Ryan Alford [00:00:15] Hey guys this is Ryan Alford. I am excited about another episode of the Radical Company podcast. I'm joined today by a good friend and actually my first guest on the Radical Company Podcast. Tyler Harris joins me today. Tyler and I go back a number of years, won't rehash everything, but good friends doing a lot of things together in the community, but just someone that I really look up to and follow all his content. Tyler is in a lot of mediums these days. We're going to get to that. But Tyler, I'd love to just start with welcoming you back.Give everyone a little bit of that background and a little bit about you and what's brought you here today. 

Tyler Harris [00:01:33] I'm Tyler Harris. So my story really is pretty ordinary as far as my upbringing, great family. All that went to Clemson University, which Ryan did as well. So we have that in common. Came back to Greenville after school, became a financial advisor, and then life happened, had a lot of difficult, painful things that occurred over a few years, a business failure, a marriage failure, and just went through a period of time where I was pretty content with playing the victim. This business failed because of this person in that situation. My marriage failed because of what she did and this and that. And this was really using that as an excuse to be lazy. I had a fear of going all-in again that it would be taken away from me because of those situations having been taken away from me and the way that they were. And just really a downward spiral until ultimately I was depressed, broke. I was in debt at a shape pretty much winning in every area of life. It was as cliche as rock bottom is, it was pretty much that for me. I had one of those moments taking ownership and understanding that everything was my fault and realizing that I was in that situation because of the decisions and the things that I had done and that if I had gotten myself in that situation, I could get myself out of it. And around that time, some mentors came into my life and really just breathed confidence back into me. Confidence was at an all-time low and they happened to be in the insurance business and they gave me an opportunity there. I jokingly say if they had been in the rubberband business, that I'd be the greatest rubberband salesman right now! But they were in insurance and they gave me an opportunity. And it was the perfect opportunity for the situation that I was in to bring me out of that funk because it was very fast-paced, highly transactional. I could put in the effort and get a reward quickly, which built my confidence back up. And I just became obsessed with that process. If I did this much work, I got this much reward. If I did two x three, four, five x it was exponentially greater rewards. That was a perfect scenario for me to be in, to build myself back up from the bottom. Those mentors became like brothers to me and now our business partners as well. But over that period of time, just to give people some context, I mean, I was broke. I had to borrow the money to get involved in the business. And from there, twelve months later had made over 300 grand and commissions ten, ninety-nine commissions selling insurance. The next twelve months over four-fifty, the next 12 months over six-fifty, the next twelve months became a partner in that company, achieved that “millionaire status” on. 

Ryan Alford [00:05:14] Where you get a good life insurance policy!

Tyler Harris [00:05:17] But if things had progressed rapidly and over those first two years, I didn't even change my job status on my personal Facebook profile, I set my head down and went to work. I didn't tell anybody what I was doing. I just went out there and executed. And about two years in, after I'd had that first year of success, the second year of increased success, I realized that I'd really made a huge mistake not documenting that process. And I knew the biggest mistake I could make from there was not starting. And so that's really when I started documenting my life on social media. It was January 2017. So just now, two years. And that has taken me to where we are today in the discussions that we'll probably have about social media. But it's really just having gone all-in on wanting to give people a truly authentic view of what it looks like to be successful, that it's not easy, that there isn't a course or mastermind you can join in and make six figures and six days or become a millionaire in six months, that all these things are ridiculous, that it's insanely hard work overtime. And that's the winning recipe. And wanted to show people the good, bad and the ugly. And so there are videos out there of me and my car after being on the road for 11 straight days, working crazy hours like in tears because I'm about to walk into my hotel again and wanted to be home with my at that time six, seven-month-old daughter and that there's always a sacrifice when you're trying to do something great. And so showing every side of it. And the response has been great as we've built this, the personal branding over the last two years. And, we've had a week in the last two years where the reach has been over forty-nine million through all the different platforms that we have. And it's been a humbling experience. It's been a very interesting experience. I'm sure we'll get into some of that. But it's become a huge passion for me. It's just a way to put out information, to pay it forward because I realize that those mentors came into my life at such a fragile period of time. And if not for them, I don't know where I would be. And so social media in the content that we put out is my way of hoping to be that for somebody else to some degree not, I can't be a mentor to everybody, but I can possibly provide a podcast episode like this where someone hears this. They're like, man, this guy was like rock bottom. And some people came into his life and things changed quickly. Like, I want to wonder if that could happen for me. Like I'm at rock bottom line to try to be that spark for somebody is really all I want to do. And so we don't monetize any of the stuff that I do on social media. There's never been a button to click to buy or subscribe or, people are getting on to me every day because they don't even ask for emails, which apparently I'm supposed to do. I don't even do that. Like, I don't ask for anything because I don't want anything from anybody. I truly believe that we are blessed in order to be a blessing to others. And that's become my new obsession. This is how many more people can we impact? And so that brings us to today. We've got a hustle going on with Ryan and me, which has been a really fun and really challenging project that we've had wanting to give back to the community that we live in and love so much here in Greenville. But I think we've hit our stride there as well. And I think we figured some things out, which there's been another great learning experience. But I can't say enough about Ryan and about this podcast and the team that you got. It's awesome to watch. 

