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You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast.

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still here rocking it within Billions event. We got health, wealth, and mindset. We got more great founders, including my good buddy here, Mario Mirabella. What's up, brother? What's going on? Nice to be here. Hey, man. Like to having you, man. Thank you. It's nice having somebody else in the understanders agency business. Oh, yeah. So founder of MSM Digital. We've both been in the business a while. And it's been nice getting to know Mario and a lot of people.

00:48
event. Oh absolutely yeah I mean just all sorts of levels here. Yeah. Just amazing the experience and knowledge that's in this room. If you want to say multiple rooms of this palace. This palace castle. I mean you know but it's it's amazing you know the experiences and and and just the the victories across the board of all these people in all different industries too. Yeah. You know all that wealth of knowledge they're bringing to the table I mean you're just

01:18
because you're picking out bits and pieces of everything that people are speaking about.

01:22
So, you know, it's priceless. And every person, sometimes you do events and it's not that you don't respect who's on stage, but it's maybe something you've heard or like, and you're like, okay, I've heard that or whatever. I mean, every single speaker, I've pulled two to three nuggets. Oh yeah, absolutely. It's like, if not 10. Yeah, oh, for sure. I know. It's just, you just constantly learn. I felt like just being a sponge because you have to be. You have to be. You have to be, you know. Especially when you get the value out of these things.

01:52
That's absolutely right. So it's been a star studded lineup. I know. Good stuff. Speaking of stars, Mario. Stars been aligning for what, 22 years? What's that? 23 this year, man. 23. Dude, 23. That's my favorite player. MJ. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the goat. Oh, yeah. That's it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Let's paint that founder's story for me. We know it's ups, downs, rounds. Everything sideways, man. Yeah, I know.

02:22
It's been a fun run. Starting in 99, technically, when launching.

02:30
the agency, originally as MSM Designs, we were a creative agency, and it was built straight out of my bedroom as a hobby, you know? So a fun fact, Ryan, back in 96, I sold my turntables, and I bought my first computer, man. So I was a little late in the game, in the computer game, but that's what I did. My precious, cherished Technique 1200s, man. I used to cut up and make mixtapes in high school, man. Oh, I miss them. I miss them, the mixes.

03:00
I used to have two 18 subs in my room. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it knocked the bass. But, you know.

03:07
discovered that computer, discovered the internet for the very first time and was completely hooked. And just took a, just the passion and love for the creatives. Taught myself Adobe, taught myself how to code in Notepad at the time, you know, before I kind of graduated a little bit the front page and I said, oh, this is not for me. I went straight to Dreamweaver, which was like crazy hard at the time. Oh God. And I lived in forums, man. I just taught myself action scripting back in the day

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I loved Flash and I loved everything, animating, transition effects, music, loved it. And I got tremendous help with coders in the forums during those days, but it was all a hobby. You know, I didn't think I was doing this. I have actually a degree in criminology. I wasn't supposed to be here, you know, in this area. It was just more of a love and a passion. And I said to myself, when I did start the company, well, maybe I could do this. You know, maybe I could do this.

04:07
But I had no idea of how to do it and maybe to even obtain clients at the time. So I pretty much was just doing free work just to build a portfolio. So do you need a website or a friend of a friend starting this travel agency? You need a website? And that's how it started, man. Local restaurants. And then all of a sudden I was like, well, how, you know, I got to start making money here. And that's what happened, man. And it just, it started then to take off. I actually left my full-time job then.

04:37
I was working for a software company and I never looked back at the time. I never looked back and I laughed though because I made the move and it wasn't real. I was one year into being married at the time and I made the move and my wife was like, so you're not going to go look for another job? Like, what's going on here? You know, I says, I got to give this a try. And that, and then it just propelled me into that life.

