The Retail Journey
Welcome to the Retail Journey where we will cover important topics, interview industry stakeholders, and address emerging trends as we journey through our mission of helping our listeners thrive in retail. Your hosts for this show are CEO James Harris and CGO Charles Greathouse.
The Retail Journey
Behind the Mic: Keeping it Real Jon William’s
Radio personality Jon Williams opens up about the art of authentic endorsements and his journey from failed baseball aspirations to becoming one of Northwest Arkansas' most recognizable voices. Williams shares how he pioneered a unique business model where he receives no salary from his radio station, instead earning his living entirely through commissions from brand partnerships.
What sets Williams apart isn't just his entrepreneurial approach, but his unwavering commitment to exclusivity. While most radio personalities might promote competing businesses on the same day, Williams maintains strict brand category exclusivity. "I won't have competing brands on my show," he explains, creating tremendous value for his 26 partners ranging from local businesses to national giants like Nestlé and Coca-Cola. This exclusivity has fostered remarkable loyalty, with many partners renewing year after year.
The turning point in Williams' career came from advice given by the late Cameron Smith, a legendary figure in Northwest Arkansas' business community. "John, you're a brand," Smith told him. "Build your brand. Don't build anyone else's brands, but yours and people that pay you to build theirs." This perspective shift transformed Williams' approach, helping him understand that his greatest asset was authenticity - only endorsing products he actually uses and believes in.
Williams also shares his deep connection to Northwest Arkansas, from emceeing charity galas that have raised millions for causes like type 1 diabetes research to his role announcing University of Arkansas sports. Through it all, his philosophy remains steadfast: real value comes from genuine relationships, not just transactions. For anyone looking to build a personal brand or create lasting business partnerships, Williams' journey offers a masterclass in the power of authenticity and strategic exclusivity.
Hello and welcome to the Retail Journey podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Charles Greathouse.
Speaker 2:And I am James Harris, and today we're talking to John Williams. John wears a lot of hats. John Williams, john wears a lot of hats. So, among other things, he's the CEO and partner of 94.9 Radio John Deak, on-field and on-court announcer for the University of Arkansas football and basketball and emcee extraordinaire for fundraising gals here in Northwest Arkansas. Welcome to the Retail Journey, john.
Speaker 3:I made him put extraordinaire in there. I was part of my rider, which is quite extensive. Did we get it?
Speaker 1:right sir.
Speaker 3:You're eating Skittles, not the white ones that J-Lo likes. No, thank you guys for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Awesome, yeah. So I ran into you two or three weekends ago at it's called Breakthrough T1D Right Right, so type 1 diabetes. The money from it used to be JDRF Right Junior Diabetes.
Speaker 3:Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Research Foundation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the money really goes to researching a cure for type 1 diabetes. And we're talking in the lobby afterwards and my wonderful wife, who I come home at night listening, I listen to you guys in the morning, I listen to you guys on the ride home because you got the two segments now on your radio show and she came up to you which is not her normal MO, like, grabbed you by the arm, said do you need to meet my husband Cause he's your biggest fan girl.
Speaker 3:And she had me at hello on that one, I go okay and uh, that was really first of all that that event was first class and having an Osage house with. Uh, people haven't been to Osage house yet.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was my first time. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3:That was also my first time and I had no idea what an incredible facility that was, and so that was a first-class operation. They raised almost half a million dollars.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and their goal was nowhere near it was nowhere near it, and that is what, as somebody who has been deeply involved in charity events across Northwest Arkansas, all I care about is what's your goal, what do we get? And it's my job, along with, you know, the event planning committee and everybody else that runs those events, to break the goal and they shattered the goal and it was a team event. Shout out to Kim Daniels and her team. They did a really good job, incredible auctioneer, really good job Also Allison Wise of 4029. And really it was a great event and really unique. It was not long. I know a lot of people, especially in the vendor community, who have to go to a lot of these charity galas are constantly.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're early night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, a lot of these galas go long, like they a few hours, like people have a set amount of time.
Speaker 2:We're not 20 anymore.
Speaker 3:No 20 is that's in pictures that aren't on social media anymore is what that is. But I thought that event really hit the sweet spot. Great auction items Not too many, just enough. A lot of great personal testimony from people who are type 1 children, adults, and things like that.
Speaker 2:I just thought it was a first-class event Do you have a connection to type 1 diabetes?
Speaker 3:I do Because you were on the board of JDRF for a while. Right, Full disclosure I was the first president of the board of JDRF when that branch was first created in Northwest Arkansas in the early 2000s. Because my son's mom is and has been a type 1 diabetic since she was 11. And so when we had Jack it is the understatement of the year to say that was a challenging birth time for him, and they told us that up front. They said because you're dealing with a type 1 situation, you're going to have all these possible problems. They made us go down to Little Rock, they made us go to UAMS before we had all the hospitals we have up here, and they put us in a room and said you're 40% more likely to have spina bifida, You're 40% more likely to have all this litany of things.
Speaker 1:When he was born.
Speaker 3:Before he was born we were getting the gender reveal down there and basically they were like OK, by the way, it's a boy, and here's all the things that could go wrong, just FYI. So we're blessed and fortunate that 23 and a half years later.
