like,Okay, new plan. I'm going to

(43:15):
keep the baby, I'm going tobe a mom, I'm going to get
my boyfriend back, and that's goingto be my life. Wow. So
she commits to that, and thenshe realizes it was maybe not such a
good idea, and she ends upin a very complicated love triangle and more
lost than she was before. Sadie, what is the creative process like for

(43:37):
you? Is? Did you doanything special? Well? Being true to
my method acting roots, I drawfrom my own life experiences and my own
emotions. You know. All mywriting comes from something that I need to
express, and I would need toexpress even if I wasn't going to make
a film about it. I hadthe main idea for it maybe a year

(44:00):
or so before I even put pento paper. It just really spoke to
me to go away until I justlet it out eventually. This film is
about a young girl, but Ithink it has repercussions for everybody because our
life choices do make a difference,and sometimes they send us in a direction.
We never knew we were gonna goand then maybe sometimes we have to

(44:21):
fix that. A lot of peopledo it by getting divorced or whatever,
and so I think it can speakto everybody. So where is this showing
currently? We are shopping at thefilm festivals around the country, so I
don't know yet, but hopefully Iwill soon. But if you're interested in
finding out, we are on socialmedia and we have a website where all

(44:46):
the fun behind the scenes is gonnabe Sadie Bones. Our website is a
sadibonesfilm dot com. You made yourfirst film, ellipse Is when you were
what when you were eight years old? What was that about? Well,
you know, it was a weirdlittle kid. I'm an only child,

(45:07):
didn't have a lot of friends.I had put on a play for the
rest of the students. They letme do that for some reason, and
I was like, Okay, howcan I make this bigger and more permanent?
So I would like write the scriptand have my mom email it to
the other kids in my class theirparents each week, and they'd come over

(45:29):
and we'd shoot it, and youknow, it was a fun thing we
did after school. It was likefifteen minutes long, I worked with an
editor to edit it because we justhappened to know a greade editor. So
you were born into it in otherwords, like you were born to do
this. And yeah, I meanmy generation kind of grew up with like
iPhones immediately, which can do everything. So I think I was like,

(45:51):
you know, my cousin would belike, oh, yeah, this is
iMovie. And now I'm five yearsold and I know how to edit a
movie, like a very basic understanding. And you're kind of part of that
TikTok generation right where I feel likethere's a lot of vulnerability and people just
overshare on social media and it's kindof normal in this generation. Yeah,
super normal. I've been on socialmedia since I was in middle school.

(46:12):
This is so much fun talking toyou. But we're getting to the end
of our time here, So howdo people connect? Where do you want
people to go to find out aboutyou and connect? All of our social
media handles are at if that MockingbirdFilm, and you can also look at
our website a sadibonesfilm dot com.Passage to profit The Road to Entrepreneurship with
the Origin Elizabeth Gearhart. Now weare onto the acorns. I'm telling you

(46:35):
this is I really want to trythis food because it's really an interesting breakfast
cereal. So we have David Canterwith Folk Revival and he just has an
ip story too, So David,welcome to the show. Tell us about
your product. Bolk Revival is aiprotein, low carb hawk cereal that's made

(46:58):
with acorns in four different flavors.You can find it at folk Revival dot
com. You could find it onAmazon if you just do a search for
Folk Reviible hot Cereal. You canfind us an increasing number of stores,
including Whole foods up and down theEast Coast and Central Market in Texas,
and a whole host of independent naturalstores in the New York metro area,

(47:21):
and a handful of other accounts thatwe'll be announcing. Excellent. That's great.
So how did you come up withthe idea and how did you come
up with the actual product. I'vebeen in natural foods my full adult life.
If I started very early after college, I was interested in food and
sustainability. I went out West andlearned about organic farming and eventually ran my

(47:45):
own organic farm out there, andthen moved back East where I'm from and
earned a master's degree in Food andAgriculture policy, which is like, you
know, that's a sort of aweird wonky degree. But I was very
interested in foods to stainability in ourfood systems. And then I landed an
entry level marketing job at M andM Mars in their Skunk Wirks division,

(48:06):
helping them diversify their portfolio into betterfor you natural and organic snacks, and
then essentially in the past two decadesreally sort of climbing up the marketing ladder
within the natural and organic food industry. So I had this really deep background
in food, and most recently Iled marketing and innovation in R and D

