Vintage Insights: Strategic Rejection: Why Saying No Drives Brand Growth with Jon Williams

Middleman sales structures consistently dilute the authentic connection between a broadcaster and their audience. As part of our Vintage Insights series, we are revisiting foundational conversations that remain highly relevant as the current media landscape demands you either own your brand or let a corporate conglomerate dictate your value. Today, we revisit our sit-down with Jon Williams, CEO and partner of 94-9 Radio, to dissect how he bypassed traditional broadcast limits by stepping out of the talent booth and becoming his own sales force.

We get into the mechanics of running a 100 percent commission-based operation while protecting listener trust. The conversation covers the transition away from relying on Arbitron and Nielsen ratings toward securing direct CPG and vendor partnerships through strict category exclusivity. Jon shares his unique philosophy on authentic brand integration, detailing how melding his personal experiences with partner products drives higher ROI than traditional scripted spots.

Foregoing a guaranteed salary to hunt for your own clients introduces severe financial risk and heavy daily pressure. The transition requires a ruthless commitment to turning down immediate revenue that does not align with your core brand identity. You will walk away from this conversation with a clear framework for auditing your own partnerships and an understanding of why intentionally limiting your exposure is the key to maintaining long-term business relevance.

If you care about building brand equity, navigating retail vendor ecosystems, and mastering the art of authentic influence, you’ll get a lot from this. Please subscribe to the channel and share this Vintage Insights replay with a founder or marketer who is trying to elevate their messaging. What is a difficult partnership or short-term revenue opportunity you have had to turn down to protect your long-term reputation?

Transcript

Welcome And Meet John Williams

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello, and welcome to the Retail Journey Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

I'm one of your hosts, Charles Greathouse. And I am James Harris, and today we're talking to John Williams. John wears a lot of hats. So, among other things, he's the CEO and partner of 94-9 Radio John Deek, uh, on field and on court announcer for the University of Arkansas Football and Basketball, uh, and MC Extraordinaire for fundraising galls uh here in Northwest Arkansas. Welcome to the retail journey, John. I made him put extraordinaire in there.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

I was part of my rider, which is quite

Breakthrough T1D And Beating Goals

SPEAKER_03 0:50

extensive. Can we get it right, sir? Between Skittles, not the white ones that J Lo likes. No, thank you guys for having me. I'm I'm really excited to be here. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

No, so I um I ran into you two or three weekends ago at um it's called Breakthrough T1D. Right. Right. Um, so type 1 diabetes. It's uh the the the money from it used to be JDRF, right? Junior um junior diabetes.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

You're gonna diabetes research foundation.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Yeah. So the the money really goes to researching a cure for type 1 diabetes. Uh and we're talking in the lobby afterwards, and my my wonderful wife, um, who I come home at night listening to 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 on your radio show, and uh, she came up to you, which is not her normal MO. I grabbed you by the arm, said you need to meet my husband because he's your biggest fangirl.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Well, and I uh and she had me at hello on that one. I go, okay. And uh that was really cool. First of all, that that event was first class and having it at Osage House with uh if people haven't been to Osage House yet.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Oh, that's my first time, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

That was also my first time, and I had no idea what an incredible facility uh that was. And so that was a first-class operation.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

They raised almost half a million dollars.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Yeah, and their goal was nowhere near it. And that is what um, as somebody who has been deeply involved in charity uh 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 goals. And uh it was a team event. Shout out to Kim Daniels and her team.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

They did a really good job.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Incredible auctioneer. Uh also Allison Wise, a 4029, and and and really, it was a a great event and really unique. It was not long. I know a lot of people, especially in the in the vendor community who have to go to a lot of these charity uh galos are constantly night, yeah. Yeah. Um, they're they're a lot of these galas go long, like they uh a few hours, like people have a set amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

We're not 20 anymore.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

No. Um 20 is that's that's in pictures that aren't on social media anymore, is what that is. Um, but that I thought that event really hit the sweet spot. Great auction items, not too many, just enough. A lot of personal uh testimony from uh people who are

