The GoGedders Podcast

Now, more than ever, it’s critical to reevaluate your brand and adjust accordingly. Customers and technology are changing every day, and it’s your job as the CEO to identify that. Start understanding your brand values and stay true to them. If you have a hallmark sandwich or a distinct look, stick to it. Running a business is all about branding. To learn more on how to reinvent your brand in difficult times, join Richie Burke as he talks to an expert in the industry, Christine Specht, CEO of Cousins Subs. Learn how Christine reinvented the brand after years of difficult hurdles. Discover why you need to invest in digital technology and why you need a franchise model. Find out how Christine made sure Cousins was built for the future.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

How To Reinvent Your Brand In A Difficult Market With Christine Specht Of Cousins Subs

If you’re curious about how to successfully transform your brand, even in a highly competitive market, I’ve got a great episode with an amazing leader. We’ve got Christine Specht, the CEO of Cousins Subs. Christine’s father started the company in the ’70s and built an iconic brand in Wisconsin, but it got a little tired and dated. Christine and the team at Cousins have had to make a lot of difficult decisions over the last decade.  

She has had to navigate a pandemic. They’ve opened stores, closed stores, and undergone an entire rebrand. They’ve invested a lot into technology. As a result of a lot of these decisions and investments, the future never looked brighter for Cousins. It’s a great story. You’ll get a lot of good takeaways from a leadership culture, business, and marketing standpoint for your company.

Before we dive in, I wanted to let you know that this interview is directly from the Keeping It Local Podcast powered by First Federal Bank. It’s a show that I host and we produced through GGMM. If you’re looking for more great local business content, make sure to check out the Keeping It Local Podcast after this episode. Thanks again for tuning in. Let’s dive in with Christine.

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I’m joined by Christine Specht, the CEO of Cousins Subs, an iconic brand in Wisconsin with nearly 100 locations and Cousins turns 50 in 2022. Christine also happens to be a Board Member here at First Federal. Christine, welcome to the show.

It’s great to be here.

For those who don’t know, can you give a quick background on the company’s history and its ties to Southeast Wisconsin?

Cousins was started here in Milwaukee in 1972. As you said, we’re celebrating our 50th anniversary which is a great milestone, particularly, for restaurants because it’s a hard industry to have a lot of longevity in. Our first location was on 60th and Silver Spring. It was started by two cousins, my dad, Bill Specht, and his cousin, Jim Sheppard. They based their product on their favorite restaurant in Atlantic City, New Jersey where they are from.

My dad was living here when he started the business and recruited his cousin to move here to be partners. They started because they missed the East Coast-style sub sandwich and thought this would be a great time to open it up. It was with the intent of having one restaurant and seeing how it goes and maybe trying to support their families, but it took off from there. It hit home with people here in Milwaukee.

What was it like growing up in that family? Were you working in the stores? Did you ever think you would work for the family business as an actual career?

It was my first job when I was fifteen. I couldn’t wait. I worked at our store in Germantown, Wisconsin, which is still there. It’s one of our busiest restaurants. I still remember my first day working. Some of those things you don’t forget. Beyond working in restaurants as a cashier and a sandwich maker, I wasn’t thinking that I would do this as a career. My degrees have nothing to do with the restaurant industry. I have a Degree in Criminology and Law Studies and a Master’s in Public Administration.

My parents allowed me and encouraged me to forge my own path and see what else was out there. They never said you must work for the company. When I joined the company professionally in 2001, it was a welcome choice because I wanted to get back to the family business. My role back then in 2001 was in human resources. There wasn’t the plan then to have me run the company at some point in time, it was working for the company in HR and we’ll see where it goes. As things turned out, I had the opportunity and I went after it.

Not every day is going to be great at your job, but you spend the best hours of your life at your job so you need to enjoy it. Click To Tweet

Is your husband still at the company too? What’s it like being in that family environment all the time compared to something else you could have gone and done?

I love it. I love being in the family business. I love my job. I tell people that, not every day is going to be great and whatever job you have. You spend the best hours of your life typically at your job. You need to enjoy it. I can say that I enjoy it. My husband, J.J., is still working at the company. He’s our Director of Franchise Sales. I appreciate it. It’s still going well since the last time we spoke.

I love it because he and I can talk about work at home, but it doesn’t necessarily run our lives because we have a family and we do other things, but when we do talk about work, we have a collective understanding of what’s happening. We can talk about ideas and challenges in a way that sometimes spouses can’t with one another because they’re not at the same company. He understands the business as well as I understand the business. We then can work together and talk about some of the challenges or even future opportunities where we want to go.

Cousins sandwich shop, you guys are in a very competitive business. What are some of the things that you focus on to stand out?

There are a few things we focus on and it’s about being true to the foundation of the brand. One of our values is grounded. You could ask anybody about our brand and they would tell you what we serve, grilled and deli fresh subs but beyond that, it’s served on bread. It is my dad and his cousin’s recipe from the ’70s. It’s the same recipe now as it was back then. That foundation, the bread is the hallmark of our brand.

To care about the quality of the product that we serve to our guests is very important. The other thing is we have continued to give back to the community. We have a foundation, the Make It Better Foundation. We’ve given over $750,000 since 2013 to various local organizations where our Cousins stores are located. We focus on things like health and wellness, youth education, and hunger.

There are a lot of outward-facing things that we do to differentiate ourselves from our competitors because it is highly competitive and somebody could say, “It’s another sub sandwich.” We try to be different. We have a very strong culture. I’m very proud of that. We were named the Top Workplace for 2022 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. We’re happy about that and that’s the second year in a row.

 

To get awards that recognize our workplace, our work style, and our culture is very difficult because we have such a fragmented workforce. We’re not under one roof. We’re in many different buildings and it’s hard to drive that culture to all those locations. It’s similar to First Federal where they have different branches, yet it’s all under one roof. When you’re driving that culture, it’s critical that it gets down to everyone.

Can you touch on technology? You’ve evolved quite a bit. You had a big online ordering initiative that started before the pandemic, which paid off through the pandemic. Touch on the evolution of that.

Technology continues to evolve. That’s exactly right. Pre-pandemic, we had online ordering. We had third-party delivery. Little did we know how fortunate we were to have the technology in place to be able to ramp that up because of the pandemic. When COVID hit, that completely transformed how our guests were enjoying our sandwiches. They were then ordering through third-party delivery and ordering through curbside, which we didn’t even have curbside before the pandemic. We launched it in about 48 hours because we had the technology. We just never launched it. We were able to turn that component on and then connect with our guests to help them navigate through that.

Over the past several years, we’ve laid a foundation from a unified point of sale system in all of our restaurants to then continuing to increase the technology, whether it’s online ordering, third-party delivery, curbside, and now launching loyalty. All those components of technology have helped to complement our business and to help people get our product in a way they want to. Consumers are changing. Consumers are purchasing differently and you have to be ready to adapt to that. COVID forced that for many businesses, but since we had that foundation, we could highlight and enhance the technology that we did have.

You talk about the last several years and you started in 1972, but you’ve gone through a massive rebrand. You closed a lot of stores. You rebranded a lot of stores. You’ve opened a lot of new stores since then. Can you touch on the rebrand and the importance of that while staying true to Cousins’ roots because you guys do have such a loyal following in the area?

When I started in 2008 as the president, in the first few years, we were still working through some issues with my dad’s partner’s estate because my dad’s partner passed away. Starting in 2011, my leadership team and I took a look at the brand and we recognized it for what it was, a brand that serves great products in spite of our guest environment and inconsistencies that existed throughout the brand.

In 2001, we had some stores that were microwave stores. They didn’t have grills, yet we were serving cheesesteaks. We felt that was a big inconsistency in product quality and presentation to the guest. We made a program where we put grills in our locations and helped to subsidize some of the costs for our franchise owners to put grills in their locations because it makes a better product.

Start embracing technology. Consumers are changing. They're purchasing differently and you have to be ready to adapt to that. Click To Tweet

That is one example where we’ve tried to increase the consistency of the product quality, but then certainly the environment. Our stores were very old, very tired, and very different from one another depending on the year in which they were built. Since that time, we’ve embarked on creating a brand strategy that unifies the look, where you know that if you’re in a Cousins, even if it doesn’t look exactly like the one you were in Appleton, you have the essence of the brand that you understand what that is. The brand that we have now is one that’s meant to continue to evolve where we maybe update some materials, colors and lighting, but the brand will continue to evolve in that way.

That was a big undertaking because we had a lot of corporate stores and franchise locations that needed reinvestment. We gave our franchisees the opportunity to reinvest. We said, “You have to reinvest. You have to do it,” when in the past, we didn’t make it enforced, but we gave them the opportunity to reinvest at the time their franchise agreement was going to be up for expiration and renewal. That way, they could plan for, “Do they want to still be with Cousins? Do they want to reinvest? How are they going to afford to reinvest?”

During that time, in those early, we closed 40 restaurants. We exited a number of franchisees, and then even now, we have franchisees that are selling to us corporately to move on because maybe they’re looking towards retirement. There has been a lot of change through that, but it has been good because we’ve been able to make the brand consistent for the consumer who deserves that experience every time.

Was there a lot of resistance or pushback when you took on that initiative? The business at the time was profitable and doing fine, but to get to the next level and build it and “future proof” it in a way, necessary steps?

It was met with some resistance but keep in mind that in 2008, we had a recession. We were climbing out of that and stores are profitable. The past philosophy for Cousins and the leadership of Cousins didn’t require those remodels because the individual franchisee was making money or maybe had a loan from their initial build-out. That was paid off, then you don’t want to have to go into another loan. It was very much individual and individual store-focused. We said, “We need to make this a brand while thinking of you individually. We think this will be better for you individually, but we can’t sacrifice the brand because we’re not enforcing a remodel.”

The price is the price and it varies depending on the location, but what we were was very transparent and very honest. We also involve the franchise community in decision-making. We show them design pallets ahead of time. We involve them. We ask them for their feedback so that it wasn’t pushed on them, which as a franchisor, you can do. Most franchisors do that. They tell their franchisees, “Remodel or you’re out.” We didn’t want to take that heavy-handed approach because that’s not our culture. It’s not the values that I live by.

You touched on culture and you mentioned you guys got voted Top Place to Work in the area by the Journal Sentinel. That’s a great award. Do you have any advice on building a culture? What do you guys focus on at Cousins? Any takeaways for other business owners or HR people reading this?

 

Things that we do to build our culture is we try to be authentic. For us, that means living our values. I mentioned that one of our values is grounded. We’re also optimistic, purposeful and passionate. Those are the four values that you’ll see on a wall in some type of artwork. You’ll see those in the restaurants and our corporate support center.

People know that you have to participate in that culture. You may not experience or live those values at the same level every single day, but it’s about understanding that that’s the expectation. When we hire people here at the office, I talked to them about our culture because I want to make sure that they are a culture fit. It’s from the very beginning life cycle of the employee when they come onboard, and then we live that.

Maybe that’s by having some fun at the office. Our support center made us a Cinco de Mayo potluck and everybody likes to participate. In our restaurants, we’ll reward and support them. Maybe we’ll give them a hot potato bar or an ice cream bar for all their teams to recognize them and the hard work that they’re doing. We try to make that on par at both levels at the support center and with our restaurants, but that culture has to start at the top. For me, that’s what I love to do. I love to live and talk about our culture and try to be as authentic as I can, and then push that down to our employees.

Employees that have left the company that doesn’t fit the culture figure it out pretty quickly. We’re not heavy-handed about it or anything, but it’s important to us. We will have turnover and we understand that. There’s this value set that we live by. I want you to love Cousins. We make and sell subs. I tell the team that all the time, “It’s very simple, but we have to make and sell as many subs as we can so we can pay debts, reinvest in our employees, and also reinvest in the community.” When you drive that home, they get and understand that. They want to make and sell as many subs as they can.

Are you still working in the stores too?

I still work in the stores. I was at our store on Villard working over lunch, which is great fun. We have great general managers. I work in all of our corporate stores once per year and now we’re up to 43. It’s filling my schedule more. It’s a great way for me to live those values, stay grounded, and still is one of the best parts of my job. I love it.

How do you decide which one you’re going to? Do you plan out much in advance so you’re dropping off?

Work culture always starts at the top. Click To Tweet

I would never do that to the teams in the store. They want to be ready. I give my Director of Operations, Hillary, my schedule and she puts me wherever she wants me to go for that period of time, but it’s great fun. I love to connect with the employees. I love to connect with the guests. It keeps me hands-on in understanding what’s happening.

One more question about the in-store experience. How do you guys come up with new products and menu items?

At the corporate support center, we have a menu development team. We think about trends, profiles, and tastes that are coming up. We think about how can we do that and parlay that to Cousins and make it Cousins specific product. There are a couple of ways to do that. We can offer limited-time only subs or LTOs. We probably do those quarterly but then we can put them on permanent menu items.

For example, in the last couple of years, we’ve launched shakes and they’re incredible. They’re so good. We have chocolate and vanilla, and now we have strawberry. We’ll rotate other shake flavors in. There’s a gelato product. It’s wonderful, and yet other times like right now we have our East Coast Philly Sub Sandwich, and it’s a nod towards the East Coast Philly Sandwich in honor of our 50th-anniversary celebration. That will be on the menu limited time.

The best part about that is I’m on the menu development team and we do all that formulation of the product in our support center where we have a test kitchen. It’s a full store inside our support center, where we do anything from training, and baking classes to testing kiosks, which will you’ll see in-store soon. Also looking at the menu development and things like that. It’s a lot of fun because it also means a lot of trial and error. When we were coming with the shake flavor, for example, we tested 25 different shake flavors.

When did the cheese curds get added to the menu? Those are amazing. People don’t necessarily think of cheese curds when they’re going to get a sub.

They don’t. I’m glad you said that because that’s one of the things that helps to differentiate us from our competitors because we’re not just a sub and chips. We have all these fantastic sides.

 

The fries are pretty good too.

The fries are amazing. The cheese curds and soups are good. They’re high quality because we don’t want to just throw something on the menu and hope it works. We’re proud of those curds. We win awards for those curds. The kind of those best subs in the periodicals around the state. They’re very good. That has probably been about five years ago or maybe it was longer than that.

I wanted to make sure they got a plug on the show.

Thank you very much and they’re here to stay. Curds are not going anywhere.

You guys are making some aggressive moves towards the future too. You’re opening up new locations. You have some expansion coming. Can you touch on that?

We understand that while our current stores are doing very well. Over the last several years, our average sales of each unit have gone up 93%. That’s a huge jump and accomplishment for us. Same-store sales are up 57% over the last ten years, but we also need to forge new ground. We need to continue to grow and expand.

We do that in two ways. The new ground will be new growth and development. We’re looking at corporate development in Indiana and we’re very excited about that. We’re also looking at reinvestment in legacy markets where the stores maybe are old and tired. For example, we opened up two brand new freestanding locations with drive-throughs in Sheboygan. One on the north side and one on the south side.

Stay very disciplined about what you're looking for and who you're looking for in terms of franchising. Click To Tweet

Cousins has been in the Sheboygan market for well over 25 years, but the stores got tired and became not in the right location exactly. When we acquired those stores corporately, we knew we had a long-term plan and that was reinvestment in the Sheboygan market to be the brand that we know we are and be proud of, but not just here in Milwaukee. We’re making sure that extends beyond Milwaukee, so Sheboygan, for example. We’re opening up a new freestanding restaurant in Green Bay. We’ll have more development in Green Bay. We’re very excited about the Fox Valley, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of planning.

What does freestanding mean?

Freestanding means it is its own building with a drive-through instead of being in a strip center. If we’re in a strip center, we want to be at the end of the strip center because we hope we would be able to have a drive-through, but that doesn’t always happen. That would be our second choice. That was a lesson out of COVID. While our drive-through stores have always been great because they gave a guest another option, it became so necessary. The performance of those drive-through locations is essential.

People’s habits continued to evolve. Less and less people are getting out of their vehicles to come inside. They want to make it quick. We have to design a drive-through flow that can make it quick, but yet to our quality. It still isn’t pre-made food. It’s made to order, yet we feel that we can execute it in a timely manner where people know that they may wait three minutes, but they’re going to have a great product that is made just for them.

Also, when I was doing my homework, I’m not sure if these numbers are still accurate, but I’m guessing they were close. You guys have 41 owned corporate stores, and 53 franchise or owned stores. How has that shifted over the last several years? How do you see that shifting in the future?

It has shifted a lot and that is very close. Right now, we have 43 corporate stores. Several years ago, we would have as few as 8, but it grew a little bit to 15, 16 units. This big growth trajectory we’ve had on a corporate basis is not necessarily new store development. It’s acquiring franchisees who are exiting the system.

When I started at Cousins in 2001, we had over 90 franchise groups. Now, we have less than 30 and that doesn’t mean we’re not franchising, but we’re very particular about who we’re franchising with. We don’t just open the flood gates. We stay very disciplined about what we are looking for and who we’re looking for in terms of franchising. With our franchisees, as I mentioned, many of them have been in the business for 20 to 25 years. They’re thinking about their retirement. They’re thinking this is probably a good time to sell because business has been very good for them.

 

Corporately, we’re natural buyers because we have the first right to buy. Because we already have the systems and processes in place, it’s not as though a franchisee has to sell to a brand-new person coming into the customs system. That’s difficult because that individual needs to learn the system. In this way, it can be nearly a seamless transition with corporate stores.

As long as we’re willing to invest in the labor and the support to help those stores be successful as corporate stores, we can continue to grow that. You will see continued corporate growth. At the same time, you will see franchise growth. Again, it’s about being very selective about who we pick and where we allow restaurants to grow.

Franchising and franchised concepts sometimes get a little bit fast and loose. They’ll award a franchise to about anybody. That may be great for the initial franchise fee, but it causes you pain because you’re married to them for ten years if that’s how long your agreement is. It’s about minimizing those pains that you will have with the relationship at the beginning. We would rather be very slow and cautious in our franchising than have anybody come in.

It seems much more sustainable and with a lot fewer headaches.

Yes, well said.

You’re very active in the Milwaukee community through the Make It Better Foundation at Cousins. Why did you join the First Federal Board here? Are there any similarities between your business and a community bank?

There are a number of reasons why I joined the First Federal Board.

 

Other than Ed Schaefer.

My dad was on the First Federal Board for many years. I didn’t lobby for it. When I was asked to be on it, I was touched because at that time my dad had stepped off and I thought, “Maybe I can do something good here.” It’s a great organization. They are so similar to Cousins in the sense that they’re Wisconsin based. They’re a small business. We’re not these big behemoths out there. We have competitors that are larger than us, but the similarities are such that they invest in the community, whether that’s buying branches that are in areas that maybe are underserved.