(48:27):
for a company called Doctor Prager's,which is a pretty well known brand.
Their best edgie Burgers Brosen Veggie Burgers, but they have had a wonderful portfolio.
I was with that company for eightyears. We grew that company very
successfully and eventually sold it, andthen that sort of afforded me the opportunity
to finally jump ship and build abrand of my own, and that's when

(48:49):
Folk Revival was born. Like Isaid earlier, sort of in the intro,
I was already eating this sort ofhigh protein, low carb hot cereal
that was made with acorns. Andas I started building the sort of the
architecture for the brand, you know, the mission, the vision, the
purpose, and who the consumer targetwas. And in a fairly methodical way.

(49:13):
As I come from this background ofyou know, CpG consumer package good
marketing, I started doing some innovationbrainstorming. And as I did that,
one of the ideas that was risingto the top was oatmeal. And I
thought, well, I already eatthis interesting oatmeal that people around me friend's
family knew about and liked. Ithink we have our first idea to launch

(49:35):
with. So sort of eureka,our initial products to launch was born,
and that's what we decided to pursue. We ended up finding a contract manufacturer
to make it and developing the packagingand all of that stuff. So for
our audience who have never tasted anacorn, what do they taste like?
They taste like an ordinary nut,they do. But you can't pick an

(49:57):
acorn off of the ground or offof a tree and eat it. So
while warning to our audience, don'ttry this at home, make sure your
acorns are prepared right right, Soyou'd probably spit it out because you'd say
you know, you'd say, oh, that's that's too bitter. It's actually
very similar to olives. You can'tpick an olive off of a tree and
eat it either, you would probablyspit it out. So the way you

(50:20):
make it palatable is you just essentiallyrinse it. And it's like this,
it's a laborious process. You haveto sort of rinse it and sort of
wash away all of those bitter compounds, and when you do so, you're
left with a really tasty tree nutthat tastes pretty similar to other tree nuts
like almonds, walnuts, pistaschio's.The nutritional profile is pretty similar to other

(50:40):
tree nuts. But acorns are incrediblebecause they're sort of like this untapped natural
resource right under our feet. Doyou think that there's like any possibility that
acorns could be eventually eaten as cashewsor peanuts, just as a snack in
and of themselves, they can be. So acorns are consumed in some form

(51:02):
or fashion in various pockets around theworld today. They're consuming parts in the
Mediterranean, they're consumed in Korea.Is like part of this very important sort
of traditional appetizer here and there inNorth America, in the US, they're
largely consumed by various Native American communitieswho sort of value acorns as an important

(51:24):
heritage part of their cuisine, likea rized heritage ingredient. That's what I
wanted to ask you. Are thereold recipes, like heritage recipes that have
these in them? And there's aton of recipes. If you were to
search for acorn pancakes or acorn cookiesthings like that, can definitely find a
bunch online. And also people whoare interested in like survivalism, right,

(51:45):
like preppers and survivalists being able touse ingredients around them and they are big
advocates of harvesting acorns, processing acorns, and then incorporating them into recipes.
But we're really the first brand tobring acorns to market in like modern fashion,
and there's lots of precedent for that. We can think back to the
last decade or so and think backto you know, we weren't aware of

(52:07):
pee protein or even quinoa or youknow, coconut water. All these things
are new ingredients that are getting inthese sort of now in place in our
food system. So our co hostKenya is going nuts here. She wants
to ask what question well as amarketer. I want to talk about the
name. The name Folk Revival reallycarts back to the mission. The mission

(52:28):
for the company is to deliver realfunctional nutrition by reviving heirloom and heritage foods.
So it's long real functional nutrition byreviving heirloom and heritage foods. There's
sort of two parts to that mission. There's the real functional nutrition part,
which is sort of captured by thefolk, right the human part, the

(52:49):
folk in Folk Revival. And thenthere's the revival part, which of course
is like, you know, allabout the reviving heirloom, heritage and often
overlooked foods. That's how we cameup with the name. I also,
you know, I happen to bea music lever. I played guitar.
You know. It has this sortof musical double entantra which sort of spoken
to me, and it also rollsoff the tongue. It's actually those two,
that word combination. If you wereto do a Google search for folk

