Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Conrad Thompson on becoming the "Podfather" of wrestling, having Ric Flair as a father-in-law

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

Conrad Thompson talks with Chris Van Vliet from the adfreeshows.com studios in Huntsville, AL. He discusses his job as a mortgage banker, where his entrepreneurial tendencies came from, how he started as a podcaster, what it's like having Ric Flair as a father-in-law, some of the interesting items in his sports memorabilia collection, his advice for aspiring podcasters, what it's like working with Bruce Prichard and much more!   Support the show by supporting our sponsors:INDEED- Try it today with a $75 credit to boost your job post by going to http://indeed.com/BlueWire BETONLINE- Get a FREE welcome bonus by using the promo code BLUEWIRE at http://betonline.ag Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ladies and gentlemen. Chris. Let's do this thing. Welcome to the Chris Van Vleet show, and you guessed it. I'm Chris Van Vleet. Thanks to Bet Online and indeed for sponsoring this episode. And if you listen to wrestling podcasts at all, it's hard not to have a huge appreciation for what Conrad Thompson has built.

He's the man behind five wrestling podcasts right now. Something to wrestle with. 83 weeks, Arne, what happened when, and grilling JR. He is truly the podfather when it comes to pro wrestling. And it's just so interesting hearing how all of this started because he wasn't exactly the biggest diehard wrestling fan when this all began.

Take a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening. Tag us on social media so we can say, Say hi. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. He's at, hey, hey, it's Conrad. And thank you so much for the wave of reviews that we got last week. These are really the biggest thing that we can have that help the show grows. So thank you to everyone who can write a review, you know, everyone that listens on Apple Podcasts. And thank you to everyone who's taken the time to do this. I really super appreciated. This one comes from the Ottman in Africa. One of the top.

Wrestling Podcasts. Oh my goodness. Hey, CVV, hope you're doing good. My name is Otman, a long-time listener from Rabat, Morocco, Africa. I just want to say thank you for your efforts into putting up such awesome interviews. Wow. Well, thank you, sir. And I'm going to continue reading one on every single episode till we get to that very specific goal of 2000 reviews before my birthday, May 19th. So we've got lots of time. We've got five months. I can totally do this thing. So thank you for that review and thank you for, I'm going to thank you in advance for all the reviews that we're going to be seeing over the next few months. You know, a lot of people know Conrad Thompson as just the wrestling podcast guy. They just know him as the co-host of all the shows that he's part of.

Or perhaps they know him for running the Starcast events. But there is so much more to him than just wrestling. He still very proudly works his job as a mortgage banker. And we talk about where his entrepreneurial tendencies came from. Also, what it's like having Rick Flair as his father-in-law. We talk about where he got the idea to start these wrestling podcasts. His vast and insane sports memorabilia collection and what he wants to add to that, some really interesting items that he really wants to get his hands on. We talk about all that and so much more.

So please say, hey, hey to Conrad Thompson. Well, there he is. You may be, I think you may be one of the busiest people in all of pro wrestling, so I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Conrad Thompson, how are you, my friend? I'm good, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to come on and talk a little wrestling with you today. No, I appreciate you making the time because you have so much going on in your world. I mean, people are aware of what you're doing in terms of podcasting, but beyond that, you have a thousand other things going on. Yeah, it's good to be busy and I've been very, very busy this year. Well, that's a good thing. And I appreciate that you're still a mortgage broker first.

Even though you're a wrestling fan, even though you're wrestling podcaster, you're still a mortgage broker first. Well, technically I'm a mortgage banker, but yeah, mortgage advisor. I help people with home loans, get out of debt, buy their first house, upgrade, remodel, whatever. But that's my first love. And I've managed to somehow dovetail that in with talking about old wrestling. So I have like the coolest gig ever. It's like the two seem to have nothing in common. on the surface, but you're right. You've

dumbtailed them together and you've been very successful, so congratulations to you on that. Thanks, man. And it's cool to be invited to do stuff like this. Why in the world would anybody want to talk to the mortgage guy from Alabama? But here we are. I actually want to have a conversation about mortgages. So maybe we'll slide that in here a little bit.

If we take this back, Conrad, what did Conrad Thompson as a kid want to be when he grew up? Well, I mean, listen, I grew up playing football, so that seemed like a fun idea, but I knew that wasn't going to be like a real thing. My family were a bunch of entrepreneurs and were always in sales. So I kind of imagined that would be it. I liked the idea of being like an investment banker,

and I didn't hate the idea of perhaps being an attorney. And I wound up being a mortgage dude slash podcaster, accidental promoter. So I missed the mark a little bit, but I'm sure am having fun. I don't know. When you, when you grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, if you then also become an entrepreneur, I think that you nailed the mark. Well, there you go, yeah. But grandma had a business. Grandfather had a business. Mom had one. Dad had one. Uncle had one. Aunt had one. So it was my turn, I guess. And now we're doing it with mortgages and rassler. So what kind of businesses did you already have in your family? Lots of insurance stuff. There was some healthcare stuff, some retail sales stuff. You know, it was a, my uncle had a trucking business once upon a time, but a little bit of everything. But, you know, my dad was a salesman. He sold insurance when I was a kid and then later did some retail sales. And I just imagined that I would be in sales. And I sort of accidentally fell into mortgages and realized, hey, this is kind of sales too. But now I'm selling free money. Like, that's the easiest sell in the world. So here we are. So how do you accidentally fall into mortgages?

I was going to college and still working a full-time job. And I was in an office complex in Huntsville. And our next door neighbor, one office over, one suite over, was a mortgage guy. And he stopped me in the breezeway and just asked about our sales cycle and how that worked. And fast forward, he asked me to come shadow one day and see what I thought about mortgages. But I was 19. I didn't know anything about mortgages. But I started, I guess, a couple of months after I turned 20.

And it's all I've done now. I'm 39, so I've been doing it more than 19 years. And I can't imagine doing anything else. Yeah, this is half your life pretty much. Yeah, absolutely. So before then, you know, you've got a family of entrepreneurs. Did you have those entrepreneurial tendencies? You know, did you have the lemonade stand or whatever it would be?

Oh, sure, yeah. I did the lemonade stand thing. I also got into baseball cards and basketball cards and became pretty profitable at that. So, yeah, I had an ambition to sort of create my own. lot in life. And it's been fun. You know, it's obviously challenging because you don't, you don't have the security and the guarantee. You're just gambling on yourself. And there's been sometimes that were better than others. But it's been worth it in the long run for sure. You also can't complain about your boss with what you do. Well, that's the bad thing. Sometimes

it's easy to blame your boss, but you really learn a lot about accountability when you sort of live and die by what you kill and what you eat. So I don't want to dive too much into this. part, but what did 2008 look like in your industry? Well, it's crazy. You know, when I first got in the mortgage business here in North Alabama, when you flipped open the yellow book, yellow pages. Yellow pages, wow. People had a phone book, right? There's like 17 pages of mortgage companies. But then you fast forward to like 2009 and there's one page. So, you know, it was sort of

a lesson in Warren Buffett sold, you know, be greedy when others are fearful. So when all the advertising dollars eliminated, you know, there is no mortgage company advertising. Everybody cut their ad budgets because they're just trying to tread water. I said, hey, let's go all in. So I bought a ton of radio. I bought a ton of TV. And we, you know, grew our business 10X during that time. So where everybody around me was having their worst year ever, I was having my best just because, you know, I had no competition.