It’s about helping individuals achieve some financial independence and have a place to go or maybe if they’re starting their business, they have a trusted banking partner in their community. That’s important. I love that. They have their foundation just like Cousins has its foundation. They support causes whether that’s promoting financial literacy for young people, which is so important or helping a women’s shelter in Waukesha.

There are many things that First Federal does that touch the hearts and lives of individuals. It’s not for them just about getting a banking fee or making the money, it’s about staying invested in these communities. That is certainly at the heart of Cousins. Learning more in-depth about that in First Federal solidifies the relationship that I have with them. I couldn’t be more proud to be on the board of First Federal.

We’ll end it there. Thanks so much for coming on.

I had fun. Thank you.

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Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode with Cousins’ CEO Christine Specht brought to you by Go Geddit Marketing and Media, GGMM.io. For our friends at Milwaukee, just a reminder, this was originally aired on First Federal Bank’s Keeping It Local Podcast. If you’re looking to grow your brand through podcasting, video, or digital advertising, make sure to reach out or head to our website, GGMM.io. We’ve got a form on there. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for tuning in.

 

Important Links

• Cousins Subs
• Keeping It Local Podcast
• First Federal Bank
• Make It Better Foundation
• Christine Specht
• GGMM.io

 

About Christine Specht

I grew up with Cousins Subs—the sub sandwich chain my dad, Bill Specht, founded with his cousin in 1972. In fact, my first job was at the Cousins Subs in Germantown, Wisconsin.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in criminology and law studies from Marquette University and a master’s degree in public administration from American University, I returned to the family business. I have held the roles of Human Resources Manager, Chief Operating Officer, President and CEO, and now serves as CEO. I have successfully brought new life to a legacy brand by leading a series of system changes, including: a largescale rebranding strategy to establish consistency and unify the brand in look and feel across all locations, the implementation of grills in restaurants and the inclusion of Cousins Subs’ Midwest heritage throughout its menu with signature local products including subs served with all Wisconsin cheeses, Wisconsin Mac & Cheese and Wisconsin Cheese Curds.

I proudly serve on a number of boards, including: chair of MRA – The Management Association, chair of the Concordia University Wisconsin Ann Arbor Foundation board, member of the Concordia University Wisconsin Board of Regents and member of the First Federal Bank of Wisconsin board. I also serve as the president of the Cousins Subs Make It Better Foundation board and member of the Cousins Subs Board of Directors.

I previously served on the board of Community Memorial Hospital, Lutheran Living Services, Wisconsin Restaurant Association Milwaukee Chapter and Grace Lutheran Church.

In 2018, I was honored as one of the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Women of Influence and recognized in FastCasual magazine’s “Women in the Lead” series.

Cousins Subs was recently named ‘Best Sandwich’ in the 2019 Best of Milwaukee Awards and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Top Choice Awards Best Sandwiches or Sub Shop in 2019.

 

Podcasting is a rapidly growing form of media that presents unique opportunities for both individuals and businesses. But what are these opportunities? How can you make money through podcasting when you’re just starting out or aren’t interested in paid advertising? In this episode, I answer this and more.

This past May, Podfest invited me to speak on how one can effectively monetize a podcast and to share how I’ve managed to grow and monetize my podcast, The GoGedders, to over 220,000 downloads in three years and generated over seven figures for GGMM. So, whether you currently have a podcast or are curious about the benefits of starting a podcast for your business, you’re sure to learn some key insights. So tune in and discover the top four ways to monetize your podcast.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

The Top 4 Ways To Monetize A Podcast Without A Huge Following

If you read through the whole thing, you’ll be walking away with my main takeaways from a few successful podcasters that spoke at Podfest and my four ways to monetize a podcast without a mega-following so you don’t have to rely on ads. These four ways are all based on what I’ve done personally over the years to generate well over seven figures in revenue for GGMM based directly on the podcast that has enabled the GoGedders to generate hundreds of thousands of downloads.

These will all be takeaways that you can apply to your own show or if you are thinking about starting a podcast, you’ll also get a lot of good information on how you should go about it. Also, if you’re looking to have the podcast move the needle for you from a business standpoint because a lot of companies that start podcasts don’t do what I’m about to go over and don’t get the results that they set out to get.

This show will be very applicable if you’re anywhere from a Fortune 500 brand to a small to a mid-sized business owner or marketer or even an individual looking to start a podcast or grow your brand. The information in this is all based on the Podfest conference I attended in Orlando and did have the opportunity to speak at that conference as well on podcast monetization.

This show is brought to you by GoGeddit Marketing and Media, GGMM.io and our friends out in OnMilwaukee. I’m going to reference some of my overarching findings in this episode. I want to give some credit. They are based on my favorite speeches that I listened to at Podfest. There were a lot of good speakers but the ones that stood out were the hosts of the Grow The Show, The Only One In The Room, Young and Profiting and The Stacking Benjamins podcasts. These are all very successful podcasts. After I go over my overarching takeaways, I’ll dive into the four ways to monetize a podcast without a mega-following. Thanks again for reading. Let’s dive in.

The Elements Of Good Podcast Content

The common themes that I got as far as podcast growth goes from these 4 were number 1, their contents are good and it’s for a specific audience. If you’re thinking of starting a podcast, how can you create good content? How can you get it in front of that specific audience? What I’m talking about good content, especially in their case, there was usually an element of it that was polarizing, authentic, vulnerable, educational, entertaining or a blend of all five of those things. If you can hit on those triggers, polarizing authenticity, vulnerability, educational and entertaining, that’s where a lot of the good stuff is.

Joe Rogan is super successful. Some people like him. Some people hate him. He is polarizing and very entertaining. His content is educational. He hits on those. He does a good job. These people are not afraid to tackle controversial or taboo topics. Especially at the start, they have a very well-defined audience and it’s a narrow audience. Those things are important, whether you’re starting out or just trying to reposition your podcast. They’re all very consistent as well.

Kevin started his show but before then, he had a podcast but all the other ones were in the hundreds of episodes. I’m in the hundreds of episodes. A lot of people think they can put out a few episodes or an episode a month. It’s hard to gain an active listenership in that base or way. If you want to put out a series of podcasts, I’m not opposed to that as long as it’s going to help your sales process, you have a marketing strategy behind it and it’s used as evergreen content to serve your audience.

Good content is either polarizing, authentic, vulnerable, educational or entertaining, or a blend of all those five things. Click To Tweet

That can still be a very smart business move but if you’re looking to grow regular listenership and a larger following, then consistency is very important. Laura from The Only One In The Room who’s gotten the 28 million or 38 million downloads and a book deal had a good all-encompassing marketing strategy. Her team hustled and got after it. I know Hala also did that. They both had teams of interns who were getting good experience running all their content. They didn’t do this on a large budget but it was a lot of sweat and effort to do. They were doing articles that were getting featured in larger publications. They were getting media features, whether it was going on TV, pitching their podcasts to TV or going on other larger podcasts. They were in the media outside of their podcast.

They’re also very active on social media. They picked a platform and dominated it. In some cases, several platforms. I’d be active on social media and play to your strengths. There’s a lot of opportunity on TikTok even when it comes to posting podcasts and clips. Instagram, LinkedIn or whatever your strong ad, these people did a very good job on social media. They got influential guests. They were consistent. None of them seem like they had a magic bullet. They created good content that was somewhat polarizing, authentic and vulnerable. They were not afraid to tackle controversial or taboo topics.

A lot of them have an element of humor or they’re educational and very entertaining at the same time. Combining good content with a very good and aggressive marketing strategy is key. We’ve done a lot of that through the GoGedders. I talked about my anxiety in this episode. We’ve done a lot of episodes on race and hot topics. We’ve marketed them pretty aggressively at times through social media, video, our partnership with our OnMilwaukee, our email list, live appearances and traditional media that we’ve got into, whether it’s been conferences, the newspaper or doing a lot of podcasts at rotary clubs. We’ve gotten out there in that way.

Using The Podcast As A Tool To Promote And Sell Your Own Products And Services

Moving on to the main takeaways from my speech, which were how to monetize a podcast without a mega-following and relying on ads and what we’ve done to generate hundreds of thousands of downloads and bring it over seven figures for our small business since 2019. The 4 ways that we’ve mainly used to monetize this show are number 1) Using the podcast as a tool to promote and sell our products and services, 2) Using it as a way to get earned media and speaking gigs and press that have led to business, 3) Sponsorships and, 4) Having people pay us money to come on our podcast.

The first is, “Promoting your products and services.” Podcasting is an absolute crack sales and network in play. When I started the podcast as a young, small business owner, I was doing cold calling, cold emailing and showing up to every networking event. That worked. To an extent, it was a lot of work, unanswered phone calls and unanswered emails. It was a lot. When I came up with the GoGedders, I thought it would be the one I wanted to do.

I saw a lot of success in entrepreneurial podcasts on a national level and I said, “No one’s doing this in Milwaukee for Milwaukeeans. I can be that guy.” Selfishly, I thought it would be a good way to network and meet people, which is proven. A lot of those unanswered emails before when I emailed the same person and invited them on the podcast usually respond within the hour and be down in our office the next week. They’d have a good experience. We’d create a bunch of content for them. We’d tell their story and promote them. We’d essentially make them look like a hero.

A lot of times, after that, it would be like, “What do you guys do here?” I’d let them know what we do at GGMM. They’d introduce us to their marketing department. That’s what led to a lot of business for us. If you have a podcast, use it as a tool to have those conversations on important topics within your industry or whatever your podcast is about and invite those centers of influence or prospects that you want to get in front of. I never hard sell or pitch someone when they come in here. That’s not my style when I’m hosting the podcast. It’s not why I do it.

Combining good content with a very good and aggressive marketing strategy is key. Click To Tweet

Consequently, it’s led to a lot of relationships that have organically turned into a business over the last few years. Some people recommend pitching your guests right after they come on the podcast. That’s not my style at all but I’ve formed a lot of good relationships with these guests. I’ve provided value to them before ever asking for something because that’s essentially what you’re doing when you have someone on your podcast and you’re creating things for them and positively promoting them. You’re adding value to them. The best rule of networking I believe is adding value to others and helping others win. Essentially you’re doing that if you’re highlighting people on your podcast.

They tend to like you and you tend to form a relationship organically. It can go from there. It’s not transactional but transactions end up happening somewhere down the road. We’ve also done mid-roll ads on our podcast and those perform well. You’re always almost going to get more. If you have a legitimate business product or service, you’re going to get more out of advertising that on your podcast because you’re forming a relationship with your listeners as the host of your show. Especially if you’re positioning yourself as the expert, there’s a good chance they’re going to want to buy and work with you one-on-one. Make sure you put that out.

On this show, most of the episodes are not solo episodes like this. I’m usually interviewing other people, which is not positioning me as an expert but I put my mid-roll ad into the right audience and be like, “This Richie guy knows what he’s doing. This is a good episode. They offer a bunch of marketing services. I should reach out to him or see how I can get involved in this show or my company wants a show, needs video work, digital ads or whatever that may be.”

In using your ads, you’re going to get more out of that than trying to put other people’s ads in your podcast, do affiliate marketing or something like that. You can also do episodes on your products if it’s done right. If you are doing a commercial on your product, it is probably not going to be very good at podcast episodes. A good example of this is Trek whose show we produce, the Better With Bikes podcast came out with this revolutionary new helmet a few years ago called Wave Cell, which it’s 42 times better at preventing concussions than the average helmet or other standard helmets.

It’s a good technology that these guys spent one decade developing. Trek had two engineers that develop that technology. It was an interesting story about how they formulated it and how they’re trying to change cycling safety for the better. It wasn’t a commercial but essentially it did a good job of promoting the helmet and people wanting to buy a helmet after listening to it. If you can create a good story about one of your products or maybe even someone else’s product and do it as an affiliate, you can make money that way.

Using The Podcast As A Way To Get Earned Media And Speaking Gigs That Lead To Business

Number two is using the podcast to get earned media and speaking gigs that lead to business. This show has a partnership with OnMilwaukee. For those of you who don’t know, they do awesome content. They are a fun blog news site in Milwaukee that’s been around since the early 2000s. Jeff and Andy founded it back in the day. Jeff’s no longer there. Andy runs it but they do a good job. We have complimentary audiences.

At the time when we got that partnership, they weren’t producing any podcast content. They then have FoodCrush, which is a good show. If you’re a foodie in the Milwaukee area, make sure to check it out. With OnMilwaukee, essentially, we shout them out as a partner. In every episode, we put their logo on our marketing materials. We write articles and then they’ll publish them on their site. They promote our social content sometimes if it aligns with their social strategy. That enabled us to get on a bigger scale, especially at the beginning.

The best rule of networking is adding value to others and helping others win. Click To Tweet

If you have a podcast within a specific industry, think of what publications, media companies, websites or social media accounts your audience is spending time on. Is there a way you can partner with them? Is there a way you can make them a media partner of your podcast and do something similar to what I’m doing with on OnMilwaukee to get your distribution at a higher level at the beginning? The first thing is, is there a media partnership within your industry that you can pursue?

Number two, I’ve got to speak at a lot of conferences because of my podcast. Some of these are doing live podcasts. If someone has a conference in the Milwaukee area, a lot of them have done a lot of GoGedders that. This enabled me to get in front of new audiences, network and get in front of a lot of people that way, done conferences, chambers, rotary clubs, things like that, where my target audience is hanging out and my podcast would make good content.

Speaking at those places doing live podcasts is a good way to get your podcast out in front of your target audience and meet the right people. Also, local press and industry press. I talked about this. The woman from The Only One In The Room did a good job of this. If you have certain podcast episodes or if your podcast is newsworthy, you can get coverage in the local media, which can drive more downloads, subscriptions, users and press for your business.

Sponsorships

Number three is sponsorships. When a lot of people think of sponsorships, they think of ad dollars that are going to come in. The reality is that 99.5% don’t make any good money or would not make any good money on podcast advertising, including me. Podcast ads on a CPM model or Cost Per Mille, which is Latin or something for 1,000. It means Cost Per 1,000 downloads, which is what people will pay to advertise on your podcast. Those rates are typically in the $25 to $50 CPM range where I believe the average is around $33, even on the lower end of that.

That’s how much you can get paid for podcast ads. A lot of advertisers aren’t going to touch a show unless it’s getting 10,000 downloads an episode. Even the GoGedders as a show when we’re doing well and getting 10,000 downloads a month if I put 3 ads that $33 into every single episode, all 4 episodes as an aggregate, we’d be getting $1,000 a month in ad revenue, which would not pay for the production, content and time that goes into this podcast.

If anyone wants to hand me $1,000 a month, I will happily accept it. That would be great but that’s not going to move the needle from an ROI standpoint from this show. That’s the reality of ads on podcasts. When I do sponsorship deals, I think of how much value can I add to the sponsor with the resources that I have. I think of myself in this show as a marketing and media company. If you’re a podcaster, you should think of yourself as a marketing and media company as well.

Media companies have distribution. They distribute content. As a podcaster, you have some level of distribution. The larger audience you have, the more you can demand because the more distribution you have. You should also come at it with a marketing agency mindset. I say marketing and media mindset because companies pay for content. As a marketing agency, some companies will pay us $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 plus for a video.

The four ways of monetizing a podcast without a big following are: promoting your own products and services; using it as a way to get earned media and speaking gigs’ using it to get business sponsorships; and having people pay to come on your… Click To Tweet

Those videos, the high-end ones require production crews and stuff like that. There’s time and effort to go into that but companies are used to paying for content. Also as a media company, you realize a lot of media outlets, whether it’s trade publications or local business publications, are mostly pay-to-play articles in a lot of ways where if they advertise, they’ll also get articles, sponsored content and all of that.

I work with Meridian Putters, which is a golf company. If you’re looking for a great new putter, check out MeridianPutters.com. When I call up Golf Digest or some of the large golf publications and try and get PR or affiliates, they want us to pay $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 for an article on a campaign around it. Those are not free articles. Even when you go to look up articles like Top 10 Skincare Products, Top 10 Putters or Top 10 Vacation Sites, a lot of those articles are based on affiliates because that’s how those websites make money. If you click on those skincare products and buy them, that news site is getting a kickback.

What I’m saying is companies pay for marketing and media. You as a podcaster configured yourself as a marketing and media company. When I do sponsor deals, I try and bundle in, “You’re going to get clips of us talking about your product on the podcast. We can mix in the roll of your product, run a campaign for you and drive traffic to your website. Your marketing team can take these clips and use them in your Facebook, TikTok or Instagram advertising. We’re going to give you shout-outs on the podcast. The guests we have who are influencers are also going to be posting about your product in the podcast episode and sharing that.”

I’m trying to create a bundle. When I do that, that takes me out of that CPM model where I wouldn’t be making much money. It puts me in a different category where I do make good money and provide good value to the clients. I’m looking at, “With the resources I have, what can I offer this person?” That’s how I do sponsorships.

Having People Pay To Come On Your Podcast

Number four is having people pay to come on your podcast. A lot of the media world and all of the marketing world are paid to play. A lot of GoGedders episodes are not paid. A decent amount is paid to some extent. Sometimes it’s just, “Do you want us to amplify your episode? We can run an ad campaign around it. We can take the videos. We’re already creating and driving more traffic to the episode to your website if guests or business leaders come on.” It’s a good value proposition for them.

The guideline I have is I never have people come on the show who I do not think would make a good story for my audience. It’s never someone who comes on and it’s like a commercial. It needs to be a good episode for the audience. The audience wouldn’t know if it was paid or not. What we do, especially to companies who don’t want to go through all the time and effort to start their podcast but a podcast is valuable content to them, it’s a bundled package of, “You can come on the show. We’re going to create video content that you have full rights to and run a campaign around it. You’re going to get this kind of media distribution.” Bundling that all together is essentially how those deals work and why people pay to come on. This podcast is a good marketing vehicle and distribution for them.

To recap, my four ways of monetizing without a big following are promoting your products and services, using it as a way to get earned media and speaking gigs that lead to business, sponsorships but selling it as a bundle, not as ads on how you can add the most value, having that marketing and media mindset and then having people pay to come on your show. You can do all those. The more distribution and the value you can provide, the more you can demand. Those are some ways that I’ve been able to monetize this show. It’s brought in a lot of money for GGMM without taking ad dollars from companies.

Thanks so much for reading this episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. If you need help implementing any of the tactics that I went over, you need help with production for your podcast or you’re a company looking to grow through podcasting, we’d love to hear from you. Go to our website, GGMM.io. We’ve got a nice form that you can fill out on there.

