Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Nate Kennedy - CEO, Builder of Funnels, Master of Ads, King of Conversions and Doctor of Marketing

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

Welcome to another episode of The Radcast! In this week’s episode, host Ryan Alford talks to Nate Kennedy, CEO, Builder of Funnels, Master of Ads, King of Conversions and Doctor of Marketing.Nate, who is both an entrepreneur and a marketer, provides a background on how he got his first business off the ground. He also sheds light on what his company's name signifies and what it does.Nate explains why some advertising campaigns succeed and why others don't, as he underscores what can be done to make ads more effective. Nate also discusses the most difficult challenge he has faced and how it shaped him into the kind of person that he is today.He also talks about his podcast "Marketing Rebels", and offers tips for those who look up and want to be like him. If you want to learn more about Nate Kennedy, check his website https://natekennedy.com/. Follow his Instagram @natekennedymd and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/natekennedymd. If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com. Check out www.theradicalformula.com. Like, Share and Subscribe to our YouTube account https://bit.ly/3iHGk44 or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast. 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. 

What I was willing to do at that time was the work. I had nothing, but I was willing to do the work. I think a lot of people go in and they just build a funnel because someone else built a funnel. Let's go hack this. Let's go hack that. If I were to give someone 30 clicking to build a funnel, it's like, I know it's not sexy. I know it's not exciting,

but you got to understand exactly what the problem, who exactly you want to work with and what is their problem. And if you do that, you can write copy. Oh, and I would 100% invest in a copywriter. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. We've got a doctor in the house today, folks.

Dr. Marketing, the marketing doctor. Nate Kennedy, what's up, brother? How much, man? How you doing? Excited to be here. Hey, man. When I said, all right, I got to get a title for you here. You know, serial entrepreneur. I'm like, no, you said marketing doctor. I'm like, all right, I'm going to go down that path. I like it i like it man i'm glad you're here i'm glad you're in the studio yeah me too i'm excited to be sitting in here and you know face-to-face conversation i know we uh have been uh getting back to more of these with uh you know just the craziness of the world and people getting you know out and about no matter how you and I may feel about it, a lot of people have been probably more stuck than we have.

But it's cool to have you in. A little short drive from Charlotte, right? Not too bad. Just Lake Norman all the way down. I know. Lake Norman is beautiful. That's pretty sure you live on the lake. Yeah, I'm excited for boating season here to start.

Let all that pollen season pass and then get the boat out. Yeah, we're on Lake Kiwi. We keep a boat at the marina there. So that's over by Clemson? Yeah. So we just stayed there. We went down to a Clemson game and just stayed there recently. Yeah, the lake right on the campus is Hartwell.

And then Kiwi's like seven minutes up. And it feeds Hartwell. Kiwi's, seven minutes up and it feeds heartwell kiwis uh i it's just it's the one that feeds heartwell so it's a little prettier because it's got the mountain water and everything it's like super clear so we're at the marina there so uh nice yeah we keep a boat it's a liveaboard boat so it's like a two-bedroom two-bath so oh there you go i'll stop short of it it says yacht on the side but i'll stop short of of that. I don't know if I'm flexing that hard yet. What's the limit, like 34 foot or something like that? Yeah, it's like 40.

It makes it a yacht, so you're good. Yeah, it says it's a motor yacht, but this isn't Tiger Woods. It's nice, don't get me wrong. But yeah, man, it's all good. So, Nate, let's tee things up for everyone. I know you're a serial entrepreneur, marketing guy. We were talking pre-episode, kind of the differences. I came up from the branding side. You've come up through, you know, funnels and performance marketing. But let's give everybody

a little bit of that background of you. Oh, man, how far do we want to go back? Hey, man, as far as you want to take it, brother. So for me, it's, you know, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family watching my dad start a company. So I think that's something I was always going to do. It's kind of built into me watching that and seeing it. And I ended up starting my first business when I got out of college. You know, the first one, first go at it. And it was marketing.

The marketing piece we put out was a direct mail piece. I had no idea what I was doing, but we wrote letters to all these houses in the outer banks where I was living at the time and trying to do security for them. Cause I was like, Hey, you know, the problem is no one's looking at their house, right? In the winter time, someone's got to look after your house. So found a problem and wrote the marketing piece. Now that I understand the value, what that means, uh, from there, I got it. I ended up actually getting into the mortgage industry and real estate did a bunch of that. 2008 built a multimillion dollar company. At least I thought it was because on paper, I looked awesome. But after the industry started just plummeting, that paper value just dropped. And that's when I learned that cash in the bank is more valuable than some other things, right? And values in a

home that you can't extract so lost everything i actually went bankrupt and at that time in 2006 is when i first started getting into internet marketing but my mortgage company real estate company all that kind of you know we went through that bankruptcy there and i had two that was in 2008 fortunate enough to kind of start dabbling in internet marketing i've met a buddy of mine and he was writing his first book and he had been doing online marketing stuff and traveling. In 2005, he left Columbus, Ohio and started traveling around the world and selling products and doing real estate deals. So we met, wrote a book with him. He started getting into marketing. He called me up one day and he was like, hey, I'm going to a