Lots of people left the business and even more left the advertising space. So I was the only voice in North Alabama and Middle Tennessee radio and TV for a while, and that paid pretty well. I think that's actually amazing because a lot of people would see that and be fearful. They'd go, well, I can't spend my advertising money here. I need money to keep the lights on. Correct. But, you know, I was young and dumb and I was like, you know what?

My income had sort of plateaued. It had been within $10,000 one way or another for two or three years. And if you're a young salesman, that's frustrating. You know, you're always wanting to do more and sort of. climb every year, over year. And that wasn't going to be possible unless I tried something different. So I said, hey, you know what? I'm going to dump, I think it was 60 grand. I'm going to spend all this in two months and see what happens. And at the end of the second month, we were rolling and we never looked back. So that was honest with you behind doing the podcast. I'd been paying so much. I mean,

I guess at my height, we were probably spending, we have over $100,000 a month in advertising. That's not a national campaign. That's Alabama and Tennessee. So, So when I was like, you know what, what if I could just create my own platform? I don't have to pay to be on someone else's platform. I can create my own. I don't have to pay a morning DJ to do an endorsement. I can do the endorsement. Maybe that would work.

And along the way, it can help Bruce sell some appearances and we could sell Bruce some T-shirts and who would have ever predicted that it would get Bruce back into WWE. And I would go from a handful of states to 45 and it's worked out. So podcasting was a good idea. So if that was what the market looked like in 2008 for you, have you seen it kind of mirrored a little bit now with what's going on with COVID? No, not at all. I mean, this has been our busiest year ever. You know, the world's changed. So in terms of, you know, the need for commercial real estate, that's totally different. I think that's going to be sort of the new norm that everybody's just used to working at home for a long time now. So that'll be a change. You know, even lower. local customers now are comfortable just doing everything over the phone or online. They would rather not interface. So that's really the only change. But, you know, all the craziness with COVID has

caused a lot of people to be stir crazy at home. So they want to do some remodeling. And all of a sudden, interest rates were cheaper than they've ever been in the 20 years I've been doing it. So people could make their dollar go further. And it was a home run. Wow. Well, you know, you mentioned Bruce Pritcher, but I think we got to take it back a little bit further before that. It was Rick Flair. that actually, you know, you started podcasting with Rick Flair. Was that at the local CBS radio station? In Atlanta, yeah. In Atlanta.

So he's in the suburbs of Atlanta, but they wanted him to come in. Obviously, he doesn't computer. So it was easy to sell him on. Just come downtown to the studio. We've got everything you need. We'll take care of everything. So I went over for the first several. And then after that, we realized, hey, we can just do this by Skype.

So we started doing it that way. It saved me a trip, whether it was by car or a 22-minute flight to Atlanta, no big deal. But yeah, I became an accidental podcaster when Rick asked if I would come in for his first episode and just ask fan questions. And at the end, CBS was into it. And so was Rick. So I became an accidental podcaster with zero experience or training or school or classes. Just a happy accident. Was the only broadcasting experience you had selling ads to radio and TV partners?

No, just me being on air, morning and afternoon drive. So we would do what was called like an island spot. So, you know, it might sound like, hey, that was Ozzy Osbourne, up next, your chance to win Metallica tickets. But first, let's hear for our man, Conrad Thompson and first family mortgage. Conrad, you're saving people money this afternoon on the ride home, aren't you? He throws to me live on the radio. I do my little spiel, cut my promo, if you will. Yeah.

And, you know, people would call in or go to the website or whatever our called action was. but Rick had heard me do that on live radio in morning and afternoon drive. So he knew that, hey, if he has to, he can talk about this wrestling with me and make it comfortable for me. And he knows enough about radios and not say something he shouldn't say. So, yeah, that was it. That was just a, hey, will you come in for the first episode and they liked it? So I became the accidental co-host. Anyone that's listened to any of your podcasts would think that you are a massive lifelong wrestling,

fan because you had this like encyclopedic knowledge of wrestling. I guess you kind of just tricked everyone. You're a wrestling fan, but you just do great, great research. Yeah, we have a, we prioritize prep on the shows. And I feel like, you know, and you know this,

with any sort of interview or any sort of broadcast, the real work starts with the preparation, not when you click record. Absolutely. If you're ready right then, it's going to be a good show. But if you click record and then try to figure it out, it's not going to be sustainable. That's not going to make for entertaining radio or video or whatever. So that was really it, man. You know, we just

spent a lot of time preparing and then click record and hope for the best. Yeah, but like you, you rhyme off all these incredible, amazing facts that the people you're talking with probably don't even remember some of them. Well, yeah, but a lot of that is not just because I'm, you know, Encyclopedia Brown over here. We've got a real Google, I mean, here's the peak behind the curtain. We do a big data dump on a Google Doc, and it may start with 65 pages. of everything we can find from shoot interviews or copy paste from books or from the torch or from the observer

or history of www.com. And then once we've got all that information, we whittle it down to 18 to 25 pages usually and try to get sort of our direction of what's the story we're trying to tell. And then I'll share it with my co-host the day before, maybe two days before, so they have a chance to watch the show that we're covering

and then thumb through the notes just to sort of jog their memory. And some guys don't want to do that. They want to be surprised and me hit them with it cold. I think, you know, if I overthink the answer, it won't be entertaining. And I get that. But others say, no, I want to be prepared. I don't want to say, I don't remember that.

So I give them a chance to, you know, have their option. Do you want to see these notes or not so much? And then a lot of times, you know, they'll actually follow me along. You know, Bruce Pritchard, I can see his cursor move when I'm going through the notes. So he knows where I'm going next. It's not a surprise. So if you were to break down your current week as a percentage, How much is mortgages and how much is wrestling?

Really, it's kind of easy. Through the week, it's all mortgages with the exception of Bruce and with the occasional exception of JR. When JR and I record, we do it first thing. So at 7 a.m. my time. The shows are usually done in around two hours. So between 915 and 9.30, I'll be finished and then I can head on into the office. Bruce, his schedule is really Vince McMahon's schedule. So sometimes we'll record at 6 in the morning and sometimes we're at midnight.

and whatever time we say it's going to be, it's going to change two or three times. So, you know, I've got to be a little fluid with him, but everybody else I record on the weekends. You know, I record Eric every weekend. I record Arne every weekend. I record Tony every weekend. So, and we usually do those again, first thing in the morning.

So I carve off my weekend morning, say from 8 to noon or 8 to 1 on Saturday and Sunday, and that gets me taken care of for the whole week. I just think I'm so impressed by your time management, which is why you're so successful. But I think a lot of people struggle to do one podcast a week. You do five along with running this other companies. So how are you able to balance everything? Delegation.

I've got a great supporting cast. Dave Silva makes us look good with his cool graphics. Stan Morris is helping us out with research. Occasionally we have to tag in Chris or Derek to help fill in the gaps there. Chris is doing a great job making our videos. Hancock's handling our social. Evan is handling ad-free shows.com. Steve is handling YouTube.

So, you know, a lot of folks who say, man, it's hard for me to get one podcast out a week. They're doing all of those things. Yeah. It's not really fair to say that I'm doing five times what they're doing because, you know, we've been fortunate enough to build this into a business now. And we're selling ads and we have the revenue to employ these folks.

So, you know, a lot of people are eating pretty good because of the podcast. And it allows me to be able to do five. Because if I had to do all of that, you're exactly right. I can only do one a week. But I think a really tough thing for any entrepreneur. No matter what business you're in is delegating. Because you know that if you do it, it's going to be 100% right every single time. When you delegate it, 80 or 90% right is going to have to be good enough.

