Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP19 - Matt & Mike Talk Growthmode!

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Studio Overhaul and Savannah Bananas: A Deep Dive into Exceptional Fan Experience In this episode, Matt Mare and Mike Ndii discuss the recent upgrades to their recording studio, including the installation of new equipment and a complete rewiring of the setup. The conversation shifts to weekend activities, where Mike shares family bonding moments and attending his daughter’s dance competition. They then explore the unique fan-first business model of the Savannah Bananas baseball team, highlighting its innovative approach to providing unmatched entertainment. The episode also touches on insights into the company’s philosophy of constant growth and client-focused services in both IT and content creation under the Growth Mode umbrella. 00:00 Welcome and New Studio Setup 02:36 Weekend Family Time and Dance Competitions 06:27 Kids' Podcast and Logan Paul's Lunchables 09:56 Favorite Cookies and Sweet Tooth Confessions 13:00 Utica's Culinary Delights 17:23 Memories of McGill's and Local Eateries 20:31 The Evolution of Local Businesses 23:06 Navigating Economic Challenges 26:11 Growth Mode's Value Proposition 28:46 The Philosophy of Continuous Improvement 43:02 The Savannah Bananas Phenomenon 48:48 Closing Remarks and Humorous Anecdotes

You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog.

If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your site. Start free at RSS.com Welcome.

Good News York. That's us. We're here. We're rolling. We got some brand new equipment, which I know you can't see. I guess you can see the results of it, right? The video should be a little clearer,

a little more. The lighting, a little less hotter. Yeah, we upgraded to some serious studio equipment. And I spent the better, part of my weekend, rewiring the studio and hooking up all this fun stuff. Yeah. When it sucks, you can properly troll me on YouTube. Yeah.

Everything from your point of view probably looks the same. Maybe you notice the quality looks better, but if you could see the behind, like the just, it's clean, buddy. On top of adding new equipment, I want ham and rewired the whole damn studio. You really did. And it's gorgeous. And it was overdue. And here's what happens is this is a new thing for us.

And as we've been building it out, we've been adding pieces, changing pieces, moving things around. And in many cases, like on the fly. So when we pull a new mic cable or we do something like that, like we need to do it because we're recording in three minutes. And that turned into just a giant ball of wires everywhere and more tripods than any human should have. It really was. It's insane. So we bound it up. We've removed.

the amount of cables that I removed, it was one of those things where like, you take something apart and you put it back together and you're like, why do I have extra parts? But the amount of, and I knew there was some extra pieces that we would remove, but the amount that I ended up with that we don't need,

really cleaned up the place. What was the percentage of cords that were unused that you ripped out? See, most of them were in use. That was the wild part, but I rearranged everything. Yeah. And maybe we'll show a photo afterwards of the new console, we'll call it.

But rearranged it, went from two computers to one. So there was a little bit of reduction in some things. Yeah, for you tech dorks, maybe we'll post some pictures because it's clean. Our mission control looks great. Yeah. Makes you want to shoot more. Like now I'm... Let's go.

And we opened it up more, so the room actually looks bigger. It's a little roomier. I don't know. I'm just really happy with it and spent a lot of time on that over the weekend. What did you do this weekend? Dude, my weekend was fantastic. It was a lot of great bonding with my son and my daughter. My daughter had a dance competition right here in Syracuse,

and we stayed at a hotel right off a carrier circle, which is very close to us, very close to us. And my son wanted to come see the studio. So my daughter was absolutely amazing. Of course, I think she's the best. but that was long. It was at the Kraus Heinz Theater, which, by the way,

have you been, I'm assuming you've been to the Kraus Heard. No, it's a gorgeous theater. Oh, yeah. Absolutely gorgeous. What was it, dance? Yeah, it was like a dance competition. Okay.

All dance. Dancers from all over the place. I can't tell you how excited I was when my two younger daughters got done with Dan and moved on to gymnastics. Dude. I don't know what's worse. A dance, like an all-day dance competition

or an all-day volleyball tournament? Because she's in volleyball, I don't know. So my older daughter played volleyball in high school, and I take that over, I'll take anything over dance. Here's the thing, if you haven't been to one of these things, and I remind my daughter, if you ever question my love for you, sure. Remember these dancers. So you're at a competition. My kids were never competitive, but we just had the regular recitals, you know what I mean?

And you go to these recitals, there's 500 people because it's not just your kid's group. It's this whole dance school that's got hundreds of kids. Yeah. And you have to sit there through all that. And so your kid comes up and performs sometimes twice, sometimes just once. Either way, it's for three minutes. And you have to spend the other two hours. Watching other people's children.

Yes. It's painful. It really is. And it's not mean. Because all the kids that I'm saying I don't care about, all their parents are saying they don't care about my kids. And they shouldn't. And you're exactly right. You're there, you're watching them for however many minutes they're on stage

and the rest of time you're just sitting there watching other people. I love my kids and it's awesome. Love mine. But especially at that age too, it's not like dance competition in television. No. They're super cute. But that's the stent of the. But then there's that age group where it's not cute and you're just watching really boring dancers.