 

Important Links

• Podfest
• GGMM.io
• OnMilwaukee
• FoodCrush
• MeridianPutters.com

Although there is no single perfect formula for producing viral content, learning from the experts can certainly level up your game. This episode features Wisconsin-based content creators Alex Wehrley and Kristin Brey, who have collectively amassed thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok. The two share their journey to reach their current social media status and the well-kept secrets of their creative process. They discuss how to increase online presence, deal with all kinds of feedback, and translate pressing issues into comedic posts. Alex and Kristin also answer a few questions about Wisconsin and perform a mini “Wisconsin Women Wanted” segment.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Wisconsin’s Content Queens Alex Wehrley And Kristin Brey Share Tips, Backstories, And More!

In this episode, I have two of my favorite content creators joining me, Alex Wehrley and Kristin Brey. If you’re on TikTok or Instagram, I’m sure you’ve seen them as they’ve been putting out a lot of viral Wisconsin-based content. We’re going to get to know the backstories behind these two. You’re also going to get insights on how they create content that goes viral. If you’re a brand business creator looking to up your game and get more exposure in the marketplace, you’ll get some good takeaways.

We also have a lightning round of Wisconsin-based questions. Because these two did put out a comedic video about launching Wisconsin Women Wanted, a premier dating service for men, where they gave red flags and green flags based on certain traits of guys, I couldn’t resist and had to throw them some real-life scenarios involving my friends like Dancing Cowboy MKE, Jack Blair, and more for them to red flag and green flag.

The lightning round in the red flag and green flag is all at the end of the episode. A quick background on our guests. Alex won Miss Wisconsin back in 2009. She hosted the Miss USA pageant in 2015. She has been a TV host and producer for networks like VH1, CNN, Fox and more. She also has her own company Empowerista which helps brands create content for social media campaigns. She’s a DIY expert and a former Big Buck Hunter model, which we dive into.

Kristin is the Creator and Founder of As Goes Wisconsin, a bipartisan media initiative that helps move Wisconsin forward one show at a time. She’s the first idea lab video columnist of the Journal Sentinel, a radio host on WTMJ. She has been an actress, writer, producer, and even had a stint working in tech in the Bay Area.

Just a reminder, if you have guest suggestions, topics suggestions or have a brand that wants to get involved with the GoGedders, visit our website GGMM.io and click on the GoGedders tab or you can fill out the form on our website and we’ll get back to you. All right, let’s dive in.

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A lot of people know you from the Wisconsin-based content you’ve been creating over the last few years. Not a lot of people know your backstories and how you’ve gotten into doing what you’re doing now. Do you mind giving us the rundown? Alex, we can start with you.

My background is in local television. I cut my teeth on small market TV. I started in Rockford and then worked my way up to Oklahoma City, Dallas and LA. I worked in traditional TV for a while. I had a lot of fun with that but then the industry was changing a ton. It went from more traditional TV being popular to social media being popular. I was trying to find my voice and navigate this new popular space of content creation and love the idea of not having to wait to get hired for my next gig and having a little bit more creative freedom in my work and my schedule. It has been a journey.

I’ve been creating content for many years. I would say since probably 2015, but honestly, it has taken off, especially in the past few years. I would attribute that to a couple of things. COVID helps give me the time for sure to experiment with more things. Also, I would say experimenting with the topics that I enjoy talking about and the topics that resonate with my audience. In the past couple of years, it has taken off for me. Enter Kristin. I moved back before COVID but you moved back during COVID. I’ll let you speak for yourself but probably, similarly, you found yourself with some extra time. There were a lot of synergies. We both lived in LA. We’re both newly back in Milwaukee and creating content. It was such a natural fit for you and me to collaborate.

Mine is similar but different as far as from Wisconsin, left Wisconsin, came back to Wisconsin. I went from Madison and moved to LA when I was sixteen to be an actress. I had an agent and a manager. I booked some things with the best. I hit the winning shot in a movie called Believe In Me, where I was a star basketball player.

Similar to what you said as far as not waiting to get cast, I quit acting around twenty and started going to college because I didn’t want to wait for someone to pick my journey for me. I went to school, then undergraduate from UC Berkeley, worked in tech and learn a lot more about business and startups. People don’t understand that it’s also a part of being a content creator or managing your own media business as far as understanding click-through rates and what resonates and looking at analytics and everything like that. As much as I wasn’t passionate about tech, I certainly took the skills from sales and marketing that I learned while there and still use them daily.

Somehow, I ended up in New York for a little while and that’s where I started doing standup and sketch. I have always loved the daily show. I’ve always loved political comedy and how you use comedy to explain things or to show a different perspective. Circa 2017, I started teaching myself how to write jokes, and complex issues into short videos, how to edit, and how to shoot myself. First, I started a YouTube Channel called Below The Fold, which looks more at national issues.

I was living in LA at the time. Early 2020, I had an idea of trying to make a documentary about Wisconsin voters because we’re weird if you’ve ever paid attention to an election in Wisconsin. I came back to my parents’ house in Central Wisconsin on March 15th, 2020 and the world shut down. I quickly pivoted and took what I had learned about making short content on national issues with Below the Fold. Instead of doing the documentary, I started making content that was more specific to Wisconsin. Specifically, with trying to get out the vote in 2020 because everyone is going to be inside.

That’s how and when that took off. I realized I had found a niche here. I had an audience that was building much faster than anything else I had tried to create prior to that. It became very obvious that I needed to move back to Wisconsin but I certainly wasn’t going to stay in Central Wisconsin, which is how I ended up in Milwaukee.

Alex, you have an interesting path too. You are doing DIY videos then you’ve transitioned over. You still do some of that, but mostly Wisconsin-based short, funny, TikTok and Reels now. A lot of people would think what both of you are doing would be a smaller audience in a way, but niching down seems to have helped both of you.

It’s funny that you mentioned, “You were doing DIY content and now more Wisconsin content.” I haven’t followed typical marketing rules in the sense that I create the content I want to create. Sometimes it’s a hard-left turn where it’s like, “All right, hold on. We’re going from DIY content and Wisconsin content.”

To your point, I would say that I have a niche or a few niches. I very much so pay attention to what my audience likes. It’s a relationship between what I enjoy creating, but then also what’s well-received by my audience. I pay attention to what they like and I create more of it. Naturally, that creates a niche.

It’s interesting because, as you said, the assumption is that there’s going to be a cap on people who are interested in Wisconsin-specific content when you think of our state is less than six million people and we all have friends who left Wisconsin. A number of our friends are people from the Midwest, in general, who live all around the country. That kind of content and humor still resonates with them or your friend who knows someone who’s from Wisconsin who was like, “My buddy is like that.”

The relatable comedy that is just because it’s specific to a relatively small market, the reach that it can still have and how it can resonate with people who don’t even necessarily still live here, I’ve found the same thing, whether it’s politics or straight comedy. The number of people who have either reached out or DM me who have some connection back to Wisconsin who don’t still live here but still find the content.

The other thing I’ll add is a lot of times, when people think of a niche, they think of a subject matter. I also like to think of niche in terms of point of view and personality. Sometimes people come to someone for their subject matter, but sometimes, they come to a content creator for their point of view on the world. Maybe they’re extremely frugal or extremely down-to-earth. That has been a throughline with my DIY content. In my Midwest content, my motto is, “Good enough.” I’m an anti-perfectionist. It’s like doing it affordably and easily. That has been a throughline where people get me.

It’s very relatable. I don’t know how you stay monotone in some of those videos but you do a very good job.

That’s not how I am in real life, but it’s fun to put on that character for sure.

Kristin, why politics for you? What got you into that initially? Is it something you’ve always been into or did you see an opportunity where there was a void in the market?

I would say it has always been there, even starting in high school. I remember the first pretty political thing I paid attention to was the Bush-Gore election, which I was a freshman in high school, which is a long time ago. That was the first memory of understanding what was going on. A year later, 9/11 happened. At least for me and in our age group, so much has happened in many years that has molded the country and the world.

It’s my Spidey sense of always caring about issues and how political is personal. When I was in college, I was a Public Health and Women’s Studies major. The ideas of gender and race and some of the things that drive socio-economic politics, I always am drawn back to and interested in. More specifically, how do you talk about these things without fighting about it, which is why a little bit later, comedy came into play because I had a performing background? It melded all together to make a lot of sense for me. It’s issues that I find interesting or issues that affect a lot of different people. Trying to talk about solutions without being super boring.

Can you guys talk about your process for creating content? Do you plan content out? Is it on a whim of what’s hot now and an idea pops in your head? You’re like, “Let’s go.” You’re both very good at it. I’m curious. I think there are some good takeaways for people here who create content.

If people saw my process, they would think I was a hot mess. I have ideas in my note section. I have a Trello board that’s neglected. I have a Google doc. I get inspiration from everyday life from talking to friends, talking to family, and living my life. I’m one of the hosts of Discover Wisconsin. That gives me a lot of Wisconsin inspiration. I’ll get these ideas in life then I’ll jot them down in the million different places that I keep notes for content creation ideas.

At some point, when it’s time to create content in advance, by in advance, I mean 3 to 7 days in advance, I might think about it. Is that even more than you? Sometimes it’s even the same day as well, but I do not work that much in advance. I’ll try and sit down and be like, “Here are all my ideas. Now, what are the ones that I feel like I can write a script to?” Part of the challenge is, “This is a fun concept but now how do I bring this to life with a script?” There are certain ideas that flow for me where it’s like, “Here it is.”

I like to follow what feels easy and what flows because again, my motto is “Good enough.” Sometimes, I’ll be working with a sponsor or collaborating with someone where it’s like, “This might not feel super easy at the moment but I believe in this brand. I believe in this collaboration. I believe in this concept. Let’s think outside of the box. How do we make this work?” It’s changed.

When people think of a niche, they think of a subject matter. But sometimes, it is a point of view and the personality of the content creator. Click To Tweet

Is that how you go about things?

Because of the content that I was creating, it opened up opportunities. Now I’m doing stuff at Journal Sentinel. I’m doing stuff at WTMJ.

I would be interested to hear almost your process working with news outlets like that as opposed to your own personal accounts or As Goes Wisconsin.

Now, I’m doing one video. We do one video a week that’s considered a video column. In the same idea as an editorial or an op-ed that is an opinion in a newspaper. We’re being innovative with the idea as far as now, it’s me on camera giving an opinion on news in Journal Sentinel specific to Wisconsin and/or Milwaukee. The ideas lab, which was the op-ed, is a portion of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Me and my boss, it’s basically what is on my mind. What is topical for the week? What is the news of the week? What is important potentially to try to explain further in a less complicated way versus what is firing me up that week? As far as the topics go, there’s some balance between what I am fired up about and also what we think is important to convey in a different medium than just the written word.

That is a weekly brainstorm and then I write it. Even though the Below the Fold times, I’m an expert in nothing. The amount of research I got to do to try to understand it enough myself to then put it into 200 words or less, sometimes 100 words or less to get the most important points out is a lot of over-preparation to then distill it down into the most important things to say.

That’s when it comes to an explainer. There’s more work and it’s hard to make things short, and try to also couple in like, “What can we replace with images and visualization instead of me saying something?” You do have to capture someone’s attention so quickly. Graphics or sound effects or different things that can keep people’s attention or explain something further without me having to say more words certainly is part of the process for that.

That’s part of my job. With the radio, it’s reading the news every day and coming in with a hot take, as far as being able to say, “What do I think about it? Have we thought about it this way? Did you know this?” I’m trying to be the voice on the morning show that I’m on as far as bringing a different perspective.

When you guys are creating Reels or TikToks, are there certain elements that you’re trying to hit on or check the box as far as humor you are bringing up like sound effects or things to make the videos engaging, get more views, go more viral or things like that when you’re in your creative process?

There are themes for things that go viral. For both of us, the comedy part is huge. For anyone who’s wanting to have success as a content creator, there are a lot of different routes to go but I will say that comedy is one of the best routes if you can do it or can learn it. It can be learned as well. I tried to be very mindful of making sure those punch lines are in there. I would also say relatability and having reference points.

I’ve noticed a lot that my Wisconsin content does especially well when people have reference points. For example, I did a video on if various Wisconsin places were family members. I think why that video did well is because people know the low-hanging fruit of various stereotypes like Madison versus Milwaukee. I talked about how I feel like Milwaukee is underrated and appreciated. Madison is cool. It knows it’s cool. People already have those reference points or at least my audience does. It resonates with them. It’s finding those from a topic standpoint and finding the topics that resonate with your audience.

TikTok was a little bit of a game changer for me in how I approached content. Before, it was always scripted. It was always incredibly well-researched. It was sometimes long-winded, even if I’m trying to get as much content in this short period of time. What TikTok had taught me, especially before, it was 15 seconds, then it was 30 seconds, then it was a minute. Now it’s ten minutes or something. That’s YouTube.

In the video meme aspect of TikTok, whenever I try to explain TikTok to someone who’s not on it in the same way that meme culture takes an image and changes the joke based on what the words are, with the similarity that follows the joke is the image. With TikTok, using the sounds, that’s the similarity. Watching people how they use the same sounds to create a different position, scenario or whatever, and watching the creativity that can flow from there, it taught me a lot as far as you don’t always have to have a super researched script with a bunch of setup and punchlines to get a point across.

To be able to take an image of a headline and a sound from friends. I used one about weed and Wisconsin. Weed dexterously still illegal in Wisconsin. I used a headline saying, “How much money Chicago or Illinois has made in tax revenue from weed?” I put that up and then used a sound from Friends of Rachel going, “I’m not jealous. Maybe a little bit but not jealous.” That was it. That’s all I had to say and people got what the point was instead of making a huge diatribe about why we should do this. What TikTok has been able to create is making things that are shorter and direct to the point but still funny. It totally changed how I approached content.

It’s interesting hearing her talk because it goes to show there are multiple strategies for how you can create content online. She has knocked it out of the park by hopping on some of these audio trends and video memes. I haven’t done a ton of that. I would say that more of my original content takes off. I’ve dabbled a little bit in that and I probably should do more. My point is a lot of it is finding what works for you. I’m a big fan of experimenting and seeing what works, then doing more of what works.

Any additional pieces of advice for content creators who are looking to grow or people who are looking to start creating content?

When Alex said experiment and don’t be too precious about anything, that is the best advice and just start. Perfect is the enemy of done or the intimidation or imposter syndrome or it’s not good enough. Whenever I look back at stuff I made a year ago, let alone when I first started, it’s so hard, like what my performance was and what joke I thought was funny and how I dress. If you are waiting to be perfect to start, you’re never going to. Just putting it out there. There’s so much content that unless you say something so wildly inflammatory, it gets you fired. There’s not much you can do that’s wrong. No one sees it. You just start.

I would echo that 100%. You’re going to go through a cringy stage and accept it. That takes being okay with what people think of you. You have to put that aside. As long as you can stand by your own content and feel confident about it or maybe you don’t even feel confident about it but to Kristin’s point, you’re not saying something overly offensive. You can at least still stand behind your values and how you’re representing yourself as a person. You have to experiment and be consistent because it takes time to build an audience.

Another thing I feel like people don’t talk about a lot is it’s not just one-sided. You can’t just post and then get off the platform. You have to engage in the comments. In the beginning, you might not get any comments. That might mean finding other people in your niche and engaging with those people and other people’s content sections. There are various strategies but the main thing is to get started and be consistent.

That’s so true. When you start, it’s as bad as it ever is going to be and it’s only up from there too. I remember when I started this show. I think in the first episode, I had two of my friends on. That took me five tries to get through the intro. I got some hot tea before to make sure my voice would be okay. It was not the smoothest performance on my part but it got better from there.

Everyone starts better.

How often are you folks surprised by the amount of engagement your posts or Reels get or don’t get or is it relatively predictable at this point?

For me, it’s not predictable because sometimes, I’ll have short things that do well and don’t. Sometimes I’ll have longer things that are over a minute that do well. I should probably be better at keeping a log of what has the highest views or engagement and what patterns I can tell. Again, I make the things that I want to make. I’m not super analytical in how I approach it but it’s not predictable for me.

 

I would say it’s predictable within a range. I know what my low point is and what my high point is but it’s funny. There are certain videos where you can see it coming where it’s like, “This one has what it takes to do well and is going to resonate with people.” A lot of times, you’re right, then sometimes you’re completely wrong where it’s like, “This one was going to take off and it totally was flat.”

When you first asked that question, something that I thought of was that I shouldn’t be surprised anymore but I’m still surprised by how many assholes are on TikTok. It’s ridiculous. That is something going back to your question about how to prepare content creators, you do have to grow a thick skin. The more you grow your following, the more mean voices there are. You have to grow a thick skin and let it roll right off your back.

It’s shocking to me because your stuff is so safe.

It’s hard to hate on that but in the political realm.

When someone comes at me for my opinion on something without asking for it, it’s like, “All right,” but you’re going to get it.

You’re going to get bashed no matter what.

Versus the stuff you make. I’m like, “Who is hating on you?”

Thank you, but I can give you a perfect example. I posted a video and somebody in the comment section said, “Have you ever thought about getting a boob job?” I blocked them. That’s how I handle those things. I was like, “No, I like my A-cups. Thank you very much.” Who asks that?

Now, I’m trying to imagine you with Pamela Anderson’s boobs walking on the set the next time we filmed together.

It’s like I’m not surprised but I am surprised. You’re constantly reminded that there are people out there that don’t understand. There aren’t acceptable things to ask a stranger about or say to a stranger.

Alex and I, the last time we filmed together, we were commiserating a little bit on this topic. The same goes with not letting compliments get to you either and getting your ego to blow up. If you can stay steady and trust what you’re making and trust, who you are and the opinion that you’re having and what you’re putting out in the world, then the steadiness of someone complimenting you. I say this to someone who wants to get complimented.

Who doesn’t?

If you’re positively affected by compliments and adoration and validation, that’s where you’re getting your validation from, then no wonder when a stranger says something mean or cruel or targets something that you’re already insecure about, it’s going to have the same effect on the negative side potentially. You can’t have one without the other. You have to stay the course and not let either the positive or the negative affect you.

Your self-esteem can not be dependent on what others think of you.

It’s a lot more unstable when it relies on extrinsic forms of validation.

It’s from strangers. They’re from people but that is your audience. You cannot not pay attention to it, but it’s a fine line between how much you let it dictate how you feel about yourself and what content you’re making.

Let’s move on to some Wisconsin lightning round questions, then we’re going to hear from the two founders of Wisconsin Women Wanted, and then we’ll do a few fans’ submitted questions. Each of you, what is the best place to travel in Wisconsin in the summer? Favorite spot.