Living With Type 1 Diabetes

SPEAKER_03 3:30

type one, children, adults, and things like that. I just thought it was a first-class event.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Do you have a connection to type one diabetes? Because you were on the board of JDRF for a while, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Uh full disclosure, I was the first president of the board of JDRF when uh that branch uh was first created in Northwest Arkansas in the early 2000s because my son's mom um is and has been a type one diabetic since she was 11. Yeah. Um and so when we had Jack, uh it is the understatement of the year to say that was a uh challenging uh birth time uh for him. Yeah. And they told us that up front. They said, because you're uh dealing with a type one situation, uh you're gonna have all these uh possible uh 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 more 40% more likely to have spina bifida, you're 40% more likely to have all this litany of before he was born. It was he was uh we we were getting the gender reveal down there, and uh basically they were like, Okay, uh by the way, it's a boy, and here's all the things that could go wrong, just FYI. And um, yeah, so we're blessed and fortunate that you know, 23 and a half years later, no, he's fantastic. He's uh we're very, very fortunate and very lucky, but not everybody who is type one diabetic that has kids are, and so that's really what we're trying to do is improve the lives. And as as we like to say, go from type one to type none, which I thought was clever. And like 25 years I hadn't thought of that. Why where have I been? Uh, but that's what they're basically trying to put themselves out of business, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

And um, 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? Uh uh adult onset. So we had a traumatic event.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Um that were like 600 or something or low?

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Were you high or low? Oh, I was very high. Oh, yeah, like 800. So when I 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 probably about 500. Oh, goodness. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

That's dangerous. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I'm so sorry. No, it's it's just it's you know, and so now you've got everything on the technology.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

I got the technology. I'm probably getting insulin as we speak.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

People who were type one diabetic. Are you okay? Um people who were type one before I would say the year 2000. Oh, yeah. Technology was straight out of Flintstones, man. It was uh you're it's a lot of guesswork, it's a lot of math. You're like, I think this is the long acting, you're the short acting, and let's inject them both, and I think I need a coke. And I mean it was just yeah, really uh a tough way to navigate it, but now I know a couple of guys, they're twins, uh they're adult men, they're they're close to my age, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Um and they had the gene, which I didn't have the gene, I had a different thing. Um but they each had the gene, and one of them had a car accident, and that triggered his onset. 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 um pneumonia, and that triggered it.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

So both of them now are active type ones. Oh gosh. Uh, but it's a it's a weird, weird disease.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

It is, and I think there's a lot here in 2020, you know, five where 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 got I was lucky enough to meet you, is is one of those things. And um, it's really cool how Northwest Arkansas, specifically the vendor community, um, is so invested in projects and in nonprofits like uh that one. Uh, there's so many. If I started naming them, someone's gonna get mad.

Why Northwest Arkansas Gives Big

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Yeah, it's a huge, huge.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Yeah, I've been I've been fortunate enough to be part of Kissipig for I mean almost 18 years. They made me a they they came to me first as a contestant. And if anybody knows about Kissipig, it's basically it's not a gala, it's 10 mini galas wrapped in a gala. Uh, and they basically make all these people have their own contests. It's a genius business model. Yeah. And it's a very late night, too. Oh, it's uh I I have gotten to the John Q. Hammond's uh RIP, uh Rogers Convention Center at like five o'clock and not left there until almost midnight on many occasions. And they've had incredible wallflowers and uh blues traveler and just incredible. I saw blues 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 Kissipig, by the way they do it. Uh so it's it's really cool the way the Walmart community, the vendor community in Northwest Arkansas really get behind some of these.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

There's always a couple of vice presidents at Walmart that are on the in the running for the you know the pretend people that are bringing things up, and that it makes a huge difference. It's not even the personalities, it's the strength that you know Walmart talks about this a lot that we we we have such scale, we can change the world. And this is just a microcosm of it. No.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

So you grew up in Northwest Arkansas.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, I was born in Silent Springs.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

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. Oh yeah, 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 Arkansas.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

