Show Notes
Today we are talking with Mark Friedman of FriedoNation Productions, his company for Podcasting. We talked about his favorite social media networks, and his love affair for Kesha.
Connect with Mark Friedman
______________________________________________
What do you think about this episode? We’d love to hear from you! Share us your suggestions, comments or questions. And we’d love to include that on our next show.
Connect with us:
Website: www.bitbranding.co
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bitbranding
Instagram: www.instagram.com/bitbranding
Hope y'all enjoyed this episode! We'll see you guys next week for another episode of The Marketing Natives!
Transcript
Christian [00:00:00] Hey what's going on today we're talking to Mark Friedman with Friedonations productions his company for podcasting. We talked about his favorite social media networks and his love affair for Kesha.
Christian [00:00:28] Awesome. All right let's get this started. Ah Mark thank you for you being on our show. Now let's just talk a little bit about your company. Just tell us about free donations productions.
Mark [00:00:37] Well I've produced podcasts mainly a lot audio. I dabble in video. Nowhere near the video that you guys do though. And I just believe that anyone who has a Web site anyone who does any kind of content really could use a podcast.
Aaron [00:00:52] Absolutely. And actually now that we're jumping in it's a podcast. We have some really good podcast questions but I think that we should break the ice or go back a little bit so you guys know Mark owns a podcast production company but we didn't tell Mark what questions we're gonna ask for just to have a conversation. But there's a couple of things I know about Mark and I want to get it recorded while we're candid here. So Mark is a twin. Correct. That is correct. Awesome. So whenever you've explained it to me any way you guys a complete like polar opposites as far as like I mean you look the same right. You're identical twins but personality wise you're a bit different. Can you expand on that.
Mark [00:01:32] There are certain things that we are really different. He's a lot more outgoing and believe it or not I'm an introvert. I'm really kind of shy. Which is surprising to a lot of people in a lot of people kind of called B.S. on that when they did you on the radio for so long.
Mark [00:01:47] But but I am I am. It takes a lot of I'm out of my comfort zone right now.
Mark [00:01:51] As a matter of fact. But he's a lot more outgoing than I am. Little things like when we play poker. I realize this within the last year. He is the type of dude who just bluffs all the time and I don't bet unless I have the winning hand. So I'm not going to do that. And the really interesting thing to me on a very deep like scientific level is we are identical twins. We grew up in the same house same parents obviously. And we basically the way I see it is we had the same exact experiences until we got to be like nine or 10 years old where you start kind of going off your separate ways. Right. Well he has a completely different outlook on our childhood than I do. And to the point where his wife is asked Are you sure you grew up in the same house. Because we will have different memories of the same exact event.
Mark [00:02:47] And one of the examples I use is we my parents were paycheck to paycheck and we weren't we weren't poor we weren't rich by any stretch imagination. And when we went to Ranger games we would sit in the cheap seats because that's what we could afford. And I remember thinking back Well it's so cool that we got to go to the Ranger game. Yeah yeah.
Mark [00:03:10] Well evidently he was sitting there thinking what can we sit in the goods. And so I look back on it with very very appreciative and a lot of gratitude that hey I got to get this Ranger games. And evidently he looks at it like he missed out because he wasn't sitting behind home plate dang. So stuff like that. He's local here too right. Yeah. He's in McKinney Frisco. Does he own a product podcast production company too.
Mark [00:03:34] That's. That's another thing too is we're nowhere near as close as people think twins should be. And we don't hate each other or anything like that but to the point where what's his e-mails I can share this podcast.
Mark [00:03:46] Well that's another story.
Mark [00:03:49] So Sondra from the Allen Fairview Chamber of Commerce she's a membership director. Right. We took a picture at a ribbon cutting and one of Sandra's friends outside the chamber said hey is that Joel Friedman's brother you're sitting next to in the picture. And she said yes I guess it was. And later on probably six or seven weeks later we're all another event. Someone asked me what my brother did for a living. And I said Well he runs a computer help desk for a mortgage company. And she said she said no he doesn't.
Mark [00:04:21] He runs the I.T. department for Citibank. Oh my God. She knew more about what he did than I did. Well.
Aaron [00:04:27] I guess it doesn't really come up. You know we usually find about other stuff. OK. So we can we can probably dive back into that but I have one more question that I know because this is kind of an entrepreneurial style podcast but this isn't your first technical business.