I got back from Door County, so I’m biased now. Door County or the up north area.

I was going to say the exact same thing. It is a toss-up between Door County and up North. It depends on what vibe you want. If you want a classy vibe, you go to Door County. If you want true good old Wisconsin, you up North. Both are so fantastic for different reasons.

Favorite Wisconsin beach or lake?

I would say Pewaukee Lake. That’s my family’s lake. My mom had a house on that lake for a while. It feels like home. I have so many good memories of that lake. I love that there are restaurants on the lake. There’s a little downtown area. There are great beaches. The boating is great. It’s shockingly never overly crowded. It’s a short drive away, so it’s super convenient.

I would say nostalgic-wise, it’s still Mendota or Monona. I don’t know if it’s the best lake in Wisconsin but those are the best lakes in Wisconsin.

I love Mendota. It is great. There is something to being on a boat on Mendota and seeing all of Madison and Maple Bluff. It reminded me of childhood. I’ll say that.

Just accept what people think of you. Put aside negative feedback, stand by your content, and always feel confident about it. Click To Tweet

I love the Terrace. That was one of my favorite things to do at Madison.

The best cheese curds in Wisconsin.

There’s a cheese factory next in Rudolph, Wisconsin, next to my parent’s house, which is called Rudolph Cheese Factory. We can go there and they made that like fifteen minutes ago. They have a timestamp on when they were made. I’m more of a fresh cheese curd person. I would say Rudolph Cheese Factory.

I would say Renard’s.

Where is that?

In Door County. It’s good.

Is it a restaurant?

I’m afraid that I’m saying it wrong but I’m 99% positive I’m saying it right. I believe they exclusively make different types of cheese but they are known for their cheese curds. You can’t miss them when you’re going into Door County and right on the way out. They’re fantastic and they squeak. That’s the true sign that it’s a good cheese curd.

Favorite Wisconsin beer or drink.

I like Fantasy Factory.

In Madison, Karben4.

With the crazy cat riding the unicorn, I’m a big IPA person.

I have to pick a few. Spotted Cow, Summer Shandy has something about it that’s super nostalgic for me, Sprecher, their Abbey Triple, and I love a good old Brandy Old-Fashioned as well.

It’s not a beer.

You could add a drink to your answer.

Skip and Go Naked.

I’ve never heard of that. Feel free to educate the audience.

I don’t think it’s unique to Wisconsin but we’ll go with it. It’s concentrated lemonade mixed with Miller Lite beer and a handle of vodka. You make it like a punchbowl. It’s like the Jungle Juice that we got herpes from in college.

One thing Wisconsin newbies need to know about Wisconsin other than don’t drink Wop.

I did a video on this and I was joking but also serious. You need to make friends with two types of people in this state. 1) Someone who owns a boat. 2) Someone who has a cabin. If you find those two friends, your Wisconsin experience is going to be very heightened.

That’s good advice. My first instinct was to say something about don’t get stuck in the Midwest goodbye. The politeness and niceness of a conversation that can happen in the Midwest if you’re from the coast are very different. Knowing that it’s okay to end the conversation and keep going.

I love the kindness. I don’t like when it takes you 30 minutes from saying goodbye to getting out the door. Both are great answers. This is not Wisconsin-related, but the craziest reaction you’ve ever gotten to your content other than someone recommending a boob job. It could be positive too. Anything.

My most viral video was on TikTok and it was when I revealed that I am a buck hunter model. I filmed that when I was 22. I didn’t think that it would live on to this day. It’s still in the bars, so I’m like, “I’m forever 22 at a small-town bar near you.”

 

Isn’t it randomly Photoshopped too? Aren’t you missing an arm?

People send me screenshots all the time. They’re like, “I saw you Saturday night playing Big Buck Hunter.” I did this video. The joke was like, “Whenever I’m feeling insecure about being 34, I think about how I’m forever 22 at a bar near you.” It’s meant to be a joke. Some people took it way too seriously. That ended up going viral because it turns out there are a lot of guys out there that have crushes on those girls.

That was interesting to see the range of responses from everyone being very nice and positive to very shaming when it comes to my looks to screenshots. That was a very wild experience to be exposed to that much of the internet. That’s the other weird thing about TikTok. TikTok. It pushes you often to a cold audience of people who are just seeing you for the first time. With that video, they didn’t have exposure to any of my other content. It was a very weird experience all around.

There’s not a particular video that I feel like, “I was not expecting that reaction.” Whether it’s Instagram or TikTok or Facebook, there’s a separate folder where people send you messages that you don’t know. It’s always Russian roulette opening those. It’s either a huge compliment or something that you said that meant a lot to someone and that feels good.

I was talking about how I have an uncle with Down syndrome. On the radio, I mentioned my uncle has Down syndrome and my mom is his legal guardian. I had a woman reach out to me and send me a DM of how much it meant to her hearing because she has two little boys who have Down syndrome. She’s always worried about if their older siblings will take care of them once her parents are gone.

She’s like, “I’m happy to hear that your family has embraced your Uncle Doug,” but there are a lot of messages that are not as happy about what I say and what I do. The general like, I want to open this because if I’ve said something that has a positive impact, I want to say, “Thank you for reaching out and I’m so happy that this made a difference,” but it also means you get to hear something otherwise.

I don’t know about you, we’ve talked a little bit about this, but I’ve had to create some boundaries around what I read. I’ll always be in my comment section for at least the first 30 minutes. I’m pretty good at checking direct messages on Instagram but I make sure that I’m in the right mental space to be able to get those surprises because you don’t know which way it’s going to be. I find the worst TikTok comments are usually after that 30 minutes. Sometimes I’ll see certain comments that aren’t the best for my mood, so I try to be mindful of limiting it and also making sure that I’m in the right head space to deal with whatever pops up.

That makes sense. Let’s move on to the Wisconsin Women Wanted red flag, green flag edition. I got a lot of red flags going through your TikToks on there personally. Hopefully, these guys will score slightly better.

We don’t always agree, so we will see.

Would you like us to answer in character or as the real Kristin and Alex? That’s a funny thing too. A lot of times, people take comedy extremely. They don’t realize that these are jokes and these are not always our red and green flags. Most people get that but not everybody does.

I would say maybe 75% yourselves, 25% comedic. Maybe a blend of them. You could add some comedy to it. These are all based on real scenarios. I’m probably not going to name names. They’re not all Wisconsin-based either. Some of them are but I thought we could help some friends out. We’re going to start off. This is a bit of a longer one that needs an explanation, so just hang with me. The other ones will be a little shorter.

Let’s say you’re dating a guy and it’s a Friday evening in Chicago. He goes out with one of his friends to have a couple of drinks and have a chill night. They ended up having more than a few drinks and ended up at the 4:00 AM bars. This is during the winter as well. He decides he wants to go somewhere warm. He Uber’s to O’Hare and wakes up in Austin, Texas with nothing but the clothes on his back. He calls his girlfriend the next morning and informs her he’s not going to be home for date night. What are your thoughts on this guy?

Red flag.

Until you said girlfriend, I was going to follow up and say, “Is this something he would do as a single guy or is he in a relationship?”

They were living together at that point. They no longer are but at that point, they were living together.

No kidding. I would say waking up in Austin then calling, red flag.

If someone wears a cowboy hat to local bars and changes his Instagram to Dancing Cowboy MKE, is that a red flag?

Green flag.

It’s a green flag.

Is it part of a bit or does he just love his cowboy hat?

It’s a combination. He loves rocking the cowboy hat and he’ll wear it to Brady Street in the middle of the winter and he’s gotten on the jumbotron at Buck’s Game several times as the Dancing Cowboy MKE.

A lot of it when it comes to these bold moves is self-awareness. Does he know what he’s doing or does he think that’s cool?

I think he thinks it’s funny but I don’t know if he knows it’s a complete joke. It’s somewhere in the middle.

The more you grow your online following, the more mean voices you will hear. Grow a thick skin and let those things roll right off your back. Click To Tweet

I think that’s great. Having a nice balance between embracing your individuality and your authenticity but also not everybody has cowboy hats on like having some self-awareness too. I dig it. I’m going to give it a green flag.

It’s a green flag mostly because it’s hilarious. I’m sure he gets a lot of attention. It’s a great opening line as an opportunity to talk to women. Is he single?

I believe he’s single.

It would be interesting if he keeps it up once he’s in a relationship.

He was single when he started it. I’ve seen him still rocking it but you can walk into Joe Katz and tilt the hat or something. That’s a solid move for the dancing cowboy.

Is there dancing involved?

He’s dancing on the jumbotron. I was behind the DJ booth at Trinity. The guy is all over the place. He’s a very versatile guy.

Does he have a bolo tie?

He didn’t go with that.

You should give him that for Christmas. The bolo tie would finish it off.

We recommended it to him and he refused.

Red flag for not committing.

Another question that has to do with dancing cowboy then I’m done with them. If someone rents out an entire Tiki bar at Bradford Beach.

Green flag.

It’s so funny because I’m so frugal that my mind goes to like, “How much is that?”

It’s a decent amount. He’s buying the bar drinks and making sure everyone is having a good time.

I like to have a good time. I’ll give him a green flag.

He owns several Great Clips Salons, so it was the Bradford Tiki Bar sponsored by Great Clips.

Sounds like a fun ride. We’re going to give them two green flags.

For all the ladies who want to date a guy who has received four green flags in the last couple of minutes, that’s Daniel Slade, @DancingCowboyMKE. He’s a great guy. If you are 35 and still enjoy going to Joe Katz and Red, White and Blue.

How often?

That’s a good point. How about once every two months, then we go every weekend?

Once every two months and mostly because I am marrying someone who still frequents those bars, I have to say green flag.

 

The obligatory green flag.

He’s not every weekend.

I would say green flags to every other month. Red flag to every weekend.

What about opening up at the bars to a group of girls flexing that you shot a 77 in a US Open local qualifier?

Is this you?

No. I didn’t do quite that good. He’s specifically targeting cougars now.

Targeting cougars, green flag.

Jack Blair in a 77 at the local queue. That’s all I had for that. I wish I had more. That was fun. We’ll need to get you back for some red flags, green flags.

All jokes aside, I hope all of these men find love if they haven’t already.

A lot of them have. A couple more fans submitted questions then we’ll wrap up. We went over this already but Rob Shea asked, “Ask Alex about her big game hunter model days.” Do you think that catapulted your career?

No, not at all.

How much did you get paid for that?

It was like two-day rates of something like $750 or something like that.

How did you do that? How do you find this opportunity?

When I first graduated from the University of Wisconsin, it was the height of the recession. I decided to move to Chicago. I couldn’t get a full-time job at the time. I was Miss Wisconsin. Miss Wisconsin. I graduated from Madison and couldn’t get a full-time job at first. It was like, “I’m going to move to Chicago and do modeling.”

I was with an agent there and was able to get by barely, like pay rent and that kind of thing. One of my modeling gigs through this modeling agent was Buck Hunter. I didn’t even know that much about the game. I don’t even know if I had ever played it, to be honest. I didn’t think it would live on for years and certainly did not read the fine print that I was signing a buyout deal.

$1,500 at the time and is still now is a lot of money, but when you think of signing a buyout deal in the industry to be used for twelve years, I don’t know for sure that I would have done that. At the same time, it is a great conversation starter. I made rent that month. It’s something that continues to be a hilarious story. As far as did it make me famous? No. It’s not like people connected it to my name or anything like that. It’s something that I’ve chosen to talk about and people think it’s a fun fact. Once they put the two together, they send me photos of them.

Do you ever pull flex when you go to a bar and you see it then you pull a segment or like, “Do you know who I am?”

No, I’m the opposite. I’m so awkward. Every once in a while, if somebody recognizes me, I’m so awkward about it. You would think that with what I do, I would like attention but I don’t. I have been at a bar before where someone was playing Big Buck Hunter and I come on. My buddy, Josh, was like, “Look, it’s Alex from Big Buck Hunter.” I’m like, “No, that’s my doppelganger. I swear. That’s not me.” I denied it.

If anyone sees Alex out on the town, do not say hi to her.

It’s almost weird though if you get stared at, and they don’t say hi. Please say hi. I may be awkward but I do want you to say hi.

I love attention. Feel free to say hi to me.

That sounds good. Can either of you do live shows or standup?

 

My goal is yes. I would love whether it’s stuffed with Journal Sentinel but certainly with As Goes Wisconsin. I have this idea roaming in my head of drunk civics. That’s the name of the thing. We’ll see if the name sticks, but it’s doing a comedy show that is part teaching about local government but doing it through humor and standup and panels. It’s like how Crooked Media and Lovett Or Leave It do things in front of a live audience. I would love to do stuff like that.

Every time I see standup, I think I need to start doing standup again. I did that. I just don’t prioritize the time to write new material because, for me, standup is different from the stuff that I make on camera because political comedy is hard to do in person, especially in Wisconsin, because it can get pretty divided quickly. Anything that I would ever want to do on stage would be much more personal about me and my life and much more relatable. I grew up doing theater, so I love being in front of a crowd.

I love the idea of it but I’m such a homebody. I go to bed at like 10:00 PM. I only like sleeping in my own bed. The idea of the lifestyle of staying up late and traveling, I’ll never say never but I don’t think so.

Someone with the handle Ginger Zilla said, “Once a fib, always a fib.” Do you agree with that?

I think that if you move to Wisconsin and you get Wisconsin plates and a Wisconsin license, we will welcome you with our Midwest nice arms.

Very politically correct.

Kristin is very skeptical. There are different types of fibs. There’s the traditional meaning and then there’s the friendly Illinois buddy. You can be a lifer-friendly Illinois buddy.

We’ll end on this from Matt Holbrook, a good friend of the show.

Does Matt get on here?

He’s not. Maybe after you guys are on here, Pat Connor and Tim came on. I’m building the street cred to get to someone like Holbrook. I think he’ll maybe come on now.

Are you going to get Collin to come on with them? Those two don’t separate. They are two packages of a deal.

Are those guys dating?

I don’t know. Ask his wife.

Holbrook has been looking good though. I didn’t mean to boost his ego too much but I did comment on his calves. He was at the pool on his photo from Mexico or something. I don’t know what’s going on with that guy. Do you even know who this guy is? Probably not. You’re basically done. This is the final question anyways. You can kick back over there. Anyway, Matt Holbrook, a friend of the show, “What is it like living with Michael Samson?”

He is my fiancé. He is very fun and we laugh a lot. He is missing his two front teeth. He’s getting his two front teeth replaced from an accident when he was a kid.

This was not a recent accident.

No, but it’s a long process. In October, he got us two front teeth finally taken out and they’re doing the process of putting implants in but there has to be enough bone that grows back. How comfortable this human is walking around with no teeth all the time?

Green flag.

Regularly leaves the house without wearing his little flipper denture things. It’s a lot of that. It’s a lot of him telling you that he thinks he’s funnier than I am but he’s not.

You guys are such a great couple. It is fun seeing you together. It has been fun to see the evolution of your relationships since the beginning.

Same with you and Tony.

We’ll end it on that very touching note. Thank you two so much for coming on. It was a lot of fun.

Thanks for having us.

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A big thank you to Alex and Kristin for coming on. Thank you for tuning in to this episode. If you want to help the show, please subscribe, write a review, and rate us. That helps get more ears on the show. If you want to get involved in the GoGedders or have topics suggestions or guest suggestions, visit our website GGMM.io. Click on the GoGedders tab or fill out the form on our site. Just a reminder, this show is brought to you by GoGedders Marketing and Media, GGMM.io, and our good friends over in Milwaukee. Thanks again.

 

Important  Links

• Alex Wehrley – TikTok
• Kristin Brey – TikTok
• Empowerista – Facebook
• As Goes Wisconsin
• WTMJ
• GGMM.io
• Below The Fold 2020 – YouTube
• Discover Wisconsin
• @DancingCowboyMKE – Instagram
• Crooked Media
• Lovett Or Leave It

The experience of winning the NBA championship is like no other. It’s like that show “Entourage”, you’re experiencing the joys of life together with the people you love. Pat Connaughton and his childhood best friend, now business partner, Joe Stanton, are living that show. Pat Connaughton is a notorious figure in the Milwaukee community, not only on the Bucks but also as a real estate developer. Along with Pat, we’re joined by Joe Stanton, his childhood best friend and business partner at Three Leaf Development. Join Richie Burke as he talks to Pat Connaughton and Joe Stanton on their journey these past few years. They’ll give the inside scoop on a lot of stories you’ve never heard before, like transporting the Larry O’Brien trophy from Milwaukee to Massachusetts, the parties that followed the championship, inside All Star Weekend and plenty of childhood memories. Tune in to part one of Pat Connaughton. Part 2 of Pat and Joe is coming next week. The GoGedders podcast is produced by GGMM: https://ggmm.io/

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Listen to the podcast here

I am joined by Milwaukee Buck, NBA champ, real estate mogul Pat Connaughton, as well as his best friend from childhood, who is co-hosting it with me for the second time on the show, Joe Stanton, who is also his business partner in real estate at Three Leaf Development. I have decided to chop this up into two parts. The cool thing about this, especially with Joe co-hosting, is that we get insights into a lot of stories that you have never heard of before. Pat has been on a number of shows, but we get to go deep into some childhood stories.

There are a lot of Entourage-like stories of being part of NBA All-Star Weekend, all the parties that ensued after the finals win, transporting the Larry O’Brien trophy from Milwaukee to Massachusetts, and what Joe had to go through to pull that off. All of that we will be covering in this episode. In the next episode, there are some more hilarious childhood stories. We talk baseball and real estate a little bit, and then we go into a lot of fan-submitted questions.

Thank you to everyone who did submit questions. I asked PC if he was single. A lot of ladies did submit that question to me, as well as a number of other good ones. A big thank you to Pat and Joe for coming on. Thank you to you for reading. Just a reminder, please subscribe to the show if you have not already. Write a review and share it with a friend. That all helps us get more people on these episodes. Let’s dive in.

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Pat, how are the hands? Any updates? People are wondering.

The hands are doing well. It is coming along a little bit slower than I would like, but patience has not always been my strong suit. The positive is I said to Joe, if he has problems with anybody in the development space, I got a metal plate in for some backhand stuff. If anything were to go south, our security team said they needed my help now. I got a few more job opportunities in case anything goes wrong. I have started shooting. That is the breaking news. I was able to do some shooting two weeks after surgery.

Even with that huge lump on the hand?

They said that would help work through the swelling. It might cause a little bit more but it’s like a step back in swelling, and four steps forward in recovery.

For those who have not seen it, it looks like he has got a golf ball on the back of his hand. It is getting better. To be shooting two weeks after surgery is pretty impressive.