About a third of our company's revenue comes through about two square blocks in midtown Manhattan.

unknown 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

You had to talk to them about like what did you guys do this weekend, and then they'll ask me what I did. And they're like, well, that was just on Broadway, like last week. You know? Yeah. We're not limited.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

And I think access we have to cool things. Yeah, and I would have always said that. No, no, of course not. Always said that. No, when I was when I was in junior high in high school, like there wasn't a reason to come to Rogers or Bentonville unless you had a game. Yeah, we talked about football baseball all the time.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

I mean, what what was the draw to Rogers? What are we? Dixieland Mall? What is it? And if you were in the Olive Garden Club, then you could uh drink. And honestly, do you remember this? Here's fun. Um do are you guys old enough to remember that where 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 R I Did I remember those things? Um where I'd have to the commercial would always start out the same way. Attention members and guests. Uh, 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 I?

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Because you had to sign a thing, pay five dollars, and then they would reimburse you the five dollars.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Stupid the ABC laws that have existed in this area, they're like, it's um this it's something. You know, for those that are considering Bentonville, uh, it is no longer a dry company. Yeah, this is no longer the case. It is well, I mean it has changed a lot.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

That has changed quite a bit. And and and it's funny you say that because it's only been how long has it been that Benton County's been not dry? Ten years, maybe I was thinking tennis, and uh and now it's a completely different.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Well, and growing up in Siloam, uh, which was like if if if this little pocket is conservative, like Siloam is even more so. Um I drove through I drove through it last weekend uh with my youngest son going to Tulsa for a basketball tournament. Um, and there's just liquor stores and weed dispensaries.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Oh I don't recognize this. Silem Springs in and and by the way, I apologize because I'm sure people who live in West Asylum Springs want me to differentiate between the two. Yes, of course. Um West Sylum and Sylum has become a virtual den of iniquity uh between the all the liquor stores, all of the I mean, you've got Cherokee there now, you've got weed billboards every 20 feet. It's uh Chick-fil-A also. Oh, well, don't forget Chick-fil-A. Uh let's start with a number one. Uh, but yeah, what Silem Springs has become the wild west. I expect you know Doc Holiday to come walking. Let's let's go.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

I'd never never imagined it.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

No way you could have. Like if you could have been projected into the future and seen 2025 Siloem Springs, you'd be like, come on. No, no, there's

How The Region Changed Fast

SPEAKER_03 12:10

no way.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

No, that's New York City.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Is that a weed billboard? Behind the weed billboard?

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Yeah, that's what it is. So all right, let's get into it. Um, what what brought you to northwest Arkansas? Because you're not originally from here, are you?

SPEAKER_03 12:23

I'm not. My mom is a uh native bread and buttered Arkansan. She is uh from El Dorado, which is LA. It is lower Arkansas. And uh she and her whole family grew up in Magnolia, El Dorado. Um, but we grew up, I grew up in Colorado, uh in the shadow of the flat irons of Boulder in a town called Longmont, right on I-25. Uh, I came here to play baseball. Um, I came here originally to play for Norm. Um, I 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. Uh I 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, um, I did not throw nearly as hard as Scott Brocale or any of these people that uh went on to incredible careers for the Razorback. So after about five minutes and realizing what am I doing, um, I stopped at baseball. But I stayed at the U of A and I've obviously not left A. Play four years? I stayed four years. I did not play four minutes. Uh Norm, bless his heart. I tell this story all the time.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Really good in high school. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Yeah, editing videos. Really good high school baseball player, and I probably should have gone the JUCO route where they could have put weight on me to where I looked like I wasn't 11 but 14 and um 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. Um, so I tried it anyway. But I ended up going to the U of A and and journalism getting into the broadcast uh program, which back then wasn't much of a broadcast program until Larry Foley showed up uh a year after I left, which I thought was awfully convenient. Um now it's an incredible broadcast program. Yeah, yeah, really is kind of known for it. Oh gosh, they've what they've built on that campus uh for the U of A with their broadcast, whether it's K UAF and their new facilities just off the square, or that new TV studio they have in Kemple. Um it's pretty impressive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Excuse me. You met my daughter, she has a twin brother. Oh uh, and they're they're juniors this year, seniors in high school next year. So we've done a lot of campus visits.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

