Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Branding and Billionaires EP 22

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. This Week:We break down some major rebranding moves as well as key elements for you to establish your brandWith Chris Connell and Colt Amidan

Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links that we have, things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.

Back from the break, back from the break. I'll tell you, we're talking about, well, it's kind of divulged into evil billionaires, but really what we want to talk about is building a brand for yourself, how to have a brand, how that works and why it's important. Now, we talk about Facebook rebranded this week into Meta, which is pretty funny because the best, I think, meme I saw about it was all the people with infinity tattoos lined up at the tattoo removal place, which I thought was pretty funny. I'm going to get an infinity tattoo on my ankle to represent my cosmic mission. And now you've got a Facebook logo.

You have a Facebook tattoo? I didn't think of that. Every time I see one, I'm going to be like, oh, big Facebook fan. Hey, big Facebook fan. Yeah, totally. I'm going to point that out, but no, it's a, maybe it's banned. No, no, but, but they rebrand, they rebranded from Facebook to meta. Apparently the message was, well, we want to be able to develop other products outside of the Facebook brand

that aren't so much tied to an app. And I kind of see that. I think some of it probably was also to maybe get off some of the bad press that facebook has had well that's why i mean think about pulling a ronar test yeah nope my name is world peace that's my name meta world peace that's it oh they're not the first people to change their name to meta and he's like yo that's my palace yeah it's not your thing that's my thing oh man that's brutal no poor poor meta you know he's like, yo, that's my thing. Miles in the Palace. Yeah, it's not your thing. That's my thing. Oh, man, that's brutal. I didn't knock out that guy.

No, poor Metta. You know, he's my stopwatch of basketball. When he went in the stands and choked that dude, I was like, I'm done. I'm out. That was one of the greatest moments in baseball. I became a fan of his. Really? Watch that documentary on Netflix.

Brilliant. They could have gone into that a lot more. That was a phenomenal documentary. You know what? I will give the man a second chance a lot more that was phenomenal you know what i will give i will give the man a second chance but yeah that's great if you are someone out there in business or you've got a business you're trying to build a brand now here's some interesting stuff i just want to talk about some interesting points this week so um my social media presence across all platforms uh a good good friend of mine steve sims i'll probably have him on soon he's known

as a real life wizard of oz he just started a media company called Sims Media. And Steve has done very well across all platforms with growing his brand. And I asked him to kind of run through and give me a quick audit of my stuff and tell me where he thought it was. And these were some of the tips that he gave me that I thought were good. And the first thing was, is he said to me, he goes, look, if you go to me on any one of my social media, any one of my social media platforms from YouTube to Instagram, Tik TOK, all of it, it says author speaker.

It isn't, he goes, it is impossible to misunderstand what it is that I do. Impossible. He goes on one of your platforms. You've got, I build, you know,

Oh, I build mortgage and title companies for big brokers across country. Over here, you've got, you know, real estate beast and dealmaker and handshaker. And he's like, it's all kind of cool and catchy. But if I'm somebody that doesn't know you and I go to your sites and I see this, I can't really figure out exactly what you do.

So you need to figure out whatever it is you're trying to accomplish in business at the time and then make it consistent among all of your platforms. That's really smart. I think your best ones, your OnlyFans platform. Yes. I think you got that down pretty good. You know what? I'm up to two subscribers now. Are you?

Yeah, one of them's named Colt Amidon and the other one is named Colt Amidon. You couldn't figure out how to use the password reset, so we just made another account. Underscore Amidon. And I'm taking the $4.99 from both accounts, just to be clear about that. I'm taking it both stud 04 at yahoo.com yeah i'm not taking it back you know before we get in that real quick this is a real smart thing to do get a normal email address yes

oh my when people are like uh what's your email and they're like oh well it's and they try to like spell it all weird like you don't think I'm going to realize it says Big Daddy 69. It's B-I-G-D-D. If you're still hanging on, baby, if I do

business with somebody and they say send it to my AOL account, I immediately know a couple things. If it's a real estate transaction, I'm going to have to do everything because I don't know how to's a real estate transaction, I'm going to have to do everything because I don't have to do anything at this point. You have to do everything by fax. It's just over. It's always my very wealthy clients that have the AOL.