Ryan Alford [00:09:12] Oh, I appreciate that, man. I mean, it's been an evolution for sure. I stepped out of the comfort zone of a job that started radical and in a lot of ways, it wasn't my base. But not just it was I mean, I had the experience which helped like, I can walk into the room and have discussions with clients. But, it was me and a computer and a lot of ways starting. But I guess that's a parallel a little bit. It's just that old start word getting going, but really excited about all the growth that you've seen just to alter it a little bit here and I know your story and our audience learning more about you, that a lot of them probably follow you or know certain things. But it does bring me especially like tying it into like the marketing side of what we do here. What do you think now? Two years into documenting your companies that are successful, your personal brand that successful? The brand word is what comes to me. And where my question is, is like even now, OK, two years in, what is the Tyler Harris brand to you? 

Tyler Harris [00:10:28] That's frustrating and awesome that you asked that because we're really defining that right now as we go into 2019. It's a big focus, but I think. To take a step back, I think it's important that I look at what I do on social media as branding, right? Not marketing, and not selling anything

Ryan Alford [00:10:53]. And that's exactly why I ask that question is because that's the very unique distinction. You're probably in the one percent of doing that. And so it brings me to this, and I think I know and I think I know it's personal development and giving back. And there are certain tenets that you talked about already. But if you had to, like, write sounds like you're in the middle of it. Like if you do, you look back at your content and go, is it reflective? Do you think of your brand or do you feel like you're directing the future towards the brand that you want to be? 

Tyler Harris [00:11:38] I think I'm extremely comfortable in seeing my brand as a constantly evolving, malleable, like moving target because I am a constantly evolving, malleable, moving target and I want my brand to be a true reflection of me in the things that I'm going through. It's silly to think that, I've had four and a half years of incredible increasing success, but there will be pain like there will be struggles that will happen. Like, I'm not naive to think that I'm just going to continue to have success, success, success like there's going to be a bad year in my brand. That bad year needs to reflect that I'm going through a bad year. All right. If I'm truly being transparent and authentic with the people that are following the content. And that was my goal from day one was to do that. What I saw was a gap on social media that if someone wants to go to Facebook, to Instagram, to YouTube, podcasts, whatever, they want to learn something or they just want to get motivated, they need that little inspiration in the morning to get after it. There are really just two sets of individuals that they can go to. The first is the multi multimillionaire. That is awesome. 

Ryan Alford [00:13:06] And grant cards and congratulations. 

Tyler Harris [00:13:09] There's nothing wrong with that. But the infrastructure that's built around them, the lifestyle that they have is, unrelatable to the average person in America. Like it's just completely unrelatable. Then you have the other person or set of people that are trying to fake that they're that. And I just couldn't find anyone in the middle, like it, couldn't find anyone that had to achieve some success. But that was real and that was authentic and that was showing what it took and that was documenting the journey to get there. And so that's what I wanted to do, was just document. I’d had a certain amount of success over those two years, enough to say, that's interesting, that's unique. Like that's pretty quick to go from that to that. But I wasn't over here where I was not relatable. I didn't have this crazy lifestyle and I didn't have this huge infrastructure. And so how much can I possibly document during what I would hope to be a small period of time as I continue to level up like you only have so much time where you are right now that you can document as much as possible and as you level up and as you level up and as you level up to one day being where you shouldn't be relatable, you remain relatable by hopefully bringing people along with you. Like hopefully as you level up, they level up. But at the very least they will have watched the whole thing play out or they can go back and watch the whole thing play out because it's all documented. So the brand, I think year by year, sometimes month by month will evolve as I evolve. But I think it's based on those tenants of hard work, of transparency, of just being a real person. Like I want people. That's why I love doing live content. I did an Instagram and Facebook live yesterday and it just re-energized me to do more because that's really where I started all of my social media presence was Live when people get on there. I asked a question yesterday because someone we were talking about sales and marketing and it was talking about the fact that you have to earn the right to ask someone for something. You have to earn the right to try to sell someone something. And you earn that right by providing value and by putting out all this content and building relationships in this woman, as she said. So I have to build a personal relationship with every single person in order to earn the right to ask them to buy something. You don't have to build a personal relationship with every individual. That's impossible. But you have to put out so much content and in a transparent way that you may not know them, but they know you have said, let's just use this as an example. If you feel like you have a pretty good understanding and people start saying, me, me, me. And so I started listing them out of my Tiffany strong. She just said, me, I know Tiffany lives in Mississippi. I know she loves the weather because every time there's some weather pattern headed towards us in Greenville, she, like, sends me a link-up about it, which I appreciate. I know that she was driving through Greenville a few months back and we were going to meet up and we didn't. I don't know Tiffany. But Tiffany just said she knows me. And I didn't know if like four or five examples. I'm like this guy I know John lives in Ohio, never talk to him on the phone, never met him in person. But he just said he knows me. So it's not about knowing every single person, but it's about putting out content that's real and authentic so that they feel like they know you. And I think that's going to be increasingly important, especially as the market corrects, which some would say that it already has started. As the market turns, people are going to do business with people that they feel like they know. Yeah, and I think just the mass the vast majority of people underestimate how well you can get people to know you just by putting out a consistent message online. I think it's one of the biggest areas that people are missing and that luckily you and I and so many others that we are close with are taken advantage of. But there are only two, three or four more years where no one will ever be able to catch up. And that's what excites me, is that what we're doing, building a personal brand and focusing on the branding side. That's not all marketing and sales, that's it's really just capturing attention. But I love how Gary talks about that attention. Like once you've captured it, once you've gotten the attention, you have to earn the right to then ask him for something. And to me, I just want to earn, earn, earn, earn, earn, earn, as long as possible. Like if you never have to ask for anything. That means you're probably doing pretty well with all the other things that you have going on because you didn't have to, and I think that that's an important distinction as people start looking at building a personal brand most people look at it as, OK, I'm going to devote an hour, two hours, three hours to this a day. That's going to take one to three hours away from this, I would have earned this, so I need to figure out a way to earn this here. So they have to charge in and ask for stuff immediately. When if you just look at the long term ROI and just completely punt the short term ROI, just appearance, then you'll understand that, that the branding that you're doing, which is just your reputation online and in this case, on social media, that long term, the ROI is invaluable, like it's priceless. And I'm grateful to have found the graves of the world and the people that I follow. You beat that message into me over the course of those first two years while I was just out there just working my face off. Now I understand that and I feel bad for those that don't generally like it because I just feel like they haven't gotten that message and it hasn't sunk in. In. Yeah. Because they knew it. They'd probably at least start and they'd try 