Dan Kennedy Info Summit. You got to come with me. i flew out to la went to that thing and he was like you're going to want to buy everything from everyone on that stage i don't know if you've ever been at those events sure you have and he was like just buy one thing and execute yeah i mean thankful for for my buddy mark for doing that uh you know that reeling me in and saying just get something and execute great lesson in that but i take it dan's not related he's not. He wasn't a brother from another. No, but he is closer than you probably. Right. So, so he, uh, we both are from Ohio and it is, so yeah, so I, I, you know, I started getting into marketing and then after that event, he called me up and he goes, Hey, you need to, uh, what you need to do is like i'm doing a lead gen program we're

gonna rotate leads we're gonna do some email drops we're gonna get all get leads we're gonna be able to sell products on the back send emails and i was like i did that and i'm i was like holy smokes i was like i just made money sending emails yeah so it was game changing for me at that point and then uh so you know fast forward the bankruptcy happens. I'm like, man, I might as I can reinvent myself now. I can do something different. I don't feel so like wasn't so like in that environment anymore. I had to be in the office and all that. So started doing online marketing stuff, got back into just flipping real estate and doing that kind of stuff and started building Internet marketing companies and built some smaller brands up and sold them over between 2009 and 2010. I ended up building up seven different companies and selling them, which was kind of cool. Some small sales, one low end seven figure, right? But one mostly smaller six figure sales, which is still a lot of deals in one year. Yeah. Well, no, it was a three year period. I'm sorry. No, 2009 to I'm sorry, 13. Okay. Still seven deals in four years is pretty good.

So it was all internet-based, man. It's rapid speed, right? And what I learned during that process was I had to learn how to run paid traffic. I had to learn how to build funnels, and I was self-taught. So luckily I had some great people in my corner, and I've never had a problem asking questions on how to do things. And so that parlayed in 13. In 2011, I started a company, Funnel Architects, before like the funnel, I guess, branding thing became really big.

Right. With all these things that are out there. Russell Brunson. Yeah, I think that was so I was three years ahead of him. Yeah. But I'll tell you what, he's done an amazing job building that building that system and that software and everything else. You know, he solved the problem. Right. I was doing it all manual. He created the solution.

But yeah, so and then from there, people started hiring us to do stuff for him because we had funnels and paid traffic and ended up having an agency for many years. And then in 2020, I decided I was like, I got to get back to my roots. I want to wake up, send an email and be done with my day. And so by May of 2020, I had launched a media company and I also, in 2020, I had a bunch of clients. I basically said, I'm going to go to them and say, Hey, look, you know, we need to transition away and find you someone else to handle what we do. I'm going to start building our own brands. And so that's what we did and just started. And that's been on a whirlwind since then building our own brands. So it's not only, uh, I would say marketing, that's what we did and just started and that's been on a whirlwind since then building our own brands so it's not only uh i would say marketing that's all the the uh happy

side of the stories not the not the not the bad sides we got plenty of uh roadblocks along the way but maybe we'll get back to those yeah well yeah that's it that's where i'm at today so now i own a media company i've got uh you know we do traffic traffic and conversion stuff as well for some people. And we're launching, I always try to launch something new. So I got a coffee company we're trying to get off the ground. And, you know, that's pretty much it, you know, like just trying to create brands that we can grow into, you know, eight figure to nine figure hopefully is the goal. I like it. Definitely a serial entrepreneur.

I'm hearing that a lot more than anything. I think you read the definition. I do want to ask, though, I heard media company a serial entrepreneur. I'm hearing that a lot more than anything. I think you read the definition. I do want to ask, though, I heard media company a couple times. And I think media company is becoming a complicated name. So I'd love to know, for you, what your media company exactly means and kind of that interpretation. So for us, we have, I guess what I what i labeled as a conservative media company right so we we've identified a demographic and we're building websites news based websites for them to read content and access content that they want to read and then what we do is we

generate we turn them into newsletter subscribers. And then from those newsletter subscribers, what we're doing is, you know, we now are, so we, we sent have about 70 to 75 million impressions per month right now. So for me on the media side, it's, it's, I guess to boil it down, it's like, we own eyeballs, right? And we own the audiences. So with that art, what we do then is people come to us and buy those impressions from us, uh,, depending on where they're at or within the system. Are they in the newsletter? Are they on the website? Are they dedicated email? All these different things.

