Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - From Rock Bottom to Reinvention – Tamara Thompson’s Turning Point

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

On this episode of Escaping the Drift, we sit down with Tamara Thompson: entrepreneur, founder of Broadcast Your Authority, and a powerful voice on transformation and resilience.Before building a business that helps top entrepreneurs scale their influence, Tamara faced a deeply personal battle. After a traumatic accident and a painful breakup, she found herself spiraling into alcoholism, hiding her identity, and losing control of her life.In this episode, Tamara opens up about the moment everything started to unravel—and how that downward spiral eventually became the foundation for her comeback.We dive into the raw truth behind rock bottom, the warning signs most people ignore, and what it really takes to break free from destructive patterns and rebuild your life with purpose.If you’ve ever felt stuck, lost, or like you’re heading in the wrong direction, this conversation will hit home.💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford *************💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.*************✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ / thejohngaffordFacebook ▶️ / gafford2🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283 *************#EscapingTheDrift #TamaraThompson #RockBottom #EntrepreneurJourney #AddictionRecovery #MindsetShift #PersonalGrowth #Resilience #StartupStory #LifeTurnaroundSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Back again, back again for another episode of like it says in the opening, man, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today in studio, I have a, it's kind of a crazy story. It really is. But this is a person who, again, is an entrepreneur that bootstrapped up from nothing into a massive business dealing with some of the biggest players in the world, showing them how to broadcast their authority through her company, broadcast your authority.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Tamara Thompson. Tamara. Thanks for having me, John. I'm really grateful to be here. Happy to have you. And dude, it has been a wonderful collab with you today, by the way. It has been, this is my, just so you know.

And the most podcasts I've ever done in one day is two. That is the most I have ever done. I feel honored. Yeah. This is my, Tamara's like, and I have this person, and I have this person, and I have this person. And I have this person. This is my sixth podcast today. day. I'm proud of you. I think the most I've done is 22 in one day. How? How do you do, how would you

possibly do 22 podcasts about? Well, we go through this whole like batch recording method for an entire season, right? Oh my gosh. We do like three days of full on like, sometimes it'll be like 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. But we have it where they can help my energy because we give back and have co-hosts on our show. Yeah. So it's not just myself. So if I'm literally like, hey, John, I'm going to I'm like, I want you to introduce the next guest. And it like helps me stay through the day. I have a little bit of protein, a little bit of caffeine. Yeah.

They kind of prop you up in the back like weekend at Bernies and are pulling the strings and you're doing your thing. I love that movie. Yeah. No, dude, it's, yeah, it's been a long day. I mean, it's been a great day. One of the good things about recording in Vegas is kind of everybody gets here eventually, right? They come here to speak at events.

They come here. So it's a great place to record a podcast. You know, I don't know how people could possibly do this living in like Kentucky. Like, no, or Arkansas. Yeah, you'd have to, you'd have to like travel constantly to interview people. And it's, it's a, it's a blessing. So we're just grateful for the opportunity to bring these like amazing individuals that are humble. Like half the time, if I just send somebody a message, I'm like, hey, we got this great opportunity.

Will you come meet us in Vegas? Because I built the relationship. Right. And they're like, I'm in. When do you need me at this point? But that took building relationships over. year and connecting the dots and then people becoming clients and some people have power partners, you know. And so it's just like in Vegas is kind of one of those spots where people like,

yeah. Yeah, I can come out there. There's a lot to do. I can do a show. We have people that were like, okay, yeah, like one gal is coming in tomorrow. She's like, we got tickets to go to the sphere. We're going over the Cirque Day Soleil. You know, we're going to this. And I'm like, cool. There's, they're going to a concert. So I was like, you can make a thing out of it. Right. Just come to us first. Like, it's funny. I did tell her that. Well, when she is. When you live here and do business here as we do, right? Because my primary business, as you all know, is definitely real estate. And we coach our agents this very important thing you have got to do.

When you schedule an appointment from somebody that is coming to Vegas to look at real estate, whatever they are, you've got to tie them down in this fashion. What I mean by this is the last thing we always say to people as we're getting off the phone with them is, are you good about keeping appointments? Because I want someone to verbalize that. Like, yeah, yeah, 10 o'clock. Yeah, I'm good about keeping appointments. because when it's like 1.30 and they're at the crap stable on a heater and they're hammered, that little voice is going to creep in and go, you said you were good about keeping appointments. You said you were good.

And it gets them here sometimes. Well, I think the worst part of that, though, the worst part of that, though, with doing the extensive matchmaking that we do, we literally two days ago had a person just be like, I can't come because I'm sick, right? So we have to re-suff-match, right? Even last night, we had a gentleman that's like, I changed my flight. I even spoke to Gidgett. I was like, we have this gentleman that wants to go for,

you know, it's like trying to accommodate, but like, because you know they're traveling and they're like, let's match make, but let's play Tetris. I can vouch for us because my wife was like, my wife was,

it was our son's birthday and we're doing this and my wife is literally typing with you at 530. And I'm like, no, it's okay. But I was finally like, just tell her, we're booking the whole day for her. It does not matter what the schedule is. just let us know when it's firm enough. It doesn't even matter. Like the back and forth is irrelevant. I'm clearing my calendar for Tamara today. Don't worry about it. Just let us know we're going to be here.