Yeah, and that's true. But they're also, you know, I like to say the phrase in our group, speak Conrad. Do they speak Conrad? Because sometimes, you know, in this text message world we're in, you know, you're going to speak in shorthand very briefly, you know, and I can say things to Chris or to Dave Silva who've been working with me for a long time. And they know exactly what I mean right away. But a new person, you know, we're going to have to work together and sort of find our groove. And once we've got that, you know, now they sort of speak Conrad. And my little eight-word answers make all the sense in the world.

But it doesn't make sense to other people? No. And I take that for granted. You know, when we bring on somebody new to the team, I just shorthand like I always do. And there's a lot of times where we need some follow up and clarification. But once we've actually done a few projects together, they're like, okay, now I get what do you mean? No problem. What would you say has been, you know, the real secret sauce for, I mean, all your podcasts have been super successful. But I think that what you're doing with something to wrestle with, I mean, that was really what started to take off. What was the secret sauce there? Bruce is an incredible storyteller.

I mean, with all the silly voices and our rapport, you know, just especially when Bruce and I are doing the podcast in person or we've got our video turned on and we can actually see each other, we've spent so much time with each other that we can almost finish each other's sentences. And we can just give each other a look and we know what it's going to be. Because at this point, you know, we've done live shows all over the world, you know, a few times. So I just know where he's headed a lot of times and he knows where I am. and that camaraderie and that relationship, I think, really works.

And I think really our podcast was one of the first ones where there was a quote-unquote celebrity and a fan on equal footing. A lot of times, you know, the fan is just there to sort of drive the bus at most and then just tee up the celebrity. And I do that too, but I'll push back and I'll argue and we'll fuss and we'll make it, you know, a talk radio formula. That's what works for sports talk radio or political talk radio. So we just do the same thing on the shows.

but our topic is, you know, it's an evergreen situation. And I hate that word, but it makes sense. You know, if you and I were to talk about, you know, this past weekend's AEW paper review, that's only going to be hot or topical for a few weeks and then people have moved on. But in a weird way, if we talk about the 1990 Survivor Series, that doesn't get old.

And that's a fascinating thing. But I think the secret sauce is really most of all, we're talking about nostalgia. You know, we all are sort of chasing our wrestling high. And we want to pretend like we were little kids again and we want to love it like that again. And as far as we can and as much as we try, we can't recapture it with what we see on Mondays or Wednesdays or Fridays. And it's not because wrestling has changed, just because we've changed too. And we just, we long for the stuff we grew up on.

So that's what we are, man. I'm a nostalgia dealer on the podcast. Are you in the camp of people going wrestling used to be so much better X number of years ago? No, not at all. you go back and you watch that stuff. And here's the thing. We've all got bright spots and, oh, I just love this. Okay, go watch that whole show.

I didn't love the whole show. You like a couple of those segments. And I think they want every segment today to be an absolute home run. But we have just as many hits in today's wrestling as we did back then. We just have a tendency to focus on the ones that we don't like now. And we sort of forgive those in the past. But you sit down and you watch some attitude-era stuff. Okay, there's going to be a couple segments that.

really hit, but some of that stuff, whoo, not good. I always remind people, and it's nothing against him, but I always remind people, naked Midian was a thing in the attitude era. Yeah. Yeah. Now, imagine if there was, you know, naked Miro, that'd be weird. Like, people would be like, what are we doing? But it was on the show back then.

What are we talking about? Yeah. So at what point with Bruce did you realize you guys had really caught lightning in a bottle here? The first podcast that really did major numbers for us was the radicals, which is sort of ironic for us because that story, when he told it to me in real life, is the one where I said, dude, this is a podcast. But we had been working on, he was actually working with me, creating videos like sales and marketing and promotion and recruiting stuff on the mortgage side. And so because he had produced so many vignettes for WWE for so long, he was really, really good at it.

We had some very effective campaigns that are still paying off to this day. But at the end of one of those long shoots were, you know, on concrete all day in August heat and Alabama, I said, hey man, what happened when the radicals jumped from WCW to the WWF? And he turned to me on the couch and told me the story for over an hour. And I was interjecting questions and stuff. And at the end, I said, dude, this is a podcast. He said, nah, you know, I did a podcast before. It's too hard to get guests.

I'm like, no, no, no guess. Just what we just did. One topic, long form about the old stuff. This is a home run. And it took me a few weeks, but I convinced them to give it a try. And several weeks later, when we recorded the Radicals episode, the numbers just blew us away. It was huge day one, but it got much bigger on day two and much bigger on day three. And so it just had this sort of grassroots growth right away.

And we thought there might actually be something here. It took a few months for us to figure out the podcast space and how to actually turn that into money and make money. But yeah, the Radicals episode is the one that, made me think this was a podcast that would work, and then the downloads just prove the point. I think one of the biggest things is finding the time to do this, and that was probably part of the conversation with Bruce, is convincing him to set aside, what is it,

two, three hours a week to do this? And I feel like once you've got the ball rolling, though, and you can start to see the numbers coming in, well, then it's easy to figure out that time. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, we have a saying down here, if you want me to do it, tie some money to it. And it magically that works.

And so I get hit up all the time from fans who say, man, how did you get these guys to do this? And how in the world did Conrad get five of these? I created a business that I knew would generate revenue. And once we had proven revenue and we could show proof of concepts. Hey, here's what something Russell did last year, Eric. Would you like to do one on the WCW side of things? Yep. I mean, it was that simple.

But you've got to have that proof of concept first. And once you have it and you can demonstrate that there's revenue attached. and it's consistent, they will be there. Well, this all began with that whole phrase of tie some money to it. It was a chance meeting with Shane Douglas, which then led to Jim Cornett, right? Yeah, so I guess the original backstory is I'd sort of gotten out of wrestling in 2006, quit watching completely. Was there any specific reason you quit watching?

No, I was just, you know, my business was really taking off, and it just wasn't a priority anymore. And around that time, I had like an internal paradigm shift. quit playing video games and, you know, I quit why. I was so focused on growing the business at that point. I blocked everything else out. So I just sort of put it down for a while and didn't keep up nearly as much. And then I guess it was late 2012. I'm in Vegas for a UFC and waiting on some of my buddies to get ready so we can go downstairs.

And I'm scrolling through eBay and find a real Rick Flair robe. And I thought, wait a minute, is this like a real rope? That's the coolest thing ever. So I managed to buy one. And then I thought, all right, now that I got this, how am I going to display it? That's a weird, it's cool to have, but what do you do with a Rick Flair road? This is weird. So then I thought, well, okay, maybe I'll figure out a way to display it with like a belt,

like the big gold belt that he used to have on TV. So I did some research, figured out who made the best one. It happened to be Dave Milliken, and he lived in Tennessee. So I'm on his website, just one state away from me, and I see a picture of the Rick Flair nameplate off of the original Big Gold Belt. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. and I said, dude, do you have this for sale? Because I would be a buyer.

He's like, no, a friend of mine owns it and he'll never sell it. And I said, okay, hypothetically, if he ever would sell it, I would be a buyer at this price. So two days later, I have the nameplate. And I decided, hey, now that I have this, I'm just going to go get the belt. And everyone laughed and thought, well, yeah, we've all been trying to do that, but nobody knows where it is. So I put on my inspector gadget hat. And two weeks later, I have the belt. And now I'm like, okay, this is pretty fun.