If I own a conservative business, whether it's a t-shirt company or whatever, and my audience is conservative-based, I can come to you and the media company and buy audience, essentially. Exactly. So you're going to go to Facebook and buy those audiences, but you're also most likely on the conservative side going to run into a couple roadblocks along the way. Yeah. We just, you know, the best way is, you know, Facebook's kind of a media company in itself, too,

with all the ad space they got, right? Of course. So that's really, we're just, you know, Facebook's kind of a media company in itself too with all the ad space they got, right? So that's really, we're just, you know, I don't want to say we're on Facebook level, but we're a very small version of that with a very targeted audience, right? Yeah. And I think that's really key. And for our audience, you know, I'm glad you teed that up. You know, everyone that thinks about these, they think about places like journals and magazines and all this stuff. But all of these people exist to do a couple of different things. One, collect data, you know, build audience or sell subscriptions, you know, but a lot of it comes back to data now, right? It's all about like, you know, and it's, and look, when you aggregate content that they're interested in and you give them value they don't mind sharing that

data right and i think that's what's key and it sounds like you guys are kind of tapping into that conservative mindset yeah it's it's in what it's a larger audience and they're an audience that are interested in multiple verticals right so we're not pigeonholed into like one small piece right so we've got tactical survival financial there, there's gold out, you know, like gold industry is very big. So there's all these different types of verticals that they're interested in coffee shirts, right? So it doesn't limit us to only doing one thing. Yeah, I like it. I like it. So I want to step back because you talked about I want to talk about the learning lessons. You know, I mean, you know, I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs.

It's kind of the nature of the show where we go and telling stories and personal brand stories. And look, it's so cool to be an entrepreneur now, you know, at 21 and 20. so cool to be an entrepreneur now you know at 21 and 20 and everybody wants to be an entrepreneur own their own thing which i i don't i don't throw shade on it as much as i think it's glamorized a bit you know let's talk about you know your growth in that perspective i mean you talked about it with the the real life bankruptcy i mean like nothing more real than that right yeah yeah well when i lost everything i'll tell you what, I was sitting in my condo that was being foreclosed down only because all my other houses already disappeared. My car was repoed.

And he had, and I'll, my, my, my wife, bless her heart. She's still with me, you know? So she saw me at my high, she saw me at my low and now she sees us where we're at today. So she, her and I were actually literally like counting change. I don't know. I grew up in a house where my family always, like, we always had a change bucket and that change bucket was like the money we would take on vacation every year. Like my dad, when I was starting changing it. So I always, I still, to this day have like a change market. I just, one of those things from childhood, right? If you came into the offered house and you looked next

to the stove we have a glass jar about that tall with change in it i can relate brother still got it so we were rolling that change literally rolling that change and i saw a mouse run across the floor i was like oh you gotta be kidding me so i was depressed for about two weeks probably you know just going through that process of mental failure. I failed. I'm never going to recover and feeling sorry for myself and all that good stuff. But in little did I know that was probably one of the easier moments I was going to go through, right? Looking back on it and, you know, more money, more problems. When you don't have money, it's funny though. You only have one problem, you know, when you don't have money. I mean, you only have one problem you know when you don't have money i mean i'm not i'm simplifying it but i think you know it's true you got one problem on

your mind yeah because you're getting out of that hole yeah you know and then once you get out of the hole and you get somewhere then you got all these other things right bigger bigger problems produces more money though too exactly it's solve bigger problems yeah so yeah i mean i went through that that was one of the probably my first real like hardship right going through that and then figuring out i had to rebuild like i had no choice it was like i gotta do something i'm not gonna sit here and wallow in my misery it's either you either move forward or you stay where you're at and i think you know i think that's one thing entrepreneurs you talk about that it's glamorized but what i was willing to do at that time was the work i had nothing but

i was willing to do the work and i knew that there were a lot of um people who weren't willing to you know a lot of people get into it and they got this idea and they're excited about being an entrepreneur building a business and they get in they're like oh, Oh, I gotta do this. I gotta do this. I gotta do this. Like the list goes on and on and on. Right. So I think entrepreneurs are great, but you got to be willing to work and you got to be competitive at the end of the day too, because it's a game. Business is just a game. So, uh, so that was one hardship. The next hardship was, um, through all of that, the bankruptcy and losing real estate and everything else I went through. And I've always been very hesitant over the years to tell this story. And I've just recently started

opening up about it because it's, it was a tough one is the, I got a, I traveled around, got back and on my doorstep in North Carolina. So I lost my real estate license too, right? During that process, I lost it because I made a mistake. And then I got made an example of if I would have had money to hire an attorney, I probably still would have my mortgage license, but everything works out how it's supposed to work out. So I'm happy for that. And I co-brokered a deal and paid a little too much to the other company. And because I did that, they were like, oh, give us your license, right? So I'm like, all right, can't i can't be the mortgage space anymore so let's let's go and reinvent yeah and i ended up later down the road after this couple years later they