And it's worked out splendidly today. So thanks for that. But it's cool, though, that you brought so many people in and now we're finishing the day kind of telling your story and how that was. Because there's a lot of people out there that, you know, struggle with different things that maybe don't see a way out or don't see, you know, that light at the end of the tunnel that I think your story is going to motivate them to hopefully overcome some of their own, maybe demons or personal limitations to have some success in their lives. So, you know, obviously we don't have to go back to like when you were a kid, but something you said earlier when we were just chatting that I think is probably a good place to start as let's talk about when you were doing a real life imitation of Lindsay Lohan. That's probably a good time to start. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, rewind back like 20

plus years. So I was unhappy in my career in the fitness industry. And my family, this was when YouTube was when YouTube was like, what do you do with YouTube? There's like parkour videos and silly cat videos and vlogging. I was like dancing around with a hairbrush singing 80s music. You know, where's something like, what do you do? But yeah, I was an alcoholic. I was unhappy in my career. There's a lot of things going on in life and just accepting myself. And so I went through this basically experience where I was dumped from my my first love, which happened to actually be a woman. And so I went through the process of really coming out of the closet, which was one of the things that I really had to find out about myself. So I hid that for quite a while. And I went through the spiral of alcoholism. So for about

six years, I was pulled over like five different times. I was locked up. I was actually, they called me the miracle worker in there and the negotiator in the jail. system in Seattle for a while, which this attorney that I hired, he always told me to be quiet, right, in the courtroom. And so I remember I was pulled over, the last time I was pulled over back in 2010. And I literally was like, oh my God, I made a huge mistake. I'm going to be locked away. Like they are just going to throw out the key and I'm not going to be able to be let out. I just knew it. My gut and my intuition, which I follow very dear now, my inner sense of not. knowing I'm an empath as well.

And I was like, this is it, Tamara, like smack across the face. I said, hey, you know, I figured out myself, but I've also been depressed. And I know I need help. Well, let's, let's, I want to ask you a question a little bit because you glanced over a pretty major life event there, which was, you know, obviously coming to grips with your sexuality and coming out to your parents or whatever that was, or your family or however that was. Yes.

Was. Was it not? received, which caused you to turn, become an alcoholic? Or was it, was, did you build it up in your mind that it was not going to be well received, which cause you'd be an alcoholic? Which, which kind of way was that? I think it was because of not that it wasn't, it wasn't as accepted as much as it is now. That's 20 years ago. Yeah. And so like 20, yeah, 20 plus years. But what really happened was, I didn't feel like I had people to talk to, even though when my mom did find out, she literally was like, I was like, why couldn't you tell me?

I was like, because I didn't want to be gay. Like, I, I didn't want to because of the way. So you were asking with your own identity in that point. Yes, and I'm very confident who I am now. Yeah, sure. And so, but that whole process is because I was dumped and I couldn't tell anyone because everyone saw that person as my best friend. And they're like, why aren't you friends anymore?

So it was hiding my first love, my real little relationship for about three years where it really hurt. And I went, this is kind of crazy. So the day after I was dumped, I went running and jogging and like hardcore jogging like earbuds in like I was in the best shape of my life back then. I wasn't like fully paying attention, but this gentleman failed to stop at a stop sign. Knocked me out. I was knocked out for 27 hours. That year I spiraled into gaining weight. I started feeling like a fraud because I was a personal trainer, right? And I was unhappy. and then it went into this whole thing that I was like, I feel like a fraud. I don't want to do this anymore.

And all of a sudden I started drinking. And the only place I felt okay was in the LGBT community. So I started to go out to meet people who were my so-called friends, which really weren't. They weren't really helping me. And so, again, fast forward spiraled into alcoholism and drinking over and over and over again and kept getting pulled over, slapped on the wrist. I had these miracles happen. There weren't really miracles.

They were just like letting me slide by. Yeah. And then the last time. How many times you get pulled over, pulled over drunk? Five. Five. A couple of those. A couple of those you go.

The first time I actually got pulled over. I was completely trashed. But they didn't know I was trashed because I didn't fit the mold of a DUI. Most people, they think they drive too slow and they hug the line. This girl, 102 across the free. way like, I just got to get home, straight in between the lines, wasn't swerving anything, but I had like open containers in the back of the car. And I reeked a vocal. But this guy was like, reckless driving. Check. See you later. Go home. Two weeks later. Pulled over in the same spot.

Thank you, God. Literally was like, boom, first DUI. Two weeks later, boom, three weeks later, boom, second DUI. Oh, man. So it was like, okay, Tamara. You were a little slow to learn there. A little slow learner. Took me a good six years. Oh, my God. So I've got a. crazy story. Like, so I built the resilience of things because the way that I think about life and business now, like, nothing like phases me. I'm actually, you were talking to a recent episode about your distust. I'm exactly the same as you. Like 99% D.I. Hi. Hi. Yeah. So Michael, you know, it's like that's considered the Michael Jordan of distests, like less than 3% of the

public asset, right? No, for sales. It's like the Michael Jordan. It's like the Michael Jordan disc. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. So, high five. There go. High five for the high D. Yeah, good job. So, but fast forward there. So the last time I got pulled over, I was like, holy crap. Like, this is just like going to be a crazy shit show, basically. And, yeah, I started going through these processes and I started getting actual help. And I started sobering up and going to treatment and stuff like that.

And I had this woman that was like, hey, she was a counselor. She said, I want you to read this book. And I don't like to read. I'm just, I'm just. Too slow. Yes. I'm like, I can't just sit there and be like, I need to read that again.

So she gave me the four agreements, which is, you know, great book. Great book. It's a small enough book for me to read my brain. And she was like, just read it and let me know what you think. And that book actually changed my life through the sobriety process. But before that, before I had to actually go to court, there was these people in my treatment center. They're like, we're going to do work release through the King County Jail. And I was like, what's that?

