Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Double Down on your Strengths - Ryan talks with Adam Posner about time working with Gary V and building a new company

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

In this episode, Ryan talks with Adam Posner - an old friend and coworker from New York. Adam is the founder of recruiting company NHP Talent Group and hosts the PozCast. Adam is a tremendous interview with his transparency and candidness about time working (and failing) with Gary Vaynerchuk at VaynerMedia and the challenges and opportunities of starting your own business. Links from this episode: https://www.nhptalentgroup.com https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pozcast-career-journeys-with-adam-posner/id1452900760 Please share, review, and subscribe! The Radical Marketing Podcast is always looking for intriguing guests. Email inquiries to [e-mail] Follow us: @radical_results on Instagram @ryanalford on Instagram www.radical.company If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Radical Marketing Podcast. Here is your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, welcome to the latest edition of the Radical Marketing Podcast. I'm joined by a guy I used to run with in New York. Adam Posner, good to have you, brother. Ryan, thanks for having me on, man. Great to catch up, reminisce and talk about the current events in our life. Exactly.

Lots of going on here. I'm going to give you your due here. Now the founder of NHP Talent Group, host of the POSCast, POSCast podcast, the POSCast podcast, right? The play on the words there. Play with words.

I love it. You must be in marketing. And am I leaving out any credentials other than just overall great dude and, you know, guy I miss? Yeah, I mean, I recruit. I'm a recruiter, man. I'm a marketing recruiter.

I recruit for all those jobs that I used to have back in the day, all the agency jobs, creative, account management, strategy, UI, U.S., data, all that stuff. I work with brands. I work with startups. I work with agencies. And not just putting a warm body in a seat, but it's really working with these companies to be an extension of their in-house talent team, right?

Helping them with TA process, interviewing, really being that quarterback. And something that I always like to say, you know, you're a recruiter at your company, whoever's handling talent, they're the first touch point of any new employee coming in. And they need to be that brand ambassador, man. They need to represent your company. And that's really what I built my business on, right? Like leveraging all those skills, 15 years working in advertising and marketing, the account management, the relationship stuff,

and parlaying that into my business. And so far, so good, man. What, you know, let's start, let's give everybody a little bit of the Cliff Notes background on Adam. You know, you and I had a stop at EP and Coe together in New York. You know, the Southern guy moving up living in New York with all you guys. and trying to act like we fit in. But no, but let's walk people kind of, you know, your origin story, you know, through advertising and the business.

And, you know, maybe we'll land, you know, where we're in this situation, the pandemic, like nothing else. And you're kind of in the throes of it in Long Island. And so let's give everybody just a little bit of that history. Yeah. Yeah, you know, down and dirty, you know, born and raised New York or something that like is in my blood, man. I love it.

I'm literally sitting in shape. stadium seats right here when they took down the Mets stadium about 10 years ago. But, you know, advertising marketing was in my blood, you know, did it in college, new great internships, working like sports, Buffalo Sabers up there and everything. And I did it, man. I jumped into, you know, the crazy New York ad market, worked at a bunch of different agencies. I went on side. I spent five years over at Sirius XM satellite radio, right, when Howard Stern was coming on board, which is awesome. So I learned the other side of the business, right? I learned the agency side, and I learned what we like to call the client side. And it was direct to consumer

marketing, really learning the fundamentals of, you know, personalization, email marketing, direct mail, subscriber-based marketing, OEM with cars, auto, all that kind of good stuff. You know, we had the first streaming app, right? I was number five on the beta test for the Sirius X-S app. It was before, you know, the XM Pandora, Spotify, whatever else they're kind of bringing in over there. And then I kind of made a left turn, dude. I went over to American Express after series, which was interesting.

And I thought it was going to be something that it wasn't, but I literally knew Ryan. and I don't know if you ever had this experience, but day one, I knew that it wasn't right for me. Like it just didn't feel good, right? It just didn't feel right. But I stuck it out, man. Did it for a couple of years. And then I decided to go back to agency life.