come back they go on my doorstep is that same commissioner bank and an fbi agent i'm like wow what is this i'm like it's like can i help you and uh he was like oh the guy said his name i said i know exactly who you are why are you here i got it i just instantly went on attack mode yeah and uh i was like well here's my attorney's info and i get that off my doorstep and slam the door in his face and uh that did not go well over for me so i mean it's funny i was so mad and i was like i just finally got out all this stuff and now i'm back in it and i'm like but you know what i've learned like i i want to hear the rest of the story i know but i think it's a good learning lesson and a good point what i've learned

and i'm i'm that i'm you and i are a lot alike i think and both entrepreneurs probably pretty pretty base level but when we get hot we get hot and what I've learned though is rarely even when you feel like you're in the right even when you feel like okay you've paid your dues or you've done whatever it just rarely goes well for you or as good as it could have when you kind of lose your shit. You know what I mean? Even if you feel like you've got all your ducks in a row, you've done what you're supposed to do, and you want to just tell it like it is,

and you're ready to let that out, and you want to let that frustration go, it seems to always put you in more of a deficit than maybe you were to begin with. 100%. And that's exactly where the story goes, too. Yeah. Every time, I'm like damn it. I dug the hole

deeper than it had to be. I'm a pretty even keel guy. One of my clients years ago, he would get so mad at me because we'd have a huge win. I'd be like awesome man, we did what we were supposed to do. He's like are you not excited? I was like yeah, I'm excited. Next, let's go. I think as an entrepreneur, you can't get too high and you can't get too low i

think the best ones are have a little bit of i don't know i don't want to say your flat line but it's just if you because if you go too far on either level it just doesn't seem to work it's a roller coaster right emotional rollercoaster gets super tough and you just beat yourself up mentally because you're so high one day and and you're in the dumps yeah exactly yeah yeah you gotta be even keel for sure yeah it helps to be it does control it yes control it that's right so yeah so anyways that story ended up with a going through a couple year like legal battle and the fbi switched over basically because they knew there was nothing there but they had to start there on the criminal side and then they went to the civil side over to the DOJ. And basically when it all came down

to it, my attorney, they said, Hey, we can find you millions of dollars right now, but we'll settle instead. And I told my attorney, I was like, well, let's fight them. I was like, I don't, I want to fight. He goes, you can't fight. He goes, you can pay me to fight, but you're not going to win because you're fighting them with it. They're using your money to fight you. Yeah. Your tax dollars. Yeah. And he goes, I recommend that you just settle and be done with it. And so supposedly they're going to fine me millions of dollars. Instead, it was a $75,000 fine. So it just ended up being a financial shakedown in my opinion.

But, you know, so I had a couple of years of that process going on while trying to build my companies and doing all this other stuff. So I couldn't be too high, I couldn't be too low, you know. So having a lot of success on the business side. So here's what it was. They actually said, hey, you know, we did this whole video, right? This marketing video called The Billionaire Boy for this real estate product piece that we were launching.

And the billionaire boy, it's like his little kid and he's walking around and he's talking out. He's a billionaire. And my buddy owned like a 16,000 square foot house. So we shot some of the video there. We had him looking at houses. Like it was just this like comic video, right? And they went into that video and said, we see that you're making tons of money because

of this video. And I was like, that's just a cop. That's a, that's, that's just a joke. It's a parody. It's a parody. Right.

And, uh, so that's actually what YouTube, YouTube video. That's what sparked it. That's what sparked it. Yeah. That's correct.

Oh, the whole FBI. Well, I think all of it, I think there was already there, but they brought that up in the, in the meetings. Right. And saying, well, you have this video. So we know you've got money and it's this and this. And it's like, Well, I think all of it, I think that was already there, but they brought that up in the meetings, right?

And saying, well, you have this video, so we know you've got money and it's this and this. And it's like, oh my God. So it was a process. But hey, I mean, at the end of the day, it's part of life. Yeah. I think that's maybe an extreme example. If you're an entrepreneur and you're building a business, hopefully you never go through something like that because it is a challenge. It's not a lot of fun, but it's the war stories, right?

It's the battle wounds we get. Yeah, and I try not to harp on this too much because I think I start to sound like you know it all or something, but it's like the scars do make you better. I mean, you learn something. I don't know. If you aren't challenged, you aren't growing, they say. There's no growth in the easiness. I don't know if you aren't challenged you aren't growing they say you know there's no growth in the easiness i don't know if you found that true oh 100 i mean

if you're not growing and not learning one of our core values in my company is growth yeah like you got to be getting better yeah whether it be professionally and personally so talk to me it's always fascinated me we talked about this a little bit, the brand versus performance marketing. And I kind of came up through that brand lens and bigger campaigns and you self-taught performance marketing. Now the marketing doctor. They might stick. I like that. I like that. The MD. But talk to me about the fundamentals of funnel building and stuff like that. I just find it fascinating. I think our audience does because it's still highly relevant with building leads and those kinds of things. When you're talking about it or you give advice about it, what are just some of the cores of performance marketing? Yeah. I think the performance marketing is you really got to re-engineer what you want.