Ryan Alford [00:19:54] Everybody is comfortable. So they don't feel like they have to. I think this part of it and I think it's it's interesting for me because we bring up Gary, having been in the ADC business for 17, 18 years and you following his content note, especially here, hearing him talk about he's in Madison, he's on in New York running an ad agency. And so it's been really fascinating to me because I lived in that Madison Avenue world of ad agencies. He was someone I followed. I was buying his wine in 2006 and he's doing wine library and watching him suddenly become into my industry. And now preaching and talking about what he talks about and being nowhere in Greenville and running an ad agency, knowing that he is speaking the truth about what he's what he says, things about attention and where no one's watching television and people are on social media and you need to be building a personal brand. And how other peers, I see them comment on LinkedIn and other places and they want him to be wrong. They really hope he's wrong. They want to be wrong because they're protecting that coveted million-dollar fee that they've been getting for so long or that three hundred fifty thousand dollars, 30-second commercial. They don't want to go away. And he is speaking about the debt. He's No. One is 100 percent right. But he's right a lot more than he's wrong. But it's what's been really interesting on the marketing and agency side to follow his content to have been in the industry that he's in for longer than him, quite frankly. And to know deep down and in bringing in what I wanted to do with radical bringing some of those tenets to life, because he's right and every one of my industry wants them to be wrong, especially in New York. 

Tyler Harris [00:21:46] Yeah. And I'm big on patterns. And he's been historically right a lot. 

Ryan Alford [00:21:52] Yeah. 

Tyler Harris [00:21:52] So if you're going to follow someone's advice, you look at, their track record and he's been right a lot hasn't been wrong that many times in the wrongs the rights have been so far outweighing. But I love being in an environment. Where people still think you're crazy for doing what you're doing because that makes me feel like I'm on the right track. You are still making fun of me. People are still, like, thinking this is crazy. Like, why do you have a videographer following you around and why are you doing this and why would you do that? I'm like, OK, well then I'm definitely on the right track. Yeah. Like, I love being to say. I don't know if it's ahead of the curve, but definitely forward-thinking and what's going on. But also trying to figure out what the next big thing is going to be, trying to go where the attention is and be their first capture, as much of it as I possibly can, and trying to evolve the quality and the distribution of the content to be able to reach more and more people in different ways. And to me, that's fun. It's become very fun. And it's something that I've learned from Gary and on the whole like watch what I do not listen to what I say. I mean, watch what he does. Like, he's been talking about LinkedIn like crazy lately. Some frickin back on LinkedIn for the first time ever. I don't really get it yet, but like, I just been posting on it and I'm just basically just trusting in Gary said it's a good thing to do and that's got all this organic reach and capitalize on it while it's still there. And so I'm going to do it and ask questions later. So I think that's a big part of it and I think there's so much research and let me figure all this stuff out, let me put this big plan together. Like starting a podcast. I love that. Philip Sessions that started this podcast, I was like because when we had last year a whole series like I want to start off, I started and he started it. And he's doing it like I love that. I love people that just had that initiative to just start and figure it out along the way. 

Ryan Alford [00:24:06] Yeah, exactly. That was probably we've had a lot of examples of what I think we wanted to get out of hustle on the bounce around on topics. But I think it's important when we started to go hustle, I think I don't put words in your mouth, but in my mind, that was the exact type of manifestation of what I would hope would happen from those events, would be output from people like feeling inspired and engaged and empowered to go do. 

Tyler Harris [00:24:46] And yeah I was the first one where I left and I was just like that's what we were supposed to do. Like this is what it was supposed to be like, yeah man/ And it was enjoyable. It wasn't like it wasn’t working and it didn’t have to be there. It was to get to be there and get to experience and it was awesome. And there were other things that came like with Ted doing the asked head, like there were a lot of takeaways. I'm huge on Q&A, like I love Q&A and I love that we did Q&A at that event because you answer ten questions and you get pretty much you're able to provide value for pretty much everybody in the room. Yeah, because from ten questions, you're pretty much going to cover about 100 people what they really want to know. Yeah, and I love being able to get super tactical with people and an answer like what they really want to know, like for me to stand up. And again, that's another scary thing. But, for me to stand up and just talk. Most people use that as just their way of being a 30, 45 minute, maybe 60 minute commercial for themselves. It's very self-serving. But to be able to provide a deep tactical Q&A to me is everything because I want to make sure that if someone paid to come to an event that they got something out of it that they can actually see in a way other than just relationships, which are big. But, yeah, that was awesome. 

I really can't wait to build out all the content strategies for 2020. That way we can talk about vision. 