I'm way back in wrestling now, and it's all because I have this silly robe and this silly belt, and I'm watching everything I can get my hands on, and I saw that they were doing a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter for Barb Dwyer City, an ECW documentary. And I could not get enough ECW. So I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And one of the top perks, if you were one of their top contributors, is they would come to your house to let you screen the movie before anybody else,

and they would bring an ECW alumni of your choice to watch it with you at your house. And I thought, man, that's awesome. So I had Shane Douglas come over and I had, I don't know, a dozen of my friends and we watched the movie and got to pick his brain and it was awesome. And then the next week, Dave Milliken, my beltmaker buddy, said, you know who would be great at this is Jim Cornett? And fast forward, sure enough, he was going to be in town for some other book thing he was working on. And ta-da, Jim Cornett told us some stories and me and my friends were having a blast. And it became like, I guess, the precursor for me doing podcasts. and who would have thought that this is what it would turn into.

So if we break this down, you were basically paying these wrestlers their appearance fee, but instead of having to go take bumps, you just had drinks with them. Yeah, and if I'm honest with you, the idea came from the documentary with the ECW thing. But when I asked about the cornet thing, like, wouldn't that be kind of weird? Like, I mean, this was a Kickstarter thing. That seems like a weird thing. I was reminded that this has been a thing for Royal Rumble Party. for a long time. I didn't know that, but Jimmy Hart used to do it, and I think the Iron Sheik did some.

She'd have like a pay-per-view party, and you would have a celebrity guest who'd come watch it with you, and it would just be hilarious. So my friends and I decided, hey, you know what? That sounds like a good idea. Let's all kick in and do it. And it worked out, man. Who would have guessed? I feel like only in the world of wrestling does this exist. Like, I don't feel like I could call up some NFL alumni and be like, want to watch the Super Bowl with me? You'd be surprised. There is a website that does that. There is a service that does that.

The world's getting smaller and smaller. People are doing it now on Zoom and obviously cameo. It's just gotten, the world's gotten so much smaller. But yeah, my buddy in St. Louis, he's done it with some St. Louis athletes. And he's done it in Kansas City. But it's one of those deals where it's usually through a promotion. It's through a radio promotion or television promotion or a car dealer promotion. But, you know, at the end of the day, what are we talking about?

about. We're talking about time and cash. And so, you know, if someone was in town and we could sort of pick their brain and, you know, we weren't taking a thousand pictures or having them sign a stack autographs and we're not filming it and we're not, you know, none of that stuff. It's just a fun conversation about what really happened. And little did I know it was becoming sort of accidental training on how to be an interviewer. I mean, I'll never be at your level. You're professional, but I at least, well, come on now. I mean, you're one of the biggest YouTubers in all the land. And you are the biggest podcaster in all the land. Okay, well, we'll agree to disagree.

This is the crossover we never thought would happen. Right, yeah, come on. So it went from Cornett to then Rick Flair was the next person that you were able to hang out with? No, that was a bunch of other folks along the way. But eventually, there was a convention not too terribly far away. And I was one degree separated from Flair. And they said, hey, you should come meet Rick. So I did. And we hit it off. And unfortunately, he was in a bad spot in his life. He had just lost his son read. And he was probably drinking too much. And he would call and say, hey, man, you want to get smashed and watch the draft? I sure do. So, you know, he was used to living in Charlotte and around all of his friends. And now he'd be relocated to be with Wendy. And he was living in Atlanta. So he's not that far away. So he would come over here. I would go over there and we became fast friends.

and fast forward when CBS offered him a podcast. He said, hey, will you ask fan questions? And it was a thing. Walk me through what your first meeting with your now stepfather, Rick Flair was like. You know, he was in Rick Flair appearance mode. You know, if you've seen him at a meeting, great, same thing. And then afterwards, holding court in the bar and making everybody laugh and telling

stories and, you know, getting a little louder and telling you to come in and then raise his voice, like, why did we live? lean in for that, but you know, that's just, if you know Rick, you know what I'm talking about. What's your favorite Rick Flair story? One, I probably can't tell you, but it's about introducing me officially to my now wife. But yeah, he is, it's never boring with him. I'll give you that. It's, there's a new story every day. It's mind-blowing to me to think that you met your future father-in-law before you met your future wife. Like that's the complete reverse order of how these usually go.

Yeah, it's weird. You know, we actually, she and I actually originally met at his 65th birthday party. And then we wound up seeing each other again, I think a year or two later at WrestleMania. We were all at the hotel bar. I'm hanging out with my friends and Rick and there's a big group. And then it just windles down to where it's just she and I. It wasn't a plan. We just were the last two standing hanging. And then fast forward when her situation changed, I got a random text. from Rick and ha-da, here we are now. You mentioned a little bit before,

you know, when you bought the Rick Flair robes, that, you know, you're into memorabilia collecting. Yeah. What is your favorite piece of memorabilia that you own? Oh, the big gold belt. It's not close. You know, it's what I started with. And it's funny because my belt buddy,

Dave Milliken, as soon as I got the belt, he looked at me and said, it's all downhill from here. I said, what do you mean? He said, you'll never beat this. Like, there's never going to be an opportunity to get a bigger, more important, better belt. And it turns out he was right, but yeah, I'm still chasing them left and right.

So if you're watching this and you have a ring used belt, it's Conrad at savewithconrad.com. I'm your huckleberry. What about non-wrestling related merch? Oh, yeah, yeah. You got a ton of it, right? I've got a bunch of that stuff. So boxing gloves and trunks and, you know, Ali stuff and Tyson stuff and Roy Jones Jr. stuff. And, of course, a bunch of Alabama stuff and a ton of NFL stuff.

So, yeah, I've got a man cave from hell. It was funny because when Megan came in, literally, the garage is Man Cave, the studios of Man Cave, the offices of Man Cave, the downstairs dens of Man Cave, the Game Rooms of Man Cave, the arcade's a Man Cave. So I've had to declutter some of that, and it has been consolidated. A lot of it is now in storage, but I still get to hang out and hear it hang stupid stuff on the wall, so it's not that bad. This is why they called the Conradison, right?

Yeah, a buddy from Nashville years ago, nicknamed my house the Conradison. and it stuck, I guess. So what's the prized possession in the non-wrestling world of memorabilia that you have? Oh, man. That's a great question. I'd have to think about that. I mean, I do have like some Super Bowl helmets

that are kind of cool that are signed by the whole team and have got a lot of championship helmets from Alabama. But probably the ALE trunks. That's probably up there. And when you start getting into that, like that's opening up. up like Pandora's box of a very interesting world as well, I'm sure. Oh, yeah, especially this year.

I don't know what's happened, but it's gone absolutely crazy. Gary Vee years ago told everybody, hey, started investing in baseball and basketball and football cards. And I thought, man, I got boxes of that, but I just don't see that coming back. Well, I was wrong. My goodness, it went nuts this year, especially the Jordan stuff, you know, with the last dance. I had some Jordan stuff, but I managed to cash in on some of it at just the right time.

where it was, you know, 10x overnight. And that same thing has happened with trading cards. Like, there are certain cards right now of like the rock. Like the rock, a pro wrestling card. Like, to me, that should not be all that valuable. But it's probably worth 300 times what it was five years ago now. It's just bananas, what's happened in that market. So I like that.

