#096 - The Business Behind Podcasting with Brien Gearin I The Corey Ganim Show

#096 - The Business Behind Podcasting with Brien Gearin I The Corey Ganim Show Speaker 2: Welcome back to The Corey Ganim Show. So this is going to be one of the first episodes, if not the first episode in our last 94, 95 weeks, where we sit down with somebody who's actually not an Amazon seller, who's not in the e-commerce space. So today, my guest is Brien Gearin. Guys, this is going to be one that you're going to want to listen to a few times over because Brien has a successful marketing agency. He's got a successful podcast. He's very well connected with other business owners, other people in the entrepreneurship space. And we're just going to go deep on how he grows his podcast, how he's grown his marketing agency, how he connects with other people and networks in an effective manner. And we're just going to go deep into a lot of good topics. So if you are an Amazon seller, this is still going to benefit you. All of these skills, everything we're going to learn translates into any business, but I'm exploring my curiosity here and I've got a lot of really good questions for Brien. So Brien, thank you so much for joining me today, man. I'm excited to have you. I'm excited to have this conversation. Speaker 1: Yeah, Corey, it's a pleasure to be here. When you sent the invite, I got pretty excited because I'm like, oh, I heard he kind of rebranded the show a little bit. We get to come on and it sounds like we're going to wrap just about anything because I don't know anything about Amazon. So that's why I had you on the show to talk about that. But I can talk about a whole lot of other stuff, as you know. So, man, thanks for having me on. Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, listen, I mean, I've been talking about Amazon for a few years now. I've been doing it for about eight years now. And at least for me, in my curiosity, I'm starting to explore other avenues and just talking to people who are outside the space. I figured you were a great fit because for the audience who hasn't heard me on Brien's podcast, like I mentioned in the intro, he is the host of a podcast called Millionaire University. Now, we're going to get deep into how his show started, the stats around his show, how many downloads he's getting, how much money it's making, right? So I like to be really transparent here with the numbers. And guys, go listen to his show. My episode in particular, I don't have the episode number, but it was somewhere in the, I want to say early 200s or late 100s. And he's got a lot of really good interviews with other successful entrepreneurs on that show. So Brien, first and foremost, let's get into your background as an entrepreneur, right? So before Millionaire University, before the marketing agency, before anything, what was young Brien like? Is he entrepreneurially minded? What is he doing at a young age? Speaker 1: Yeah, man, so I was entrepreneurial minded and didn't know it. So when I was in, it must've been fourth or fifth grade, the local youth baseball association, they needed like a dad and a son to go around and make sure all the field boxes had all the chalk and the rollers and the rakes and everything were in there. So on like Thursday evenings, my dad and I would roll around the minivan to all the local ballparks in our township. And we'd fill these boxes and we'd, you know, make sure we wrote down what we were doing, what needed, you know, what the inventory looked like. And my dad would have me fill out this little sheet to send to the, you know, the organization to get paid. So that was like the first entrepreneurial thing, you know, I was probably like 20 bucks, but it was still a thing. And it was also at that time that I started mowing grass. So like, I love mowing lawns. I still do. I even ended up working in lawn care for a few years. And, but I would, I would start mowing lawns for the neighbors when they're on vacation or, you know, elderly neighbors who didn't want to mow their lawns anymore. So I'd walk around with my weed whacker, my blower and my Toro push mower and mow lawns all summer, all morning mow lawns, then play baseball at night. I would do that through college. I ended up buying my neighbor's old John Deere tractor. So I could, I got some four wheels under me, so I could go around and do some more lawns. Had a trailer, could pack all my stuff up and go down the block and handle, you know, I own six to 12 lawns at any time that I was doing, did that through as a summer job through high school and college. And that's when I kind of, it was in my head that I had to go to college and that that's when you be a good soldier and you go get a W2 job. That's just what you do. That's what my parents did. That's what everyone I knew did. That's just what I thought you had to do. And it was insanity until I got into the real world and I was like, Well, this isn't any fun. What the hell are we doing here? I'm not doing this. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: The entrepreneur bug struck me again after my first failed foray into corporate America after college. So that's what early Brien was doing. He was an entrepreneur, but didn't know it. Speaker 2: Well, I love that you started in, I mean, what basically is a blue collar side hustle, right? Mowing lawns and then kind of scaling that up as a young kid. I did something similar where it was, let's see, summer, I guess, between my freshman and sophomore years of college, a friend of my dad's was doing some construction, just some demolition work. And my dad basically pawned me off. He's like, hey, Corey's going to come work for you for a week and help you do this demolition. And I was like, okay, well, how much is he going to pay me? And he was like, oh, like 12 bucks an hour. I was like, great. Awesome. Right. Good. And cash at the time because it's construction. So I remember I go, I show up to the first day of demolition. We're demoing walls. I'm swinging a hammer all day and I'm just sweating my ass off, just grinding. And actually the next day before I went back to the job site, I was with two of my high school buddies. And one of them was like, Hey, I've actually been pressure washing driveways this summer so far. And it's great. I'll make, 200, 300 bucks in a day takes about two, three hours to do that. And he's like, why don't you come do this with me? I was like, oh, that sounds way better than swinging a hammer all day. And I remember we walked up to one of his neighbors and knocked on her door, sold her right there on the spot, 250 bucks to do a sidewalk and a driveway. And I called the construction guy and I actually tried to weasel my way out of it. I was like, hey, I'm not coming in because I got this better gig. And then my dad sits me down. He's like, no, that's not what we do. He's like, you make a commitment, you stick to it. I don't care if there's a better opportunity. So that was a really good life lesson for me. I've never forgotten that. But I finished out the week with him and got back into the pressure washing and did that every summer through college. And it was great. It was hard manual labor, but really good dollar per hour work for me. So I feel like we kind of had that in common there. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, there's something for me about working outside. That's why after my failed corporate job for six months, I ended up in lawn care because I was like, what do I like doing and what do I think I'm good at? And lawn care was like the thing. Cause I was like, I really enjoyed doing lawns. I liked like making them really nice for my parents' neighbors or my parents' house and then my neighbors. And so I got into lawn care and I got to work outside and it was like, it was really cool. And I got, I learned a ton about customer experience and, but yeah, it was that, that was kind of the catalyst for getting into and staying with entrepreneurship. Speaker 2: So the corporate gig that you say was a failed attempt, what did that look like? Who were you working for and what were you doing there that made you say, hey, this is not what I want to do? Because also I came, you know, I had a similar experience there and I think my listeners are familiar with my story, but we want to hear yours. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So it was, I moved to Cleveland. That was strategic at the time because my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, she was going to be going to grad school there and I was applying to a bunch of jobs there because I figured that's where she would end up and I got one of them. And I didn't know what I wanted to do all through college. I was an English major. And my dad said, when I graduated, he was like, go get a job in sales, go learn how to sell. And I'm like, okay. So I got a job selling telecom expense management. I know that really gets the hair on your back. Speaker 2: Sounds pretty boring to me. Speaker 1: Oh, boring as hell. So it was literally, my job was to smile and dial a hundred, 150 times a day to the state of Wisconsin to try and book appointments for an outside sales rep to And their job was to have to get an auditor to audit their businesses telecom expenses. So like, Essentially like Verizon and AT&T, they overcharge everyone into oblivion. And on a corporate level, this is like huge. Like they could overcharge people by like 50K a month. So this company served to audit these types of bills, which sounds like a necessary service. I don't know. I didn't care about it, but I was terrible at it. I had a sales manager who was like just an awful human being. I had one guy who was nice. The next guy was terrible, scared me out of it because I was really bad at it. Like forceful online phone sales. I lasted six months and it was basically like one of those like, hey, you don't have to work here. And I was like, perfect, I'm out. Speaker 2: Looking for any open door, right? Yeah. Speaker 1: I had like $1,500 in the bank. This was the catalyst for entrepreneurship because I got home and I could care less. I took my then girlfriend out to a pretty expensive dinner. And then I was like, hey, guess what? I quit my job. And she's like, Should we return the wine? What is wrong with you? What are you doing? But yeah, man, it was brutal. I learned a lot about sales, about the hard knocks side of sales, but it forced me to make a list of what I like doing and what I think I'm good at. And it eventually led to entrepreneurship after a couple more steps, but it was a huge factor in it. Speaker 2: So that job, you're smiling and dialing all day. Were you making commissions? So if you set an appointment for an outside rep and he closed the client, or were you just making hourly? Speaker 1: Corey, the funny thing about commissions is you have to make a sale to get them. And I'm proud to say I made one sale, which in this case, a sale was setting an appointment. Actually, I set two of them. No, I set one and then the guy no-showed, so they reneged and took my $50 commission back. Speaker 2: So it's 50 bucks an appointment. Is that how much you got? Speaker 1: It was 50 bucks an appointment and the base salary was like $24,000 a year. So I was making like maybe $800, almost a month or a paycheck. So I was making no money. I wasn't making any commissions because I sucked. And to anybody in the state of Wisconsin, y'all are so nice. Everybody's wonderful. And I'm from Ohio, so we're pretty nice too. But I'm trying to call these CEOs and CFOs that we had to call the C-suite to try and get them to book these appointments. And people would be like, oh, that's okay. Thank you so much for your inquiry. We don't really need that right now. I don't think we spend enough to bother with. I'm like, how much do you spend? They're like, $800. I'm like, you got a really good deal. You don't need what we have. But my job was to close these people and set an appointment. And I would always get in trouble. It's like, oh no, Shirley, you're fine. Go and have a nice day. That's all right. And that's why I was bad at it. But at the same time, I was too nice. Speaker 2: Well, when I worked for IBM, same thing. I also never made a single sale, but I did get a couple commission checks in the mail. They weren't big. They were like a hundred bucks here, 50 bucks there. And I'm like, I said to my manager, I'm like, why am I getting commission checks? I'm not selling anything. And she's like, oh, well, they're your accounts. And when our partners sell storage products into your accounts, you get a percentage. I'm like, okay, that doesn't make any sense. I understand why this company has been on the downtrod for 30 years, right? Because you're paying sales reps who aren't doing anything, but okay, sure. But yeah, I also sucked at that job. Totally did not understand how it worked, even though I was, same as you, just hitting the phones all day, calling C-suite executives for very large healthcare companies. Which for anybody who's in B2B sales at that level, that's not how business gets done. You don't cold call your way into a Baxter Health or a Takeda Pharmaceutical. You network your way into it. And that's what I didn't realize. So I was, yeah, we have very similar experiences in that regard. But I'm sure you learned a ton. I mean, you said it yourself, you learned a ton about sales. You learned, I mean, really a lot of the learnings in that environment, at least the way I see it, is just The learning how to show up every day and the learning how to, you know, you're looking at that phone first thing in the morning, you're like, God, the last thing I want to do today is make these calls, but it's my job and I have to do it. So you just do it. Is that kind of one of your takeaways from that as well? Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. One of my takeaways besides learning what I don't want to do and what I didn't like to do was the fact that you got to get up and you got to do the thing. You've got a hundred calls you got to make. And you might, you might make a sale. You might. And for me, I made like none. So it was, you know, it was a very like, wake up, stare at the ceiling, wonder if this is all there is to life, roll out of bed, get to work, usually 10 minutes late, perfect sign of I hate what I'm doing. And, you know, it was just one of those, like, for me, it was even more so learning of And today, we're going to talk about how to expand my mind because it was so boxed in for my whole life, essentially. I could have had a lawn care business. I remember a neighbor said, why don't you just open a lawn care business? I'm like, well, I don't do that. I go to college. And I was like, that was the stupidest thing. I could have been making money. I probably had no business going to college, to be quite honest. Now, I don't regret it because I met my wife there and I had a great time. I was an entrepreneur and didn't know it, but it was this experience that forced me back into the mindset of, okay, there has got to be more to life than just doing what some guy says. And my sales manager was like three years older than me. I'm like, why? I'm getting barked at by this like 26 year old kid. Speaker 2: Like, what does this guy know? Speaker 1: Screw this guy. What does he know? Like, get out of here. So, and it just forced me to expand my mindset to, It was my first steps towards an abundance mindset, but I didn't know it at the time. Speaker 2: I could cite a million examples from my own life or same thing. At the time, I'm like, what am I doing? This is horrible. I hate everything about this. But in hindsight, it's like, thank God for those opportunities and those situations and those things that happened that really sucked because without those would be a completely different person and probably not for the better. Right? Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I'm right there with you, man. Speaker 2: So, okay, so that's a great kind of setting the background and setting the context for where you are now, because I look at you now and you've got a successful marketing agency that you've been running for years. You've got Millionaire University, which is a huge podcast, one that I was lucky enough to have been featured on about, I mean, it was probably about a year ago at this point. So let's kind of dive into both of those worlds. So first, let's start with the marketing agency. What does that look like and who are you serving in that marketing agency? Speaker 1: Yeah, so Ricochet Digital Marketing became a thing about eight years ago. Built it on the side of my then day job, which was, it was a pseudo day job. And I only say that because I was able to work mostly remote and my boss was my father-in-law. So it gave me a lot of time to really get what I needed to get done for him, but also get myself into the marketing world after I kind of made that decision that Marketing was for me. So Ricochet was born on the side of that. And it all came about when I got really into personal finance because yet another thing they don't really teach you in school is personal finance. So when I'm 25 years old, right. Yeah, absolutely none at all. So I'm sitting there at 25 years old and I'm like, hmm, I wonder if I have a retirement account. Oh no, of course I don't. I should probably get one of those. So I just started educating myself on it with online resources and Following experts in the field and one of those experts, I was on his email list and he sent out an email and this was in 2016. So it would have been right after I had taken a course on digital marketing through a company called Udacity. It was really just to see what this whole digital marketing thing is about. And this ended in like January of 15 and then in, or maybe 16, I can't remember, somewhere in that timeframe. And at that time, I got an email from this personal finance blogger that I was following. He said, Hey, I've got another friend in personal finance who is putting out a course and it's teaching people how to run Facebook ads for small local businesses for an extra one or two K a month, like a side hustle type of gig. And I was like, that's interesting. Cause in this course that I just finished, there was a portion where you actually run real Facebook ads on behalf of this company. Out of 5,000 students, my ads results finished in the top five. So that was kind of cool. I wonder if there's something there. And then serendipity, this email comes in about this course, that's $300. It was like 250 bucks. And this guy's going to teach you how to run Facebook ads. And then it was like the light bulb, like ding. This is my chance for entrepreneurship. This is what I've been working towards the last couple of years where I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn't know in what. And I took this course, the two guys that put it on became my mentors. There was a coaching community involved with it. And from there, Ricochet was born because it was one of those where a lot of people were there to learn a side hustle. I was there to learn a business in an agency. And they kind of, they held me like a little bird in their hand and showed me how to do it. And it eventually led to Ricochet Digital Marketing, which we are now. It's had many, many adaptations and iterations. It started as just local Facebook ads for small businesses. Then it developed into Google advertising. Then it developed into email newsletters. Then it developed into web development. Then it developed into direct mail and copywriting. And we just started adding different branches to the company. And nowadays we are a support system. We build marketing ecosystems for home service providers. So the trades businesses are kind of our sweet spot and I really enjoy working with them. I worked in the trades for a couple of years. I know a handful of people in my circle that are in the trades and I just work really well with them. It's just my personality. I can relate to them and I understand the trials and tribulations as business owners that they go through. That's really kind of the niche that found us. Now, we have plenty of clients that don't fall in that niche. But we are starting to focus more on that because the ecosystem and the game plans that we build, they play perfectly with exactly what these home service providers need. And so that's where we are now. And what that looks like is pretty simple playbook. And some clients have all, some have some, and some have just the base. But it goes web development, so having an incredible website that plays with Google and the search engines. It acts as a 24-7, 365 salesperson, meaning if it's not bringing in phone calls and it's not bringing in leads, then what's it doing there, right? Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 1: So that's the foundation of everything we do. And then that's followed by Google Business Profile Management. That's God's gift to small businesses is this free profile, which if you pay someone like us to manage it, it's not free, but you're not paying ad dollars and it's bringing in free traffic, free phone calls, free website visits, free views. Your Google profile, so on Google search and Google maps, you're discoverable in two places. It can sync with all your citations across the internet. Anyway, so after that is your email newsletters, staying in contact with the people who already know, like and trust you. That's a given, but nobody does it. If they do it, they do it really poorly and they do it inconsistently. And then outside of that, it's your paid advertising. So Google local service ads, Google search ads, Facebook ads. And then we have a few clients who like to do direct mail with us. And that's automated with our software as well. So we use AI for profiles and we use software for direct mail, highly targeted direct mail. And it's a lot of fun. And with a lot of our clients, myself and my partner become kind of consultants with them too. When you invest a lot of money in marketing, it can become an exposure program for infrastructure problems. So like if your sales are lacking, if your follow-up is lacking, if your customer experience is lacking, if you have people problems, your marketing is going to expose that. So we work closely with a few of our clients on helping them patch some of the holes in their infrastructure as well. So it's a ton of fun, man. Speaker 2: I love that. There's so many different directions that we could take that, but a few points that kind of stuck out to me. So you were talking about the Facebook ads course that you took, right? You very specifically said, you're like, yep, I took this course and the two guys who put it on, they took me under their wing and they taught me everything. And I think that that's what a really good mentor or coach or community really should offer, right? I think, I mean, in my experience, I think gone are the days of just standalone courses where you consume information and then it's up to you to go out and implement. I think people will always be there selling them. But I think that the value of those digital products will continue to go down as platforms like YouTube and just all of the free content out there continues to gain in popularity. The paid information just isn't there. You're paying for the accountability and you're paying for people to kind of teach you one-on-one, which it sounds like these guys did a really good job of doing. Second takeaway I got from that is that you talked about, you said, well, of the 5,000 people that were in this program, Most everybody was treating it like a side hustle, but Brien was treating it like a business. He saw it as an opportunity to build a business, not just a side income. And that's something that I've been preaching for the, I guess, two years that I've been making content now specifically for Amazon sellers. I say, guys, if you're going to get into this game, sure, it can be a side hustle and you don't have to necessarily put full-time energy into it. But you've got to treat it like a business, even if it is your side hustle. And if it's your full-time income, then God knows you better be treating it like a business. And I think there's so many people out there, regardless of what industry you're in, this doesn't just involve Amazon sellers, but so many people treat their quote-unquote business like a side hustle and it gets them side hustle results. And they're wondering why they're not getting full-time business results out of it. So I love that you took that much more serious approach from day one. Speaker 1: At that point in my life, it was funny because it was the day that my wife and I put a verbal offer in on the house. We're currently in the process of moving to a bigger one, so fruits of labor paying off. But I told her I wanted to start this business full-time and be an entrepreneur. I