Ryan Alford [00:26:49] What's in store for 2019. And we could talk a little bit about trends and different things but what word are you, you started living legacy. How's that going.

Tyler Harris [00:27:04] I mean we, we haven't even gone public with it yet. That's part of the plan. 2020 is rolling out this new insurance agency that we have created and we've got over seventy-five agents already on board. That's going to be a huge focus of mine. But with all the stuff that we do on social media, we've got a lot more strategy involved now, especially with the podcast. Finalizing a lot of that actually today and creating. So we've got the Salesgirls podcast we just recorded earlier today, episode 99.

And then I'm going to start just a solo podcast, either remote or in-person and the strategy behind the stuff that before I created the podcast, just because I wanted to have cool conversations with people that are doing interesting things and needed an excuse to talk to them, help somebody up in a DM on Instagram. “Hey, I want to talk to you for an hour on Thursday”. And they are like, who are you? If you ask somebody handler to have you on my podcast on Thursday? Hey, sure. It’s just an excuse to meet great people. The way I learn the most and comprehend and retain the most information is by just being in a conversation. And so never really messed with the analytics and never really cared, but now really digging into the strategy behind everything. So putting everything in the overarching Tyler rebranding with my middle name now instead of Tyler Harris Page.

There's like this overarching Tyler Jack Harris collection. But underneath that is the Salesgirls podcast, which comes out on Wednesdays, the Breadwinner podcast with the interviews that come out on Friday and then on Monday will be just a solo podcast, a short, 7 to 15 minute one. But there's a strategy behind this stuff like you have to talk in that episode at the beginning about the previous episode. So the interview that was on last Friday, giving them a quick recap. Hey, if you didn't check out the interview that we did on Friday with David Meltzer, it was incredible. He talked about this, this and this. Definitely go check that out. And “hey, guys, coming up on Friday, we're doing an interview with Ryan Alford”. It's going to be awesome. We talked about this, this and this. Definitely make sure you subscribe and all. In today's episode, we're going to talk about goal setting and then just doing like a little 7 to 10 minutes on a topic. But the strategy is really using it as the hey, did you see this one or did you hear this one? “OK, you didn't. Great. Go listen to it.” And here's what's coming on Friday so they can start anticipating it so they can subscribe, so they can set up the notifications. So it's really a promotional podcast, but also has some meat to it. So people are getting some value out of it. And so there's a lot of just strategy in the podcasting world that we're really starting to hone in on. 

Ryan Alford [00:31:05] So driving the episodic nature of it.

Tyler Harris [00:31:09] Just having more of a flow where people know this is what comes out Wednesday, Salesgirls, Friday, Breadwinner Thursdays in My Living Legacy Blog, so that they know and they can expect and they can know what they're going to get from that.

Ryan Alford [00:31:24] But the umbrella's Tyler Jack Harris. 

Tyler Harris [00:31:26] Yeah, it'll be Tyler. Jack Harris is like the overarching brand. And you see this, with a number of different big podcasts that have different smaller podcasts under the major brand. But yes, that's a big thing moving forward with the vlog, the weekly blog, I think we just did an episode like fourteen or fifteen. So moving forward that and there's going to be some transition with that and in the style of the content and it is really getting laser-focused, man. I realized that the live content is just so, so important. And so trying to do some live content every single day, I think is just paramount. When I was doing it, especially in the first year, 2007, I did over 400 Facebook lives that year. And that's the reason I think it grew as it did. And it's the reason why today people are looking at the same people, the people that engage. Most of my content now is the ones that we’re engaging in the live content that a year and a half, two years ago in the correlation is it's crazy. So the live content is huge. And for me, that keeps it transparent. Like you can only fake it so long on that live, like really getting to see who you are. So that's important. 

Ryan Alford [00:32:51] You can do that on Facebook or Instagram or both.

Tyler Harris [00:32:55] Simultaneously. I like doing that. Bringing back the live Q&A was going to be a big focus and a big push. We did seven of these live shows where we actually called in. We would have people submit questions and then we'd get their phone number and we call them with a Google line and they'd be able to hear the person on the phone. So having that interaction and having that conversation. But other people here, it was super. We did seven of them. They were called live rounds with no hook. And we did seven of them and every single one of them. I ended it by saying, this is so freaking incredible. We got to do this more. We had conversations with a dude from Lebanon, a dude from Nigeria, a lady from the U.K., someone up in Canada and then all over the U.S. and in every single one that we did there was like at least one, if not two or three, like crazy impactful conversations, insanely impactful, like people in tears and like super deep stuff. And so that it's just trying to figure out ways that I can give more and serve more and provide more to the people that are following the content because I think so many that are building brands on social media take for granted. The follower, the person that's committing the person that's sharing something in a man like it means the world to me. I want to do more and more and more. Like in the last three episodes of the vlog, at the very end, I've done shout-outs to three people, three different people each time that have been following the content for a long time and that have engaged. And so, this person, this person, this person man, I appreciate you so much. Like the messages that you sent me, the conversations that we've had have meant the world to me. And I just appreciate you three just to call, three of them. I'll be doing more of that. Like I want to do more. Like we're looking at doing like a facetime Friday type deal where there's a specific way that you can win or earn or somehow get an opportunity to do a facetime like a ten, fifteen-minute facetime. We may do a group deal like a group Zoom call with ten-fifteen people and make it a little longer. Just do  Q&A with just specific people that I can like and really try to help on a higher level in finding ways to spotlight people like I don't sell anything but I don't mind somebody else promoting their business. And so like giving people an opportunity to do that. So someone's watching a vlog episode and they see, you come on and you're able to talk about your marketing business. And they're like crap. And I'd love to be able to know one day I could get on. An episode of the blog and talk about my pest control business in Mississippi. Like, that would be awesome. And then just continuing to do that to where people stay super, super, super engaged. That to me is extremely important. 

