Speaker 1: 0:10

All right guys, welcome to Episode 9 of it's Personal, an entrepreneur's podcast. We have a very, very special guest with us today, joe Courtney, who drove all the way over from Destin to be with us today. Yeah, man, really appreciate you being here with us. I heard he brought his RV, did you? Did you know? No, I had to sell that.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Yeah, yeah, that's no longer with us.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Oh man.

Speaker 1: 0:34

And he brought us these super cool hats which we're also very appreciative of. So let's get right into it. I really just want to start by you have such a cool story, which I know a little bit about and Andrew knows a little bit about, but just really start with that. Like you really your your kind of personal journey, of kind of ending up here with the business that you have now. But that's what we're really interested in is the personal side of it, yeah, yeah, well, I love that, and that goes hand in hand with its personal right, yes, it does All right, let's get down to it.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Well, yeah, so I've been married for going on 17 years to my wife, sheena, and she's beautiful. We're the proud parents of four daughters Zoe, adele, shay and Bree, ages 15, 12, 5, and 9 months old. Our youngest was born with spina bifida, and that was a surprise to us, so we're learning the ropes of what it's like to be parents to a child with special needs, but I'll tell you, it's actually one of the biggest blessings I know that sounds crazy to say it that way, but she has changed us and I think that's really been the overarching theme of our story is we have not been allowed call it due to God's providence or direction in our lives.

Speaker 2: 1:51

we have not been allowed to stagnate and to stay the same Right. So we met. We were really young. We got married. I was 22. My wife was 20. At the time I was touring a Christian rock band called Isaiah 6. And we really thought we were going to be something. Yeah, and we joke around that my wife was Yoko. You know like she kind of broke up the band, because what most people don't realize is, when you're in the music industry, you're probably averaging out to making less than minimum wage.

Speaker 1: 2:19

You make a lot of money on tour.

Speaker 2: 2:21

You make really nothing in the in-between times and you're gone 10 to 15 weeks on the road at a time. It's not really conducive to a happy new marriage or starting a family, and we got pregnant pretty early on. So we were just less than two years into our marriage. We got pregnant with our firstborn Zoe. So, yeah, our path has had a lot of twists and turns.

Speaker 2: 2:46

You know, as a Bible college graduate and I decided to put my master's in divinity on the shelf and I did international missions in Central Asia and I was. We were actually invited over there as a band to tour by the presidents of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. All these, all this leadership in Central Asia for this Youth Against Drugs tour, and that really turned me on, I think, to what eventually has led to marketing. Okay, but I think I'm more of a messenger than a marketer, if you will. I'm really fascinated with a message that leads to transformation in people's lives. So if you're to pull this really weird resume, you know that involves, you know, full-time music industry missions. I've been a mega church pastor. I worked for Fortune 50 companies, right. I was with Verizon Wireless and Vodafone for a while doing sales and marketing and then back into ministry and now in my own company, the common thread has always been this fascination, this obsession with a message that leads to transformation in people's lives.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Yeah, it is interesting. I mean because, being in ministry and marketing, they're both trying to get a message delivered to somebody.

Speaker 2: 3:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:56

It makes sense.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and that's I mean I'm kind of a deep end of the pool guy, so I know we're supposed to start shallow and we get there eventually. But I'll just dive right in man.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Yeah, that's what we want.

Speaker 3: 4:09

That's what we want. Let's do it.

Speaker 2: 4:10

So there's this. You know, obviously I'm a follower of Jesus and that kind of informs everything that I do, because I'm not one of those sacred secular guys. I actually think that breaking down that wall, that dichotomy between the two, is absolutely necessary if what you believe is actually going to lead to, not this abstract belief, but this idea that can actually transform a community right, can transform your family, can transform the way you interact with your neighbors, can transform a city Like it becomes very practical. And so, when you break down that dividing wall, it's all about the sacred informing the secular right, yep, until they become one in the same. And so, yeah, man, that's just been the obsession of my life, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Yeah, yeah. We just, you know, did an episode a while back and we were talking about how, especially like in today's day and age, it's so easy to confuse your purpose and what you feel you're called to do with God's purpose and what you put your heat in and idols in or what you're chasing after. But really dialing back and finding what you're good at and what you enjoy doing, this is fun, but using those things to align with God's purpose may change even the way you do it, but really allows you to do almost anything with purpose that aligns with that, if you can connect those two things.

Speaker 2: 5:42

So one of the pastoring roles that I had. It wasn't going so well. Right the senior pastor, I was the youth pastor and we started out, man, there was a church of 85 people and they had zero budget to bring us on staff right, and I was working for Verizon Wireless at the time. I was making great money, I was involved with NPS and sales and marketing, et cetera, and felt a complete dissatisfaction, and I think a lot of us are kind of in that.

Speaker 2: 6:12

I call it like a fog right when it's like I'm going through the motions and I might actually be making a decent amount of money, but what's actually the vision for my life? I don't really know right when I feel disassociated from the vision or the dream that I have. And so I was just I remember just praying and just saying, like Lord, I will do anything that you want me to do, like I'll give everything up. And literally the next morning I get a phone call from this pastor in Ohio who says like we're looking for a youth pastor and somebody who could be our worship pastor. We know your background in music ministry, would you just come for a visit?