And I was at a small place and I was kind of, you know, got wind at this agency called VaynerMedia. You know, Gary was not a household name at the time. And I got an interview there. It went awesome, but they weren't hiring at the time. So I went back to the agency. I wasn't really loving. And then November, it was October 2014.

Vayner came calling. went through the interview process and I landed over at Bainer Media. It was late 2014, which was pretty interesting time for me, man. It's right when, you know, things were ramping up for Gary. I mean, I think, you know, obviously he's been around, but in the agency world, I think the machine was really starting to turn then, wasn't it? And what's interesting about Gary was because it was one of the first non-traditional agencies, right, really breaking the mold and being disruptive.

It was quick to market, social first, you know, It was interesting because in the office, like just kind of pull back the curtain a little bit, and this is their original office, there were no assigned seats except for creative people and project managers. So every day you came in, it was literally like, Lord of the fucking flies, man. You would come in and like fight for seats. And they outgrew that space so quickly that there were certain points when you came in where you literally had to sit on the floor.

And I was like, I don't know, that that really wasn't, you know, for me. Anyway, you know, I jumped in there very, like, ambitious. And, you know, I was very, like, you know, excited to like have. my point of view and make an impact and everything. But it backfired pretty quickly. And I, and I learned that it was just not, you know, it wasn't the right place for me. It wasn't the right time. And that was, that was hard, man. It really, you know, it didn't, it just wasn't clicking for me. And unfortunately, I lost my job. And I got fired and it was shitty. It was really shitty because I thought I made it top of the hill, top of the mountain, right? And I thought I was

going to be there for a long time. I mean, Gary was somebody that I admired in so many different ways. And, you know, that day that I got let go. I remember it was like yesterday and Gary and I had a great relationship and we sat there for an hour, you know, talking about, you know, what happened and we broke it all down. And he said, listen, man, this is the most important piece of advice I received. He said, you got to stop focusing on all the shit that you suck at and double down on your strengths. And I'll be honest with you, Ryan. I thought he was literally just blowing smoke up my ass to get me the hell out the door, right?

Like here's your fortune cookie, get the hell out, right? Like here's your words of wisdom. But it wasn't that just that, dude. I mean, we sat there and we literally broke down all of my strengths, man, what you and I are doing right now, my ability to foster and develop relationships. And honestly, man, pretty damn good at this marketing thing. I know what I'm doing. It may not have been a great place there, but I have those fundamentals.

And he's like, all right, you got all these pieces, you know, you're doing all these things. What are you going to do with it? I was like, well, you know, I kind of been thinking my buddy does health care recruiting and he, you know, he does pretty well. Before I could finish my sentence, Gary turns to me and goes, dude, you'd make an awesome recruiter. And I'm not even kidding you, man. And that's what I did. I walked out the door. I walked directly into the bar next door at 11, 15 in the morning.

I had a couple of double doubles. And then I called my wife and told her what happened. And the fucked up thing is it was April 1st, right? It was April Fool's Day. So April 1st to May, April Fool's Day is always my kind of anniversary. But what I did was, man, I did my due diligence, right? Before I started in recruiting, I called every recruiter I ever worked with, reached out to a ton of them. Recruiter, place me at EP.

And he's my dude now, my dude Jeff Stewart. And I learned everything I could without stepping foot in the job. Lucky enough for me, I got picked up like a free agent. I joined an agency called Onward Search because there's a lot of recruiting agencies where it's literally all metrics, like pick up dial, pick up dial, call, call, call. This place understood that it was about relationships. And they saw my strengths of having relationships that I was going to bring into the table and really fostered that.

But I was able to learn under a great mentor who really taught me the art and science of recruiting. Like I learned how to be a recruiter. And it's crazy, man, thinking about starting a new career at the age of 35. Rookie, day one. Yeah. $40,000 a year draw commission, man. Going from a nice six-figure job to that, living out in the burbs, taxes, all that shit too, man. It was tough, but I did it, you know.

