Emmy Winning Storyteller Talks Branding, AI, and Investing In Companies | Brandon T. Adams

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Matty A.: I'm excited to welcome back in. It's been a minute, my brother, Mr. Brandon T. Adams. How we doing?

Brandon T Adams: I'm doing good man. I'm excited to be back on the show. I remember the last time I was on and it's been I think four years, maybe

Matty A.: probably even longer than that cuz I think last time we recorded my studio was in downtown Sacramento.

And that was like, I think five plus years

Brandon T Adams: ago. I feel like it was 2018 when I was traveling the country and doing the show. Success of your city. But I don't know. Time flies. I'm

Matty A.: glad to be here, man. Dude, when you and I connected the, a while back, it was one of those things where I was like, man, I'm excited to see what this dude does because obviously you're a young cat.

We were, we're both young dudes that were, big ambitions and big action takers. And so I was like, oh, he's gonna, He's gonna, he's gonna stumble his way into something massive and a lot has transpired since, the last time you and I connected. So for those that maybe don't know who you are and what you've been up [00:01:00] to and your quick little highlight reel and success story, and I know we're gonna unpack a lot cause I'm excited to catch up and hear what you've been up to.

Where did this all begin for you brother?

Brandon T Adams: Yeah, I'll give let's see if I can get it done in four minutes. Then we can jump in into some cool stuff. I originally, I grew up in northeast Iowa, a small town of 700 people named Garnerville, Iowa surrounded by cornfield. So I was like middle of nowhere, Iowa, and I grew up in the ice business.

My dad sold packaged ice for a living. We sold bag, dice to convenience stores, restaurants, bars. I grew up in that business, so as a kid, teenager, college, that's how I made a living. And eventually I wanted to make more money than just in the ice business, and I kept thinking of different ways to make money.

And I invented this product called Arctic Stick to Cool and Flavor Drinks, got some trademarks and patents, took it to Shark Tank casting call got shut down. But I ended up taking the product to market. I put a hundred thousand into it. I maybe generated $10,000. I didn't make any real money on that, but.[00:02:00]

It led me to crowdfunding. I got into raising money through crowdfunding and eventually I got into video production, so TV production, TV shows, documentaries, commercials, campaigns and so that was in my early twenties. And really just a quick the thing that changed my life and the Think Bigger into Wealth and Money was I read the book Thinking Go Rich by Napoleon Hill.

And one of my cool life accomplishments that I'm very proud of is I read the book at 21. At 26, I ended up becoming one of the producers and youngest guys in the film to produce a movie called Think Andrich Legacy that was based on the book. And so that was like my journey accelerating my growth.

And then I did a few TV shows. One Success in City did a documentary called Red Flags. We won some, any awards for, and so Iceman. To crowdfunding and TV production and where I'm at today. So what I do is I invest in it. I advise companies, typically they're in the range of one to 10 million in revenue annual revenue.

They're looking [00:03:00] to scale to a hundred million value or plus, or going public. And so we invest in companies, we sit on advisory boards, and I use my video production skills, my connections, and my ability to raise money to add value to the company. And that's. Hopefully four minutes. Dude,

Matty A.: that was good.

That was under four minutes. Yeah, man. I mean it's, I always love hearing how. Entrepreneurial journeys unfold when people really bet on themselves. Yeah. And instead of it just being the hoping and the wishing and the dreaming, it's the pursuing piece of it. And what doors come, open up and come after that, that pursuit begins.

And then ultimately when people are like, would you have ever thought you would be in hospitality and owning hotels and doing what you're doing? And I'm like, no. If you would've told me that when I, decided to take that leap of faith, 13 years ago in my own entrepreneurial journey, I would've said no way.

I just can't see that, right? But that's the beauty of when you go and chase your dreams and you fail. It is for it, and you take action and you build [00:04:00] relationships. And it's been unbelievable to see what you have accomplished and where you're at today. What would you say, since we've last chatted, have been some of the biggest catalysts for you in terms of those quantum leaps, those real big growth in terms of I've had some success.