Speaker 3:No, he's fantastic. We're very, very fortunate and very lucky, but not everybody who is type 1 diabetic that has kids are, and so that's really what we're trying to do is improve the lives and, as we like to say, go from type 1 to type none, which I thought was clever. I'm like 25 years, I hadn't thought of that, where have I been? But that's what they're basically trying to put themselves out of business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and like we do a lot of the charity stuff, the industry we're in, whatever, but I'm a type one diabetic. How long have you been type one Adult onset?
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 2:So I had a traumatic event.
Speaker 3:Were you like 600 or something or low? Were you high or low? Oh, I was very high, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Like 800 or low. Were you high or low? Oh, I was very high. Oh yeah, like 800 or something. When I finally so I'd lost a ton of weight, right, and I'm drinking apple juice out of the carton it's like, oh, this isn't right no, I gotta tell you I was about 500, oh goodness yeah, that's danger zone five, six oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm so sorry. No, it's just you know. And so now you've got everything all the technology.
Speaker 2:I've got the pod right here. I've got the technology. I'm probably getting insulin as we speak.
Speaker 3:People who are type 1 diabetic, are you okay? People who were type 1 before, I would say, the year 2000. Oh yeah, Technology was straight out of Flintstones man. It Technology was straight out of Flintstones man. It's a lot of guesswork, a lot of math. You're like I think this is the long acting, here's the short acting, let's inject them both, and I think I need a Coke. And it was just really a tough way to navigate it. Witch doctor kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I know a couple of guys. They're twins, they're adult men, they're close to my age, whatever, um, and they had the gene which I didn't have the gene different thing, um, but they each had the gene and one of them had a car accident oh no, and that triggered his onset a car accident, car accident. So if you have the gene right, a traumatic event can spur it oh wow, and the other a couple years later had um like uh pneumonia and that triggered it yeah so both of them are active type ones.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, but it's a. It's a weird, weird disease. It is and there's a weird disease.
Speaker 3:I think there's a lot here in 2020. You know five we're still finding out about it, and that's what the research is going for is to help people manage it better and live their lives with it better, and events like that one where I was lucky enough to meet you is one of those things. And it's really cool how Northwest Arkansas, specifically the vendor community, is so invested in projects and in nonprofits like that one. There's so many. If I started naming them, someone's going to get mad.
Speaker 2:That's a huge, huge event.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been fortunate enough to be part of Kissapig for I mean almost 18 years. They came to me first as a contestant and if anybody knows about Kissapig, it's basically it's not a gala, it's 10 mini galas wrapped in a gala and they basically make all these people have their own contest. It's a genius business model. It's a very late night too. Oh it's. I have gotten to the John Q Hammond's RIP Rogers Convention Center at like 5 o'clock and not left there until almost midnight. Yeah, on many occasions, and they've had incredible wallflowers and Blues Traveler and just incredible.
Speaker 1:I saw Blues.
Speaker 3:Traveler. Yeah, yeah, so these events that happen in Northwest Arkansas are oftentimes the most profitable events that some of these galas are like. For example, I know for a fact ADA their most profitable event every year is in Northwest Arkansas, at Kissapig, by the way they do it. So it's really cool the way the Walmart community, the vendor community in Northwest Arkansas, really get behind some of these things.
Speaker 2:There's always a couple of vice presidents at Walmart that are in the running for the 10 people that are bringing things in, and it makes a huge difference.
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:It's not even the personalities, it's the strength that you know Walmart talks about this a lot that we have such scale. We can change the world, and this is just a microcosm of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you grew up in Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was born in Silent Springs.
Speaker 3:So you have to deal with a lot of people. I say deal with a lot of people, that's such a negative connotation. You have to deal with these people, but you have to. You encounter people that come to Northwest Arkansas who have only been here like a year two years, three years and they walk around with their mouth agape going. I thought I was coming to Arkansas what is this stuff? And it's just really cool to see where we are now as a community in Northwest.
Speaker 2:Arkansas. About a third of our company's revenue comes through about two square blocks in Midtown Manhattan. Yeah, To talk to them about what you guys do this weekend and they'll ask me what I did and they're like, well, that was just on Broadway last week. We're not limited.
Speaker 3:No, no, no no.
Speaker 2:Access. We have to cool things. You could have always said that no, no, of course not Always said that. When I was in junior high and high school there wasn't a reason to come to Rogers or Bentonville unless you had a game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we talk about football baseball. All the time. I mean, what was the draw to Rogers? What are we? Dixieland Mall Nothing. What is it If you were in the Olive Garden?
Speaker 1:Club, then you could drink Honestly, do you?
Speaker 3:remember this? Here's fun. Are you guys old enough to remember that every time I had to cut a commercial on the radio or anything, and it was for a bar or like Cafe Santa Fe? Shout out. Rip where I'd have to, the commercial would always start out the same way Attention members and guests. You'd have to say attention members and guests before anything that had an establishment with alcohol in it. Yeah, and I'm like where? What are we? What am?
Speaker 2:I, you had to sign the thing yeah, five dollars, and then they would reimburse you the five dollars the abc laws that have existed in this area they're like it's um it's something you know.
Speaker 1:For those that are considering bentonville, uh, it is no longer a dry county, it's no longer that. Yeah, this is no longer the case. Well, I mean it has changed a lot.
Speaker 3:That has changed quite a bit and it's funny you say that because it's only been. How long has it been that Benton County?
