Jasmine Star (00:00:01) - Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, a place that we talk about business, mindset, marketing and today, whisky. But before we get there, I am so excited because I am here with my guest co-host Amy Porterfield, who's just brought the Dawn fire. Amy, thank you for being here, my friend trying to do this. Nobody's representing Tennessee better than Amy until until the one and only until. Von Weaver is CEO of the world's most awarded whiskey brand. Uncle nearest. Your uncle nearest is near and dear to our hearts. The CEO founder is here to share her story. But beyond that, beyond talking about spirits, this spirited entrepreneur is going to blow your mind with taking what she's taken in her business and teaching how to apply it to yours. So welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. You're here. Amy. Now talk to me. Talk to me about the the elusive name for Weaver in Tennessee and how you got connected. How did we get this connection? Fan is a celebrity around here.

Jasmine Star (00:00:59) - Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (00:01:00) - Has come a million times. And so my husband and I have literally gotten into whiskey. And so every time I say that, everyone's like, do you know, fan story and do you know Uncle Nearest? So from just being an enthusiast that came about, however, I am obsessed with what you've done in entrepreneurship, especially as a woman, especially as a black woman. You have paved the way, you have gone first. And there's a lot of women listening here today that can learn so much from what you've done. So selfishly, I just want to know all the things and how you got to where you've gotten and all the lessons you've learned. So I'm excited for today.

Jasmine Star (00:01:35) - I'm excited. So one of the things that Amy and I were talking as we prepped the show was this idea of, you are a brand builder. Yes. Everything that I have done, I have done my homework. I know you're in LA, girl. We're gonna get into all of that. But as we start the show, I want somebody hearing right now, like, what's in this for me? And if the one thing that people walk away with is, like, a brand can be built.

Jasmine Star (00:01:56) - Yes. And a brand can be filled with soul. Yes. And a brand can be respectful and it can be filled with love, and it can be filled with history. All of these things that you've done in iterations of your career. We're going to get to all of that. Yeah, but Amy had mentioned something. She's like, there's something about Vaughn's story where she talks about owning the land. Yeah, yeah, we talk about this in the context of like, Own the Land. That is your brand. Yes. But then you literally went and went up to everybody and you, like, literally own the land or get to that in a second. Yeah. But when we talk about owning the land from a brand perspective, from a business perspective, and you look back on your very illustrious career, what does that mean for you?

Fawn Weaver (00:02:27) - It starts with owning the online real estate. Oh, so a lot of people don't understand. They will come up with a brand name. They'll come up with all of this stuff, they'll get locked into it.

Fawn Weaver (00:02:38) - They'll fall in love with it. But they forgot to check to make sure the online real estate is available. So that's the social media handles. That's the the URL that is all of those pieces. So I everything that I've ever built, I started with that and, and the IP and making sure that is solidified. So that is the real estate that I begin with always. But I go directly from that to buying physical real estate to be able to tie the story into. And that that just means.

Jasmine Star (00:03:08) - Everyone is.

Fawn Weaver (00:03:08) - Different. But I truly believe if you do not own the land, you don't own the brand. So I always start with the land. I got a text message from my attorney this morning, one of them and and he's and the subject line said tequila. And so I read it and he says, so I hear you're interested in tequila. And he's giving me this. And I was like, where did he.

Jasmine Star (00:03:28) - Get this from?

Fawn Weaver (00:03:29) - I was just speaking somewhere, and I was talking about this importance of owning the land and how I went and the reason why I'm the largest grand champagne vineyard owner in cognac, France, was before I launched a cognac company.

Fawn Weaver (00:03:41) - I was making sure that I owned the land.

Jasmine Star (00:03:43) - Maybe you need somebody in your house.

Fawn Weaver (00:03:50) - Are. That is too funny. But I was literally making a joke about. If y'all see me walking the grounds that go, then you'll know what tequila is coming. But I won't start tequila brand from America. I will first buy the land by the distillery and then you'll see a product. So I always begin with ownership. I think brands are rented. I begin with the ownership, and I build the brand on top of the ownership.

Jasmine Star (00:04:16) - Okay, so.

Amy Porterfield (00:04:17) - When you're talking about ownership and we're talking to a lot of people who are building online businesses, they will never have anything physical to buy but that ownership. Give me some tips for the people listening, how to own their brand in a bigger way.

Fawn Weaver (00:04:30) - But that's online real estate, right? So a lot of people built their presence on social media. Yes. Biggest mistake you can make say that you don't race, you don't. Net. So the the URL you own that can become the most valuable thing that you have.

Fawn Weaver (00:04:46) - And if you tie it in with intellectual property and you own there, you go off of those. Yes. Then you actually have a physical own the land. It's just the land is online. And, you know, with all the. People trying to send us into a metaverse. The land may always be on live central. People buying houses in the metaverse. So but that is that is how I look at it is is whatever I'm building upon. I must own it and own it in such a way that someone can't come and take it. Yes. That's the that's the biggest piece. And so that's how I always begin.

Jasmine Star (00:05:22) - Was there a time in your life or business it feels like there's an undercurrent of capital T truth. I must own this. Has there been a time in your life where you felt like you did not own something, or something was taken from you because you didn't own it? No.

Fawn Weaver (00:05:32) - Okay, so when you look at the history of African Americans in this country and it still is the case to this day, I was teaching at Harvard not long ago.

Fawn Weaver (00:05:40) - That sounds like such a Namedrop I was I was teaching.

Jasmine Star (00:05:44) - Again, same again at.

Fawn Weaver (00:05:46) - Harvard, and there were a lot of people in the class that were of color. Right. And I was talking about this notion of building generational wealth. And we can complain about the wealth gap, but if we are not making sure that we own the land and own the businesses to pass to the next generation, then every generation starts from scratch, which means the wealth gap is not closing. But that's on us. And so I'm having this conversation and and someone raised their hand, an African American gal, and she was like, yeah, but they can take it from us. Like they've always taken the land. So the thought process was, if I just sit on cash and if I spend it in my lifetime, I don't run the risk of them stealing it from it. And I said, let's, let's, let's, let's let's back up. I get it, central Park used to be Seneca Village, all people of color for the most part.

Fawn Weaver (00:06:34) - Right? You go to Tulsa that big on freeway through it. That used to be Black Wall Street. You go like you can go across this country. And most major part that we love, love, love if you dig deep, black people likely owned property there. So we still, as a group of people, have to get out of this mentality that they can just run through our properties, run freeways, through our properties at states. So that's something that we as a people have to get over. So that's for me, that's a huge part of it is saying, yes, they could take land from us when we didn't have power. We didn't we didn't have money when we didn't have political connections. Let them try to run a freeway through my distillery.

Jasmine Star (00:07:13) - Yeah. So but but just.

Fawn Weaver (00:07:15) - So I think the ownership comes from that because for so long there was a property that I bought in in Portland in the Pearl district, and I bought it specifically because until the 60s, early 70s, black people weren't allowed to buy in the Pearl district.