I climbed the ladder. I was rookie of the year. Put up some great numbers. Went over to another agency, a UK-based agency. I was there for about six months and chemistry wasn't. right there and I came home one night to my wife and I'm like something's not good here. And she goes, why don't you just do this for yourself? And I'm not even shitting you, dude. It was half a second decision. I go, done. And went out on my own. It's been almost three years.

Congrats, man. I've been, you know, been a fan from afar watching your growth, watching the shows. And, you know, I always loved you at the agency and you always had that flare that I loved. And keeping it, just being real, you know, and I appreciate that translated. into your success, most servid, I mean, deservedly. The one thing, you know, and I don't want to, I don't want to spend too much time, you know, but Gary Vee is such a lightning ride. I think it most people listening to any podcast now, you know, he's such a, you know, fundamental kind of player now.

I think what could you do, what can you speak to as far as, I know if he wasn't as real is he comes across that he that would that would be shown it he has to be exactly what you see but is there any nuggets or anything like what's it really like there and with him it's it's a great question and let me just caveat that there man I was only there for about seven months right and that was a long time ago I mean that was almost five that was yeah it was five years ago um and every I see Gary literally once twice a year run into him reconnect and everything he's as real as a day I met him man what you see is what you see is what you get. He is real. Now, there is the Gary Vee versus Gary Vaynerchuk persona. There's a Gary Vaynerchuk

CEO, business owner, right? And then there's a Gary V out there that you see. And a lot of people, that's all they see. But let me tell you something. And he doesn't need me to defend him. Believe me, he doesn't need me to defend him. But he is genuine. He is caring. He legitimately cares about his people in so many different ways. And he keeps it real, man. And he really does. And what you see is what you get. It's, how was, uh, was it just like any of, you know, you should had several stops at agencies. Yeah. And again, I know it's 14, 15 lots changed. Yeah. But was it, he's in my space back then. He's preached it, he's preached, you know, kind of the anti-agency. He's the anti-New York agency. He's the anti. But it's hard to, once you start having to hire 400

people in New York, it's hard for it not to become a New York agency. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, Listen, I've been in the new office a couple of times when I was there in December, I interviewed Claude Silver over there and just like, you know, based on optics, I mean, once you get to your point, once you get to a certain size, right, there's a lot of operational elements that mirror a traditional agency, right? And traditional agency structure. But I mean, I can't talk right now about the culture, right? I can only actually can.

I mean, I interview Claude Silver there. I mean, the culture is fantastic. What am I talking about? Of course I can talk about the culture. I interviewed the head of culture over there. Yeah. Right. They keep it real.

You know, they're really. focused on their employees, the employees of the lifeblood. I think that's kind of where it separates from, you know, if you're thinking about traditional agencies, right, that have been around for a long time, that have a lot of the flaws, a lot of cultural flaws. You know, they do things differently there.

And you could feel it, right? But ultimately, you know, it's an agency based around one person, Gary, right? Like, it's an agency built around Gary. Like, would Vayner still be successful without Gary? That's a million dollar question, right? Yeah. I don't think so.

Right. Like Ogilvie, you know, you can, name, like, how many other agencies could you name where the founders are really like the figureheads, right? I mean, there's a few of them out there. Yeah. Right? I mean, there's some, you know, big ones.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's transition a little bit. The, I just think that perspective is important because I think people, so many people just think he's full of shit or, you know, but, and but they also don't realize with social meeting and everything else that if he was, that he'd be getting called out left and right. And you just don't see that. I mean, as much content as we all consume, you never hear.

I've, I, you never hear, do I think he's running an agency and he's, he productizes everything really well? Hell yeah, he does. He's a great marketer. But at the end of the day, I think if it wasn't what you were seeing, I think it would be pretty apparent. Yeah. I mean, in this, in this transparent social world, where every, all the information is at your fingertips, from a business perspective, you would know right away, right? And you would know if he screwed people over. You'd know if he was not what you see, man, but he is. So let's talk about the podcast or pause. I know that's taken off for you.