Are they Bentonville? Rogers. Rogers, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Mounties or heritage? Uh she's a Mounty. Okay. Uh her brother is Providence, Patriot.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Yeah. Nice. Uh so we're we're all split up all over the place. Sure. Um diversity. That's right. Uh we've 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. Like I didn't quite finish. Yeah. All right. And most of my classes were like after 7 p.m. There's nothing wrong with that either. Learning is not day specific. But it is so such a great campus. Oh. And so much fun to like all the history, all the the stuff that just belongs there for 150 years.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Isn't it crazy? It is. I'm biased. 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 iron. It's just, it's to me, I grew up with that, and that's just always like, oh, it's 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 um in uh 2020. So we'll get into that later. What a fiasco that situation doing graduation ceremonies uh in an empty auditorium uh via Zoom. Uh, but he graduated in 2020, and 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. Nice 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 you kidding me? Um no, I'm going to Arkansas. 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 ain't that's not fatal. He's in he has this romantic Parisian Eiffel Tower view of like old Maine 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. Uh lucked into him. He didn't. He he he lived in the Frisco apartments uh down on Dixon and West, which is a whole other podcast entirely. But um, he lived down there and yeah, he he got through COVID, all the Zoom classes, not entering a uh building until like three semesters into his career, and uh challenging time for him to graduate high school and go to college. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, I help uh with the the youth at fellowship, they call it FSM, and my guys are all seniors graduating actually this weekend. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

From Bentonville and got them since they're freshmen, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:30

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. You know, shout out to the guys. Yeah. Uh, but I don't know. It's an exciting time as well. 15 of them are all going to U of A. So yeah. I expect to be spending a lot more time uh down on campus. Well, and we appreciate there being more Arkansas kids uh on that campus and not having Texas players.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

I'm not judging or saying anything.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah, but yeah, no, these guys and a lot of them had you know options all all around. But at

From Colorado Baseball To Arkansas

SPEAKER_01 18:00

the end of the day, it's like, no, this is this is a great school school environment.

SPEAKER_03 18:04

And there's some great programs. Obviously, the business school shout out, the Walton Business School, and there's some incredible engineering chain of the country. I mean, I wonder why. Uh gee, uh that's the definitely if you want to go into supply chain management or anything as far as uh business. Marketing programs really good. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Uh so I have a couple journalism guys too going down.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Absolutely right. Yeah, we and you know what's cool is 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.

unknown 18:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

I want to talk to you about like on field, on court, all that stuff, but let's let's do a little like like meat and potatoes here first. Um so it's a retail journey, right? Yeah, 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 and hire you for kind of local media, similar to the billboards you see on Walton Boulevard, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Um talk a little bit about that, what that what that brings to them in terms of exposure.

SPEAKER_03 19:10

Happy to. I so I've been in radio as you've both illustrated and as um 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, it was 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. Um, and then it basically your salary is derived from the ratings that you get through either Arbitron, Nielsen, or what have you.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

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 uh 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. I needed to be the one to go out and get the clients, get the brands, uh, local, national, what have you, and make 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 that's the coolest part of it. It yes. I and I I am of 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 because I make no salary. I don't make a dime uh from my my company doesn't pay me any money in salary. And so all of my compensation comes from a commission of these partners. Yeah. 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 now for 14 years. 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. Like 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 gonna say a category, you tell me who John and Deke have on there. Like you go to them and go, Who's our furniture store? Get it at Sam's, uh, who's their liquor store? Macadoodles, who's their pharmacy, call your drug. You go right down the line because I do only. Only exclusivity. I won't have competing brands on my my show. And that 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_02 22:15