Aaron [00:04:43] I think he told me you used to own like a convenience store. Yes. And I'm just curious what got you into owning you know hey I want to buy convenience store and do you know what I dream or like.
Mark [00:04:53] No not at all not at all.
Mark [00:04:56] Basically my first job out of college was enterprise Rent-A-Car. Oh nice. Yeah. And what they do in enterprise is it's actually genius it's the way I would run a company. They only hire college grads which I don't know digitally reinterview with enterprise at all. And I actually have a good friend that works at Enterprise. Yeah.
Aaron [00:05:11] But I tell you I she actually our good friend got us to the point where like I was gonna make the decision like they offered me the job and I just said that I wasn't gonna take it and I went somewhere else. So I'd went all the way through the process which is a really good process of like how the interview and who you had to talk to. I think I would like to read for interview. Yeah.
Mark [00:05:28] Yeah. And then what they do is everyone's a management trainee and they start to get off at an awfully awfully low salary. My first salary come out of college now. This was ninety one but it's still it was 92 and still an awful salary was fifteen thousand four hundred dollars a year all day. Okay. And so you don't start getting paid there until you get your first promotion. Wow. And so I was working there making that. And it's a lot of hours to raise a ton of hours but you know what. It's great training for the real world too though because enterprise leases to people and rent to people who have their cars in the shop or they've been involved in accidents and stuff. So no one's coming in because they're happy ever. Every customer that comes in is coming in off of a bad situation. Right. And then you have to manage the inventory of cars and stuff like that so you have to deal with a lot of people in a lot of different situations. But I worked my way through high school and college at a restaurant in Richardson the owner of the restaurant Richardson called me about where Radford got my first promotion enterprise and he told me he was going through a divorce and he had to sell his portion of the restaurant to his ex-wife in the divorce settlement. And so you want to know if I wanted to go in business with him. Mm hmm. And I said I've got less than a thousand dollars in the bank right now. I can't go into business with you. And he explained to me that he found a convenient store and restaurant in Rowlett over by Lake Ray Hubbard. That was kind of dilapidated. He said we can we can buy it for thirty five thousand. Wow. And he said we'll borrow the money you will pay back. So you don't have to have equity you'll earn your equity we'll buy it we'll run it will remodel it and we'll sell it. So that's how I got to the QE.
Aaron [00:07:08] So it was a restaurant too. Yes. Very cool. Like is it the restaurant like a quick trip kind of thing or like an actual I was actual full service.
Mark [00:07:15] I mean I was like a we called it the country cafe. Yeah. So it's like a diner. But you know a little cracker barrel inside of a quick yes.
Mark [00:07:21] Exactly.
Mark/Christian [00:07:22] Exactly. And gas station. How long were you running that for. Okay. That's interesting. We ran it for about two years and we actually made money running it. Part of the reason we made money running it was kind of sad because in relative time there are no grocery stores. But a lot of convenience stores. But we're only an American owned one. And so I mean we didn't outwardly take advantage of it but people do. Yeah. It's like Yeah people talk but we're selling it to a guy named Tommy Quan who was a little ISIS manager Mm hmm. Yeah. So I was kind of interesting.
Aaron [00:08:00] How so. I don't know if I missed that part or not but from ninety two and then how long. About two years. Oh God to you. Awesome. All right. I would let you take over this point and that's those are late.
Mark [00:08:13] Are you entering all this out of the way or are you going to keep do it or you can edit all this out. No. Okay.
Aaron/Christian [00:08:18] Now we're very real. If you listen to fight I mean you listen to our path Nancy we're very wrong so we might want to take out a few things. If it doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on how flows but now more likely we're just hey this regular conversation cool unless there is something about the convenience store that you don't have to say else any good but when I was a small time bookie or anything like that that's off the air well you guys left a message Mark about that.
Christian [00:08:43] So I guess my next question would be for donation productions. How and why did you get started doing podcasts.
Mark [00:08:51] Well come from the radio side I was on the ticket at ESPN for about twenty four years and I thought what I was gonna do because the radio industry as you guys know all the media industry they're having a heck of a time trying to figure out how to deal with the digital world and being in radio newsprint they all have the same issues. And I thought it would just take my radio show Make it a podcast. But I had a six month not compete with a radio station and I left on very good terms didn't burn any bridges in the radio station probably wouldn't have done anything about that longer compete but I didn't take any chances and also want to get involved in the community so I figured you know for the next six months I can get involved in the community and then I'll take my radio show Make it a podcast and during that six months I join the chamber. Well we were shut out. We already live in and I've lived in Allen since 2004. All right. I don't have any kids. So even though I wanted to get involved in the community the fact that I didn't even coach soccer you know I didn't have that entry into the community. And then my radio schedule I had a lot of travel and a lot of weird hours kept me from being able to be involved so I figured that six months would really be a way for me to be able to get involved Kickstart.