Yeah. I hate to say it. So gymnastics. So now my kids, my girls moved to gymnastics. This is a whole new world. That's different way. This is why it's so cool. They have these gymnastics.

It's not a recital, but the same. A couple times a year, the big thing where the families come in and watch. And the gymnastics area is set up where there's four or five different stations. And it all happens simultaneously. And you have a different group at every station. They're all just doing their thing. And then they go through it and they rotate. So it's like a sporting event.

There's always something to watch. your kid is always doing something. Yeah. And you don't have to wait. You get comfortable. You don't sit in this packed theater. You don't have to wait through other things to get to. Oh.

Yeah. No, I agree. But see, the bonus of the volleyball, and I only have volleyball to go on because that's the other thing. We've done lacrosse as well. Even then, the games themselves are entertaining. And when they're not playing, there's other games. So that's entertaining.

with, but it's an all day thing and it's not as organized. At least with the dance competitions, you have a program. Right. They moved through. So, you know, everything's got, but it was a lot. But anyway, we did that. And since we were so close, my kids wanted to come see the studio. And we timed that perfect because you wanted to surprise me with this whole new setup.

Yeah. And I hadn't seen it. I just noticed some things were pulled apart, which is normal for you. That's as far as I got. Yeah. And my son, which maybe will show the footage. I started recording on my phone because we didn't have this hooked up

because you were doing stuff and we sat here and we did a little mini podcast on lunchebles versus luncheys and what the fuck is a lunche Oh good It's so it's Like a Logan Paul

The what? Yeah so Logan Paul Is he the one Makes a Lunchable? Oh he makes Prime Yeah I know that Prime is his drink Yep

Now he's expanded into He's made his own of lunchables and the prime is in it. These boxes are huge. Oh, it's a lunch thing and we feed the kid prime to? But it's not even a mini prime. It's the size of the prime bottle. So you're talking the box is...

They didn't bother to make a smaller can. No. It's the only way we can move to this. And the irony is it's called lunch Lee, which L.Y, crack me if I'm wrong, is usually a... Is it suffix or what's the one at the end? That it means little or mini, something Lee. It's not. It's bigger.

So we had a little discussion on Lunchley's first Lunchables. It was cute, but I wanted to thank you because you gave me that memory with my son. It made me look like I was awesome, you know? You know what? My little one has been dying to make a podcast. We should just have the kids. Just let them rip and let them. Just turn it on and let them go.

Be hilarious. It's going to be depressing when it gets 10,000 views in 30 seconds. It really is. One thing we could do, and what I do love is, I love when you ask kids, not like hard hitting to where it's inappropriate, but like just questions about real things that are going on in the world.

And I just love that their answers nine times out of 10 are better than the adults or politicians or whoever are answering these questions because they have the solution in a simpler form and it's so wholesome. I'd love to do that. Maybe we should just... Maybe we should replace us with children.

I think we... Good news. ratings would bump for sure. But yeah, so thank you for that. He walked in your... Imagine a five-year-old and a foam hat interviewing Ryan McMahon. Basically that happened.

I have the personality of a five-year-old. But I do... What's your advice for throwing out the first pitch? What kind of budget cuts are you going to make? We walked in your office first, and I popped the light on, and my son... One of the most beautiful characteristics about children is that society has not taught them that you have to lie, right?

No filter. Right. So if you have bad breath, they're going to go, oh, your breath's bad. They don't know that, oh, you can't see that. This was a real reaction. I popped the light on in your office and he went, Dad, this is amazing. So I don't know if you needed to hear that, but he thought your office was amazing.

That's pretty cool. It was good. It was good stuff. So my weekend was chewed up with good, wholesome family time and dance. That's great, man. That's great. Yep. We're going to go to a crumb.

Shout out to crumble cookie. I guess that's a big deal around here. It's a big deal ever. It's like a national franchise. Yeah. We didn't have time to go. So my orders today from the fam were when you're leaving work, I'm going to put an order in. What do you?

Oh, you're just going to pick up? I'm just going to pick up. You're not going to go there and browse? No. I don't know the menu yet. And I would see it for out. I'm assuming it's cookie based. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's their whole thing. What's your go-to cookie? Like, what do you like a chocolate? Chip guy. What do you like? Do you get me going, man? Oreo is my...

Oreo, every day. Double stuff Oreo after dinner. I have two to three. I'm not kidding. I don't know why that's funny to me. I don't know why either, but that's okay. You can laugh at me. I have to eat.

I love me some more. Don't take me wrong. I just, I never expected that to be your answer. You know what it is? I don't want to get serious, but after I quit drinking, I am very, realize I'm very addicted to sugar. You don't realize. You don't realize how much sugars in alcohol, liquor.

So I think that's part of it. But I always had a sweet tooth. And every time I eat, I always need something chocolatey after. So, yeah, I would say Oreo double stuff is my go-to. But if you were like, hey, you can have any type of cookie. Jesus, cookie dough is always great. I'm a big fan of white chocolate. I think it's underrated.