Fawn Weaver (00:07:30) - So I bought there not because I plan to move to Portland, but because I wanted to own land someplace that we weren't allowed to. The property that I own in Martha's Vineyard in Edgartown, the property sale, leases and all the rest of that stuff literally had in the deeds that they are not allowed to sell or lease to a person that is not of the white race. Whoa. And so when that's your heritage, oh, I'm gonna own everything.

Jasmine Star (00:07:56) - So when we hear about that and we hear the undercurrent of capital T with the truth capital. Capital T truth. It starts in childhood. Yes. It starts with you in Los Angeles. Yeah. Coming from a family that had a lot of connections in the music industry, and then you have great parents, but you decide to go your own way when you're 15. And you end up in a homeless shelter. Three, three. Can you, can you bring us, can you bring us there a little bit of that. Because I think it acts as the foundation of where you go from there.

Jasmine Star (00:08:28) - Yeah.

Fawn Weaver (00:08:28) - No, sure. I just walked through covenant House, Atlanta a few weeks ago, and even though the last of three homeless shelters that I was in was covenant House in Hollywood, they had been inviting me to this one in Atlanta. And I said, well, let me go in. And it was so amazing walking into the bedrooms with the bunk beds because I was like, I was in a bedroom with a bunk bed with other people. And, and you go and you have lunch and a cafeteria or dinner in a cafeteria and just happy to have food. And you walk into a closet and I don't know why all clothes that's given all smells the same, like it has like the kind of this, like, mildewy kind of weird, musky kind of. Right. But I walked into this closet and I remember how grateful I was that they had a closet full of clothes. It didn't matter that it was a little musty, because I could wear that clothes to go out to work and to to create a life for myself.

Fawn Weaver (00:09:24) - And so that foundation at 18 years old, of being in covenant House is, I mean, that serves as such an incredible foundation. And maybe that's why I'm like, I'm going to own everything. And it's because I went from homeless shelter to homeless shelter to homeless shelter. And so I didn't own anything. And now that I have the opportunity to not just make sure that I own, but that I'm holding it to pass it to the next generation. So they start off owning almost every black person in this country is first generation money. If we have money, we're first generation. And so because even if our parents had money, like was the case with my family growing up, but then they made certain decisions that by the time I was one, that entire financial situation changed. My father decided to go into ministry, but he didn't have a huge savings. He actually had a very high consumption. And then now all of a sudden, you don't sign another contract with Motown. You have no money coming in.

Fawn Weaver (00:10:23) - And so I grew up in this huge house, but we didn't really have anything. So the juxtaposition of of understanding, well, even when they lost everything, they didn't have money for the fancy cars that they owned. Like meaning to put gas in them to get them off of Skyline Drive down the hill. And and they couldn't pay their tab at the country mart down the street as they were getting food over time. But what they owned was their home. So even when they had no money, they were able to sell that home, go buy another large home in Pasadena. So we didn't have actual cash, but we had a home. So when my my father passed away, he didn't really have a whole lot to leave to my mother, but he had the home and he sold the home, and we've subsidized. But for the most part, he was able to take care of her for a good, solid ten years after his passing because he owned the home. Now, I wish he had done some other things different.

Fawn Weaver (00:11:21) - So.

Jasmine Star (00:11:22) - So that's the care home that you're teaching. That was one of the things. Okay.

Amy Porterfield (00:11:26) - So one of the things that we noticed when we went and poured into you before you came here is that you believe to give, that you should give all your secrets away now.

Fawn Weaver (00:11:35) - Absolutely. In real.

Amy Porterfield (00:11:36) - Time. Yes, in real time. Shoe dog Phil Knight said, great. He wrote a book. But what he's saying is, 20 years later, you can't really apply. Now you're giving it all. Now, why do you feel like you should give all your secrets away today?

Fawn Weaver (00:11:47) - Because black people don't have the ability to wait. Ooh, we are so far behind because of where we began. So if you think about it this way, all of our ancestors were incredibly intelligent. When you're when you're leaving the shores of Africa to come here, you've got millions of people that die in the middle passages, right? Millions of Africans that die there. America is the last stop. So there's a ton.

Fawn Weaver (00:12:15) - They're dropped off in the Caribbean. There's dropped off along the way. Most died before they ever got to America because of how hard that journey was. Imagine you've got bodies literally naked, laying next to each other side by side, chained. You can't get up to go to the bathroom. You can't see you've got sicknesses just all over. Imagine the amount of strength that those people had to have mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. And so I look back at them and go, that's who I'm the descendants of. But they were intelligent. In Africa, you come to America, you're dumb. You don't know the language. So people came to this conclusion that black people were dumb, and that became a part of the story that we. We didn't understand how to read and to write. Well no kidding. It was outlawed to teach us how to read and write in English. So if we were still speaking our native language, we were intelligent. But I think I'm intelligent as hell. You drop me in the middle of China right now, a bunch of around a bunch of Chinese who don't speak English.

Fawn Weaver (00:13:26) - I'm not going to be that smart. And so that's the piece I think people miss is that Africans were not unintelligent. We simply didn't speak English. And so we have been so far behind because we weren't allowed to learn English, we weren't allowed to be taught. So we were learning it from hearing it in slang. So imagine again, drop me in China and imagine I'm trying to learn the Chinese language from people who don't want to teach it to me, simply by listening to it. Can you imagine how I would botch that language?

Amy Porterfield (00:13:58) - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fawn Weaver (00:13:59) - So talk about slaying and all. Like, forget slang. I mean, I would botch it because I'm teaching myself. So you have generations of people who were teaching based on hearing a language they didn't know, and that passed down from generation to generation. And then we couldn't get into college. There were all these educational barriers then. I mean, when you start talking about the redlining, which we were mentioning earlier with all of the redlining, put all of the blacks in an area where there's no money.

Fawn Weaver (00:14:29) - But how did the schools get paid for tax dollars, property tax? We didn't own any property, so our schools were getting no dollars. And so you have these suburbs. All the white kids are side by side becoming more and more intelligent, getting into college, we weren't able to do that. And so people look back at it and they say, well, it's 170 years since slavery, haven't you been able to pull yourself out yet? How we it's not just slavery, it's then Jim Crow law. It's then we can't get mortgages in the 1970s in parts of this country. We are now just out of place. This is the first generation that we can truly build wealth and not be an anomaly and pass it to the next generation. So I would be doing my own people a disservice to not share the information, as I am getting it in real time, as I am living it, as I'm succeeding at it. I want them to know in real time, because I don't want the next generation to have to wait.

Fawn Weaver (00:15:33) - They can begin to build it now, and because of this knowledge, it's not. I'm not just sharing it with black people. It's something that is helpful for every person of color. Your ancestors, when they came here, I look at I look at the the Latino. Now, I don't know, where's your family from?

Jasmine Star (00:15:54) - My father from Mexico. My mother is from Puerto Rico. Okay.