Speaker 2: 6:48

It was a little country, church of 85 people, and I was like so what's your, what's your budget, what's the offer? We don't really have one. We've got $10,000 in savings and a trailer you can live in, out in the woods and and we'll see what happens. I was like this is this doesn't really make much sense. So you know, we, we, I take a walk through the town. There's a little town called Shadyside, ohio. Believe it or not, it's right on the Ohio river, wheeling, west Virginia I-70 corridor, right there, and I just start running into all these kids. Right, it's little, you know, the football stadiums like the biggest thing in the middle of the team.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Friday night lights right and I just kind of love that culture and I literally walk up these kids are playing offspring songs in their garage and I was just like you know, what are you guys doing? What are your passion, what's your art? We start talking. I'm like man, something really connected with me. So we were there for a couple of years. We had hundreds of kids in our youth ministry. After that, actually, our youth group is twice the size of the church.

Speaker 2: 7:45

But coming back to the idea of vision, I remember having a conversation because a lot of people are coming to me and saying why don't you start your own thing? And I'm saying that's not really the vision, that's not why I came here. I came to help kids and to help families in this town. I didn't come to break up a church, but I remember having a conversation with a senior pastor. He said you have your vision and I have my vision, and that's creating double vision. Right, yeah, and so this isn't. There's not really alignment for us to move forward. And so I think about that in our relationship with the Lord is sometimes we have our vision and sometimes he has his vision. Yeah, and really I think the walk with God is about figuring out, submitting ourselves surrendering, not my will, but yours be done, not my vision, but what's your vision that you want to see for my family, in my community, through my business? And it's just, it's all about learning how to surrender. And so you know you talk about purpose.

Speaker 2: 8:43

My dad tells this story. Right, there was this Marine that he knew. And the Marine is this young guy is telling my dad this story of you know, he's in his first year and he's really wrestling with the fact that he's enlisted and he's got this long commitment and he's kind of feeling depressed and trying to figure out what's my purpose. And so you know the officer who's above him that he reports to you know he says what's going on with you and he says, well, I'm really trying to figure out what my purpose is. And he laughs and he says, soldier, the Marines have a purpose. Right, you have an assignment.

Speaker 1: 9:23

Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2: 9:24

And I'm still wrestling with that idea a bit. I haven't like cracked a code or something, but I've been thinking about that in relation to God, that he has a purpose in this world. I think that I have an assignment, I have a role to play, but I'm not the main character in the story.

Speaker 1: 9:39

Yeah, yeah, and there is a truth to that, because when we talk about purpose, it is self-centric.

Speaker 2: 9:45

Yeah, yeah, right, that is true, right, yeah, yeah. And how does that carry into? Let's get practical. How does that carry into the way that you see your business, especially if you're not just interested in the almighty dollar and you actually want to make an impact in your community through what you do, through what you do?

Speaker 2: 10:06

which I think I would guess that everybody sitting in this chair so far holds that as a common denominator that there's some sense of purpose or assignment in their lives about why they're doing what they're doing, Right. So, yeah, I just I think that that's definitely something to be wrestled with.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that.

Speaker 2: 10:23

Well, think about branding, right If your branding is self is self-centered people can see that.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Do people connect to that?

Speaker 1: 10:29

Yeah, If it's about your ego and it's about you, no very true and it's very difficult to, especially in what we do with, like real estate, to delineate away with that. It's like in in we always talk about, like in our heads or even in our conversation when we're driving in a truck or something right, like we can, between each other so vividly explain like why we care about things, but it's that constant frustration Like the people don't understand that's what we really care about. People understand that, oh, we want a commission or there's a hundred other realtors calling me or sending me a letter.

Speaker 1: 10:59

You just want to sell this or that, and there's such a a deeper like. We spend a lot of time being educated and proficient so that we can actually help people and we know we could get them more and in a faster timeline. And we actually do care and this is why and we know we look at things more pragmatic than a lot of other people. But getting that for someone to understand is difficult and in the end, you just end up doing a lot of the marketing that everybody else does, which is like here's a photo of me. I got this under contract, yeah, right, yeah, and it's just something you toil with on a constant basis to a degree, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:31

So you're talking about how do you break through the noise Right? How do you go against the?

Speaker 3: 11:34

grain of, like he says, the under contract picture.

Speaker 1: 11:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:37

Cool Congratulations, but how do you make someone?

Speaker 1: 11:41

know who you are, what you do and then choose you to do it, Like we were just talking about with Cody right, Like how do you get someone to do that but without actually doing that? Right, that's the hard part and I'm sure you, having your marketing company, that's the same thing that you address for people to a degree. So I guess a good question to lead in from that is like how, real estate or other, what is the secret sauce to delivering a message without being born about it?