Aaron/Mark [00:10:11] Now you have the bug. Yeah because you're part of the school board as well right. Well I was on a committee for the school board for the failed bomb package. Yes I'm still upset about. Yeah I was gonna say so failed bond here and Alan just to give some background. We're voting on a bunch of stuff for the at least the bond was for the school district rather and they voted against that and they voted against the term and they voted for term limits. Yes. But you I've got really involved in the community. Yeah and you're also a board member of the Chamber of Commerce. As a favorite and ironically we did a marketing for that. So now we're on another side of this stuff Marc dislikes us.
Aaron/Mark [00:10:48] He's gonna fire the other two. Good job. Thank you thank you.
Christian [00:10:52] Have you always wanted to sort of start your own business it was it was always the end goal for you.
Mark [00:10:58] No not not necessarily but I've always been entrepreneurial type minded. I didn't I didn't really know until I got into this. How natural it was for me because for example I thought that I was really going to miss Radio Radio Sports radios. Great. I mean I was very fortunate to be able to do what I did feel like I haven't worked since I was twenty three years old because you know I'm talking sports right. Right. Traveling with the Cowboys I'm going to Super Bowls. I'm going to the World Series and stuff like that and I really thought Phil's going to miss it. And not only do I not miss it but I don't think I would go back as a matter of fact. A radio station in Waco on if I told you about this but about two three months ago a radio station in Waco called me and you're the program director and one host there and asked if I'd be interested in possibly doing attend a new show there. But being able to do it from my office here Yegor l really and. I asked. Can I record it and send it to you guys. He said Well now you have live. And I said I don't think I'm interested in doing anything.
Aaron [00:12:08] I'm going to miss ribbon cutting. Well you know what.
Mark [00:12:11] It's just the thought and yes are probably the same way you guys are working your butts off. But but you get to make your own schedule even though right we're all recording this on a Saturday.
Christian [00:12:21] Very nice.
Mark [00:12:22] Exactly. But. But it's your time. You feel like you're more control. And I didn't want to be in a position where I had to be at my office every day at 7 o'clock. Even though I'm pretty much at my office every day 630. It's my choice right. So it's kind of a psychological thing but I really love being able to be in control.
Aaron [00:12:42] Yeah. Well maybe he'll come back to you and be like Oh yeah. Sounded to me. Well you know what. That's the future. Yeah. That's just very recording and sending it over.
Mark [00:12:49] That's I mean ESPN is already doing that. They're they're actually airing podcasts on their radio stations on the weekend. Smart. Yeah. It really is and eventually they'll figure it out on the ticket yesterday. If you're here locally in the Metroplex their afternoon show recorded an interview with Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach. But the way they did it was and they actually called it a podcast even though it's not a podcast. But they did it in podcast format X and it just just a whole lot. It's more efficient to do it that way.
Aaron [00:13:22] Yeah. And it's I guess it's better for the the end user I guess to the person actually interviewing me. Interesting. That sounds like an awesome interview too.
Mark [00:13:32] Yeah. Oh it was a great job.
Christian [00:13:34] How are you currently doing. I mean you're doing the Alan in action where you're basically the host of the show. Is there any future within the sports area.
Mark [00:13:45] I'm doing a couple. My voice is on a couple of sports podcasts one called the clubhouse guy which is a sports podcast. Yeah. Plus I love that one providing content for another digital media company. Gotcha. And then I produce the doomsday podcast which is a cowboy's podcast you'll hear me on that every once in a while but usually I just kind of find this awesome.
Aaron [00:14:10] And you also do like I'm not a we're not a lot but I feel like you do quite a few nonprofit podcasts too.
Mark [00:14:17] Yeah I do a lot of faith based. OK. And I've started a podcast feed called for donation community which is for non-profits so that they can come in and promote with you want to promote. And I don't charge them for that.
Aaron [00:14:30] So I mean to that end do you think that podcasting really is for every business owner like some people say that you know I don't have anybody I don't have anything to talk about but you know do you really feel like podcasts are for every business.