Speaker 1:has been not dry 10 years.
Speaker 3:maybe I was thinking 10-ish, and now it's a completely different place.
Speaker 2:Growing up in Siloam, which was like if this little pocket is conservative like Siloam is even more so. I drove through it last weekend with my youngest son going to Tulsa for a basketball tournament, and there's just liquor stores and weed dispensaries everywhere.
Speaker 3:So I don't recognize this Asylum Springs and, by the way, I apologize because I'm sure people who live in West Asylum Springs want me to differentiate between the two?
Speaker 1:Yes, of course.
Speaker 3:West Asylum, and Asylum has become a virtual den of iniquity between all the liquor stores, all of the. I mean you've got Cherokee there now. You've got weed billboards every 20 feet.
Speaker 1:It's Chick-fil-A also. Well, don't forget Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 3:Let's start with a number one. But yeah, what? Siloam Springs has become the wild west.
Speaker 2:I expect you know.
Speaker 3:Doc Holliday to come, let's go.
Speaker 2:I never, never imagined it.
Speaker 3:No way you could have Like. If you could have been projected into the future and seen 2025 Siloam Springs, you'd be like come on.
Speaker 2:No, no, no way no that's New York.
Speaker 3:Is that a weed billboard behind the weed billboard? Yeah, that's what it is, All right let's get into it.
Speaker 2:What brought you to Northwest Arkansas? Because you're not originally from here, are you?
Speaker 3:I'm not. My mom is a native bread and buttered Arkansan. She is from El Dorado, which is LA. Ed is lower Arkansas and she and her whole family grew up in Magnolia, el Dorado. But we grew up.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Colorado, in the shadow of the flat irons of Boulder, in a town called Longmont, right on I-25. I came here to play baseball. I came here originally to play for Norm. I was given an invited walk-on because clearly they did not have a very good view of the video I sent them and they were somehow mistaken into believing that I could have pitched for the University of Arkansas, a program that regularly puts people in the major leagues. I am 5'11" and at the time I was about 145, soaking wet, and while I threw really hard for a kid that looked like he was 11, I did not throw nearly as hard as Scott Brokale or any of these people that went on to incredible careers for the Razorbacks. So after about five minutes and realizing what am I doing, I stopped at the baseball, but I stayed at the U of A and I've obviously not left Fayetteville, so you didn't play your full four years.
Speaker 3:Oh, play four years. I stayed four years. I did not play four minutes. Norm bless his heart.
Speaker 2:I tell this story all the time you were really good in high school, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Editing videos Really good high school baseball player and I probably should have went the Juco route where they could have put weight on me to where I looked like I wasn't 11 but 14 and would have had more success that way. But I went straight. I'm going right to the SEC to try and do this nonsense Clearly had no male guidance in my life telling me that I was out of my mind. So I tried it anyway. But I ended up going to the U of A and journalism, getting into the broadcast program, which back then wasn't much of a broadcast program, until Larry Foley showed up a year after I left, which I thought was awfully convenient. Now it's an incredible broadcast program.
Speaker 3:It really is Kind of known for it. Oh gosh, what they've built on that campus for the U of A with their broadcast, whether it's KUAF and their new facilities just off the square or that new TV studio they have in Kimple, it's pretty impressive yeah.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, you met my daughter. She has a twin brother. Oh, and they're juniors this year. Oh, and they're juniors this year, seniors in high school next year. So we've done a lot of campus visits.
Speaker 3:Are they Bentonville?
Speaker 2:Rogers.
Speaker 3:Rogers Okay.
Speaker 2:Mounties or Heritage. She's a Mountie, okay. Her brother is Providence Patriot, okay, yeah, nice. So we're all split up all over Sure Diversity. That's right. We've done a lot of campus visits, but each one of them independently did a U of A campus tour and I'm not like a big college guy. I didn't quite finish, yeah, it's all right. And most of my classes were like after 7 pm. There's nothing wrong with that either.
Speaker 3:Learning is not day specific, specific, but it is so such a great campus.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so much fun to like all the history, all the the stuff that just belongs there, for I'm 150 years, isn't it crazy, I'm biased.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm again. I'm from boulder and if you've never seen the colorado campus in boulder, it is breathtaking. Uh, at the base of the flat. It's just. It's to me, I grew up with that and that's just always like, oh, such a beautiful campus, but they didn't have a baseball team, so I didn't go there. I came to Arkansas where I played baseball for four minutes and my kid graduated high school in 2020. So we'll get into that later.
Speaker 3:What a fiasco that situation doing graduation ceremonies in an empty auditorium via Zoom. But he graduated in 2020. And I'm like I'm trying to get him to look at other schools and I think that the reverse psychology of it actually drove him to go to Arkansas. Because we kept trying to go. He's he wanted to be in, you know, filmmaking, journalism, things like that. We're like, hey, mizzou's got a great program and Kansas has a really good and all this. And he's like are and all this? And he's like are you kidding me? No, I'm going to Arkansas.