Speaker 2: 12:07

I love that question. Well, let me ask a question in return, especially being in real estate. If you were to lean towards branding or marketing, what would you, what would be your leaning Like? Which one's more impactful? Which one do you enjoy more?

Speaker 3: 12:24

Oh, branding, branding. Why?

Speaker 1: 12:29

Because I feel like, with probably more from like, probably more like an ego standpoint to a degree, I guess. I mean, I hate saying that, but uh, it's like I associate with like, whatever it is that we built, you know, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:46

Yeah, I guess I think of it in real estate. To Kurt's point just a minute ago, in this industry it's obviously far more than the person and the realtor. But you've got to get them to accept you as the realtor so you can get to the conversation of the meaning and the passion behind it. So finding that way to brand yourself but not continually poke the bear until it turns around and attacks you.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Yeah, here's what I would say. Okay. So like I love doing this right, because I love having conversations like this and I truly, when we have a client or a person like I get it. Even when I worked in corporate and I had employees, I get like very attached to people because I just absolutely love talking to people, building relationships, making connections, I love teaching people things right.

Speaker 1: 13:39

I just absolutely thrive off of that and I don't mind doing admin stuff and accounting, but, like man, you get me in there doing stuff like that for too long and it just something doesn't feel right with me, right, and I also feel like and I used to would have said this wasn't the case and there was probably some things even in my past that I was ashamed of. But I also feel like I have a, when I really reflect on like my own personal story of like I've had a kidney transplant, my leg was paralyzed, probably did some things I shouldn't have done when I was depressed about those things and you know, all these different things and I've had a pretty bad car accident.

Speaker 1: 14:15

I've had all these things happen to me and I've had all these professional experiences and when I combine all those things, I really feel like I can truly help people and that's what I want to do and I spend a lot of time being educated, being able to do it. But I get frustrated on a constant basis because I know when we're cold calling or when we're putting marketing out, or even when we're going to the network event. It's like how do I make people understand that? And it's not me saying I'm a better option than these other people. It's me saying I know God put me through a lot of these things to make me end up how I am so I can deliver this service.

Speaker 1: 14:49

How do I get in front of more people to do it? And it's not even from, like, a monetary perspective. I'm like so frustrated because I feel like I could help more people and I have a way to relate to people and help them make better decisions. And I don't know how to punch through that and make people see that part of it right, Because you have to get them to choose you as a realtor and there's hundreds of realtors, Thousands. It's like this wall of genericism you can't bust past.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's so. There's a lot of realtors down here in the panhandle there's thousands.

Speaker 3: 15:24

Is that what you're saying? Hey, clear water, I'm sure you've got a cousin and an uncle.

Speaker 1: 15:28

That's why yeah, clear water and white sandy beaches there's gonna be a few people with the real estate, a few people who have real estate I think I might be the only person left who doesn't have the real estate license.

Speaker 2: 15:39

Yeah, and guess what, I'm thinking about getting it I wouldn't because why not?

Speaker 1: 15:44

that wouldn't surprise me at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, and just as a, as a, as a, as a line. Here I mean honestly, if you are going to buy I always say this, as much as it's probably a bad thing to say if you in your lifetime are gonna buy or sell two to three properties, the getting your real estate license and just hanging your license somewhere and being able to sell your own properties two to three times in a lifetime will pay for itself tenfold.

Speaker 2: 16:09

Okay, so we're talking about branding and marketing here and just kind of picking on what you just said for a minute. Then, what makes you unique? What's your value proposition?

Speaker 1: 16:19

As far as, like us being, there's so many realtors along the panhandle in Panama City Beach, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 16:26

What's the value prop?

Speaker 1: 16:28

For me, our value proposition. Other than so. Everyone has a marketing plan. They present right To varying different degrees. This is how we're going to market your property. This is how we're going to do this. To me, it's really that we're willing to go above and beyond what is required. I mean, we truly make ourselves available to our detriment 24-7. And we proactively communicate with people. Like if I haven't talked to a client in two days, even if we think the house won't sell for four months. Like I'm calling that person or touching base with them somehow a text, a phone call, an email person or touching base with them somehow a text, a phone call, an email. Um, we are super active in the process of actually being tied to that customer, because we know when we get a client, it's like gold, right, like yeah and you want to keep it past that, that one house, you want to keep that and I am committed, yeah, 100.

Speaker 3: 17:24

Yeah, you want to brand yourself to have that referral business and have that consistency in the relationship.

Speaker 2: 17:30

The metric is called lifetime customer value LCV.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Even when the cold snap happened and a lot of other realtors did it too I'm not saying we're the only ones, but we went around to, we called all our clients and we made sure we went and dripped water and did all these things, but we were thinking about their property and we did that before we went and did our own investment properties right. And my theory is, no matter how big we scale ever, if we had another 20 agents or it's still just us two doing it I just never want to lose that. No matter how much money we're making, I never want to lose that.