Ryan Alford [00:36:07] I think it's one of the biggest metrics in social media evaluation is engagement. But I do think it gets lost in the sauce sometimes. I think especially when they get established to a certain degree in the content itself and like what they're doing, that I think that that engagement, you just can't you forget that that's what the only reason that it matters what you're doing is that people who are interested in watching and want to engage with you in some way.

Tyler Harris [00:36:42] It's an interesting dynamic, too, because you think about it. I don't engage with much content ever. As I said, I strategically now go into hashtags based around the things that I'm doing and I'll engage for like an hour, 90 minutes, sometimes per day and like, real conversations in the comments and stuff. But that's like strategically to me, that's like. No less comment or share I could get. Can I tell you the last time I shared some of these posts? So I'm sitting here getting frustrated over people not sharing or not commenting. I'm like, what? The last time I was here? And so I think people take it for granted. Like how much of an ask it is for someone to do that. Like it's a big deal for someone to see your content and read it, watch it, listen to it or whatever and then like it. And then now they're going to take time to actually put a thought together and comment. And now they're actually going to go through the process and share it with all the people that they know. Like that's a big freakin’ deal. And people don't people that are creating the content don't remember how big of a deal it is. And it's super easy to get caught up in looking at all these metrics, but not understanding what those metrics actually mean. Like that person scrolled through their frickin’ Facebook, saw your stuff and spent legit time on it like they like to watch a vlog episode that's half an hour, like a half-hour. That's insane. Like, that's a long time. Like, I just appreciate them watching it, no less if they were like and comment. But there's one thing big with our content lately is, is the, um, the calls to action, like has to be called action. Like there's a poster that has a call to action. It's worthless. But then do you do it in every post and what are the calls to action. But it's absurd. But like calls to action that are thought out or thoughtful really is the better word. They're like, “hey, ask him a question.” Like if it's something about going into the New Year. And then you have people that are engaging in real conversations. 

Tyler Harris [00:39:45] Talking to Andy is engaging in the hashtags like all the different, like life insurance, insurance-based hashtags I've been going in and last night like I took probably twenty screenshots, but it happened probably 50 times last night where I went to a post. I commented something thoughtful that's a great point that you made there, this is so critical. More people need to know this. Like, thank you for putting this out there. Five minutes later, they liked the comment. They've responded to the comment. I've liked their response. And they followed. Like 50, 60 times last night, laying in bed for 90 minutes doing this. And I took tons of screenshots because it almost became comical because, like, I'm doing it strategically, but I'm also doing it because I care. 

So I don't necessarily want to go to like the top posts, the ones that have forty-eight comments and 180 comments and just be one more and they're like, “I want to find the people that are just getting started.” 

Ryan Alford [00:42:43] What are any prognostications on platforms at all like such a hard thing? I hesitate to even bring it up, but because it's so hard to predict. But, Facebook's gone down but it hasn't. I mean, the reach is still insane. But, Instagram's on the rise, but organic's getting harder. I mean, are there any tips or, for anyone listening to that double down or. No, I'm paying more attention to LinkedIn. I mean, I used to be all over it and try to get more on it. Um, I'm definitely all on Instagram, but is there anything or platform or anything that's sticking out like that? Oh, I got to do more of this or less of that. 

Tyler Harris [00:43:34] My favorite thing in the world right now is Instagram stories. And I think that's where all the attention is. I don't think people are scrolling up and down. I think they're scrolling right to left on Instagram. And I think if people that are serious about building a personal brand aren't just playing with social media just for recreation if you think of your Instagram stories as your vlog. Then it's a game-changer because you can take people through your day and they can get a complete understanding of what you do. You can provide insane value and you can do all of it from Instagram. Like, if you use zero other cameras, editing apps, anything you can just with what Instagram gives you the ability to do with, boomerangs and all the different filters and all the different superzooms and all the stuff that you can make it interesting and real and people can follow you. And I think that if you treat it that way, where people look at your Instagram story and there's a beginning. It's powerful, 

Ryan Alford [00:44:49] I joked with someone, I said they should have called it life, Instagram life because the story plays towards the whole it's not real. But stories to me are what life is. 