Fawn Weaver (00:15:55) - So it's the most it's the craziest thing that we did when it comes to Mexico. We need you here, farmers. We need you here. Come pick our oranges. Come pick our strawberries. Come pick our. We need you here. We need you here. We need you here. Oh, wait. We don't want you here anymore. So now that you've built your families here, go back to Mexico. And so then you have all these generations of of family members that have had to hide because this is all they know. So now let's take me. If America decided you can't be here anymore, you're actually African.

Fawn Weaver (00:16:27) - Go back to Africa. You know how hard it would be for me to rebuild there. And so when I'm sharing the information, it's not just for my people. It's for all women, all people of color. 70% of this country. Now, I still talk to the other 30% love them. But my focus is on pulling up that 70%, the 50% of women who couldn't vote until a little over 100 years ago, that that's my focus.

Jasmine Star (00:16:53) - So when we talk about slavery. That story interjects your current business. Absolutely. So when we talk about the intellect of the African community and we talk about what one is capable when they understand the language and girl that you would, you're not. You are teaching the language of wealth. Yes the language of wealth because there's a difference between riches and wealth. And it seemed the Latino community. When you get riches, you spend the riches, you bring your family up, you do nice things, but there's nothing for the next generation. So can we go there? And we can.

Jasmine Star (00:17:23) - We talk about the intellect of a former slave who changed Tennessee, the Tennessee spirits industry, and then how your story intersects with that, because I believe that's part of your origin story. But right there is like the intersection.

Fawn Weaver (00:17:35) - What I, what I love about Tennessee whiskey, even though it is bourbon, it is a straight bourbon whiskey. It is more difficult and it takes longer to make Tennessee whiskey than bourbon, but it is still categorized as bourbon. Okay, we're a bourbon, but bourbon can't be us unless they live in Tennessee, unless it's made and produced in Tennessee. But the other big piece is the only way you can be a Tennessee whiskey is if you follow every single regulation of bourbon, plus one additional step. And. And that is a filtration that was brought in by Africans. To this day, if you go to Africa more than I believe it's, more than 90% of the trees are cut down for wood fuel and charcoal. And the charcoal is to filter the water and to purify the food.

Fawn Weaver (00:18:20) - Well, you have all these slaves here who learn how to distill from the Irish and the Scottish, and they're tasting it and they're like, what is this? Right? Because what they're distilling in Africa are fruits. They're like, it's even the distillate has some sweetness to it. It has some flavor to it. They get here and they're distilling rye and they're like, what is this? What is this? And so I you know, I don't know, I know they had to to make it for their masters. But I feel like back when they got back to their own place, they're like, okay, let's just filter this through some charcoal because I don't know how they're drinking this. And but that's how this process comes in. And what I love about our origin story, the story of Uncle Norris being the first known African American master distiller, the teacher of Jack Daniel, the mentor of Jack Daniel, and the only known master distiller for his first distillery, which was distillery number seven, Jack Daniels Distillery.

Fawn Weaver (00:19:20) - Distillery number seven. And when you look at that and go, wait a minute, the only way you can get Tennessee whiskey is by following a process that came in with the Africans. Yes, that is extraordinary to me, because that means there's not another spirit in this entire country. And, you know, we're a country built on spirits. God bless us. Whether the market is up or the market is down, we drink it. And but we when you think about it, there is no greater All-American brand that you can track back to the 19th century because it's the only one that we can positively say and prove. A black person and black people were there at the beginning, at the founding of it.

Jasmine Star (00:20:06) - Okay, okay. Okay. Amy, I want you asking another question. Can I hop in real quick? You're you're you're up next. Okay. What's the story? How do you start this? Like, talk to us about you being on a on an airplane.

Fawn Weaver (00:20:17) - Yeah. So I was I flew to Singapore.

Fawn Weaver (00:20:20) - I was, I had been investing in and other people for a good portion of my, of my adult life. I was investing in people investing in real estate, which, by the way, I was able to invest in people because of real estate. So we'll go back to ownership and, and but investing in other people's businesses. And there were these two people that I had invested in their business. And it was, let's just say the business and the brand was incredible. But I learned a valuable lesson in that. You do not invest in a brand, you invest in the founders. And if the founders are not aligned with how you move in the earth, that's the best way I can put it, and how you treat people and how you take care of people and and and seeing people as, as more valuable than a thing. If you're not aligned there, there's no way that you can succeed. And so I knew that that business at that point, I would I probably lost about a million and a half in that business.

Fawn Weaver (00:21:21) - I was on my way to losing. I think the final tally was a little over $2 million. I lost in this business, but around the 1.5 million loss mark, I was just exhausted of having these conversations with the founders of you can't treat people any kind of way. You can't spy on your employees. You cannot blind carbon copy yourself on all the emails coming through your employee without your employees knowing. You can't like you like you literally you're spying on them. This is not number one. It's not normal. But number two, you just can't treat people that way. And so I was so tired of having that conversation. I literally told my husband he was going to Singapore for business. I was like, you already have a hotel room, can I just add an airline ticket and just go? And I don't even think I had but a few days notice where I booked the ticket and I flew with him to Singapore, and it's the next morning that on the cover of the New York Times edition, I see a photo of it's All White Men, one white man I very clearly recognized, which was Jack Daniel, because I think whether we drink Jack Daniel or not, we all know what he looks like.

Fawn Weaver (00:22:28) - We see us like you walk up the street in Nashville, you'll feel like you're his cousin. Like every like you know what he looks like whether or not you drink. Jack. And you. I knew who he was, but the photo was pointing out the fact that the person to his right was a black man and a photo taken. We now have pegged it at about 1904, a photo taken in 1904. Not only would you not have a black person in the photo, if you did have them, they would be on the outskirts. They would not be in Nashville right next to them. But the more important thing is, is that when you actually look at the full photograph that isn't cropped. Yeah, Jack Daniel didn't just have this black man to the right of him who we now know to be near his green son, George. He didn't just have this black man to the right of him. He ceded the center position of the photo in its entirety to the black man. So I'm looking at this photo and the headline says Jack Daniel embraces a secret ingredient help from a slave.

Fawn Weaver (00:23:33) - And at that time, I was about to turn 40 years old. And in the 40 years of living, there is not a single ubiquitous brand that I could have pointed to and said a black person was proven to be at the beginning. We hear different stories like Lucile and in Houston, where Pillsbury kept trying to buy her instant biscuits recipe and she refused to sell it to him. And then all of a sudden they came up with their own, and her family says they reverse engineered it. It's probably true, but we can't prove it. And so I'm reading this story, and Jack Daniels is admitting that this African American was there at the beginning, but they're saying he was there at the beginning as a teacher. And my question was, was it more and can we prove it? And so that started this journey of if this story is true for the first time, we can actually prove without a shadow of a doubt we were business people. And we're going back to the 19th century as businesspeople, as craftsmen, as someone that is so incredibly valuable that we cannot make this whiskey to this day without following the process that he taught.