Speaker 2: 18:02

Yeah. So picture branding and marketing as two side-by-side circles with an overlap in the center yeah, and what they have in common is really two key things Number one is your message, yeah, and number two is your value proposition Okay. Those two things are what's going to inform your brand, and your brand is your identity, yeah, and marketing is not this presenting products and services for sale. I think that's a very poor but common definition. Marketing is about opening and fostering a relationship with your customers, with the goal of having that relationship for a lifetime. So where your brand is about your identity, right, which is your voice, your tone, your character, your personality, right, marketing is about your customer's experience with your brand from first impression.

Speaker 3: 18:52

Hopefully, for a lifetime All the way through, yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Yeah, and so what informs that number one is your message. Okay, so and this is where it gets really challenging to kind of work this out, because you mentioned what I would say, some things about who you are in your message and your values that potentially could be in tension with your value proposition, and this is where we get this friction, the more friction that you have, I don't know feel you need to act in this world from what your values actually are. The greater that distance, the higher the level of stress, and so this is built in different types of stress tests.

Speaker 1: 19:37

And I do fall victim to that. I do have to dial myself back from that. I mean just being transparent.

Speaker 2: 19:43

So if our message is something like hey, family values. I've had near-death experiences which led me to value time with my children at a deeper level, like I care about my community and my neighbors. Well, let's ask ourselves some practical questions. Do we actually know our neighbors, or do we just have a through-the-windshield wave-say-hello kind of relationship with our neighbors, true? Or do we just have a through the windshield wave say hello kind of relationship with our neighbors, True? Or do we actually know them? And then so our value proposition might be for my customers. I'm available 24-7. If you call me at 3 am, I pick up the phone. I know guys like this right Anytime a day or night. Well, you also have this value of you know, being faithful in your marriage and being present for your children. Can those two things coexist?

Speaker 1: 20:28

Probably not.

Speaker 2: 20:29

Right, and so we walk in this tension of trying to align our message with our value proposition, which is so, listen to this, right, your brand, if that is your identity, that's who you say that you are, and your marketing is about fostering a lifetime relationship. It's the entire experience with your brand, right? Yeah, then what needs to happen? Your marketing has to be aligned with your brand, that what you espouse has to be aligned with what you produce.

Speaker 1: 21:04

There has to be consistency, and lack of consistency between your branding and your marketing is what eventually breaks trust and leads to lost lifetime customer value If you're not aligning them with those other parts of your life too, it lacks genuinity, which people can sense too, I believe.

Speaker 2: 21:19

Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:20

That makes total sense.

Speaker 2: 21:22

Absolutely so. I think you know when we think about like okay, what's my message and my value proposition? How do I bring these things into alignment? One of my favorite clients. They've been with me since 2017. They own a plumbing company in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Okay.

Speaker 2: 21:39

And it's third generation, which is pretty uncommon, so already there's something special that's been handed down right. Very uncommon these days I can't remember the statistic, but it's low right.

Speaker 1: 21:49

Yeah, generational businesses are not a thing.

Speaker 2: 21:51

They're not really a thing anymore which is the whole topic of historical disassociation which is fun to get into. But so I'm talking to second generation owner, right, and he's in his 60s at the time, plumbing company, right. So I say you know, we're talking about value proposition, you know what's your UVP, right, like what makes you different, right? We're trying to figure that out, to nail the message right, because so far the message has been- we plumb. We're plumbers who respond 24-7 to service calls. Okay cool, that's pretty commoditized because anybody else can do that.

Speaker 1: 22:26

When Dave was in town, we were talking about like he called them. You know shit values, but one of the S was service and it's like well, yeah, if you're a service industry company and your value is service like, congratulations.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Well, I actually love the term shit values for plumbing, though you know.

Speaker 1: 22:42

Yeah, I was actually like your.

Speaker 3: 22:44

Slogan should be like your shit is our bread, and butter. I was actually like.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Your slogan should be like your shit is our bread and butter.

Speaker 1: 22:49

It was like service honesty, integrity trust or something like that. You know, but it is true, Like service, honesty, integrity, trust. If you don't, I just inherently would just hope, as a business you have those that you do those four things Right.

Speaker 2: 23:01

And so they had those values right. Integrity, you know community like, and those are great things to say, yeah. Integrity, you know community like, and those are great things to say, yeah, yeah. And excellence, I think, is one which I actually hate excellence as a value, because it's such a moving target.

Speaker 1: 23:12

You know, what's excellent to me? What do you define as excellent?

Speaker 2: 23:14

yeah, what I define as excellent let's in automobiles is like a. I love old toyota forerunners you know, what I mean, but to you it might be a new, you know tesla model s flat or whatever you know know like it's it's, it's so arbitrary, but anyway.

Speaker 2: 23:27

So I'm having this conversation with with Steve and he's, you know, I don't know what our UVP is, joe, I don't know what our message is. You know, we're plumbers, we, we unclog drains, and so here's what I like to ask is well, what is the thing that you do? And then, so the next question is what is your favorite story about a time that you did the thing that you do, right? So I asked him that Well, tell me your favorite story about unclogging a drain. So he says well, they'd been I mean, repeat customers for over a decade. You know, they knew my father, right, and John just passed away and his John's widow gives me a call, says I don't know what to do, like the basement's flooded.