We got Sandro Mamo, as we call him. I got this thing going where I was like, “I had surgery fourteen days ago. I have been in the gym for thirteen days since.” To be shooting fifteen days after surgery is not too bad.

When until you return?

If it was up to me, it would be two more weeks. It will probably be three. They want to be cognizant. It has nothing to do with mobility and hand strength. It is more about contact. They put a metal plate in my hand and eight screws in it. It will stay in and stabilizes the bone. The bone is in a great place to heal. It will take four weeks for the bone to heal fully. I do X-rays every week. There is still a little bit of a hairline fracture, but the movement has no problem with it. The big thing is impact. I can shoot but I can’t catch for now.

They have a guy standing next to me. I look like a quarterback. If the receiver sitting next to me catches the ball, he hands it to me and I take a shot. It is not very efficient, but it is what needs to be done for the time being. The only thing holding me back is that contact. They want to be cognizant of the fact that somebody comes down on my hand. It does not re-break, and then I am down for another four weeks, then it goes into playoffs.

You put on a show at the 2019 Dunk Contest. You did not make it to the final two. D-Wade gave you a bad rating on that one dunk. Do you regret not doing it in 2022? That would have been an easy win.

If it was not for the broken hand, I might have had an opportunity to do it. This is the debate I have had with a few people. I may have had it with Joe. He may have had more experience in this debate. Would you rather be a part of a Dunk Contest that was considered one of the best Dunk Contests of all time, also known as the 2019 Dunk Contest? The way Aaron Gordon and Derrick Jones Jr. kept doing extra dunks at the end to figure out who was going to be the champion, and I got a 50 in it. Would you rather have that or would you rather have one Dunk Contest that was significantly less fun to watch or less impressive?

Be involved in one of those Dunk Contests because those tend to be more memorable. If you make the argument, “Would you rather have a championship ring when it was an easier year to win it or be involved with the dynasty-type teams?” I might take the ring there because it is a ring. It is more meaningful, but I would rather be involved in a contest you are involved in.

I said the same thing. I am biased. Joe over here is all about winning chips. He is all about the hardware. Joe was like, “In ten years, is anybody going to know that it was a bad Dunk Contest? You are going to be a Dunk Contest Champion for the rest of your life.” Joe was not too enthused with the way that it went down, but we will have a chance to right that ship in the three-point contest some year.

We would like to see that. Speaking of that All-Star Weekend, can you tell us about that? You have got some good stories.

It was an awesome weekend. The fact that he got into the Dunk Contests, I know he has got hops, but it was wild. We were going into the weekend. It was in Chicago, a major city. I knew it was going to be a blast of a time. One of the craziest things for me was seeing him on that. I have seen him on the NBA stage with all the All-Stars and all the cool people that we got to meet who were coming up to him and wanting to chit-chat with him.

One of the funniest stories that I always come back to and tell everybody about that weekend is that we were driving around the whole weekend. PC is in the Dunk Contest, and then Giannis is in the game. They sent their security team with us everywhere we went the whole weekend. We had a designated Buck security guy with us driving around every single place we went. When we went out to dinner, at a bar or wherever, he was tagging along with us, which was pretty funny.

We had a driver too. He was a retired Chicago cop who work in private security. That was the closest I will ever get to feeling like I was a significant political figure or athlete being able to drive around with Mo, and get in the back door everywhere we went and the whole thing. The funniest part of all of the private security detail had to be that anytime we got into the car, there were strict instructions from the security guy to put Pat in the back right seat of the car.

This guy would drive in the passenger seat. He was like, “Any time I need to get out of the car and need to get to Pat if shit hits the fan, I got to make sure I get to Pat and get him out of the car and we get him to safety.” I am like, “Do you think he is the fucking President of the United States?” I thought that was the funniest thing. Growing up with him from childhood and seeing people think of him in that manner always makes me laugh.

I thought you were also like, “What about me? I am in the backseat.”

Am I going to be left to be fed to the dogs? What heck.

We had some good ones. That weekend was a lot of fun. Joe and I went back to our childhood days. When we would go to my backyard, we had a basketball hoop. We would lower the rim and pretend to be Steve Blake and Juan Dixon of that Maryland All-Star team, and we would throw down dunks. We would try to repeat Vince Carter’s dunk from the Dunk Contest. To take part in the Dunk Contest and then to have Joe and some of our closest buddies be there for that weekend, my parents, my trainer from home, and my AAU coach, Coach Grady. We had a great group with us who got to also be a part of the experience.

This will be the theme of this entire show. I do not know if anybody has ever seen Entourage. Ari Gold is in the movie and is my favorite character in the show always has this great dialogue where it says, “Athletes, entertainers, actors, and rappers, part of what makes it real is to have the people who you grew up with and who knew what the dream was the entire time be around and sharing those experiences.”

The Dunk Contest is such a unique thing. It is such a spectacle for the NBA All-Star Weekend. There are stories like Joe. We walked into the hotel. He and my other buddies got a room in the players’ hotel. There is security. You got to go through a metal detector and get your credentials checked every time you go in, the stuff of that nature that you do not think about.

We grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts. We grew up with no ties to pro sports, no ties to high political or high net worth individuals. We just think it is normal, but think about it from another perspective. You have got all of the most notable professional athletes in the world percentage-wise in the NBA because of how global it has gone and how they do not have helmets on their heads. The sport itself is so branding and marketable. You have got one place. The security should be high. You do not think about it. We do not think about it.

On the way down, we went to Cracker Barrel and got some lunch because we were starving. We do not think that way because we never grew up around it and had never experienced it until now. It is funny those little intricacies that you do not think about that now when you go through the experience, it is stuff we talk about like, “Do you remember the two security guys we had with us all weekend? Do you remember the security at the hotel all weekend? Do you remember what it was like after the Dunk Contest going down on the floor?” There are so many little things that made the weekend so memorable that were not seen by the public when you were performing at the Dunk Contest.

It's better to win a championship ring in an easier year than to be involved with the dynasty teams and not win. Click To Tweet

He cares less about this. I care more. I met Giannis before, but I got to meet Christian Yelich because he was a part of the Dunk Contest with Pat. That was a super cool experience for me being able to meet Christian, and there were plenty of others from that weekend too. Growing up in Arlington, Massachusetts, and not knowing anyone of that stature, it was cool to meet all those guys. Speaking of Christian Yelich, do you want to give a little hint of what you are going to do with your finals dunk for the All-Star Dunk Contest? Do you want to save it for the bank for later? What are we thinking?

I got shafted in the Dunk Contest. You and I hold a grudge from time to time. We are moving on to the three-point contest. We are trying to be a part of as many different things at All-Star Weekend as we can. It is okay to give it away. That next dunk we had with Christian, I had a glove on. I am doing a 360-degree dunk while catching a baseball that he threw me from out of bounce. There have been some leaked footage of it here and there from the practice round that we had. I thought it would have been cool to incorporate something different.

The Dunk Contest nowadays, there are so many dunks that have been done. How do you find things that are slightly different? With the jumping over Giannis, touching the backboard added a different element to it. Not everybody noticed that element right away, which is why I had to point it out. They showed the replay. Including catching a baseball with my other hand, while I am doing a 360-degree dunk, I thought that would have added another element and another unique factor that people had not seen. It would have been cool to be able to do on that stage, but it was fun to do in practice and to get down on the second try.

You got the mitt in your left hand, the ball in your right hand, and you do 360-degree and catch it with your left hand.

I did see him in practice throw it down. It was impressive.

Where is Yelich standing?

He was standing behind the backboard out of bounce.

Did he throw it over the backboard?

He throws it right at me. Yelich was phenomenal. It had a little bit of pressure on him because he had to put it in the right place for me to catch it. He did it with ease.

Did you guys roll into Cracker Barrel with the security team? That would have been a baller move.

That is 100% accurate. We rolled into Cracker Barrel. We have Peter Fagan, who we are close with and the President of the team. Joe and Peter have a great relationship. To the general public, it is not always seen as an amicable relationship. Sometimes it is a tough-love type situation, but he had some great stuff on that job. He gave us a gift. I do not remember what it was. Remember we were in Cracker Barrel, we went into the merchandising store, and he got a stuffed animal that had a massive head for you?

Yes, and then he got a pair of salt and pepper shakers. It was a random whatever you can find in the Cracker Barrel gift shop.

What Entourage character is Joe most like?

He has got a business mind. He has got his shit together. He has got a good way about him. I do not know if we got a Drama or a Turtle. We can put Peter as Turtle.

Let’s go to the championship. What was that like?

It was incredible. The coolest part about the championship that you do not see from the outside is the journey of the championship. It’s not like the Super Bowl. It is a seven-game series. There are ups and downs. We made it very difficult on ourselves throughout the entire playoffs by going down 0 to 2 to Brooklyn, going down 0 to 1 to Atlanta, and going down 0 to 2 to Phoenix. We did not make it easy for ourselves. The cool part about it was that we were able to get over the hump and come together in the face of adversity. When the confetti starts falling, you know you won it, but you are so into it. That Brooklyn series felt like it was a month and a half. It was two weeks.

Each series was roughly two weeks. When you end that final game six, you are almost like, “Who do we have next?” You are so ingrained in it. To finally get to that mountaintop and do it is a shared experience. Almost the exact same group from the Dunk Contest was at game six. Joe was there. We almost had the exact same group. Joe still got the confetti. He sleeps with it every single night under his pillow. He cherishes the moments as much as I am. That is what is fun about it.

My dad had a great line, “You take a picture with a trophy at the end of the game later on after the media.” I got my mom the trophy to hold, and she was on cloud nine. My dad’s immediate comment was, “Do not drop it, Sue.” She gets nervous but she is happy at the same time. To see those facial reactions from the people that have been there since day one and to have them be able to share in those experiences, I want to have success. I want to continue to work hard. I have all these other things that I can get better at and want to accomplish, but to have them be a part of it along the way puts it in perspective.

I want to upkeep the image a little bit. I did not sit with the confetti under the pillow, but I did take confetti. You have to.

Where is the confetti?

It is in my apartment somewhere. Not under the pillow, but I can’t reveal the location. I have talked about framing it. The last championship before that was 50 years before. I hope we win one again so we can go through all these fun championship experiences that we had.

You put some pressure on us. Tell Richie you want to collect confetti from every championship. You want to be able to frame the stories and make the confetti be a spectacle on each frame.

I want the Bucks, and I want Giannis and Pat to turn into Tom Brady and win seven championships.

Has he had you autograph a strip of confetti yet?

Not yet. When you look at Joe and the trajectory we are going, if we are on a 5th or 6th championship, Joe is going to be out there with a vacuum sucking up all the confetti. Now he is going to start his own little confetti selling business.

Richie, would you buy some if I had confetti to offer from the championship?

I would lean towards other merch. Confetti would not be my first choice.

What would your first choice be?

Jon Horst was not trying to build a one-win team. He was trying to build a team that can compete for a championship for years to come. Click To Tweet

Part of the floor would be cool, the net or the ball if we are going big.

The ball, there is only one of those.

There are thousands of pieces of confetti.

The Bucks are offering pieces of the court. They are also offering paperweights, which mimic the same championship ring that these guys got.

What was that first night like after winning? What was the party like? Where did that go on to?

It was a blast. You have such memorable moments. The Bobby Portis interview was hilarious. That also went viral. You got dinner afterward. We did it at Harbor House. It was just the team. It was fun. Families were included. I do not even know where we went afterward. I know we were up until 7:00 in the morning. I know that the next day was a blur. Joe, myself, our buddy and Joe’s wife went to Blue Bat Tequilaria. We sat on the deck outside. We just won a championship. The next day, you see the four of us just sitting on the deck. You are basking in it. You are just, “Was that real? Let’s talk about it.” People walk by and give you a double glance like, “Is that them?”

There were a few lucky people who happened to be getting lunch at 2:45 PM when we were there at Blue Bat who were like, “Is that Pat? They just won the championship last night. I got to go up and get a picture. I got to tell him congrats.” We had a lot of that at lunch, which was pretty funny. The party was crazy. For me, from a fan’s perspective and from being his friend, we had a good crew there, and the whole celebration was surreal.

We went from being there at the game, which was the coolest part, but then it kept getting better and better. They were like, “You guys can come down to the floor and celebrate with the team.” We went down and did that, and the confetti has fallen. I am scooping up confetti and filling up my pockets as we have already discussed.

You going to get so many messages about confetti sales after this show.

The confetti is going to be an underrated thing. There is only a finite amount of pieces decorated. There are only two nets. There are only so many sneakers that were worn enough in that final game. Confetti has more supply.

We did all that, and then they are like, “After the celebration on the floor, we can go back to the locker room.” We were celebrating in the locker room and then we went down.

You guys were in the locker room. I did not even make it back to the locker room. I got pulled to media, and they were in the locker room celebrating.

We ended up further down the hall, took pictures with the trophy, and we went to dinner after until 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. It was a night we will never forget.

Tell them about the parade. That is where we had our most fun aside from winning. During the parade, we did our own thing.

That was the cherry on top. They say, “The friends and family are going to be able to come on the float or come on the bus with the guys.” We get there on the day of the parade. We jump on the bus. We got a prime spot right in front of the double-decker bus. We are riding through the street. There are hundreds of thousands of people there.

Early on the parade route, right before it started, someone tossed up a football. We were like, “We want to toss it back.” They are like, “Keep it.” We were like, “This is perfect.” We gave the football to PC. Throughout the entire parade route, he was throwing dimes to people in the crowd, and they were catching them and throwing it back. It was a good back and forth with the fans.

What did it turn into?

It turned into people like, “Will you sign my jersey?” I am standing behind Pat. I am calling for everything, “Throw it all.” People are throwing up jerseys. I am catching them. Pat has got a Sharpie. He is signing it quickly. I am balling it back up and throwing it to the person. It was a lot of pressure. You got to remember who owns the jersey.

The bus is moving, and I do not have the shortest last name on the team.

You do not want to throw it at the wrong person, or they will have a fight. It is high pressure.

We had multiple things going. Joe might have started it. Our other buddy, Joe, was on the other side doing the exact same thing. My dad was on the other side and got a few thrown at him. We had a few different storefronts going on every side of the thing.

After suffering heartbreak in Toronto a couple of years ago and then having a disappointing run in the Bubble, did you ever think you were out of it in those playoffs? Did you guys think you were going to win the whole time? Do you not even think about that and try and stay in the moment? Durant, with his foot on the line, would have ended it. What was that mentality like?

Richie, I was hoping we were not going to talk about all those things after we talked about the championship. You are bringing my morale down.

We are trying to take you out on an emotional roller coaster throughout the show.

I do not even know why I am here for this show. Joe can answer all these things. He is at everything. It is part of the process. I talked about adversity within the playoff run. That adversity is what made it even more euphoric at the end of the day. You look at the adversity, you take it from one year, and you expand it. This is my fourth year in Milwaukee. It was a three-year journey to get there. That is what sometimes people miss. You look at it over the course of a season, but what Jon Horst and Marc Lasry in the ownership group are trying to build here was not a one-win team.

They are trying to build a team that can compete for a championship for years to come. That first year was the first part of that. In the Toronto series, we had not faced much adversity. If you remember that team, we had the largest margin of victory in NBA history after that regular season. We won 60 games and lost the last few because we were getting ready for the playoffs. We were in a stratosphere that was far different than what Milwaukee had faced or experienced with the Bucks in previous years.

They had fifteen wins at one point when Chris and Giannis were on the team. It started there, but when you face adversity for the first time in the playoffs, I do not think we were ready to handle it the way we wanted to. Going through that allowed us to bounce back in year three. Year two of the Bubble is an anomaly. A lot of that was based on what you were dealing with. I am personally of the belief that the playoffs have their own atmosphere. The playoffs in the Bubble that have no fans there do not have an atmosphere.

When you take into account a veteran team that has been there and has been a part of the playoffs and is juiced for that atmosphere, and then you take into account a young team with young players who have never played in that atmosphere, that is a big part of the game. When you are just in an empty gym, young guys do not feel that pressure. Older guys do not get up and have as much adrenaline as they do when there are 17,000 fans in the Fiserv Forum.

When you face adversity for the first time but still go through that, you can bounce back from anything. Click To Tweet

I do believe it was an outlier, but then we do not have the best regular season in the third year. We do not do exactly what we want it to do in the regular season as far as the first two years we were here. Going through that adversity in the regular season prepared us for the playoff run that we had because inevitably, you are going to have adversity in the playoffs.

There has never been a team in NBA history that goes 16 to 0 and wins the NBA championship. That is how many games you got to win. You are going to have adversity. How you handle that, how you deal with it, and your experience in dealing with it all plays a major role. That is what put us in a position to win. At the end of the day, it’s what we are trying to do as a team. One of the reasons I want to play in Milwaukee for a long time is when you have a makeup of a team with Giannis, Chris and Drew with a leadership group that is about winning and not about personal attention and personal stats.

You have a chance to be a championship contender for a handful of years. You never know. That is what the owners, John, coach, and everybody who has been trying to build here in Milwaukee. That is what makes it exciting. You might not win it every year. You got to be realistic. Every year is a different journey, but if you can put yourself in a position to win it every year or have a chance to win it every year, it is on you to close it more times than not.

It seems like a very sustainable team with very low drama from leadership. You look around the NBA and look what was going on in Philly, the Nets, and the Lakers. You bring all the stars in, and there are a lot of egos attached to it. They have a ton of firepower, but do you trust them all to be healthy and play together and be able to flip a switch when the playoffs come?

You are right. That is not me. To each his own. That is the difference in culture and how and what you value in players. Do you value talent? Do you think you can buy a championship? Do you think you can spend all the money in the world on talent to win? There is no right or wrong answer. It is going to play out over time. You are going to see what the right or wrong answer is. I believe it is about more than talent. Sticking the five most talented players on the team does not mean they are going to win a championship.

How does that team fit together? What is the culture of that franchise? Who is the makeup of your superstars? Who is the makeup of your role players? What do they value? How the fit is, it’s about talent versus team, in my opinion. That is the argument, and that is what we are seeing in professional sports. That is what people are trying to come down to and figure out as they are building these franchises. Is it talent or is it the team?

What we are doing here in Milwaukee is more about the team than just the talent. You have got to have a level of talent, but it is undervalued how they all fit together and how the team component plays into it. At the end of the day, there is one basketball on the floor. You still got to play defense in the playoffs. It is more of a half-court game. There are things that are not going to change about the game of basketball and especially about the game of playoff basketball.

We can move on to happier times. Joe, if you want to talk about partying with Bill Clinton or transporting the Larry O’Brien trophy from Milwaukee to PC’s house.