wasn't going to work for her dad my whole life. It just wasn't going to work that way. Bless him for having me on board and supporting me while I built this on the side. I'm forever grateful to him for that. But I told her, I'm going all in. I'm burning the boats. There's no plan B. And she's like, okay, sweet. Go for it. And I was like, cool. You sure? All right. Speaker 2: I like it. Speaker 1: Yeah. I was like, you don't mind? We just got a mortgage and we're going to have a kid. And she's like, no, I trust you. You're going to get it. And that's all I needed because it was, There was no plan B. So for me, knowing that the boats were burned and when I found these guys after having taken that initial course and I told them this, they're like, dude, there's something here for you. And we know it because it's what we're doing right now. We can show you how to do it. He said, most of the people here are here for a side hustle. That's why we even built this course is just help people earn an extra one or two grand a month. But there's a way to make this into a business and a career and something much bigger than you right now. And I was a hundred percent in. Speaker 2: You bought that course and you get into that community and I love to take that even a step further. You weren't just another person in this community. You were able to endear yourself to the people at the top, to the leaders in that community. I'm doing something very similar. I recently joined a paid community for folks in the real estate space. If this was me three years ago, I would have joined this community. I would have taken the course and I would have just tried to implement on my own. But I'm taking kind of what I learned to then propel myself and almost endear myself to the leaders within this community and the people who own this community and position myself as, hey, I might be newer and I might not have a lot of experience yet, but I am somebody to be taken seriously because here's what I can do to help you. And here's how I'm proving that I'm serious, right? Here's the action that I'm taking. And it sounds like That was the exact approach that you took. And so they look at Brien and they're like, oh, this guy's legit. He's the 1% of people who are actually going to And today we're going to talk about how to put in the work and build this into something that's more than just a side hustle. Is that kind of your approach? Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. And it was advice for anybody listening, if you're going to A, try and learn a new skill or acquire some sort of new skill, make sure that there's a coach or a community attached to it where you can be in there participating every single day, at least one step towards the goal you have, whether it's learning a new skill or opening a new business or learning a new industry. Because for me, that was all the difference in that. That became the kind of the rallying cry in the group was those who participated the most, asked the most questions, got the most clarifications, asked for the most help. They all became the successful ones. Like there is, I'm willing to bet few to none who are at the level that I'm at with my business, if that was their intention. I'm sure there are a few that are there who didn't participate. Now, maybe I'm wrong. That'd be fine if they don't need as much of the handling. Speaker 2: I think you're right. Speaker 1: For me, it was like, without the participation, it wasn't going to happen. I already told my wife I'm burning the boat, so I better bug the hell out of these guys to learn absolutely everything I can. That was part of their thing too, was like, bug us. That's what you're paying us. The group was like $47 a month. I was like, this is a steal. They're going to give me the keys to build something so much bigger than me for $47 a month. And now I'm a coach in their community. Like I'm kind of giving it back to where I was eight years ago. So, but yeah, you have to participate and you have to go get around the people who are doing it or have done it. As long as they're at least one step ahead of you, you have something to learn from them. So that was kind of the mantra I took with me. And I still do that today. You know, I'm kind of like you, I'm joining groups where There's people who are where I want to be or where I see myself in the future. I'm just trying to pick their brains. Now, my time is a little bit more limited because I have a full-fledged business. I'm a podcast host and I have four kids. So I don't have quite the amount of time I had like I did when I was, you know, eight years ago. But that's why we're just more selective with what I do and the opportunities that present themselves. I go full in on because I know that there's going to be fruit at the end of it if I put in the effort. Speaker 2: No, you're spot on. And I mean, not to belabor the point, but I think it's worth saying, right, the group that I mentioned that I joined recently, there's 11,900 people in this community. All right, probably only about 10% of them are active, but less than 1% are actively posting and collaborating. And so this group is hosted in Facebook, and it's the same 10 to 15 people out of 11,900 that I'm seeing active in this group every day. They're posting content. They're talking about the deals they're doing. They're talking about their wins. They don't feel like they're bragging because they know when they post about a successful deal that they did, 25, 30, 50 people are going to DM them with opportunities and like that's their whole marketing strategy. Hey, do a deal with someone, talk about how we did it and then more deals come and then it's like a flywheel, right? So it truly is just being active, being present, being known in a community, whatever community that is you're a part of and we see it in our Wholesale Network community. There's people that They join and day one, they're jumping in, they're answering questions, they're helping people, they're showing up to every call, you know, they're DMing me to get help. And those are the ones who they rapidly accelerate. Whereas the people who join and they don't say a word. They're the ones who messaged me two months in and they're like, well, hey, I'm not having success. I'm like, well, how many people have you met? That's really what it comes down to is I feel like the more successful people just meet the most people. It's pretty much that simple. Speaker 1: Yeah. It's the relationship, the ability for you to build relationships. Whether they're just friendly or business or otherwise, there's a whole system you can build about just, you can climb the ladder to the next, you know, the next person can introduce you to the next person, the next person who's one half step higher than that person. That's something that you want to do. And you don't even have to look at it. It's not like looking at it as climbing the ladder, but the fact that, well, this person knows somebody and using your example in real estate, and it's in this specific niche. He's willing to introduce me. I ought to take that meeting. Even if there's no fruit that comes of it or we don't mesh or we don't gel or whatever, who cares? That's one more person you contacted with. Let them know about who you are and what you do and what you stand for. And you learned about them, right? And there's hopefully some value you can provide to that person too, you know, kind of a pay it forward type of thing. So yeah, it's absolutely invaluable. I learned that over the last two years where I knew a guy, I met a guy, still good friends with him here locally, kind of taught me how to network, right? Local network guy. He runs like a beers and biz, like it's a big local networking thing. And that was kind of my lesson into actually, oh, this is what networking is. Okay. And then I started getting into masterminds and kind of online groups and, you know, higher paid, like really higher paid stuff. And you and I, I connected you with our good buddy Dustin Reikman. Yeah, absolutely. One of those higher leverage, higher level masterminds where There's awesome people doing awesome things who know other awesome people doing other awesome things, even if they're not part of that mastermind. And your network just starts to slowly grow and