Speaker 2: 24:13

John always handled this stuff and I just know that he trusted you. So Steve says I'll come over personally. So he goes over, he fixes the clogged drain, right, that's in the basement, and you know they make sure that the water's out, everything gets cleaned up. They leave it better than they found it. This lady's in tears. She says John would be so thankful. I know that he's smiling down right now because he trusted you, and so do I, you know that's impactful.

Speaker 2: 24:39

And so he's telling me this story. And the owner of this plumbing company is weeping. He's telling me this story, unclogging a drain for one of his neighbors. And so I said, Steve, you don't unclog drains, you restore peace to your neighbor's homes. And that was the birth of Agentes Plumbing, the Lehigh Valley's peace of mind plumber. And we said, okay, great. So that's the tagline and that's what we believe and that's what we're passionate about. Now, how are we going to back that up with the guarantee that leads to the UVP? So we came up with a five-point peace of mind promise, and here's why we're the peace of mind plumbing company no trip fees, no extra charge, nights, holidays or weekends. Done right, guarantee right.

Speaker 1: 25:23

Man, no extra charge on weekends. I'd be calling yeah. So that was like the done right guarantee.

Speaker 2: 25:29

If we don't do it right the first time we come back and we make it right, we'll figure it out. So they're actually backing up what they're saying, that they do and what you're creating is alignment between your marketing, which is the fostering of a lifetime relationship, and the entire experience with who you say that you are, with your brand, people who are fascinated with branding and hate marketing. I say this well, do you, uh, do you only enjoy being on eHarmony or do you actually like having relationships Right, because the one is presenting here's who I am. The next level is actually walking it out in the nitty gritty of every day life and backing up what you, what you talk about, yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:07

Yeah, because you can't just have the theory you can brand yourself, but if you don't live it out, the branding won't last long anyway, because you're just going to associate the brand with something that doesn't line up and then you have a bad brand.

Speaker 2: 26:18

You do, yeah, yeah, one star reviews bad reputation. You're a snake oil salesman.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Branding works both ways.

Speaker 2: 26:25

It does yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:28

That's very interesting, yeah, and I mean, that's what I'm. It's that kind of thing. It's being able to extract something that impactful from something that seems so basic and, like everything else that's going on, that makes a huge difference.

Speaker 3: 26:43

Yeah, it's the truth.

Speaker 1: 26:45

In messaging yeah, so let's, we already got and got there a little bit, but let's talk a little bit more about that and your company, wild Marketing, and what, what really started it and what I guess what. I would ask you what you just described about that plumbing company, what is that for Wild Marketing? Like, what makes you guys different?

Speaker 2: 27:06

Yeah, so Wild Story Marketing. It's wild with an E, so that was my grandfather's last name.

Speaker 1: 27:11

So it's a family name, yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:13

It kind of has a cool double meaning and we had gone through a difficult time. It was 2019. And we had been a mega church pastor and left that and was consulting churches around the nation for a while and left that and come to find out that running church as a business translates really well into being an executive. So I became a COO for a software development company and then got back into my old trade, which was marketing. So that through the course of this kind of few year period 2016 to 2019, we decide that we're going to plant a church of a different breed.

Speaker 2: 27:49

If you will right, had really gotten burned out on the stage being the center of church and really had this idea of the table being the center right, so we called it L24, based on Luke 24, which is a picture of Jesus around the table right. He broke bread and he blessed them and their eyes were open and they recognized him. Let's have church around the table, where people see Jesus through interactions around the table, through conversation, not the answer man with his 45-minute monologue, and it was a lot of fun of doing that in Colorado Springs and just where we were living at the time and felt led, if you will, to move across the country to Bethlehem, pennsylvania, near where I had grown up, which was kind of cool, because Bethlehem means house of bread, which we didn't even know at the time.

Speaker 2: 28:40

It was kind of a cool thing, and so we planted a church there and just realized that this model of church is really not conducive to making a salary that's going to support a family, at least not in the early stages, because you're not opening a storefront, you're not trying to get 600 people in to reach critical mass and tithes and offerings and open the cash registers every Sunday morning at 10 am. It wasn't that model at all. People were giving because they believed in the mission, but that took time, and so I realized quickly I was going to have to pick up my marketing trade again at the same time as I was pastoring, which I really love.

Speaker 2: 29:13

the bivocational model If you can balance it, definitely some challenges there. So through that long story, short stepped into.

Speaker 1: 29:23

I want to go back to that real quick. So that is something interesting because I, you know, I've had a lot of different experiences with, with with church and growing up and things like that? Do you feel like situations where the pastor of a church does have another job, and does that makes an impact on in like a good? I guess it could go both ways, but like does it make a good impact on on the church not being about being monetized to a degree?

Speaker 1: 29:54

Yeah, I know that's such a loaded question it is a loaded question.

Speaker 2: 29:58

There's a few ways I could approach this. One of the things that I could say I'm specifically thankful for is that in that season, when people would come to our gatherings, I didn't see price tags, so to speak on them, the relationship felt more pure.