I like the idea of the business side of it. It's fun to chase them, but it's also fun to see them appreciate. And it's fun to trade them. and the whole memorabilia trading thing, it's just super fun. I think it's safe to say a lot of things have changed in 2020, including how we work. Businesses across the globe now are challenged to be their most efficient,

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You can do this all day, every day. So head to BetOnline and take advantage of their great sign-up bonuses. Just make sure you use the code BlueWire at BetOnline.ag. That's Blue Wire, all one word at betonline.org. BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. I imagine you're the guy, you get a random text or random phone call from, you know, a dealer going, hey, I've got this item. Are you interested? Yeah, absolutely. That happens all the time. And a lot of the guys who are the really high-end

collectors, they never sell anything. So like I get, I get asked all the time, hey, do you want to sell this? Do you want to sell that? And I have changed what I collect over the years. But now that it's mostly belts in the wrestling space, I'm not selling any ring these belts. Like, you know, just not my thing. I just want to display them and have fun with them and make them a backdrop on a podcast or whatever. But there's a lot of other guys like me who will collect all this stuff, but they're never

going to sell it because they'd rather have the item than a few thousand dollars here there or whatever. So it's fun to collect them knowing, okay, I'm buying this, but I don't really want it, but I know he does. And he's got something I want. So if I get two of these things that he wants,

then I can get that one thing I really want. So I find myself loading up on some of those items. And I've even done that with WWE. So it's been fun to trade back and forth. What's the item you're chasing after? Is it like a Babe Ruth baseball or, you know, what is it? Well, I'll tell you, if we're talking real sports, for like 10 years, I thought it would be the coolest thing ever to be able to actually find and buy a Heisman

trophy. Wow. Yeah. I mean, that would be the coolest thing ever. Of course. But, you know, they're really hard to find. and now they're making it illegal to sell them. And so it's going to be a process, but I will have one one day.

So that's the thing I'm chasing the most on the real sports side. For pro wrestling, though, the flare robe from the Rumble in 92, which was black with the white feathers and the silver butterflies. That's been my favorite rope forever. No one knows where it is. I want the old red NWA television championship, the one that R.N. Anderson held. Nobody knows where that is.

I would love to have Brandy Savage's Intercontinental title from WrestleMania 3, but he dropped a steamboat. I know where that is, but they're not coming off at you yet. So I persist. So you can't get a Heisman trophy, but how many Super Bowl rings do you have? I don't have any. I have had one before, but it was one of those deals where it left in a trade. But yeah, if I could get one of the old Cowboys ones, those are the ones my dad wants.

So it would be cool to be able to land a cool one and give to him. And, you know, and there's different levels of it, too. Like, if you get a staff ring versus a player's ring, and obviously if it was one with more notoriety, it's worth way more. So, you know, those can vary greatly. You know, it might be two grand, might be 200 grand. Well, that ain't getting a 200 grand one from me. I would like to get him a cool one one one day.

You're just like a big kid. Here's a big kid. You get to talk about all the things that you love and then collect all the things that you love. That's sort of the idea, right? This is, I mean, you're living the dream. You really are. And we haven't even touched on Sarcast yet, which, I mean, that's so amazing that you built that basically from the ground up. Yeah, that was a good idea that stressed me out and gave me a lot of gray hair. I'm so thankful that I didn't have to do one this year. The original plan was to do one Labor Day in Chicago, and that would have been great. We've had such a good time with the folks and the staff at that property. I know that building like the back of my hand now. since I've done it there twice.

So I would have loved to have done it. But man, it sure was nice to be able to take a year off because I did way too many last year. Did three in a year. And, you know, it wasn't the original idea. The plan was to do two. But then I got the call that, hey, would you consider Baltimore? And I acquiesced.

But yeah, I was glad to not have to do one this year. But the hope is things will get back to normal. And I can do at least one more because I had a lot of really cool stuff planned. So I'd like to do it at least one more. I think for a lot of people, doing just one of the many, many things that you're doing would be enough for them. And you talk about having a great team around you, which has definitely made this a lot easier. What do you look for when you're hiring someone to be part of your team? Oh, man, that's a great question. I mean, I really need you to be a self-starter. You know,

that's really important to me. I don't have time to sort of micromanage anybody or anything. So I need you to have a passion for what you're doing. And so usually, you know, we get approached about, oh, I just want to be on the team. That's nice, and I really appreciate the sentiment. But what I really want to know is, what do you want to do? Because the things that people want to do, I won't have to ask them to do a good job at. They'll take pride in it and they'll have a passion for it and they really care about it. And I can't hire care.

I can't make you care. I can't train you or teach you or coach you on caring. Either you do or you don't. And so, like, Chris McDonald is like the best video editor I've ever seen in the space. but he's a freaking hermit from Canada who doesn't want to be out front. But I try to tag him in everything I can because everything he touches is a home run.

Dave Silva is sort of the same way. Silva has a passion for graphics. So if you're really good at something and you really care, then I'm usually going to be able to find a spot for you. I'm so excited. One of the things we're doing with ad-freeshows.com is Saturday morning cartoons.

And I just saw the first one. It hasn't dropped yet. But I'm more excited about anything in a long time. time. And it seems silly that it would just be a cartoon. But man, these guys are so passionate about it and it just comes through. They're taking audio from our show and then animating it. And it's sort of the wrestling equivalent of Tales from the Tour Bus, which is my favorite TV show. So it's just, I'm in love with the idea of finding people who are really passionate about one thing and then going

and doing it. Yeah, you're right. You just, you can't teach passion. You said you can't teach care. You can't teach passion as well. And I think that if you're passionate about something, you know, it's the oldest phrase, but it's, you know, if you do something you love, then the money will follow. But it's so, so true. And you are a living, breathing example of that. Yeah. I mean, listen, during the Rick Flair show, we were not making very much money at all. And I think Bruce and I probably did four months worth before I made a dollar. And then once we actually got a real podcast deal, we left one provider and went to another. It was one that came with a signing bonus and a guarantee. And it was all of a sudden,

like, this is a real income now. And rather than saying, okay, this is all I need. I'm set. I thought, well, how can we make it bigger? How can we make it better? How can we expand? And you're right. I do keep signing up for new stuff because when I see an opportunity, I ask myself, well, why not now? Why not me? So let's take a stab at it. Somebody needs to do this. That's what I would think to myself. I love it. Why is that someone made? Let's just do it. I always say if somebody else is doing the thing that I want to do,

well, that just means it's possible for me to do it as well. Absolutely. So you're having, you know, you had all the success. You're having all the success with Bruce. What made you decide to add on one more show than, you know, another one, another one. So you have a total of five. Well, you know, with Bruce, we were getting the WWF side of things.

And I grew up in the era where it was really WWF and WCW. So I wanted to have someone do the WCW side of things. And I like the idea of doing that with Eric Bischoff, but Eric had done shoot interviews, Eric had written a book, and Eric already had a podcast. And he was talking about more current wrestling, but he was already in the space.

What I liked best about Bruce was, he had sort of been out of the genre. You know, wrestling was in his rearview mirror. He was done with wrestling, and he thought it was done with him. But there was also a misconception about who Bruce was. Amongst wrestling fans, they would say, oh, he's a stooge or I'd put a bullet in Bruce and take one for Tom or whatever the other nonsense was.

And I just didn't think those people who were saying those things had ever spent any time with Bruce. Because Bruce, even if you were a non-fan when he would hang around at the mortgage office, he would have everyone cracking up with his silly voices. And he's a phenomenal storyteller. And he's not the person that they said. Well, then I messed around and heard Tony Chivani at the NWA Legends Fan Fest for the first time in He was talking to Jim Valley, and everyone at the convention was talking about how hilarious Tony Chivani was. He was like wrestling's Bob Sagitt.