I'm rocking it. Yeah, but then you're going, you're not just two Xing, you're five X and you're 10 Xing opportunities, relationships, income, like what would you say have been some of those

Brandon T Adams: catalysts? So I will say when we spoke, let's say five years ago, if that's what it was, I was building a brand and I was making money, but I was really focused on brand building, video production.

The brand building that I did for myself really started to exponentially grow my building to make money and my relationships. But the big thing that I did was a couple key business relationships. That helped me scale. And I'll say this, I say this a lot of shows. My biggest one was Kevin Harrington.

I, during Covid I [00:05:00] was in Minnesota and Covid hit I, at that time, I was traveling country speaking, COVID hit, and we did investments in an advisory. We had set on advisory boards. We helped grow companies. I chose to move to Florida down the street from him because I knew we would do more deals.

And so I, I still have a place in St. Pete. I also have a place here in Nashville. I made that commitment to be in proximity with somebody who is very successful light years ahead of me. And because of that, we found more deals do together. We built out a very big portfolio in a matter of 18 months through our investment advisory business.

And that was the real catapult in my career. And then another thing that I did, I started hosting a new event called Rise and Record, which I brought people together typically like high net worth individuals or experienced entrepreneurs, and we helped them with sharing their story and video production.

But as the host gets the most, they gotta put on the most work, but they also get the most from connecting. [00:06:00] And that was a great deal flow, but also value add to our portfolio companies. So those are the three things. The brand building. The relationship with Kevin, just cultivating that and then creating more high quality experiential events to bring value to the right people.

Matty A.: Yeah, I love that. I mean that you're speaking my language because one of the things for me that I think resonates with every human being on the planet is, Getting the richest experience you possibly can outta life. We all desire that in some capacity. In some we do different definition. And I was watching this, I forget who it was.

I, I was watching this video the other day and somebody was really breaking it down. I think it was Chamath, I can't say his last name, the billionaire guy. Yeah. That, that took Facebook to, a hundred plus million users. And he talked about how. The platform was stage one, and then it was the apps on the platforms that were stage two, and now we're entering this [00:07:00] third stage or season that he's talking about, which is really the season of influencers and the season of brands.

Individual brands and people. And I know. That you have really leaned in and been a pioneer and led in this space for Yeah. Empowering people to tell their story, to create their brand. Yeah. What are your thoughts on where the landscape is at today and where it's going moving forward?

Brandon T Adams: I. Yeah, so brands you look at all these big deals I'll go to the example. Like you look at a Jake Paul. I share the example because I had Jake speak one of my events four years ago. Got to know Jake and saw him from YouTuber to Baard bark to this spider, and now he makes a lot of money, but he understood how to really build a brand.

Pivot on his brand and monetizes the brand. There are a lot of brands out there, trusted brands that can get paid a lot of money because they have trusted buyers or followers that'll buy anything they put out there. [00:08:00] So when you can build a brand and have a unique audience, that audience is valuable. And so I understood that and take it to the next level, especially in this world with.

So much facade and BS, and yeah, influencers and everything else. When you share your authentic self, who you are, what you do, how you help people, your background, your beliefs, and you're really truly authentic and real, and you do that consistently. Sharing your story, sharing your message, you're building a bond and connection with your followers, commonalities.

I'm from a small town in Iowa. There's a lot of small town people out there. I grew up in a family business. There's many people out there that will connect with me because they also been through a family business. There's commonalities that happen when I share my story, which builds a connection, which ultimately means those people are gonna support me, they're gonna work with me versus somebody else.

So when you start sharing your story more, And effectively you can build this connection with your audience, which, [00:09:00] yes, it can be monetizable, but also it's just, it's really this closer knit connection you have with your followers.

Matty A.: Yeah. Talk a little bit about your thoughts around where people go wrong with their brands, with telling their story, and maybe some of the things that could easily be tweaked to get on the right path with doing that in an impactful way.

Brandon T Adams: I think. And even early in my career I'm guilty of charge because I'm still trying to figure myself out. Yeah. I think it's more of like ego or trying to be stay on somebody that I'm really not. And maybe it took a couple punches in the face to get my reality checks, but I think some people just try to be somebody they're not.