I know it's a, you know, we talk pre-show about that being, you know, a new business type of, you know, marketing platform in a way in delivering content that's relevant, meaningful, and, you know, being yourself. But let's talk, talk about the evolution of the podcast, talk about, you know, maybe some of your favorite guests and, you know, let's get into a little bit. Let me just, first and foremost, I love podcasting, man. brought out so many elements of things that I love, being creative, having a platform. You know, Howard Stern is somebody that I've always, like, he's just, he's on my Mount Rushmore,

right? Howard Stern, he's on my Mount Rushmore in so many ways. But as it relates to the, to the podcast, it's his style of interviewing. I don't know if you're a Howard fan or not, but when he transitioned from traditional radio to satellite radio, he now has an open format, where instead of being able to interview a guest for 15, 20 minutes, commercial break, he literally just goes and goes. I don't know if you caught the Tom Brady one recently that was on, you know, a couple of weeks ago. I haven't seen them. He interviewed Tom Brady for two and a half hours.

Holy shit. Barely talked about Giselle. He talked about Tom's, it was so deep, man. And it was just a conversation like we're having right now. And that's the way I really try to approach every show that I do. I do a lot of preparation, just like Howard does. Howard does a ton of research. And maybe his support staff is doing it.

But he's doing his homework, right? Like he has that. He's doing it. He's super informed. He knows lots of intimate details. But most importantly, he takes the listeners on a, an arc. He takes him into a story arc and it really relates with all of his guests in a conversational form. And that's really what I try to do. But I didn't start out that way, right? I mean, I'm up to,

you know, almost 95 episodes recorded and aired. And it didn't start out that. You know, the podcast started out with an idea. It said, you know what, I want to try this thing. And it started out with me recording a networking call with somebody, you know, in my in my network. And I said, you know, what, let's keep going with this. And I started to, you know, go into my network and book guests and everything and I realized like hey listen my network is my net worth and I have so many amazing people that I know I could bring to the forefront shine a light on them and that's my show me my show is not about me right I mean I interject I give my point of view like any good host you do but I spotlight those guests but it's an interesting mix so it's guests from my career journey right at different stages of it which

reflect my career story and then experts in the world of recruiting talent acquisition now I'm starting to move into more like life journeys I have a couple of NFL athletes a couple of Olympians coming on in May. And it's just been an amazing journey for myself, for the show, for the followers, and tapping into all those marketing skills that I know for years, man, like how to promote, how to create content. And it's stuff that I love. And, you know, you and I were talking about it before.

The not-so-secret secret about podcasting is that it's an exceptional business development tool, right? Like, if I'm going to reach out to a CMO or some biz dev, some target, right, and hit them with cold calls and emails and everything, I'm going to have ship box results, man. like, hey, it's pretty easy. Hey, you want to come on my, you know, pretty successful podcast, right, for an hour and talk about, you know, what you do in your career and everything. Now I have a report with them.

Now I have their freaking phone number. And now when it comes time to turn on the business, it's warmed up, man. It's a warm, right. So you start a relationship that way. It's hard to, you just can't cold email or cold text or whatever the latest flare is. It doesn't work, you know, it doesn't work. Or even the inbox stuff. But if you, but if you ask them.

