Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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. 

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 and what's happening. Exactly.

Lots of going on here. I'm going to give you your due here. You're now the founder of NHP Talent Group, host of the 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 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, UX, 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, dude, 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, your 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 um you know let's start let's give everybody a little bit of the cliff notes background on adam you know uh you and i had had a stop at ep and co together in new york um you know the southern guy moving up living in new york with all with all you guys and and uh trying to act like we fit in but uh no, but let's walk people kind of through 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, man. Yeah, you know, down and dirty, you know, born and raised in New York or something that is in my blood, man. I love it. I'm literally sitting in Shea 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, knew great internships, working like sports, Buffalo Sabres 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 client 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. We had the first streaming app, right? I was number five on the beta test for the Sirius app. It was before 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 Sirius, which was interesting i 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 years uh and then i decided to go back to agency life um and i was at a small place and i was kind of you know got wind of 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, October 2014, Vayner came calling, went through the interview process, and I landed over at VaynerMedia. It was late 2014, which was a pretty interesting time for me, man. It's right when, you know, things were ramping up for Gary. I mean, I think, you know, I mean, 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 was 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, that really wasn't, you know, for me anyway, uh, 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, you know, I remember it was like yesterday and Gary and I have 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 most important piece of

advice I ever 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. Thanks, love, and see you later. But it wasn't 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? And I was like, well, you know, I kind of been thinking my, my buddy does healthcare

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 not even kidding you, man, 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 me, 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. No recruiter placed 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 to the table and really foster that. But I was able to learn under a great mentor who really taught me the art and science of recruiting. 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. $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. I climbed the ladder. I was rookie of the year, put up some great numbers, um, went over to another agency, a UK based agency. Um, 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, 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 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 flair that I loved. And keeping it, just being real, you know. I appreciate that. And I think that translated into your success most deservedly. One thing, and I don't want to spend too much time, but Gary Vee is such a lightning rod. I think most people listening to any podcast now,

he's such a fundamental kind of player now. I think what can you speak to as far as, I know if he wasn't as real as he comes across that that would be shown. 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 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. And every time I see Gary, literally once, twice a year, run into him, reconnect and everything. He's as real as the day I met him, man. 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 Vee out there thatnerchuk persona. There's a Gary Vaynerchuk CEO, business owner, right? And then there's a Gary Vee 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. How was, was it just like any of, you know, you had several stops at agencies. And again, I know it's 14, 15, lots changed. Yeah. But was it, 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. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, listen, I I've been in the new office a couple of times. 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, 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 what, 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 interviewed 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. Right. They keep it real.

You know, they're really focused on their employees, the employees of the lifeblood. And 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 the cultural flaws, um, you know, they do things differently there and, um, 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. But that's right. Like Ogilvy, 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 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 but they also don't realize with social media everything else that if he was that he'd be getting called out left and right and you just don't see that no content as we all consume you consume, you never, do I think he's running an agency and 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 transparent social world where all the information's at your fingertips, from a business perspective, you would know right away, right? And you would know if he screwed people over you know if he was not what

you see man what he is so let's talk about the podcast or pause cast you know i know that's taken off for you i know it's a you know we talk pre-show about that being you know in 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 about the evolution of the podcast. Talk about, you know, maybe some of your favorite guests and, you know, let's get into it a little bit. Let me just, first and foremost, I love podcasting, man. It has brought out so many elements of things that I love, being creative, having a platform.

Howard Stern is somebody that I've always, 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 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 a couple of weeks ago. He interviewed Tom Brady for two and a half hours. 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 an arc. He takes them into a story arc, and he 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, in my network. Um, and I said, you know what, let's, 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. Man, my show is not about me, right? I mean, I interject, I get my point of view, like any good host should do, but I spotlight those guests, but it's an 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, the not so secret secret about podcasting is that it's an exceptional business development tool, right? Like, 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 shit box results, man. But 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 rapport with them. Now I have their fricking phone number. And now when it comes time to turn on the business it's warmed up man it's a warm 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 doesn't work you know it doesn't work or even the inbox stuff but if you but if you ask them to come on your show you give them some context you know maybe share an episode or 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're, they want to tell their story too. Now 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 in and here's the other kind of crazy thing too. Like I, I used to read a lot of books before kids. 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 was the last book I read. So the podcast for me is my learning, right? It's my master's class, right? It's my, you know, MBA program where I'm surrounding myself with these experts that are just dropping 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, I got a couple of 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. It was my first live interview, like 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 the 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 big at 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. I know. I'm like writing these down and claude you know no joel joel joel i remember i love joel working with him he was in an agency moxie moxie was it yeah he was a moxie 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 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, what? My mom thought I was just going to dig up fucking dinosaur bones all day, right? Like, no, 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, 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 crushes life, man. And, you know, him and I remain tight. I mean, I literally spoke to him a couple of 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. He went into the cannabis biz and is just crushing it, man. Yeah, that's an interesting business.

It's booming and only scratching the surface. Yeah, man. It's fascinating, man. You talk about cannabis and CBD. It's an interesting market to watch, for sure. Are you working with any cannabis clients? We've been approached and we're trying to figure out the best way to navigate it. I wanted to have my ducks in a row before you just dive in. Unless you're focused on that. focused on that yeah i mean it's uh there's another great guest i had his name is jared murski he's actually going to be back on um he's a founder of an agency called wick and mortar

um he's another potential great guest too uh he built the whole agency around cannabis marketing but like dude you gotta see the packaging and the thought process it goes it's beautiful man it's like it's a luxury good it's a luxury good look at the price point on that stuff right like you gotta pack it you don't you're not throwing it in a freaking cellophane bag or tinfoil, right? You got to pack it up. I've done some project work from some of the e-cig companies that are kind of like that same thing. I mean, right before the cannabis started taking off.