And when you look at people that truly are authentically who they are, they will build a following and in some cases, You look at Donald Trump, for example, to throw it there. You get somebody that is bla just says how it is. Yes, he has a lot of people that hate him, but he also has a lot of people that are like diehard because [00:10:00] of that.

Yeah. There's other examples of other influencers or people that authentically just share who they are and that's what really attracts people to them. You're gonna have people that don't like you. You're gonna have people that do like you. So where people make the mistakes is they try to put up a show in a portrayal of something that they aren't, and that does not lapse.

But when you are truly authentically just sharing the realness of who you are, people will respect you. They'll see that they'll love you, and they'll eventually want to collaborate with you in some way.

Matty A.: What are some of the most, cuz you've had a lot of brands, a lot of, amazing influencers and people around you birthed out of the rise record community and mastermind.

Yeah. And events that you host, what are some of the ones that stand out to you that you say that they did this right beyond just being authentic.

Brandon T Adams: I have to make the point to shout out to a guy named Brian Kelly. Have you, you ever heard Florida, Georgia Line? Yep. So I listened to that.

Growing up, I loved the music. [00:11:00] It made me think of going on gravel roads and everything, and. And last year we, we had Brian Kelly, who is one of the half members. There was Brian and the other guy of Florida, Georgia line. We had Brian. He was in the transition of doing his own thing, beach Cowboy, and literally his last performance as Florida George Line is when we had hired him to be a part of Rise and Record. And I share this story because for one Brian Kelly is just a true, authentic person. I interviewed him on stage and then his band performed at our event. He was such a cool experience, just straight out guy.

I can relate in so many ways just how he grew up, but. He shared that he knew it was time for him to go on his own path, in his own way and just that was truly what he wanted to do, and he didn't care what anybody else saw it. He wanted to do what was truly like true to him as a person. And me personally as a listener and a follower, and then [00:12:00] having a part of event, I had so much mad respect for this guy.

Because he was just showing how real it was. And that just shows like in, in terms of an example of somebody that's true, that's authentic and gets. Somebody like me to be like, man, I respect this guy. I wanna work with this guy. And find ways to collaborate together. And that's just one example, but there's different influencers out there that are real.

They just share how it is. And they, as they, they pivot in their career, which they do when they're real about it, people are gonna still follow them and wanna collaborate with them.

Matty A.: Talk about kind of the science behind brand building and telling a story. Yeah. And some people would, I've heard it all, and I've had many of these thoughts myself over the years that you have to grow out of I'm not a creative or Yeah, I'm not good on video or, whatever, insert whatever limiting belief it is. Talk about some of the frameworks and the science and the consistency and maybe the mediums Yeah.

That you're seeing. People really do well [00:13:00] with or maybe how it can work for people that, have some of those

Brandon T Adams: thoughts. Yeah. So I'm gonna give you another example of which I think you're love. I first wanna I'll share some thoughts on this. A brand is what people remember. They think of it's branded into their brain and how is it branded into their brain.

It's from somebody consistently communicating the same damn message over and over again. Sharon, who they are, what they do, what they stand for, do it again and again. And then bringing people into their life, not only staying who they are, but showing them who they are. Yeah. Behind the scenes in, through social media, through video, through stories through content, through press, through all these different things, they're consistently communicating a message around one similar thing.

And also they're surrounding themselves with other people that are in this industry. Have that co-brand association, so it's becoming branded in people's minds. There was somebody that recently just started work with me. I do some one-on-one advisory. Certain people[00:14:00] he had been watching my content for five years.

He's from Iowa, which I love. I'm from Iowa. Small town boy. It's small town, and he, and here's the thing, he. He was the one that would never like or comment on anything. But he watched all my stuff and we did a coffee meeting here like four months ago, and he said, the thing, I'll never forget it, that you said is you need to build a personal brand and people may not remember everything that you said.

They'll remember how you made them feel. And he literally quoted exactly what I said. And so I ingrained that into his brain and he understood the power of a brand. And so he remembered it and eventually that turned into a partnership. I'll give you an example. You ever heard of Rick Flair? Oh yeah, baby Woo.