05:07
much just kept going and started to build the company with talent in areas that I knew I didn't have that skill set. I didn't have the training say maybe Complex Databases, eCom, brought in brought in the talent to really develop the company and to allow us to grow until I was able then to open up locations and then of course we we got more in-house staff and you know and

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all, you know, the technologies come and go, the birth of social media, as you know, you know, because you've been around, you know, similar years, right? So it's wild to see how it, you know, really transformed and you have to stay ahead. If not, you're in this industry, you're just done. Yeah. So you got to keep reinventing. And that's how we came to today with MSM Digital is that we're no longer we haven't been probably

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decade, we haven't been a creative agency. I mean, it's always the backbone to polish in brands, make them look good, their online presence, but we're doing much more now to get them on the map, build awareness, traffic leads, all that type of stuff, and I figured if we're going to set the stage to do even more, put ourselves in front of a bigger audience.

06:30
the name needs to really translate that. So we're not maybe counted out as maybe, oh, they're just maybe a creative agency. So that was the reason for the move this year to MSM Digital. And it's been a good run. Yeah. Yeah, man. How's, I know you've had, and you're about to, I know we talked pre-episode about scaling and things like that. We'll come back to that. But like, what's the biggest?

07:00
Maybe let's take it from two angles. Like as an entrepreneur and you know that journey and owning your own business and putting the skin in the game and the risk and all that. What's like been the biggest surprise over the years or I don't know maybe just something you just didn't expect and then you know specific to the ad agency and there's a two part question there. You know like.

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maybe industry specific, you know, like if there's one A or one B there as far as, you know, building a business in the advertising world. Yeah, well, you know, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be able to take the agency to where it is today. I just never had that.

07:46
Yeah, I guess that foresight. Again, this was like a hobby. But thinking, hey, I could do this. But in the first month, I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I'm starting to make more money than in my full-time job. So hold on a second. Yeah, there's something here. So that's a big surprise, right? Yeah, right. But yeah, I just think that being able to grow to those different heights and constantly reinventing yourself at the same time,

08:16
kind of surprises me in how we are as a company, how my team continues to evolve. From a client standpoint, it's just, I guess it comes down to the ability, we work with all industries and I think that, and that's something I may ask you about, because I like the diversity. And a lot of times people ask me,

08:43
Do you focus on one niche, one industry? And I thought about that at times. You know, be the guy for... X, Y, Z, yeah. But it's hard to turn down projects in different industries. It's just, it's hard to do that. And it also gives us, in my opinion, the ability to be more creative and to also like continue to think outside the box with these other types of projects and industries. Maybe if you found something, you know, when one didn't industry and say, you know what? I could be creative here and try it.

09:13
over here, it allows us to do that. We're not a one trick pony. Yep. And I don't know how you really feel about that, but that always remains, kind of it surprises us to see how we adapt, not only in working with the different industries, but also the team is constantly learning. They're constantly remaining sponges as to what's going on in the marketplace and new techniques with marketing. So we try to focus on that.

09:43
You know talent is the key Continuing to surround myself with with great talent. My team is excellent. I always tell them, you know, I'm as good as my team So yeah, I could sell you on something. But if it's not executed properly My saying is I write checks all the time that my team caches. Yeah There it is, you know, but I wouldn't write them if I didn't know they could right, right They don't bounce but because they're good, right?

10:12
That's the way it goes. You gotta have a team. Yeah. And do you feel the same way when it comes to industries? Yeah, I was going to answer that. That's a very hot topic in general with agencies. And everybody says riches in the niches, right? And I think for some things it is. And don't get me wrong. I see why companies do that. And if you want to scale, if it's one industry and you become a specialist, there's probably a faster track to growth there. Right.

10:40
But I agree 100% and I've fought that specialization with Radical because I think it makes us more skilled dealing with different things. If you do something the same all the time, you have one trick. Right, exactly. I think we're more creative and more...