And they're like, it's not offered where you were. holdover. I was like, what? I'm like, well, why not? So I went to the court system and rent in Renton, Renton Washington. Like, it's like, whatever. And I went to the judge and I told, told my attorney at the time, I said, I'm going to propose work release. And they just, he was just like, what? Like, work release. Work release. We're not going to let you have that. They're not going to have that. So I go in there and this was the first time I actually spoke up to the judge because the guy was always like, don't, don't say anything. I'll just, you know, we'll do the best, best term. And I literally, I broke down and I was like, I had just gone back to college, basically

film school, my late 20s because I was unhappy. I was starting to get like straight A's. I had just sobered up, of course, before the court. It was going to meetings, doing the thing, got a sponsor, doing all the things I was supposed to be doing. And I literally was like, I don't want this. I want to try to ask for help. I want to ask for something. And I came up and I proposed to the judge, I was like, I will do, can you create a work release program? I was like, I will pay for it out of my own pocket. Like I'm like a nanny right at that point. I'm like part-time nanny college girl in my late 20s. I'm like, I was messed up. And I knew I needed help. And so that that moment I step in the court and I just like, I provided everything. I was like, my straight A's back in

college, my sobriety, my A-A slip, all of it. And I just said, I want to be able to keep my job too. ankle bracelet on here. I was literally like Lindsay Lohan, you know, I had to be back at this point. I even had a blow in a machine in my house at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Oh my gosh. So it was just, it was it was a lot, right? And so I presented it. The guy looked at looked at my stuff, looked up, looked down, looked up. He's like, Miss Thompson, never had anyone step in my courtroom and negotiate ever. And he's like, that takes mad guts. And I, I'm, he's like, that takes mad guts. I am actually going to accept this. But if you, for any reason, don't follow through on anything that you said.

Yeah, then it's a real problem. Real problem. We're going to send you out to, gosh, I don't even know the name of the city. It was like 45 minutes out, this little bumpkin town jail where I had to sleep in a facility with 10 other women. You know, at 2 a.m., they'd have like drug meth addicts coming in off the street, waking you up. You had to share a bathroom that didn't have a door, all the things, right? and I became the girl in there that nobody messed with, but I was kind at the same time. So I protected all the women in there anytime a new woman that came in that was feisty.

But yeah, so he accepted it and allowed me to be on work release for about 120 days. And they said, but the rest of the year, you're going to be on house arrest. And so he's like, you're going to have a term that's just, if you do the year and you don't mess up, we'll give you a year. Otherwise, we're going to go over that. And we're going to lock you up for a long time. So it was just this moment where I was like, holy crap. And just by living in there and going through this process, you know, sobering up.

And the things that happened in there, I was like, okay, that was my rock baddam story. Yeah. People come to me now and like life and business. They're like, oh, how do you deal with this in business? I'm like, that's nothing. Yeah, you're like, do that an ankle monitor on. Yeah. Like, I was like, I had this thing.

And so that was it. Was there anything in your life more shameful than happen? but people notice the ankle monitor on your on your ankle. Well, that I hit really well with like jeans and long cancer. Yeah, but I'm still just thinking like that. There's got to be like, what is this?

The interlock device. So I had to have it on my car for five years. That's the thing where you blow in the tube, right? And it was so dangerous, John, like so dangerous. Like, it would go off and you had like 30 seconds to blow correctly. If you missed up, it would be like, beep, beep. So one time, this was the most embarrassing part of it. I, you know, I would zone out because you're sobering up.

If I had my music on too loud, I wouldn't hear the beep, right? And it's attached to your horn. So it starts honking your horn. All of a sudden I'm on the freeway and I'm like blasting like 80s music or something one morning. And I'm like driving to work. And all of the sudden I hear honk, honk! And everybody on the freeway just goes, whoop? Eyes on camera.

And I was like, what is that? And I looked down like, oh, shit. The same time, though, if you miss it, it dings it. And it goes back to your probation officer. And they say, why did you miss this blow? I'm sorry I was rocking out to 80s music and zoning out on my way to work where I was unhappy in my career. Yeah. But I think that was probably the most embarrassing thing other than being pulled over it and people just seeing it over time.

Like walk in the line like, oh, you don't take the test, you know. Oh, man. Yeah, that's, look, for somebody against five D you guys, no offense. I'm not saying that stuff's not, I'm not saying that stuff is not warranted. I'm just saying it's got to be. And especially it sucks because, you know, something like that where you're really being driven by that disease. And then as soon as you're in recovery from it and you're not doing it, all of a sudden you still are walking around with the scarlet letter of it of the ankle monitor and the blower thing and all that stuff. Well, let's talk about broadcast your authority.

Let's talk about your company. So how did the company come about? That's a great question. So, you know, after sobriety came into play, went back, you know, finished film school, basically started a production company. But when I started a production company, I also had to, like, I wanted to make sure that I had enough clientele where I didn't have to have a corporate job too. So when I graduated, this was kind of crazy. So graduated and I was like, okay, cool, I got a degree. You know, I'm like 30. Well, is my oyster now. Yeah. And all the sudden. So I went out and put applications out.

And I was offered a position for $12 an hour. This is back in like 2012, that you could have got without the degree just walking out of the street. And my brother at the same time, so we're about seven years apart, but he was going through the process, even though he's seven years younger, this was like me going back to school. And he gets a job at Amazon for just as flat $88,000, like out of the gate, right, as a developer.