White chocolate is underrated. It's very underrated. Very few people like it. And it's awesome. It's awesome. alone, on its own. Okay, maybe it doesn't hold water to other people. You throw white chocolate in with some peanut butter,

maybe some dark chocolate or whatever, regular chocolate? I'm pretty much good with anything. I've been known to throw it out a few handfuls of white chocolate chips by themselves. Oh, I get, I go farther. I'll put a little peanut butter on the spoon and then sprinkle the chips on there. Now you're working too hard. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just a fat kid who grabs the first thing. He can shove in his gullet.

Nutella. It's true. even get me going on that. I'm still, what's interesting to me, I guess, I don't know. Is that I'm 40 something

and I eat Oreos? Yeah, I know. No, like I said, see, eat Oreos. All right, all right.

Everybody loves Oreos, but when I say your favorite cookie, I assumed you would say some kind of, I don't know, homemade something or other. Like, half moons are mine. Original Hemstroth's half moons.

Meet, New York, right? Is that word? 100%. Yeah. Back in the day, you probably remember when we were little kids. Hemstroth.

It wasn't just the one. They had the whole chain in every town had the little local, an alien they had. I'm pretty sure there was one in Herkimer. There was one in Herkimer. Local bakery, you go and get those half-moon cookies. And they were fresh and soft. When I was a little kid, my mom got me,

you could get a cake. And for my birthday. Like a half-moon cake. Yes. Like the size of a pizza. Yes. I never got one for my birthday, but I've been to many a birthday parties

in the Mohawk Valley or Utica where you would get to have my house. the other thing that people may or may not know about. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, and hundreds more.

Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're in a podcast, chances are you have something to say too.

With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com.

Mani's Cheascakes? You remember Mani's Cheescakes? Yeah. I believe, I could be mistaken, and this could be dated information. I believe that business is still in business, even though it's being run out of the guy's house at this point. Oh, I did not know.

I thought they were done. It's my understanding. And again, this could be. be dated information, but it's my understanding that you can reach out to the guy and he will make you a cake and ship it. So great. It makes sense. What's the need for brick and mortar at this point?

Jeez, that would be something. I told you before. I didn't realize. World-class cheesecake. Until I moved away from the Mock Valley in the Utica area years ago, decades ago. I didn't realize how many Utica things there were. I didn't know that tomato pie. There are a few things that Utica does well.

Riggies. But eating is they make up for all their faults with some of the best. There's a reason that everyone in central New York is drastically overweight. It's good food. It's not just the weather. It's not just their metabolism. We eat like kings. No, we do.

And, you know, I remember I was at a Bills game and we had season tickets for a long time. So we would host these big tailgates. And every now and then, we would have. I would have friends from back home before I moved away to the Ithaca area. That would, so I would have my Utica friends meeting up with my Ithaca friends. And they brought, I'll never forget, they brought, one time they brought chicken riggies, another time they brought tomato pie, and a third time I think they brought half-moon cookies. And definitely with the riggies and the tomato pie, they were eating it,

and they would look like they had never, genuinely, my Ithaca friends had never had tomato pie before in their life. Or chicken, they knew about chicken riggies, but... Tomato Pie is an unsung hero. They were like, this is the greatest thing ever. I'm like, what do you mean? You never had this? I'm like, no, I didn't know it was a Utica thing. And it is fantastic.

It's where it's at, man. And it's just that you just keep eating it throughout the day. It's just there. Yeah. So it's always there. So like you're hungry, you eat it. You're full. Time goes by, you're re-hungry.

Yep. You eat some more. I mean, it's where it's at, man. You got the Utica. greens, which is a whole other story. You got so many of these great dishes. What really drives me crazy is when you go to these places that have them and they don't do them justice.

I hate that. Like one time I ordered Riggies from this place and I got a bowl of Ziti with tomato sauce on it and a chicken breast thrown on the top. Yeah. Not even diced up. Just thrown on the top. That gets the fart megaphone. You know what?

If you don't want to make the full blown recipe, that's cool. Don't sell it as such. Don't take a, don't, you know, you're on to something. A bowl of pasta with chicken. Yeah. Don't take a local traditional dish and then just shit on it. You know what I mean? Take that, leave it off the menu or do it.

Right, because, and for nothing else, you've got people like us that are going to bring people who are not from there and say, hey, you got to try rigging. So now they're going to walk away going, dude, chicken rigs are terrible. It's awful. It happened to my brother-in-law. He had Utica Greens from, I don't remember if someone brought him to Ithaca or where we were. He goes, the greens are disgusting. Extra challenge to find greens done. They are not necessarily an easy recipe.

I don't know if you've even tried to make them at home or not. My dad did. There's a lot to it. My dad crushed it. Yeah. He's from East Utica as he grew up in East Utica. It doesn't surprise me all that you. I have had a bad.