Well, and I just as a listener for years, like if there's four options for something, but one is sponsoring the loyal and royal, I'm right.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Thank you. And that's the goal. And and I'll tell you this, and it's one of those chicken of the egg things. Are they a huge brand? Because that's I gravitate towards large, or do I help make them bigger brands? And I'd like to think it's a little of both. Yeah. 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 Wrath Mitsubishi.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Then you trade that like every six months.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

It feels like it's every much more than that. But and we they we joke that we will pull up into the same call your drug uh uh parking lot at the same time. We go to Macadoodles, everything in my home is Sam's furniture. Um and we do and 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. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

I feel like it's easier to talk about the things you authentically feel, yeah, especially in an environment where like just reading off of a script is felt like nobody they can, and you know what?

SPEAKER_03 23:31

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.

unknown 23:49

Come on.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

What does it mean? Yeah, am I really gonna think that Kim Kardashian's rocking a Santa Fe? 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. Yeah, but I mean it's things like that when you when you when you hear the like Tiger Woods does not wear a tag hearer. Uh, you know, let's be honest. Although Tag Hero is a great brand. You know, he's probably wearing a Rolex or you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah, you can 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.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Hit like and share, and you know, just they mail it in. And when we do endorsements on our show, it's I mean, we literally integrate their brand with our brand into the story where people don't know the difference. Yeah, you do. And so that is what we have tried to do. And fortunately, we've got 26 partners on a show right now, a lot of national brands, a few vendors are on there, and um, it's great. This is way off topic, but um, do you ever listen to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend? I'm a very big fan of Conan O'Brien's, but Deke is a way bigger fan of Cono Bryan's. Letterman's my guy. I grew up with Letterman. Yeah, yeah. And when I got to go, 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 is over, I'm standing around just like, am I gonna see anybody? This would be cool. And he goes, You want to sit in the chair? I go, What? And he goes, You want to sit in Dave's chair, get a picture? 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 guest chair, got a picture. That will probably be on an easel in my funeral. That photo.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

The easel photo.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

But to answer your question, yeah, Conan O'Brien, I think, is a masterful podcast.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Is because you know the podcast venue, if you're commercializing it, is is pretty unique. And he there's the if you haven't seen it, you should pull it up on YouTube where he does an ad for a bidet. 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 how to, I'm not gonna go into it because it's a little prof a little vulgar, but it is so freaking.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

And you know what's funny is that initially I'm sure that the marketing people are actually the higher people higher than the marketing people of that bidet company probably lost their minds when they first heard about it. Yeah, they're like, oh great, Conor O'Brien's just dragging our brand of a bidet. But then the marketing people are like, Do you know how viral this is? Do you know how many clicks this is getting?

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah, 30 million views on YouTube or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

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 to 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 uh that are watching this, or maybe they're bigger than I think. But we did a whole song about Ozarks Go and Loyal Royal 3 and the whole thing. And I mean, it's a banger. Love it. It's just amazing. 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 Conor O'Brien is really it's it's the key to getting to find how it sticks in people's minds. Yeah, yeah. I love that story about the bidet though.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

You you've got to look at that.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

That is classic.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

So we talked a little bit about your kind of unique model in terms of a radio station. I when we chatted uh last week or a week before, 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_03 28:05

You're like, nope, I think I'm pretty right. And there may be, I I I'm not gonna sit here and go, I'm the only one in America.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

So so we use this thing in our uh in our company uh called the five voices. So and the five voices, you know, there's a pioneer, a connector, um, a creative, uh guardian, and a nurturer. Wow, right?

Building A Commission Only Radio Model

SPEAKER_02 28:30

And that you've got all five of those voices, but they're in different rankings. So uh um, like I'm the I'm the pioneer. Um, like that's my primary voice in the company, which necessitates that your last voice is nurturing. Correct. That's absolutely right. Does that does that ring true?

