Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - It pays to be known with Ryan Alford

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Ryan Alford is an iconic brand builder, 8-figure entrepreneur, and marketing influencer. One of the few remaining “Madmen", Ryan help develop some of the most successful ad campaigns of the last 20 years including work with Verizon, Lexus, Google, the NFL, and many other global brands during his time on Madison Avenue. Ryan is now the founder of digital ad agency RADICAL and host of The Radcast, a top-25 US business podcast. Key Highlights: Ryan's brand new digital course that helps people build their personal brand. 3 Things to Do to build your brand successfully. How providing true value wins with your audience. Humbling yourself during new beginnings. The Alford way-having the ability to stay calm and show zero panic during the tough times. Being a billion dollar problem solver. The Radcast- Top 25 Global Business Podcast. Not taking yourself too seriously  Radical Agency's growth over the last 5 years. It pays to be known- The power of personal branding and the compoundkng dividends it delivers over time. The Droid, Verizon, NFL and the 1st I-Phone Launch campaigns. Shawn's Thoughts on Ryan Alford: Ryan is one of the most genuine dudes I have ever had the pleasure to connect with, become friends with and ultimately interview on The Determined Society Podcast. I truly enjoy his love for his wife and 4 boys and his ability to know what is truly important in life. Has he done a ton of cool shit that most people dream of doing? YES! But, when you listen to this show you'll learn that Ryan is all about providing real value and teaching people how to build badass brands for themselves. One of the qualities that I like most about him is that he doesn't take himself too seriously. He's a real person, living a real life and he is NOT trying to hide any of that.  I personally cannot wait until he launches his new course as I will be one of the first ones in line to invest. Why you ask? The answer is simple. He gives a SHIT about people. Connect with Ryan Alford: Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/ Website- https://ryanalford.com/ Connect with Shawn French: Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/theshawnfrench/?hl=en Twitter- https://twitter.com/theshawnmfrench Website- https://theshawnfrench.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at good to know facts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit good to know facts.org. I had 17 years of history to tell that had never been told.

You know, I've never told anyone that I worked on the droid campaign. I never told anyone that I developed some of the campaigns involved with the first iPhone launch. I never told anyone I was in the room. Can you hear me now? I was written on the board

and we expanded it and, like, turned it into something. And so none of those stories had ever been told. I had a lot of good meat on the boat. What is up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast, society. I have with me today an iconic brand builder, an eight-figure entrepreneur, marketing influencer. He's one of the few remaining madmen. Ryan helped develop some of the most successful

brands and ad campaigns of the last 20 years, including work with Verizon, Lexus, Google, and the NFL, and not to mention other global brands during his time on Madison Avenue. Ryan is now the founder of digital ad agency, Radical, and the host of the Radcast, a top 25 U.S. business podcast. Ryan Alford, man. Welcome to the show, buddy. Sean, great to be on. We've been connected for a year or so here digitally. I'm pumped to be on the show and blessed that you asked me.

Thanks for having me. Dude, hell yeah, man. It was for the audience there. We were sitting there talking prior. And I was like, man, I'm kind of embarrassed. I didn't ask you before. But it's one of those things. things that, you know, I don't know how we connected, but we connected. And it was just a really cool

flowing, you know, get to know each other like a story here and there, pouring each other online. I'm like, dude, I got to have this guy on my show. So you're doing some big things, man. I love watching your clips. The thing that I love most about everything that you're doing is every single clip you put out, Ryan, has actual real value. It's not an ideal. It's not a platitude. It's like information. I'm like, holy shit, I don't even know if I'm that smart enough to even understand what he's saying. It's amazing.

So everything is really for that. And I do. I mean, I've spent five years building my personal brand on top of kind of just the real life brand. And it's just been important to me to try to, you know, not just be chest beady or like some of the old social stuff where you're just putting stuff out there. I try to be thoughtful with it and try to, you know, just add value to people. You know, it's one of those things, too, like I started, you know, because I'm really new on my journey about a couple years. You know, really the last year has been where I've gotten really consistent and putting out shows consistently and, you know, coaching people and things like that in the business to business sales world. And, you know, what I've noticed in the last six months is it's like, man, I really don't want to be what people.

want me to be like talk about all the things that are going right all the time chest beating as you would say and i decided i would start calling myself on my own BS and those are the posts those are the things that do really really well for me it's because they're relatable and the thing that i love about you is you're super relatable i love when you post about your wife and your family that is something that are not a lot of people in your, I guess, accomplishment level are doing. It's all about them. And I think it's a great thing, man.