Your dad looks like the guy who could make green perfectly. He looks like East Utica. But yeah, he, he nailed it. It looks like a guy who, if his photo was on a pizza box, no one would question it. No, like when you hear Tony's pizza, like he looks, that's Tony's, he is Tony. That's his name. No, you're right. But he nails it.

I've had ones where I was like, this is, what are they doing? Right. I'll tell you what. My dad and my mom turned me onto a place in Frankfurt and I forgive me. I'm blanking out. That does. I'm not there anymore. No, it's there.

Oh. Because it was a recent that they brought it to me and it was phenomenal. Why am I blinking out? But anyway, Frankfurt has some of the best Italian restaurants you'll ever find. They never last long, though. No, I know.

But it's okay because when one closes and the other one opens, it's the same people. Yeah. So. Just different name, different locations. But it's not going to be hard to look it up. Google it. In the cousin's name.

I'll think of it. Unless Danny, you can, Frankfurt, New York restaurants. I don't know. But I'm sure you can find it. But it's an Italian place. But it's not like a place where you'd go, you would expect.

They must have amazing. Yeah, it's so good. So good. Do you remember, see, now we're going way back. Let's do it. Do you remember back in the day, the OG was McGills. Oh, yes. Where Riggies, arguably where Riggies came from.

Okay, I didn't know that. Arguably. When they were on Main Street and Hercimer, before it was McGills, when it was just Rendys. Yeah. They had that dish along before anybody else. But in the McGill's location that people know. You're talking about McGills, that's like between Utica and Hercimer. on old five.

Before that, it was Brandies, and it was where Glory Days was. Yes. That was way back. Yes. When I was a little kid. Right. But they had been serving that dish since then.

So in the McGill's days, what was incredible about it is you'd go there, and if you remember, you get chicken riggies. Uh-huh. And it was so large that literally you could feed the whole family. So you'd order one order. It basically should be one person's dinner, and they must have given you a pound and a half of pasta.

Jesus. My dad used to go there because he worked near there, and he would get it to go and literally bring home for the whole family. Yeah. One order of chicken riggies. After he'd already eat it. It was incredible. Oh, man.

It was the type where you could get it yourself. If you went to the restaurant, you sit down, you eat a full dinner, you take home leftovers and you have two more nights of leftovers. That's it. It was one of those deals where in a lot of places, probably for a good reason, don't do this anymore. Sure. The portions of everything was just so insane. Too much. But yeah.

But you had meals for the next two or three days. And you never questioned a value ever. And everybody goes, did I get my $13 worth? Yeah, I think so. I think you got it times three. Right. Yeah. I like, we're talking about this.

Mr. McGills was like on Route 5. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the place I had my first gig ever, my first band ever. I was 15. We were called Technical Willie. Yeah, that was our first gig ever. And the first bar they let me in as a 18-year-old. 16 or 17, I went to a bachelor party in the second half of that was separate, the restaurant

half, the banquet room. And my buddies gave me my, they paid for my first private dance. But my girlfriend was waiting for me after the party at McGill's. So I stunk like a dancer. And so they dumped a half a bottle of Jack Daniels all over me. And I went into Mr. McGills. And literally everybody was. was just like, what?

You reek like JD. It's not like strippers and booze. Strippers and booze, baby. That's the name of my first record. No, it's not. Probably should have been. But yeah, no. Chicken riggies, man.

If you haven't had it, proper. Some adventures at that place. That's for sure. A lot of adventures. Because I think the owner of Rendez is the one that opened McGills. Mark Randy. Mark Randy, yeah.

And by the way, fun fact, I graduated with his son, Mark Rendey Jr. How about that? Good guy. I don't know where he is now, but. How about it? them. I think, so the restaurant is long gone. I don't know why we're getting into the history of McGills,

but the restaurant is gone, but now I believe they still have the food truck, so you can get their riggies from a, at events and things. Isn't that funny how everything's going inward? You're talking about manny's, cheesecakes, now he's working out of his house. McGills is a truck. Everything's moving in. That's what happens with these long time sort of sole proprietor businesses. Yeah. And we talked about this with Christine. and details in the deal. Yes. There's these folks that have basically built a job for themselves.

They never really even positioned it as a company that they would sell off or handoff or whatever. So they're going to do it until they don't want to work anymore. And then that'll probably be the end of that business, which is wild. It is. But that's especially in the, in all honesty, growing up in the valley, in doing business, starting a career there, it was wild when you'd leave there and see how things aren't like that in the rest of the world. Exactly. These local businesses, they change hands.

Yeah. People retire and move in the valley. It's literally work until you die. Yes. And then, oh, yeah, remember this. You have to so-and-so's bakery? What happened to that? So-and-so passed away at 89 years old.

Yeah. That happened with in Herkimer, the Empire Diner. Oh, yeah. That switched hands quickly. The old ed. You just think, I think. I think this is humanity in general. I think we always assume, like, it's always going to be this way.