So I think a lot of people go in and they just build a funnel because someone else built a funnel. Let's go hack this. Let's go hack that. Yep. And so I try and stress right out of the front, like, what do you want out of the business?

Do you want an automated delivery? You want to be able to run traffic? Just generate sales? Or do you want to have, do you want to be able to run traffic uh just generate sales or do you want to have do you want to do coaching do you want to do master like what's your high ticket end going to be because your margins are going to be slim if you don't have something bigger on the back right so it's trying to figure out like what do you what do you want out of the business yeah uh because some people they want to build a coaching funnel and they they love coaching they love training they love having that you know that environment yeah so that, that model is a lot different because you're charging more money as opposed to maybe you're selling a $97 training course. Right.

So I think for me, the number one thing is like, what do you ultimately want out of the business and what's your, what's the lifestyle you want and how does your business fit? Cause then you can design the funnel and the system all around that lifestyle that you want. Yeah. And I think a lot of times people just go out there and say, Hey, this guy's got a funnel. It looks like he's killing it cause he's running ads. So I'm going to go ahead and just do the same thing. Yeah. And the biggest challenge is,

I think that's the biggest challenge why there's so many people who dive in and fizzle out so fast. Uh, also be ready to spend money and lose money. Yeah. I don't know if that't know if that makes anyone feel good. No, it doesn't. But it's like that in everything. It's even like that on the branding side. On the branding side, though, I don't call it loss money.

I call it investment because you're building awareness. Even on the performance marketing side, if you plan to stick with it, it's like you're going to be a coach or you're going to be selling courses you're going to be doing something you plan to do it for the next 5 10 15 years or whatever then every ad is building an impression you know 100 yeah and that's always been the balance for me with like okay we all want leads we all want sales now and certainly if you're a coach, every dollar you spend,

you need to be trying to get ROA, which I understand. But it's also like, but if people don't know who you are, then why are they going to buy from you? And so it's like, how do you balance the brand versus the performance?

It's always been fascinating to me. Well, that's, I think, when you're there, it all comes down to performance right because you can build your brand in the performance no one knows you but they got to know you yeah eventually yeah and so i think you're speaking heavier on that you're speaking heavier to their problem yeah because you can see there's i i'm sure you know people i know people they can go you know my um a buddy of mine just made a post recently and and did a whole yacht trip

filled up a yacht trip did like a hundred,000 from one Instagram post because he is invested in that brand and people want to be around him. And then there's also, but at the same time, before all that, he was doing more performance, like getting people into his, paying to get people into his system and his funnel to follow up. And then that brand was built over time. So for me on performance side if i were to give someone they're looking to build a funnel it's like i know it's not sexy i know it's not exciting but you got to understand exactly what the problem who exactly you want to work with and what is their problem yeah and if you do that you can write copy oh and i would 100 invest in a copywriter everybody thinks they're a good copywriter everybody ever talk oh i could write

copy no you can't yeah i was like there's a reason copywriters get paid big money because they're really really good at what they do but if you pay a copywriter when you pay a copywriter just make sure you know who you want to attract yeah because you can i've i built a business one time through a funnel and i found that i ended up attracting all the wrong people yeah and it we were generating sales and everything else, but I wasn't enjoying the conversations and the issues with the business because it wasn't people that I wanted attracted in that, in that model. Right. So you can get, get off track pretty quick too.

Yeah. And then there's a disconnect. Like once you start delivering maybe the product or service, it's like, it may not boil itself up to the forefront beginning, but getting repeat business or the next round, okay, if it was a mismatch, right? You kind of get off the wrong foot. So talk to me about the here and the now and the businesses. What's today look like? What are we up to?

Oh, man, today's i'm hanging out here according to podcast oh yeah yeah i think you've got it you've started bought and sold businesses it sounds like that's still part of the plan but what all's kind of in in the day-to-day life now of you know where you want to take things yeah my goal a few years back i decided i really wanted to, I started focusing on becoming a better leader because for entrepreneurs, like you're either in the trenches and in the grind, or you're becoming a better leader to help people with you build and grow. So big challenge I had in my agency was people, I was a hired gun. People were hiring me,

not my company. So on Saturdays I'm getting a phone call or if I had my account manager call and they're like, well, no, no, no, we want to talk to Nate, you know? So even though they could have done the same thing. So I knew going out of it, like I had, that's because I, I don't, I didn't do a good job leading and growing those people. So my big focus, you know, day-to-day is improving my leadership skills to help, you know, build great people. Like I want to build up awesome people within our companies and help them get better, help them great people. Like I want to build up, uh, awesome people within our companies and help them get better, help them produce impact. So I think, uh, day-to-day wise, that's what I'm spending my time on. That's what my goal is. Uh, company wise, uh, on the marketing

front, I'm just trying to build bigger audiences, you know, more media properties, bigger audiences, because it's, you know, there's so much value. And if you can own the eyeballs, there's value. What do you think about what's going on? You know, back to that with building audience, building that. And you've smart owning and buying, you know, and those of you listening out there, you got to have your own first party data. You got to build your own audience because leaning on the Facebook's the world we talked about. But I just don't see that getting better. What's going on with some of the social platforms and some of the ability to kind of own your audience because you're – let's face it.