Yeah, man, I want to be, you know, like, as real as I can be. And sometimes I feel like there's this veil that social media has. And I think some people hide behind it. And I try to bust through it. Even sometimes, like, I joke with my wife. I feel like the most non-social social. guy of all time because like I only you only see a glimpse of it you know because like life's moving

I'm at practice we got four boys under the age of 13 and going to practices and doing games and you know coaching and all that and like I barely even scratch the surface with some of that stuff and I want to be more transparent with it because I just think I don't know in today's society we need more examples of you know everybody's family dynamic is different so I'm not my family dynamic being, you know, husband and wife with four boys. Is that what I'm saying, everybody has to strive to. But I do think the reality of what comes with that. And it's okay to be in love with your wife. It's okay to have kids that are normal. And when I say normal, I mean, you know, just being little boys, you know, and doing normal little boy things and not growing up

too fast. And I don't know, and trying to be an example for them, but not trying to be perfect, but just saying, hey, I'm a dad and here's my sons and my family. And, you know, I don't, I don't know. I just think we need more examples of that. I agree with you, man. That's one of the things that I've really pride myself on in the early stages is being super authentic to who I am. Yeah.

You know, you, you are on my account. You go through my stories. You see how much I post about my children, you know, things with my wife. Like, yeah, there's some business stuff going on. but I try to keep it as real as possible because that's not who I am. It's something that I do. But who I am is my family. Who I am is my children.

You know, uh, it's very busy, right? I, you, you, you have me beat.

I only have three children. Um, only one's a boy, but my two girls, I think account for like five kids. Yeah, for sure. It's like,

it's like, okay. Oh boy, dude. Let me tell you, man. You know, having daughters, you can go from just being the most pissed off you've ever been in your life and just wanting to scream and run away. And then in two seconds later, you're like, you're holding them and you're like in tears.

I love you so much, little girl. It's, it's a different, it's a different love. Well, in mind is like, you know, my wife, I mean, knows this. I mean, I have a show that's, and I don't know how. if I'm allowed to curse on the uh please do I don't take pride in it but I do have a potty no I'm like feeling you out here like are we gonna drop some fucks and shits like what are you gonna do I'm like and Nicole knows that about me and so I try to I'm not trying to make my kids grow up too fast but I'm real with them and so it's like this fine line when you're a father

and you have little boys and like like knowing the lines to push of like okay man pick yourself up and fucking dust shelf off versus, you know, not just being Mr. tough guy, but like, always that balance of finding, uh, real raw and, you know, the right balance. And I think that's what, that's the stuff that I like try to be transparent about is because like, look, nobody has a fucking playbook. You know, we're, you know, you do what you think's right and do things wrong and you try to put it out there and, you know, I don't know.

I'm hoping, uh, but I think for good, bad or indifferent with my content, you know, I don't take myself too seriously too. Like, you know, my team and I, we have phone with our content. We put stuff out there. I'm not, you know, I think I have a lot of advice to impart. I have a lot of knowledge. I have a lot of experience. And I try to share that.

But at the same time, I'm like, not afraid to put pun at myself or to laugh at some of life's moments. Well, do you guys do some funny-ass content. I mean, like, you really do. I can't think of there was this one that had me laughing my ass off. It was like a serious fucking thing. It was the lamber. Oh, you can get a fucking Lamborghini. What was that?

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, like to go to space, like the metaverse. Yes. Yeah. Like getting a Lambo in the metaverse or something. I think it was, you know. Yeah, it was something like that. I'm like, what the fuck is you do? We panned the whole, you know, and the jury's still out, but we panned all the

metaverse stuff and all the coins and the whole not because, again, the technology is the future, smart contracts and all that stuff, but all the coins and all that stuff. by getting on that bandwagon. You know, I've just kind of seen these things, these trends kind of come and go. And it was a great PR opportunity. But, you know, you're starting to see that stuff kind of fade already, you know, where it goes. It was, it was definitely entertaining.

But, you know, it shows like a dynamic side to you and your team. When you talk about you guys like to have phone with your content, you don't take yourself too seriously, you poke fun at yourself, all of the above. But the thing that I take out of your content and that I encourage my audience to, um you know watch you and follow you and consume your content is it's coming from a place of confidence because of the fact that it's been done in the real world you know we've talked we've talked about um the social media game but let's talk a little bit about your resume i mean google the NFL Verizon Lexus I mean brother like you know talk to us a little bit about that journey and then

And after that, the transition into building your own ad agency and having to build your own brand there. Yeah, man. I'm a, you know, a Southern kid growing up in South Carolina, went to Clemson, marketing major. I always knew about myself. Some people have a hard time that they had to go to school, try three careers. I didn't have to have that. You know, like I knew that I was a marketing, salesy kind of like idea. My parents were that way, very entrepreneurialistic, not incredibly successful, but at least when I was growing up, they both lived comfortably and all that.

But grew up in the lower middle class, didn't come from real money. But went straight into the addiency business right out of school. And, you know, I was always really confident. And in both, always that fine line of confidence and arrogance. but it was really just confident because I always have, I've always been an idea guy. You put me in a room, every company I've ever been at. You know, when you want more ideas, you put Ryan in the room.