Woo. So Rick our, one of our portfolio companies, we hired him to be a promoter of one of our products. We did a commercial shoot. We messed a lot of money into it. We got him wooing. We did radio ads and everything. Here's an example of a guy that has millions of [00:15:00] followers and he is one of the most known wrestlers of all time, and you know him for Woo, and he is 74 years old.

By the way. He still is acting like he's 27. The guy is going, but he has an older audience and so older audience wrestling fan group. Knowing that we know that he is a brand that has this audience. And based on the products that we have to offer, his audience will buy our product or service. So because we know that and he has influence, we hired him, brought him in, did a whole day commercial shoot, half day radio shoot.

We took those assets, did TV ads, digital ads, Sirius XM ads, radio ads, and those creatives turn into a product that resulted in sales. Because we understood his brand, we understood who his followers were. We invested in it. And then we use that to get, basically use it to scale a company, because a lot of people like him, they trust them and they know the woo.

And so just in our example of doing a brand [00:16:00] deal, finding somebody that has a known brand, that has a unique follower base that you can use in a creative way to scale a company because his audience will buy your product service. I

Matty A.: love that. I think you also talked about something that's really important.

Especially now, consumers are smart, pulling, yeah. Pulling the wool over their eyes with these old school marketing tactics and closes. It's just, it's not what it once was. And so talking about sane and showing, the audio is one thing, but the video really has to match up.

Because a lot of people, when they fill that inauthenticity, they feel like you're a fake or a fraud. That is the quickest way to burn your brand to the ground without even trying. And yeah, with consumers nowadays, I think that's really important and that's what makes the difference of longevity and quick growth.

And sustainable growth is also what can, lead to the one hit wonders and the people that fills out really quickly. Yeah, too,

Brandon T Adams: No, a hundred percent so on. [00:17:00]

Matty A.: Your side of the business world you've built your platforms and your vehicles that have really generated financial freedom and wealth for you, what are some of the things that you are investing your money in?

I know you got a lot of investment opportunities. Yeah. Deal flow advisory boards that you're sitting on. What are some of the things that you're seeing that are really exciting to you, that are, opportunistic in terms of great returns? You see a future with, yeah. What's going on in your world in terms of where you're putting your capital?

So I have

Brandon T Adams: investments in technology, crypto, health, wellness, cannabis tequila you name it, I, ai I'm excited about some AI stuff right now. But I'll tell you some of the ones I'm most excited about. Is one in particular is called the drip bar, which is a iv health treatment. You go into a location.

Yep. You put a needle in and they have these bags. Some people know it as if the somebody drinks too much one night, they go to the next day to get [00:18:00] hydrated. But there's other sides of it be vitamins. There's, we have cancer patients that literally go in to get their treatment because it makes them feel better.

It gives them energy. And so we have this company now a guy named Ben Crosby. Literally. Two years ago and maybe two and a half it was, he went to this location and there was a drip bar and it was just one location in Massachusetts and he went and he loved it. He was the avid, just a goer customer and he told the people, can I franchise this?

And they let 'em, he started franchising it. Eventually he bought them out, and now we have almost 60 locations around the country. We're opening two to four per week. We've already sold over 500 locations. It's scaling very rapidly. This is, we are becoming the premium for the iv drip treatment in the industry for cellular health.

But I'll say this is why I'm excited about it. For one, when Covid hit. Everybody was thinking about their health, make it get better, get healthier. That [00:19:00] kind of accelerated the business. But we live in a world now. For most part. Most people are trying to find ways to feel better, to be healthier, to live longer, and this is one of those things that's doing that.

So I love it so much. I do it two to three times a month. I'm gonna get one this weekend, get my treatment done. But also I see where it's going with our industry, with humanity and how we want to be healthier people. Yep. This is obviously a great opportunity for investment for people. But it's doing good.

I do wanna put capital and time and energy behind things that are making the world a better place. And so I'm excited about that. But I, anything that can scale scalability obviously makes the most sense. I'm not looking at something that can be 10 million in sales. I'm looking, how can we get a billion dollar, multi-billion dollar industry tap into it and be a early adopter in on the beginning.