Mark [00:14:42] Oh I think every business owner should be involved in a podcast one way or the other whether it's them doing their own podcast or advertising on someone else's. For example I've got a couple realtors that do podcasts and I'm not a sales guy. I'll go out and sell the advertising at all right. But to me I'm an idea. But to me you know if you're a home inspector if you're a home insurance person insurance agent you know there's lots of things related to real estate a mortgage person that if you don't wanna do your own podcast you can find someone else's podcast and promote yourself on that radio sponsor.
Aaron [00:15:18] That makes sense.
Aaron [00:15:19] So as far as podcasting what's been the biggest challenge for you like you know you started a business. You thought you were going to go one way and you did that for you know you went another way for six months and then you're like oh I don't want to go and do the other stuff or this is way more fun and also probably more profitable too. What's been the biggest challenge because you've been in business for like three years. Yeah.
Aaron/Mark [00:15:41] So what's been the biggest challenge with starting starting the business is that the first biggest challenge was myself because coming from radio I was very cocky and I looked at podcasts as kind of like that's the minor league. So those are the guys that can get radio jobs or the the kids in their mom's basement. I mean it's a cell phone you know. I was completely wrong about that. It took me a couple months to realize how wrong I was that podcast can be incredibly powerful and very effective and very efficient way to promote yourself and promote your businesses. So that was the first challenge second challenge and still kind of an ongoing but getting easier and easier is educating others somewhat podcast or Yeah I think that becomes so so much more mainstream just in the last three years. As a matter of fact especially with how easy it is in your cars to listen to podcasts now.
Christian [00:16:33] Yeah I remember the last time I actually on the radio. See and that's a challenge for radio.
Mark [00:16:38] That's the first thing for radio. Know we're not talking about radio here. But I will. Yeah. Absolutely. Is that Alison talk radio and talk radio is a little bit protected because it's all original content. Mm hmm. But music I can't tell you the last time I listened to music on a terrestrial radio station. You know if I'm a music listener I'm about to buy a line or listen to Spotify or my own playlist. Yeah so radio is really challenged like that. And even in talk radio it's getting to be more challenge because you're not just competing with the other local talk radio stations you're competing with podcasts you're competing with streaming radio.
Aaron [00:17:17] So speaking of playlist and stuff. I feel like that's a good I don't like Christians laughing but I mean unless he knows Marc's playlist. But Mark like if somebody pull it out your playlist you know what's what's the top three most listened to songs and artists. You know what kind of music do you get down to.
Mark [00:17:36] You know what I've been told out of the playlist of a 14 year old girl.
Mark [00:17:41] I would say probably just educated guess I guess we can look it up but most play would be Britney Spears nice like new stuff all that stuff.
Aaron [00:17:51] What were you feeling to Britney's probably the old stuff.
Aaron [00:17:54] OK Mike hit me baby one more time.
Mark [00:17:58] Little toxic. Yeah. Mm hmm. Miley Cyrus was a big player. I'm not sure she would still rank if you looked at the stats on my play list Kesha was I was telling you guys before we started that I actually went to catch a concert by myself.
Aaron/Mark [00:18:12] Nice. What's your favorite song by Kesha. Tick tock. OK.
Christian [00:18:16] I mean you showed us a new song that we've never heard of it's called dinosaur. Yeah I got to tell you it's great.
Aaron [00:18:21] Yeah well we love dinosaurs such you know. You know we're biased.
Mark [00:18:26] I'm also like a lot Jerry Reed the owner Jerry Reed has no clue. You know Smokey the bandit. Yeah yeah yeah. He's pounding down the theme to Jerry the smoking ban is Jerry Reed. Oh OK. You also sing a song called patches which is about a kid whose father was a farmer and the farmer died. The kid was 13 years old had taken over the farm it's very sad song gosh on that one.
Aaron [00:18:47] My gosh. All right. So the manliest of mainly talks about football and you know everything like the gridiron.
Aaron [00:18:56] And then you know after you get done talking about somebody smashes somebody's face in and get a concussion you over there and listen to you know hit me baby one more time.
Aaron [00:19:04] Yes. This is a good it's a good balance. Yes it's a good balance.
Aaron [00:19:09] You got to have both sides at CNN. Otherwise it's just it's a grind. So speaking of the gross with your business I mean you have quite a few podcasts. You do an out. You work with non-profits. What do you do anything to advertise or just like good production and people just word of mouth.