Speaker 3:And I finally was like let's go to Boulder, show you that campus, walk around, it's just beautiful. And we walk around, take the tour, everything we get done. We get in the car and he goes. That's not Fayetteville. He has this romantic Parisian Eiffel Tower view of, like Old Main and that campus. He grew up on it, so it really meant a lot to him and he graduated in December, so did something right, lucked into him. Did he have a moped on campus? He didn't. He lived in the Frisco apartments down on Dixon and West, which is a whole other podcast entirely. But he lived down there and, yeah, he got through covid, all the zoom classes, not entering a building until like three semesters into his career and, uh, challenging time for him to graduate high school and go to college.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I help, uh, with the, the youth, that fellowship, they call it fsm, and my guys are all seniors graduating actually this weekend oh wow, from Bentonville. I've known them since they were freshmen, right yeah yeah, yeah, so the way they do the cell group. I've been discipling these guys since they were freshmen. It's just been a really, really sweet time and they're awesome. Shout out to the guys yeah, but I don't know. It's an exciting time, maybe 15 of them are all going to U of A.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I expect to be spending a lot more time down on campus. Well, and we?
Speaker 3:appreciate there being more Arkansas kids on that campus and not having Texas plays. I'm not judging or saying anything bad.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of great Texans. But, yeah, no, these guys a lot of them had options all around, but at the end of the day it's like no, this is a great school, great environment.
Speaker 3:There's some great programs. Obviously the business school shout out the Walton Business School and there's some incredible engineering.
Speaker 2:I'm the only supply chain in the country.
Speaker 3:I mean, I wonder why? Gee, definitely if you want to go into supply chain management or anything. As far as business Marketing programs are good, Absolutely. I have a couple of journalism guys too. Absolutely right. Yeah, and you know it's cool seeing a lot of the U of A alums go on to like Good Morning America, the Weather Channel, you know stuff like that. It's really awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I want to talk to you about like on field, on court, all that stuff, but let's do a little like meat and potatoes here first, little like like meat and potatoes here first. Um. So it's the retail journey, right, and we, we generally we don't always, but we generally talk retail, um, and when we were chatting earlier this week, you have a lot of brands, right, like national brands, that come on your, your, your station, hire you for kind of local media, similar to the billboards you see on walton boulevard, right, absolutely right, talk a little bit about that. What, what that brings to them in terms of exposure.
Speaker 3:Happy to. So I've been in radio, as you've both illustrated and as we've talked a little bit about. I mean, I began my career in 93. And so this is my 32nd year on the radio in Northwest Arkansas, and so for the vast majority of it is one of the situations where you go find a big company that has a radio station and then, hopefully, if you do get enough show, they pay you and yay, I get to be on the radio. And then you get a salary and then it basically your. Your salary is derived from the ratings that you get through either Arbitron, nielsen or what have you. But then, as radio began to kind of get like, started to shrink a little bit and big radio conglomerates began to get rid of big salary local talent About 2010, I kind of saw the landscape and I began to realize that if I was going to stay in this medium, I needed to become the salesperson.
Speaker 3:I needed to be the one to go out and get the clients, get the brands local, national, what have you and make money. Uh to where the situation was, they saw more ROI by having me endorse their brands on my show and not having the middleman of the salespeople. I'll be the salesperson, and so I began that in 2010. And when you start something like that, it is not easy. Uh, no one's doing what I was doing, right, and and so you kind of had to build it's the coolest part of it it, yes, I and I I am a rare personality type to where I don't really, uh, feel fear. Um, I really don't think there's anything if I, if I just I just feel like I can do it, yeah, and so I knew that I was immediately foregoing, cause I make no salary, I don't make a dime from my company, doesn't pay me any money in salary, and so all of my compensation comes from a commission of these partners, and so, therefore, I am incentivized to just keep going out there, finding the people that I think fit the loyal and royal army the best, and fortunately, that is everybody, from small businesses really small businesses to Nestle, um, and Coca-Cola and, uh, sonic and things like that. Yeah, and so I've been doing that for 14 years.
Speaker 3:I actually love doing it. I'm very competitive, and so I like to sell, because I like to beat other people in sales, and I'm very, very, um, I guess you would say protective of the brands, of the of the people I get on my show. I care a lot about people knowing those brands, to the point where if you were to go to anybody in my audience and ask them I'm going to say a category you tell me who John and Deke have on there. Like you go to them and go who's their furniture store, get it at Sam's, who's their liquor store, mcadoodles, who's their pharmacy, call your drug. You can go right down the line, because I do only exclusivity. I won't have competing brands on my show and I think that those brands see the ROI from that when they can drive down 49, look up at five billboards and see four HVAC companies in a row where I don't think people really get much ROI out of that.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know just as a listener for years, like if there's four options for something but one is sponsoring the loyal and royal right.
Speaker 3:Thank you, and that's the goal. And I'll tell you this and it's one of those chicken or the egg things Are they a huge brand Because I gravitate towards, or do I help make them bigger brands? I'd like to think it's a little of both. We try really hard to Deke and I really care about letting everybody know that when we buy a car, deke has and I'm not exaggerating, deke has probably bought 11 cars from Rath Mitsubishi.
Speaker 3:They only trade out like every six months or so it feels like it's every much more than that, but we joke that we will pull up into the same Collier Drug parking lot at the same time we go to McAdoodles. Everything in my home is Sam's furniture and Benjamin Franklin does our plumbing. Everything that we talk about on the show is in a form of how they have made our lives better, and so that's what we try to impart to our audience.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's easier to talk about the things you authentically feel, especially in an environment where just reading off of a script is felt like nobody.