You know, like I'm an idea guy. Some of them, look, just like anything else, half of them probably suck. But there's gold in there because I, you know, like, and so I rose incredibly quickly through the ad agency ranks. Right. Because I knew how to build relationships with clients, especially, well-paying clients. I saw all the game, you know, news relationship game, in an idea game. And so rose to the ranks really quickly, opened New York office for the first agency that I worked with and worked primarily in the cell phone game of brands.

So Verizon Wireless worked on literally the first campaign, can you hear me now? One of the most recognizable campaigns in the history of advertising. It's your fucking fault. Let's just say I was part of the team that expanded it, that made it blow up, taking an idea and turning it into strategy and execution and everything else. So worked on that campaign, worked on almost every popular non-smart phone and smartphone launch. Because if you think about it, the history of smartphones and. cell phones, you had the motor old eraser. I worked on that campaign. One of the iconic,

non-smartphone campaigns of all time. Developing both TV content, print radio, out of home, activations, worked on the LG chocolate. They're like all these iconic kind of names like before they were, the, the juke. There were all these phones that kind of came out that worked on a million different brands, LG, Samsung, Motorola, Apple, first iPhone launch. I worked on that and developing campaign strategies for really activating these phones and these campaigns for a marketing perspective. And so worked on kind of the one phone that kicked Apple's ass for about a year, the droid. We developed that campaign, the strategy for how to go at that, the anti-Iphone.

And so worked on all these things. in and out of the kind of wireless smartphone technology sector. And just really cut my teeth. I just, you know, I stuck my nose out there. I was 28 years old sitting in the boardroom with Verizon Wireless executives. And I'm like sitting there and there, I wouldn't say they were asking me what to do, but they were pretty much putting my opinion up as, you know, guiding them. Wow.

And I just was always. confident, always had ideas, and always stuck it out there. And it's something that's pushed me along. And I think obviously some of the ideas had to be good or I probably wouldn't be sitting there. But I think there's something to be said for just being confident and landing in the right field. It really kind of drove me along. And I was just never afraid to ask what I wanted. That's why I got promoted a lot.

That's why I ended up in conference rooms that no 28-year-old probably from small town. South Carolina. You know, always the first, the, here's the first thing that always happened in the meetings with me. Who's this Southern kid, you know, in the room?

Is he getting us coffee? Yeah. Yeah. Number one, why is he here? But, but always within 20 minutes, because I opened my mouth and would stick it out there and put

ideas on the table, not always perfect, but at least, you know, confidence in those things. But I always saw the big picture. And it was kind of no different, like the agency when I first started.

I wasn't the best junior account executive at my ad agency, but you know what? I understood how the agency made money. I understood that having client relationships at the highest level would push me as far as I wanted to go. I understood how dollars and cents were being transacted within the agency, and it pushed me along, along with knowing how to play the game and put ideas on the table and kind of grow with that. And so that's really that was the lever for me. But then, you know, ended up at the right places at the right time. We all get lucky.

We all make our luck. We get lucky, those things. And spent a lot of time working a lot of large brands. I mean, the first 10 years of my career in the ad game are I'll put them up against anybody's with the brands and the opportunities and the things that we got to work with. Worked on the first agreement with the NFL and Verizon. One of the largest sponsorship agreements to date, $1 billion for the. the first app where you could watch literally the NFL games on your phone with Verizon,

between Verizon and the NFL, worked on activations at every NFL stadium in the U.S. for bringing to life smartphones and different things. So travel to the stadiums, Dallas Cowboys Stadium to all the way to New York. And so had some incredible experiences that first 10 to 15 years of my career. Dude, that's amazing. You know, outside of the resume, that the one thing that sticks out to me is talking about you are always confident you're in the room you're at 28 years old and within 10 minutes everybody's going from who's this young southern guy to oh shit he has some fucking ideas what was it about you was it you know is it something in your childhood that gave you such awareness of the value that you can bring forward you know it's a really good question Sean and and I've been asked that before and I will say this this. My parents were the most hands-on, hands-off parents that you could have.

What do I mean by that? They were at every game. They supported me, but they didn't give me everything, and they didn't make determinations for me. They gave me and guided me towards, okay, playing team sports. Okay, I was great at basketball, played all the way up through college and was nationally athletic. So they pushed me towards me. They let me kind of take. a lot of things, but never, like, forced me any things.

I think it helped me develop confidence in finding what I liked while still feeling like I had support behind me. They did an incredible job whether, again, I don't know that anyone has crossed the ball and they knew what they were, that they had what they were created or not creating. Yeah. But they really created this world where, you know, I had a lot of friends that were forced to be the A student, forced to be the perfect swimmer or football player or, like, like always like that was always the pressure.

I felt very little pressure for my parents to make any one decision. And I think what that allowed to do is, is become confident in making my own decisions. I mean, at times it also made me probably unprepared for some of the consequences, but they let me live through those things. And, you know, it helps that you get into team sports. They say idle hands creates issues.