Mark [00:19:27] It's pretty much where it might not have an advantage coming from the radio side because a lot of people knew me know which was actually very interesting in the chamber or any of these networking groups I go to. It's like half the people know me from radio.
Mark [00:19:41] And the other path or other half are like How the hell that podcast got making you money. So it's either oh my gosh I listen to you on the radio or the Hill or you know. Right.
Mark [00:19:50] But so that did give me a big advantage. I often do wonder if I could survive that first year without the radio experience and without the radio recognition.
Aaron [00:20:02] Well at least in the community now said you're super involved in the community so at least you know within a 50 mile radius of where we're at earliest the Dallas Metroplex. You know somebody is always just going to be like hey you should do a podcast. Who's the podcast guy and the first thing that people say is you know Marc or Fredo really that's probably I feel like whenever people introduce you we have a weekly networking group called Tuesday morning live for the chamber. And I feel like depending on who the card caller is they put in this business card and they pull it out and I just read the name on the card or if they know who it is they'll say Mark with free donation productions or they'll go Fredo and they're like Oh I'm sorry am I suppose to call you Fredo. I don't know Mark. And so it's just like it's a it's synonymous with your real name which is always odd for me that those people can.
Aaron [00:20:46] It's OK if I call you Fredo. Right. Yeah you can use my name and that's fine yeah.
Aaron/Mark [00:20:49] That's. I think that happened with Melissa from top golf or whatever you know shout out to top golf laptop golf.
Mark [00:20:55] Yeah. Big shout out to top golf. Just real quick. Yeah. I coach some special Olympics golf. Oh cool thanks to Melissa and top golf. They're letting us use their base to practice. That's awesome. Which is really awesome because now instead of being stuck out and driving range watching those kids practice golf I can watch TV in the shade.
Aaron [00:21:12] Nice Christian join you. Yes. Awesome. Cool. He was practicing in the office a little bit. Mark was just making sure that he was not golfing. I wasn't I don't think I've ever golf. Really. Coming up golf for sure. Yeah. But besides that nice.
Aaron [00:21:27] All right. So when you the top golf outing. Cool.
Christian [00:21:33] Okay. So we're big on social media besides podcasting the podcasting world do you have a favorite social media network Twitter. Twitter.
Mark [00:21:42] Twitter is why. OK. Twitter is really interesting to me because I went over to the ESPN ESPN did a ton a ton of research you can imagine Disney company a ton of research a lot of they had to go to a lot of seminars had to go to a lot of corporate meetings and they always had a spin off they always had an angle in any meeting any teamwork exercise team building exercise I did and it was a really good experience you go to Bristol and people make fun of Bristol Connecticut because it's a small town there's nothing new there. I loved going up to Bristol in the same ESPN and going through the meetings because it was a legitimate training. I mean they were very professional. So one of the more interesting things I ever experienced in one of those corporate meeting settings which have always been in those guys have always pretty much been I've been yeah I've been in a couple of corporate money. I used to work at Interstate Batteries so we went to and I was.
Aaron [00:22:41] I mean it's a huge company. So yeah I've been in it.
Aaron/Mark [00:22:44] It's it's okay. Yeah. Oh yeah it can. It can be very monotonous very boring. But at ESPN they always had a mission in every meeting that you had and so kind of fun part fun part for me was you know you sit in there for like an hour and a half and you're trying to figure out what is the mission at the end how they're going to tie this in about well we're in there with a bunch of producers and program directors and the person facilitating the meeting asked ok just hypothetically. All you producers in here if you were limited and you could only go to one Web site for your news where would you go. And so the whole purpose of that question was that I mean they had some of the top producers radio producers from the nation in there and what this lady wanted to do was she wanted Christian to say I'd go to S.I. dot com. She wanted Aaron to say I go to Deadspin which no one spent would ever go to Deadspin but go to Deadspin. She wanted to compile a huge list of links is auditory or was this written down as auditory and we run through the room where she was writing it down on the whiteboard and every one of the producers said well it's easy Twitter it compiles everything right.
Aaron [00:24:00] Yeah that's true. I mean if I like last night I fell asleep at 8 o'clock and I was like Okay who's going to win this game. I go to Twitter now.
Mark [00:24:09] Now that's on those sports producing side on the. Just my personal side. I've definitely gotten into the trap of Facebook normal videos watching one I like where you watch one video and they ask each girl and more it's good.