them to come on your show, you give them some context, you know, maybe share an episode or something, you know, give them a little feedback on your listenership. You know, they want to tell their story too. It's marketing for them. It's, it's relationship starting for you. And, you know, and you get great content out of it. Yeah, and the gems that have come. And here's the other kind of crazy thing, too. Like, I used to read a lot of books before kids. I used to read a lot of business books too and everything. And I put that down. I haven't read a good business book in a while. I think Gary Vee's book, you know, crush it from a few years ago. It was the last book I read. So the podcast for me is my learning, right? It's my MBA program where I'm surrounding myself with these

experts had to just drop a knowledge bomb after knowledge bomb. And that's how I absorb by listening. Yep. I love it. So talk. Favorite guests? I'm putting you on the spot. No, I got a couple here. So I have two favorite guests. One is episode 50 with Claude Silver. That was a show that I filmed live in the VaynerMedia offices is my first live live live in-person interview and I have great footage from that. And it was very emotional for me to be there in her office. You know, I saw Gary afterwards caught up with him. But that conversation goes deep because I ask her questions. I don't think anybody else has. Like what does it feel like to actually fire somebody? What goes into that thought process when making that decision? Like I wanted to go deep and I wanted to relate. Like that's

a type of shit that I wanted to bring to the table there. My other favorite guest is episode, I think it's episode 47 with Joel Lundenfeld. You might know Joel. Yep. Joel was a big of Twitter. Yeah, he went over to, he did a bunch of amazing things. He's a good buddy of mine from college. He was my mentor for a long time. And he just has an incredible career story. He'd be a great guest on your show, dude. He'd be awesome. I know. I'm like writing these down and Claude, you know, is. No, Joel, Joel, I remember, I love Joel working with him. He was in an agency. Moxie. Moxie. Was it Moxie? Yeah. He was a Moxie. Yeah. Maxi, he was the youngest CMO over there.

And he's got like, if you want to spend a few minutes and listen to a great, like go to, go check out that show. And I'm not even trying to promote my own show on your show, but go to that show and listen to him, tell his career story. I mean, I literally just sat back and put the mic down and let him just go, man. And he tells this career journey that you're like, wow, like, you know, an anthropology major for the University of Buffalo. And he's like, my mom thought I was just going to dig up fucking dinosaur bones all day, right?

Like, no, it's, it's a great story. And like being there on the sidelines, you know, as you were saying before, I'm watching him and being successful. That was like me looking up and saying, you know what, if he could do what I could do, right? Like he did it. Like, you know,

coming out of a dumb ass school, like University of Buffalo, no offense, I'm kind of kidding there, right? But like, it doesn't matter the school. It matters who you are and what you bring to the table. And Joel just crush his life, man.

And, you know, him and I remain tight. I mean, I literally spoke to him a couple weeks ago. And where's he at now? He's out in Tahoe, man. He's doing all right, dude. He is now the CMO of NorCal Cannabis. So he went into the cannabis biz and it's just crushing it, man.

Yeah, that's an interesting business. That's, it's booming and only scratching the surface. Yeah, man, it's, it's fascinating, man. You talk about like cannabis and CBD and, you know, it's, it's an interesting market to watch for sure. You work with any cannabis clients? We've been approached and we're trying to figure the best way to navigate it. I wanted to have my ducks in a row before I, uh, just, you just dive in.

Right. You got to, unless you're focused on that. Yeah. I mean, there's another great guest that has his name is Jared Murski. He's actually going to be back on. He's a founder of an agency called Wic and Mortar. He's another potential great guest, too. He built the whole agency around cannabis marketing. But like, dude, you got to see the packaging and the thought process. It's beautiful, man. It's a luxury good. It's a luxury good. Look at the price point on that stuff, right? Like, you got a package. You don't, not throwing it in a freaking cellophane bag or tinfoil, right?

You got to pack it out. I've done some project work from some of the ECIG companies that are kind of, like, like that same thing. I mean, right before the cannabis started taking off. And like, it's a, it's an interesting market, you know,

and there's some luxury and, you know, it's marketing. I mean, you know, it is like, the thought process, everything that goes in it.

But it's going to be fascinating to watch it. So talk about, you know, a talent group in HP, you know, what's the evolution been like, you know,

being an entrepreneur now. Yeah. You know, like, there's so many things. Any good war stories so far? I've been through it all, man. I mean, I also, once I stopped working for somebody else and started working for myself,

everything changed. And the dynamic that changed, man, was, and you know this, it's zero fail. And once you have the zero fail mentality, everything else, man, just thrives off of that, right? I mean, that's my motivation. I know that I need to be successful to take care of my family, right? And let's talk about it right now, right? I mean, I lost, I don't say that I've lost business during this pandemic. I say I have lost opportunities.