Fawn Weaver (00:24:50) - Jack Daniel. So it was an interesting story to me because it was a story I believed would not just lift up African-Americans, but the fact that he had ceded the center position of this photograph to this African American man said to me that Jack was making sure America would never be able to erase this man, no matter what our country went through. This mentor of his, his teacher, his master distiller, and then his descendants who continued to work alongside Jack that America would never be able to erase them. And his plan worked.

Jasmine Star (00:25:27) - That's right. Yes, it did work.

Fawn Weaver (00:25:29) - Because even when they tried to erase him, they couldn't because there was this dog on photo. Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (00:25:34) - No no no no. Okay. So so much has gone on from that moment that you saw that newspaper to where you are now. But a big part of your story is raising the money. Yeah. This happened. Yeah. There's a lot of people listening that have no idea how they would even start with that. Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (00:25:52) - I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what that look like for you, and also some tips for others that want to do this, especially women. Yes, because I know you talked about that.

Fawn Weaver (00:26:00) - I absolutely do. So we we you see a lot of headlines about how little of money women and black people get from venture capital and private equity, and my response to that is always stop pitching them. Oh. Because if we don't give them our businesses, they will find more value in our businesses. But if they're the ones that keep turning us down, there's no value being built there. Okay, stop giving them the ability to take your ideas. Don't pitch them. Okay? Period. We live in a country that has over 23 million millionaires, all trying to figure out deal flow. Yes, the deal flow usually comes through these VC and these PES. So then you have all these millionaires who may have just become millionaires by making smart real estate investments, by building, just building it up the hard way.

Fawn Weaver (00:26:56) - But they don't really get deal flow. They're looking for good investments. But the thing that is key, and I share this with women and people of color more than anything, 60% of your pitch is your confidence.

Amy Porterfield (00:27:10) - Oh yeah.

Fawn Weaver (00:27:11) - 60%.

Amy Porterfield (00:27:13) - Because I don't want to get off topic, but I'm watching you and listening to you. I wanted to know, were you born with this confidence because a lot of people listening don't have what you have. Yeah, but can you find it? So we might need to come back to that. But if you percent confidence listening they're like, well, I'm screwed. Yeah. Because that's not me right now. Yeah.

Fawn Weaver (00:27:30) - So let me, let me I will, I will, I will put a pin in that and deal with the confidence piece. When I was 20 years old, I tried to commit suicide twice. And on the other side of the second time with, you know, tube dominoes with charcoal being pumped into my stomach, which you gotta love.

Fawn Weaver (00:27:48) - The tie to the charcoal.

Amy Porterfield (00:27:50) - Right. In your future.

Fawn Weaver (00:27:51) - It is it. It is literally the charcoal that purified my body so that I'm still living is the same thing that purifies Uncle nearest. And you have this, this, this, me laying in this hospital bed and for the second time, trying to end my life. And in that moment I realized, if I can't take me out, nobody can take me out. And so I've lived my life from that moment forward with a belief that if I can't take me out, neither can.

Amy Porterfield (00:28:24) - You, neither can.

Fawn Weaver (00:28:25) - You. And so you have a level of confidence when you're walking through the world and you don't believe that anybody can harm you. So that's, that's where that.

Amy Porterfield (00:28:34) - That's where that that's.

Jasmine Star (00:28:35) - Where that doesn't work for somebody who doesn't have that. We walk around in a constant state from our previous former families, lineage, heritage that a tiger is just around the bend. And even though we don't live in that state anymore, our brains have been hardwired to live in the in the fear and the doubt.

Jasmine Star (00:28:50) - And so when we build businesses, it's like, well, nobody can take me out. You're like, I don't know that, I don't know, I don't know if that's true. Yeah. And how do we even dwelling with the possibility of the tiger. Yes. Having not gone through the charcoal. Yes. How do we walk into a room, faith. Okay. Great.

Fawn Weaver (00:29:05) - I don't believe that. I walk into any room that somebody in that room invited me to. I am a believer that the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He turns to whatever way he wants. That means that you all thought you invited me on this podcast, but that wasn't actually your decision. That's how I look at everything. And it's not. It's not an ungratefulness. I'm enormously.

Amy Porterfield (00:29:31) - Grateful.

Fawn Weaver (00:29:32) - Yeah, but the gratitude goes first and foremost to God, because he placed it on both of your hearts to have me here. When people walk into a store and they buy Uncle Nearest, I don't think they're just buying Uncle Nearest because they see it's the most awarded bourbon in the last five years in a row, although our marketing is real clear about that.

Fawn Weaver (00:29:51) - Right? Right. But it is something that causes them to say, I want to support that brand, I want to I mean, there's a lot of great Bourbons out there. Why oconnors what makes them feel drawn to that bottle? I don't believe it's just them. And so for me, when I'm looking at it, it's the faith piece. And I tell people all the time, do not look for advice from me. If you're an atheist, I have nothing for you. I'm not being funny. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being an atheist. I'm saying that I can't help you because my foundation is faith. Everything I've built is on faith. I risk at a level that most people would not risk at, but it's because I believe God has my back on this, and I believe that this is fully aligned with my purpose. And so every single test, I'm not looking at it as something that will take me out. I'm looking at that test as something that's going to teach me a lesson that is going to take me to a higher level.

Amy Porterfield (00:30:47) - So is that your way of thinking when it doesn't work out, when you do crash and burn? Absolutely.

Fawn Weaver (00:30:52) - Absolutely. I tell people I have a screenshot on my cell phone of when my bank account was -$1.4 million, because it did not go according to plan.

Amy Porterfield (00:31:01) - Whoa.

Fawn Weaver (00:31:02) - Okay, so and I keep that.

Amy Porterfield (00:31:04) - What? Okay. I want everyone to hear you had a bank account that was $1.4 million in the red. Yes. And in that moment, what did you tell yourself or what did you do so that you didn't say, I'm. I've had moments where I'm like, maybe I'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. That was sometimes the first thought. You didn't go there? No. What was your first thought?

Fawn Weaver (00:31:23) - I was built for this. I was built for this.

Jasmine Star (00:31:25) - How do you do?

Fawn Weaver (00:31:26) - I'm going to have to apologize to some people whose texts are about to bounce. There is you have to have a true belief that you are in your purpose. I am living in my purpose.

Fawn Weaver (00:31:37) - I'm confident and I'm I know it to my core.

Amy Porterfield (00:31:41) - How do you get there? There's people listening that they are doubting that, right? Yeah. And I know you said faith. Yeah. And I think a lot of people listening will fall into faith, but then people don't have the amount of faith you have. Yes. So how do we make it also concrete for them? Yeah.

Fawn Weaver (00:31:57) - God says test me in this. So the way that you'll know truly, if you are living in your purpose are two things. If you go back to the way you were before the world molded you, you'll know where your purpose is. Because if you look at a child at the age of six, at the age of seven years old, and you don't try to change them, they'll tell you who they are. They'll tell they were born with purpose. So I knew even as a as a young kid, I would not. I wasn't trying to lead people, and people were still following me. I got kicked out of the ninth grade because my English teacher called my parents.