11:04
I think our ability to think and actually sometimes applying something that's worked for B2C to B2B makes us unique and revolutionary versus or maybe something that I picked up in textiles that's moved the needle that could work in manufacturing or work in like

11:28
some other industry and I just we turn it a little bit and I think if if we were purely a b2b manufacturer Agency, we wouldn't have that foresight. We wouldn't be able to provide that Pivot. Yeah, you know a little bit or fresh thinking. Yeah, so I agree and I fought it And I I think I probably could have grown radical faster quicker Niche down. Yeah, but I also enjoy the variety. Yeah and so like i've

11:57
done well enough and we have good clients. And yeah, I mean, I could all y'all want to scale some more. But like, sure. But I enjoy the variety. Our team enjoys the variety. I think also it's hard to hold on team. If you have really talented, creative people and they're getting put too small of a box all the time, you're not going to keep them. You're not tapping in, right? You're not tapping into their talents. You know, when you just talked about

12:22
utilizing something that worked maybe for B2B into B2C or vice versa or whatever. I have a good example of that and thinking really outside the box. So years ago we had a client that specialized in men's formal wear and they were pretty big player with major brands that they carried and put out and they needed a new online presence. And we, long story short, we set up those site designs like you typically would for men's formal wear because they were, they were selling.

12:52
And it's that typical style, kind of catalog type of look. You know, it's a nice layout. But the sons of the owner who was taking more of an interest in the company, it was just striking out with them. And I was like, wow, you know, we're not nailing this like we always do. Something's off, something's off. And I was relying on my designers. And I said, you know what, I have another meeting with them. And I stayed up, I don't know what time was it, 2 a.m. or something, 3 a.m. to get it done. I did it myself.

13:22
You know what? I'm not gonna think as them, as men's formal wear and design like that. I'm gonna take the mentality that I would for a photographer, a videographer, for that shoots weddings. The lifestyle images, and this was like 10 years ago, the lifestyle images, that vibe of showing groomsmen in the settings, having fun out there, this and that, and brought that into the layout.

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and home run at 3 a.m. You know? So sometimes you can't be that one.

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track mind and just be creative and you're utilizing maybe your ideas from different industries that you worked in. That's right. And you tie it in there like, wow, you know, this is not really, we're not seeing this in our tuxedo type of industry. Yeah. And so we worked. You know, so that's just example of kind of cross pollinating, right? Yes. You know, so. I think it, you know, there's a lot of ways to skin the cat. Yeah. And I mean, I've, but I've gone down a similar road and I just think, I don't know, it's

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We, the one central point we kind of rally around is human to human. That's kind of our, like, whether we work with B2B or B2C, we promote ourselves as being a very human agency and we always ground our clients back in a human voice. And so that's kind of our, I don't know, lane. Yeah, well you were talking about that before. Yeah. And it makes sense. Like what you were saying, people don't want to be sold to. No.

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And that's that's you got to understand that. That was an insight there. Yeah, that's a thousand. It's like, OK, yeah, of course, nobody wants to be sold. Right. But it means that you need to market accordingly. Right. Yes. And that's that's the human side of it. And it's it's so key if you think along those lines.

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you know, they'll pay attention more, you're hitting pain points, you're like, you know, you're putting yourself in their shoes and such, and they're going to relate to that, they're gonna gravitate to that content. So that was key. You mentioned that, you mentioned something else too when it comes to, you know, the human voice and the element, but I think that should be the approach now. You know, what was that thing you were talking about, the friction and- Yeah, you gotta root friction. Right. Like, I mean, you know, Amazon's changed

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for everything. And so you've got to make the path to purchase super narrow, super folk, super easy. And you know, like.

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the best creative, you know, execution gets in the way, Coinbase, you know, doing that thing. And then there's server crash, they weren't ready for it. They weren't ready for it. You got half a billion people watching the Super Bowl, you needed to assume 25% were gonna hit your website. Right, absolutely. All you do is create friction for them trying to come see who you are. That's right, yeah. Removing friction, those are my, those are the Alfred Playbook. That's great. Human and friction removal. Ah, that's awesome. Speaking about Playbook, man, what happened with your team today?

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Oh, one. 27-21. Yes. All right. Okay, Clemson's won. They have the largest home winnings, 76 in a row at home. Are you kidding me? Clemson. And so they're playing at home today. Syracuse is up 21-10 at half. Ooh.

16:39
Clemson score 17 unanswered, 27-21. Defense shut them down to like negative 10 yards in the second half. Really? Oh, wow, unstoppable, like a brick wall, man. Oh, that's good stuff. Big win. That's good. And Syracuse is good. I mean, they're number 12. I mean, I'm not sure. I know that historically. You're good grade every year, but Dino had them playing good. So yeah. Oh, that's good stuff. Yes. So sidebar for those of you out there. But everybody who listens regularly knows I'm a Clemson guy.