SPEAKER_03 28:49

It does, and and 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's like if we're gonna come over here, which was nine years ago next month, um, we're gonna be the brand. And so at that point, it's the Lowen Royal Army, it's Radio John Deek. And so they're now you're protecting not only the brands of your you know, your partners, you're now you're gonna 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 uh their brands within the call to action to people to actually buy their products uh at points of sale uh to our show, which I'm I'm incredibly grateful for every day. We get to do that. Yeah.

unknown 29:39

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

So um you you shared something with me that I want to bring up. Uh this community knows Cameron Smith well. Oh, yeah. Rest in peace. Yeah. Um, he's either gotten a person a job or filled a person's open role um or donated a guitar at you know, Kiss Pig. Uh, what's your you have a connection to Cameron? What's your connection?

SPEAKER_03 30:04

I do. Uh Cameron um was a mentor to me. Uh, but he was a mentor to a lot of people. Yeah. He he's I mean, I you know, Bull Mattingley, and Aaron Peters and a lot of uh guys kind of my age, I'm a little older than both of those guys, but uh guys my age, people my age, Neely Jones, he he mentored quite a bit, a lot of people uh that would be he would meet people at Gala's, and that's how he would get with them and start uh and I don't even know that he did it intentionally, he just was a helpful person. Yeah. And uh the story that I uh how I met Cameron uh is crazy. I was MCing the the Hope Cancer Resources gentleman of distinction in honor of Bill Flaman, who's an amazing uh 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 am seated, but at the end, they were supposed to have somebody that was going to do, I think it was John George uh that was gonna 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, um, John George cannot make the ask, or can could you do that? And I'm like, I've been asking these people for money for an hour and 45 minutes. You now you want me to get up and go, hey, but everybody, I appreciate uh everything. I'm gonna need more money, is what we're gonna need. And 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 really it's a gas tank for people going to Narthai and things like that. And I really 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 you just shot us past our goal. It was just great. And so afterwards, this is going to be a reference everyone's gonna enjoy. We all congregate at Eddie Haskell's um RIP shout out, and we go there and we're all just in in just having a great time. And gentlemen 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. I go, This guy is really nice. Thank you. So I think and I'm just talking to him for five minutes, never got his name, never got anything. He's just very nattily attired, gorgeous wife. And I'm like, wow, that was great. So he walks off. Guy next to me goes, You don't know who that is, do you? Can't tell. I go, I don't. 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 uh, he changed my life. Yeah, he totally did. 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 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 Pines 57 or to some buyer that's gonna squeeze you for margins, and that's what you that's what you want to do. And I go, I don't know. He goes, John, you're a brand. 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 and on top of that, he just became one of my best friends. And he and Monica were just the the very best. They would have fireworks every fourth of July at Shadow Valley, and just he was he was an incredible person and just grateful he was uh someone that took interest in me and took me under his wing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Yeah, and 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. Uh, and he goes, Hey, will you come in? Like, we're we we've only been hiring for like salespeople and executives, and we're gonna start hiring for analysts. Like the low, like you know, the people that are getting their hands dirty. What will you 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 you whenever you want to call it in. Oh wow, I'll deliver it. That's a powerful IOU. Right, right. And and I held it for a long time, you know. And um, I have two brothers, and my oldest one, uh, he's a pharmaceutical rep. He was getting kind of wary of the industry because he uh layoffs every three years and you gotta start over, and you know, yeah. There's no loyalty in that in that business. Uh and he came to me and goes, Hey, I want to I want to become a salesperson for CPG. How do I do that? It's like, well, you probably gotta become an analyst. Yeah, you kind of got to work your way up, you know. Like, I don't I'm not sure. I'm not sure your skills necessarily transfer. Right. Uh he goes, Well, I mean, I've got an I've got this advanced degree, whatever. It's like, well, okay, if you really want to push it, like, here, call Cameron. I send him a note and is like, here's my IOU, meet with my brother.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Oh wow, you used your IOU on this. And they sit down. I know.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

They sit down and uh he tell like he lays out what he wants to do, and Cameron goes, Why are you talking to me? Your brother's like retail link guru.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