Because they don't care. They don't care. They don't need anymore. But I'm saying if you're trying to do business and you're still using a Yahoo account, if you're using an MSN account. So if you get my hotmail.com yeah i have christopher connell hotmail.com wait but is it h-o-t-m-a-l-e no no no it's actually the mail

it's a different one yeah if it's hot mail i'm okay with it it's just like mail my hotmail it means fuck off that's oh that's what it is if you get the hotmail yeah i don't think i've got because there's so much junk and there's so much whatever. That's where I send the stuff that's not business related, where I don't want your things interfering with my business life. See Connell at ConnellLaw.com is the email I have. If I give that to you, it means we're doing business. We're spamming that.

Yeah. So if you want a great attorney and you need somebody, reach out to Chris Connell. 702-CONNELL-266-6355. Connell, Connell, Connell, Connell, Connell. That's a terrible commercial. Car accident. So back to what you were saying, Colt.

Did I get my jingle? No. So update the email. I got lost in the jingle. It's so magical now it's stuck in my head. I'm going to tell you it after. No, no. Get back to having a decent email address.

But again, consistency across all things. Um, I also think that having a lot of people get so married to this idea of having their email address at their company name. If, if so, like, okay,

look, URLs coming up. Yeah. Let's back up and talk about URLs real quick. Cause I always try, like when we're thinking of a name for our businesses the first place i go is go daddy go daddy because if i can't get the url or something that makes sense that's shorter and it's i can't get the dot com i don't want it because you people are always going to search for you they're going to land on other stuff the dot

com is always going to be ranked higher they're always going to wind up in a weird place. But that being said, like I would never have the email address if it takes too long. Like if I have to go back and read it again, when I type it in mortgage company, Oh my God. If it's like John Gafford's real estate company.com. I mean, dude, like John at John Gafford's like, what are you doing? No, no, no. It's got to be quick and succinct. That's what it has to be. And there's nothing wrong with using like, I the gmail if you use the gmail account people like okay gmail it's good because gmail works it's fine it's weird though that you it's so funny because you got to remember though you are dating yourself because there was a time when at hotmail or at msn was the same as that gmail dude you're dating yourself i scored my wife dude when me and

my wife first met i was hitting her on instant messenger on AOL. That's how we talked forever when we first met. If I see you at gmail.com, I go, why don't you have a URL? Candidly. Really? Well, okay, that's what you're trying to sell. I think in a lot of ways, it just depends.

I think Gmail's okay. I swallow Gmail. I'll swallow Gmail, but it is just like modern day Yahoo. I'll swallow that now. Well, now, what's funny, well, you have to look. Well, you have to look. Right now, every millennial is listening to this like, why do you send emails when you can send them in the DMs? Like, why don't you just direct message people?

Well, I didn't know what the DM was until like two years ago. Because you're not one to pay double. Because DM is a platform and business is dog shit. Yeah. So first off, here's why you email in business. This is the only reason to email in business. Until text message configured shit out where I can leave it unread, right? Then it's all email.

Well, let me throw this out there, though. So I leave my unaddressed matters unread. But hang on. Let me point this out. The reason that text message is the most powerful medium there is when you're trying to build your business is because of this. Like right now, if you open your phone, how many unread messages do you have in your junk text file?

There's none. There is no junk text file because it doesn't exist. Every single thing you send is going to get delivered. You know they're going to see it. That makes huge sense. But I'm talking about we're on a transaction or we're on a deal or you're asking me for something. Yeah.

Send an email. Yeah, send an email. I agree. That's a really good point, John. If you want to build a brand consistency among all things if you're gonna have a url make sure it's small and concise i like the dot coms if you've got some weird like dot vegas or dot i mean there's all kinds of dot everything now dot moby dot this dot that if you're using weird urls it's probably if it's a challenge to remember you're not branding properly at all i have a rock pro.info you know my device rock pro.com is some like guitar teacher

and sheboygan yeah some shit and i was like but rock pro.info was the closest we could get so that's i completely agree i would much rather be.com but yeah because they always are just going to assume.com yeah is the main hub that is the reaction that most people have um so so do that but having consistency among like steve was like you need to have the same banners you need to have the same profile pictures you need to have the same everything you should be instantly recognizable and instantly familiar across all platforms and i wasn't so that's a change that we're going to make for sure and i think you just got to be straightforward. Like people will sit there and try to,

I'm the creator of this. And you're like, no, yeah, real estate. Like if you open mine up, it says old Amadon commercial investment. Well, let's talk about that.