And I was like, I was just offered $12 an hour. I was making more than that at the gym. So I went back and I negotiated. And so bumped that up to like $20 an hour, which was not much. I worked my way up through that. company and they were like, oh, you're going to get this. You're going to get stock. You're going to become a partner and stuff. It was, it was mail driven. Here's the big carrot. We're going to dangle

on front of you. I'm going to figure this is driving me crazy. Oh, please. No time. See what goes happening. Keep talking. No worries. So yeah. So fast forward, I was like, I was thinking, oh, I've got this degree. I'm going to get a job. So I started doing freelance work on the side. I was unhappy in this company. I started working up, but I was only making like 35,000 a year or something, something really low or 40. And then I literally was like, I need to do something different. I need a new direction in my life. Then YouTube came out, started a production company, and I was like, what can we do?

But my whole focus around Broadcast Your Authority was to help people. I knew I had an impactful story that I could share with others. But the idea was to also help other people share their message. And so we had content that took off and went viral because I started directing documentary films because I was really passionate about the stories and stuff like that, but they were all one-off projects. And so it didn't even click, well, I guess it did kind of click a little bit later on about what we do at Broadcaster Authority from the short-form content, but the data-driven focus first of like, what are people actually searching for on YouTube and Google for your show and

your podcast? Is it because you have a big name on your show and they're highly searched? Is it a topic that somebody is searching for in real estate or whatever that looks like as an inspiring story? So we had these films that took off and went viral. The teasers would go viral. And then it would lead back to the documentary, the full-length feature. And we had one that took off and went viral as about women's stereotypes. And from there, all of a sudden, I'm like, well, what did we do right? And so we actually consulted with YouTube.

I was like, I love data. I love to seeing that stuff. And I was like, how can we play this to all these other films that I directed? And I started winning awards. They started going viral. all of a sudden, IndieFix found us. It's like Netflix, but it was an awesome female founder in Seattle. And they were like, we want to acquire your films.

And I was like, this is cool, super grateful. Now what's it? Yeah, you're like, I actually made these and now someone wants to buy them. That's a kind of how it's supposed to work, but didn't think it was going to. There you go. And so I was like, well, how can we leverage telling more of these stories more often, these impactful stories? And then I joined a high level mastermind group, one of the first ones I joined.

It was like $3,500. month back then. It was like, you know, it's not, it's not cheap. It's not cheap for back then. And I was like, you know, I'm going to surround myself with these upper level individuals. And the sales coach came up to me. She said, you know what? She's like, I love what you guys are doing over here on the YouTube side of it. These two gentlemen I'm working with on my audio podcast and the mastermind, but they're only doing audio. And she's like, I feel like this system that you're doing over here that you told me all about could work for my podcast. I'll be your first client. And so she literally, was our first client. This was years back. And we started using our YouTube methods. We did the

weekly show, like consistent content. She batch recorded. She did her thing, taught sales coaching. And then we started selling those packages into entrepreneurship. I started joining multiple mastermind and then hosting events. So that's how we really started was the first offer that we ever put together was actually like a very short 90-day kind of package. And then we did a six-month package. Now we do six month to year long packages to help people with their shows now. But because we created this whole data different system from give them the direction for their show if desired, but paying attention to the data and helping them grow their YouTube channels. So really looking for YouTube. What does success look like on a YouTube channel? For one of your clients.

It could be different, different, different example. We work with a guy that owns a med spa. So a doctor, he started with us at 101 subscribers on YouTube. They've been working with us about 11 months. they moved their med spa from Rhode Island to Florida. He now has 22,600 subscribers in it's great. 11 months. All organic? All organic. So you guys do not promote it all?

We do now. But so that's one of the levels that you can work with us at. So you can one go to the organic side. At this point, there's a lot of competition. Of course, we know. Yeah. So we did leverage over the years utilizing Amplify through YouTube and Google ads.

So viewership ads, subscriber ads, but the bigger picture on that is not just running those pieces, but to tie it in with your business. So we taught basically the doctor how to leverage different ways to build out the community. So he now has like a provider community about 7,000 providers, which we taught him how to utilize a high-end workshop that led into a mastermind group so that they can do these trainings for these doctors, right, to help them show how to build success. What we do is we leverage the top performing shorts that are organic first. And so when you utilize those, you're like, okay, so let's say example for your show, right? Yeah. Okay, so you had Susie Batese on your show, right? So you're like, okay, well, it's a possibility her content could take off because

Susie Boutiste has searched 18,000 times a month. So we have the microcontent go out to shorts, right? You're like, okay, this one only had 1,000 views, but this short had 10,000 views. Why? Right. And so we like analyze that piece of it first and say like, okay, was it because of what Susie was wearing? Was it because of the hook? Was it emotional? Was it empowering? Was it? Was it John's clip? You know, whose clip was it? And then from there, you want to leverage that clip back to paid ads. So, because one, you already know that 10,000 people organically actually resonated with it, right? But the way that we structure it is not just for the fact of like, oh, that's a really top performing clip. But a lot of the times for a business owner, if you're talking like real estate as an example, let's say you share some cool topic about real estate or success.

Well, okay. Well, he talked just about exactly what he does and helps people with in real estate. Now, let's actually drive the back to some kind of core offer or an opt-in or a lead magnet or something to build the list, right? Yeah. So it gives opportunities in different ways to build the C-R-M basically email list or give them back to an opt-in that goes into or even a tripwire funnel, you know, where it's like a low-end product. Here's $11 for my X, my X, Y, Z. And then up the ladder you go. Exactly. So it's being strategic for the show. shows. A lot of people have like inspiring shows, but you can leverage it that way where you're like,

okay, am I building and my influence? Am I building my following? Or do I really want to focus on building my real estate business? Right. So we come in on different levels. So people will now hire me as like their fractional CMO for their shows. Like how can we leverage this to lead them to new clientele, our mastermind group, our, you know, our event coming up? And that's something I struggle with right now because I think as it especially is now as you look like Gemini is pulling from shorts when it gives summary reviews on things or search reviews is pulling heavy on shorts right now. Yep. Which is.