And he's a TV dad, the guy you see on Full House, but then you go see him and stand up and you're like, that's not the same guy. And that's Tony Chivani. And so I was like, wait a minute now. He was there from 83 to 2001, a long time, just like Bruce, on the WCW side of things and the Crockett side of things. and briefly with the WWF, and he has done nothing in wrestling for years and years. And why is that? Because people thought, well, Tony Schavani is negative

and he's bitter and he hates wrestling and he hates wrestling fans. Well, none of that was true. He just hadn't told his side of the story. He hadn't made himself accessible. And once I saw and heard the way he really talked in real life, I'm like, this is a home run. So I pitched him and it just so happened

that he was trying to find a way to pay for a daughter's wedding. And he thought, okay, I'll do it long enough to pay. for the wedding. But we were having so much fun, we just kept it going. And eventually, Bischoff wound down his other podcast. And I thought, okay, since this has really become a watch-along effort and we're just watching shows and making fun of them, sort of mystery science theater 3000 style, maybe I could do the same thing I'm doing with Bruce with Eric Bischoff. And we did. And then, you know, I ran across some Westwood executives once we were on the same network as Jim Ross.

And one of them said, have you ever thought about doing a crossover with Jim Ross? And I said, actually, yeah, we talked about it briefly once before that one day we would do a show together. So I pitched him. We took a stab at it. He liked it. I liked it. And here we were.

And then one day my phone went off and I happened to be in New York. And I got the heads up that Arne Anderson was no longer with WWE. And I thought now nobody's heard from him at all. Not on social media, wrote a book, but most. mostly in character 20 years ago, and that was before he was an agent all of these decades for the WWB, I think Arnold could be a goldmine. So I set up a meeting, went over to the house,

talked to him and Mrs. Anderson. And, yeah, it worked out. We've got five shows now at ad-freeshows.com. How or who have you approached that you thought you could make a show with and it just didn't really work out? I would have loved to have done one with Joey Stiles, you know, around that same time, Joey decided I'm going to put wrestling on the back burner. Yeah.

Sort of deactivated all of it, social, and he's totally out of the space. But I don't think he's out forever. I hope one day I would get to do something with him. I'd love to do something with Jeff Jarrett when I first pitched him on it. He loved the idea, but the timing wasn't right. Now he's back with WWB, so it's definitely not right. But he's got a story unlike anybody else. You know, if we're just sort of fantasizing who else would be fun to do a show with,

Paul Heyman would be tremendous. Michael Hayes would be incredible. Kurt Angle has a story unlike anybody else. So there's plenty of other opportunities, but there's only so many hours in a week. So I don't know how I would possibly do all of that. Was the collaboration you were going to do with The Undertaker for Dead Man Talking? Was that just going to be a stage show?

Or would that also be a podcast? It would have just been a stage show, a one-off at Starcast, and I wouldn't have even been the host. It would have been Bruce Bridger. So what we had agreed to was Bruce and Undertaker, on stage telling stories for an hour. But imagine a podcast with The Undertaker. Dude, it would have been tremendous, but I knew that wasn't going to happen.

I'm not saying it couldn't ever happen, but obviously it would happen under a WW banner. And the way they like to sort of own things, I don't know that they would be high fives all around about me having three podcasts with AEW talent. So I don't know that it's possible right now. I'm sort of Switzerland right now, Chris. I got friends in both places. So if I'm not committed to either one, I can still do the other. But if I go do something this way, it might affect this one.

So I'll just try to play it safe right here in the middle. Well, you were on the WWE network for a little bit of time. I'm actually curious. When that came together, did they say we just want Bruce or we want the whole show? Like, did they try to change anything about what you guys had? No, they didn't change anything. They were monitoring, obviously, you know, what the most watched shows were. And they saw massive spikes whenever we would cover something.

Because we were sending people, hey, go watch this with us. That's that type of deal. So they would wonder, hey, why randomly are people watching this show? And someone was like, oh, it's because they're covering it on something to wrestle. So eventually they made an offer that they were going to perhaps at the time bring a ton of podcasts to the network. And they wanted to start with ours. And I don't think that's actually happened until this year. But way back then, the original idea I think was this one is one there wouldn't be guests.

So there would be no travel involved. We could just set up a camera at his house, a camera at my house. and utilize old archival footage. So this is essentially a very, very cheap show to produce with no travel, no professional oversight whatsoever. And it worked. You know, it did really, really well. It did so well, they hired Bruce back

and now he doesn't have time to do it anymore. As you're knocking on the door now of 40, is there something that you want to accomplish, you know, when you turn 40? You mean from a podcast standpoint? Just as Conrad the person, are there any accomplishments that you want to tick off before you hit 40? Oh, sure. Yeah, there's a lot of personal and financial and business goals that I have. I'm a very goal-driven person. I get fixated on something and I obsess until we scratch it off the list. And then in typical fashion, I don't care about it anymore and we're on to the next one. It's even like the collecting piece of my brain, you know, I obsess over these. old ring used belts or whatever.

And then once I get it, it's just on a shelf somewhere. And we're on to the next one. It's the chase. So it's the pursuit of these goals that I'm really into. And I've got seven, eight months now before I turn 40. And I've got some real personal financial and that type of those type of goals. But not like, man, if I can just do this show, I will have made it. I don't really have that.

Yeah. Well, what about, you know, 10 years from now, 50? Are there other things you look ahead and go? Those are things I'd like to do by the time I turn 50. Not exactly. I mean, I couldn't have predicted exactly what I would be doing right now. As we're doing this, I've had one of the better weeks in a long time. We've done really well in the mortgage stuff,

and I continue to get good news there, knock on wood. But the Jim Hurd interview that we just dropped over at ad-freeshows.com was something I was so excited about, and we spent so much time and effort and energy on. and then to see it be so well received, I've just been basking in that all week because that was not something that I ever really imagined, but a one-on-one sit-down video interview,

just like you and I are doing now, but with these obscure folks that maybe haven't spoken in a long time, and I've got extensive notes. We had over 100 pages of research for that interview. Wow. But, you know, I don't know what's coming through the door. You know, I'm expecting this stocky and cocky Jim Hurd, and instead it's, you know, a smaller, older, polite, mild me gentleman.

Yeah. He's 88 years old. So it's not going to be exactly what I thought it was, but I was so pleased with the end result that it was just, I don't know, I was really excited about what the future may be. And now seeing this cartoon today for the very first time for ad-freeshows.com and knowing this is going to be like our version of Tales from the tour bus, I'm really excited about video.

So I guess that's what's next for me. It's going to be less audio, not less audio, but more than just audio. We're going to start doing video versions of our podcast and splice stuff in. And video is sort of the next frontier for us. So I guess if we had to freestyle a few years from now, what would that look like? It would be cool if it was an app on your phone or your Roku or your Apple TV. And you could turn off Netflix or Amazon and turn on ad-free shows. That would be cool.

That would be very cool. I read an old article, I guess it was about two years ago with ESPN, which is a great article. And it talked about how you were getting three million downloads a month with something to wrestle with. Is that where you're at now or are you just crushing that now? Yeah, we're beyond that now. But that's through, you know, and again, you've got to appreciate we've created so many old topics. We've got so many canned shows that our archives are doing as much or better than our new stuff. Actually, they're doing more than our new stuff.

Wow. So, you know, we'll get, I don't know, 200,000 downloads the day a show drops, and then it'll grow through the week. And, you know, in ad sales, they're going to look and see what it did after the, at the end of that first 13 weeks. I really look at what does it do in the first seven days. And then I'll check back in in a month or whatever. But the archives are where the found downloads really are.