(53:10):
Revival, you'll get a million hitsbecause fok revival is a thing in musical
history, so you can read allabout what the folk arrival movement is all
about. And in terms of IP, you know, you need to make
sure that the name you fall inlove with, so to speak, is
not taken by another brand. SoI saw that it was taken, and

(53:30):
this is where it's sort of theIP story that Richard alluded to comes in.
I saw that it was owned byCliff Bar Rotein and bars and the
like, you know, And Ialso saw it was actually a product.
They had a line of sort ofmusically themed products. And I saw that
the line was discontinued, and Ireached out to the CMO on LinkedIn.

(53:51):
We were not connected. I thinkwe have very few connections, but I
just introduced myself as Hey, I'ma veteran of the you know, national
products industry, and I see youguys are or not only have this trademark,
but continue to extend the trademark rightThey continue to sort of hold onto
it even though it was not inactive use. And I said, if
you don't intend to relaunch those products, I would love it if you would

(54:13):
let that trademark go and stop extendingyour ownership of it. And I didn't
hear back for some time. Idon't remember eight weeks, twelve weeks.
We actually moved on to plan Bsecondary names and then out of the blue.
I received a LinkedIn message from thatCMO saying we had no intention of
reviving that brand name. It's yoursif you wanted, it's for graps,

(54:34):
which was an amazing thing. Yeah. I think they were probably acting out
of integrity there, and I thinkthat that's a you know, it's a
very cool thing. You'd be surprisedhow often these conflicts come up and how
often the companies involved just say,eh, don't worry about it. So
it does happen lots of times.They want money for it, so it's
kind of unusual that you were ableto get it without funds. I think

(54:57):
it's a great story about how youtook initiative. So I think that's kind
of part of being an entrepreneur.We were talking earlier about some of the
entrepreneurial things you're doing to raise money, so can you tell us a little
bit about that. Yeah, likeany new venture, it costs money to
get these types of things started.And we have kicked off a crowdfunding campaign

(55:17):
on we funder, so this hasbeen terrific. We've raised over one hundred
thousand dollars on the campaign to date. The campaign ends at the end of
April. And we have also raisedsome external funds, which is all visible.
The whole brand story a wonderful littlevideo, it's all visible. The
nice thing about this we funder campaignis you don't have to be rich to

(55:42):
invest. There's a very low minimum. So anyone out there interested in the
Folk Arrival story or potentially owning asmall piece of their own natural foods company,
once again, I invite you tovisit we funder dot com forward slash
Folk Revival, check out our campaignpage and if you're so inclined making investment
or feel free to reach out tome learn more. How do people find

(56:02):
your cereal? Again? They cango to Folk Revival dot com and learn
more about the company and order there. You can order directly from Amazon and
a few other etailers. There's onecalled Bubble Goods which is amazing, incredible
and offers a lot of sort ofindie brands if you want to check Bubble
Goods out. And then, ofcourse if you're in the East Coast and
live you know driving distance to aWhole Foods. We're in Whole food in

(56:27):
virtually allible foods up and down theEast Waves and Central Market in Texas with
more retailers to come. Passage toProfit, the Road to entrepreneurship with the
origin Elizabeth Gearhart and our media MavenKenya Gibson, and our special guest today
was Doug Zarkin, and we willbe right back. Have you ever met
a single person in your life thatenjoys paying taxes? No, no one

(56:49):
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the IRS, I've got some freeadvice for you. This service is strictly
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That's eight hundred nine one seven eightyfive forty six. It's Passage to
Profit Now it's time for Noah's retrospective. Noah Fleischmann is our producer here at
Passage to Profit, and he justhas a way of putting his best memories
in perspective. When I was akid, I used to love the holidays,
but my favorite times of the yearwere actually two nights twice a year

(58:01):
was that we would take the clockoff the wall and readjust it by hand
daylight savings time and back. Wow. I thought that was fascinating. It
was like being at the Hall ofScience. My first question was we all
have to do this. What ifsomebody forgets? Next question, how's it
working out for you? I don'tthink daylight savings time is a bad thing,
really, we just need more options. Let's say I want to take