Aaron [00:24:22] That makes us more money we appreciate. Sure it does.
Christian [00:24:25] Yeah I mean I'm actually a big Twitter user as well. And I think the main reason is just like what you said compiles everything. And I think it's like also a huge if you want to know what's trending right now. Just go to Twitter. I mean you'll find out exactly what's going on and you know everywhere very very easily.
Aaron [00:24:43] I was gonna say it's quake to like if something happens like crap. The Internet's down. Where do we go to Twitter. Your Internet down your internet down. Yeah. So kind of a Segway to that a little bit anyway is working. So if you could never work again saying you obviously worked in radio doing podcasting now on your own business. I mean like you said you haven't worked since you were twenty three but if you could never work again would you.
Aaron/Mark [00:25:09] And why. Oh no I wouldn't. Whenever I would absolutely know now what I might do and I may do this anyway is invest in an RV nice. And we would love to go and take my show and there are people doing this. So you know this isn't a completely original idea even though I would have thought about my myself even obviously way before then too. Yeah exactly. But takes you on the road. You just get an RV and just live in the RV and just travel.
Aaron/Mark [00:25:36] All right. So bring us for like will not for us do like a month but we'll bring video. We'll run our business from the road too. We'll kind of do it like game day in our run around around on the side put it some we can put magnets because I don't want to mess up your RV but when you put some magnets will go to major cities and then yeah I don't know how we're gonna run with that yet but I like that and it's very possible for all of us to do that. Yeah. With what we're doing. Mm hmm yeah. Yes those are more fancy than I am but no I mean we just need our Mac books. Yeah. And literally good internet connection good internet. Yeah. So as we get internet and Mac books internet is getting so good everywhere. Hmm yeah. We can do that anywhere you like we can get 5G and be able to transport a teleport ourselves. Well that may be 20 21 but you know not 20 19.
Aaron/Mark [00:26:24] Oh and by the way that's one of the things that is making podcasts a whole lot more mainstream also is just the level of technology and the more abundant unlimited plans for your free phone. Yeah and stuff like that. I heard and you know that the Crusaders. Yeah. This is great. The whole. You know how your parents would say you know in my day I walked to school uphill both ways. Yeah they all complain. Yeah well let's just say I'm get the ages wrong but twelve year old sister got her first cell phone. Mm hmm. Her first phone and her 15 year old brother looked at her and said oh you know what. You will never know how hard it was when you had to make it to gigabytes of data.
Aaron/Mark [00:27:10] You got it so easy with a load of data. Oh my gosh. Like I remember I actually have it in my backpack because I was gonna bring it here for us to use as a prop it's my very first cell phone. I just kept it. I'm kind of. My name. My daughter. Yeah whatever.
Aaron [00:27:24] Anyways I still have that and it's like you had like every key 90 say like hey you had a touch like you know fourth quarter and then two and then three or whatever to like actually spell everything out. That's the real struggle. Kids all right.
Christian [00:27:37] Yeah you can have a full on keyboard.
Aaron [00:27:39] Not only that but like you also got messages from your parent or like conversations with your parents because hey you sent a thousand messages this last month. You have 250 where you're gonna get the rest of this money because there was not unlimited text messages. It was you paid for each text.
Mark [00:27:54] My first phone was a bag phone. Real soon back phones. Yes. And a couple on the Google.
Mark [00:27:59] It was a Google. We can put it.
Mark [00:28:02] It was a bag phone that no matter when I made the phone call it was 30 cents a minute. Oh my gosh 30 cents a minute. Now here's the thing. Opposing college and activities. There was no there was no coverage in academics.
Mark/Aaron [00:28:18] There was no need I mean cost me like thirteen hundred dollars also. Oh my gosh. There was no need for me to have a bag phone in college with no coverage. But I but you were cool like Did you like a class with your bag. Dang I always drive around and like let people know you had it in your car right. I use I use the hell out of Dallas.
Aaron [00:28:36] Yeah well Dallas yeah because Del Dallas has already always been like a good telecom area for a long time. But Yammer. My parents I didn't have a bag phone. It was very similar to that like the next version of it.