Like I was always busy, always doing things but I think kind of that natural guiding but letting me be my own person allowed me to kind of develop that confidence I think that's where a lot of it came from now that that's interesting so my wife's officially not allowed to listen to this fucking show because this is like in a debate Sean did you read the parenting book and it's a joke it's not a joke in our house sorry baby it's not a joke um but like allowing your children to have the autonomy to make the choices and be able to evaluate their consequences. Right.

So what I'm hearing is that that hands on, hands off parenting allowed you to make decisions. And if it was a good decision or a bad decision, you were left to deal with that, that good, that good return or the backlash and have to deal with it. That's right. And then it would guide me and remind me, you know, they did a good job of it wasn't the walled wild west again they were hands very hands on hands off like my dad was in the military i mean he was in the air force so there was but he didn't and they provided structure and they had expect they said expectations but they were realistic and they did let me kind of explore those things

and so and i don't know if it's like nature and nurture because some of that that's what we're describing here is nurture like my nature has always been I see the big picture and I can digest big problems and turn them into tiny little steps to solve them. Or taking very complex things and making them simple. And I've always kind of understood a little bit of consumer behavior. And that's kind of the core of marketing. And so I think that's nature, you know, DNA to a degree that's been, this has been expounded upon by experiences. but I think that was always kind of naturally there.

I kind of always look at something and go, I hear what you're staying, but I know what that really means in the big picture. Yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like, I really understand the parenting style. And I really under,

and I don't misinterpret it because, you know, just for instance, like the other day in this, you'll get a chuckle out of this one. It was cold. So I tell my nine-year-old son, hey, buddy,

put your jacket on. It's cold. And wife's like, what, no, no, that's not what you tell him. You let him know, he's nine years old. Hey, Bobby, it's 50 degrees outside. Why don't you go check the weather? He walks outside. Oh, mama, it's cold.

Okay, what do you think, what do you think you should do? I should probably go get a jacket. And she goes, see, I go, why do I have to go through all that? It's just like, yo, dude, it's cold. Put your shit on. You know, but she, to your, to her point into, you know, kind of how you were raised, it's like the autonomy to make decisions because those small decisions are going to impact their other decisions when it's not just about the weather. Right.

We're not talking about weather here, people. Right. But no, that's that's awesome, man. That, that gives me a lot of insight. Yeah. For sure. And parents are sitting there in their cars like pulling over, crying. I'm like, I'm fucking terrible parent.

Doing it wrong. Oh, you know. It's that's where there's not there's this fine line of involvement and expectation. Like the expectations in my household were never unclear. You know, like, and I'll say that with our kids. We have really good kids. And they're all A students. Do you know what?

I have never once said, you better make all A's. Yeah. They just make A's because I don't have to say. that because I set the expectations that we're all going to be the best versions of ourselves. And they, I don't have to say it that way. And so, but they see me working hard. They see me making, not at all times. I mean, Daddy's not perfect. I'm the most flawed person on the planet. You know, like, no, that's probably that you're probably second to me, bro. You're like one B. Don't worry. You're good. But like, you know, but there's an unspoken expectation. And, and, and, and, and,

And you sometimes you have to set the expectation. And I would say, so if I have a, we all have weaknesses. My weakness in life is that I assume that people strive to a certain expectation or a certain standard. And like operating business, my hardest challenge has been I, not that I expect too much necessarily, but that I, expect that they'll that everybody knows how to get there because i was i've always been really good about getting there you know like and i know i see where we're going like yeah yeah so that's that's an achilles that's like that's like your strongest gift but also your achilles right it is it's like when you're guiding other people you can look at me you could have a 15 minute conversation with me

and go sean you're a fucking idiot this is so simple and i'd be like no bro i've been like this is not my jam This is not what I'm good at, right? Yeah. Like so, but that's a great thing. And, and, you know, I also have this little thing where I expect people to put in the work like I would, right? Like, you know, it would, it bothers me when they say, like, after a month, like, hey, I'm not making any sales at my new job. Maybe I should just leave. Like, a month?

Like, you don't even know where the fucking bathrooms are yet. Like, what are you talking? talking about like you still think you have to read off a brochure like you're not you're not ready to leave like give me a break so like i just i think that's a great point but the other thing like that i'm hearing that is really cool is you know the unspoken expectations right when you have unspoken expectations as a child like you did see i didn't have that i had if you don't become a majorly baseball player you are fucked like you don't have any skills like my dad would say like hey can you hit me a wrench and I'd hand him a hammer.