No, people don't realize all good things must come to an end. And, you know, it's funny, though, by the same token, sometimes I've reached the age where I'm blown away by some things that still exist. Yes. The way they always did. The other way. Like, you show up and you're like, how is this? Yeah, not changing 35.

How are you still the guy that works the desk at this plate? You know what I mean? Why is that the same sign behind the counter? Which is fine, but... Same business model. That's interesting to me. You know what I do love? There are a few places on this planet that have kept the same prices,

and I don't know how they're still in business, but they just want to keep it affordable and the way it always has been. Sometimes they're detriment. Yeah, right. Right. the I've seen people in the computer business do that. They're like, listen, our prices haven't changed since 1998. That's cool.

But. But also, like, you can't pay your bills. Yeah, you got to. So then how are you going to be there to support people? A little trip down the memory lane. No, that's, we'd go all day. We really could. TP driving.

Anyway. That reminds me, though, as we're talking about business, we get a lot of people reaching out to me at growth mode for our IT services and more and more. And what's interesting is we're entering a interesting economic time here in the country globally. Yeah. Saving money, cutting costs, things like that are becoming more and more of a priority. And luckily, our business is in a position to help folks with that. Yeah.

For years, we've really led us. on the fact of the amount of value and the different types of things we're doing for you. We haven't even really bragged about the fact that what we offer are some of the most cost-effective options for technology services that you could get for your business. 100%. We save you money over internal staff.

We save you money over almost any other provider in town. And quite frankly, we provide more value than all of those things combined at any price point. I'm very happy that we are in this position to help so many companies, hopefully make it through what will be hopefully a short economic downturn here. And the reality is this is something that we at least have a little bit of an idea is happening. So I want to say it's happening at this moment. You don't have so much room to get ahead of it, but you got a little bit. And if you can plan, you can make smart moves.

Good smart businesses will have no trouble. That's right. If you're selling a ridiculously priced luxury product that nobody really needs, you should probably work on your resume. The rest of us, especially at service industries, in... You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too.

With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com. Product industries that make things that people really need, if you offer a good podcast, and you offer a good value, I think you'll get through this without an issue.

And we're happy to help on the technical side. I'm glad you said that. People need to hear that right now. There's a lot of uncertainty. And especially for people that are older and maybe retired or about to retire or have a business. And things are uncertain anyway. So I think it's important that you say that. And it makes us we always, there's always a bounce back. There's always a correction.

And I think something that's exciting for us is, I remember I was thinking about this the other day with all the cutting going on and the government and things like that. And I start thinking, oh, what if I don't have a job? Wait a minute, I'm going to have a job. We're not affiliated with the government. And then I started thinking exactly what you said, which is we're actually the opposite.

We're going to help people what you do and what we do at growth mode content. What you do at growth mode content, tech, it's the opposite. Actually, this is a time for us to swoop in and help you get your word out there for your product to your service. 100%. And that's the other great thing about where we're positioned, and I'm glad you mentioned that with growth mode content, is really that same thing, right? Because we provide far more value for the price of any other branding or marketing effort out there. in our channel, unlike almost anybody else's, is social media. It's the one that people will use the most.

It's not a service that requires a subscription. It's not a service that people have to go out of their way to find or use. It's what they're already on and we'll spend probably more time on if they've got less disposable income to get out, unfortunately. Yeah. But that's where we are and that's where we're positioning local businesses so they can grab that. And we've already seen results. Right. Which I'm going to pull the curtain back a little bit.

When we started and we're telling our clients like, hey, look, it could take weeks. It could take months. It's legitimately a branding effort. It's a branding effort. Fire sale. People jump on it as soon as they're. So we're like when your podcast comes out or when the social media clips come out, it could be a slow.

We're going to find out. And I remember after two weeks, we got our first email from one of our clients who said, you're not going to believe this. After my first episode, a client that I was trying to get emailed me and said they saw it, and now they want to do business. And again, peeling the curtain back, that was not guaranteed.

And I was surprised. I didn't think it would be, I didn't think we would see that kind of result yet. So it gave us more confidence. And then obviously it gave us, it made us look really good with our clients and they're happy. And that's all, want. And that's the whole point of growth mode technologies in general, all the different things

we do, is to make businesses better. And the only way you can do that is to offer a quality service at a reasonable price. Because we're not the biggest company in town, right? There's a bunch of other guys that could in theory come and they could do it cheaper because they can afford to have lower margins. Right. Like that. The problem is nobody does and nobody does with more value. And that's the part that I think is most important. At any price point, if you were to double our fees for any of our services, when you see what you get for, it would still be a worthwhile situation.

100%. And that's continuing to grow. Yeah. One of my philosophies in business in all of these is to continue to increase value, right? And so there's so many places where, and maybe I should be charging more for some of these things, but there's things in both IT and now in the content business where if I find an opportunity, I can make a small investment and that's something that all my folks, all my clients can use, I'm going to do that and probably not charge them extra for it.