I got a couple of good stories on that. Back at the championship celebration, we got invited. Pat and I got invited. I was fortunate enough to be invited by him to Lasry’s party. He has got this mansion right on the water. We showed up at the party and walked in. I keep hitting on two kids from Arlington. We walk in and see two Ferraris parked on the front lawn.

It was the first alarm going off in my head like, “Where are we? This is bananas.” We walk in and see that it is crazy. The house is beautiful. We are walking around the backyard. He has got this whole catered thing put together. The trophy is there, sitting on its own table with a bunch of championship hats around it.

People were going up and taking pictures. There were 75 people there, but the craziest thing was as I was walking around the party, exploring the backyard and taking it all in, my wife was there too. We were walking around, and I kept noticing these security guys. When we walked in, Adam Silver, Pat, Bobby Portis, and Coach Bud were there. There are some high-profile people there. At the time, when I was walking around, the security seemed like such overkill. We got guys with earpieces everywhere walking all over the party. They are wearing these nice suit coats.

This is a guy coming from the NBA Dunk Contest where he had two security guys driving around.

I am very impressed with this whole operation and with the security guys coming out of the bushes. There are two boats off of the coast sitting out there, watching the party. I am like, “This is crazy. I do not understand this.” The night keeps going on. I am talking at a table, eating some hors d’oeuvres with my wife. All of a sudden, she is facing the other way. I am looking right at her and her jaw drops. I am like, “What?” She is like, “Turn around, look.” I turned around, and President Bill Clinton showed up at the party. People were pretty good about it. They did not swarm him.

Long story short, he is boys with Marc Lasry. Marc invited them to the championship party. Naturally, being the fanboy that I always am, I am like, “I will try to play it cool for now, but I do eventually want to go over and chat with Bill and get my picture.” Pat had already met him before at a game in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center.

He and Marc are close. They would go back a long time. Marc will bring them to the Barclays Center from time to time. This was my first year in Milwaukee. I did not know he was coming. You see him courtside, but I did not know he was coming before. He is at the game, and this is before I have a great relationship with Marc. It is my second month on the team. It was not that far into the regular season. After the game, I have my routine. I do a little workout in the abs circuit, get stretched, do some PT, ice the knees, jump in the shower, and get ready.

Usually, I come out and say hi to people. I got a bunch of friends from Brooklyn and Notre Dame connections. I got a bunch of people that come from Boston. It is not that far of a drive. I jump in the shower pretty quickly and come out of the shower. I was standing there in a towel, and Marc goes to me, “Do you want to meet President Clinton?” I am like, “Absolutely.” He goes, “He is about to leave, so you got to do it now.” I am like, “What do you mean?” I turn to my right, and he is standing there talking to Giannis. Marc grabs him and pulls him over. He introduces me, and I am standing there in a towel. I got nothing else on. I am like, “Mr. President, how are you?” I am shaking his hands. This was before I had a broken one.

I was shaking his hand then Marc was like, “Let’s get a picture of you guys.” I am like, “I would love it. Do you think I should put some clothes on first?” He is like, “Get a shirt.” Someone threw me my shirt, which was just this white shirt. I am in a white towel and a white shirt. I was standing there, and there was a picture of me shaking the President’s hand. We are both looking at the camera, and all I am in is a towel. Granted, it’s way better than not having a shirt on as well, but it is a hilarious photo because when you look at it right away, you see a shirt on me. You do not think a whole lot of it, but then you look at the photo and you are like, “Are you in a towel shaking President Clinton’s hand?”

I have met him. He has come to Milwaukee once or twice. He has been in almost every game that we are in Brooklyn. I have met him a few times. At the party, Bobby had talked to him. They were both from Arkansas so they were hitting it off there. Marc wanted me to come over and meet him because I am sure part of his reason for going is to be able to see some of the players because he is a basketball fan. I did not see Joe and Erin. I did not pass by the table where they were standing with Erin’s jaw on the grass. I was over there shaking hands and saw them making their way over, which was perfectly played by Joe.

We walk up with all of us together. I got them at the perfect time when we went right up. I blacked out when I was meeting him. Before leading up to it, I am like, “What the hell am I going to say to this guy?” He is way smarter than me. What am I possibly going to say? I went up, shook his hand, and said it was an honor to meet him, and then I asked him a question about the Bucks. It was something to do with the Bucks and PC. We got him to laugh.

We had Ryan Hoover, the greatest guy ever, ripping photos. He sent me all the photos afterward. We took a real photo of him as well, which Joe knew. We had Hoover do it. The funniest photos are the ones where Joe is in the midst of a conversation with him because he is talking and President Clinton is talking to him. There is one candid of all of us laughing. It is priceless.

It was a wild story. That was one of the best things from the championship run, aside from the trip with DeLaurier. Can you touch on when you needed the trophy to celebrate with your family at home? You get it for a couple of days, and it is in Milwaukee, and you are not there?

It is a short off-season. It is not like the Stanley Cup. I got a good buddy who I worked out with, Connor Sherry, back home who won it twice with the Penguins. Everyone gets a few days or a week with a cup. That is not how the NBA trophy works, but you can ask for it. It is an unwritten thing. If you want to take it home, you can do it, but it is in a short off-season, so it is a little bit harder to coordinate. You guys heard all of the things we have done, and that is in the span of a week after the finals. We also took a trip to Florida to take some time out. We did a bunch of stuff. The point being is that at some point, I wanted to bring the trophy home.

I want it to be in a place where I learned how to play basketball, the Fidelity House. It would be cool to bring it there. All the people and places that helped me get here. One of the things I always say and I have a chain that says, “Family over everything.” That is not just blood relatives. Family for me is anybody who I consider to be family. I would not be where I am now if it was not for those people and places that helped get me here. To be able to share the experience and bring that Larry O’Brien trophy back, I know all those people’s jaws will be on the floor with Erin.

For me, I want to try to coordinate it. We finally got a way to coordinate it on Labor Day weekend. The problem is I am already home. I was talking to the trophy coordinator with the Bucks on how to get it done. Their big thing is that they do not want to ship the Larry O’Brien trophy. They do not necessarily want it in other people’s hands to go about. In a perfect world, they send somebody with it. In this instance, the person they had been sending with the trophy had been doing it for a month and a half because we had won it in mid-July 2021, and now it is September. They were going to take a few days off.

Joe has gotten to know people within the Bucks organization very well. I gave him the idea, “If need be, Joe is there. He is going to be coming home anyway for the weekend. I do not know the protocol, but if you guys are comfortable with it, I am sure he would be up for it.” I called him and asked. He goes, “Sure, what does that even mean?”

Here is a little side story on that too. I get the call. It is Tuesday before Labor Day weekend. I am working, and I get a random call in the middle of the afternoon. He is like, “Would you be comfortable bringing the Larry O’Brien trophy home to Massachusetts? You get to travel with it.” I was like, “What? You are breaking up. What are you saying?”

He asked me and I said yes. The story from there was so absurd. We coordinated going to pick it up, and then I had to coordinate with the Bucks on purchasing an actual seat for the trophy under Larry O’Brien’s name. We get the tickets purchased and I show up at the airport super early. I got to get privately screened by TSA. The guys did not believe me. I am traveling and it is in this massive 100-pound bulletproof case.

It is fire resistant and has padlocks on it. It looks like a massive bomb. Joe looks like he is wheeling around a bomb in the middle of the airport. That is what it is. We did not say that to anybody, especially not at the airport, but that is what it looked like. Handling the protocol for him was hilarious because of that exact thing.

If you can put yourself in a position to win the championship every year, then it's up to you to close it more times than not. Click To Tweet

The number of dirty looks I was getting. We get to the airport, and I am like, “I got the NBA championship trophy in this case.” I am trying to whisper it to the guy like, “Can I get this privately screened? I do not want to whip out the Larry O’Brien in the security line.” They are like, “For sure.” They take me to some backroom and go there with a couple of different TSA guys. I will never forget this. We open up the case, and the guy goes, “Holy shit.”

He could not believe that it was actually the trophy. We take it out. They got gloves on, and they are inspecting the whole thing. They looked at the case, and then they asked me very nicely, “Can we take pictures with it?” I am like, “Sure.” They grabbed a few pictures of their own holding the trophy in their TSA uniforms. We ended up getting through that and jumped on the plane.

The funniest part I heard about was that once he got through security, he was walking through the airport with the same thing being wheeled behind him. The guy who helped him get through security gave him his card and said, “If you have any problems, let me know. I will handle it.” He headed up TSA. Joe gets to the terminal to go on the plane. The funniest part is that it is still a unique thing. Nobody expects that to ever be a thing. When he tried to check-in, the people were like, “That can’t go on the plane. That has got to go underneath the plane.” Joe is like, “This can’t go under this plane. I got a seat for it.” They are like, “What?”

He has two tickets. It is him and the trophy. He scans both tickets, and they are still like, “What is in it? That does not sit right.” I do not discredit them for that. That makes sense. Joe is over here in a position where he is like, “I do not want everybody to know what it is because at the end of the day, once I get to Boston, everyone is going to want to take a photo. The whole plane is going to be passing around the Larry O’Brien trophy. It is going to be like Soul Plane.”

The funniest part to me was that he had to explain the story again to the people checking them in. They do not believe him. Finally, they let him in on the plane. The flight attendant does not believe him. She does not want to let him on the plane. He has to explain it to her. They move him up to first-class and let the thing sit next to him in first-class. It had to get a seatbelt extender because you had to strap it in. It does not fit in the seat, so he puts it on the ground of the seat. Now he is sitting there next to him with this case that looks somewhat like a bomb in the first seat of the plane as everybody is walking by him on the plane like, “What is going on here?”

Multiple stopped and like, “What is in that case?” I did not want to scare anyone, and I did not want to reveal what was inside. I was changing it up for every single person who asks, “What is in that case?” I am like, “It is my trumpet.” They are like, “What is in this case?” I am making up all these things, and people were like, “Interesting,” and walk by. We ended up successfully getting it there but it was a hilarious story.

The funniest part of all was that once we arrived, we got off. He was supposed to pick me up. He was golfing and was running a little late. He was like, “I am running a little late. I am not going to be able to get you.” My mom had to come and pick me up. I am like, “I am at the airport. I have the Larry O’Brien trophy with me. Can you come to pick me up?” She came to pick me up, and we tossed it in the backseat and then drove home. It was a fun trip.

It was the same exact thing on the flight back. Joe, Erin and me, and now you have got to include the trophy because it is four people traveling according to the tickets, flew back. Erin and I are sitting next to each other, and Joe sits next to the trophy. We let him stay in charge of it because he has had experience with it. He throws on his black shades during the flight. He has hit hat on low. He is sitting there. He looks like a security guard with a trophy. He looks so serious. We got great photos of it. Some of the funniest parts are Joe’s godson, his nephew. The Larry O’Brien trophy comes home. He was three at the time. The trophy is cool. He can see himself in it. He loves the box.

When you open up the box, it has a cut out of the trophy. That is where you stick the trophy. It has padding all around it. You take the trophy out, and he fits in the cutout of the trophy in the box. We take the trophy out, and everyone is pumped about it. My man, Connor, is laying in the box in the exact way the trophy is put in the box like, “Look at me. This is the best thing ever.” It is funny how things work and how much people enjoy seeing the trophy, but some people enjoy seeing the box.

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We are going to end part one of the show’s Joe and Pat edition right there. Thanks again to those two for coming on, and thank you for reading. This show is brought to you by GoGedder Marketing & Media, GGMM.io, and our friends in Milwaukee. Please subscribe and write a review if you have not already. Screenshot it, tag us on Instagram. Let us know you are tuning in. We would appreciate it. That helps get more ears and eyes on this show. We will be back with more.

Important Links

• Pat Connaughton
• Three Leaf Development
• GGMM.io

How do you create content that inspires your audience to take action? Why do some content go viral and other content falls flat? A few weeks ago, I got to speak at Pat Miller’s Idea Collective Retreat down in Lake Geneva on my “Top 8 Content Engagement Triggers.” I also throw in my top two “right now” marketing hacks. The speech got a good response, so I decided to record it on the podcast.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

I got to do something exciting, something I hadn’t done since before the pandemic. I gave a speech at a conference in front of a live audience at Pat Miller’s Idea Collective Retreat down in Lake Geneva at the Grand Geneva Resort, which was a great event, big props to Pat Miller. I know he took a risk putting that on any event that skill, and he had Jesse Cole from The Savannah Bananas and Mel Robbins also spoke.

It was cool to go down and spend some time at a conference, step away for a couple of days, get some good information and speak again. Since I have put all that time and energy into putting together this speech, I figured why not put it out into a blog post, so more people can read it. I have got a good response. They can help a lot of businesses out.

If you are a small business owner, a marketer at a Fortune 500 company, a content creator, a solopreneur or anyone who creates content, this is for you. My goal for this show is to help you create content that leads to engagement conversions and ultimately grows your business. A lot of companies struggle. They put a lot of time into creating content, whether writing an email or building their website that is considered content, posting on social media and maybe you write a post and press the boost button, which is the cocaine of social media. You get some likes and engagement but it doesn’t lead to anything.

I’m going to be going over how to create content that converts into customers. This presentation will be applicable across industries. The agenda is I’m going to go over some of my favorite marketing rules to set the tone for things that are important that a lot of companies miss, and I’m going to go over which would be the bulk of this is my topic content engagement triggers with examples and how they can apply to your business. After that, I’m going to briefly touch on my top two marketing hacks that can help grow your business, and we are going to bring it all together.

Marketing Rules For Creating Content That Convers Into Customers

First off, let’s dive in. Rule number one, no one cares about your brand until they know how you can make their life better. A lot of companies lead with what they do. They might even start with why and lead with why they are doing it, which no one cares about until they know how you can help them out. Companies talk about their family history. They might go on and on about that and talk about themselves.

Even when you are in a pitch, what I’m going to be going over now applies to pitches and pitch decks. You want to lead with how you can solve problems for your potential audience, which takes me to rule number two. Your customers only buy for one reason. That reason is to get from their current state, where they are at now, to their future desired state, where they want to get to. It doesn’t matter if I’m selling my marketing services. People are in a place where they are usually frustrated with their own marketing or need to get their business to the next level.

They are hiring me to solve a problem, and for a reason. My job is to get them to their future desired state, which is typically to help grow someone’s business through marketing. If you are selling fitness coaching or a gym membership, and you are trying to get someone maybe from overweight to in shape. If you are selling therapy services, you are trying to get someone from depression to healthy and happy.

It applies across the board consumer products. It is like, you are selling a nice watch. No one needs a nice watch. Everyone has an iPhone. They know what time it is. Is it to signal status? Is it to get girls? Why are they buying the watch? We find a need to know why people are buying for their own reasons, for psychological reasons and philosophical reasons, and go based off of that.

Rule number three, people buy with emotion and justify with logics. We want to make sure we are hitting people on an emotional level. I’m going to show you how to do that. My last rule is to go where your audience is already spending time and where you can add unique value to them. Some marketers say, “Go on every platform. Dominate every platform, be omnipresent. You have got to be everywhere.” It is nice in theory.

There is no downside to being on every platform and putting content on every platform. Everything is a trade-off. I would rather have you go to a platform where your audience is active and where you are strong. If you are not good on camera, you don’t need to be creating video content. If you don’t like that and you don’t have a desire, you don’t have to create video content.

You can create written content and do other things. If you are selling to middle-aged 50-year-old men, you do not need to be dominating on TikTok, especially if you are also a middle-aged man who is not funny or good on camera. That is going to be a nightmare. Go where your audience is already spending time and where you can add value to them.

One last thing I wanted to talk about before getting into the eight content engagement triggers is you need a few things in place for someone to buy. If you are running a sales funnel and doing any online advertising, I’m stealing this formula from Alex Hormozi. He has a book called $100M Offers, in which he has the best offer formula that I have seen.

His whole theory is that if the perceived value outweighs the cost and the investment, people are going to buy every time. What I was saying before is, “Good content can drive traffic and create emotion but if you don’t have a good offer for content, you need a good offer for content to convert into customers.” You can drive traffic and create emotion through content but you need a good offer and get it in front of the right audience.

No one cares about your brand until they know how you can make their life better. Click To Tweet

Audience content offers, those three things need to be aligned with the audience content offer. If any of those three is out of place, you are going to have issues. His formula is that there is more that goes into cost and investment than money that you need to be cognizant of. Other things that go into that bucket are problems, obstacles, I touched on money, and time investment. Time is a big thing, time for money. If it is inexpensive but it is going to cost someone a lot of time, that is still a big commitment.

Another thing is fear, pain, and what are other people going to think of you if you go off and do something or buy something? All that stuff is wrapped into cost and investment. The value has to be greater than that, and undervalue is that perceived dream outcome, that future desired state multiplied by the likelihood of that outcome.

If I am saying to you, “For every $1 you invest in my marketing services at GGMM, I’m going to return $100 to you.” That is a dream outcome but you are probably going to call bullshit on me because I don’t know any marketing agency that is returning $100 to $1. We are pretty good but we are not that good. I don’t know anyone who has. Value needs to outweigh cost and investment.

Content Engagement Triggers

Let’s dive into the eight content engagement triggers. I’m going to list them off. If you are taking notes, feel free to write these down, and I will be going through them one by one. Number one is social debate and conflict. Number two is taking a stand. Number three is intrigued. Number four is comedy. Number five is authenticity/vulnerability. Number six is sex, and cuteness sells, not just sex sells. Cuteness also sells. Number seven is timeliness. Also, newsjacking would fall under number seven, seeing what is hot in the news, what people are fired up about now, and turning, putting your take on that into the content. Number eight and finally is pain and success or better yet, pain to success. Everyone loves the pain to success story because we can relate to it.

Number one is social debate and conflict. If you are like me, you are glad that you haven’t had to watch many political ads over the year almost. I guess there was stopped the steel, which went on for a few months after that. For the most part, we have not had to see any political ads. We will, again, shortly but most of these political ads try and scare the shit out of you and they attack the other person.

There was $44.4 billion spent in the last election cycle on political advertising. There was that much spent because it works, and they do these ads that are terrible. They play off of our emotions of fear and things like that. The world is going to burn down if Biden is elected. Now, it didn’t burn down, and he is elected or Trump or whatever, but they do that because it works. A lot of those ads create social debate and conflict. They get people riled up, and for the most part, they can be effective.

If you are not in politics, for some other examples, we did an episode with Johnson Financial Group, and I have a Facebook video in front of me. It was on the tax code. I guess this is somewhat political on Biden’s proposed tax changes. We put a video ad up that should buy it and raise the capital gains tax. The piece of creative was the guy from Johnson Financial talking about his take on what the capital gains tax will do. It will affect anything. That got a ton of shares and comments. A lot of people are jumping in there because it sparked social debate.