Cause I think one of the most important parts about building a good brand is actually delivering on what you send out. And if you send out some stuff that's just complete bullshit, and it's really easy to verify that it's complete bullshit, you're going to end up looking like a little bit of a fool, case in point. This morning, I received an email. I won't talk about who it was from, but I got a recruiting email from a new real estate company here in Vegas. And one of the things that this broker was promising was training in the luxury market. I'm going to train you how to do luxury prospecting, train you how to get luxury listings, train you how to do this. I'd never heard of the broker.

I didn't know who he was. So I looked them up on Zillow, not hard to do like any consumer can do. And this guy had 15 sales in the last 20 months. Not one of them was seven figures. They were all little houses. And then case in point, I look over at like my partner, Gavin, which if you want to really see some, some gaudy real estate numbers, go check his, go check his recent sales in Zillow. Cause they're just ridiculous. But yeah, we did that. And I, you know, I even looked at what mine said in most, you know, there's a lot of stuff from my team there. So we have hundreds of sales, but even there, there's a lot of seven from my team there. So we have hundreds of sales. But even there, there's a lot of seven figure numbers in there.

And I'm like thinking to myself, if anybody ever wanted to like come to our company and figure out how to sell luxury real estate, I'm pretty sure we can back it up. We're the guys that tell you how to do that. I'm pretty sure it's pretty simple how to do that. So if you are trying to create a brand, don't bullshit people in a way that's easily verifiably not accurate. You pod. Yeah.

Yeah. Don't do that. Don't know. Don't do. Oh, pud. Oh, what?

Oh, pud. What is it? Do you pod? Oh, pod is over promise under deliver. Oh, see,

see, this is the, he's gone from Scrabble words to like, you pod, you pod, you pod, you pod, over promise life. Yeah. In your marriage with your children under promise

over deliver yeah i mean that's what you have to do and and but yeah but i think again i think that's the key because any good brand in any every brand from its inception to carrying through relies on its reputation and if you don't do exactly and people are pretty easy they're like just give me exactly what i want and i'm fine like i don't need more than that i don't do exactly and people are pretty easy they're like just give me exactly what i want and i'm fine like i don't need more than that i don't need less than that you know who sells you know who sells dreams and visions who's that people with their like hey come sell solar under me or hey i can teach you to be a financial advisor these poor bastards that want to make a quick you know a get rich quick scheme or an mlm or whatever well those are the people that are

making those kinds of problems. Well, that's why I love, I love the dudes online that you get hit with all the time. Like I'm a Forex trader. Want to invest with me and you'll make millions. Like, bro, if you were, if you were really good at this, you wouldn't be blinded DMing me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. If you had any idea what you were doing, you wouldn't be lining up and that's like, there's Warren Buffett doesn't sell a trip. Yeah. Tips on how to be. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that was, you know, that's one of the best advice I got about financial advisors was if you really want to pick a good financial advisor, ask to see their last three years tax returns. Put your money where your mouth is, bro. Let's see what you got. Let's see how good you are. If you're good, great. And if they won't do that, you probably should walk because their tax returns are going to

say they don't make that much money. You know, I was a financial advisor in Canada. You were. And I worked for a company. Yeah, but how hard is it to tell people to buy syrup? How hard is it? Lumber. Hey, probably Mike want to get some firewood there this year.

It's not that hard. It's not that hard. It's not that hard. Hockey sticks, Easton aluminum. I mean, I'm pretty sure that Colt could do that. But it was a company. It's Power Financial Corp. It's one of the largest investment companies in Canada.

And it all sold proprietary products. So when you're a mutual fund salesperson, you're a salesperson. You're not a financial advisor. Right. And there's a lot of people out there like, oh, I'm a financial advisor. Well, come tell me how to put my finances in order. Okay, great. Here are the products my company told me to sell you.