Tyler Harris [00:45:04] And there's been a couple of months where my stories were more, created content, posted the stories, and I quickly realized that it's more just holding your phone up, saying what you're doing like I just did before we started this podcast like it's more than and it's trying to figure out. So, Andy Carter, we've talked about him a bunch. He's just the king in this world and doing so well on all the different platforms. But with his Instagram stories, it's little things like this that are seemingly so unimportant that you have no idea the impact that they make. So every day he does an Instagram story or two or maybe even three of the freaking ducks that are outside of his office building and he calls them the office ducks. And every day it's just like the office ducks. And it's this quick little video, quick little picture, quick little boomerang. So he's in the process of building out his new headquarters. Like what's going to happen at the office when you lose. And so he did another Instagram story. My new office is only 100 yards from here. Office ducks are still going to be there. And then he does like this secret meetings thing like everywhere he goes when he's going into meetings like going in secret meetings. With all these people in the background. I felt that these secret meetings had become his thing. So, I had a meeting this morning with my team on figuring out what our office ducks and secret meetings are. Like what is it? And we came up with some ideas, but it's trying to find those things that make your content you like when they go to your stuff. What they remember and what they're like, what they can become like, what's your thing what is your thing? I've been super impressed with our team and the way we've taken our content to where I feel like when people see one of my posts, they can you could have 100 posts up on the wall and you could pick mine out because they have a certain style, certain theme to it. And I got on, I recorded I got on Niki Sanders. She does all the content creation for her. And I had spoken to her one time before I jumped on one of her Instagram lives the other night and she said, my name. I was like, “oh, I need to record this one”. She's going to say, but she mentioned that Tyler was someone that had very basic content last year, like your normal stuff that people put out. He said “but this year, he's stepped up his game”. And when I see his stuff as I'm scrolling, I know that it's a Tyler Harris post – one of his posts. And I think that's super important. Like that's branding. That's all it is. Gary's been talking so much about how people are fleeing from Facebook, so he's going back to it. It's interesting. I've seen Facebook dramatically decrease for me, but I'm not personally liking Facebook as much anymore, so that's going to affect it. 

Ryan Alford [00:48:34] I mean if my own usage was a parameter, it's definitely going on. I don't even get on Facebook. I mean, I get in the app and have clients. The only reason I'm really on Facebook is that I have clients that are in it and that we're doing well for them because it's their niche but for me personally its about usage and I'm on only Instagram. 

Tyler Harris [00:48:58] One thing that's been really interesting for me. I've done a lot of Facebook ads over the last two years, especially this year, I’ve done a lot of Facebook ads, and then started doing it to where I would also make it an Instagram ad. But about three months ago, I stopped doing Facebook ads and just did Instagram ads. And that has been a very fascinating process to watch play out because, again, I'm not selling anything. And I'm not trying to point people to anything specifically. I'm just trying to grow the reach, position and the following and just grow the number of people that are looking at my content on a daily basis right now. And that's so foreign to people. And I was doing it on Facebook, and I never got any, like, Super Mike out of line weird comments against me, promoting posts, boosting posts. Sponsored ads that are just a post. And it's just good content, not necessarily like a big call to action or anything as I switched over to Instagram. The comments are savage. People are just ruthless in thinking that it's the ego; that this guy has the audacity to run a sponsored ad on his post. What he just gets more likes and just gets more like what a tool like this guy is. Like the worst things that have ever been said to me have been said over the last three months on Instagram ads. I don't pay much attention to it because I know the intent and I'll either delete it or I'll respond. I'll be like all this tells me is that you haven't consumed any of my content because if you consumed any of my content for any period of time, you would know my intent behind this and what I'm trying to do. I've responded in that way or I'll go back and forth with people. But it just seems to me on Instagram people, it's so foreign to them that someone would spend money trying to boost the reach of their posts if they weren't trying to sell something like so many comments of what's this guy trying to sell or “can't wait to get an email from this dude on the mastermind that he wants me to join for a thousand bucks a month”. I'm like, "first off, I don't have your email because and ask you for it and I also don't have a mastermind”. It's just it's been very interesting on Instagram and how that's played out. 

Ryan Alford [00:51:33] I think that's the balance. It's interesting, we talk about trends and things. There's this backlash. I feel like swelling. It's been there for digital marketing. I think it plays into that a bit. I think people are becoming way more aware of being marketed to. And then on these platforms that I don't know where they think the dollars come from to make them or they think they should just be free and all this. But I think it all plays into a little bit of this awareness level of marketing. And I mean, they're getting specific with trolling you in some way. But I think in the macro of it is like this interesting balance of where we are with digital content and digital advertising. And when I talk to my clients, I'm like you can't hit him over the head. You can't go. It's not going to work. It might sell two widgets, but we'll sell it. We'll sell two widgets this week. Or you want to sell a hundred in three months. And so it's back to some of the tenants. You were saying earlier about the brand and telling stories and being narratives. And that's what I counsel my clients on all the time, are we've got to tell a story. We've got to be interesting. We've got to be real. We've got to be authentic. And that will lead to success over time. And I think what you had working against you was like almost this complete. You were completely mind screwing these people with weight. He's got to be market because they're so jaded with the exults. So that’s in reverse. 

Tyler Harris [00:53:07] I think there's just so much more of that on Instagram. I guess maybe the only ads that you ever see on Instagram are the ones there. People are getting just bombarded with. 

Ryan Alford [00:53:17] Well, it sticks out now when you go through your feed, it's like three cool pictures. And then like yesterday I saw a tide pin or something. 