(58:23):
fifteen minutes, hold onto it thisyear, and then save the other forty
five and accrue it into the nextyear. If I do that the following
year and the year after that,and maybe even add some time onto that,
well, by six seven years later, I've added practically a year on
in my life. Think of whatthat'll do for healthcare premiums unbelievable. You
know, when technology, science andall the other advancements come together, to

(58:46):
make this thing happen properly, We'regonna have a world that is absolutely just
like this one, only more aggravatingand complicated now more with Richard and Elizabeth
passage to profit. Now it's timefor Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. Elizabeth,
can you t this up for us? Yes, this is Secrets of

(59:07):
the Entrepreneurial Mind, and we aregoing to ask each person here for a
secret that has helped them in theirentrepreneurial journey. We will start with David,
what is a secret you have usedthat you can share? Well,
We're especially interested in the ones youcan't share. I don't know if it's
a secret, but I think Ican attribute, you know, the success

(59:30):
we've had launching Folk Revival over thepast year to a large extent to the
team that surrounds me and the brand. I'm the founder, I'm the CEO,
and I launched the brand, butI certainly couldn't have done it without
our various partners. Orus five otherpartners on the brand. These are people
who I know from my time inthe natural foods industry. Their skill sets

(59:51):
and expertise complements mine. You know, I I have a CFO I have
a social media maven, I havea direct to consumer guru and operation person,
et cetera. I don't have allof this expertise. So to bring
people into the brand who sort ofshare your vision and your values, whose
work you respect, who work withintegrity, people you trust, right because
it's all very fragile when you're creatingsomething new like this, and bring them

(01:00:16):
on board and all of us sortof together moving the ball down the field
a little bit at a time.It's been instrumental and number one secret.
So, Sadie Bones, what isthe secret of your entrepreneurial mind? You
know, as an entrepreneur, butalso as an artist. I spend a
lot of time thinking about, likewhat sets me apart, what makes me
unique? How can I be different? And something that has made this project

(01:00:38):
so special is figuring out how doI relate to everyone else? How am
I just like everyone else? Andreally tapping into that. That's a great
secret. Kenya Gibson, what isthe secret of your entrepreneurial mind? I
think discipline. I'm big on consistencyand just trying to make sure that if
I have success with one thing,I try to do it over and over

(01:01:00):
and over and again as many timesas possible. So just being disciplined with
my ideas and anything I'm passionate about. So are you naturally disciplined? Now?
Did you have to? What didyou do to become disciplined? I
think running taught me discipline, especiallymarathon training. Running helped me definitely implement
discipline into certain areas of my life. You certainly disciplined us with this show

(01:01:22):
because you're here. We're like,what if we can't make it one week?
You're like, you're going to makeit that week. But I mean
the whole point with discipline, though, is really just taking baby steps at
first, right, And so ifyou can do something small, take a
first step, then that opens thedoor to taking bigger steps. Right.

(01:01:44):
Richard Gearhart, what is your secretof entrepreneurial success? Well? I have
so many, but just one,just one? Okay, we're running low
on time here, I guess probablyunderstanding the value of what we're offering.
So when we started Your Heart Law, I had been fortunate to have a
lot of really good training from alot of good sources, and I was

(01:02:07):
able to offer that experience to entrepreneursat really reasonable prices. And so because
I was adding a lot of valuefor not a lot of money. I
think that was the beginning of thelaw firm, and that ultimately is what
made us, you know, successful. So it's sort of like understanding your
leverage. You know, what isit that you've got and how are you

(01:02:30):
going to get it to the peoplethat need it, and then you know,
helping them succeed. So I wouldsay that that would be my secret
sauces understanding value of what you're offering. I think mine is an insatiable curiosity
because I always want to know what'sgoing on that's new. And I love
the show because of that because Ialways get to hear what's new going on

(01:02:51):
in this show. I always goingto try new things, and entrepreneurs do
sometimes jump from thing to think tothink. If something doesn't work, you
go on to the next one.And I've had to pivot with this business.
I started with Blue Streak, ButI really feel like my curiosity has
really been my superpower for being anentrepreneur. You are very curious, and
you have cats too, so catsare curious as well. So that's it

(01:03:15):
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(01:03:57):
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