There's no personal description of really KYC. KYC just means put them in Vanguard and fucking take your MERS. The management expense ratio. That's it. The vagarish on it. That's it. So be very careful of your financial advisor because if they don't have,

look, guys over at UBS, they move markets. Yeah. If you have the money, you are getting a real financial advisor. Oh, sure. They're moving markets. They're like,

well, we have this pipe, private investment, a public entity that was just offered to us. have these 7 000 homes that zilla just took a show they have products that they will give to their wealthy clients yep right that's why the amc thing threw everything through the roof because they were never they've never had to go through that in their life but that was those hedge funds. It's different. Yeah, but now. But even hedge funds, yeah, I'm talking. But they moved markets. So when you had these guys moving a market,

like, oh, there's money in the bank, and all of a sudden, a bunch of 20-year-olds with $5,000 of their names throwing it together and moving a market. I mean, that is collusion almost, right? It's almost like an unintentional collusion. Yeah, I mean know i think we can all agree that a lot of what's happened in the crypto universe if it was stocks a lot of people

would be in jail but here's the thing that's why it's not sec because it's just it's the it's like you can't what are you gonna regulate to say labini babies do you remember that i wish dude i wish they would because we've got so many of those the new thing is squishables and oh my god i had to put hang hammocks this weekend for the squishables to go in because they're just taking over my daughter's room. That's so funny. Oh my God. Anyway, that's why.

Those aren't investments, though. People also need to, you know, this is going to be a money show. In terms of investments. Is it a money show? I mean, sometimes. It's a real estate. It is a free-form jazz explosion today, sir. Going everywhere.

I guess we got Col cold, so never mind. But if there's some advice in life that you can learn from people who've gone through some things, one of them is that, you know, an investment is something that returns on your capital. Yeah.

Okay. Now, if the thing you're investing and doesn't make any money, this is why I'm such a fucking dinosaur nowadays. Because I look at Tesla, which is trading at a 350 PDE, and I go, you guys don't make any money. Because if you ever gave me a business prospect, Colt, you came to my house and go, Chris, I want you to invest in my business. Yeah, we're never going to make money.

He goes, you give me $335, and every year I'll pay you $1 back. I say, okay, that is a terrible, terrible business idea. Nobody will invest in it you're like but wait you know what i believe in colt i believe in colt i'm doing that i'm gonna write you a check for 335 dollars as soon as this podcast is over just because i believe in you i believe in this i appreciate it if the prospect of that is that, well, next year, you know, I'll give you $2. I'm like, so $1.70 or whatever. Still shitty.

He goes, yeah, but there's a guy that will pay you twice as much for that $2. I'm like, wait a minute. You're not investing in cash flows. No, no, no. Right now, that's what the whole internet stuff. I have the problem with that stuff. It's like, well, how are these things? Well, no, no, no, because you got to remember,

any company that is heavily Wall Street owned, they don't want to make a profit. Because as soon as you make a profit, you start getting to a multiple of your profits. When you're speculative and losing money, you just get these monster valuations from the market of what you could eventually be worth one day. Private valuators.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But once there's actually a balance sheet that shows a profit, it's like, okay, well, this is a 3X, 5X, 7X EBITDA company, and now you got a problem because that's why I think they don't want me. I was talking about Tesla. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was talking about Tesla. Tesla, go read a balance sheet one day.

If you're an investor and you don't read Ks and Qs and you don't read investments on the companies you're putting your hard-earned money in you are now a gambler to me you're not an investor if you've never read a q or k no take take this as a thing if you're young and you want to get into investing open up a balance sheet of a company and see if you understand what the fuck anyone's talking about because if you don't step one is google what a balance sheet is okay we're talking about day one yeah read a couple finance books if you ever want uh advice on some simple ones that not financial advice we are not giving financial no we're not giving financial but if you want some sort of good books good ways to look at markets understanding you know start off by the intelligent

investor go to benjamin graham and all those old school guys because they'll talk about how does cash work yeah but here's okay but here's the problem i don't think i think all of that shit is out the window but it's fundamental understanding it doesn't you still need to understand right now every single thing every market speculator everybody's been doing things for the last hundred years right now has absolutely no idea what the hell's going on so i mean you look at okay look at look at who saw this chipotle over the weekend chipotle opened a new store this weekend. I've heard about this. You know, they opened it in Roblox.

It opened a store in Roblox and gave away a million dollars worth of free burritos that you can take from the digital virtual world into the real world and do that. Yeah. I mean, it's promotional and everybody's like, no, no, this is, but this is where the metaverse is going. So apparently we're all going to sit in pods someday. We're going to owe nothing in the real world. Plug in a oatmeal tube and just.