Matty A.: What does scale look like to you behind the scenes when you're doing due diligence? Yeah. On a team, on a deck, on a, on an investment opportunity. How are you breaking the deal down and dissecting [00:20:00] whether or not it hits your investment criteria, maybe what does that investment criteria look like from your perspective?

Brandon T Adams: I look at the CEO and founder, sometimes it could be the best idea in the world. If the CEO or the founder, the main one, LEK, is in their own way and they're not coachable, it doesn't matter how great HAG is. If they're gonna be there it's not gonna work. That's one side. I look at their advisory board, I look at who their team is.

Hey, can these people pulled off or are they open to allowing us and other people to come in and help guide them to that growth? So I'm looking at their dream team. And then I'm looking at the next 24 to 36 months. What's it look like? What do they need to raise? What is their plan of execution? And then we look at specifically what I'm looking at is myself and my partners, is how can we apply marketing, direct market marketing, influencer marketing, maybe advertising in some way to this concept to scale it?

Because believe it or not, most companies, I still can't believe it, [00:21:00] they don't understand marketing or branding. They don't. Yep. And I, you, me we just know it so well. And then when you see a company that's successful, but they don't understand marketing, social media, branding,

Matty A.: You, and we do take it another level,

Brandon T Adams: dude, you can take it to a whole new level.

Yeah. So that's what we look at, which is a part of, that's so much fun. Doing the commercial shoots, getting the influencers, raising capital, having some fun with it.

Matty A.: I love that. You talked you sparked something to me that I thought was interesting because I do think this world of opportunity is gonna continue to open up in really big ways on the health front of people looking at health a lot differently, right?

This kind of medical mafia. Keep people in, our web and, oftentimes the way marketing and the world of consumerism has been crafted around health has been to not necessarily get people better,

Brandon T Adams: but now,

Matty A.: This shift in, in, in mindset, this, shift in, in [00:22:00] technology is really going well.

Yeah, you make a lot of money keeping people sick and, coming back into your world over and over. But now I'm starting to see this really big exploration. Peter Diamandas is, one of the best in the

Brandon T Adams: game.

Matty A.: What he's doing. You're seeing all kinds of people now really get in this world of going.

How can we make a lot of money, but by making people healthier and live longer and have them, coming back to us for longer periods of time because of how we're making their life better. What are your thoughts on that,

Brandon T Adams: Peter? I love what he is doing. I've met him once I, I got hired and flown in by to XPRIZE once.

It was one of the coolest things, because I got to, I always looked up to xprize Yeah. And what they're doing, how they're advancing life. And they're him and Elon Musk and those people. I just have mad respect for it, and we need people to take lead for that. Yep. Because these are the people that are literally allowing us to live.

Much longer, much more [00:23:00] fulfilling and happier lives, but also creating systems or technologies that people, some people are afraid of, like AI or they're afraid of different technologies. I look at it as these technologies are, yes, destroying certain jobs, but allowing people to focus on more meaningful things.

More meaningful aspects of life versus the tedious things that you don't necessarily need somebody to do. Yep. And so that's my perspective on it, but I love what Peter's doing. I love. I'm trying to think of the other guy that's, Tony Robbins and Dean, they're doing some big things too.

I know Tony's invested a lot in what Peter's doing. Huberman lab. Mad

Matty A.: respect. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing some great stuff. Yeah. It's very in that world I think is gonna create a whole new economy of opportunity for people to, like you said, live more meaningful, more impactful lives. And in a much, Healthier manner than, a lot of the problems that we've seen persist for many decades.

Brandon T Adams: Even Peter was saying on a video the other day that if you can continue to stay healthy and [00:24:00] stay healthy for the next 10 years, the exponential amount of time that you can live Yeah. Is beyond what we can even grasp. And I think it's gonna get to the point where it's crazy.

Think about you go get a car, oil change, part change as humans. It'll be at the point where you just get. Maybe a certain part of her body replaced and it, this stuff is happening. It's here. It's becoming our reality. It's an exciting time to be a human being. And I'm just, I'm

Matty A.: excited for it. I love it.

You and I, both being early adopters, And things, like you said, exponentially growing and rapidly. Yeah. Moving right now with ai, what are you paying attention to? What are you excited about? What are some of the things that you're leaning into on the AI front right

Brandon T Adams: now?