And like 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, the 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 am, 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've lost opportunities. I didn't lose any business. Yeah. And 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 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, that, that your own business is a game changer. It's, it's a, it's a mindset. It changes everything. And it's really brought out, you know, kind of like the podcast podcast it's brought out so many qualities in me that i knew i had but never came to the surface yeah

it's i mean the accountability is ground zero you know like you you're it buck stops with you with everything yeah 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 accountability is just like you know you don't have any 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 right even if you aren't mentally going oh I have insulation you but you you instinctively feel it you know you can throw other people under the bus there's no one to throw under 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 like it was like the uh the um uh what's it called? Uh, Zoolander moment. Like, who am I? Right. Like you have to look at the mirror, right? Uh, he's looking down in the puddle and he's reflecting. And that's the 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 and 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, when I started this business, I thought it was going to be one direction, really building out something big. And then I said, you know what? I really am operating well with this boutique model. I've got a couple people that work for me, figuring out different ways to scale it. And I don't know if I want to be running a big company.

You just got to be truthful about it. Mo' money, mo' problems. That's what they say. 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 can 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 with 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. Are they, how many domestic disputes? What the percentage is on that? What was this 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 where 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. It's rough. 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 that we, you know,

there's always going to be the dark side, right. But let that, 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, it's gotta be hidden New York ad world pretty hard. You know, we talked a little pre-show about that, but I, you know, like we're a little insulated. Like I was talking to my wife last night, you know, we're by a percentage base on 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 on at least the ad business side. Yeah. Um, it really, you know, it's, it's industry specific, right? It's industry specific, right? There's pharma that's doing well,

the certain sectors doing well, but every sector is getting hit. Sure. Right. Every agency is getting hit because if you're a consumer good and you're not selling it, if you're 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 support and your marketing, your marketing budget goes, and then your, 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 its side 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 job search 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 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 balance that? Like, how do you like, you know, yeah, yeah, everyone, you know, we're going 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. It's uncharted, man. It is. There's no playbook for anything that's going on. But what do you see?

You talked about a little bit keeping that boutique feel with NHP. 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 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 client based, right? I think that, you know, I want to scale to a point where I could empower other people to do what Ibased, 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, 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 surrounded 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 in 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 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 it relates to the market or just in general, you know, with just your life experiences

and your kind of entrepreneurial path that you've gone through. Yeah, so there's a couple of things that hold dear to me on a, on a mindset and an action, you know, a real tangible, um, 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 really have been trying to like trust my gut and my instincts and really follow that. Um, 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 advice the best piece of advice that i received recently was from my mentor uh his name is tom hall when i started recruiting and he said to me plan your work and work your plan plan your work and work your plan i say this to myself every morning when i'm ready to go to work when 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, these are my checklists. These are things I got to, and listen, man, you and I both know distractions, client calls, kids, all that kind of shit to 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 philosophy, right? There's times when you got to be, you know, looking forward and looking in the future, and then you're down in the dirt, right? His whole clouds and dirt philosophy, right? There's times when you gotta 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 in the gray area, that's where shit goes to die. Yeah. Love it, man. Well, let me, uh, let's key up how people can find you the podcast information. How can everyone stay up to speed with everything you're up to and, and find you? Absolutely, man. So first and foremost, 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's huge in australia uh so adam j poster on linkedin company website nhp talent group.com everything podcast related the podcast.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 you know like you gotta be on all the time it's like i can't get into Twitter, man. I can't do Twitter. Like I'm on there, but I'm not, you know, like you gotta 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 Twitter enough. Yeah. TikTok. I've got my guys, the agency, they they're blowing that up, but I just can't get there. I'm just not a good dancer. You know, one thing I, 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't do that one thing i 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 wifey 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 was i've been down there probably about four or five times and i've told you this this, like, I love Greenville, man. Like it was warm.

Like it was great people. You know, it was just awesome. So, uh, it's not a regret, but it's one of those things you look back. I mean, obviously I'm happy where I am now, but you know, everything happens for a reason. And I want to meet great folks like yourself, man. I know. Well, yeah, Greenville's booming and, you know, and everybody's taking a little blip, 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 even better. I live downtown. Our office here is in downtown. It's been good. I'm wearing my accent. We started a little network thing called Greenville Hustle. We've been raising money for the community through all this. Greenville's a great place. I appreciate you saying that.

Good stuff, man. It's been great to catch up with you. Good food. Hey, great food. What's that baseball team which one of those games the drive they're they're the affiliate of the greenville drive uh the affiliate of the red sox yeah that was fun that's good times in newville i know well let's um let's let's do this again soon and uh you know catch up and stay in contact and i really

appreciate you coming on i know people will you know love of you know, catch up and stay in contact. And I really appreciate you coming on. I know people will, you know, love, 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 Vee, just knowing his growth is both, I think, enlightening for people that just, you know, they only see what they see or hear what they hear. And so 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 Alford. Thanks for listening to the Radical Marketing Podcast.