It's like 60. I think it might even be worn this month. But like last month there was like 67% of new subscribers come from shorts. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. And you can reach a lot of people very quickly through them. But like you look at somebody like me that I have so many different companies and so many different

brands. I used to just run like this brand, like escaping the drift. Yeah. You know, I wrote a book and we have the book and all that stuff and this was really it. But I just kind of ran this and this kind of all, it was all like one big melting pot. And now I'm saying like, oh, wow, I should probably, I need to split this off into its own entity. It needs to be its own thing. I need my own personal branding stuff. I got to drive real estate stuff. I got to drive mortgage stuff. I mean, all these different companies we have kind of need their niche. It's got to get more nichey. You can't be broad anymore like this and you can't have a one size fits all for what you do. But I have a question, which is it was always a real challenge to move subscribers from audio

podcasts into video. It was really, I've been doing this for four years, and it's really difficult to move them from one platform to the other. It's a separate demographic. It's a totally separate demographic. People don't listen to audio podcasts. Don't go to YouTube. It's really weird.

But what I found is now that you've got like Spotify adding video and Apple adding video and having that video podcast and now YouTube is coming the other way where these are podcasts now. Yep. There's really a blending of the two. So my question to you is that somebody that's doing this at a very high level, are you more concerned with, or do you think the future is more the video views or the audio? Do you think audio will die out or is the blending of the two?

Or is there a way now to move one market to the other, one audience to the other? I think that it can actually come together because, like you said, a lot of the platforms have the video component being added to those platforms like Spotify. Yes. But I do believe that video is the winner. I mean, I'm biased. Obviously, video has been in my background. But the reason because I see that, though, is because if you look on everything

related to video, Netflix, Hulu, everything, all TV shows now have basically a podcast. Yeah, they do. All they promote. So you go, like, I don't know about your Netflix or Hulu, every single section of a show that I literally am like, oh, this is a star show. Oh, it has a podcast or the podcast populate. Netflix, currently I'm seeing a lot of like sports or celebrity shows, right? But over on Netflix, it's all podcasts which relate to the top shows.

So they're pulling it in different directions. And if you see it, all the celebrities are doing podcasts at this point. So it's pulling the demographic and fans in a way that's like video, video, video, even though maybe like over the years, like we've, because we've got clients to have like six million downloads, right? And that's on the audio podcast. We took one client this year, which I was super excited about the results that we got her. So we started working with her in September, but she did not focus on video.

She actually had 11,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel. We're like, oh my gosh. I mean, she's, she's smart. She's funny. She's pretty. I was like, why is she? I hate her. Oh, my gosh.

What about that? So, yeah, so she had 11,100 subscribers on YouTube. This was in September. and she had about 5 million audio podcast downloads. So we took over both and we said, you have to be on video. And luckily within the first month or so, she actually had one of the video podcasts. The first and the first three weeks took off.

So they leveraged our system because she has a format of solo content. So it's all like positioning. Man, that's really hard. Yeah. But it was great. So she now has. For those you never tried this, I'm just going to throw out there.

I used to do, I used to do. Depends of how long you want them to be. No, no, even even 12 minutes, like 15 minutes, like short like that. Do you? Do it ADHD? Yeah, I do. But the problem is, is I found myself watching the clock more than I did watching the content, right?

Because I do speak very quickly. Yeah, yeah. And it was like, I'm going to try to drag this out to hit my 12 minute mark. And I just found that, man, I would rather, I would so much rather extrapolate good information from other people than try to come up with stuff to spill out every year. That's what my newsletter's for. I said, you want to hear that? And we helped your map out. Do the newsletter.

Yeah. We help our clients map out for the ones that want to do this. So it's not for everyone. That's hard. We help them map out the content, the keywords, everything. So like, here's the topic title. And then she'll pull out the bullet points. So this video took off and she was like, this is cool.

We're like, okay, now create something very similar. You're going to use these keywords again. So it's almost like a part two. So it helped the channel. She's got almost 25,000 subscribers now. See, it's hard to do that in an interview. That was all organic side too. Yeah, but what I'm saying is it's very difficult to do the, see what's trending keywords.

See what's trending. So you have a team that does it for you. Yeah, no, no, no. But then create that content in an interview space. It's very difficult because if you're, if you have organic conversations like I do, I don't know where they're going to go. I'm not planning this around keywords. Solopod, yeah, you can absolutely script it out. You can build topics and go.

It is. But when you have a show like mine, it's really hard to do that. So how do you do that with a show like mine? So typically a lot of the shows that we have, we've condensed. I'm into shorter form shows instead of like an hour long, right? We're like, okay, John, we're going to look at the back of YouTube. What's your average length of your watch time on YouTube for the hour long, right? So if they're like, oh, your average watch time is 22 minutes, right?

So like, well, honestly, YouTube's saying like, hey, your episode should actually be 22 minutes. And then, like, if it's at a 30% viewing rate, then YouTube's going to reward you and be like, we're going to suggest you out to like 70%, right? So it's all about the watch time. And so that's why. Is it better on, so here's a question I'm going to ask you then. What have you better on super long form like this to cut it in half and do two 30 minutes? Two parts?

Yes. Yes. In my opinion, yes. So we've taught a lot of our clients to do that. So and then there's a client that literally just record. You learn something new every day. Yeah. And that's why a lot of our clients, like people come into our shows and they'll come in to when we record at Series XM or other things too.

All the people are like, why do you guys do 22 minutes? I was like, because we watched the data. And we know that. Because that's what the mass says. Yeah. And they're like, well, and then we'll say like, oh, well, we had this really cool guest. Why did that one take off? Let's ask that person to come back for an encore.