Aaron [00:28:48] We got in our van and I was like What is this thing like. Yeah we're supposed to make we can make calls from anywhere. Like wow. And that was like four ninety five or letter exciting. So obviously you can't spend thirteen hundred dollars where you can't spend thirteen hundred dollars on a very nice phone now. I think maybe a thousand bucks and you can get it. So it went a little bit cheaper but if you only had one hundred dollars so it was a purchase of one hundred dollars or less that has positively impacted your life. Gosh in the last six months or in recent memory anger's a memory. Yeah. We're going to pause for a dead hour here. Great question. Yeah we're trying it. That's our goal is like let's stump the podcast guy a hundred dollars or less.
Mark [00:29:32] Well business wise yeah could be business or personal business wise. And you're the first thing that's I have this the contraption where you can hold your Oh yeah I have it in my car was good. Another hundred dollars. I use this one yesterday and I found it on Facebook. So this dude like you guys will like this. The clip that will hold your your phone to your dashboard. Mm hmm. So you have heads up display basically. Yeah. And I was that driving down road just yesterday. So that's it. It was like nineteen ninety.
Aaron/Christian [00:30:02] Got nice. Yeah. OK. So make sure that you give us that link we'll put that in the podcast show notes to us. We may need to use that to probably a business expense I would tell.
Mark [00:30:12] That's the one that's like a little screen thing that mirrors your phone numbers and just it's such a simple contraption. All of it is just like a visor clip. OK. And like a clipboard with a spring and you open up the clipboard you put your phone in there and then you can put the whole phone into your dashboard. That's right. Yeah gotcha.
Christian [00:30:36] Yeah. OK. Definitely got to see that. Very cool.
Christian [00:30:40] Next question that's going to stump you in the last five years. What new belief behavior or habit has most improved your life still five years.
Mark [00:30:53] Yeah. Wow. Because my obvious answer but I've been doing this for a lot more in five years. That's why I'll just be genuine and and be genuine in your desire to help other people. And that's something that not to pat myself on the back. It's something that has come naturally for me it's something that I know doesn't come naturally for others and that's not that's not to say anything negative of others. I just think that if you if you're not that mindset it's hard for you to understand how helping someone else can really make you feel good. Once you do it it's real easy to understand and I'll use the Special Olympics as a as an example. A lot of people when I post pictures from Special Olympics basketball or you know what I'm doing with them. They want to pat me on the back and say That's so great that you're doing this but it's actually the opposite. I mean it's you know not to sound cliche but it's very selfish of me that I get so much out of helping them and doing things with them that it's something that I wouldn't give up at all and I don't deserve any credit for that at all by being genuine with it. You can't fake it you can fake a desire to help other people but you can force yourself to put yourself in that mindset so that you can experience it and then once you experience the joy of helping others it hopefully will come national team.
Aaron [00:32:13] Right. Yeah I was gonna say I don't think they like you probably at first like people there's a little bit of a hesitant to do it like as soon as I do. Then I say I believe what you're saying like it's just a natural human emotion that you are going to feel good about it. You know that's kind of like I it's not the same feeling but I feel like it's also like yeah you do do good deed for somebody or you do the right thing with vino whatever it is it's like OK. That was I could have chose to do this or I could have chose to do that and it's the right thing I like OK. I'm glad that know I took more time or I spent more effort on this and now because I did that I feel better about it.
Mark [00:32:49] And there's something else too in business and you guys do this a lot. As a matter of fact I think you guys are probably one the better examples of this is giving things away for free helping others in business and in rather than when someone I've seen you do this before and when someone asks you a question rather than you saying well let's set up an appointment and and we'll talk about it you will give the answer and I'll sit there and I'll think you know that's something you probably could have charged for. Yeah but in the long run giving things away giving knowledge away. I met with someone the other day. It's a he's 22 years old he can't afford me but I told might be very happy to help show him exactly what he needs to do. Start by guess. Yeah. And that's something that I know you guys do and I see you guys do it.
Aaron [00:33:37] Is it that Boston fan. You know I'm talking about a guy who's a fan of the Steelers. Yes. Our Steelers. Exactly. Yes. Shout out to that kid will not give the names but he needs to pick a better football team. So all right.
Aaron [00:33:53] This is probably not gonna stump you but it is a good question I don't think I've ever asked you this but um. So what do you wish you would have known when you first started out. And he can't be the answer that you would have gotten involved in community and done what you've done now.
Mark [00:34:07] And from when I first started business or start out in life or whatever you. However you perceive that multiple things. Okay. Okay. A. In life I wish I'd taken the advice of every older person and started saving money when I was a teenager and even before that. I wish I'd done that. I wish I actually cared a little bit more about school which is a weird thing because among the board of the alumni association student Austin I was just down there and my college career just so you'll know and I think you guys were all but you guys probably.