You know, like, you're an idiot. Like, it would be like the worst time in the garage. I'm, like, crying at, like, 10 years old because I don't know what tools are, right? And so it was, it was the exact opposite, right? So as I'm growing up, and now we're getting to some, you know, personal development, which is really cool because my audience loves that shit is, you know, whereas you, you unspoken expectations just rise right because you can see things clearly because the pressure is not there that we all have our own internal pressure right we all put some pressure on ourselves but

for me and for a lot of other individuals they grow up in households where it's you know if you don't do this you're not going to be anything so there's a heavy amount of pressure and holding on too tightly right and we all know when that happens we don't grow Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's a tough one, man. That's a tough one. Have you ever struggled with that? Or you just,

is always just been kind of like through conditioning and your parents, parenting style, you just kind of were able to relax and just work through everything. You know, it's funny. When I was back to the 27, 28, I was managing probably 15 people. you know, it's a 27-year-old. And I all, you know, when we do pure reviews, that was a big thing back in the day, you know, like 360s, like reviewing one another. And my people, they loved like that I'd always get knocked because maybe I was two hands

off. That would be the knock. But the one thing they always said, I was good at very good under pressure. I never, I never, for good bad or indifferent, I can. can put aside the pressure, whether it's a billion dollar issue or a $5 issue, I'm just trying to problem solve. Yeah. I'm not going to be like, you know, I'm not saying it's like that every time, but it's like,

but I can just get to the core of what we're trying to solve versus the drama of how big or small it might be. I love that. That's a gift, man. That's, that's a true gift, you know. And that had to have helped you going from. you know, Madison Avenue, right, to where you're at now. Yeah.

And as we know, when someone like yourself or anybody starts on a new entrepreneurial journey, there's a lot of shit that hits you in the face. There's a lot of adversity. And there's a lot of moments where you're like, okay, time to put on our seatbelt. What has been one of the biggest challenges for you in the last five years in transitioning over to your own deal? Yeah, man. I mean, I had to, it's interesting, and I talked to this on content I posted recently, that

I had to humble myself to a degree because I had worked on the largest brands in the world and moved back to South Carolina, had a couple stints as a chief marketing officer, then started radical, my own agency. And no matter how much experience I have, and no matter how good I've been, Pepsi is not coming to the Ryan offered agency of one. You know, like, if they wanted me, they just hire me as their CMO. You know, like my agency, the agency has to build credibility. The agency has to build its own name.

We have to build a team. We have to have capability. We have to have resource beyond just my own two hands and my brain. And so I had to be humbled in building our book of business. And look, I started from a better place than someone that hasn't done what I've done. I certainly have an credibility to get in meetings and get business and to get kicked off because I had spent 17 years doing it for other people. And so that certainly helped me. And my first couple clients, but look, I mean, I was a startup like anybody else, no matter what I had done, no matter what was in my bank account.

Like what, it didn't matter because we had to start from ground zero to a degree. Ground zero is probably a stretch. But the same thing. It's still ground zero from an economic standpoint. You know, you build a business. And the first, and look, no different for me or anyone else. Like that first year or two is like, well, I'd say 95. I don't know what the number is 90% of businesses fail.

I mean, so we had to push through that, developing processes, systems, streams of revenue. And look, I didn't have all the answers to that. I was just an idea guy, a great marketer. And so I had to learn to become an entrepreneur, still learn. to become, you know, an entrepreneur or an owner, so to speak. And so, you know, the biggest challenge is what any small business or medium business or whatever is, is, you know, holding on and making it through those first couple years. And then now it's transitioned into kind of what do we want to be when we grow up, you know,

like, I say that a lot. It's like, you know, we've got a good core client base and we've got some specialization. and but then channeling that towards what we're best at. Because you have to learn as a business. You don't, you think you know what you're going to be great at. You think you know where it's going to go. But then you have to let the chips fall and then determine, okay, this is where we need to guide more towards, what we need to push towards. But you don't know that until you've gone through it.

And look, hiring and firing is hard and, you know, managing people. hard and like it's it's all those things and I am not I've had to surround myself with great operators you know because I'm my brain works in a certain way and I see the big picture but then you know guiding 25 people to it you know is a whole other story and so I can paint the vision I'm a good vision person but operating takes you know another skill set and so It's been a litany of things. Yeah, that's, that's pretty awesome. I think, you know, like you, people listening, I think when we look at social media and we see someone like yourself or, you know, the big entrepreneurs, people say, wow, it must be nice.

Yeah. I'm not that way. I don't think that way. But for the majority of people listening, I want you to really. take a note here. He's literally saying the first two years were difficult. He had a brand, but his agency didn't have a brand. He's not landing Pepsi right now. If Pepsi wanted him, they just hire him as a CMO. So he's had his struggles. He's had his adversity in the only way that Ryan knows how to overcome it is to be super productive and just take care of step one,

then step two, then step three. Now, I got to ask you a question. If you were with Pepsi, do you think they would have done the fighter jack commercial. Probably not, but I don't know. I always like to throw in a little humor, Ryan. I love it. You know, man, shit. But I want to say this. I mean, there's three things I did when I started the agency.