And there's more and more things, and I don't want to get into too much detail of what's coming before it's official. But on the content side, we're in the process of making a deal that's going to provide incredible additional value for all our content clients for zero additional dollars. And these are the types of things that this is my philosophy of just be so good that nobody could ever consider something else. And that's where we need to be, right? Because as you mentioned, these different cuts, and we at Growth Mode, we don't have any government clients, but we do have a lot of charities.

And a lot of charities are funded by that. and a lot of that is affected. So we have the potential to have some downturn in our existing clients, but that's the other reason that we are working hard. We're adding new folks every day. And we as a business are planning and will be in a good shape to weather these things. So I think that's really just the key. And that's always the key, right, in business is to do your best,

and there's so many surprises, but do your best to have an idea what could happen. Yep. And prepare for, prepare for multiple contingencies. Yeah. And I think another aspect of how you do business that I think is important to highlight and correct me if I'm wrong. But I feel like you have always been about the customer, and that gets thrown around way too loosely.

Sure. You really are. You're the type of business owner that is going to keep the costs as low as he can for the customer without putting yourself in the hole. But I think the part that, you know, is important to highlight is that you're always keeping it at the right scale to where you can give everybody the maximum service. So you're not going to sign on 100 clients and leave it just the handful of us here. You know when to scale, but never losing that one-on-one quality. Does that make sense?

It does. we're at a size right now where we can give our dozen clients one-on-one care and meet all their needs. And if and when we grow, we're still going to give that level. We'll just have to scale whether that's more employees. Yeah, more mics and dannies, exactly. Hopefully more dany's. Oh, you know, a little more of me. But that's a different story.

Might be so good for that. But, yeah, no, it's. And I think that's, that goes a long way. No, you're absolutely correct. And I'm glad you mentioned that because that is one of our big selling points, especially on the IT side, is that we have human service, right? AIs are great. Automation is great and we'll make use of that as much as possible.

But anytime you call our phone number a human, 24-7 will answer the phone. That's right. When you need help, we dispatch people to your own. office and actually not even when you need help. Our IT folks make regularly stop in visits and check on all of our clients on a very regular basis. So you get that human level of service that most folks in our industry now are trying to do as little of as possible. Yeah. They're either trying to fully automate or they're trying to fully remote. And there's time and place for that. We've got a great remote help desk team. Sure. Who never has stepped foot in this office. A couple of

incredible ladies run that. They do an incredible job for us. And that's great. But there's also times where we need to send somebody to go put their hands on things. And that's the type of thing that we do. The advantage, though, is as you mentioned, as we grow and scale and we add people, that helps all of our clients because that's just more talent. So everybody we bring in, even if there's the same position, you're a level two IT person. Sure. Sure. There's the same level. of basic skills that every level two IT person could do. But each one of them comes with their own specific experience. And they've got a system they worked with at a previous employer that they're an expert on,

that nobody else on our team is. And those types of resources become available then to every client. For no extra money, we have all this talent on hand that we can then extend to them. So the more folks we bring on, the more we scale, the better we get, which in many cases is the opposite. Exactly. People try to squeeze and it's two guys can handle a dozen clients. I think two guys can handle 40 clients. Right.

You know, where you just have to keep up with that. I agree. And I think it's important to know it's been a while. So I think this is important. People see growth mode content, growth mode tech. Maybe there's some confusion. This place is incredible. And this is Matt's brainchild.

growth mode tech offers, and you can talk about growth more tech. Let me talk about the growth. So the growth mode content side of this business is it is a one-stop shop, essentially a production company. You come here, whether you're on your own or if it's for your business, you create your own monthly podcast. We chop that up into social media clips. We schedule them.

We put them out. And it is advertising in the form of a podcast. You have a full episode that everyone's going to see once a month, but you also have throughout the month a ton of clips. On top of that, we have obviously Good News York. But we don't just shoot these things and put them out. We're managing your social media. A lot of times you'll find there's a lot of people out there that hide behind the,

not hide, but they go behind this social media manager or marketing company. And it's not that. We are not only your, we're shooting it and producing it. We're managing your social media. And it's a team effort. It's never like we're going to take over. It is we work with you. But what people are forgetting is there's a whole other side.

Our clients come here to shoot the podcast and they go, I'm thinking about getting some phone software. You guys do that. Oh, wait, you guys install this. On top of the content part of it, you've got growth mode tech if you want to talk about that side. So that's growth mode technologies is the overarching company. And there's lots of different ways to set things up.

I have been a fan of. And at some point, the structure might change. But I've been a fan of kind of having one main company and having different divisions. Yep. Different products, if you, so to speak. And we've put everything under that umbrella of growth modes. We've got growth mode content.

Both mode only fans coming soon? No. Growth mode phone, which there's going to be a new site launch for that. That's our business communication system that we're branding the same way. That's something that's incredible. We talk about cost savings. That's something that beats the cost of every phone provides. are out there and has more features.

Love it. And it's another one of those things where I could just charge more and be right in line with everybody else. I'd rather give more people the value and offer that. But all of these different divisions of growth mode, and of course, your local IT department is the brand of specifically our IT services. But all of these things are designed, again, to build businesses and make people better. So that means the community, that means employees at various clients.