It's own land versus rented land is what I call it. When you own your own site and own data, you know, and media companies, you own it, you know. When you're on social and other platforms, you're renting and you just never know when the close sign is going to turn on you. Like real life first metaverse? Sort of. Yeah, I know. But it's just targeting has gotten a lot harder on the social platforms, hasn't it? It has, which is targeting has gotten way harder, so you've got to have your message down

and know who you're trying to attract and let your ad and copy and all that do the heavy lifting. But I agree with you. It's getting harder. It's getting harder. It's getting more expensive. But people should still do it and use it. You've just got to be a better marketer

and continuously improve. But more importantly, you've got to add other channels. And if you own the audience. So the reason for me that's big on that is because if my Facebook ad account goes down or my Google ad account goes down, I still have over two and a half million people I can send an email to in day one and generate revenue. Right. Right. So if there is if you have an email list, you might only have a thousand people on your email list or 500 people on your email list. But if you communicate, you're like, oh, I'm not going to mail them because they don't. You know, I haven't emailed him before. Email. Do it right now. Like, stop now and go do it because you're going to generate traction and revenue. Yeah. By doing it. I know you're a big email fan. Oh, yeah. I was I was waiting for you to tee that one up.

Okay. People out there listening, I think they go, email's been around forever. I just delete the emails. That's not true because a lot of money is being generated every day from email. I know you're a big fan of it. What's your perspective on email marketing? I think it's a must for online companies. It's an absolute must. It's,

it allows you to do a couple of things. Uh, if you're a coach or consultant or product owner, whatever that may be, if you have an email, you can send an email and pre-launch a product. You can send an email, uh, and test a message to see if, Hey, did this message work? If it did, all right, well, let me go to put some money towards it on ads. Right. So there's big lesson on this was when i started growing an email list in 2006 and kind of understanding the power of it uh over that time was i still have people from stuff i was doing in 2009 that are still around that message me oh nate good you know i noticed you got this new thing going on that's's awesome. Right. So I don't email nearly as much as I used to, to that list. I used to email every single day and, you know, working on getting back to it, but we've got a lot going on. So I haven't. So there's my

excuse. But, uh, there is, uh, it's, it's one of those things where there, those, those, they may come on your list one year and buy two years down the road from you. But if you're communicating and staying in touch, they're just waiting for the right time right and it's a way to bond and people want to do business we all know everyone wants to do business people they know like and trust and email allows you to build that bond what's the uh talk to me about late lead magnets like what what do you see is in this day and age where people have kind of been bombarded and everything's like that and obviously having a media entity and newsletter and all that is certainly one of them i don't want to steal your thunder there but like but what what what does it take to get an email these days so i so

we do stuff a little different uh for me i i kind of got away from lead magnets and what and so what we do is what we call the one-step funnel okay so we just rebranded a squeeze page ah so but uh so but anyways step funnel trademark the marketing doctor is that noted you got that noted nick got that down uh well what we do is polls right so our goal is we want to go to a hyperactive audience or a not hyperactive, but a larger audience that's passionate about something. OK. And whatever that passion is. And then we do polls and we like to get them to vote yes or no. And then we send them the results in email.

So we'd like to do stuff along those lines and come up with the right phrases and ways to do that because it's more engaging because once you get them on the email list the problem with lead medics lead magnets themselves is so many people are doing them so as soon as they opt in there's fatigue and people opt in and then they don't go and you're like oh i sent you an email then they never go check it because they want it on the page there right and they only opted in because they needed that So you're getting a lot of bad email addresses. They didn't opt in because they want to hear from you now. Granted the, the polls, the one thing the poll solves for us is people really want to know if they're the right, if they're right. Right. If you want to be right. And so whether they vote yes or no, or whatever the vote is, they want to,

they want to understand that answer. So. Are you doing these polls like within like the the media platforms you have correct all right so and so that's why we do larger audiences though yeah and now you can sift and sort them and push them where they need to go through different engagement right but the biggest thing is when you get an opt-in is get them engaged on email a lot of times people just send one email and they never mail again like you got to really get them engaged yeah because clicks matter right in email so we do a lot of personal branding at the agency um i have a lot of guests on that have personal brands and leverage it what what's the nate kennedy personal brand like you know when you think about, and maybe it's what you're hoping to convey, what you

convey. One, I'd love to hear your perspective on personal branding overall. And then two, what you feel like yours is. Man, I think, well, one, personal brand is a must I think these days. And even