Another thing is if you go to QuickTrip’s Instagram account, they have a great Instagram account. It is humorous. I’m looking at a meme now. It is the Aaron Rodgers meme. This was pre-all the Aaron Rodgers vaccine drama, which also sparked social debate and conflict. This was from right before that after we knocked off the Cardinals, which was a great game. It says, “Date stops at BP and me.” It is Aaron Rodgers giving her that look. It is funny. It also starts a social debate and conflict QuickTrip versus BP.

Another good example and one of the most iconic ad campaigns of all time is the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC.” What does that do? It is social debate and conflict. There is also a lot of humor and taking a stand mixed in there. If you wrote down the eight content engagement triggers, what you will notice in a lot of the examples that I’m going through is a lot of the good content they stack a lot of these engagement triggers. When you are creating content, whether it is putting together a pitch deck, creating a speech or doing a social media post, the more these eight content engagement triggers you can stack, typically, the better off that you are going to be.

Number two is taking a stand. The first thing I have in there is that Colin Kaepernick Nike ad, which says, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.” You don’t need to agree with that ad. I’m using it as an example. After they posted that, there was an uproar. People were burning sneakers saying they would never buy from Nike again, saying that Nike was done. Two days later, the Nike stock price went through the roof, and that ended up getting the ad campaign of the year because they took a stand for something.

Barstool Sports, I know they are going through some drama now to report noise, at least. They took a stand, and they were successful during COVID. They helped out a lot of small businesses. They started their BarStool Fund, and they took a stand against the government and how slow the government was moving to providing PPP funding, helping small businesses, and staying shut down. Barstool took a stand and donated. It ended up being tens of millions of dollars to support small businesses. It was good for business. That campaign went viral. What if you are not Nike or Barstool, and you don’t have millions of dollars or have a social issue to take a stand on?

We helped the brand called Meridian Putter’s launch. If you are looking to get a holiday gift and you know a golfer or a good client gift, go to MeridianPutters.com, and use the code SINK MORE PUTTS for 15% off. I have to put a plug. I enjoy working with Meridian Putters. It is awesome. High-end putters. You can put custom logo engravings on them at a reasonable price point. They are nice putters.

In this ad that we have running on Facebook now, it was me in a video on the golf course talking about, “At Meridian, we don’t believe a high-end custom CNC milled putters should have to cost you thousands of dollars because you can get an engraving, your name and a logo on ours for about $500, which is a fraction of what a Scotty Cameron, Bettinardi or some of those leading brands would cost.”

 

Taking a stand, whether it is a social issue that you believe in or even against your competitors, can be powerful. It creates us versus them type dynamic. People can relate to it. People like latching on to a cause that they believe in. When you put that out there, it can be beneficial for business. It can also lose you some customers but the benefit typically outweighs the cost.

The third element is intrigued. As human beings, we are attuned to self-discovery. We like learning more about ourselves, and we also love comparing ourselves to others. It is not healthy. I don’t recommend it but naturally, we love comparing ourselves to others. Some of the examples that I have on intrigue is a quiz ad that we ran for my dad when he launched his book the Presidential Playbook, in 2021, which I will go into on marketing hacks.

We put a quiz up that said the creative was a little video and the header said, “Do you know the facts with an American flag?” He released his book Presidential Playbook and 12 Simple Solutions to Save America because he was tired that the politicians were attacking each other. No one was talking about actual issues that will move our country forward, which happens every election on both sides. That quiz did well. We were getting $0.20 or $0.30 clicks. 1 of 3 people completed the quiz, and it intrigued people. What quiz can you give to people to intrigue them, have them fill it out, and make them give your email for their response? The lead quizzes are what we use for that.

Another one that does a good job on this is Mental Golf Type. If there are any golfers out there and are interested in Meridian Putters, you will probably also be interested in taking a mental golf assessment. This company puts this out, and it is a free assessment. They got my email, and it was good at giving me back information.

I gave them my credit card and bought their course because if anyone can take a few shots off my golf game, I will happily give you my credit card, and you can charge whatever you want because we buy off emotion and not logic. They have a good assessment. It is a personality test. Depending on how you are wired, you should approach golf differently.

It was good for me personally because I’m not a detailed person. A lot of mental golf advice aims at the smallest target possible, which stresses someone like me out. There was a lot more stuff in there but that was one of the main takeaways. Dan Gramann, shout out to him, Cultivate Advisors. They had a Facebook ad going for a while. If you go to their website, they have an assessment and a quiz on what stage of the entrepreneurial journey are you at and what entrepreneur are you? What coaching you need and how you should be coached varies differently based on that. What kind of quiz? How can you intrigue people? Can you do a quiz? Can you game a fire content? That is usually effective.

Number four is authenticity and vulnerability. I have told this story on the show several times. I will make it short but if you want to learn more about me dealing with my anxiety issues, you can go back to the episode, Overcoming Anxiety Day by Day. Long story short, I took a flight back. It was several years ago, from Quebec to Chicago. The point gets stalled on the tarmac. I had a full-blown panic attack. I had to deal with a bunch of issues after that like riding in elevators and flying was scary. I still do struggle with some of this stuff. When I’m doing my exposure therapy, it helps a lot but even being stuck in standstill traffic was an issue for me.

At age 29, this all hit me out of nowhere. It is weird how mental health can work like that. After going to a bunch of therapy over a couple of years, riding a ton of elevators, doing a lot of breathing exercises, and doing a lot of exposure therapy, I finally flew medication-free after several years of having this panic attack. Before that, I had never been afraid to fly or have any issues.

I hesitantly posted that story on Facebook, not knowing what to expect. I didn’t post it for business reasons. It was therapeutic to get it out there enough. I figured if I could help a person or two, it would be a win and worth putting it out. The response was overwhelming in a good way. A lot of people reached out from all different walks of life, telling stories about themselves, what they have been dealing with, and what their kids are dealing with. Things like that.

What I learned is most of us are going through something when it comes to mental health or some struggle in life. Being vulnerable, pulling back the curtain, and being authentic can be helpful. It can be helpful for business reasons because people like working with people that they can relate to in a world where everyone is posting a highlight reel on social media, pulling back the curtain, and telling people what is going on with your life can be powerful.

Another thing we did in 2021 was we did an episode during the BLM Movement, a candid conversation on race in Milwaukee, where I had my Black friends, DJ and Khalif, come on. One of my White friends, Greg Marshall, who is active in the Black community, and come on. We had a raw, got some different perspectives, and told stories. It was good. A lot of people got a lot of great takeaways out of that. We were the only non-true media company to win a Press Club Award in because of that episode. It was vulnerable, authentic, and timely, which is a content engagement trigger.

Number five, sex sells, and cuteness also sells. I’m looking at my deck now, and ads from GoDaddy.com and Carl’s Jr are popping up. GoDaddy is a domain company, and Carl’s Jr is a cheeseburger-ish chain where if you eat that a lot, you are not going to look like the woman on my screen who is holding a cheeseburger and smiling now. They were targeted at middle-aged men or younger guys, and those campaigns ended up transforming those companies.

If you can incorporate sex sells into advertising, it can be effective. Cuteness also sells. You will notice that I put my puppy in a decent amount of my ads on social media. You guys have probably seen him before. 1) I liked my puppy a lot. 2) Strategically, I know cuteness sells and sex sells. I make my girlfriend come on some of those ads as well because I know attractive women and puppies perform well on social media ads. I also know that I’m neither of those two things. We also spend enough money on the puppy that I would love to get a little bit of ROI on that guy at some point in time.

People buy with emotion and justify with logic. Click To Tweet

Segueing into number six, comedy and humor. People love comedy and humor. I have got some things in front of me. It is like, “How can you be funny if you are in a still industry?” On my screen now is a YouTube video that says, “Financial Advisors React to Money Advice on TikTok (Part 1).” They are breaking down this advice that these 18, 19, and 20-year-old kids are giving on TikTok about finances and roasting them about how incorrect the advice is. That is funny.

I’m also looking at a billboard now that says, “Best time ever to get braces from an orthodontist.” It is a girl smiling. Her face is covered by a mask. The best time ever to get braces is during COVID. I thought that was funny. You can’t see the billboard now but it is good. The memes work good. Those videos worked good. I’m looking at QuickTrips, Instagram account. If you can work that into it, that is great, number six.

Number seven is newsjacking. We did a successful giveaway for the putter company and Meridian Putters around the Ryder Cup. We created a couple of Ryder Cup putters and gave them away. I used this platform called KingSumo for viral giveaways. It had over 3,100 people enter and only spent about $900 on ads. Those emails have already been profitable, and it is an engaged list. Doing a giveaway is a good idea. I will get to that shortly but what can be timely if we did that? It wasn’t around the Ryder Cup. It wouldn’t have been as popular but since people were already riled up about the Ryder Cup, that worked well.

Another thing I did in 2021 was I had a lot of business owners on the show during COVID, which a lot of you probably remember. They came on and had raw, real conversations on what they were going through. I had about 4 to 8 on at a time. I give them all a five minutes segment. It was a good way for me to bring the community together. Selfishly, I wanted people to have a beer with me virtually on a Friday afternoon. I enjoyed doing those episodes, and they performed well.

Even going back to that social debate and conflict when I put up that Aaron Rodgers, QuickTrip meme, which I said social debate and conflict, but that was also humor. That falls under comedy and humor. It was also timely. It stacked at those triggers, but timeliness and newsjacking are important. That is why the news has been successful for a long time. It is timely.

Number eight, pain to success. One example I use here is I was at the Bucks and Timberwolf game. I’m looking at the scoreboard. It was not a good game. We lost to the Timberwolves for whatever reason. I think we are still maybe a little hungover from the championship, but we won a few games in a row as of this recording.

I looked up at the jumbotron, and there was a video from the Sojourner Family Peace Center. I usually don’t pay attention to what is on the jumbotron but it was this dark music. These women were walking up to the screen with signs that said, “Broken, exposed, afraid, overwhelmed, shattered, and grieving.” It was heartstring-pulling up. I was tearing up in the stands at a basketball game, which I don’t know if that had ever happened before.

It was a good video but about halfway through the video, upbeat music came on. These women came back holding signs that said, “Healed, secured, fulfilled,” and it was a good example of pain to success. What happens in marketing when sometimes you shove success down people’s throats in your marketing is they can’t relate because you are high up. If they know that you have gone through what they need to go through, you have been in their shoes before, and you can show that empathy, all of a sudden, showing success becomes a lot more powerful.

The other example that I used here is a webinar ad that we did for one of our workshops on podcasting is a quick ad. It is a social media ad. It is me talking about how we started this show in 2016 with a recorder mic and a wide-open room. I had no idea what I was doing, and we grew it into this show. That has got covered a couple of hundred thousand downloads. It was the last few years and has generated over seven figures for our business in top-line revenue and has enabled us to work with some of the top brands in the world.

It is a powerful video, not because I’m saying, “We have made this money off the show, and it has got us into some of these top companies in the world.” That is part of it. If I didn’t share the beginning story and the struggle, which makes me relatable to people and companies, who are starting a show from scratch, then it is not going to have the same effect.

Companies as a leader in the market. You want to be able to display authority and empathy. Authority, people want to that you have done it, and you have got results in your where they are trying to get to where you can get them where they want to get to but empathy. They also want to know that you can relate to them and that you have been in their shoes before. Number eight, pain and success or better yet, pain to success.

To bring the eight triggers altogether to reiterate. The eight triggers are 1) Social debate, and conflict. 2) Taking a stand. 3) Intrigue. 4) Comedy. 5) Authenticity and vulnerability. 6) Sex sells, and cuteness sells. 7) Timeliness and newsjacking. 8) Pain and success, or better yet, pain to success. The most successful content creators, speakers, and salespeople in the world typically stack a lot of these elements in single pieces of content or throughout it.

The good news for you is if you are not an Instagram model or comedian, you have got six other things to choose from. No matter what your strengths are, there are going to be things in here that you can stack or your marketing team can stack for you. Keep that in mind. Stack these triggers as much as possible when you are creating content.

Marketing Hacks

A little bonus, my two favorite marketing hacks out there now that every company should be doing. Number one is giveaways using a platform called KingSumo. It is a free viral giveaway platform if you have anything to give away. If you are a business, you don’t need to go and give away an iPad. It should have something to do with your business. Maybe it is branded.

We launched a podcast for Hansen Reynolds Law Firm, At The Bar. Toby Reynolds and Tim Hansen do a good job with that show. Check it out. We launched one with them, giving away pint glasses with the At The Bar logo and an Apple Watch but there were also pint glass glasses with their logo on them. Get it At The Bar. Play on words. They are a law firm, and the conversations on the show are casual like they are at the bar. With Meridian, we did that for the Ryder Cup giveaway. We had over 3,100 people enter on $926 of ad spend. Those emails had a 25% open rate and 5% click. It performed well. Give away using kingSumo.

Number two, quiz ads. I went over this when I talked about intrigue but this could be like, “JBs, do you know the facts quiz where we had 27,654 people start his quiz and 7,017 complete it?” About 25% percent completed the quiz, which is good, especially when the content was highly engaging. We were getting about $0.20 clicks on there. The great thing is that you get data and a lead when you do that if you are a company.

Some guidelines, you should have about 6 to 10 questions. People are invested but you are not going to lose them. Make sure you collect your email on the back end of the quiz after they have already filled it out because they are more invested in it, as opposed to the front end. If you try and collect it on the front end, you are going to have much higher of a bounce rate off of that.

For some other examples, calculators can work well. Mortgage calculator, home affordability tool. Michael Hyatt has one on his website that says, “What is stopping you from accomplishing your biggest priorities. Take the assessment.” It is a productivity assessment. “What business should I start based on how you are wired?” Things like that. What quiz can you offer to your customers? LeadQuizzes.com works well on this. Ryan Levesque does a lot of work on this. He is another guy to look up. Lead Quizzes.

Bring it all together. If you have a great product, expertise, and stories in your organization, you still have a big opportunity to be different in 2022. When you are coming up with content, stack the engagement triggers for maximum results. When you have your target audience, be creative and offer. You need those three elements locked in, target audience, creative, and offer. If one of those three things is off, you are not going to be as effective. Make sure you have those dialed in. When you get those dialed in, take advantage of digital marketing.

If you need help with digital marketing, feel free to go to our website, GGM.io, or you can shoot me an email directly at [email protected]. We are bringing on new clients for 2022. let me know but when you have solidified that target audience, that creative, and that offer, that is when digital marketing can be effective. If those aren’t three aren’t solidified, you can be throwing money away but most of your competition probably still is not doing this right.

That is all we have. If you need help with your marketing, whether it is through podcasts, production, digital advertising, or video web, visit our website, GGM.io. We have got a form you can fill out over there. If you want to get involved with The GoGedders, we are planning out 2022. Go to the same website, and fill out a form. We would love to hear from you. We would love it if you give any feedback on The GoGedders or want to suggest. If you are a company and want to work with us to get the word out, and if you have a good story, we would be happy to hear from you. Thanks so much for reading.
 

Important Links

• Pat Miller’s Idea Collective Retreat
• The Savannah Bananas
• $100 M Offers
• Johnson Financial Group – Past Episode
• Instagram – QuickTrip
• BarStool Fund
• MeridianPutters.com
• Presidential Playbook
• 12 Simple Solutions to Save America
• Mental Golf Type
• Cultivate Advisors
• Overcoming Anxiety Day by Day – Past Episode
• BLM Movement – Past Episode
• Financial Advisors React to Money Advice on TikTok (Part 1) – Youtube
• GoDaddy.com
• KingSumo
• At The Bar
• LeadQuizzes.com
• [email protected]

Now, more than ever, it’s critical to reevaluate your brand and adjust accordingly. Customers and technology are changing every day, and it’s your job as the CEO to identify that. Start understanding your brand values and stay true to them. If you have a hallmark sandwich or a distinct look, stick to it. Running a business is all about branding. To learn more on how to reinvent your brand in difficult times, join Richie Burke as he talks to an expert in the industry, Christine Specht, CEO of Cousins Subs. Learn how Christine reinvented the brand after years of difficult hurdles. Discover why you need to invest in digital technology and why you need a franchise model. Find out how Christine made sure Cousins was built for the future.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

How To Reinvent Your Brand In A Difficult Market With Christine Specht Of Cousins Subs

If you’re curious about how to successfully transform your brand, even in a highly competitive market, I’ve got a great episode with an amazing leader. We’ve got Christine Specht, the CEO of Cousins Subs. Christine’s father started the company in the ’70s and built an iconic brand in Wisconsin, but it got a little tired and dated. Christine and the team at Cousins have had to make a lot of difficult decisions over the last decade.  

She has had to navigate a pandemic. They’ve opened stores, closed stores, and undergone an entire rebrand. They’ve invested a lot into technology. As a result of a lot of these decisions and investments, the future never looked brighter for Cousins. It’s a great story. You’ll get a lot of good takeaways from a leadership culture, business, and marketing standpoint for your company.

Before we dive in, I wanted to let you know that this interview is directly from the Keeping It Local Podcast powered by First Federal Bank. It’s a show that I host and we produced through GGMM. If you’re looking for more great local business content, make sure to check out the Keeping It Local Podcast after this episode. Thanks again for tuning in. Let’s dive in with Christine.

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I’m joined by Christine Specht, the CEO of Cousins Subs, an iconic brand in Wisconsin with nearly 100 locations and Cousins turns 50 in 2022. Christine also happens to be a Board Member here at First Federal. Christine, welcome to the show.

It’s great to be here.

For those who don’t know, can you give a quick background on the company’s history and its ties to Southeast Wisconsin?

Cousins was started here in Milwaukee in 1972. As you said, we’re celebrating our 50th anniversary which is a great milestone, particularly, for restaurants because it’s a hard industry to have a lot of longevity in. Our first location was on 60th and Silver Spring. It was started by two cousins, my dad, Bill Specht, and his cousin, Jim Sheppard. They based their product on their favorite restaurant in Atlantic City, New Jersey where they are from.

My dad was living here when he started the business and recruited his cousin to move here to be partners. They started because they missed the East Coast-style sub sandwich and thought this would be a great time to open it up. It was with the intent of having one restaurant and seeing how it goes and maybe trying to support their families, but it took off from there. It hit home with people here in Milwaukee.

What was it like growing up in that family? Were you working in the stores? Did you ever think you would work for the family business as an actual career?