I think any technology that's created, somebody will use it for good and somebody will use it for bad. No doubt. I know I hear things. I have a niece and nephew and. I hear for kids like there's AI and Snapchat. Now one day I'm on Snapchat and then it says, Hey, I'm your ai. And I texted something and it texted [00:25:00] me back and it gives me this whole thing.

Create me a script, where should I go next? And it's pretty amazing what it does, but there's certain instances where it can be used for bad. Yeah. Even this deep fake stuff. Yeah. Where you literally like and have somebody that looks like the president and they can say exactly the same voice and everything and.

If they put out false information, we are in a world of what is it? Information wars. What is right, what is wrong? But I look at it in the good side of things. AI can supplement you as an expert and make you perform at a higher level. And also again, focus on things that are more meaningful.

Now, I'll give you an idea like I'm going into, in, into an interview. I can literally say, I'm interviewing this person with this background. Gimme 10 great questions to ask them. Boom, spits it out. I get 10 questions, and even if I don't use all 10 questions, I'll use three of them. It will gimme ideas for five other questions that I came up with myself.

It's like a mastermind in itself. Yeah. Or [00:26:00] here's another one. Gimme a script that is top five tips on marketing coming from branding. T Adams based around this. Boom. Spits it out. I have scripts like these are the things that AI can do. Here we got a company that is called Vico. It's insane. The guy, Brian Portlock the CEO and founder of it, used to have call centers around the country and they obviously would outbound calling marketing.

He created a system. It's crazy. Created a system that they can do, I think it's 40 or 50,000 calls outbound a day for a customer, a client, and based off the scripts I got, And the AI sounds just like a human being. They can do slang, they can do English, Spanish, all these different languages. You get a phone call and you think that it's a human, but it's ai.

And what it does is you can do so much more output and then even it can put in a position where let's say the conversation goes one way and then it's getting closer to maybe where you need a human on board. [00:27:00] They'll direct it to a human. And so this is techno, which by the way, I'm invested in, this is another one that I think is a billion dollar company.

But these are the kind of things that are happening in AI right now that is exciting. Whether it's the calling, outbound calling, it's the social media side, it's the scripts, it's all the different things. So it is exciting. I'm gonna say positive. I'm not gonna focus on the bad things that can come from it.

But yeah. That's awesome

Matty A.: dude. So as we wrap up, Who's inspiring you right now? Where are you feeling

Brandon T Adams: called to step your game up?

Matty A.: Who's leading you in, many of those kind of evolutions of your own brand, of your own thinking, your own disciplines.

Brandon T Adams: Yeah. I look at. I have mentors that inspire me one being Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, and I look at Peter and Mendez.

I like what he's doing. Tony Robbins, there's one guy I met him at an event not that long ago, and I love the contents put out. He's crushing Alex Hormoze. He is. [00:28:00] He's he's a real deal man. He's sharp. Yeah he's very sharp. He's putting out great content and he's scaling and he's just a real deal.

So I like consuming his content because we're in kind of similar spaces, he has acquisition.com, he's acquiring companies. I'm investing, getting a part of him. So the people that are in my generation and my age group like ours, that are crushing it. I love seeing that because a lot of the people.

That are, let's say, in business with me are way older than me. I like to see people that in their thirties, I'm 33. Yeah. That are on that same path in crushing it. I love

Matty A.: it, dude. I know a lot of people are gonna want to follow your content. They're gonna wanna engage with you. Yeah. Your brand more.

They might want to check out, rise and Record the events that you guys got coming up, the Masterminds that you guys got available, and maybe just getting into your world a little bit. Yeah. What's the best

Brandon T Adams: place for them to do that? Yeah. Yeah, so our annual event for Rising Record. It's all about rising up and sharing your story is@riserecord.com.

We got our annual one in National Tennessee this October 17th, the 19th. And then I am easy to [00:29:00] find. I'm at Brandon T. Adams, everywhere. Send me a direct message. Got any questions, go watch my videos. I'd post daily and let's connect.

Matty A.: Brandon, always great catching up with you, brother. Thanks brother.