Speaker 1: 30:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Where I wanted to get to know them and their families for who they were. It was kind of like it was a place of ministry. It wasn't where you needed someone to put something because you had already calculated in.

Speaker 1: 30:28

That might not be the case, and I'm doing this Right.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Right, and so what that eventually led to was eventually, the church was able to give us a housing allowance, which was nice, but never gave us any semblance of a salary.

Speaker 1: 30:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:41

And what we were able to invest in instead was, you know, missional things or things that would benefit the community. Yeah, right. And when you look at the early church, you know, see to it that there's no need among you. Right, they were very generous with each other, and they did say that the workman is worthy of his wage, and there is a precedent for certain people who are performing the function of ministry to be supported because they were dedicating so much time to it. That has a place. So I'm not against that, but I really do love it, at least in the infancy stages of a church to not be.

Speaker 1: 31:20

Under the pressure of it.

Speaker 2: 31:21

Yeah, that the first financial milestone that we need to hit is that the pastor needs to get his salary, because it's really not about the pastor needs to get his salary. Yeah, because it's really not about the pastor. I mean, when you look in the New Testament, there was a plurality of leadership. Yeah, it wasn't a guy.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:34

We didn't get that until.

Speaker 1: 31:37

Much later.

Speaker 2: 31:38

Until much later, which we could get into church history, but Ignatius of Antioch. Yeah, he wrote his seven letters when he was being led away to martyrdom. And that was when he said put your answer man in place, because the age of the apostles is over. And I think it was a fearful reaction. I don't think it was meant to be a precedent that carried into today. Yeah, that makes sense, but that has nothing to do with wild story marketing.

Speaker 3: 31:59

So, but I would rather talk about this no, I know, and I know that was a total divergence but, I, just had to stop and ask that question.

Speaker 2: 32:06

No, I mean and we can come back to that, but I'll just put a bow on that wild story. Marketing, like how did that happen? I picked up the plumbing company as a client first of all, before I launched the company and I think through that experience I just described, with the peace of mind, plumbing development. There's this quote by Maya Angelou, and I'm going to butcher it, so I'll just paraphrase it it's there's, there's no greater agony, um than something to the effect of there's no greater agony than to hold an untold story.

Speaker 3: 32:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:43

Right and wild story marketing. You know I don't know much about my grandfather, who it's named after. You know he was an Eastern European acrobat who married a Native American woman and apparently there's this wild story that was not passed down through the generations. And so there's all of these, you know, folksy legends about who he was, but there's not like a clear generational identity, Like I can't say this is who he was and this is who his children were, and this is what did he do after he was an acrobat. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 33:12

I saw a picture from an old newspaper once of you know him doing the trapeze thing and then he was a clown and that's kind of cool and kind of scary all at once. Right, I don't really like clowns, but so that was that for me, was something that just to my own family was. There's this untold story, and and I would like to see people be able to tell theirs, to extract the message that matters, that aligns with the value that they're bringing to the world, not just in the spoused value proposition, but how are you actually bringing transformation into your community? And that's also why we help local businesses specifically.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Yeah, trying to bring that transformation into where you're planted. We don't help influencers, so sorry.

Speaker 1: 33:55

Yeah, what? What would you say the best medium for marketing? Marketing is right now. If you had to choose one, the best medium or for branding, marketing for for getting in front of people. I mean because I know obviously we're innovated with. You got some things that are, I guess, would be considered more like, you know, older style marketing, like fixed marketing, billboards, and you know press and things of that sort. But then you you're innovated with like digital ads, video, still picture, ott commercials, you know pay-per-click, there's all. There's all kinds of stuff. What is really, I guess, the best format? You know whether it's video or other, and what is the most impactful way for someone who's really trying to narrow it down?

Speaker 2: 34:45

Well, we're in sort of a tension right now, aren't we? I mean, facebook went down for eight hours the other day. Yeah, didn't it, yep? What most people don't know is that you know, in the eight-hour downtime for Facebook and Instagram and threads, youtube also went down momentarily right A few weeks ago. I don't want to drift off into conspiracy theories here, but you know, we had the big cell phone outage as well.

Speaker 1: 35:07

That's crossed our minds tenfold.

Speaker 2: 35:09

I think what we're heading towards is that anything that can be shaken will be. You know, it's yesterday.

Speaker 1: 35:16

So the software we use for signing contracts back and forth went down for about five hours yesterday. Yeah, software we use for signing contracts back and forth, um, went down for about five hours yesterday. Yeah, and I'll tell you like uh, even just on social media, like real realtors were like freaking out like how do we write contracts? Like because we're just used you don't go meet with people to sign contracts or anything like that, right, very rarely yeah, I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3: 35:36

That's where I'm going after this yeah yeah, that's true, we are well, you know, so are.

Speaker 2: 35:40

So so pharmacy pharmacies also went down a couple of weeks ago. We know that cause we were in the hospital and in the in the picky with my daughter. I couldn't pick up her prescription for a day which is crazy because that's that's life altering in some situations.