So that one could be like a good one of like a part two, right? So if that person's suggesting it out or accepts a YouTube collaboration or an Instagram collaboration, we just want to make sure that everyone. I don't get why people go on. Why do you, why don't want a podcast and then not accept a collaboration? Exactly. What is the point of even doing it? What is the point of even doing it?

We make sure everybody that comes in here is down to like, we're going to work together on this to make it as good as we possibly can. Well, and I love it because, like, one, you've got the Instagram collaborations, but too, since YouTube does it now, too, it came out in November. You literally do the collaboration. And because we also manage so many shows and we do podcast booking tours as well, so people work with us at a couple different capacities, right? It's like you got the hybrid where we do like both, right?

So we could match people for your shows. shows or match you on other people's shows, or we'd do like the full one-stop shop, right, for content marketing. And some people will just start with us. They're like, oh, I don't want a podcast. This is like, just like, this is not my thing. But I want to get on other people's shows. And then when they do the podcast tour, they're like, actually, that's kind of fun.

Like, you guys can teach me how to like batch record and like do it in time, time. Make it easy. People are busy. They're busy founders. They're successful. A lot of people come to us. They built success. They want to build their personal brand at this point.

So we're like, well, batch record or come into the studio and record several with us at once, or if you have your own studio, record with your in-house team, and then pass it over to us and we'll do the rest, right? Like, so it's really just like a convenience thing. So you guys are cutting the shorts. You guys are doing the editing. Yeah. Optimizing, editing, posting to social media, sending the collaborations, sending the deliverables, live links all to the guests, like doing all that stuff, even for the ones that have, like, management for, like, virtual guests. Like, the team will be like, looking their calendars out. Just like, we want people to be able to show up and that's all they have to do for their

Amen. Amen. Yeah. But yeah, I really just started from like us learning about YouTube and then being able to apply it into a system that was consisted on a weekly front versus like one-off projects. But always they were always people that had a story to share or data or because people like yourself have these inspiring shows. Like you said, you're like, well, how do you leverage it when you have these longer conversations? But that would be one point. It would be like maybe split into two parts, like part one, part two, just to get that watch time down. But then also look in the back and be like, which of the episodes actually related the most? And was there something significant about those that did the best? Was it because it was a person? Was it because they both talked

about a certain topic? Like, was it a success journey in real estate? Yeah. There's so many different factors. There is. It's funny. I talked about this the other day. And I've got, you know, you do this long enough. You make a lot of friends to do it as well because we sure guess and do stuff and blah, blah, blah. And it's the one thing I will refuse to do, and I've seen a lot of my friends do it, is not going to just, like, go for shock value chasing clicks. I'm not going to do it. Like, my number one shared YouTube or Instagram thing ever was Kelsey Sharon talking about, talking about self-assisted suicide in Canada, right? And it was part of a much greater conversation. And it was just a very, yeah, it was really like, whoa, clip, right? Like, wow.

And that's my most watched thing. And like the tendency would be to be like, oh, well, let's go chase something that's shocking along those values along those lines to try to repeat that process. And I'm like, look, that was on one office. It's not really what I talk about it here. We're talking about motivating yourself and talking about business and entrepreneurship. And so I didn't do that. But I see some of my friends that will get like some crazy person on their podcast that says

something insane. And it does very well. And they're like, oh, let me go find the next crazy person. And I think that one of my biggest problems with this country is I think we're going through this. I've ever seen the movie. Of course, you have your filmmaker, Idiocracy. Yes. Like, I think we're living that. I think we're going through the dumbing down of America at a rapid, rapid rate.

And anything I can do, I don't want to be part of that. I want to produce something that is thoughtful and helpful and educational and entertaining at the same time. Yeah. And not just shock value nonsense. Well, I think that's where that's where other people come in. So I'm not saying, yes, we've got success for people, but then there's other shows that, like, you want to pay attention to it. And that's when we do suggest the amplification through ads, right? Yeah.

Because not all channels are going to be like, oh, I had a viral video or something. But you also want to drive people, drive traffic back to content that relates to what you do, too. And so a lot of people, when they come to us, like, not all of them go viral, but a lot of people stick with us on the consistency factor because we've also taught them how to generate money from the podcast if it's a direct. referral to their show or if somebody found them because of their show or or we taught them to use amplified ads to go back to their offers. They're like, oh, how majority people come back and like, oh, yeah, I found you through YouTube. And we're like, okay, well, what is that? So we have a whole system where we teach them basically to create the UTM links to track that. So it's like, where did it come from? And you could get so specific where it's like the UTM link for YouTube specifically.

It could be Spotify. It could be Apple. Yeah. Or you could be like, okay, it came from the podcast. and then that link basically thought to like, you know, complicated, but some of them will do like high rose or triple whale and be like, let's track all the stuff, right? Yeah. So it depends on where you want to go with that. But the idea for us is to always say like, this is how you can, you can generate ROI on that. Well, let's talk about that.

So when you're talking, obviously to generate that, there's got to be a call to action that sends them somewhere. Is that better in the comments below? Do you, could you coach your clients to have a CTA during the podcast? What do you do? Yes. All the above. So it really depends on your format, right?

And you don't want to be like, I'm pitching like in the middle of my show. And I have a guest, right? Some people have dropped ads. We just took over a show this last week. The guys had a show for 12 years, but he's got a sales podcast. But he doesn't leverage it in the right way. And we're like so excited because we're like, oh, my gosh. You got like 600,000 downloads last month.