That means the business owners themselves. But everything we do is around growth. Yep. We're growth mode. So as you were saying that, and this is more about me always being late to the party than you, I just had hit me right between the eyes. When you first, you and I first got into discussions about me being a part of this and thank God I am, I love it.

But I remember you saying, we're going to call it growth mode content. And at first, I was just like, growth mode, that's okay. That couldn't be a better name. Because here's an example. I walked in this morning after a weekend and every weekend, you either have a new light or a new camera or a new setup or a new this, new software. And at first I thought it was just because you're like, you're a gear nerd. You love that kind of stuff.

You're constantly growing the business. You're always making things better. And now it's hitting me like growth mode. you are always growing, which is a key component to any entrepreneur or any business. And I think that that's the part that the clients are going to benefit from the most other than what we do is you're going to be a part of a company who's run by somebody who is always growing, which in turn, the clients grow with us. And that's so important.

And whether it's new software or whatever, but you're always upping the game. Yeah, and this has been a continual evolution. And part of the reason for that is it's a completely bootstress. strapped business. So what I mean by that is there's no investors, there's no loans, there's no partners. It's literally, we have the money to pay you because we have a client that's signed up to pay us. That's right. And that's the way every business I've ever built has ever been. For really no reason other than that's the only way I knew. If I was friends with some guys that We're venture capitalists, and maybe I would have went the investor route sooner.

I'm not necessarily knocking these things. But it's what I know in what I've known to do. What goes along with that is that constant evolution. We picked up a new client. We got a little bit more new money. We can add some higher level equipment and tweak and grow and reinvesting. We start out with this video wall that I purchased before this launched and putting that together and just adding all these different pieces.

to where some of these, you get a startup or you get a couple of fellas with some money that come together, they want to start a business. They throw this huge chunk of change in up front and they'll have the most incredible thing on day one. Yeah. I'm never going to have the most incredible thing on day one. It's always going to get better with time. But at the same time, I also don't waste money that way. No. Because I can't tell you how many startups are like drop half a million dollars on the fanciest everything.

Yeah. and fall apart because their business model was good or something like that. I think the other reason I'm so impressed by it is because there's been so many employers I've worked for over the years where not only were they not trying to adapt and grow, it was almost the opposite. How long has this piece of equipment been in this building that hasn't been working and affecting the flow of our business? There's the opposite, the neglect side of it. But you do it in every facet. I don't even just mean growth mode in that, yeah, you're buying new cameras and new lights and

we're tweaking, yeah, you get that, the growth mode mindset for the actual productions themselves. But even adding on, like you said, adding services that we can add for each client, you're always growing. And I think that should be and hopefully is a big reason why we have the clients we do is they're realizing like, wow, we're growing with them. Yeah. No, that's 100% correct. And that's always been my philosophy is that we grow together. And that's literally true. In our IT world, our pricing is based on the size of your company. We base our price on what it takes to maintain. As you grow, it takes more.

So we grow. And literally, the only way we get more money from you or generate more revenue is if you do better and you grow as a company yourself. But I think there's also, and again, you're the entrepreneur. Correct me if I'm wrong. There's also something to be said about knowing when to grow. Sure. I've seen people grow businesses, business owners that grew, tried to grow too fast and now they can't afford it or their overheads too much or whatever it is. 100%.

I've noticed with you, and I don't want to jinx it, you've always grown the right amount and at the right time. I've calculated. I've tried. And that's a challenge because the reality is at many points, even today, our team is the biggest it's ever been. And quite frankly, we could get by with a few more people. helping us do a few more things. I don't necessarily could afford that just yet. And that's okay.

So that's, you're absolutely right. But the other side of it that's nice about this business is all of our services are on a recurring monthly model. So when a new client signs up, it's not just that they bought this one new thing and I got this sale today. It's that I now have an additional chunk of recurring revenue that I can base positions on. And that's what allows me to really scale in a better way than a lot of businesses. If you're a retail store, you got some days are better than others.

You don't necessarily know what your month to month is going to average it out, right? You do your best. But with our type of business, we're lucky enough to where we know exactly when somebody signs on, they're going to be with us for this long. And we're going to generate this much. That means I can afford these things. Yeah. And it's, I come from a performance background of music and comedy.

And it's like, the fans, right, or the clients, they're your boss. Yeah. You see a lot of business owners or people out there who provide services or a business to where you rely on the customer that are cursing their customers or clients out. And it's, hey, that's your boss. Because without their money, he ain't doing shit. So. We're running out of time here. That leads me to something that I want to talk about in the future, that exact thing, which the Savannah bananas.

Oh, my God. All right. Genius. Just to not get into this too deep today. But if you are even slightly familiar with this organization, you might have heard of them. You might go, oh, they're sounded like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. But better. Comedy, entertaining baseball.