I didn't lose any business. Yeah. I mean, I lost opportunities that I would probably have because people aren't hiring in my field. I mean, I'm lucky enough I got, you know, half my business is going right now. I'm using this time wisely to, you know, quadruple down on content, build my own brand, build a company brand, and that's what I'm doing. But, you know, having that your own business is a game change. It's a, it's a mindset.

It changes everything. And it's really brought out, you know, kind of like the podcast, it's brought out so many qualities in me that I knew I had, but never came to the surface. Yeah. I mean, the accountability is ground zero. You know, like you're, it bucks stops with you with everything.

And so there's no, not that I don't see, you're not this kind of guy. I'm not that kind. We're not finger pointers. Like, you know, like not take the blame or not whatever. But when it's all you, It's just like, you know, you don't have, there's no shared, shared accountability. Like when you're in an agency or a big company or something like that, you've got this insulation.

And even if you aren't mentally going, oh, I have insulation. But you, you instinctively feel it, you know. You can throw other people under the bus. There's no one to throw into the bus by yourself, right? Like, you know, but it goes back to that literally everything changed for me from a vulnerability and accountability and a self-awareness standpoint the day I got fired, man, because I literally had to look myself in the mirror and say who at, like it was like the, the, what's it called, Zuland a moment? Like, who am I? Right. Like you have to look at the mirror, right? He's looking down in

the puddle and he's reflecting. And that's a truth, man. Like you have to say, who am I? What am I really doing here? What am I really good at what I want to be doing? And once you start to open up that true self-awareness and accountability, everything changes. Everything changes because you're being truthful with yourself, right? You're not lying to yourself. You're not saying I'm trying to do something that I suck at. You know, let me put that shit aside. Let me focus on the things that I'm good at because I know that's going to pay dividends in the end and you build that mentality. And there's trial and error, man. Believe me, I, you know, when I started this business, I, you know, I thought it was going to be one direction, you know, really building out something big. And then I said, you know what? I really am

operating well with this boutique model. I got a couple people that work for me, you know, figuring out different ways to scale it. And I don't know if I want to be running a big company. You know, you've just got to be truthful about it. More money, more problems. That's what they say. You know, my goal, honestly, man, is to make enough money where my wife doesn't have to work. Yeah. That's literally, I've been asked this question before. You ever get the question like, what's your number?

Like, what's your number, man? What's your number? And I say my number is going to be when I could figure out what it takes for her not to work because she doesn't want to work anymore and she wants to spend all the time with the kids, right? Yeah. Well, everyone's spending a lot of time when kids these days. God, I like my kids, right? I mean, there's people out there.

I see some shitty kids, man. I want to know what the child abuse numbers are the, how many domestic disputes, what the percentage is on that? What's this is all said? Well, you know what? That's a dark side too. And, you know, a lot of bad things are going to come out of this, right? I mean, let's start with even like, I walk around my neighborhood, man.

I see gloves and masks on the floor. Like, I don't understand why people can't throw that shit out, right? And then we talk about there's a lot of people right now that are trapped with their villains. There's a lot of people we're going to work or school for them. is that escape. It's that time out of the house. It's scary, man. I know the numbers are up, suicide numbers are up.

You know, it's rough. You know, this is definitely a dark time in our culture, but I think that there's so much light coming out. There's so much innovation. There's so much togetherness. You know, there's always going to be the dark side. Yeah. But let that light shine in.