Fawn Weaver (00:32:30) - I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was doing my assignments. But she told my parents that she doesn't know what kind of day she's going to have till I walk through the door, and that I had too much power in her classroom. I'm in the ninth grade.

Amy Porterfield (00:32:44) - Okay, I love this story, but keep.

Fawn Weaver (00:32:47) - In mind, I wasn't popular. I wasn't one of the popular girls at all. So it wasn't a situation where I was leading because I was popular. I people were just following me.

Amy Porterfield (00:32:57) - You were just who you are. You're famous for saying, walk into a room as if you own it. Yes. Not that you weren't invited. There's no seat for you there. But walk into the room and I feel as though we. I think we can all learn what you're talking about. But I do believe you were born with it.

Fawn Weaver (00:33:13) - I do, I do believe I was born with it. But here's the thing. Most entrepreneurs that are supposed to be entrepreneurs, they were as well, I agree.

Fawn Weaver (00:33:20) - So now you have to go back to who were you before the world molded you? I think the greatest gift that I was given is that I left home at 15 years old, that I dropped out of high school. There was no molding of me in college. There was no molding of me in high school. No one was telling me to become someone to fit in.

Amy Porterfield (00:33:42) - Who were you before? Who were you before?

Fawn Weaver (00:33:44) - So for me, when people see me and they look at my level of confidence, I go, this is just seven year old fawn fully realized. That's all I am. I was never molded. I never let the world mold me to be someone other than who I am. And so for a lot of entrepreneurs, if you're truly an entrepreneur, you have to undo that molding. Yes, because that molding is where the insecurity comes from because you're not actually your authentic you. So you have to go back to the place of who was I before the world told me who I should be.

Amy Porterfield (00:34:18) - And that's where you find your confidence.

Fawn Weaver (00:34:19) - That's where you find it. And then that's also where you find your purpose. So I know that I'm an entrepreneur and I was built to lead. If I go back to seven years old. Right. So once I already know I am an entrepreneur, I was born to lead. Then how do I double down on that knowing I test it? If I see a door that is open to me, I walk through it. I have a very simple prayer that I have prayed for the last 20 something, 28 years, 27 years. And it is, Lord, if this is for me, open the door in such a manner that no man can close, including me, because we have a really bad tendency of closing doors for ourselves that God did not intend for us to close. And the second part of that prayer is, if this is not for me, close the door in a manner that no person can open, including myself. Okay, well, what that does is it allows me to just walk with complete abandon every door that's open, because I believe that if it's not for me, he shut it.

Fawn Weaver (00:35:26) - So my bank account being negative one .1. $4 million, that wasn't saying to me, close this business that was saying to me, pivot. Same business because you're opening these other doors. You're opening up a new way for me to to build this company a different financial model. At the time, I was literally spending so much cash on inventory. It's very expensive to build inventory because with whiskey, because you're literally laying down for something you cannot sell for four years, it's very different from almost.

Amy Porterfield (00:35:59) - Every other.

Fawn Weaver (00:36:00) - Industry, right? So now you're forecasting, what will I be selling in four years? You're paying for it now, but you won't get it for another four years. So for a very long time, banks wouldn't loan any money because it's based on what your revenue is, what your inventory is. So I spending all cash, all cash flow was going to pay for it. And so when that happened, literally within days we get a phone call from someone who we do business with who says, hey, there's this new company and they want to just pay for all of your whiskey now that you're laying down, and then you can buy it back from them in four years at this, but it's only yours.

Amy Porterfield (00:36:45) - Okay. That's wild.

Fawn Weaver (00:36:46) - Exactly. But that's what I'm looking.

Amy Porterfield (00:36:49) - For.

Fawn Weaver (00:36:50) - When something is going wrong. I don't get into the moment of focusing on what is going wrong. I never focus on what is going wrong. I am looking for okay, if this is supposed to be where I'm supposed to be, there's an open door somewhere. So I don't know if you remember that movie. Oh gosh, what was that movie with the oh, it starts with an eye and it had,

Amy Porterfield (00:37:12) - Oh.

Fawn Weaver (00:37:13) - My goodness is going to drive me crazy. It was with Matt Damon and he's going through all these doors. Do.

Amy Porterfield (00:37:19) - Yeah, yeah, it.

Fawn Weaver (00:37:20) - Starts with an eye.

Amy Porterfield (00:37:21) - The, Oh I think it's going to be crazy. But anyway, people are screaming it at the back.

Fawn Weaver (00:37:27) - But that is literally my life is I just keep going through the doors. And it's not until I get through the door that I know where I'm supposed to go next. And if I'm not supposed to go.

Amy Porterfield (00:37:37) - There, right there.

Fawn Weaver (00:37:38) - Then that door is not going to open for me. Can we go back?

Amy Porterfield (00:37:41) - Yes. Can we go.

Jasmine Star (00:37:42) - Back? Don't forget.

Amy Porterfield (00:37:43) - That question. Okay? No.

Jasmine Star (00:37:44) - Go. Because I feel like there is somebody who's listening right now and they couldn't move past the point of this particular section of the conversation. So if you and I or a listener was sipping on whiskey and we're sitting on a porch and we're looking out at Lynchburg, yeah, this is where the distillery is. This is the.

Fawn Weaver (00:38:02) - My distillery is in Shelbyville, which is one one city away. Jack Daniel's distillery is in Lynchburg. I Jack was a brilliant marketer. He built that town around him. He deserved to keep that down. I did not want for him to have to share the spotlight with nearest, but I wanted nearest to have his own spotlight. So we built we bought, what's now close to 500 acres that we have built on that distillery. And we're right next door in Shelbyville.

Jasmine Star (00:38:29) - Oh it's beautiful.

Amy Porterfield (00:38:31) - They're like, yeah, they.

Jasmine Star (00:38:33) - Own the land.

Amy Porterfield (00:38:34) - Oh.

Jasmine Star (00:38:34) - You don't you can celebrate somebody else's land. Yes. And let you have that story. This is your own land. So you and I are sitting in Shelbyville and we're sipping whiskey, and I am saying that I am born to be an entrepreneur. There's not a doubt in my mind, however, I've been a lot of I've been conditioned. I've allowed myself to be conditioned. I've bought into the story. So when we go back to this idea that fun, I am the kind of person that walks into a room. I have my head down and I'm like, oh, how do I have that? So you and I are sitting here and I'm like, it's me, I know this, but I don't have the tools. Do you have a framework? Talk me off that ledge. Like, help me step into the confidence to say, I'm not supposed to be in this room, but I'm gonna own this room.

Fawn Weaver (00:39:10) - Well, here's, here's here's the issue.

Fawn Weaver (00:39:12) - If you think that you're in the room because of you, that's why you're insecure. Thank you.

Amy Porterfield (00:39:16) - Okay, I.

Jasmine Star (00:39:17) - Unlocked.

Amy Porterfield (00:39:18) - For me a.