Tyler Harris [00:53:28] I watched an ad. My last interview with Billie Jean is marketing and I didn't really know much about him. I had the initial turn off of, like, why is this guy calling himself Billie Jean is marketing. But the more I've gotten to learn about him, he's a genius. And this interview is incredible. People are definitely checking it out. It's extremely tactical. But with his content, they talk about the fact they are so creative and thoughtful in the content that they put out. But they're very upfront. Like throughout the ad, they'll say “this is an advertisement” like three or four times. But the creative is so good. The story is so good. The quality, like everything, is so good that you'll watch an ad until the very end whether or not you're interested in buying it or not, like because you were entertained. And he's got an incredible knack for that. But I think there's something that a lot of people can learn from that I love that quote that great stories happen to those who tell them. And to me, that's what it's all about. It's all about telling stories. And that's what branding is on social media. It's what it should be. It shouldn't be just promoting discounts and promoting a website link and promoting a promo code and promoting this and that, it's like telling the story behind your brand and around the people that work with you and the things that you're doing. And again, giving people the opportunity to know you. Like giving people the opportunity to get to know you and to like you like whether they actually like you as an individual. Because again, when the market turns and someone's a little bit more thoughtful about where that hundred dollars or that fifty dollars is going to go, it's going to go to the people that they know and especially people that are in like financial services and anybody in sales. When things start getting a little tighter, I think people forget, people are so short-sighted in their memories of the cyclical side of the market, I've had 10 years. That's been the biggest, longest economic growth we've ever had, that the market is going to drop and it's inevitable. But when it does, if you're in sales and you've been out there branding and you've been out there putting out messages and building relationships and getting to where people know and when it comes down to the decision for them to buy a new copier and money's tight. Of course, they're going to go to the person that they feel like they know and like even if someone has something cheaper they're going to go with the person that they they know and like.

Ryan Alford [00:56:20] Know, like and trust. 

Tyler Harris [00:56:22] Exactly. And I think the advantage to people like you and I and the unfortunate thing to those that aren't like you and I, is that it takes time and it takes a massive amount of work. And that's the problem. And that's the problem for most. That's the opportunity for people like us is that we're willing to do that. And I think that that's the reason why the next couple of years it's going to be the biggest land grab ever for social media and that people will never be able to catch up because of the amount of awareness and attention that we'll be able to create. It'll be impossible to start from zero to catch up. But I've gotten to a weird place lately where I get super deep with it, especially when I look at people that I know, like people here in Greenville that I know. When I start thinking about the legacy side of things and just the documenting for the sake of this stuff being around forever. And if you start thinking about last night as I was laying in bed, if I could have watched a vlog episode of my dad when my dad was 33, like that would have been the coolest thing ever. Or like my grandfather, if I could have watched an Instagram live that my dad did 30 years ago, like, if I could watch that content, I would watch it every day. Like, it could be the only thing I watch. In. I look at people that aren't documenting on social media and aren't building a personal brand. And I think Penn. If you had the ability to meaning you have an iPhone basically or you have a smartphone. If you have the ability to do these things in your choosing not to, if you're robbing future generations from being able to know you and from being able to know your intent and being able to know the type of person you are like for my daughter, for her to be able to have this content when she's 33, to be able to look at the stuff that I was doing and seeing her in these videos and seeing how I talked about her and how I talked about my relationship with her and and seeing her grow up like her ability to watch that you hear about these people dying and they find like a diary, like I found my grandmother's diary in this old box and I've been reading through it. It's been so powerful and I've learned so much. And she talked about some weird, kinky stuff that was weird for her for a few pages like like you read through this stuff and you're like people cherish that stuff, like, absolutely cherish it. Well, imagine being able to have a thousand hours of content that showed your dad or your mom or whoever is like daily life. So if people had the ability to go do that and quite frankly, pretty easily go do that. And they choose not to. That's a pretty bold statement. Like I know I can do this. I see Tyler doing it. I see. Right. Do I see these two other people doing it? I'm just not going to do. Like, I, I don't think my kids deserve to have that. I don't think my grandkids or my great grandkids, I don't think they need to know about me. Like I don't think that it's like it's pretty. I look at a pretty black and white, it's pretty cut, cut and dry, like if you had the ability but you chose not to. It's like, why am to me like that's the way I look at all this stuff on social media. Like, yeah, it's going to lead to incredible business success in the future. And yeah, it's going to lead to being able to impact lives and do all this other stuff. But at the end of the day, like my great, great, great grandkids are going to be able to listen to this interview that you and I are having. And as I'm saying these words right now, they're going to be going like, man, great, great granddad was right because I'm frickin’ listening to this right now. Yeah. And I wouldn't have been able to unless you sat down on a Thursday and chose to spend an hour and a half of the time that wa. 

Ryan Alford [01:00:20] If it's not about dollars and cents, if it leads to no business, if it does nothing, you've created a record journal of a moment in time 

Tyler Harris [01:00:34] like Jonathan Parker's his dad's diary or my dad's diary or your dad's or whatever, whatever it's called. Like everywhere he goes, he's just flipping up his iPhone. He's like, hey, what's up, boys? Talk to his three sons. Yeah. And he's like, hey, but to do this interview with Ryan and Ryan's a great guy here in Greenville, like you should definitely get to know him, like in case like literally he were to die tomorrow. He's got like the last six months or however long he's been doing it, like documented with all these lessons he wants to teach his kids and like he ends it with this, like, mantra of like how to treat your mother and like be a good person. I can't read what the exact words are, but it's awesome. And like, literally it's I don't even know if, like, the intent from the beginning was to put it out there publicly, but it's just him literally flipping up his camera, talking into it for two minutes. I've talked into it before. You probably didn't like Carter when he came and spoke, he had any talking to it. And it was so cool for me to be able to jump on there and be like, man, like your guy, like you guys have to know, like your dad's freaking incredible. And the fact that he's even doing this shows how much he loves you. And like, it's so awesome. Like, think about if he were to die tomorrow and they have the funeral and the kids who are young, like as they get older and they start to understand for them to be able to look back and be like that was the day before my dad died and he was making this video for me because he wanted me to have it. Like, I can get super deep on that, because it's I mean, it's it's it's almost like a responsibility to me if you have the ability to like, why wouldn't you? 