It was my first job when I was fifteen. I couldn’t wait. I worked at our store in Germantown, Wisconsin, which is still there. It’s one of our busiest restaurants. I still remember my first day working. Some of those things you don’t forget. Beyond working in restaurants as a cashier and a sandwich maker, I wasn’t thinking that I would do this as a career. My degrees have nothing to do with the restaurant industry. I have a Degree in Criminology and Law Studies and a Master’s in Public Administration.

My parents allowed me and encouraged me to forge my own path and see what else was out there. They never said you must work for the company. When I joined the company professionally in 2001, it was a welcome choice because I wanted to get back to the family business. My role back then in 2001 was in human resources. There wasn’t the plan then to have me run the company at some point in time, it was working for the company in HR and we’ll see where it goes. As things turned out, I had the opportunity and I went after it.

Not every day is going to be great at your job, but you spend the best hours of your life at your job so you need to enjoy it. Click To Tweet

Is your husband still at the company too? What’s it like being in that family environment all the time compared to something else you could have gone and done?

I love it. I love being in the family business. I love my job. I tell people that, not every day is going to be great and whatever job you have. You spend the best hours of your life typically at your job. You need to enjoy it. I can say that I enjoy it. My husband, J.J., is still working at the company. He’s our Director of Franchise Sales. I appreciate it. It’s still going well since the last time we spoke.

I love it because he and I can talk about work at home, but it doesn’t necessarily run our lives because we have a family and we do other things, but when we do talk about work, we have a collective understanding of what’s happening. We can talk about ideas and challenges in a way that sometimes spouses can’t with one another because they’re not at the same company. He understands the business as well as I understand the business. We then can work together and talk about some of the challenges or even future opportunities where we want to go.

Cousins sandwich shop, you guys are in a very competitive business. What are some of the things that you focus on to stand out?

There are a few things we focus on and it’s about being true to the foundation of the brand. One of our values is grounded. You could ask anybody about our brand and they would tell you what we serve, grilled and deli fresh subs but beyond that, it’s served on bread. It is my dad and his cousin’s recipe from the ’70s. It’s the same recipe now as it was back then. That foundation, the bread is the hallmark of our brand.

To care about the quality of the product that we serve to our guests is very important. The other thing is we have continued to give back to the community. We have a foundation, the Make It Better Foundation. We’ve given over $750,000 since 2013 to various local organizations where our Cousins stores are located. We focus on things like health and wellness, youth education, and hunger.

There are a lot of outward-facing things that we do to differentiate ourselves from our competitors because it is highly competitive and somebody could say, “It’s another sub sandwich.” We try to be different. We have a very strong culture. I’m very proud of that. We were named the Top Workplace for 2022 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. We’re happy about that and that’s the second year in a row.

 

To get awards that recognize our workplace, our work style, and our culture is very difficult because we have such a fragmented workforce. We’re not under one roof. We’re in many different buildings and it’s hard to drive that culture to all those locations. It’s similar to First Federal where they have different branches, yet it’s all under one roof. When you’re driving that culture, it’s critical that it gets down to everyone.

Can you touch on technology? You’ve evolved quite a bit. You had a big online ordering initiative that started before the pandemic, which paid off through the pandemic. Touch on the evolution of that.

Technology continues to evolve. That’s exactly right. Pre-pandemic, we had online ordering. We had third-party delivery. Little did we know how fortunate we were to have the technology in place to be able to ramp that up because of the pandemic. When COVID hit, that completely transformed how our guests were enjoying our sandwiches. They were then ordering through third-party delivery and ordering through curbside, which we didn’t even have curbside before the pandemic. We launched it in about 48 hours because we had the technology. We just never launched it. We were able to turn that component on and then connect with our guests to help them navigate through that.

Over the past several years, we’ve laid a foundation from a unified point of sale system in all of our restaurants to then continuing to increase the technology, whether it’s online ordering, third-party delivery, curbside, and now launching loyalty. All those components of technology have helped to complement our business and to help people get our product in a way they want to. Consumers are changing. Consumers are purchasing differently and you have to be ready to adapt to that. COVID forced that for many businesses, but since we had that foundation, we could highlight and enhance the technology that we did have.

You talk about the last several years and you started in 1972, but you’ve gone through a massive rebrand. You closed a lot of stores. You rebranded a lot of stores. You’ve opened a lot of new stores since then. Can you touch on the rebrand and the importance of that while staying true to Cousins’ roots because you guys do have such a loyal following in the area?

When I started in 2008 as the president, in the first few years, we were still working through some issues with my dad’s partner’s estate because my dad’s partner passed away. Starting in 2011, my leadership team and I took a look at the brand and we recognized it for what it was, a brand that serves great products in spite of our guest environment and inconsistencies that existed throughout the brand.

In 2001, we had some stores that were microwave stores. They didn’t have grills, yet we were serving cheesesteaks. We felt that was a big inconsistency in product quality and presentation to the guest. We made a program where we put grills in our locations and helped to subsidize some of the costs for our franchise owners to put grills in their locations because it makes a better product.

Start embracing technology. Consumers are changing. They're purchasing differently and you have to be ready to adapt to that. Click To Tweet

That is one example where we’ve tried to increase the consistency of the product quality, but then certainly the environment. Our stores were very old, very tired, and very different from one another depending on the year in which they were built. Since that time, we’ve embarked on creating a brand strategy that unifies the look, where you know that if you’re in a Cousins, even if it doesn’t look exactly like the one you were in Appleton, you have the essence of the brand that you understand what that is. The brand that we have now is one that’s meant to continue to evolve where we maybe update some materials, colors and lighting, but the brand will continue to evolve in that way.

That was a big undertaking because we had a lot of corporate stores and franchise locations that needed reinvestment. We gave our franchisees the opportunity to reinvest. We said, “You have to reinvest. You have to do it,” when in the past, we didn’t make it enforced, but we gave them the opportunity to reinvest at the time their franchise agreement was going to be up for expiration and renewal. That way, they could plan for, “Do they want to still be with Cousins? Do they want to reinvest? How are they going to afford to reinvest?”

During that time, in those early, we closed 40 restaurants. We exited a number of franchisees, and then even now, we have franchisees that are selling to us corporately to move on because maybe they’re looking towards retirement. There has been a lot of change through that, but it has been good because we’ve been able to make the brand consistent for the consumer who deserves that experience every time.

Was there a lot of resistance or pushback when you took on that initiative? The business at the time was profitable and doing fine, but to get to the next level and build it and “future proof” it in a way, necessary steps?

It was met with some resistance but keep in mind that in 2008, we had a recession. We were climbing out of that and stores are profitable. The past philosophy for Cousins and the leadership of Cousins didn’t require those remodels because the individual franchisee was making money or maybe had a loan from their initial build-out. That was paid off, then you don’t want to have to go into another loan. It was very much individual and individual store-focused. We said, “We need to make this a brand while thinking of you individually. We think this will be better for you individually, but we can’t sacrifice the brand because we’re not enforcing a remodel.”

The price is the price and it varies depending on the location, but what we were was very transparent and very honest. We also involve the franchise community in decision-making. We show them design pallets ahead of time. We involve them. We ask them for their feedback so that it wasn’t pushed on them, which as a franchisor, you can do. Most franchisors do that. They tell their franchisees, “Remodel or you’re out.” We didn’t want to take that heavy-handed approach because that’s not our culture. It’s not the values that I live by.

You touched on culture and you mentioned you guys got voted Top Place to Work in the area by the Journal Sentinel. That’s a great award. Do you have any advice on building a culture? What do you guys focus on at Cousins? Any takeaways for other business owners or HR people reading this?

 

Things that we do to build our culture is we try to be authentic. For us, that means living our values. I mentioned that one of our values is grounded. We’re also optimistic, purposeful and passionate. Those are the four values that you’ll see on a wall in some type of artwork. You’ll see those in the restaurants and our corporate support center.

People know that you have to participate in that culture. You may not experience or live those values at the same level every single day, but it’s about understanding that that’s the expectation. When we hire people here at the office, I talked to them about our culture because I want to make sure that they are a culture fit. It’s from the very beginning life cycle of the employee when they come onboard, and then we live that.

Maybe that’s by having some fun at the office. Our support center made us a Cinco de Mayo potluck and everybody likes to participate. In our restaurants, we’ll reward and support them. Maybe we’ll give them a hot potato bar or an ice cream bar for all their teams to recognize them and the hard work that they’re doing. We try to make that on par at both levels at the support center and with our restaurants, but that culture has to start at the top. For me, that’s what I love to do. I love to live and talk about our culture and try to be as authentic as I can, and then push that down to our employees.

Employees that have left the company that doesn’t fit the culture figure it out pretty quickly. We’re not heavy-handed about it or anything, but it’s important to us. We will have turnover and we understand that. There’s this value set that we live by. I want you to love Cousins. We make and sell subs. I tell the team that all the time, “It’s very simple, but we have to make and sell as many subs as we can so we can pay debts, reinvest in our employees, and also reinvest in the community.” When you drive that home, they get and understand that. They want to make and sell as many subs as they can.

Are you still working in the stores too?

I still work in the stores. I was at our store on Villard working over lunch, which is great fun. We have great general managers. I work in all of our corporate stores once per year and now we’re up to 43. It’s filling my schedule more. It’s a great way for me to live those values, stay grounded, and still is one of the best parts of my job. I love it.

How do you decide which one you’re going to? Do you plan out much in advance so you’re dropping off?

Work culture always starts at the top. Click To Tweet

I would never do that to the teams in the store. They want to be ready. I give my Director of Operations, Hillary, my schedule and she puts me wherever she wants me to go for that period of time, but it’s great fun. I love to connect with the employees. I love to connect with the guests. It keeps me hands-on in understanding what’s happening.

One more question about the in-store experience. How do you guys come up with new products and menu items?

At the corporate support center, we have a menu development team. We think about trends, profiles, and tastes that are coming up. We think about how can we do that and parlay that to Cousins and make it Cousins specific product. There are a couple of ways to do that. We can offer limited-time only subs or LTOs. We probably do those quarterly but then we can put them on permanent menu items.

For example, in the last couple of years, we’ve launched shakes and they’re incredible. They’re so good. We have chocolate and vanilla, and now we have strawberry. We’ll rotate other shake flavors in. There’s a gelato product. It’s wonderful, and yet other times like right now we have our East Coast Philly Sub Sandwich, and it’s a nod towards the East Coast Philly Sandwich in honor of our 50th-anniversary celebration. That will be on the menu limited time.

The best part about that is I’m on the menu development team and we do all that formulation of the product in our support center where we have a test kitchen. It’s a full store inside our support center, where we do anything from training, and baking classes to testing kiosks, which will you’ll see in-store soon. Also looking at the menu development and things like that. It’s a lot of fun because it also means a lot of trial and error. When we were coming with the shake flavor, for example, we tested 25 different shake flavors.

When did the cheese curds get added to the menu? Those are amazing. People don’t necessarily think of cheese curds when they’re going to get a sub.

They don’t. I’m glad you said that because that’s one of the things that helps to differentiate us from our competitors because we’re not just a sub and chips. We have all these fantastic sides.

 

The fries are pretty good too.

The fries are amazing. The cheese curds and soups are good. They’re high quality because we don’t want to just throw something on the menu and hope it works. We’re proud of those curds. We win awards for those curds. The kind of those best subs in the periodicals around the state. They’re very good. That has probably been about five years ago or maybe it was longer than that.

I wanted to make sure they got a plug on the show.

Thank you very much and they’re here to stay. Curds are not going anywhere.

You guys are making some aggressive moves towards the future too. You’re opening up new locations. You have some expansion coming. Can you touch on that?

We understand that while our current stores are doing very well. Over the last several years, our average sales of each unit have gone up 93%. That’s a huge jump and accomplishment for us. Same-store sales are up 57% over the last ten years, but we also need to forge new ground. We need to continue to grow and expand.

We do that in two ways. The new ground will be new growth and development. We’re looking at corporate development in Indiana and we’re very excited about that. We’re also looking at reinvestment in legacy markets where the stores maybe are old and tired. For example, we opened up two brand new freestanding locations with drive-throughs in Sheboygan. One on the north side and one on the south side.

Stay very disciplined about what you're looking for and who you're looking for in terms of franchising. Click To Tweet

Cousins has been in the Sheboygan market for well over 25 years, but the stores got tired and became not in the right location exactly. When we acquired those stores corporately, we knew we had a long-term plan and that was reinvestment in the Sheboygan market to be the brand that we know we are and be proud of, but not just here in Milwaukee. We’re making sure that extends beyond Milwaukee, so Sheboygan, for example. We’re opening up a new freestanding restaurant in Green Bay. We’ll have more development in Green Bay. We’re very excited about the Fox Valley, but it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of planning.

What does freestanding mean?

Freestanding means it is its own building with a drive-through instead of being in a strip center. If we’re in a strip center, we want to be at the end of the strip center because we hope we would be able to have a drive-through, but that doesn’t always happen. That would be our second choice. That was a lesson out of COVID. While our drive-through stores have always been great because they gave a guest another option, it became so necessary. The performance of those drive-through locations is essential.

People’s habits continued to evolve. Less and less people are getting out of their vehicles to come inside. They want to make it quick. We have to design a drive-through flow that can make it quick, but yet to our quality. It still isn’t pre-made food. It’s made to order, yet we feel that we can execute it in a timely manner where people know that they may wait three minutes, but they’re going to have a great product that is made just for them.

Also, when I was doing my homework, I’m not sure if these numbers are still accurate, but I’m guessing they were close. You guys have 41 owned corporate stores, and 53 franchise or owned stores. How has that shifted over the last several years? How do you see that shifting in the future?

It has shifted a lot and that is very close. Right now, we have 43 corporate stores. Several years ago, we would have as few as 8, but it grew a little bit to 15, 16 units. This big growth trajectory we’ve had on a corporate basis is not necessarily new store development. It’s acquiring franchisees who are exiting the system.

When I started at Cousins in 2001, we had over 90 franchise groups. Now, we have less than 30 and that doesn’t mean we’re not franchising, but we’re very particular about who we’re franchising with. We don’t just open the flood gates. We stay very disciplined about what we are looking for and who we’re looking for in terms of franchising. With our franchisees, as I mentioned, many of them have been in the business for 20 to 25 years. They’re thinking about their retirement. They’re thinking this is probably a good time to sell because business has been very good for them.

 

Corporately, we’re natural buyers because we have the first right to buy. Because we already have the systems and processes in place, it’s not as though a franchisee has to sell to a brand-new person coming into the customs system. That’s difficult because that individual needs to learn the system. In this way, it can be nearly a seamless transition with corporate stores.

As long as we’re willing to invest in the labor and the support to help those stores be successful as corporate stores, we can continue to grow that. You will see continued corporate growth. At the same time, you will see franchise growth. Again, it’s about being very selective about who we pick and where we allow restaurants to grow.

Franchising and franchised concepts sometimes get a little bit fast and loose. They’ll award a franchise to about anybody. That may be great for the initial franchise fee, but it causes you pain because you’re married to them for ten years if that’s how long your agreement is. It’s about minimizing those pains that you will have with the relationship at the beginning. We would rather be very slow and cautious in our franchising than have anybody come in.

It seems much more sustainable and with a lot fewer headaches.

Yes, well said.

You’re very active in the Milwaukee community through the Make It Better Foundation at Cousins. Why did you join the First Federal Board here? Are there any similarities between your business and a community bank?

There are a number of reasons why I joined the First Federal Board.

 

Other than Ed Schaefer.

My dad was on the First Federal Board for many years. I didn’t lobby for it. When I was asked to be on it, I was touched because at that time my dad had stepped off and I thought, “Maybe I can do something good here.” It’s a great organization. They are so similar to Cousins in the sense that they’re Wisconsin based. They’re a small business. We’re not these big behemoths out there. We have competitors that are larger than us, but the similarities are such that they invest in the community, whether that’s buying branches that are in areas that maybe are underserved.

It’s about helping individuals achieve some financial independence and have a place to go or maybe if they’re starting their business, they have a trusted banking partner in their community. That’s important. I love that. They have their foundation just like Cousins has its foundation. They support causes whether that’s promoting financial literacy for young people, which is so important or helping a women’s shelter in Waukesha.

There are many things that First Federal does that touch the hearts and lives of individuals. It’s not for them just about getting a banking fee or making the money, it’s about staying invested in these communities. That is certainly at the heart of Cousins. Learning more in-depth about that in First Federal solidifies the relationship that I have with them. I couldn’t be more proud to be on the board of First Federal.

We’ll end it there. Thanks so much for coming on.

I had fun. Thank you.

—

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode with Cousins’ CEO Christine Specht brought to you by Go Geddit Marketing and Media, GGMM.io. For our friends at Milwaukee, just a reminder, this was originally aired on First Federal Bank’s Keeping It Local Podcast. If you’re looking to grow your brand through podcasting, video, or digital advertising, make sure to reach out or head to our website, GGMM.io. We’ve got a form on there. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for tuning in.

 

Important Links

• Cousins Subs
• Keeping It Local Podcast
• First Federal Bank
• Make It Better Foundation
• Christine Specht
• GGMM.io

 

About Christine Specht

I grew up with Cousins Subs—the sub sandwich chain my dad, Bill Specht, founded with his cousin in 1972. In fact, my first job was at the Cousins Subs in Germantown, Wisconsin.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in criminology and law studies from Marquette University and a master’s degree in public administration from American University, I returned to the family business. I have held the roles of Human Resources Manager, Chief Operating Officer, President and CEO, and now serves as CEO. I have successfully brought new life to a legacy brand by leading a series of system changes, including: a largescale rebranding strategy to establish consistency and unify the brand in look and feel across all locations, the implementation of grills in restaurants and the inclusion of Cousins Subs’ Midwest heritage throughout its menu with signature local products including subs served with all Wisconsin cheeses, Wisconsin Mac & Cheese and Wisconsin Cheese Curds.

I proudly serve on a number of boards, including: chair of MRA – The Management Association, chair of the Concordia University Wisconsin Ann Arbor Foundation board, member of the Concordia University Wisconsin Board of Regents and member of the First Federal Bank of Wisconsin board. I also serve as the president of the Cousins Subs Make It Better Foundation board and member of the Cousins Subs Board of Directors.

I previously served on the board of Community Memorial Hospital, Lutheran Living Services, Wisconsin Restaurant Association Milwaukee Chapter and Grace Lutheran Church.

In 2018, I was honored as one of the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Women of Influence and recognized in FastCasual magazine’s “Women in the Lead” series.

Cousins Subs was recently named ‘Best Sandwich’ in the 2019 Best of Milwaukee Awards and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Top Choice Awards Best Sandwiches or Sub Shop in 2019.