grow and grow. But if you don't put the effort in to just keep meeting new people, man, there's so many different opportunities out there you're not aware of if you're not actively looking to meet new people. Speaker 2: 100% and where the network really starts to snowball and where at least I found personally, I've started to get really good high level opportunities with little effort involved is playing the role of the connector, right? You and I, I think we discussed this a little bit before we hit record here. There's so much power and well, hey, I know Brian's crushing it in the marketing and podcasting space. Well, I know so-and-so over there also has a successful podcast, but maybe they're in the services space, right? Well, hey, I think that'd be a really good connection for Brien. And if they don't end up doing business, no worries, because I still look really good for connecting them because they're two high-level people. And if they do end up doing business together, then they will always think of me when they collaborate as being the person that connected with them and hence made each of them good money, right? Which makes them much more likely to say, well, hey, Let's bring Corey in on this. I need to introduce Corey to this guy because I need to, you know, not pay him back, right? Because it's not transactional, but I feel like that human reciprocity element kind of plays in there. It's like, well, let me give him a good opportunity because he gave me this great new client, right? Or whatever that looks like. Speaker 1: The law of reciprocity is real and some people might look at that and be like, oh, you're just doing it just so they do something for you. And it's like, no, it's just, I genuinely believe that this guy ought to meet this guy or this gal ought to meet this guy because they have similar interests. Or one person asked me if I knew anybody in this space and I do, so I'm doing them the favor of, yes, let me connect you with no expectation of anything in return. And the law of reciprocity says, At some point in time, it's kind of like karma. At some point in time, it'll come back. You put good out in the world, good will come back. And if you have no expectations, you don't make it salesy or grime, you're like, hey, you owe me one. You're going to be just fine. People will pay it back. And if they don't, who cares? Just keep bringing it forward. It's going to come back to you. Speaker 2: A hundred percent. I mean, ever since I was on your show, right, which is probably about a year ago now, I mean, you've introduced me to at least three people that I've connected with and had a really good conversation with. And I'm talking high level people. I mean, you know, one of them is a CEO of one of the largest home cleaning franchises in the country. Another one, like you mentioned, Dustin, who I fully plan on having on the podcast here in the coming weeks. I ended up joining his mastermind where I met multiple other people that I now collaborate with and learned a ton from his system on podcast guesting. That's partially why I re-branded the show. That's partially why I'm spending a lot of time trying to get on other people's podcasts. So you're exactly right. I mean, it really, it comes back in so many more ways. And a lot of times it's not, it doesn't have a dollar sign attached to it, but it has, you know, a relationship attached to it, which is even more powerful. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 2: So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about Millionaire University, the podcast that you have. I want to get into the history of it. I want to get into the economics of it. I want to hear about the numbers you guys are doing in terms of downloads. So let's start with why is it that you started the show? And I know you have a partner in it. So can you kind of give us the background on how the Millionaire University podcast as a business Let's get started. Speaker 1: Yeah, so credit given where credit is due. So Justin and Tara Williams, they're the founders, the original founders and the brainchild of Millionaire University. So it came about where the two of them did really well in real estate in California. Justin started from scratch. He dropped out of college. He was selling satellite dishes door to door, just knocking it out of the park with that. After a while, you know, take school of hard knocks, got into real estate, started flipping homes. They were flipping homes to the tune of a hundred homes per year without Justin or Tara even being like present for closings half the time. So they had their, they honed in their systems and processes. They started an online kind of education school, if you will. Teaching other wannabe home flippers their systems and processes. They had a high level mastermind. They eventually sold that business a few years ago to one of their original students. Made a ton of money to the point where between that and all their investments, they didn't have to work another day in their life if they didn't want to. And they're like barely 40 years old, right? Speaker 2: Wow. Speaker 1: And it came to be that their oldest son was going to be turning 18 soon and making a decision on college or not. And Justin and Tara, Justin said, we kind of ruined college for him because it's like- He's probably like, I want nothing to do with that. Yeah. Their mindset was like, why would you go to college, go into debt? Like, unless you want to be something incredibly hyper specialized, like a doctor or a lawyer or something, then why not go start a business and make money right now instead of starting your life, you know, 50 or a hundred K in debt. Go make business, go be an entrepreneur. And they thought, you know, I wish there was a school where we could do this, where, and maybe our son might listen to someone who isn't just his parents. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: So that's, that was the impetus for Millionaire University and their main driver was going to be a podcast. So Justin and Tara started this podcast over two years ago. And then Justin came across me. I was on the Side Hustle Nation or the Side Hustle Show with Nick Loper probably three years ago now. And Justin heard me on there, he reached out, asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed on his new podcast, Millionaire University. I said, sure, absolutely. So episode 29 was my first meeting with Justin. And then after the show, it was basically a show just asking me how I started my business, the marketing agency, how it was going, et cetera. And then he and I stayed in contact for a few months afterwards and we realized we had a lot in common. We got along really well, similar entrepreneurial mindsets. My expertise was in the marketing. Justin's more on the visionary side. I mean, he can do a lot of things, but he's the visionary. And he asked if I'd be willing to come aboard and help out with marketing, pay me a couple bucks, earn some equity as a ground level partner in the business. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Where do I sign? Like, let's go. And he also asked at the time if I'd be willing to be a host on the show with him. I was like, I guess. I mean, I've never done it before, but why not, right? And that's how I got hooked up with AMU. So I was helping with their email and their Facebook and then started focusing more so on the hosting of the show. So it was me and Justin and Tara for a while. And then we brought on Kirsten. She's been with us for over a year now. So we have a couple of different hosts on the show, bringing on awesome entrepreneurs such as yourself, who come on, tell us all about their businesses, kind of do a masterclass on, you know, providing inspiration and actionable advice for our listeners. And, you know, one of our goals is we're heading towards a membership right now. So we kind of have a flagship program that came out last year and we're going to be heading towards a membership. And I'm going to have a catch up call with Justin to see where we're all standing on that right now. But it's really been the podcast that's been the media that's been our focus. That's where the investment dollars have gone. And right now we're sitting over 500,000 active monthly listeners. With the podcast, so