Ryan Alford [01:02:04] I think and unfortunately, it's one of two things. One, just the aloofness, maybe of people. But I think it's more because I deal with clients every day because I tell them they should be doing this. And usually it's worried about what other people think. They're just worried of being judged. They're worried about their buddy Bob on the golf course going, oh, Tim, I see you now posting stuff on yourself.

Tyler Harris [01:02:32] I say your Tony Robbins post the other day, I was really great. 

Ryan Alford [01:02:36] Exactly. And then that person is so insecure that saying that comment. And so once you recognize what's won, you free yourself of not caring, which is hard to do. But we never up to one hundred percent there. When you get ninety percent there, you've cured most of it. And then the other two realizing the problem is really with the person that's throwing that out there, they're the ones that are rooted in it. But not to get into the personalities. 

Tyler Harris [01:03:03] You'll never, you'll never not care. The focus is not letting other people's opinions affect what you do. Like I care when someone makes fun of me. But I don't let it stop me from doing what I'm doing. Like I still post five seconds later. Those hurtful what they just said. Jump on the and live and talk about it. 

Ryan Alford [01:03:29] You've seen and we've both experienced this because my business is radical is ninety-nine percent due to my social media presence. I mean now I'm doing social media marketing so yeah it's related and it's an ad agency and all that, but it wouldn't matter if I was doing insurance or doing a lot if I was a lawyer. All I mean I would say eighty per cent of Radical businesses are from DMs. On Instagram. Like from either a client reaching out to me or mediums, a prospect. 

Tyler Harris [01:04:02] And I think that's awesome. But I think that's that. Really goes and kudos to you for still spending time, energy resources on focusing on your personal brand. Exactly, because I went through a period of time last year where I was trying to find a social media agency or someone that worked in the social media world and in Greenville or Atlanta or Charlotte or Nashville or somewhere in the southeast. And the first thing I would do at Google finds these agencies. And the first thing I do is I'd look them up on Instagram and I've got a website that I'm sitting here looking at and it says Atlanta's number one social media, yada yada yada. Then I go to their Instagram page. They've got nine hundred followers and hundred and forty-seven posts. And I'm like. How is this possible? Like how is it possible? And I'll tell you the same thing. 

Ryan Alford [01:05:02] We're too busy working and I have a client 

Tyler Harris [01:05:04] and I've said this to people in them and I go, I was talking about them, which I'm glad you because, like, you're the example, the opposite. Like, they'll say like, yeah, well, we focus on our clients', brands and we would rather the success of our clients speak volumes than having our personal Michy because you're lazy, you're lazy. Like, it's because you don't just because you didn't do it. Like what to do and how to do it.

Ryan Alford [01:05:32] What's even worse? 

Tyler Harris [01:05:33] What would you do it right. And like, we are talking about the fat personal trainer right now. I'm not going to give personal training if you're fat. I'm just not going to do it. But it was frustrating because I couldn't find anyone it was little like none. And I'm like, I get it. Like you're busy with all the clients and stuff like that. But those that are still doing what they are, I don't ever want to tell somebody else to do it. I'm not doing, like, ever leading by example and all that good stuff. But that's what I love about what you're doing and that's why you're seeing so much of that. 

Ryan Alford [01:06:02] And I'm not because my personal and it's all come through my personal. I mean, some come through Radical now that we're an inner-city and we're doing a lot of social. But it's come through my personal channel where I may be one out of 30 posts even talk about a capability of the agency. It's more just my personal brand and my personal beliefs and all that. I mean, which is more back to what you're saying. Like, I'm not asking. I've never posted on my personal page, hey, will you do business with my ad agency? I just tell my truth. Who I am. And yeah, I'll show a video of, like, a cool video we did with a promotion or something that because it's just a cool video, but that's just back to like building the brand and being transparent and authentic. And it will lead to success. And like, if anyone's listening and I think you've heard this from Tyler, but I think it’s like the overarching theme of this is like the importance of personal branding. And it will lead to what you want it to, uh, but you don't have to force it and you don't have to sell to make it happen. 

Tyler Harris [01:07:14] I agree. One hundred percent. Anytime anyone asked me, like, hey, man, how can I build my personal brand or the awesome tricks and tips and this and that. And I'm like, hey just post three times a day for a week and then and they never do it ever like three times a day, like three times a day. And I'm like, yeah, yes. Three times a day. And then and then we'll talk about some other strategies moving forward. But it's just those basics. It's just sticking to the basics and just being consistent. Like if you just put out a message consistently over a period of time, you cannot succeed. Like you can't succeed. It's just how it works. And I love it, man. But I love that you're living it by example.

Ryan Alford [01:08:01] Yeah, man. I'm so proud of everything you've accomplished in coming on for a second time at him and will soon be third. I know I know a lot of people listening. Follow your content. But as we wrap up here, tell everybody where they can find you and just some of your handles and things like that.

Tyler Harris [01:08:22] So it's at Tyler Jack Harris on Instagram and Facebook.. I The Twitter handle is @tylerharrispage. If you just go to Instagram you're going to find everything, everything that you need on the podcast stuff and check out the stories because the stories all have swipe ups to all the different things that we have going on. 

Ryan Alford [01:08:48] Well, really proud of everything you're doing and will continue to follow. I am really excited where we're headed with the Great Hustle and just other collaborations we may get into. But that's all for today on the Radical Podcast. Really appreciate everyone listening. Follow along to everything at Radical.company. That's the website. And then we're on all the channels. So radical_results on Instagram. See you.