company brands are a must, right these days uh if and even company brands are just right uh for long term and it's just depends how you grow it i think you know for me at the end my goal i guess i don't know what the brand will be i'm a family guy right like yeah you know big thing for me was you know faith and family is always first uh i'm definitely unapologetically american you know, faith and family is always first. Uh, I'm definitely unapologetically American, you know, I've got not hiding that. Love me some America and love me some freedom. Yep. And, uh, you know, and I think on the marketing side, man, I just, you know, brand side, I design campaigns that make it rain, you know, like, so it's, it's one of those maybe as for personal brand, I'm still, I'm hoping I can get some insight from you because I'm really, you're the expert. I know how to build, and generate leads and and make money out of thin air

yeah through marketing campaigns but when it comes to uh the personal brand i'm really going down that avenue these days and i think time will tell i just think you know just being myself yep you know showing the stuff i do with my family i'm constantly i'm you know i'm into sports so you know like a lot of my analogies i'm coaching my son and his teams and stuff. And my daughter wants nothing to do with sports, but she loves horseback riding. So it's like just being there for that. And I think those are some of the big things that me as a person,

faith, family, that kind of stuff. And I think I want to inspire entrepreneurs, right, to not have to take the hard way, not have to make the mistakes that I made. I think you've got it pretty nailed. I mean, your personal brand is, I'm distilling this now, is amplification of your reputation and your thought leadership. And you just described faith, family, things that are important to you, and freedom and liberty and conservative media, all that plays together. And personal brand is just the amplification of that, the circle of influence growing. And because at the end of the day, everyone has a story.

Everyone has a reputation. And when you're wanting to activate that for the good of others, you see there's – I've been having this debate. Christopher Lockhead, who's a genius in marketing and branding, he's a woman I look up to, written books. He designs categories. He believes, which is true, that in marketing and branding. He's a woman I look up to, written books. He designs categories. He believes, which is true, that in marketing, the way to break through is not to come into a category

that has a bunch of players and try to compete and be better. You create a new category, which is pretty brilliant and it makes sense. It's difficult to do. But he hates personal branding, and he calls it the disease of me. But here's the thing. I disagree with him all the time because I think personal branding is the opportunity to amplify the good and the reputation and the inspiration that human beings can be to other human beings.

And I think that's where it starts. And so, you know, you certainly find your categories, but I think, you know, you trying to be an inspiration to other entrepreneurs, if people don't know that, then you can't help but so many people. And so it has to be amplified. Just like running an ad for a funnel or for a business or anything else,

if I'm trying to sell widgets, I need more people to see it more often and I need to motivate them to make a buy. If I'm trying to inspire others, I need other people to know who I am and to know my story. And we need amplification of that so that it happens. And I think that's, you know, it's a, that's the 80 000 foot i like it right yeah i got a nail i'm good but uh so i think that's what's i'm i'm an introvert yeah i always have been i like being behind the scenes which is probably why i really enjoyed the agency and being the hired gun and not the guy in front and so it took me a long time to start getting out in front of the camera and uh what really set kind of pushed me was what legacy am i leaving and i think if i've had the ability to

have all these experiences a good buddy of mine's really kind of helped pull me out of this like look man you've got you've got some crazy stories you've done some amazing things because we and ourselves are very like i find like and i'm sure you're the same way. Like you do something we, to us, it's normal. There's other people looking in, they're like, holy smokes, how did that happen? Or how'd you do that? Yeah. And so I don't know that I'm doing my legacy of justice by not sharing. Yeah.

And I think, and like you just said, you know, we have to amplify it so we can impact more people. That's right. And, you know, I might not. amplify it so we can impact more people. That's right. And you know, I might not, the one thing, um, there was a guy in my house, uh, guy in our neighborhood that started a painting company, a young guy, 23, 22, something like that. Uh, he was in our house, uh, for something. I gave him my book that I, that I wrote and I just, Hey man, here's a copy. And, and he, he read it, shot me a message the other day. He's like, thank you so much for giving me that book. He goes, I just did a, he's like, February is always our worst month every year.

And he's new. It's like his second or third year. And he goes, and we just had our best month ever. And he was like, we did $140,000 in revenue. And he was so stoked. And I was like, I need more. I want more of that, right? Yeah.

I want that impact to inspire people to do more, right? Do the work and do more. Yeah, and that's what people get so stuck on. They're like – they think they're going to be judged, you know, with personal branding. Or they think, like, you know, we're all shy or whether you're an introvert or not. Like, it's not easy putting yourself out there like you're doing on this show. Like, and everybody kind of gets, you know, hung up on all that stuff. But the only way, but once you start feeling the impact like i'll tell them i'll

tell my wife i have this story because i've been building my personal brand for like the last six or seven years and you know it was she didn't get it at first and then i started reading her like some of the dms that i was getting you know she's like okay i get it now you know like like that feedback you know and it wasn't man, you're so successful. Congratulations. It was, hey, man, you really inspired me with this or that or the other. I heard you here and this changed. Which is awesome.