I was like, okay. Yeah. But you're not getting like clients from this, you know, is this beautiful sales expert, right? And so, but the whole idea, though, is to strategize with the client specifically on what would actually work for their business model. So we do, do like monthly, monthly strategy calls to and certain capacities people will hire me to come in and be like, okay, let's look at the whole overall picture. Because you said, like you said, you have like your personal brand, right? You got the show. You got real estate.

Yeah. So what would that look like? Would it be like your personal brand for the YouTube channel, right? But I would say, like, well, you want to have like different things under that. It's like your name, but here's escaping the drift. Here's stuff that relates to simply Vegas. You know, it's good to create those different playlists and see what happens there. I think we need completely separate channels for a lot of what we do.

Just a lot of it is just got to be sick because it's so different. I think that's what happens when you, I mean, like you would never, like you would never look for SpaceX and see Tesla on that site. Exactly, exactly. It's got its own independent brand that's running. So there's, yeah. And yes, I just compared myself to Elon Musk. That just happened.

Yes, it was a good comparison. Yeah, there it is. There you go. Just compared. But yeah, but it's very dialed into just learning more about the core offers that each individual has. Like, do they have a med spa clinic? Are they in real estate? Are they a coach?

Like, what is it? Who's your demographic? Because that all caters to the strategies that we put. And you guys help them build these funnels if they need them and all that stuff? We do. We actually, we're in affiliate with high level too because we, like, we've built all of our stuff. Everything is high level. And so, but it's cool because you got everything from.

there from the landing pages to the CRM to the text message to the newsletters everything. UTOM from the podcast tab. So all of it's all inclusive on that side. We do everything in I love. I love it. It's great. Like literally all of our companies from high level. And we learned to add these types of elements in there after we had shown some sort of

success we would be able to come through. Be like, okay, this is what we're able to do. I know that we could do this in this industry. Here's an example of what we've done. Here's a case study on that piece of it. So we'd come in and be like, hey, I know we can help you with this. side what what is it your your big goals are right so it's just matching that well let's talk about scaling your company up how many people do you have now that are running this thing um i think there's

about 22 contractors right now 22 yes you independent contract everything everything except my partner and i um she's co-founded it with me she's also my wife Danielle and you'll meet her tomorrow and we are the only two employees through the whole company okay smart because you can because you can stretch and expand as you need to yes which is good yes so and we actually cut that down we had more contractors that we had hired this individual that he came in and strategized with us. He sold his company for about 70 mil and we're like, we want to do what you did. He had a media buying agency. Yeah.

And so he taught us different things with paid ads. And when we started using paid ads for our amplification process, and we're like, oh, why didn't we do this sooner? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So are, well, you guys are buying paid ads on behalf of your clients right now? We are now.

Yes. So we started leveraging paid ads last few years to amplify through the, the channels. We were only doing it for ourselves first. We only go through anything through for ourselves first. Then when we were able to scale it, then we're like, oh, I know how to do that for that. Well, I don't know if this is true. I just saw this other day. I don't know if this is true.

But, like, the years of racking up Amex points on your Google accounts and all those things. The whole, like, meta thing that just came out? Yeah, they're supposedly going to a billing deal on meta. I heard that this last week. And I was like, is this true? So I haven't even had time to, like, dive into it as well. which I'm a points junkie so I'm like no I need my airline you know yeah no no no which that that would throw off the whole game because the majority of our clients use their Amex cards you know of course so do we

and so like I've got like three over here you know like right I'm like so if that was the case I don't know how successful that they could actually do with actually controlling that type of aspect I would go I would go only over to YouTube and Google at that point I have a buddy of mine that does a hundred million in Montetta annually. That's amazing. And he literally can go anywhere in the world for free. I like, dude,

he's just living on it whenever he wants. It's crazy. And it's just like, I called him and I was like, whoa, this is reality goes, they're going to get to me last. And he goes,

I promise you, they'll get to me last. They're not going to be first. They're going to get to me last. Yeah, no, I want to dig deeper into that. So I haven't had a chance like,

but I'm like literally looking at it. Like, if this is the case, like we're only going to go over to YouTube and Google. Like, I'm not going to be able to do like messenger ads. We do a lot like any of that stuff. And we do grateful.

The first time we ever did ads, which was kind of crazy, it doesn't happen for everybody. The first $7,000 we spent, we generated about $368,000 back in revenue for the first month. So we're like, okay, what did we just do right? That's a great, that's a great return on ad spend. Jeez, it always. So it happened for a good like few months, probably four months of a very similar return. And then all of a sudden it kind of like trickled down and then the leads that were coming through the messenger ads. we're like, okay, these are not qualified,

or we're starting to get these different demographics that we weren't before. So then we went in the back end later and we're like, okay, what were the top performing ads? And it wasn't necessarily the top performing ads that actually drove the ones that were more qualified. So we had to do that digging too. So we're like, okay, we're...

Sometimes you just have to get more leads and they're not qualified, it just makes you have to sift harder. Exactly. That's a problem. So, yeah, it's been like, it's been quite the... It's a science. It really is a science.

It's an art and a science, actually. The data, what is the profit? Is it profitable? Yeah. And is it still working? Like, is that platform still for you? Or is it YouTube and Google, you know? You got to, you have to constantly rotate those ads.

You have to constantly update it. Because what works today gets burned. You know, the lead, the lead like it's burned out. They start bringing in carousel posts again. Yeah. Now that's hot. Yep. Again.

And that was like last year. I know. Now everybody's doing that. And because, you know, why? I think because they're so easy to generate with like Claude, like, Nana Banana. It's so easy to generate. any good carousels. And it just, it's easy to do.