Jasmine Star (00:39:18) - Little gadget.

Amy Porterfield (00:39:19) - Yes, I agree, I.

Jasmine Star (00:39:21) - That is.

Fawn Weaver (00:39:21) - So, so for me, when I'm walking into the room, I am saying I am going into this room because this is where God called me to be and I am going to there's 1 or 2 things are going to happen in this room. Either I am here to deposit or I am here to withdraw. That means that I am here to either inspire other people and I will not get anything from it, from anybody in that room. Or I am here to learn lessons, learned gems, learn it, and they're going to come with me. But either way, the withdrawal or the deposit is still coming from God. So I think that for me personally, when I come across people that are insecure, that do not own the room, that feel as though they they have to just kind of be in a corner when they when they go into a room, that's because they're doing it of themselves.

Fawn Weaver (00:40:08) - That's how I used to be. I'm an introvert. Like people get so confused about introversion and extroversion. It simply means how you recharge. I can go my whole life as a hermit, like, I don't need to be around human beings. Yeah, I.

Jasmine Star (00:40:22) - Get that.

Fawn Weaver (00:40:23) - On the other side of Covid and people want to start having a conversation. All right. No no no no no zoom for life. Yeah. Here it is. And so I am perfectly content going my whole life just being by myself. That's how I am wired. And so I really had to teach myself going into the rooms how to own the room. And all that meant for me was I am going in as a daughter of the Most High God. When have you ever seen a princess put her head down? Ever? You walk into the room and you own the room. And so that's how I. I go in. Now again, if you're an atheist, I can't help you. I can't, and I don't say that in a negative way.

Fawn Weaver (00:41:02) - It is just truth. With a capital T, I can't help you if you do not have a foundation to stand on. But if you do and you walk into that room and go, this isn't me, this is the God in me, I don't need to be. I don't need to know everything about what people are talking about in this room. I think a lot of people get insecure that they don't know enough when they walk into a room. You walk into a room with a bunch of billionaires into millionaires, and they're talking and you feel like they're talking up here. You don't know. Walk in with confidence and listen with confidence. You don't have to talk. I can walk in a room and be completely silent. People will still notice me. Yes they.

Amy Porterfield (00:41:39) - Will. You know, I once heard the saying that if you walk into a room and you wonder who the elf is, it is not you. And I feel like you never walk into a room. You wonder who's who's in charge.

Fawn Weaver (00:41:49) - I do that, yeah, I do not, I do not. I was just doing, Byron Trott, who I absolutely adore. Who's the founder of BDD. Right. He just he's got like a $60 billion fund, right. BDD and MSD and we were, we just had a big event at our distillery where we pour into 133 Bipoc founders, and we bring all the tools they need investors, national account buyers like CEOs of distributorship, CEOs of control states. If you are a Bipoc founder and you come, we give you every tool that you need to be able to succeed when you leave out of the door. We basically this industry is full of gatekeepers. So because of who I am, I can ask for the gatekeepers to come from behind the gate so that these people can connect with them directly, get their phone numbers and get their contact information, all the rest of that. So, Byron, I was interviewing as a part of this thing and as I was introducing him and he comes out onto the stage and we're talking about this very thing.

Fawn Weaver (00:42:46) - And I said, Ask Byron was, did I have any kind of fear in asking him to invest in my company? And, and so I said it right before he comes out. And so he comes out and he sits down and he says she didn't have any fear, but I did. He's like, he was like, she didn't know. He didn't say fear. He said she wasn't nervous. But I was like, I blame her good. And he said, but I mean, you're talking about who is considered the modern day John de Rockefeller is Byron. I like that's what he has been called since he was the head of investment, the chairman of investment banking for Goldman Sachs. He is the modern day John de Rockefeller. And he's like, she didn't have she wasn't nervous. But I mean, because it's not about that. It is. I'm walking in. I fully own who I am as a child of God. I fully own it and I don't, I, I think one of the keys is, is I don't have an expectation or a desire for your respect.

Amy Porterfield (00:43:49) - Wow.

Fawn Weaver (00:43:50) - So for so many people, how other people respond to them is a part of what either motivates them or tears them down. I don't need your respect. I walk through the door with an assignment. I want to know why I'm in that room. Is it to deposit or is it to withdraw? When I'm in something like this, it is to deposit every person who is listening to this who was watching this. It is a deposit to them. That's why I'm in this room. But I might go into another room tonight and I am there to withdraw, to learn, to add. And so that keeps a complete balance of of my life.

Amy Porterfield (00:44:30) - I love that framework. I think people can really use that. And when you were talking about the guy from Bet, what's his name again, beat Byron.

Fawn Weaver (00:44:36) - Byron.

Amy Porterfield (00:44:37) - Yeah. he he's a big gun. He's a big deal. Yeah. And so I want to talk to you about how if you're a smaller brand, a smaller business, how the heck do you compete with the big guns? Because a lot of people are listening.

Amy Porterfield (00:44:50) - Well, even look at my business or Jasmine's business and think, well, they have really big businesses, so I can't compete with them. Yeah. How do you get in the game when you're still a small business? Yeah.

Fawn Weaver (00:44:59) - You do something different. Okay. Coming into the industry, there had never been a black woman. There had never been a person of color. There had never been a woman to succeed at the highest level in this industry, as a founder, as a the only other woman ever to build and succeed is is heard her can't pronounce her first name. I think it's merrily, merrily key. The person who owns Buzz balls. Who founded buzz balls. Okay. And outside of that, there's never been a woman to found a successful company in the spirits brand and the spirits industry. And there is never been a black person ever. So coming into the industry, all these people had advice from me. But the entire industry were white men. White men represent 30% of this country, yet 100% of this industry.

Fawn Weaver (00:45:52) - When we when I came into it in terms of founding and owning. It didn't make sense for me to take their advice. Okay. Because it's very clear that I can't do it that way. Every person who came before me failed, so why would I follow a blueprint that clearly was not made for me? I had to create my own blueprint. What did.

Amy Porterfield (00:46:14) - You do that was.

Fawn Weaver (00:46:15) - Different? The opposite of what everybody said to do. No, I'm not. I'm not being funny. It's risky. Entrepreneurial ism is risky. Amen. If you're afraid of risk, don't be an entrepreneur.

Amy Porterfield (00:46:24) - Amen. Okay. Get behind that. Can I dovetail something? Right?

Jasmine Star (00:46:27) - Yes, yes, because I actually feel like as we're as we're gearing up to, to round out this episode, I actually think that one thing that we're going to do right about here, how to compete with the bigger dogs. And you had said, do something differently. And then right before we started a hobby, Amy's husband, well, he was out looking for a particular type of vehicle near it, and he had gone to multiple places and he said, we don't have it.

Jasmine Star (00:46:48) - And so we had talked about how that's creating really good buzz because now the retailers are like, well, we need this Uncle Deere's. Yeah. What can somebody who's smaller, how do they do it differently? There's three ideas that somebody right now is. And this is the action item of like you're good at creating buzz.