So I'll give some good action for people here. So I did three things very intentionally. And I didn't, there was no playbook. It didn't exist. But this was my, the Ryan's radical play. We call it the Radical Formula now. But literally, I invested and started doing three things. Started the agency, started building a full service digital ad agency, which is radical.

I started the podcast, the Radcast, and I started working on the Ryan Alford personal brand. Now, my credibility was there, but I had no social credit, five, very little social credibility five years ago. you know, the masses or even the niche masses didn't know who I was. So I started on a journey of giving value, sharing my story on personal brand, you know, like sharing everything, Instagram mainly, certainly LinkedIn, Facebook, but Instagram has been the biggest platform for me. And then started the Radcast and knew that I was, I don't know if I was smart again. I see the big picture like, I knew no one was going to listen.

Like you, no one knows who you are. Like, no one's listening those first six months, those first 20 episodes. Like, you have 50 people, maybe, total. Like, half of them's your family. Like, I knew that, but I knew why I was doing it. I was doing it to stay fresh on knowledge in my industry. I was doing it to interview and build relationships. And I was doing it to build content that I could be used on social media when broken up

up and parsed into pieces and videos and things like that. So I did it for that reason, not to have a fan. famous show in six months because that's not reality or to monetize in six months because that's not reality. So I did all of those three things at the same time and literally if you put them on a plane, a trajectory, you'd see them with time, money, energy on one side and revenue driven or populated or success on a plane, literally the last five years, they're almost all three of equal because my personal brand has grown and blown up. The podcast has become top 25 in the world in business and marketing.

And Radical has grown at the rate with which I want it to. I don't want a 400 person agency, but sustainable in a successful agency. And they all feed one another. 80% of our leads come from my personal for Radical come from my personal brand or the podcast. And I've never one time gone, hire us today. Yeah.

I just, you share perspective. I've built the personal brand. Look, but I had 17 years of history to tell. Yeah. It's never been told. You know, they, I've never told anyone that I worked on the droid campaign. I never told anyone that I developed, uh, some of the campaigns involved with the first iPhone launch.

I never told anyone I was in the room. We can hear me now. I was written on the board and we expanded it and like turned it into something. And so none of those stories had ever been told. I had a lot of, of, uh, of good meat on the bones, but again, there was nothing to work with. I had a lot of clay, a good clay that I'd worked. But I, so I had a, that certainly gave me a leg up.

But I tell people that because I eat my own dog food, as I like to say. Yeah. You got, you build brand over time and sales overnight. We all want sales overnight. But you have to build brand over time. And again, it's been a five year journey for the podcast, my personal brand and for radical. And none of these things are there.

Look, I have grand ambitions. But they're a lot further along than the average company. And I think we've done it in a way with which there wasn't a playbook for. That's awesome, man. How was it? I know you said you had to humble yourself, though. But what were those moments like? Because I think this is the nitty gritty of it, right?

It's the feelings. It's the overall emotion of. Okay, I'm not there anymore. I've got to do this here. So what are some of the thoughts that you had? And how did you overcome maybe those not so bright thoughts? Yeah. I mean, I'll say this.

There's one thing before I answer that straight line. I'll give you like an indirect answer, Sean. It's my sister and I are the same way. So I think it's an offered gene. I don't know what it is. But the Alford's are very uniquely. We are not like dwellers. We do not dwell.

We do not. We move on quickly. We don't hold a lot of sentimental, mental value in possessions. There's some characteristics that my sister and I share that my father shares. My mom has some of them and my dad has them for sure. And it makes us really good at some things. It makes us weak in others. But we don't dwell.

I'm not, I don't dwell. Like I was, I had misconceptions that, oh, and it wasn't because I was some big shot. Like, I almost start my own agency because I've worked on all these things. I mean, I was old enough and mature enough to know that it wasn't going to be easy. Right, right. But, you know, having to, you know, work and channel business that was, you know, one thousandth of what I'd worked on. before my conception was that I would at least or my misconception was that I thought I would be

just walking into bigger doors but I didn't dwell on it I just adapted I'm really good at adapting I mean that's another thing and so pivoting really quickly to okay this is where we are this is who we're dealing with and I got excited about you know what the opportunity years I'm going to you know even if they don't realize it these clients that are at this level that want to work with me and our agency are getting the insights, the guidance, and the strategies that some clients 100 times their size are paying 100 times the cost for. And so I got excited about over-delivery.

Yeah. And, you know, and I still do. And that doesn't mean because my ideas are perfect or because I can help every company. Look, there's been some, we don't work with mom and pops and never really have necessarily, but we've worked with some small businesses where the thinking's been too big because they just can't get there. Yeah. It's not worked, you know, like, it's been like, whoa, you know, like, and not because every idea was, well, you need to run a $100 million TV campaign. No, when we scaled back.