Speaker 3:And you know what people aren't dumb, they people have a bs meter and they they can tell when you're like this guy doesn't write, like you'll watch a like I don't know. I'm trying to think of a like a national, uh spokesperson. Like when you see somebody like a kardashian and and they're endorsing like hyundai, come on, what does it?
Speaker 2:mean, am I really gonna think that kim kardashian's and they're endorsing like hyundai? Come on, what does it mean? Am I really gonna think?
Speaker 3:that kim kardashian's rocking a santa fe. I I have a hard time believing that. I of course I'm making both of those up and I'm probably gonna hear from their attorneys, but I mean, it's things like that when you're, when you, when you hear the like tiger woods does not wear a tag hewer. Uh, you know, let's be honest, although tag here is a great brand, you know he's probably wearing a rolex or you know something like that you can.
Speaker 3:You can hear in a podcast when they go from sharing the thing that they care about to reading the scripts that they're getting paid to say exactly, right, exactly hit, like and share and you know, just they mail it in, and when we do endorsements on our show, it's's I mean we literally integrate their brand with our brand into the story, where people don't know the difference. And so that is what we have tried to do and fortunately we've got 26 partners on our show right now. A lot of national brands, a few vendors are on there, and it's great.
Speaker 2:This is way off topic, but do you ever listen to? Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
Speaker 3:I'm a very big fan of Conan O'Brien's, but Deke is a way bigger fan of Conan O'Brien's. Letterman's my guy. I grew up with Letterman and when I got to go up that's a whole other thing. I could do a show and the security guard could see what a complete nerd I was about it. And after the show was over I'm standing around just like am I going to see anybody? This would be cool. And he goes you want to sit in the chair? I go what the chair? And he goes you want to sit in Dave's chair? Get a picture.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow so my wife and I were there and everyone had started filtering out and we just kind of crept up there. I sat in Dave's chair, she sat in the out a picture that will probably be on an easel in my funeral, that photo. But to answer your question, yeah, conan o'brien, I think is a masterful.
Speaker 2:And the reason I ask is because you know the podcast venue if you're commercializing it is is pretty unique. And yet there's the if you haven't seen it, you should pull it up on youtube where he does an ad for a bidet oh, go on. And he clearly hadn't read the script until it was being recorded and he just goes, he just goes insane. It's the funniest. It's probably the funniest segment that he's done on his podcast. That is genius. But I'll tell you I'm not going to go into it. It's a little a little, a little vulgar, but it is so freaking funny and you know.
Speaker 3:what's funny is that initially I'm sure that the marketing people were actually the higher People, higher than the marketing people of that bidet company probably lost their minds when they first heard about it. They're like oh great, conan O'Brien's just dragging our brand of a bidet. But then the marketing people are like do you know how viral this is?
Speaker 2:Do you know how many clicks this is getting? It's got 30 million views on YouTube or whatever.
Speaker 3:We did a thing just this morning just this morning on the show because we've got Ozarks Go on the show. They're the official internet of the Loyal and Royal Army. Thank you so much for allowing me to do this and they came up, they go to us and they go. Here's the promotion. If you're a brand new Ozarks Go customer and you use the phrase loyal and royal three, it's three free months. Now we can say that in commercial form and endorsements, all we want. But Deke and I mostly Deke sat down and wrote an entire song out about it on our show. That sounds like Dio. I don't know how many Ronnie James Dio fans we have. I bet you could count them on one hand that are watching this, or maybe they're bigger than I think. But we did a whole song about Ozarks Go and Loyal and Royal 3 and the whole thing and I mean it's a banger. Love it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Is it on YouTube or something we can look at?
Speaker 3:We'll probably put it at least on our social media page, but we just did it this morning and I mean we sent it to Ozarks Go and they lost their minds. They loved it. It's so great. How many of these can you do? So, yeah, finding new ways, like you were talking about with Conan O'Brien, is really. It's the key to get in, to find how it sticks in people's minds. Yeah, I love that story about the bidet, though You've got to look at it.
Speaker 1:That is classic.
Speaker 2:So we talked a little bit about your kind of unique model in terms of a radio station. When we chatted, uh, last week or week for whatever, um, I said I assume that there's other you know markets that have a model like this that you like learn from.
Speaker 3:You know there may be one, I'm pretty right, and there may be one.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty right.
Speaker 3:And there may be I. I I'm not going to sit here and go. I'm the only one in America.
Speaker 2:So so we use this thing in our, uh, in our company, uh, called the five voices. So, and the five voices? There's a pioneer, a connector, um, a creative, a guardian and a nurturer. Wow Right, and that you've got all five of those voices, but they're in different rankings. So like I'm the pioneer, Like that's my primary voice in the company, which necessitates that your last voice is nurturing, correct? Matt absolutely right, does that ring true?