17:09
We had to bring it up, man. We had to. We had to bring it up. Yes, yes. Mario, so where's it all going? We want to scale. I mean, side hustles. What else we got cooking? Yeah, I guess, you know, we want to scale. But I think for the first time, what I'm starting to do is separate myself a little bit to build my own personal brand. I think that's important.

17:36
I think it's been long overdue. The amount of experience at the moment, 23 years under my belt, the industries I've worked in. I mean, we had great recognition over the years as well. So it's been a really great ride for the company, but.

17:56
Today, it's all about that personal brand and how you're tying that back. The perfect example of what you did with the chart there of between your podcast and the personal brand and then it leads back to the company.

18:09
You know, that's so important, we're building relationships now, and it's key. And now that that's really been programmed in my mind this year, I'm speaking that way to clients when I see that there's opportunity for them now, making you an authority in that industry. You know, and I'm making them realize, like, especially building up their social presence and their brand voice.

18:33
At the end of the day, I need to make you an educator and an expert in your industry. That's my job, right? So sometimes then now we're taking away.

18:42
that owner of the company and saying, we need to concentrate on your personal brand a little bit too because the more good stuff you're putting out there, people are gonna pay attention. And like they always preach, you know, the know, like and trust. And I believe in that. And that's kind of been like really ingrained this year. And so of course I started to branch out from the company to put my own stuff out there just to build up my own credibility. Because other than that- But you've done it in the right order. And you know, I did the same thing like.

19:11
You've done it for 23 years. It makes a lot easier to get out there because you've got the credibility. Now you just need to amplify it, right? Right, just to, just to. And you've got the personality for it. Right, well, thank you. You do, totally do. It's fun speaking. It's fun getting on these things. I would love to do more of these things like this and get out there. I started my Instagram channel and just putting out good content, value. Really, that's all it is is value and just how can we start collaborating? Start collaborating with people.

19:41
And that's like the name of the game. You know, I think you mentioned it before, if I'm not mistaken. I know Josh mentioned it too. I always had this very, very competitive personality years back, very competitive, right?

19:57
There's plenty to go around. That's it. And I stopped that mentality long ago. And I said, you know what? It's all about collaboration now. There's more than enough for everybody to work together. There's money to be made. And I don't look at people as competitors anymore. Hey, how can we work together? Everybody's got a different skill set. You never know. There always could be a need. Or there could be somebody that says, you know what? I don't.

20:25
This is not a fit for me. You don't want to talk to this client? Yeah. And that's how things happen. So that's kind of been the change too. Just having that mentality. But the personal brand, that's kind of been my focus. I just got to get my ass doing more reels and video and stuff. That's why I'm looking at all this equipment. I says, send me a list, man. Yeah, I'll get you a list. But yeah, so that's kind of been our focus this year and what I would love to continue to do. So.

20:54
And I feel it all at the end, it ties back to the company. You know, I tell my staff all the time, I say I'm doing what I'm doing is because it's only gonna make us stronger, you know?

21:05
And they see that and they've been highly motivated now by the things that we've been doing this year that we never did. And I think it rejuvenates the staff, especially people who've been with me for 10 years plus. Yeah, it does. Which it's great to see. Well, and I'll use Nick, our producer's example, but Nick's been with me for almost the long haul with Radical. Yeah. And I think he bought the vision in the beginning, but like the...

21:34
Cause at first, you know, you guess your buddies and you're doing things with the podcast and like, I'm like, but Nick, let me tell you where this is going. And then, uh, and then we got here, uh, you know, yesterday or day before, whatever, and he goes.

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started from the bottom, now we're here. That's it, that's it, perfect track, man. Perfect track. Yeah, like literally, but he, you know, I told him this is what's coming, and it's here. You know, like. That's it, believed in the vision. Yeah. You know, it's important. You know, I almost, if I pull it up in my Slack channel to my staff, when something happened recently, we got recent recognition, and...