But, you know, but, you know, to answer that question, Sean, it was just the nitty gritty is that you can't dwell on those things. You just have to adapt. And, you know, the biggest, the most like common denominators, I think on successful entrepreneurs is risk tolerant, highly curious, and just don't get hung up on adapting from what their original vision is. Dude, that's amazing. That's amazing because that right there for the listeners and even for myself, hearing that from somebody like you that I've been in contact with over a year and know your resume. It's like, shit, it's not have that emotional attachment to the possessions. It's not having the emotional attachment to the actual results or the perceived failure. It's like, okay, we knew this is going to be hard, right?

And how I'm going to manage this is just by doing the work. I just, that was awesome, dude. Like that right there was to me, that was a ton of value in the last three minutes that the audience could pick up and apply to their lives. So you mentioned to me offline and, you know, I want to clarify, did you say you were launching something this week? Because I want to be able for you to talk about that. Yeah, man. I've talked about kind of that playbook of the last, you know, five years for radical.

And it's less about, well, how to start an ad agency. It really applies to anyone. It's really grounded in what I call personal brand engineering because building a personal brand. has to be engineered. It's not done. It's not these three steps. Engineering is really almost like science. And it's art and science.

And I've reversed because like I said, there was no playbook for what, at least that I was aware of. Certainly there were gurus out there and Gary V's been around and all this stuff saying, personal brand and all that. Yeah. But not to the degree, what I've done the last five years, I've just made up. You know, like, but I have. But I used a lot of the principles that I gathered, and from my experience of 17 years,

work with the largest brands in the world and understand marketing consumer behavior, that helped me, you know, figure out some of these things. But I've reverse engineered what I've done the last five years for building a personal brand, developing a podcast, and really leveraging that that could feed any business. Like, it doesn't matter if it's an agency. It doesn't matter what it is. And so I've reversed engineered exactly what I've done. I've filmed it all in very educational, entertaining ways.

And so we have that course. And you can also, you can buy that at Ryanofford.com. It's called the Radical Formula Personal Brand Engineering. And literally, 99 bucks for that program for what I've reverse engineered. Wait, how many videos is it? Nine videos. It's over an hour worth of content. Um, or actually, maybe two hours worth of, of, of teaching.

But there, there, if you want to work one to one, that's where they add the added value comes in. If you want to get directly kind of in that one to one community, but I've just, I'm practically giving it away. And because I want to see people successful. And what I'm really trying to do is build a community of people that want to kind of feed one another. And so, uh, yeah, I'm excited about it. It's launching, uh, this week. And, uh, yeah, man. That's, that's, that's awesome. Awesome, man. So what I'm hearing is, are you shifting towards, you know, because you said you don't work with mom and pops. You work with, you know, small businesses. But what it sounds like you're starting to want to help somebody like me, like, you know, put content out there that say, okay, Sean, this is how you reverse engineer building your brand, right? Because that's what I'm hearing. And I think that's so needed because there's a lot of individuals like me that are just stumbling and falling and. getting kicked in the dick and then getting back up and it's constant right and there's a lot of people out there that aren't as determined as me that aren't as resilient as me like i don't get

to quit and i won't quit right so those people fall off when they might have something really great to give the world yeah right so this is this is valuable obviously you and i are going to talk offline about a whole bunch of shit because i've already approached you with certain questions and, you know, I think that's valuable, man. When you said $99, I about fell out of my damn chair. Dude, I want to help as many. I want to make this attainable. And look, there's a plus one from there.

That's to get access to all the content that I think's probably $10,000, I don't know, $100,000. Like, what I try to think of what, like, knowing what I know now and knowing where we've gotten to with still a lot of runway to go. if you said what would I pay if someone had taught me exactly what I'd done and I'd probably write a $20,000 check without even blinginging. Like if I could, but I want it attainable and then I want to bring in enough people that we're helping a lot of people. But the plus one to that and the more premium tier is going to be getting in the one-to-one with me where I can literally help people one-to-one with exact specific problems. and then the translation for them and kind of getting into that hardcore heavy hitters like movers and shakers community. Absolutely, man.

That's the biggest thing. When someone's building a brand, like, you know, they need some type of lower ticket access to the individual like you. Right. And then they have to understand there's going to be a bigger investment involved. I think, and I've already kind of got a feel for who you are as an individual and I know your heart. You're going to be the type of individual. Like who there's another individual out there. Amberley Logo, right?

The people she brings into her community. And this is what I see you doing and helping in one-on-one. Like you're putting them in front of people. Like if they earn the right to be in a room, you're going to actually facilitate that and help them grow in their life. Bingo. That's a fucking mentor. That's been.

And that's what I do. Like I'm a connector. I mean, but you realize that. Yeah. But you realize that's not what's going on out there, right? I know. I know exactly what's going on.