How's it, you know, maybe talk since we went down that path. Like, obviously no one has a crystal ball, but it's got to be hidden. New York ad world pretty hard. You know, we talked a little pre-show about that. But, you know, like we're a little insulated. Like I was talking my wife last night, you know, we're by a percentage base one right at,

if we're not the one of the fastest growing agencies in South Carolina. And looking at our revenue numbers, you know, that it's like this. But, you know, admittedly, March and April, got us planed out. But we're not going down. But it's, but that trajectory has slowed. But I,

I just don't know how New York isn't kind of getting smashed by this, at least in the ad business side. Yeah. It really, you know, it's industry specific, right? It's industry specific, right? There's pharma that's doing well, the certain sector's doing well, but every sector's getting hit. Sure.

Right? Every agency is getting hit because if you're a consumer good and you're not selling it, if your hospitality travel, it's all going to trickle down, right? What's going to be the first to go? It's going to be your agency supported and your marketing, your marketing budget goes. And then the agency supporting that marketing budget goes, right? I mean, trickle down. It's going to be tough.

And, you know, you kind of flip it on aside, too, from a recruiting standpoint, there are companies that are hiring, and never in recent years, never in recent years have there been so much aidless talent available on the market, right? Which is great for them because, you know, if you're a company and you could hire, you're going to pick up some great talent right now. But it sucks if you're like a BRC player. It's going to make that jobs are so much harder. So it's evolving, man, but I'm optimistic.

And New York is an anomaly, right? You know, we talked about it before. social distancing is hard here just by sheer nature of the you know the the the concentration the saturation of people and activity we're all on top of each other trains buses walking on the streets man so new york it's going to take a while and it's going to be interesting to see how companies open up and you know it's a balance as a leader to be optimistic and you know rational at the same time right like how do you how do you how do you like yeah yeah everyone you know we're to get back to work togetherness but at the same time i want my employees to be comfortable i want them

to feel safe i want them to feel trusted i want them to feel okay coming back to work and you know what i want them to feel okay telling me that they're not ready to come back to work yeah it's uncharted man it is there's no there's no playbook for anything that's going on but what do you see um you talked about a little bit keeping that boutique feel with nhp um but like what are the kind of mile markers out there, not your number, but like, you know, obviously we get that. But is there maybe, uh, other, other goals, other things that maybe aren't maybe completely numbers based or I want to have 30 employees or, you know, yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's client based, right? I think that, you know, I want to scale to a point where I could empower other people to do what I do, right? Where I

could put trusted consultants and advisors into company underneath my, uh, you know, my shingle here, right? Yeah. and build that name brand, you know, and it's only two and a half years. And that's, you know, infancy in the world of building a business. But I really have done a tremendous amount of relationship building, right, and surrounding myself with good people, good advisors. And for me, that's a mile marker, right? Making sure that I'm doing things the right way.

And I'll put a number out there, man. I mean, I won't like tell the number, but last year, 2019, I put up a really impressive number for myself, right? you know, a big financial number for me. It was a number I never hit my career. It was a number that was kind of a goal number, a reach number, and I did it. And it was awesome.

And thank God I did, because right now, you know, revenue's down almost 5% year over year. So it's, it's important to have that money in the bank right now, man, and not spend it on, you know,

more branded hats. Yeah. As we close things out, what's, any good tips, you know, either on the entrepreneur side, the recruiting side,

any kind of like playbook, tips or things or where you see things going, maybe as a relation to the market or just in general, you know, with just your life experiences and your kind of an entrepreneurial path that you've gone through. Yeah. So there's a couple of things that hold dear to me on a mindset and then action, you know, a real tangible action thing. So, you know, first and foremost is truly trust your gut is something that, you know, I believe in. You know, if you feel something the first time, go with it, right? Don't overthink things. And I'm a chronic overthinker man. So I've really been trying to like trust my gut and my instincts and really follow that.