I know. It is awesome. So what's natekennedy.com, right? Yep. What are we trying to get done? I know you're trying to buy some businesses, you're transacting and things like that. What else, uh, can we tell the audience about what you're, you know, I think, you know,

for us growth, growth through leverage. Yeah. So got the knowledge, got the experience, got the team and add more consistently to it. And it's, you know, you know, one thing that's been exciting to me is, you know, last six months, we each last quarter of last year and then this quarter, uh, yeah, cause it's not everywhere yet. So Q4 and Q1 each, each we've, uh, acquired companies.

So that's exciting to acquire companies within the verticals that we're in to be able to, uh, and then I've also done, uh, two partnership deals, which is exciting to me to be able to bring our, some money and uh two partnership deals which is exciting to me to be able to bring our some money and knowledge into other companies that we know we can help and help them grow and uh help them get over those those hurdles and grow so that's really kind of the stuff that that i'm most excited about going forward i would say what's some of the media company what's the like media websites and stuff like that uh american conservatives.com is one okay modern patriots is another one that we've got some plans for we got right now it's content

but we're going to grow it into some e-com stuff uh liberty coffee is something we're working on right now we're making coffee great again so coffee that's so right nothing's left so i like it i like it so uh and so yeah so, so we are, I mean, I'm excited about those things, you know, like really just taking all this experience that we've had from over the years and just, you know, leading a great team to help us grow these companies. So yeah, I can't do it all myself. And I think that's the biggest challenges. If you're in the trenches as an entrepreneur and you're in the trenches and doing all the work and you're trying to run three companies, it's never going to work, but never, if you're going the trenches as an entrepreneur and you're in the trenches doing all the work and you're trying to run three companies it's never going to work but never if you're going to run

multiple companies you got to put the right people in place to run them and i think that's the a big learning lessons i've learned over the last couple years to help them you think and we could have spent the whole podcast and if we're not a politics part podcast but uh you know is it is it gonna ever get any better like are we are gonna ever like find this common ground again or is it going to ever get any better? Like are we ever going to find this common ground again or is it just going to be hard right and hard left to the end of days here? So I don't think it's – I think if what's hard right and hard left is what you watch.

Yeah. I think in real world – It's a little more than – I think you got center right, center left and people that are very – all agree that freedom is a good thing uh so you know it's funny i was interviewing a guy yesterday about uh got to come in and do some content and brand management and he was i make it very clear we are a conservative company christian values uh these are the brands we work on. Right. Yeah. Only because

it is so polarizing for some people. Yeah. And I at least want them to know what they're walking into. I don't want someone to come in and go, I, I, I completely disagree with everything that's being said here. So I don't like it here. Like, I don't want that because I want people to come in and can thrive. Yeah. And so I just make that known. And the guy was like, I got no problem with it. He goes, I'm libertarian left. I was like, that's cool the guy was like i got no problem with he goes i'm libertarian left i was like that's cool i was like to each their own yeah right so but i think that i mean i don't know about the libertarians maybe could take off if they had a better name but so i don't know i think most of us i think most people are in a center you know and i think but the media doesn't want you to see that right yeah because then we get along yeah exactly

well you what happens last time you walked down the street and someone was like screaming at you yeah or you know no i know and it's also i mean i was watching tucker carlson last night and uh kid rock he did an interview and so like that's what's interesting is like conservatives a little edgier than it used to be you know know, like it used to be, you know, button collars, all that now. And I mean, I know that's cliche, but like,

I feel like there's a, I don't know, Andy for sell. I'm like, Oh, that crowd. Like, and he,

he probably comes to consider himself more in the middle too. He wasn't, I don't know if he goes, but call him the freedom party. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

Um, well, if you look at Bill Maher, right, he came out recently. He was like, the liberal party is not what it used to be yeah you know like even they've that's changed yeah and so like it's you know you can hear him so it's i don't i think i think eventually there's got it the pendulum swings right and everything you do so i got hope me as well well cool nate where can everybody keep up with all things i think we mentioned your website natekennedy.com anywhere else yeah instagram the best place natekennedy.com

and then all my social handles instagram is probably where i'm most active yeah and that's nate's kennedy md okay nate kennedy marketing doctor how to get you there great great i really appreciate you coming on the show i appreciate you having having me. Thank you so much. It's been fun. It was fun. Hey guys, go follow Nate Kennedy. I like this guy. Hey, conservative or not, it doesn't matter. We already need to get along and be in the middle a little bit. And you know what? You might just learn something from him. Go check him out on Instagram, NateKennedyMD. Hey, you know where we're at. We're at theradcast.com. Search for all our content. Search for Nate Kennedy. You'll find all the highlight clips from today. You know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.