That's why I'm so pumped to get this out there because I know that I'm real. And I know that just the course alone has tremendous valued. If someone will pay $99 and do it, they will at worst be extremely within a few. Look, it's a five-year process for me. Nothing happens. This isn't a three-month get-rich plan. This is a, this is a forever build your personal brand because it pays to be known and it's not always what you know, it's who you know. And I teach the principles of that.

And if you'll do what's in this course, I know that you'll be successful. But at the end of the day, I'm not peddling. This, that doesn't make my table at night. Like what makes me the table is creating connections, adding value and putting people in front of the right people at the right time. And, you know, I have a very unique rolodex. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Yeah.

No, I love it, man. I love it. And, you know, we're getting, we're getting down to the point where we have to land the plane because it's been 45 minutes. And I still want to be able to have a couple minutes with you afterwards. And, you know, you've already, you've already discussed how my audience can best support you. And for those of you listening, don't worry by the time you're listening to this. Obviously, the show's aired, and you can look in the show notes. His website's down there.

Go to Ryanalford.com, click the link, buy the $99 program, and just immerse yourself in that. Watch the nine videos. Watch it three different times, you know, and then, you know, reach out to him and chat with him on a more intimate one-on-one basis. But do me a favor. Not too many of you do it because my boy is going to have to work with me, too, and I'm not going to allow him to put me on a wait list. So, you know, since this is called the Determined Society podcast, man, I started this podcast because I woke up one day in the middle of a transition in my own mind, a reinvention.

I was just like, man, I just want this. I want to wake up in a society where everybody's determined to go get their shit done. Whatever it is, whatever goal they want to achieve it, there's an action plan and a certain standard that you and I talked about. And they check those boxes every day with intention. out given your career and we know the things that you've gone through what more specifically makes you a part of the determined society you know man i think it's i think i've probably talked about it already like accidentally i think that's why i was like you know i was like sean and damn you should have invited me a long time ago it's like the perfect no one's more

determined to me. Yeah. Here's what I say. I am naturally driven and naturally determined to be my version of successful. And I'm not driven by anyone else's. I take inspiration from people, but I'm probably influenced less than 99% of people in actuality because I have my own ticking clock of what makes Ryan happy and successful and what where those places start and just a natural drive towards those things.

But I think where I'd want to seat at that table is doing it in a way. And you said this, which I really appreciate it. And I don't try to do this. I don't know if it's just the Southern kid in me or whatever, but like in a real way in a wow, holy shit. I mean, he's successful, but damn, he seems kind of down to earth. Is he really that down to earth? Like, in a way that people can inspire to that's not, you know, no matter how many boats I have or cars or whatever,

but it's in a way that's, I don't know, inspiring and reachable and attainable because I can tell you, this kid from Easy South Carolina can do it. anybody can do it and it starts with determination but it ends with being raw and real and so i love it man you're cut from the same cloth dude i i i think we might be related i got all the bad jeans but you got the good genes um with that being said man what you know i know you don't hold a lot of emotion around material things so what is your ultimate definition of success i value free you know like if you did one of those like tests like those and I've never really taken them but other people have so I've kind of cheated on theirs people that I know they're like me freedom and time

are important to me which is why I was always going to eventually be an entrepreneur is because I value my time I value in my family my wife and my kids and being able to I've never I've owned my company for five years I've never missed a single game a single practice of four boys um and And I control my own time and what I can make and what I can do. And my success or non-success is driven by being comfortable enough that I can always guide that. And look, I'm a provider. So just like you said, I'm never not going to be able to provide or not want to provide. So thus, I'm always going to be driven in money's unnecessary evil.

I talk about those things all the time. I'm not a holistic about it. Now, look, I've got nice thing. They've got a boat, you know. But I have them because it's a great thing for our family to do. We go out and the kids love it and all that. I don't do it because I need to pull up to the yacht club. Yeah.

It's so success to me is having the freedom and the ability to do what I want when I want to do it. And it's not because it's for selfish things. I think it's for good things. But, you know, I don't like my time being controlled. that is my favorite definition of success i do not like anybody controlling my time my freedom i want to be able to control it so i can leave as much room for my family as i possibly can so we're going to land the plane here brother so we can hang out for a minute or two afterwards but uh you know i just appreciate you so much and if there's anything i could ever do for you all you got to do is

just pick up the phone and ask you know i'll share whatever you need to share and I cannot wait to see how successful your new program, your new launch is, and continuing to get to know you much, much better. So thanks again for coming on the show, brother. Thanks, Sean. Anytime. And so you look me up and Matt Ryan Alford on all the platforms. Oh, yeah. Blowing up over there.

Yeah, we're going to, hey, we're going to, we're going to light the show notes up with all the Ryan Alford shit. Yeah. Where he got that amazing sweater and that good haircut. You know, fuck, that's going to be on there, too. So I appreciate you, my man. And you have a wonderful day. Until next time, guys, peace.