Be careful who you take advice from, right? Take advice from people who have actually been through it. There's a lot of gurus, a lot of people out there trying to tell you what to do, who to be. Don't listen to that shit, right? Like listen to people who you see, you know, that you admire for real, right? So just be mindful of that. When it comes down to, you know, day by day actionable advice, the best piece of advice

that I received recently was from my mentor. His name was Tom Hall when I started in recruiting. And he said to me, plan your work and work. plan. Plan your work and work your plan. I say this to myself every morning when I'm ready to go to work. I'm ready to turn on that computer and boot up. What am I going to do today? What do I need to get done? And what's my plan for attacking it? Right. And I write it out. I put my notes down. I go, these are my checklist. These are things I got to. And listen, man, you and I both know distractions, client calls, kids, all that kind of shit. You can throw you off. But at least I know there's accountability there. Right. I know I stuck to it. I got done what I needed to do. And there was a plan there.

And then something I follow from Gary Vee, it's clouds and dirt, right? His whole clouds and dirt fall off. There's times when you've got to be, you know, looking forward and looking in the future and then you're down in the dirt grinding away and stay away from that middle ground, man. The middle ground and the gray area, that's where shit goes to die. Yeah, love it, man. Well, let me, let's key up how people can find you, the podcast information. Yeah, ma'am. How can everyone stay up to speed with everything you're up to and find you? Absolutely, man.

So first and foremost, I'm on LinkedIn, Adam J. Posner. You will find another Adam Posner from Australia, who is my awesome. LinkedIn pen pal who I had on my live show. We had one of the best live shows together. It was awesome, man. We had so much fun. Dude, it was actually a great show. He's a loyalty marketer in Australia.

He's like a speaker. He's a big name in Australia. He's huge in Australia. So Adam J. Posner on LinkedIn, company website, NHPTalentgroup.com, everything podcast related. Thepazcast.com. You can find all the episodes and follow me there. I'm trying to do some stuff on Twitter.

I can't get into Twitter, man. I can't do Twitter. Like, I'm on there, but I'm not on there, you know, like, you have to be on all the time. It's like, I can't, I don't have enough time or mental energy. Like, you know, it's like, I don't tick to Twitter enough. Yeah, TikTok. I've got my guys at the agency, they're blowing that up, but I just can't get there. I'm just not a good dancer, you know.

I can't do that. One thing I did want to mention before, and we really didn't talk about Greenville, but there's a little, little fun fact, you know, before things went south there. And, you know, we'll leave that where it was with, with EP and everything. but Wifi and I were actually open to looking to move down there at one point before we were still in the city where there was a potential opportunity to move down to Greenville. I've been down there probably about four or five times and I told you this like I love Greenville, man. Like it was warm, like it was great people, you know, it was just awesome. So it's out of regret, but it's one of those things to look back.

I mean, obviously I'm happy where I am now, but you know, everything happens for a reason and I want to met great folks like yourself, man. I know. Well, yeah, Greenville's booming and, you know, and everybody's taking a little blue. but it's it's even better and you know we i live downtown and our office here is in downtown and also uh it's been good i'm wearing my accent we started a little foundation or uh network thing called greenville hustle and so uh we've been uh raising money for the community through all this so uh but greenville's a great place i appreciate you saying that and good stuff man it's been great to catch up food hey great food you know what's that baseball team went to one of those teams the drive

They're the affiliate of the Greenville Drive, the affiliate of the Red Sox. Yeah, that was fun. That's good times in Newville. I know. Well, let's do this again soon and, you know, catch up and stay in contact. And I really appreciate you coming on. I know people will. I love of, you know, following your journey a little bit, at least getting, you know,

the highs and the lows of entrepreneurship and self-growth and, you know, some of the stuff on Gary Vue. just knowing his his growth is is both, I think, enlightening for people that just, you know, they only see what they see or hear what they hear. And so I really appreciate you being open on all that. Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me on Ron.

All right, brother. Thanks so much. Hey, guys, thanks so much to Adam Posner on this edition of the Radical Marketing podcast. We will see you next time. To learn more about radical, visit radical.company on the web or follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Allford. Thanks for listening to the Radical Marketing Podcast.