Yeah. Apparently that's where all this is heading. We're just going to be completely useless. I don't think that it's not. And somebody shared something with me about the guy talking about the next phases of the metaverse. About why it's actually, he's right. We are getting to that virtual world where it was 90% of your day was consumed in that digital world, and now it's 50, and then it's going to be 90.

It's this shift. But to have a fundamental understanding. But is that a good idea? You know, I guess for introverts, it's a great idea. There's a lot of people that take a lot of joy in a virtual world. Now, I don't think it's healthy. I think people have a pallor that's not desirable. I like to go out and do shit because I have a power that's not desirable.

I like to go out and do shit because I have a fundamental fear of dying. So I go out and do shit with my life because I understand it's finite and it's taking away on me, okay? That's my perspective. Maybe you are comfortable. The cornerstone of modern stoicism. We all should die. That's right. Do you think that Tesla might be one of the greatest branders there are?

Yes. Because that's what people are betting on is that they're going to change the world. Their brand is going to change the world. What do they say? That Tesla's made more money in the last six or seven months than the S&P has in the last like 100 years or some shit? But Tesla doesn't make any money. No, no.

But the point is the market cap. Yes, yes. I'm talking about the market. I'm talking about market cap. I'm talking about what the stock has gone up, creating value in the market. And that is my, John, you literally made my point yeah i know is that tesla doesn't make any money it's cars lose money it makes cars that lose money okay but real quick when you so let's talk about we're talking about branding here so when you talk

about a brand why is the tesla brand so valuable what have they done first of all first to market and it was disruptor and it was a status symbol huge huge status disruptor too it's like the iphone it's like starbucks it's like starbucks starbucks starbucks is huge it's a status symbol and if you're a real coffee drinker it's garbage it's affordable luxury yeah well this iphone is a very average amazing it's the best one there is okay iphone okay let's listen to your green bubble go throw an android in your hands for a long time and you guys realize how horrible the iphone is the iphone is tom hanks of phones yes everyone likes them except a bunch of couple of weirdos that want to screw up you're exactly right i want to be green everyone loves me except for you just made your own point

gold that's genius you're right yeah maybe you're like the most innovative person or sometimes maybe you're just wrong colt yeah i'm not wrong on this one guys i am maybe i am telling you i'm not wrong if you guys all got an android we could do the group chat no it's like normal there's zero so it'll be green horrible every single person you know it is i think it goes blue at that point every single person you know us for us yeah so we all have to bend what we do to make you feel mean your definition of evil again john yes that is the definition of evil cole don't care about what happens to you i don't yes i'm telling you guys you better hope i don't become a billionaire because shit's going down. If I become a billionaire.

iPhone's done. Tom Hanks, iPhone, done. People will be starving. I'll be sitting there eating caviar and I don't even like it. I think he just threatened Tom Hanks. No, I'm threatening you guys. You better hope I don't become a billionaire. I hate caviar, but I'll eat it just to eat it.

Buddy, I'm game. I hope it works out. That sounds like it. I would love to live in a cult run world. That'd be amazing. Living in a cult run world, you wake up every day and be like, God, life is amazing. Did you guys watch the...

You know what I did Friday night? This is how lame my Friday night was. What'd you do? I watched the Clark County School District trustee meeting jesus fucking were they oh my god they are all a bunch of fucking oh my i honestly almost put a suit on at 10 o'clock last night and went to go yell at them all i i our kids are being ran by a bunch of idiots that's all i have to say but we do so well though yeah dead last is amazing

and i could i'm shocked that we're even still i'm shocked that we're even close to being like they just have behind like just drop it off yeah like i'm just sitting there like dropping off i mean honestly guys if you could watch that i was so embarrassed for our children i'm so thankful my kids go i know you're not a state Puerto Rico, but you might be on the list. Listen, well, no, that's one thing we agree on because, listen, when I hear you speak, I'm embarrassed for your children as well.

Yeah, well, that's true. That being said, I'm running for governor. I'm running for governor. You got to start somewhere. World domination starts with governor. Do you think I could be, get at least like a little. You need to answer this one question

and I'll tell you whether or not you'd be good for government in a futuristic world. I am taken behind the money from lobbyists. What do plants crave? What do plants crave? Is this a trick question? The answer is Brondo, Colt. Brondo?