we're over 1.2 or was it 1.3 million downloads this year alone. Yeah, man, it's been a ton of fun. Let's chop it up. I love it. Speaker 2: So this is where I get to selfishly get basically free coaching from you who's got an incredibly like 0.1% podcast. And for the listeners, I haven't really put this out there yet, but I guess I might as well go ahead and do it. My biggest goal for my personal brand in 2025 is to grow my podcast, right? I feel like up to this point, My attention with my personal brand has been spread pretty thin. It's like, well, I want to grow on Twitter and then I want to grow on YouTube and I want to grow my email list and I still want to do all these things, but. I mean, you know probably better than anyone that a podcast listener is worth significantly more than a follower on any other platform, which is why podcasts are the hardest to grow. But at the same time, they're also the most valuable in terms of whenever it is that you do decide to monetize and however it is that you do decide to monetize. So for you to say that you guys are getting 500,000 monthly listeners, I mean, that is That's significant, right? And I know you guys have built a significant business as a result. So I've got a million questions on how you got to this point and kind of what you're doing to market it. But I guess first question would be, how old is the podcast? When did they say they started? You might've mentioned this, but maybe I didn't hear. Speaker 1: So I think we're going on about two and a half years because when I was on the show, it was episode 29 and Justin had been at it probably three months. At least from podcast launch. I'd have to double check on that. But yeah, we're at least two and a half years old right now. Speaker 2: Okay. And so I know before the show, you said that Justin has spent about half a million dollars of his own money in growing the podcast and marketing the podcast. Where does that money go? Speaker 1: Yeah. So we'd have to talk with Justin exactly where it went, but I know that it went into the promotion, the majority of it, besides just the basics like covering our overhead, you know, equipment, software, all that jazz. The majority of it went into promoting the show. So a couple of different ways we did that, especially at the onset when the finances really started getting invested in the promotion. We would go to, so like one I remember a pod player's called CastBox. I think we were spending like 10K a month in just promotions on there, meaning We would take our episodes and pay to have them placed in people's feeds or in the shows you should listen to next section. You would pay to be there. And it was a considerable amount of money that was being invested in that. And it started leading to more and more downloads, more and more listens. And I think we did that across a couple different pod players. We had an agency that was kind of helping us place those ad dollars. You know, there's, I'm trying to think of other areas we did for a long time, we did what we called feed drops. So we'd have guests invest a little bit of dollars. We'd invest like $1,500, $2,000 on an episode and have it dropped in a feed of a similar show. So like if you're listening to like the Ed Milet Show, you would then see like on your next episodes you should listen to Millionaire University featuring Corey Ganim. So we would do those types of things that would bring in an extra $40,000 downloads for every $400 invested from the guests. For every 1500 invested through us. And then we got into investing in ads and all of this stuff that was more of like revenue driving. But that was kind of the first big thing was investing in the pod players themselves. Speaker 2: And so today in 2025, are you guys still investing that heavily as far as paid marketing for the show itself? Because it sounds like at this point you guys have reached I don't know if critical mass is the right term, whatever term, but you guys are at a big enough size now to where, and again, I'm asking because I don't know, does it make sense to keep investing that heavily in paid marketing for the podcast itself? Or is more of your, I guess, marketing efforts geared towards nurturing the listeners that you guys already have? What does that look like? Speaker 1: So it's probably still top heavy for us. And actually, Justin and I are hopefully having a call here in the next week or so just to catch me up on it. So like my day to day with MU is focusing on hosting and getting great guests on the show. Justin and Tara are kind of like the wheels in the background that make the flywheel turn. So I need to get a little updated on exactly what we're doing. Because I think last we spoke, we're going to be doing another push on promotions, another investment round on promotions. I'm really interested to see exactly where we're going to be investing those dollars myself. I'm happy to report back on that. But yeah, I mean, a lot of the growth now is through organic listenership because we paid to We paid for these years, right? So now a lot of them are coming back, hopefully sharing our episodes with people in their network as well. But also when you're, you know, the networks like Spotify or Apple, they'll see, you know, where you are with your downloads and with your reviews, and you start getting favorable treatment from them as well. There's a lot that goes into managing a podcast and growing it, but we aren't ever going to hide behind the fact that we invested a lot of money to make those happen, right? But if you have the money to be able to put on there, it's kind of like putting rocket fuel on a simmering fire. So, yeah. Speaker 2: So, where are you guys ranked? And I assume you're in the entrepreneurship category, or are you in the marketing category, the podcast itself? Speaker 1: We should be in entrepreneurship. Speaker 2: Do you know what you guys are ranked? Speaker 1: That's a good question. I should have better data for you. Speaker 2: I would have to think you're up there. I would have to think you're up there. Speaker 1: Yeah, I would think so. I have not checked on that in a long time. I'm taking notes for good questions to report back to Justin. Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess go ask him. Speaker 1: I wish I had better data for you. Speaker 2: Well, no, no worries. And I, again, that was more so out of curiosity, but so kind of on the, still on the marketing front, right? So if you put yourself in my shoes, right, you just rebranded the show, looking to expand really, I mean, my goal, I guess, kind of like you is how can I attract the best guests, ideally guests that have an existing audience where people are already searching for their name or already searching for interviews with that guest. And then they stumble upon my show. So are there any, Let's say free or low cost marketing methods that you would recommend to somebody like myself, maybe somebody who doesn't have 10K a month or 500K to go throw in paid ads, aside from guesting on other people's shows, because that's something I'm already doing and focusing on and that's how you and I got connected. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the guesting is the easiest free way to do it, right? For those listening who don't know, you're borrowing audiences and you're getting your message out and you're promoting In your case, promoting your show and hopefully building more listenership through borrowing audiences. Outside of that, nurturing the audience you already have with an email list is really big. I highly encourage that. Always promoting the show, asking people to share the show. That can only get you so far outside of the free stuff. If you're looking at paid, it's very competitive and it's not the cheapest. It depends on how you're doing it. There are cheaper ways to advertise than I'm talking about on Facebook. There are cheaper ways to do it. But if you want to run basic evergreen ads that just promote the podcast and either traffic campaigns that lead them to your podcast, The podcast player, if you have it on a website or just engagement ads with it, you know, you can do that for less than like lead generation type of stuff, which wouldn't make quite as much sense for a podcast or email capture type of leads or type of ads that where you get them into an email nurture sequence where you promote the podcast to them. It's a bit of a jungle out there, but there's ways to do it. When it comes to paid advertising, you know, if you have a thousand dollars a month to put into paid ads on Facebook, you can at least start getting more ears on your podcast. It's a slow, long slog, depending on what your budget is, but it's typically a longer term play. You want to commit to it and give it a shot and see if it affects your downloads. But outside of larger investments, as you know, the podcast game, it's a slow burn, right? Speaker 2: It really is, yeah. Speaker 1: The better, the higher and better guests you get, you know, you can have on, like we had, I had the privilege to interview Eric Hsu, who's a really big name in the marketing space. He's got a podcast with Neil Patel, who's a huge name in the market. Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah. Speaker 1: And we saw a significant bump from having him on the show because people searched for that guy. They searched for his knowledge. And when we show up as one of the shows he was on, boom, that's like thousands of new listeners for us. And of that thousands of listeners, there's a certain percentage who are going to be like, hey, that was a cool show. I'm going to listen to a few more of their episodes. Because you know, as well as I, podcast listeners, we bounce from show to show, right? Most people typically have a small handful of their favorites. And that they're typically curious and open to listening to others, especially if there's somebody they want to hear from that's guesting on a specific podcast. And you never know who's going to click with the host, right? I like to think there's people out there who like the way I host my show. And if I had a guest on that they were searching for and they enjoyed that episode, they're going to try another episode with us and stick around. So that's kind of a convoluted way to say that if you spin your web, it takes time. It's a little bit of paid, a little bit of organic, a lot of guesting. It can pay off in the end. Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm sure you're the same way, but I'm looking at my podcast on a five to 10 year time horizon, right? I mean, I think we're, this episode with you, it'll be coming out this week. So it's Monday. It'll be coming out on Wednesday. Cause I'm very bad at batching my episodes. So that's something I'm really trying to get better at. But I think this is episode 95 or 96 and we do one a week. So, I mean, I'm about, what, 10 weeks-ish away from two years. And I'm really looking at, well, five years from now, 10 years from now, I want this to be a huge asset with a lot of listeners and really as the way to kind of propel my personal brand. And I feel like guesting for me right now, being that I don't have an unlimited budget or even a ton to spend on ads here. It's going to be my best strategy forward and trying to, I mean, like we said earlier, network with the right people, get on their shows, have them on my show, and then try to grow organically as best as I can. And then strategically, And we're here to talk about spending ad dollars. Because I know that's what we did when I was a guest on your show. It sounded like it got a lot of really quick initial traction organically. And then you said, well, hey, if you want, we can throw some ad dollars at this episode and get it in front of more people. And we did that. And I think we got, if I'm remembering correctly, we got like 100,000 downloads on my episode, I think. Something like that. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Yours was over 100,000, which was awesome. Speaker 2: Yeah, which I think is totally worth the investment dollars. So yeah, I'm kind of just thinking out loud and asking questions that I want the answer to for my show. So that's really good insight. Speaker 1: Well, and one of the points I want to make too for you and for your listeners, and you know this already, but the fact that having a podcast and having a platform, that's a great way to grow your business, whatever it might be, whether it's Amazon or if you're a long care provider, I don't care what you are. If you are able to provide a platform for guests, whether they're high level or not, you're going to start building your relationship network through the people that you offer to have on your show. Because now, you know, it's funny how, and I think it's true, that the minute somebody sees somebody behind a microphone, that person in their head, whether they are or not, is already an expert, right? Speaker 2: They're more credible. Right. Speaker 1: A lot more credible. Yes, exactly. And when you offer that type of credibility to someone to come onto your show, now there's a great chance that They are welcome into your network. They already are. But if they accept the welcomeness that you're providing in your network, now if there's an opportunity to do business with them or to do business with somebody they know in their network, the rule of reciprocity, as we talked about already, That's a major part of podcasting. I know plenty of podcasters where the goal is not the listenership. While that's great and that's kind of gravy, whether we have 10 or 10,000, if they're able to grow what they want to do and grow their relationship network through their podcasts, then that's a huge win already. So a lot of people, especially those who want their own podcast, they might think that the golden standard is 500,000 downloads, a million people listening. I want to be Joe Rogan. Okay, well, no one is really going to be Joe Rogan. But if you can build a great business around a thousand listeners or even a hundred listeners, And you can provide a platform if you're doing it as a guest type of platform, then you have exponential ability to grow your network with really powerful people over time. Again, it takes time, but you will then be able to do a lot with the network you have, whether you know it or not right now. The opportunities you might not even be aware of. I guarantee you, you're not even aware of yet. So major part of it is there as well. Speaker 2: Well, that makes perfect sense. And I'm sure there's plenty of people who they're like, shoot, I'll just break even on the production of the show. And I'm going to make my money, like you said, on the relationships that I create from the guests that I have on the show, which can be a profit of hundreds or tens, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars with the right guests. So I like that approach. I think a lot of the intangibles there are really where the ROI lies in having a podcast. Unknown Speaker: For sure. For sure. Speaker 2: Now, I know we don't have you for too much longer, so I do want to get into the business of running a podcast, right? Because when you say you've got half a million monthly listeners, my mind goes a million different directions. And really the main direction it goes is, well, how much money does that actually make? So are you comfortable sharing how much revenue the podcast generates each month from those half a million listeners? Speaker 1: Yeah, so and it's again, I need to come to you with better data because I haven't chatted with Justin about it in a few months in terms of what we're doing on the revenues side. But I know when we hit our flywheel five, six, seven months ago, something like that, we were doing about 50 or 60K in monthly revenues. So that's when I knew that the investment dollars didn't necessarily need to pay for anything anymore because we were turning 50 or 60K in monthly revenue And before long, we were on, we're easily on pace for, you know, seven figures based on monthly income. So, and that was mostly derived from our ad network. So our ad placements, our sponsorships and, and guests that are either paying to be on the show or that are paying for the co-ops that we were running for a time there. So, you know, when you're, and we just, I think it was this week, we just started releasing two episodes per day. So when, yeah, so we're like, we're doubling down on content, baby. But when you do that, when you have that much airtime, you then have, we do pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads. So