And technology is still catching up to that. only in the last year that people start to figure out how to put new ads into old shows. So that will really allow it to level up. And when we turn those shows into videos, I just think it'll continue to grow. Because as I said earlier, the 1990 Survivor Series, that's never old, which is random. But yeah, it's the power of the internet. They've got to find a way with podcasts to make them more like, there's no virality in podcasts. On YouTube, you can be watching this video right now. these suggestions below this video when you're looking at this in your mobile app. With a podcast,

if I want to find one of your shows, I have to physically type in the name of your show and then boom, it pops up. You can never just kind of stumble upon a show. I think some of that will change with YouTube and more video services. I think the vertical video, you know, what they were doing with TikTok and who knows how that's all going to wind up. But I think YouTube's now doing some vertical video stuff. I think all of that is going to continue to evolve. You know, there's that's the big reason I'm still doing mortgages too. I mean, obviously it's the leader to, you know, expose my product or service these podcasts are. But the reality is podcasting was not nearly as big in 2010 as it is in 2020.

Right. And I don't know what that space looks like 10 years from now. So I was having a conversation with someone earlier this week, like, why don't you invest in this or that? But these are major acquisitions that could be potentially very, very bountiful. but I wasn't sold on it to the point that I would roll the dice. And they wanted to know why. And I said, well, okay, I may be doing really well with this right now, but imagine how the guy who owned 100 Blockbusters felt in 2000.

Oh, this will never end. This is going to be huge forever. I don't know that podcasting will even exist in its current form in 10 years or five years. It will continue to evolve. And I've got to try to figure out how to do that. And I think the next frontier is video. And I don't know what it is after that. Maybe it's interactive.

We're doing way more Zooms and things like that. Because I think that that's what fans really want is experiences. I guess it's cool to say that you saw, do you have your favorite Elvis record? Or maybe you saw an Elvis concert. But like my grandfather met Elvis before he made it, and he was just a kid hitchhiking in Mississippi. And my dad or my grandfather then had a cool Elvis story.

So anytime Elvis came up, he had to tell people the Elvis story. But that's what people want is an experience and a story. So I think that's where we wind up. I don't know if cameos how we get there. I don't know if Zoom's how we get there. But those have become much more common. And I just think you'll see that continue to evolve.

And it will be something different in a few years. It's some sort of hybrid between that, I think. You know, there was news earlier this year. You know, Joe Rogan's show got bought by Spotify for a large sum of money. If someone like a Spotify or an Iheart came around to you and said, Conrad, you've got five huge hit shows, we'd like to offer you this large sum of money. Would you entertain that conversation? Yes, sir.

My chemistry teacher in high school said, I can't be bought, but I can be rented. But yes, we are a for-profit enterprise, and I would be delighted to. You know, the real thing I would need to make sure of in any of those deals are that folks who work with AEW can still participate and folks who work with WWE can still participate because if we're going to be excluding

one or the other, it's going to make my life really, really complicated. And it's unfortunate that that's sort of where it is. But I know that's the reality of some of those conversations. So as long as everybody can participate and I can still talk about mortgages, I'm all ears. I feel like this could be a possibility. You are absolutely owning this niche and you are absolutely crushing this niche. Well, I do want to give a shout out to the great folks at Westwood One who've been a great partner for us. They've done a phenomenal job. We've got got new contracts on our inbox, so we're going to be renewing. But yeah, the space is changing. People are looking to see what's happening with Wondry this week, and there will be a lot more

podcast talk right behind it. It is a very, very lucrative space that's growing leaps and bounds every month, month over month. It's bigger and bigger. So I'm glad to be somewhere in the conversation. Podcasting is so interesting because it's very habitual. With YouTube, you pull out your phone when you're bored, you watch, you know, a minute or two of a video and on to the next one. Podcasting, though, is I'm getting in my car to drive to work. I'm going to listen to this. I'm putting my headphones in to go for a run, a walk to the gym. I'm going to listen to this. And they end up listening to, for the most part, almost the entire show. Yeah, and that is part of the reason I think our shows were successful. We sort of broke all the rules.

They told us when we first started, you've got to keep your show to an hour or less. you should never curse and you should put all of your commercials at the front of the show and don't plug any of your appearances or your personal stuff until the very end. And we did none of that and we plugged all our personal stuff up front

sprinkled all the ads all the way throughout would go two, three, four, even five hours and we would talk like we would normally talk. So, you know, I understand some of the wisdom in terms of if someone hits subscribe and it's a small file size because it's a shorter length than you could show more downloads. And that would be nice, but I'm actually looking for these ads to perform.

And if you create good content, they're going to listen. So I don't want to sort of circumvent the system and say I have a bunch of downloads, but nobody really converts because they're just small file sizes and people just automatically download them but sort of never go select it and listen. I don't want that listen. I want to listen where they listen, they buy a shirt, they tweet,

they use the sponsors because if they're getting good response, then they'll keep coming back. And it is a business. So I need our listeners to support our sponsors. And our listeners are smart. They know that. Hey, this show is free, but it's free because of Bluetooth.

It's free because of whatever. Yep. What's the real growth hack for someone who's trying to really scale their podcast? I think it would be two things. Prep, as we talked about, I think a lot of the shows that aren't doing well, it's because they're not prepared. And then number two,

I would think that, you know, it's about engagement, as silly as that sounds. One of the things that really got us going early is we put all of our polls on, on all of our topics on polls. So one of the first things you learn about sales,

and if you go down a sales career path, is telling ain't selling. So I'm not going to tell you what you need. I'm going to ask what you need. And we're going to go from very generic to very specific. So rather than us just try to guess, what do we think our audience wants to hear, we would put four topics up and then people would start voting.

But not only did they do that, they would share and try to rally their friends to say, hey, come vote for this so we can hear it. And then it became appointment television, so to speak, well, audio. But you get the idea. That engagement really, really worked. And then, you know, we did a lot of little silly contests, like and follow. And, hey, if we get this many follows or this many reviews, we'll drop a bonus show. and that type of stuff really works.

So that was the biggest piece of it. And the other thing that, you know, I've been criticized a little bit here and there for is I'm really reliant on anniversaries. And a lot of people say, oh, that's stupid. Well, they don't understand the methodology. There's a ton of social media pages out there that say, on this day in history, such and such happened.

Well, if they could in the comments see, oh, I just listened to a podcast about that yesterday called Something to Ressel. Well, if someone sees that, oh, I remember that. That was so great. Everybody's talking about this podcast in the comments. I need to go check it out. It just became a viral wiregrass, grassroots kind of way to grow the thing. And it worked.

And it continues to work too. And how do you know now when you're looking at show topics? How do you know what's going to be a hit immediately? Well, here's the other thing. And this is unfortunate, but this is just real. If you're going to do 52 shows a year, they can't all be home runs. And that doesn't mean the content can't be great. but sometimes you're going to have to do a topic that on the surface doesn't sound like it's going to be very good,

and you've got to find other value. And I think our listeners are trained to that now. But here's the analogy I always give. I'm a Howard Stern fan, and I'm going to listen to Howard Stern every day. I don't care who the guests are. I don't care what the topics are. I don't care what the games are. I'm listening because I feel like I have a relationship with the Howard Stern show.