Too smart for me. Never seen Idiocracy. Oh, yeah. There you go. Just don't remember. The Gatorade. Well, no. for me never seen never seen idiocracy oh yeah yeah there you go so remember no see listen i i have one thing that when i'm king and god willing one day i will be i have a solution for major league baseball get rid of it no no i'm gonna solve i'm gonna solve major league baseball because it is the only sport literally where you can attempt to buy

a championship houston's banned forever it well yeah that too but it's the only sport where you can attempt to buy a championship. Houston's banned forever? Well, yeah, that too. But it's the only sport where you can attempt to buy a championship. I hope for the Braves do win tonight. I'm rooting for the Braves tonight. I hope they do too. But I'll say this. Here's my solution. You ready?

At the beginning of the season, you take every team's payroll. Starting payroll for the beginning of the season, you take the team that has the lowest. That becomes the bell curve. Every team, every million dollars they spend over that, that's how many games out of first place they start. So the Yankees' first day, 57 games out of first place. But there already is a luxury tax for the Yankees, you know?

It's bad for the sport, too. That would be bad for the sport. But there's no other sport where you can... What's the Pittsburgh Pirates? Outside of, like, auto racing, there's really no other sport where you can buy a damn championship. But there's kids in Africa watching Yankees games. You know, it's a business,

right? And the Cincinnati Reds or whoever, nobody gives a shit about those. Those are such local, and those are the ones that don't have the money, and nobody gives a shit about them anyway. I would like to disappoint the great people of Cincinnati for listening to this. I like Cincinnati. I think Joe Burrow's lighting up the

best chili ever. Cincinnati chili. Killed yesterday, but I love Cincinnati. I think Joe Burrow's lighting up the best chili ever. Cincinnati chili. I killed yesterday, but I love it. I think to fix baseball, you only get one pitcher. I think to fix baseball. The rest of the people like you. Center fielder has come in after Tommy John. That's an interesting question. We're talking about branding.

It gets steroids back into it. Which sport has the worst brand right now? Which sport has the worst brand? Baseball. You think it's baseball? Here's why. Because when you took steroids out of it, back into it which sport has the worst brand right now which sport has the worst baseball you think it's baseball well here's why because when you took steroids out this is going to sound horrifying dude i was there watching bonds and mcguire go back and forth i lived in st louis in the modern era the baseball was even remotely interesting to watch it was great i was there in the stands in st louis watching i like the dodgers i go to a dodgers game a year with my daughter

it's like a tradition i took her in denver this year but i enjoy the old kind of throwback but it's only good for a game or two a year yeah it's well they're talking about moving the a's here to las vegas and i'll go to a game or two a year dude that's a lot of baseball but i bought season tickets for the raiders i bought season tickets for the knights because hockey is highly watchable basketball is highly fast doesn't stop baseball isball is fucking watchable. It's horrendous. I think they need a clock. They need a clock.

Three sheets of the wind. They need a pitch count clock to make that move faster. You got to go faster. Three alcohol. Three alcohol. Maybe some peanuts. We have the aviators. I think that's more than enough for the city.

Yeah. I think, honestly, I think they're going to end up bringing the A's here. I think that's going to happen. And I think it's going to fall on its face. I don't think it'll fall on its face, but I just think that. I don't want to pay for it. No, just to support Major League Baseball, unfortunately. That's a lot of seats and a lot of games.

They're branding because they don't have anything hot buttons, right? You take NFL, you take the NBA, they have a lot of hot topics. They're pushing some major buttons and people still watch it. Imagine if you threw that stuff in the Major League. Baseball has games at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday because there's 161 of them.

That's short in season. Two years ago, was it? Jack them up with this D-ball. Steroids. Steroid them up. Have them sign up. It's like Bill Burr said, I just want a giant pec muscle with a bat hanging out of it. That's it. Just let them sock it out of the park.

Oh, man. No, no. I think we can all agree that the key to a good brand is, again, give people exactly what they want and deliver on what you say. I think record numbers because of that. Record numbers because the NFL delivers that consistent experience across the board. I think, you know who's gotten the worst right now? And at some point, I've got to believe somebody's going to step up and make this happen.

NBA? No, just in that industry. The airlines have just completely thrown the towel in. Yeah. I mean, it's like domestic. No, domestic. Emirates is great. How is Emirates?