Speaker 2: 35:53

I think that we're heading for some life altering circumstances, and so, if I'm going to pick a medium. I could easily say that, you know, for wild story marketing, what we would do is we would shoot a batch of videos for a local brand that are really compelling for about a penny per video view. I can distribute those across meta platforms, right, and I can retarget for an entire year on that video viewership with ads that lead to conversational AI, and that's really.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Because it's picking up like who's viewing them to a degree like a couple of years back.

Speaker 2: 36:25

They, and what's coming now, even with Google, is just with a third party. Tracking is really being affected. So your ability to follow people around the internet is being messed with. I guess is the simplest way to say it. So there's only a few tactics that we can apply now to retarget people so that you stay top of mind. So Meta is still a great platform, still an affordable platform that can generate a great ROI, so I really like that as a platform for advertising. I'm not getting into organic marketing right now because that's kind of probably a whole other podcasting episode.

Speaker 2: 36:58

But specifically about how do you take your efforts the furthest, the fastest? I would say let's shoot six months worth of video for you. Let's set up a stack of ad campaigns for you that are primarily video viewership based and instead of directing them to cold lead forms, where people fill out a form and then you spend the next week chasing them around trying to say, hey, uh, you know, do you want to talk about that thing you signed up for? We just get them right into a conversational AI interaction. So it's very you're setting up, you're kind of qualifying, you're establishing motivation and you're setting up a warm connection Right, and I think what you win people with you and people too.

Speaker 2: 37:32

So if you can create an immediate warm connection, regardless of platform, that's what I would say. Any medium that you're using, I would say this what can go the furthest, the fastest, what can create some tenure in your visibility with omnipresence, and how can you facilitate warm connections at scale that set you up for better interactions? Because, again, marketing is about fostering a lifetime relationship. And so if you, if you're getting a bunch of cold form fills, what are you setting up? What's the beginning of that relationship? It's not off to a really great start?

Speaker 1: 38:08

No, and you're creating a lot of work for yourself.

Speaker 3: 38:10

You are.

Speaker 1: 38:10

Like anxiety, almost to the point where, like I need to call these leads.

Speaker 3: 38:15

And.

Speaker 1: 38:15

I know you're not excited about it because you know that the interaction isn't probably going to be a warm connection on 90 of them but just for sake of time, I would say that the the last nugget that I'll leave.

Speaker 2: 38:27

When it comes to what's the best medium for marketing, um, take medium out of it. What is the best pursuit in marketing right now, I would say, is audience ownership. That, with where we're headed, with the volatile volatility on major big tech platforms, we're coming to an age where if you do not own your audience's data and you do not have some level of control and diversity on how you can reach out to that owned list, then you could be left without connection to your audience pretty quickly, because they're cracking down so much on like cold texting and emailing and things like that.

Speaker 2: 39:04

Oh yeah, that's yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:06

If you don't have opt in your ability really now to market like you took, because everyone was on that triple tap method, especially with like sales things. Right, like I'm going to, I'm going to mail them, email them, text them, but like half of those things, or two thirds of those things, you really can't do unless you have opt-in now.

Speaker 2: 39:26

Well, yeah, you can be fined $1,500 per unsolicited text message. So if you have a list of 3000 and you sent, you know, three text messages to those people, I mean you can go out of business overnight. And so A2P 10 DLC compliance is what it's called. Like you, you have to bottom line, you have to have an opted in list that's actually engaging with your content, that gets excited when they get emails from you.

Speaker 1: 39:45

So it's really what you need for it to be effective in the end, Anyway it is it is, you can't just spray and hope you get one thing back from it.

Speaker 2: 39:52

Yeah. So I would say, become obsessed with fostering valuable interactions with your audience and make sure that you own the data Okay, so that you can connect with them.

Speaker 1: 40:03

Makes sense. Right, yeah, that makes total sense yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:07

Go after that full throttle.

Speaker 1: 40:08

Makes total sense. So I've got we're going to wrap it up with one final big question for you, Whether personal or professional we're a mixture of the two. I like to call it kind of like our legacy question. Yeah, what is the one thing for our viewers and we have all different kinds of people who listen A lot of them are business-oriented people who own small businesses and are just trying to manage that in life and really just being a better person what is that one piece of advice that you can leave for them? That would be your legacy advice to leave on the show.

Speaker 2: 40:46

So we've talked about things like the difference between purpose and assignment.

Speaker 1: 40:52

Yep.

Speaker 2: 40:53

So I believe that God has a purpose that he's trying to pursue in this world, which is really about reconciliation, wholeness, restoring relationships, alleviating poverty that goes beyond material lack. We have poverty in our relationships, poverty in our stewardship of the world. Really, god's mission is about wholeness, restoring relationships and bringing wholeness through. That. That's the kingdom of God, is it's righteousness, peace, joy, which just means right relationships, peace, shalom. That means the wholeness of all things brought back together. And then joy is the deep satisfaction from knowing you have what matters most and you have that satisfaction because your relationships are whole, right.