All right. Well, if they want to find you, how do they find you? Well, you can go to broadcast your authority.com. Broadcast your authority everywhere from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. And then me personally, I love Instagram. Tamara Thompson official is where you can find me. I actually run that. It's not an AI bot like our other ones.

Yeah. Wink, wink, nudge, not mine. I'm not on a bot. I'm not a bot. Yeah. I'm the guy that rejects all of your random general inquiries. about having me, helping me rank on podcasts and get me downloads. I'm the guy that tells you no.

Yeah, it's actually me telling you that. Dude, how many of this you today? Oh, a lot. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. Delete. Okay, let's talk about it because you're probably an expert in some of this.

We're talking about funnels. I'm going to tell you what drives me crazy. What drives me crazy is the, because you just brought it up before we jump off, is the marketing on, the messaging marketing on Facebook where you get some, really crappy comment about how inspired they are by what you do or something they said and you just know the sales pitch is coming. 100%. I, I'm just like, hate it.

Hey, or some question like, hey, how long you've been interested in the real estate biz, right? What do you, like, if you really looked at my profile for one second and even read it, you would know exactly what I do. I got a message the other day. It was literally like, hey, Tamara, I love the fact that you came out with the Women Unlocking Wealth book. And I was like, they were like, have you ever thought about starting a podcast? I was like, oh.

Every day. Like read my bio. I was like, Women Unlocking Wealth is a podcast. It's not a book. If you were like, have you ever thought about having a book? I'm like, yeah, of course I'm like for partners with many publishing companies. But yeah, that drives me nuts. because I can tell right up like my gut, my intuition, everything,

just even the way they approach it, right? Someone can pay a compliment and then or not pay a compliment, just go into the pitch. Yeah, it's like, it's like Eddie Haskell bot where it's like, oh, you look lovely today. Can I sell you something? No, stop, just stop it. Like I would rather have, here's what I can do.

Here's what I think is it will work for you. Let me know if it should. That's it. Exactly. No, I'm a straight, bang, bang. I'm a straight shooter. I'm an action taker. Yeah.

I take risks more so calculates. risks now over the years. Because like you said in a previous interview, you know, your wife's an empath. I'm an empath. I learned that over the years, too, because there were some big deals that I was going into as well where this one time, I was just like, oh, my gosh, no, no, no, no. This guy was so pushy to get into our space and to speak at one of our events. And the guy came out to our event, spoke at the event.

I had people leaving the room. Oh, it's terrible. I was like, this is so bad. And he didn't fulfill in his contract where I was going to speak at his event. So the integrity thing fell through. Then this feeling happened again last year. I was literally like, this woman approached me. And I was like, oh, this feels like that, right?

Back this thing that happened in 2017. And all of a sudden I was like, no, no, no, no, no. glad I said no. After I said no, the next week, this woman launched a book. Guess who she co-hossered it with? Oh, no.

The gentleman from 2007. I was like, whoa, that intuition like plays into, no, you know, like crazy stuff happens. My favorite story about the speaker-influencer guy is there's a guy in Vegas who remain nameless who, who,

um, purp, he, uh, puts himself out there as a very successful guy. He lives in Vegas and he speaks a lot and he's always speaking somewhere about influence and whatever he talks about. I'm sure I know him.

And he probably do. And he refinanced. So I get a call. Let me back up a little bit. I get a call, hey, we have a little bit of a problem at one of our title JVs that we built with another brokerage here. Yeah.

What's the problem? And the problem is they missed a loan on the payoff. So there's a $40,000 mistake on this. the guy was refinancing his house and got $40,000 too much. Now, keep in mind, when you do anything in a title company, they make you sign an agreement that states if there's anything that's missing from the title report, then, you know, you're going to have to pay it. It's just how it is.

If there's a mistake, there's a mistake, right? Nobody's perfect. So it's going back and forth. They're trying to keep the money, trying to keep the money, trying to do the money. And then in a meeting like three days later, you know, this guy is being very difficult, blah, blah, and at one point I heard his name. And I said, wait a second. Whoa, what was his name? They said his name again. I go, I know him. I said, okay, let me make a phone call. So I make a, I sent a text. Hey, person. I said, you know, this happened. Obviously, there was another payoff and it was a mistake.

And here you go. And, you know, it was 40 grand. I just, how do you want to get that back to us? Obviously, you just got too much. Now, keep in mind, this was a person that perpetuates themselves in the marketplace as somebody that was very successful. they were doing a cash out refi on their primary residence going from a 3% rate to like a 7% rate. That doesn't sound like somebody that's successful to me. That sounds like somebody that needs some damn money, right? That's scrambling, right? Yeah, it does. This dude then hires an attorney to try to sue us saying that he wouldn't have done the refi

if he knew that that other loan existed. And now his attorney that was trying to sue us has now dropped. it because for non-payment. And now his, so now our insurance company is after him. And it's just, it's, it's so insane.

And, yeah, I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to say it on the air. Yeah. But I've told a bunch of people that story. Yeah. In our circles that do speaking events and events.

I've told a lot of people that story. And, yeah, dude, you just do the right thing. Don't be a scumbag. Exactly. Because it will get out if you're a scumbag. It absolutely will.

So, So thanks for coming in, dude. If they want to find just a broadcaster authority, obviously we talked about your socials. If you're interested in learning how to build a personal brand, the easiest way, call Tamara. She's awesome. But I'm going to tell you something right now, why you should do this. There's a simple thing. There is no greater phrase that I hear from people that I am meeting for the first time in a business setting than this.

I feel like I already know you. And they feel like they already know me because they see me all over the place with the podcast or YouTube, or my Instagram and they've watched so much of me or they've gotten an idea of who I am as a person, it makes everything business go easier. So call Tamara. We'll see you next way.