22:13
I said that to them. I said, thank you for believing in my vision and seeing what we're trying to do here and just coming along for the ride because look at what's going on. So. You gotta celebrate the wins too. That's it. We get enough hits, man. We get enough hits, man, over the years. No one gave me a playbook, man. There is one, let me tell you. Right? I watched for 17 years and I watched.

22:43
I got to see it, and even they didn't have a playbook. And you were down in Madison, right? So you were in major agencies down there, right? And is that how all these big campaigns kicked off? Because that was one of my questions, is you worked on this massive droid campaign, phenomenal success. And I was like, how does an agency obtain something at that level?

23:05
Yeah, I mean, we pitched the business. Is that what it's like? I pitched actively. I pitched Verizon business in 2001 with an agency. That was my first job. We got the business and our agency got bought by one of the holding companies that pushed that put two lines of Verizon business together. And so that was my largest account for 10 years. But under Verizon, I worked on droid, the Apple iPhone launch.

23:33
The Razor. Oh wow. Every major, major like name. You can think of that, you remember the campaigns. I've worked on every single major, I've, our smartphone release. That's unbelievable. But were you, I mean, obviously aggressive with the pitch, but were you more proactive or, or there was something out there with an RFP? We had RFP'd the original piece of business. And then once we got in the door.

23:58
It was more just campaigns. We kept it for 13 years. So yeah, so you kept talking with them. Most of that stuff is RFP pitched at that level. And so I worked on Budweiser and that was a pitch and then worked on...

24:13
Bojangles and worked on Samsung and worked on, I mean. That's excellent, yeah. Was involved in pitch and I was a hybrid. I was creative strategy account guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a rare breed. Yeah, for sure. Especially in a New York agency. But the owner of our agency got in my way. The clients loved me and I had big ideas. Oh wow. It was a magical combination. Yeah, right. Sometimes the idea guys are lukewarm with the client. Yeah. You know, like they got good ideas and so that's why they have a job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

24:43
with the client. Right. Right. Well, I was both. Oh, wow. So, I, you know, I made them a lot of money.

24:48
Oh, I can imagine, man. That's great. But I learned a lot. I'm not like, you know, I've learned for 17 years, and then I've applied it. But I also got to work on things. Like, if I had done, if I had started, no matter how smart I was, if I had started my agency, I wouldn't have gotten the experiences that I got. Because I've been, as you know, like, and now owning my own agency, it matters what I've done, but they want to see Radical's book of business. So my legacy helps us.

25:18
But I'm not, you know, Pepsi's leading agency. You know what I mean? And we could be, we should be. I mean, I can walk in, I was 27 in the CMO of Ryzer. And I was asking me what I thought they should do. I mean, you know, I mean, I was a early Ryzer. But.

25:35
So I can walk on any floor with credibility, but still, what have you done lately? Right, right, sure. That's interesting. That's more offline stuff we'll talk about, man. I'm very interested in that stuff and what you've done with that process. But it's true, man. It sets the stage, man, and it gets you to where now, hey, I got my own gig, highly successful, and taking all of that experience, all of that type of ups and downs and client

26:05
campaigns now, you know, ideas and adapt, you know. Yeah, that's what you gotta do. So it's, yeah. It's a crazy business. That's it. Mario, man, it's been great having you on. Where can I keep up with you and your agency? So you can follow me on Instagram, at Mario S. Mirabella.

26:23
That's my Instagram handle or even on LinkedIn. My website is still MSMdesigns with a Z dot com before we transition to MSMdigital, but you can check me out. Even my company, everything's at MSMdesigns with a Z with all the social handles. And yeah, it'll be great, you know? Yeah. And definitely follow up.

26:44
With you and see what's going on. It's it's been great. Yeah, man. I really enjoyed this So hey guys give Mario a follow go give him some love on social media and keep up I'm sure he's gonna be starting podcast and everything else. I'm gonna come on your show. Oh hell Yeah, I would love to have you man. Yeah, definitely and Yeah, so far along and cake go to the rat cast comm source for Mario You'll find all the content from today, you know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan offered on all the platforms Ryan dot offered on tiktok I'm verified everywhere. I'm blowing up on tiktok

27:14
See you next time on the Radcast.