whether you're doing it through the ad network or whether we have, you know, paid sponsors through the show. There's a lot of ad dollars that are being generated. And when you're reaching a certain amount, we're reaching a half a million people a month, the networks pay out a little bit better to reach that specific audience. That's where the majority of our income is coming from. That's where there is the benefit to having a lot of listeners, whether it's 80,000 or 100,000 or 500,000. When you're able to do that, then you get the attention of the Spotify ad network and different advertisers in general. Or if you have former guests who want to advertise on your show, you have that earning potential there. We don't do a lot of it. This is just not part of our business right now, but a lot of opportunity in affiliate marketing. So, you know, basically, if people come on as a guest, they promote, we're not an overly promoted, promotive We're a promotional show, if you will. We really want to have the meat and bones of our guests be to come provide value for our listeners because at the end of the day, our listeners are our guide, right? Like we want to produce everything for them. So we don't really do much in the way of affiliates, but I know in podcasting in general, you can do really well as an affiliate for whether it's a guest or for a product or a company. There's a lot of earning potential depending on the size of your audience when it comes to being an affiliate. Speaker 2: No, for sure. I mean, there's podcasts. There's one I guested on. This was probably a month or two ago. It's in the e-commerce space. It's not big by any means, but I was talking to the host before we recorded and he was like, yeah, we will do some pretty big numbers through affiliate products just from certain guests that we have. And I would have never expected them to do the kind of numbers they were doing. I mean, the show only has, you know, 40 or maybe 50 something ratings on Apple and mine has, you know, 33, something like that. So it's just, yeah, there's so much that's possible with, I think, the right audience that is receptive to your message that trusts you as well. Speaker 1: Right, right. Exactly. When you start building that trust with the audience, that's when you can start getting to the next level because as you start building reviews, get more listeners, more downloads, that's when you go to be part of the ad network. And when you go to advertise, now you have a little bit more clout because you've got a dedicated listenership. We like this. Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. Makes a ton of sense. So, you also talked about a membership product that you guys are coming out with here soon. What's that all about? Can you kind of give some insight there? Speaker 1: So, I'm going to be having a conversation with Justin in the next few weeks to figure that out for myself because this is like a new development at MU. So, I don't even know if we have a lot of information to share on that yet publicly, but I do know that that could be coming down the pike with us. You're catching me like right at the tippy top of finding out what that is. So it's going to be exciting. I'm excited to have my conversation with Justin to see what we're doing there. But yeah, man, we got a lot of things under production at MU. When MU was built, it wasn't just intended to just be a podcast forever. Maybe it will. We don't know. But that wasn't the general intention. We want to have a deeper impact with people who want to start and grow and scale businesses. So I think a membership is this next thing that Jess and I are due to talk about. So stay tuned, business fans, because I think there's gonna be something really cool coming out of that. Speaker 2: Awesome. I'm looking forward to see one, what that product looks like. And two, hearing about just like the economics on the backend, because like I said, my goal is to grow my podcast right now. It's not, I mean, I've monetized with sponsors in the past and that's gone great. In fact, I've just, I've been lazy about reaching back out to them and saying, well, Hey, this campaign produced XYZ results. Let's do another one. But just with everything I have going on, I feel like now that I'm refocusing on the podcast and really Focusing on growing it, I'm going to open up some more monetization avenues for my show as well, which is exciting. Speaker 1: Yeah, man. I can't wait to stay in contact and see how your show does because I think with the rebrand and the ideas you have behind it, you're going to catch some fire here soon. So, I'm excited and there's so much fun to be had in podcasting, as you already know. So, when you make these little adaptations, I think that it's going to be the jet fuel for you. Speaker 2: I genuinely enjoy it too. I just looked down, we're almost 57 minutes in and I swear it feels like it's been 10 minutes. Speaker 1: It's been 57 minutes already? Speaker 2: I thought it was maybe like 27. I know that I'm on the right track because I do feel like this is something that I enjoy and having these conversations and meeting people in the process. Now, before I let you go, what's the one episode of Millionaire University out of the hundreds that you've done? What's the one that's your favorite that you say, hey, if you're going to start here, if you're going to start anywhere, start here. Speaker 1: Ooh, that's a deep cut. Oh, man. I mean, we've had so many good people on, so many great conversations. Well, besides the one with you, of course, we knocked it out of the park. Speaker 2: Besides that one, yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. One of the cool ones I really, and this is kind of an oldie, but a goodie. There's a guy I interviewed named Alex Forbes. He started a custom cabinetry company in Cleveland, Ohio. That was probably before I was even halfway decent at interviewing people. So you might get some of the old me before I felt like I really had a handle on hosting a podcast, but that's a great episode. I don't have the number in front of me, but look him up, Alex Forbes. That was a great episode. We've had another couple of really good ones with a guy named Vincent Puglisi. He's really in the memberships. That's kind of his thing. So we talked about that in a few of our episodes. But man, yeah, you pegged me with that one. Those are probably the two off the top of my head. Another great one with a guy named Nick Huluski. I don't have the episode number in front of me, but that was a great episode. He does a lot of cool things. He also has a really great podcast as well. And then a mutual friend of ours, Neil Parekh, the cleaning guy. Remote cleaning business. That was an awesome episode. So I'll give everybody a little bit of a smorgasbord to choose from, but those would be my go-tos off the top of my head. Speaker 2: Awesome. That's fantastic. And so for the listeners that have stuck with us this far, we're almost an hour in. I have two things to ask of you guys. One, go listen to Brien and go subscribe to the Millionaire University podcast. It's available on every platform. He just gave you guys a couple of really good episodes to start with. Two, if you've listened this far and you enjoy my show, do me a favor and leave me a five-star review, whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube, like the video and subscribe to me over there on YouTube. Thank you so much, man. Is there anywhere else, any parting words, anywhere else that you'd like people to come and connect with you? Speaker 1: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. I'd love to connect. If any of your listeners want to reach out, they can hit me up on probably the easiest platform is LinkedIn. That's where I'm most active. Or if you just want to shoot me an email, check out my company, it's RicochetDM.com. That's Ricochet Digital Marketing. Send me an email, brien, as you can tell in the show notes, I spell it weird, at ricochetdn.com. And obviously with Millionaire University, check us out, millionaireuniversity.com. And the podcast on any of your local podcast players, you can find us at Millionaire University. So yeah, man, thanks for having me. This was awesome. Speaker 2: Enjoyed it, Brien. Thank you for the time. Speaker 1: My pleasure.