Dig in deep. That's all I'm going to say. And we'll talk about it more, but anybody who's listening today and they want to dig in deep. Follow the gentleman. What is his, see, I don't even remember his name. The guy in the yellow tucks. That might even be his name. He's the guy.

I don't remember his name. TikTok. It might even be like yellow tux man or something like that. Sure. He's a genius. Yeah. He created this business and they talk about it being fan first. And again, that's one of, like you said, that's everybody.

Oh, yeah, we're for the cut. Everybody says that, right? Sure. This dude embodies it in a way that I have never seen anybody. And I think this is a model that. every business owner, no matter what business you're in, you need to be paying attention to this guy.

It is so in depth. And again, we're going to get into more of it, but it is so in depth in terms of what they have tried to do to completely focus on fan experience. Yeah.

Their number one goal is that you come out to one of their events and it is the best time you've ever had in your whole life. And they're not, again, it's not like a slogan. The things that they do, like advertising,

they took all the advertising out of their ballpark. They said, they went to their fans and they said, just seeing that ad on the backboard there, does that enhance your experience? Does that make it a better day at the ballpark? No. It's gone. Which is, sorry to interrupt.

Which is insane. Right. Because. Their number one source of revenue. That's what I'm saying. Like, for you to make that kind of decision, business decision, to cut a huge source of revenue, especially in sports.

Yeah. If you didn't believe he was all about the fans before, you have to now. You know how much money he's leaving off the table? And it's awesome. They get down to planning every minute of the game. And, you know, where most of it, you go to a baseball game like we did. Which, shout out, go watch that video as one of the most ones. We've had in a while last week.

But you go to the game, you get in, you sit down, they mosey around, they do some things. Eventually, the game starts, they throw up, whatever. The Savannah Banana starts with entertainment in the parking lot. Oh, see, I didn't know that. And outside the venue. And then they have a small window where they want you to get in and get in your seat. And 90% plus of the audience is in the seat ready at first pitch. That's because they have so much happening.

They don't want to miss it. They don't want to miss it. And it's intentional. It's so nonstop from the second you pull in, your head. having an experience. And this is the type of thing that, again, as we talk about, you know, as things get a little tougher and people start spending less and less money, they're going to look at these options. And we can go to a regular everyday baseball game or we can go to this thing that's going to blow

my mind. And this is my, used to be monthly budget. Now it's my quarterly entertainment budget. And I don't know which one's helping the other or hurting the other. but this is also coming at a time where Major League Baseball, I know you don't follow sports, but Major League Baseball is struggling to keep people interested. And it's for no other reason than we've just evolved as a society.

Back in the day when it was America's pastime, and still some ways it is, there was nothing else to watch. Or then when TV came along. Why the game is so long? It's why there's so many games a season. And they're trying to speed up the game by adding the pitch. clock and they're doing things that and it is helping but they're at a point where like how much

more can we cut without compromising the game itself so now you got savanna bananas and it's the opposite it is clearly the major league baseball can't do what savannah bananas are doing but it's just it makes it a time i got a wonder and this is again a question for when we get in i want danny in on this when we talk about i don't i want his i love you did i want his professional inside baseball inside here. Sure. These guys are selling out football stadiums. That's nuts.

Football stadiums that they've put a baseball diamond on for one game because that's how many people they're filling. And so I say that to say, are they going to overshadow traditional baseball? Are they going to drive right past them? Dude, at this point, it thinks possible. I don't know. I get an interesting thing to think about it.

There's little tweaks that Major League can make, and we won't get into it. But starting with a salary cap. So in all other sports, I think all are the major sports, definitely in football, there's a salary cap. So there's a league-wide salary cap. It's shared revenue, too, but that says every team has X amount to spend each year. And it goes up every year because it's shared revenue. Baseball does not. So there is a huge lot.

So when there's teams like in the 90s with the Yankees and still the Yankees now in Mets and Red Sox. But the Dodgers just spent. They could spend so much more. 800 million. And so there's a huge, like teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds are struggling because of the market size. And just that alone is let's get a salary cap and let's make this a little more

interesting. Let's get some more competitive games. But yeah. But you know what? Before we go, I do want to say. Sure. We're talking about how you like to grow. Growth mode.

Yeah. If you didn't believe me that it was in every facet, I'm going to prove it to you. You son of a bitch. I walked in today and I see a good news, York, gigantic, big, dumb cup. Now, I thanked him, and I love you for this, and I am excited,

but if you've been watching the show or if you've been to any of my stand-up, I did buy it to break your child. I have a whole stand-up bit about how my wife loves water bottles, and this is the exact water bottle I was talking about when I said, it's like they said, I want to make something so clunky and annoying that can't fit in any cup holder in America and makes loud noises when it falls. That's what we're going to do. And now I have one, so thank you.

Just, I saw it and I had to. What the fuck? Who wants this much liquid going through their body at one time anyway? It's so clunky and I just, but thanks, buddy. Anyway. Guys, I'm Matt Masure. I'm Mike Brindisi. This has been good news, York.

We'll see you tomorrow.