He just saw things quicker and in ways you didn't see them. It it was such a talent 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 got to do more events. That way it's exposure. Exposure equals like familiarity. Familiarity means that people are more comfortable and the whole like the whole thing. But he goes, John, you are you are entering uh overexposure territory because I do a gala, I see you. I opened celebrate or cityscapes magazine, I see you, and uh you need to make yourself more exclusive. And and he gave 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. It was maniacal. If there's a gala to do here, 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

Cameron Smith And The Power Of Exclusivity

SPEAKER_03 37:10

me.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Well, you see the full circle of like only working on the things you're close to, passionate about, so that you can speak authentically and right.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

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 it's one of those, 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, man. And um, he was right. I mean, I I got to the point where I would open up Cityscapes, and I'm there four times, and I was like, that's not maybe too many.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah, yeah. 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 um I was told early on when I was getting here of like, you know, the most important thing is who you're saying no to. Um, so that you are you know tied to those that you really should be tied to. Yeah. And you know early on, I was kind of like, you know, I'd like to have a few yeses uh and then we'll work on the no's. But but now we're at this stage where it's becoming so evident um and we're having to say no. And it's it's hard uh because you want to be able to help, but I can't um operate at a high level if I'm saying yes to everything. Need to be able to pace ourselves uh so that we're able um to deliver.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

That was the difficult decision I made. And I have had people from the the stations I'm on to everyone go, why the exclusivity? You're cutting off such a revenue stream. Uh if you listen to most radio stations, they'll have three different car remotes on a Saturday at three different locations. Oh my god. And it's you'll Lewis Ford one, and then you'll be at uh the auto park, and then you'll be at McClarty, and then and don't get me wrong, all incredible dealers, all incredible things, but like what are you telling all of them when you're like 10 to 1 at one place where I'm like, all right, man, cool, thanks a lot. And then an hour later, you're a different place. It I think that when when I do exclusivity and like you talking about saying no to certain things and saying yes to the ones that you want to nurture a relationship with, I 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 Colliers and Macadoodles and uh on and on, because they exhibit the loyalty that I try to give them. Yeah. And and so it is paid off in spades. I'm sure I have cost myself money with that, but I would rather have someone who knows that I'm loyal to their brand than someone who's gonna be sitting there going, I don't know, man. Is he talking about my competitor now?

SPEAKER_01 39:56

And and you create real value. Right. Um, it we've uh I've talked a lot lately as I'm talking to people. It's like, you know, I don't, I don't actually want to receive a resentful check from a partner. Uh, because well, one, no one's gonna write a whole lot of resentful checks. You'll stop at some point. But like, no, I want to have a 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 the folks that have experienced that. I'm thinking of one that's been in. I love that. 14. Like 18. Um you get it, buddy. Um for a long time. Um 19 in July. I think there's something there for everybody that like the spirit of fear isn't actually helpful, useful that you have no fear. Um that one's gonna be part of it.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

I'm a little too unflappable, which is is both phenomenal and there's a problem. 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 Raz Back Stadium, and I'm just like, all right, I guess I'm gonna do this thing here on the field with uh just this numb. It just doesn't affect me. It's weird. I don't know if it's always been that way.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

When you're on the court or on the field, you can see it like you're you're there, you're you're doing a job. I am not aware of the people around you.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

I'm really not.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

And let's individuals, yes. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

But the mass, no. If I'm engaging with someone the pressure is not a felt pressure, right.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

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 I'm interacting in that fashion. But I I really don't I I don't really think about the other people. I'm just doing my best job and super helpful.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Well without having fear, maybe avoid mountain biking.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

Uh uh Yeah. So we live next to uh the trail. We live next to the the trail, because it's so what a blessing to have that northwest, 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. Yeah. Bingo. I got a new one. Collarbone.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

I got a new one a couple years ago. Yep. Have you what's your worst accident? I have a new collarbone. Yeah, I got that. You have a new collarbone. You got one on each side. Brought to you by Mercy. And what is this? Momo's getting. Um Ozark Orthopedics? Yeah, I got to pay full price. There was no sponsorship. And no discount for the second either. Oh man. Got to full you can't buy them in a bundle.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