How is KLM? Yeah, those are amazing. Have you been on Frontier? Those are amazing. But the American Airlines, I mean. The Greyhounds in the sky. And it goes back to branding because american airlines delta united they're supposed to be these ones reliable you know spirit all these guys they could do that yeah you know what

you're getting yeah but like i was watching some one of the news guys says i fly american he goes uh for the last three months my 100 my flights have been either canceled or delayed 100 you know what's funny in the day and age of CRM and, you know, in MBAs, like in my MBA program, we had to take a class on information systems, MIS, management information systems. And when you look at management information systems and you look at the technology and these CRMs

and these dashboards and stuff, it's supposed to make everything better. You're supposed to never have a misflight again. They're perfectly calculated, right? But there's a human element in an era, but they build in buffers. For some reason, it's like three times worse. And you can

only sell out so many seats. So it's not that there's too many people overbooked or something because it's finite. What it is, is it's just they don't plan for weather. They try to squeeze every nickel they can and they don't plan for disaster. I think too what it is is it's just, you know, they don't plan for weather. They try to squeeze every nickel they can and they don't plan for disaster. Well, I think too,

I think too, what it is is I think, I think gas has gotten too expensive. I think labor's too expensive. And I think all of a sudden it's like, we need to try to audit like every company is in this mad dash to automate as much as you can. And I think that is one of the industries in America that maybe would do

better with less automation. No, less automation. Less automation. Here's why. Because case in point, all right? Like one of my businesses, one of my companies we run, and I've got executives kind of all over the country that run that company. And last week we had a convention here, and we were at the convention, and I had everybody around the same big table. That table we were at at Aria. And we had a suite with a giant boardroom, which was awesome, by the way. And I had everybody around the same big table, that table we were at at Aria. And we had a suite with a giant boardroom, which was awesome, by the way.

And I had everybody around the table. And I could just feel how efficient it was that everybody was there. Things were happening so much quicker and so much faster. And I think a lot of these big companies have developed these systems that are disjointed a little bit. They depend too much on the automation. When something goes wrong, there's not enough human involvement to solve the actual crisis of the person standing in front of you saying, I'm about to miss my daughter's wedding. But it shouldn't, back to Chris's point, like, yes, there's traffic in the sky, right? But there isn't. It should be so automated.

The airlines, they know. They know weather. They know they can make up time in the air. Absolutely. I do not get how they get sure something breaks on plane. I understand that. But to be back. But maintenance should be automated. To Colt's point, they don't do it because it's not fuel efficient. They could get you on town.

Yeah. But to them, they go, ah, it's going to affect my bottom line, so I don't give a shit about your daughter's wedding. And what other option do you have? Here's the other thing, John. How many times have you been to an airport? Okay, I walk to the guy who's checking my ID and my ticket. So there's a line of people checking my ID and my ticket.

That can't be automated. I walk up to TSA, go through the stupid machine. That can't be automated, like basically completely out. I walk up to the ticket booth. There's a shoe bomber. The worst fucking person. I don't think TSA can be automated because as soon as you automate it, somebody's going to figure out a way to beat it. And then something blows up and everybody goes,

watch out. Have you seen how much shit gets through with? Yeah. It's so human and so bad already. It's the illusion of safety. Here's the fact. There's not a lot of people trying to blow up airplanes. Okay.

They're just not. It's happened a handful of times. I'm serious. Now, maybe if it was totally unchecked. He fucked everything up. Everything up for everybody. Like I said, it takes one bad apple to make it all go sideways. They don't call it the bridge builder.

They don't. Is that not the grossest thing? Take off your shoes and you're staring at other people's shoes and some people don at other people's shoes and some people don't oh you know what we will save airline etiquette for another day guys if this is your first time listening to make sure you like subscribe give us a review if you could especially if you listen on apple and uh yeah man if you like what we do make sure you tune in again but if you hate what we do tell two people because it doesn't matter if they're

talking good or bad why not chris as long as they're talking about you't matter if they're talking good or bad. Why not, Chris? As long as they're talking about you. As long as they're talking about you in general. See you next time. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links of things we talked about on the show as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram,

you can always follow me at the John Gafford. I'm here. Give me a shout. I'll take water. I'll take water. Did I send you that thing where the girl's crying? She's like, I just got my real estate license. Oh, my God. It's like, my life's at ground zero.

I just got a real estate license. That's what my life has come to. I have no other way, nothing to turn to. Oh, God. Well, that doesn't make me happy. I was laughing. What's the thing? You're still recording. Oh, am I?