Fawn Weaver (00:47:03) - So so so let me tell you I will use that exact example. We were completely out of stock in the market. We didn't have glass. We didn't like. It was a period of time that would take down almost everybody in this industry if they were dealing with what we were dealing with.

Amy Porterfield (00:47:19) - You add a stock of.

Fawn Weaver (00:47:20) - Everything out of stock, like you could not find uncle near us on the shelf. We were completely out of stock. And so I told my chief business officer, we're going to run a commercial and we're going to spend $1 million running a commercial on Uncle Nearest, because people are going to go into the stores and ask for Uncle Nearest. So think about it this way.

Fawn Weaver (00:47:41) - That retailer is ringing stuff up all day long. They don't know what they're ringing up. They don't care. But every day, all day, people are walking in asking for the same brand that has they have none of on their shelf. So now a retailer, just a person who would a checker is now googling what is uncle? Now they're learning the story. They're learning about the brand. So when you talk about risk, that's a huge risk. But when we went back in stock, how quickly we were out of stock because scarcity marketing works. So instead of focusing on the challenge and the fact that we were out of stock everywhere, instead of freaking out and freaking out my investors and going, you know, why can't we find you? I was like, scarcity marketing, y'all. This is momentary, but we are going to double down on the marketing efforts. We're going to spend more money while we are out of stock than we have ever spent. Okay, media, that.

Jasmine Star (00:48:36) - Means even.

Amy Porterfield (00:48:37) - Bigger issues. So real quick, I know we're running out, but you're willing to get really uncomfortable and stay there. Yeah. And I feel like that's one of your secrets to success.

Fawn Weaver (00:48:46) - I don't I'm not comfortable staying there. I want to get out. You want to get out? What I want to do is get out as quickly as possible. Which means focusing on the problem is not going to be the solution. Gotcha.

Amy Porterfield (00:48:54) - Okay. So go.

Jasmine Star (00:48:56) - So we want three things that somebody can do. Yes. Now our power play is speaking to is speaking to our listeners like we we we know. So what she did was scarcity marketing. So Amy we're going to play a game for the listener okay. How do we apply scarcity marketing marketing for somebody who has a course. Yes. And I'm going to do it for somebody who provides a service. So okay I'm going to say that this person is a business coach and they've reached out their max. They can't take any more at this point in time.

Jasmine Star (00:49:23) - People want to pull back on their marketing. But if I were to apply this scarcity marketing, I'd be like, I sold out of my coaching sessions, get on the waitlist. We sold out and we sold out in five hours. Can we do it in four? So that's like us taking this big idea from, you know, multi-billion dollar brands. So good.

Amy Porterfield (00:49:39) - Brand. Yes.

Jasmine Star (00:49:40) - And bringing it down to a listener for a course. How do we cite that. And then I want to go to another tactic. Okay. So got it. Get those wheels out okay okay okay.

Amy Porterfield (00:49:47) - So if you have a digital course and you

Jasmine Star (00:49:52) - When you say scarcity.

Amy Porterfield (00:49:53) - You want to incite scarcity. So one thing you do is you create a VIP access to the course. So you've got your course and then you've got VIP. But here's the secret. You only have 50 spots. Yes. And you charge a lot more for it. You do. And now it's going to sell out quickly. And sorry again waitlist.

Amy Porterfield (00:50:10) - But the fewer spots you have and the more expensive it is. It's exclusive and people want it. And they're scarcity there.

Fawn Weaver (00:50:15) - And it creates a halo. Yes for what is less expensive. So when something sells out at the highest amount then what you have that is lower receives the halo.

Jasmine Star (00:50:26) - Yes. Yes. Okay. So how do we how do we drive. Like so we're going to the small business or how do we do something to stand out. What is something else that you did with this brand or any of your brands that was different? And we're going to try to apply it immediately to the listener.

Fawn Weaver (00:50:40) - Yeah. Coming into the industry, everyone told me, do not expand quickly. That doesn't work. You have to really own your backyard. So own Tennessee and then within 5 to 7 years, try to get into the states that touch Tennessee. And okay, I told my, I told. Chief Business Officer. I said, we're going into all 50 states in less than two years.

Fawn Weaver (00:51:02) - It had never been done before. Every distributor told us we were crazy. And I said, once again, no person of color has ever succeeded. That playbook doesn't work for us. So us going into all of the states, that meant that we could use earned media. Earned media does not like to talk about local like unless it's a local product. Right? That your your CBS This Morning today show Good Morning America. They're not interested in a local story. They want a national story. We could not get that level of national press and it actually be helpful for us. Yeah. Until we were nationwide. So we pushed out almost immediately. And e-commerce getting into as many states as we could. And then we flipped on those, those states as quickly as possible. And people kept saying, but you can't afford to do it. Oh, earned media. They're talking to everyone. That is so much better than the billboards you're paying for. And so that was that was one of the the key things that we did.

Fawn Weaver (00:52:00) - The other key thing.

Jasmine Star (00:52:01) - Hold on, was that is that part of the earned media, because we could save that for the third.

Fawn Weaver (00:52:04) - Oh, yes, yes and yes and no. So the other pieces, when I came into the industry, everyone said nobody cares about awards in the spirits industry.

Jasmine Star (00:52:14) - For the third one.

Fawn Weaver (00:52:15) - Okay, okay.

Jasmine Star (00:52:16) - All right. So then this one was this one was earned media. You decided to flip the current order of the business to get your mind going forward.

Amy Porterfield (00:52:23) - I'm nervous about this. Okay?

Jasmine Star (00:52:24) - No, no, no, because we got we got to go get it. So what she had was CBS and the in the morning show talking about it. So coach at home is like CBS ain't gonna talk about me on the morning show, however, earned media plays a different role. If you could reach out to other people who serve a similar demographic. So while it's not the morning Show, there could be like an accountant who is speaking to his or her accounting client and saying, oh, you want to know what? There's this business coach.

Jasmine Star (00:52:47) - So what we can do is we can create synergy between both of us. So we're having earned media, not in a national market, but somebody who's tangential to the industry, somebody else speaking on behalf of your business. That would be earned media in a smaller way for a digital course. How might we have somebody else be vouching for the thing that it is that we do? And if you ain't got it, I can jump on it.

Amy Porterfield (00:53:07) - You get it? Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:53:07) - Go create having somebody create a bonus for course.

Amy Porterfield (00:53:10) - Oh, and I did this with you.

Fawn Weaver (00:53:12) - That's why I.

Jasmine Star (00:53:12) - Okay, okay.

Amy Porterfield (00:53:14) - So. Oh, that's so good. Jasmine. So Jasmine created a bonus for my own digital course all about social media. I don't teach social media. It's not my expertise, but it's a huge part of selling digital courses online. So she comes in, she starts talking about this. She's talking about it on her channel. I'm talking about it online. And now it's expanding that way.

Amy Porterfield (00:53:32) - So absolutely correct.