So whatever they're doing today, I'm going to listen, and I'm probably going to enjoy it. Yes, some things are funnier than others. That's just the nature of the beast. but I want to listen because it's Howard Stern. And if we have that type of relationship, we can avoid the pitfalls of a guest-driven deal. And you've seen this, and I know this, we haven't ever talked about it,

but you'll have some guests that will crush downloads for you reviews on YouTube and others don't so much. And there's pressure every week. I've got to find a new one. Well, you know, some days you have Chris Jericho on here. Some days you have Conrad Thompson. I know where I'm at, okay? I'm going to be on the lower side,

and that's fun because every now and again, I got to do a King Kong Bundy episode two. Because I got to do 52 of these a year, and we just do our best to make them entertaining. But if I just did, you know, Hulk Hogan, the Rock, Stone Cold, okay, now what do I do, you know, on year three? We're down to leap in Lanny Pafo. You got to do something every week. Find a way to make it entertaining. Well, what you've figured out is people are listening for you guys, and that's completely different.

And I say this all the time. I'm very well aware that nobody's clicking on my videos because they see my face. They're going, oh, you have Chris Jericho or Eli Drake or, you know, you know, MJF or whoever it happens to be. And they go, oh, well, Chris is there too. So I guess I'll watch this thing. Well, and that's the same with me. People are, they're watching the show and listening to show because they want to hear from Jim Ross.

Sure. But I'm trying to be the voice of the fan, just like you are here. You want to be the first listener. You know, we're blessed to be able to have these conversations and get to share them with everybody. But we really, at the end of the day, just become really the first listener. It's not about us. It's about them. He's Carl Malone.

I'm John Stockton. I'm going to get him the ball. We are simply the vessel through which these stories can be told. Yes, that's a Matt Hardyism right there. Oh, I didn't mean to go that deep on that, but that's really what it is. As we wind things down here again, and thank you so much for your time and doing this with us, who's been the most influential person in your life in terms of your business career? Oh, man, that's tough.

I'd have to think about that. You know, obviously my dad was, he's the guy who taught me sales. So that's the real answer. But if we go to a non-expected answer, there was a few guys that I learned a lot from very early on in sales. One guy was a guy named Ronstad. Another guy was Lyle Freeland. And then, you know, once I got going in the mortgage biz,

it was a guy named Jeff Morlock. Jeff Morlock is the guy that was in the office suite next to us that recruited me and taught me the mortgage business. Without meeting Jeff, I wouldn't be here. I would not live here. I would not have all that I have. I would not be talking to you right now. I certainly wouldn't be a wrestling podcaster.

So it's just sort of a happy accident that it all happened that way. But as far as wrestling goes, yeah, it's in no particular order, Rick Flair and Bruce Richard. You know, I mean, Rick gave me an opportunity to do the podcast, but he also introduced me to my wife. So that's, thanks a lot, Pop Pop. But yeah, Bruce is right behind him, man, because we had so much fun. and have made a lot of memories together. What is the most influential book that you've read that's really helped you along your life?

This is an easy one. Psychology is Selling by Brian Tracy. Even if you're not a salesperson, you should read it. Chapter 1 will change your life. You'll learn about income thermostats and it's very, very valuable, even if you're not pursuing a sales career

because it's about psychology. And I think maybe that's one of the reasons I enjoy wrestling. Wrestling and sales are all psychology. And when you start to understand the why, everything gets a little easier. And that's why wrestling fandom is so fun because we all know what happened and how it happened and where it happened. But we want to know why. And I think that's why the pods work too.

Brian Tracy is like the goat. He's the goat at all. He is. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And you, you know, you threw in some other references in our conversation here, Gary Vee, and you kept saying 10x. I'm guessing that's a Grant Cardone thing. Are those some other people that, you know, influence you?

I know who Grant Cardone is, and I've seen some of his stuff, but my guys are Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Gary V, Tom Hopkins. Those are the goats, you know, in my world. I've read all their books, got all their CDs, download all their audio. There was a whole section there, probably four years worth, where I didn't listen to any current music at all. it was nothing but, you know, tapes and CDs of these old motivational things.

And you have to sort of train your brain to think a certain way. Yes. And when you really have conversations with highly functioning successful people, you realize this guy just thinks differently. And I knew that I wanted to do that. So I needed to sort of break out of the way my friends or family were thinking and I needed to see things through a different lens. And that really worked.

And Brian Tracy is probably, well, he is right at the top of the. the list. I was commuting to work 30, 45 minutes and, you know, listen to music, as most of us do. And then someone actually put it in my head there, like, you could be learning during that time. That's an hour and a half, hour and hour and a half a day. You could be learning. And that's when I started listening to audiobooks. That's when I started listening to podcasts, because now I'm just eavesdropping in on these conversations with brilliant people. And now I'm being able to sponge all this information in. It's remarkable. And when you really commit to it, And I am committed to it.

I listen every day. I read every day. And I think you've got to be continually evolving. Or you're either going to be a better version of you or a worse version of you. And if you quit learning, you know, slowly but surely you're going to deteriorate, you know, and it's just it's not going to be the same. And somebody who's constantly trying to push the pace and sales, that works for me. You know, you've got to be able to innovate and compare year-over-year numbers and say,

what do we do and what do we need to do more of, what's working? and what do we need to do less of? What's not working? Yeah, there's a real misconception that if you're in the same place, that you're in the same place. No, if you're in the same place, you're moving backwards. That's exactly right. Either you're going forwards or you're going backwards. There's no other option. That's exactly right.

This has been such a fascinating conversation. Thank you for your time, but thank you for just being just so open with everything. These were such insightful answers. I just super appreciate it. Oh, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate the opportunity to come on. I'm sorry, I don't have any fun ribbing Vince McMahon stories like some of your other guests, too. But we'll have to do our best with psychology of sales talk, huh? I would love that. And I think for me, I lead with gratefulness and gratitude all the time. So I end every interview by asking you, Conrad, what are three things that you're grateful for right now? I'm grateful for a patient wife who understands that she has married a driven person who is going to spend a lot of time in a darkened room trying to make people laugh. And I'm grateful for I'm grateful to have a lot of great friends.

You know, we talk about it a lot on the shows, but I've got a group chat on Twitter. It's just a big, massive Twitter DM. But they're my best friends from all over the country. and I met them through professional wrestling and we're from all walks of life and different parts of the country and different religious beliefs and it doesn't matter. We have wrestling in common, but it's become more than that. You know, we're talking to these guys. We're talking to each other throughout the entire day, all day from the minute somebody wakes up until everybody goes to bed. And that has been an incredible support system and brain trust for me for years and years.

but especially during COVID, where we're not doing what we might normally do. I was used to going into the office every day and interacting with 150 different people every day. And there for months, I didn't leave the house. So it was nice to be able to talk to someone. So, yeah, I'm very thankful for my group chat. And then, you know, I guess I'm thankful for, you know, my family most of all, because we've been blessed to be healthy through all of this this year. And I know a lot of folks I know have had a rough go of it.

My family's been lucky and stuck together and did really, really well this year. So it's been us making the best of a bad situation. Well, there you go. He is the podfather of wrestling content. Conrad, thank you so much. Oh, thanks for having me, man. I appreciate the opportunity. Well, there we go, my friends.

A big thank you to Conrad for carving some time out of his day for this. And I was just so interested hearing the insights into what he looks for and his team members, how this all came together and, you know, what it is that makes this whole machine that he has run. I hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, a little peek behind the curtain there of ad-free shows.com. And if you did enjoy this, please take a moment out of your day to leave a review. And since we talked about Brian Tracy during this interview, who is the goat of motivational speeches, but I'll leave you with this quote from him that I think is so, so powerful. He says, you cannot control what happens to you,

but you can control your attitude towards what happens to you. And in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you. Be great. Be great for my friends. Have a great weekend. We'll see on the next one. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the these, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock?

I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley.

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