Speaker 2: 41:36

So, in the context of that being what I believe is the ultimate purpose, I say that we all have an assignment that should align with that purpose. How are we contributing to the restoration of relationships and all things around us? Which means that my ego has to die, which means that I have to live in a surrendered position, both in my personal life and my professional life. And so I would say, when you catch a glimpse and this is it, the bottom line is, when you catch a glimpse of what your assignment is, then your only obsession should be just stay faithful, just stay faithful. I'm one of those crazy people that believes that God speaks to me.

Speaker 2: 42:19

And so a couple of years back, I was saying, god, what do you want me to do? What should I be doing with my life? You know, I'm nearing 40. Like what's my purpose? And all I heard at that time was just the sense of a single sentence, which was just stay faithful. And I've kept that with me in all of these volatile situations the situation with my daughter being born with a disability and almost dying, the situation with my business almost going under a little while back right. Just stay faithful. So when you find out what you're called to, that becomes the obsession yeah, that's it Makes total sense.

Speaker 2: 42:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:59

Because it's inevitable that it's not going to be easy. It's inevitable that there will be challenge, um, but it's, it's to your point, staying faithful throughout. That really makes the difference. And also, if you put, if you put your purpose in that, uh, then no matter what happens, even though it may be challenging, you know that you'll be all right in the end and you'll react to it appropriately. And that's what I've had to learn is, things don't happen to me, they happen around me, and it may be. How will you respond?

Speaker 1: 43:32

right and on the end of it, the worst things that have ever happened to me have given me the most wisdom and knowledge in life, even to be able to help other people truly.

Speaker 2: 43:41

I love that, kurt. Yeah, yeah, if I could give one more quick anecdotal story right on right along those lines.

Speaker 2: 43:52

I told you about Steve the plumber right the peace of mind plumbing company there was. Steve doesn't want anybody to know this, but you know he lives 20 hours away, so I think I can tell this story. There we go, I'm going to tell it. He gives probably more than anyone I know to local charities, specifically to a place called the Children's Home of Easton, which is a place where you know children, even with incarcerated parents, will go as a safe place where they can live. Steve personally makes sure that every child has a Christmas present on Christmas day, can live. Steve personally makes sure that every child has a Christmas present on Christmas day. He gives above and beyond. He gives until it hurts. So he's one of the primary sponsors for this big wine gala event where all the big wigs show up and they're writing big checks and, you know, patting themselves on the back and seeking publicity.

Speaker 2: 44:35

Steve was found by one of the leading kind of radio talk show personalities in their area, discovered Steve taking out the trash and mopping the floor and just thought he was one of the helpers and asked him to like throw his plate away or something like that. And Steve was like, yeah, sure, really humble guy. Then he finds out who he is. So he was like the biggest donor and there he is, taking out the trash and mopping the floor, and so staying faithful, I think, comes down down to the question, is what will people see when they catch you? Right, steve got caught doing something beautiful, right? So when people get to see behind the curtain of our lives and who we really are, and are we really backing up? Are we really producing the thing that we espouse? Are we living out what we believe?

Speaker 1: 45:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:21

What will people see when? They see behind the scenes.

Speaker 1: 45:23

To that. I guess that's really we throw around, like we were talking about earlier, like the word integrity, all the time, but no one really sits there and thinks about what that means and I used to talk about this when I led teams at one of my corporate jobs. Is, you know, integrity is not about me, you telling me you're integritous or me telling you I'm integritous. Integrity is something you know within yourself because it's a measure of what you do when nobody's looking. No one here can say whether you're integritous a hundred percent. No one here can say whether I am a hundred percent, because I could tell you one thing and do another when you're not looking.

Speaker 1: 46:00

I can say something about you different than what I said in front of you, um, but the truth is, is that's a principle or something that I believe we all, as people on a team, should live by when I was managing people? But only you can know it. If you find yourself asking yourself that question and find that it's not true, that may be the problem that you're having within the business or your life, and I can't answer that for you. Only you can say do I do what I say when no one's looking? And I think it's that same kind of thing, and I'm not perfect at it, no one is right but keeping that in mind is it's really staying faithful or being integrative is really only something you can gauge for yourself.

Speaker 2: 46:39

It will not be perfect. Staying faithful is not linear.

Speaker 1: 46:43

Yeah, no. It's a bumpy road with a lot of learning experiences, A lot of things trying to derail us from that too.

Speaker 2: 46:49

They do, so you've got to bounce back, forge forward, stay faithful Yep.

Speaker 1: 46:54

Stay outside your ego. I think that's the theme of all of it.

Speaker 3: 46:58

Ego has to die yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:01

It. Of all of it, ego has to die. Yeah, it has to. Yeah. Well, man, I really, really appreciate you taking the time to come on and spend some time with us, and I think that was like a super impactful message that I'm going to carry throughout my day now, so I appreciate that too, oh good.

Speaker 1: 47:15

And that's episode nine of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast. We hope you guys tune in for next episode, episode 10. We're going to have a really great guest and check out that too. Joe, appreciate you coming. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker 3: 47:28

Appreciate it. Thanks, buddy.