Speaker 3:It does, and because of the fact that it's it's you know, they named the station after us. I mean, they, they, which I thought was really great, and that's what we wanted to do. It was like, if we're going to come over here, which was nine years ago, next month um, we are going to be the brand, and so at that point, it's the little in royal army, it's radio John Deak, and so there, now you're protecting not only the brands of your you know, your partners. You're now you're going to protect your brand because now you're worried about how you're melding the two. And that's what I'm most grateful for is the fact that these brands have trusted us to elevate their brand awareness and their brands within the call to action to people to actually buy their products at points of sale to our show, which I'm incredibly grateful for. Every day we get to do that, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. You shared something with me that I want to bring up. This community knows Cameron Smith well. Rest in peace. He's either gotten a person a job or filled a person's open role or donated a guitar at. You know, kiss Pig. What's your? You have a connection to Cameron. What's your connection?
Speaker 3:I do. Cameron was a mentor to me but he was a mentor to a lot of people. He's, I mean, I'm, you know, bo Mattingly and Aaron Peters and a lot of guys kind of my age. I'm a little older than both of those guys, but guys my age, people my age, neely Jones, he mentored quite a bit A lot of people. That would be he would meet people at galas and that's how he would get with them and start, and I don't even know that he did it intentionally, he just was a helpful person. And the story that I, how I met Cameron, is crazy.
Speaker 3:I was emceeing the Hope Cancer Resources Gentleman of Distinction in honor of Bill Flayman, who was an amazing entrepreneur in Northwest Arkansas and he passed away sadly of cancer. And I was emceeing the gala and they had the situation to where I emceeded but at the end in Northwest Arkansas and he passed away sadly of cancer. And I was emceeing the gala and they had the situation to where I am seated but at the end they were supposed to have somebody that was going to do. I think it was John George that was going to do the ask and he couldn't make it that day and so about 20 minutes before the ask. I am not making this up. They come to me and they go. John, john, george cannot make the ask, or could you do that? And I'm like I've been asking these people for money for an hour and 45 minutes. Now you want me to get up and go? Hey, everybody, I appreciate everything. I'm going to need. More money is what we're going to need, and so that's exactly what had to happen. But I had never done an ask before, really, and so I just like well, how can I best connect with these people to do this? And that's what I did. I just tried to extrapolate it into, you'd think, $50, but it really it's a gas tank for people going to Nartai and things like that, and I squeezed that orange as best I could. They got a stack of like envelopes like this, and they're like that was crazy, mike, you just shot us past our goal. It was just great. And so afterwards, this is going to be a reference everyone's going to enjoy.
Speaker 3:We all congregate at Eddie Haskell's RIP, shout out and we go there and we're all just having a great time, and a gentleman walks up to me and he goes. John, I want you to know that I've been in boardrooms from Miami to LA and that pitch you gave at the end you could have put in any boardroom and he just going on and on about it and I go. This guy is really nice, thank you. And I'm just talking to him for five minutes, never got his name, never got anything. He's just very Natalie attired, gorgeous wife and I'm like, wow, that was great. So he walks off guy next to me, he goes. You don't know who that is do you I go, I don't.
Speaker 3:And he goes. That is Cameron Smith and I go. Now I knew his name, obviously from CSA, but I had never met him or seen him. And they go, go get his card, get his number. What is wrong with you? Go talk to him and sure enough, I go over there, I go. Mr Smith, I appreciate all the kind words and we became really close from that point on and he changed my life. Yeah, he totally did.
Speaker 3:I was there was one point in my career when I it was right before I had gotten the business model to own my show and do all this and I was really unhappy where I was and I could just see the future of them getting rid of high talent, morning talent and things like that. And I go to Cameron, I go, you know your people make X and suppliers make Y and I just want to do that. And he goes what are you saying? You want to be a vendor, you want to work for one of these companies? I go. I mean I know a lot of people that do. My son's mom has been in the vendor community for 20 years, loves it, great at it. And he goes you just want to go around and knock on the door and sell Welch's grape jelly or Heinz 57 or to some buyer that's going to squeeze you for margins and that's what you, that's what you want to do.
Speaker 3:I go, I don't know. He goes. John, you're a brand, yeah, and it was like a light, oh, this moment of illumination. And he goes build your brand. Don't build anyone else's brands, but yours and people that pay you to build theirs. And it changed my life. And on top of that, he just became one of my best friends and he and Monica were just the very best. They would have fireworks every 4th of July at Shadow Valley. And just he was. He was an incredible person and just grateful. He was someone that took interest in me and took me under his wing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and most people in the community have some sort of a connection to Cameron. Mine was, uh, when I first started the business, um, I was working with a former business partner of his and they were still friendly. And he goes hey, we come in, like we've only been hiring for, like, salespeople and executives and we're going to start hiring for analysts, like the people that are getting their hands dirty. We come in and give my recruiters uh kind of an understanding of what the skill set is, right. So I put together an hour, whatever 45 minutes worth of content, came in and did it. I was walking out and he shook my hand. He's like you have an iou with me, I'll give it whenever you want to call it in oh wow, I'll deliver that's a powerful.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I held it for a long time. You know, and I have two brothers and my oldest one he's a pharmaceutical rep. He was getting kind of wary of the industry Because he layoffs every three years and you got to start over, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:There's no loyalty in that business.
Speaker 2:And he came to me and goes hey, I want to become a salesperson for CPG. How do I do that? It's like well, you probably got to become an analyst. You kind of got to work your way up. You know, like I'm not sure here's the path. I'm not sure your skills necessarily transfer Right. He goes well, I mean I've got this advanced degree or whatever. He's like well, okay, if you really want to push it like here, call Cameron.