I was gonna say your podcast for the next year is brought to you by Ozark Orthopedics on Futural Road in Fayetteville. Thank you, Dr. Kaler. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

This is awesome. I I'm afraid we've uh exhausted our time here.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

I do that every time.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

We normally do uh lightning round and the thing.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

We can be quick.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah, really quick, quick. So uh failure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

Biggest failure.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Maybe that you learned from that. You learn from.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

I mean, yeah, make it biggest failure that I learned from. Ooh. That's a tough one. Um, I would say um I got syndicated early, early, early in my career. Yeah, like in the late 90s, and I did not handle it the way I would handle it now. Yeah. And um, I I would definitely go back and handle that differently. Big time. Big time. Impestuous. Just uh, yeah, that was my biggest that that comes to mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Um, so over the last year, year and a half, whatever, things are changing at a crazy pace, right? What do you what are you taking away? What's your learnings from you know the last uh in just in in in America or the world or particularly in business, but if you want to get it into the personal, that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

I I the one thing I I I I think is the bigger things and the more complicated things get the more as simple it is. I love what we just talked about is the the it always comes down to relationships in business. It always comes down to handshakes, names, neighborhoods, making people feel like they matter. Yeah. Um That I always tell my partners, uh, the more you give me the uh creatively, the better off our campaign's gonna be, things like that. And and so people start really worrying about, you know, you guys were doing a podcast. Did you think five? I mean, you're doing it 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 you do you remember the inflection point when you realized you had to do a podcast?

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Oh, yeah. Yeah. We wanted to non-pretentiously actually help people. Um, thank you. And how can you give good information without just feeling like you're bragging about your thing?

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Also being known for that. Yeah,

Lightning Round And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_02 44:40

yeah. Like we're a consultancy at our core.

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Have you had good response within the Walmart community, vendor community, things like that?

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yeah, plenty of uh you know, merchants that have shared you know different podcasts because we talk through lessons for you know new buyers, you're uh or even on the supplier side when you're navigating you know omni-channel growth. What are the things you need to pay attention to? That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Yeah, that's a smart idea. So yeah, I I 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.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Alright, he almost died in this last filming.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Uh I'm not shocked.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

He's doing one of his own stunts.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

That's that guy does all his own stuff. That's crazy the stuff he does. So yeah, I think people have had to kind of evolve their the the way they perceive what their job is based on how you get uh kind of connectivity and traction with these brands.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

And then last one, uh, what's the you know content you're taking in? What are you what are you enjoying lately?

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Oh, uh 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.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

There's so many good shows, right?

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Yeah, I mean, right now to me, severance is the best thing that's happened this year TV wise.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Such a mind-bender.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Man, you know what it is? It's Stanley Kubrick doing The Office. Yes. So if The Office were done.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

That's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_03 46:10

If the Office were done in like 2001 of Space Odyssey, that's what Severance is.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Yes. Oh my gosh, that's so true.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

That's a beautiful, yeah. And then I'll if I see The Office, 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. Yeah. Um, I'm a big Nuggets fan. I do like the Will Farrell season, but you know what? I did like that. And James Spader's appearances were amazing. Um, and then I'm a huge razorback, obviously, fan. And uh Broncos hopefully uh, you know, don't uh embarrass me this year. Uh so yeah, stuff like that. A lot of sports, a lot of bass 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.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

So excited. And thank you so much for spending time with us today. My honor to do it.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Would you have me back?

SPEAKER_02 47:01

I would definitely have you back.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

Okay. All right. I'm honored, and I'm 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 they ain't just like winging it. This is a real operation. So I dig it. Good job, guys. Appreciate it, man. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

I really appreciate you coming on. It's kind of a kind of a it's a treat to me personally.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

Well, I loved it. I'll I'd come back.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

All right, and thank you all for joining in. Um, you can uh, as always, you can find all of our podcasts, uh, audio video on highimpactanalytics.com or wherever you get your podcasts, and uh appreciate you being with us today.