Jasmine Star (00:53:33) - Yeah. Okay. The third thing was not focusing on awards.

Fawn Weaver (00:53:36) - Yeah. So coming into the industry, everybody, every industry leader said awards don't matter. All of the big guys for years had done studies. The consumer testing and consumer testing said consumers only care about it if it's in wine. The only time they care about it in spirits is if it's one award show out of San Francisco, and if you get the top prize, none of the prize is underneath just that top one. And that's what I heard coming into it. So I looked at that and said, consumers may not care if we win a award or two awards, but if we become the most awarded bourbon in the world, they'll pay attention. So we were the only company ever, only spirit brand, that was submitting every single one of our bottles to every competition around the world. So when we began stacking up all the double golds, all that, and then all of a sudden it became it mattered.

Fawn Weaver (00:54:29) - Yeah, it was. Our marketing campaign for 2020 was the most awarded bourbon of 2019 than it was 2021, 2022, 2023. For five years in a row, that has been our marketing campaign. And so now I'll see. Most tequila awarded Akeelah in the world. Somebody running that the most awarded liquor in the world. Right. And so something that consumers had previously tested to not caring about. Yes. All I did was say, well, they may not care about one, but let me create a story that's media worthy that will make them care.

Amy Porterfield (00:55:04) - Interesting. Okay, I like the media worthy. I'm going to go with that angle. So when I'm thinking about digital courses, go creating your story around your course. So I teach people how to create courses. And there's always a story of why they're teaching what they're doing, why they're creating. Creating your story. And then shopping it around to media is something that they don't do enough of. And there is power in that. And so I believe that you've got to do the work to get that out there.

Amy Porterfield (00:55:32) - And one thing that you said that I want everyone to hear is awards. I don't think people know you have to submit for these awards. Yes. Yeah, I think they get the award should come to them. No. That's it. A little caveat. She went out and she submitted for these awards in order to make it happen.

Jasmine Star (00:55:46) - So good. And no, there might be somebody listening. So I just want to like get super granular with that. I actually saw an article of a photographer who teaches photography courses, but the catch on her press was how she makes $200,000 a month. Yeah. So it was a different angle. But what it ended up doing was having that halo effect that you spoke so kindly of. And I'm like, okay, so getting people in that mind framework, if I was a coach and I would want media, then I would have to have a stake. I would have to have an opinion about what it was. And so I would go in and I would have a defining line, this is the hill I'm going to die on.

Jasmine Star (00:56:15) - This is the thing I'm going to be about. And then I would have to create content that is worthy of being featured on a media outlet. Yeah. And that.

Fawn Weaver (00:56:22) - Double down. That's right. What year? That has been our marketing campaign for five years. When you look at the best marketing campaigns, they doubled down.

Jasmine Star (00:56:31) - Saying the same thing. Yes, yes.

Amy Porterfield (00:56:32) - Okay. I do love that. Fantastic. Yeah. Double down on what's already working.

Fawn Weaver (00:56:37) - Yeah. Just because the world keeps changing doesn't mean you have to. There's something to be said about stability.

Jasmine Star (00:56:41) - Yes.

Amy Porterfield (00:56:43) - I like that angle. Yes.

Jasmine Star (00:56:45) - So we went through a lot like how people are finding themselves in the story. They're having action taking items. We did that little like ad hoc game of our goodness game. No. You know. Yeah. If somebody's listening if you could sit across from somebody you could pour them a little uncle nearest and they take my place on the porch and they're on their journey beginning, middle or end.

Jasmine Star (00:57:09) - What do you say now from your vantage point, as you look out on the land you own, what do you tell them?

Fawn Weaver (00:57:14) - Dream bigger, fail harder.

Amy Porterfield (00:57:19) - So good. I just I have to make a correlation. Our guest before you. And you don't even know this. Yeah. Talked about impossible goals. Yes. I feel like you live, I breathe impossible goals I do. This has been incredible. And they're.

Fawn Weaver (00:57:33) - Only impossible until I make them.

Jasmine Star (00:57:34) - Possible. Hey man.

Amy Porterfield (00:57:36) - Fired up by you I know.

Jasmine Star (00:57:38) - Incredible. Thank you. Let's go. Let's go buy land. Let's start building.

Amy Porterfield (00:57:41) - Go digital. Where's my girl?

Jasmine Star (00:57:45) - Ladies and gentlemen, this is another episode of The Jasmine Star Show. If nothing else, if all the things that we spoke about, it comes in one ear and out the other. May you remember Vaughn's exact words. I am built for this in. I am in my purpose. And if we walk into every room with our head held high, understanding that there is a divine purpose for us to be there, that we will withdraw or we will deposit, and we are there to simply say, I'm going to do it my own way and I will hold my head high.

Jasmine Star (00:58:12) - Thank you, fawn, for being here. Thank you for empowering. Thank you for your time, your energy, and watching and listening. The Jasmine Star Show you can connect with find. Where do people find you? How do they go deeper with you? Yeah, they can.

Fawn Weaver (00:58:22) - Go to anything that is at Uncle Nearest or Fawn Weaver on Instagram.

Jasmine Star (00:58:27) - Speaking of Instagram, this is a this is a side note. Speaking of Instagram, the Queen hypes up her own brand. She's at the airport, right? I'm watching her stories. I mean, here's the thing. You gotta love your business so much. You so dang successful that you out here hustling on her own account. Fun. What's your Instagram? Shout it out. Find out Weaver. Find out Weaver, right. She's at a bar in an airport top shelf. Let it be known. And they have a custom cocktail with Uncle Nearest. And then there's the bartender, not knowing who she's actually speaking to. And Bond's out there on the DL filming it, like, can you make it look so delicious? So if you are not talking about the products that you were creating, I question if you love it enough.

Jasmine Star (00:59:08) - Be out here to be your number one hype person.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:09) - Ames fan one one little plug. Tell people about your new book coming out. Yes, yes.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:15) - Thank you.

Fawn Weaver (00:59:16) - Love and Whiskey The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel has mastered distiller near his green and the improbable rise of Uncle Nearest.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:24) - Oh, hey, first.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:25) - Of all, that is a sexy.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:27) - Title.

Jasmine Star (00:59:29) - When does it come out?

Fawn Weaver (00:59:30) - It comes out on June 18th.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:32) - Okay. Very soon. Yes. We order.

Fawn Weaver (00:59:35) - Our pre-ordering. We actually, our pre-orders were so high we did. The first print was at 50,000 books. The pre-orders were so high we had to run a second printing and we're still okay.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:48) - That's a little ways out. As an author.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:50) - I'm very it's Beyonce and that's.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:51) - It's it's.

Fawn Weaver (00:59:52) - Beyond where.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:52) - Wow. It's gonna be big. Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:55) - Congratulations, gentlemen.

Jasmine Star (00:59:56) - Future New York Times bestselling author. Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (00:59:58) - It's fun. Weaver.

Jasmine Star (01:00:00) - It's an honor and a blessing to be blessed. Thank you guys.