Speaker 1:I sent him a note and I was like here's my IOU meet with my brother. Oh wow, you used your IOU on this and they sit down.
Speaker 3:Does this guy know?
Speaker 2:And they sit down and he lays out what he wants to do and Cameron goes. Why are you talking to me your brother's like retail link guru? And Cameron goes. Why are you talking to me, your brother's like?
Speaker 3:retail link guru. He just saw things quicker and in ways you didn't see them. It was such a talent, yeah, that he would have such perspective. He was also the first person to tell me to do fewer events, because the perception is that you've got to do more events. That way it's exposure. Exposure equals like familiarity. Familiarity means that people are more comfortable and the whole thing. But he goes John, you are entering overexposure territory. He goes I do a gala. I see you, I open, celebrate or Cityscapes magazine. I see you, gala, icu. I opened, celebrate or cityscapes magazine, icu. And uh, you need to make yourself more exclusive. And and he, he was the one that gave me that advice. I, there was a point where I was doing a gala every four to six weeks.
Speaker 1:it was maniacal if they're hard to do here.
Speaker 3:Well, right, I mean you could do one every week, honestly, and and I I took his advice and now I only do like three a year, um, and it was one of the smarter again, every piece of advice he ever gave me turned out true and helped me.
Speaker 1:We see the full circle of like only working on the things you're close to passionate about, so you can speak authentically.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's how I actually got into it was through JDRF and things like that. But then you do those events. You keep breaking goals and it's a good problem to have is when they want to have you be involved with it and I'm grateful too. Like the Cancer Challenge is amazing. The Gentleman of Distinction is fantastic. I mean, just go right, there's so many amazing events in Northwest Arkansas but you can't do all of them. And he was right.
Speaker 1:I mean, I got to the point where I would open up.
Speaker 1:Cityscapes and I'm there four times. I'm just like that's not maybe too many. Yeah, yeah, the it resonates a lot in this space. There's a lot of brands that are at Walmart that want to, you know, execute at a higher level. There are, there are a whole lot of brands that are not at Walmart that would like to be at Walmart executing at that high level. Um and so you know us here at High Impact, we, we. I was told early on when I was getting here, like you know, the most important thing is who you're saying no to, so that you are, you know, tied to those that you really should be tied to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, early on I was kind of like you know, I'd like to have a few yeses and then we'll work on the no's, but. But now we're at this stage where it's becoming so evident and we're having to say no. And it's hard because you want to be able to help, but I can't operate at a high level if I'm saying yes to everything. We need to be able to pace ourselves so that we're able to deliver.
Speaker 3:That was the difficult decision I made and I have had people from the stations I'm on to everyone go. Why the exclusivity? You're cutting off such a revenue stream. If you listen to most radio stations, they'll have three different car remotes on a Saturday at three different locations.
Speaker 2:You've bastardized your brand.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, and you'll Lewis Ford won, and then you'll be at the auto park, and then you'll be at McLarty. And don't get me wrong, all incredible dealers, all incredible things, but what are you telling all of them? When you're 10 to 1 at one place, I'm like, all right, man, cool, thanks a lot. And then an hour later you're at a different place. I think that when I do exclusivity and like you're talking about saying no to certain things and saying yes to the ones that you want to nurture a relationship with, I have just been fortunate that for the entirety I've had people just renew every year, every year after one, after like Sam's and Collier's and Macadoodle's and on and on, because they exhibit the loyalty that I try to give them, and so it has paid off in spades. I'm sure I've cost myself money with that, but I would rather have someone who knows that I'm loyal to their brand than someone who's going to be sitting there going I don't know man. Is he talking about my competitor now?
Speaker 1:And you create real value, right? I've talked a lot lately. As I'm talking to people, it's like you know I don't actually want to receive a resentful check from a partner Because, well one, no one's going to write a whole lot of resentful checks.
Speaker 3:They'll stop at some point.
Speaker 1:But, like no, I want to have deep relationship. I want to be able to authentically be grateful for partnership and want them to be grateful, because that's the kind of thing that has stuck around at high impact for 14 years. Is the folks that have experienced that? I'm thinking of one. I love that. 14? That's about to bow up on you. You'll get it buddy For a long time 19 in July.
Speaker 1:I think there's something there for everybody that a spirit of fear isn't actually helpful. Useful that you have no fear, um yeah so that wasn't going to be part of it.
Speaker 3:I'm a little too unflappable, which is is both phenomenal and there's a side to that there is, uh, like it's. It's the reason I I started noticing this. I'd be at midfield. There's 77 000 people in raiseback stadium and I'm just like, all right, I guess I'm gonna do this thing here on the field. Just numb, it just doesn't affect me. It's weird, I don't know, it's always been that way.
Speaker 2:You can see it when you're on the court or on the field. You can see it Like you're there, You're doing a job.
Speaker 3:I am, you're not aware of the people around you? Yes, correct, but the mass, no. If I'm engaging with someone, pressure is not a felt pressure, right? If I'm like doing the whataburger fry shuffle, which razorback twitter loves so much, uh, or the tic-tac-toe, which they love even more, uh, I, I, yeah, I'm interacting in that fashion, but I, I really don't, I don't really think about the other people, I'm just doing my best job and super helpful well, without having fear, maybe avoid mountain biking, uh uh, yeah, so we live next to uh the trail.
Speaker 3:We live next to the the trail because it's so what a blessing to have that north of arkansas. It's because we live in johnson and I mean we are 500 yards from that trail and I we have started using the heck out of it, and mountain biking does terrify me even though I grew up in colorado because everyone I know that mountain bikes it takes about a year, year and a half. Everyone wrecks, breaks a collarbone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bingo I got a new one collarbone got a new one a couple years ago. Yep, have you. What's your worst accident? I have a new collarbone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got that you have a new collarbone. You got one on each side brought to you by mercy. What is this?
Speaker 1:almost skiing um no orthopedics yeah, I got to pay full price. There was no sponsorship and no discount for the second either. Oh man Got the full.
Speaker 2:You can't buy them in a bundle. Let me just say, your podcast for the next year is brought to you by Ozark Orthopedics on Futual Road in Fayetteville. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Dr Kaler.
Speaker 2:Exactly. This is awesome. I'm afraid we've exhausted our time here.
Speaker 3:I do that every time.
Speaker 2:We normally do a lightning round. We can be quick.
Speaker 1:Biggest failure, biggest failure.
Speaker 3:Maybe that you learned from Biggest failure that I learned from. That's a tough one, I would say. I got syndicated early, early, early in my career, like in the late 90s, and I did not handle it the way I would handle it now and I would definitely go back and handle that differently Big time. Big time Impestuous, just yeah, that was my biggest, that comes to mind.
Speaker 2:So, over the last year, year and a half, whatever, things are changing at a crazy pace, right. What are you taking away? What's your learnings from the last year or so?
Speaker 3:In America or the world, or Particularly in business.
Speaker 2:But if you want to get it into the personal, that's fine.
Speaker 3:The one thing I think is, the bigger things and the more complicated things, the more simple it is I love. What we just talked about is the. It always comes down to relationships in business. It always comes down to handshakes, names, neighborhoods, making people feel like they matter. Um, that I always tell my partners uh, the more you give me, the creatively, the better off our campaign is going to be, things like that. And so people start really worrying about you know, you guys are doing a podcast. Did you think five? I mean you know in a long time. But like, this thing is such a great idea, it's so cool. People need to be doing more of this and they are. But you had. Do you remember the inflection point when you realized you had to do a podcast?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, we wanted to, non-pretentiously, actually help people. Thank you. And how can you give good information without just feeling?
Speaker 2:like you're bragging about your thing. Also being known for that. Also being known for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're a consultancy at our core.
Speaker 3:Have you had good response within the Walmart community, vendor community, things like that.
Speaker 1:Plenty of merchants that have shared different podcasts as we talk through lessons for new buyers or even on the supplier side. When you're navigating omni-channel growth, what are the things you need to pay attention to? That's awesome.
Speaker 3:That's a smart idea. So, yeah, I think that people are realizing that there's new. Like you see movies nowadays, you used to never see people sit down for 30 seconds Like Tom Cruise with Mission Impossible. He has done every kind of media in the last two months Months, I mean two years for this, I read.
Speaker 2:he almost died in his last filming.
Speaker 3:I'm not shocked.
Speaker 2:Doing one of his own stunts that that guy does all his own.
Speaker 3:That's crazy, the stuff he does. So, yeah, I think people have had to kind of evolve their, the way they perceive what their job is based on, how you get a kind of connectivity and traction, yeah, with these brands yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then last one uh, what's the you know content you're taking in? What do you, what are you enjoying lately?
Speaker 3:Oh, a lot of streaming, a lot of Netflix, a lot of Hulu, a lot of Handmaid's Tale, a lot of Severance, a lot of oh, there's so many good shows. There's so many good shows right now. I mean right. To me, Severance is the best thing that's happened this year TV-wise. It's such a mind bender man. You know what it is? It's Stanley Kubrick doing the Office.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So if the Office were done?
Speaker 2:That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:If the Office were done in like 2001, A Space Odyssey.
Speaker 2:That's what Severance is yes, oh my gosh, that's so true, that's beautiful. And then, if I see the Office.
Speaker 3:I'll just stop and watch the next five episodes, as long as it's not the last season or two, which are garbage without Michael Scott. I'm a big Nuggets fan. I do like the Will Ferrell season. You know what I did like that and James.
Speaker 3:Spader's appearances were amazing. And then I'm a huge Razorback obviously fan and Broncos hopefully, you know, don't embarrass me this year. So yeah, stuff like that. A lot of sports, a lot of baseball, royals fan. I'm the weird Kansas City Royals, denver Broncos fan, which is an odd hybrid. So, yeah, hopefully the Royals doing great Bobby Witt we know we got the Walmart connection with that, so excited and thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Speaker 3:My honor man, super gracious to do it, would do it. Would you have me back? I would definitely have you back, okay, all right, I'm honored. It's a great job, man, and I want you guys to know they have an entire sheet of notes. These guys are prepared. They ain't just like winging it, this is a real operation, so I dig it. Good job guys.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, man, absolutely. I really appreciate you coming on. It's a treat to me personally. Well, I loved it. I'll come back, all right, and thank you all for joining in. Um, you can, as always, you can find all of our podcasts audio video on highimpactanalyticscom or wherever you get your podcasts, and I appreciate you being with us today.
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