Mark [00:34:41] Cared and make good grades and were very conscientious students.
Aaron/Mark [00:34:44] I was about a B student C and I didn't say s it c like where are you. I don't know. Let school get in the way of my college career at all. Oh that class was not a priority for me at all and I wish that had been different but I also think you know maybe I wouldn't be who I am today if if I wasn't so social I was very socially even though I'm an introvert. But in college I was a little bit more. You had liquid courage I you. But I would have cared more about school. Just because I can open up so many doors just a grade point average in business guess I'm still so young and business as far as my business is going right now. I wish that I I wish that I'd gotten off to a better start because like I was starting to tell you guys before I always looked at podcast as a minor leagues and and since when I was starting out I was just gonna do my own podcast. And already had my sponsors in hand and everything. I didn't know the power of them until I really started getting into some of the businesses that I helped start help promote with podcasts and even right now I wish I was more aggressive in telling people I was going to say you're very modest and not just a outsider to tell you the truth matter. This isn't. It's still modest. I may do a better job of letting people know especially the smaller businesses that are doing a lot of advertising and they you know it's one thing for a big business to spend a lot of money advertising they can afford it and they can make some mistakes. They don't have to be quite as efficient and didn't show up on the radar as much. Yeah but I need to do a better job informing these smaller businesses. Look I'm not telling you shouldn't spend money in print advertising but if you're doing that then you probably can spend your money a lot more efficiently. Yeah. And advertising on of these podcasts that chamber podcasts that are so niche that you'll be hitting your target a lot more often than paying to reach a lot of people that aren't going to be your customers.
Aaron [00:36:54] Yeah I think you gave it a really good analogy before as like you know even if you only had a couple of hundred people listen to your podcast if you could have your target market in a room with you and there is 100 or 200 people in there just listening to you talk like that's a really good analogy or a really good visual for people to see like look you may reach 10000 people in that newspaper but that's total people racing unless you're on the front page there's no way there you're reaching 10000 you may get one hundred and of the hundred. Are they really even listening or looking at you and being your target market versus one of your podcasts as they listen Alan and action they're not listening to it as just some you know regular consumer they're probably you know wanting to find out about a community or a business owner.
Aaron [00:37:35] So it's a very targeted market and I think you gave that to me a while back and I just I think that's a really good visual for people tell the owner of the wings stop who go to church with him but he owns a lot of wings stop and I told him Look I can go and I can I can walk into your place of business and tell you I'm not going to tell you that you're not a hundred thousand people listen to this podcast I might even tell you not even tell you if there's gonna be a thousand people but I can tell you everyone listening either lives in or is thinking about moving to within a five mile radius of your store. Heck yeah. So you know it's just a whole lot more efficient.
Christian [00:38:09] And do we ask the last question that hard harder question. Yeah. So what do you think. Is that right. What do you think is something you've failed at.
Mark/Christian [00:38:17] And how did you learn from it. Something I fail that OK. This cash is even in my head. This sounds very corny and very cliche it's hard for me to answer that question and it may be because my faith or just life failures are not failures as far as I'm concerned you're you know when you fail at something it's it you're one step closer to achieving what you want to achieve. So it's hard for me to to look at a failure.
Christian [00:38:50] Gosh I'd have like a negative connotation.
Mark/Aaron [00:38:52] Like I'm out and it's almost like I'll look forward to failing because I know that that's so what's been the biggest opportunity or the biggest setback has been a springboard for you. I'm so like not necessarily a failure maybe failures is a negative connotation but what's the biggest learning experience. See guys we stumped him. Yeah. We have a very easy one we can come back to that question.
Mark [00:39:23] No I'm going to give you a jump. I'm looking for it just the magic answer.
Aaron [00:39:26] Nice. All right. Hey that's good.
Mark [00:39:29] Well everything is a learning experience. So we're just trying to think you know you can't see. Okay you know what. Like I said looking back I failed a whole lot when I was in my 20s and 30s just at life.
Mark [00:39:46] Just because I wasn't what.
Mark [00:39:54] Like like I said I have opportunity go to college and I didn't get it. I didn't take your banjo those classes. Yeah things like that. So that's why as I answer that question earlier. Mm hmm. Yeah. You know I've failed to get great grades in college but I think I came out OK. All right.
Aaron [00:40:10] I was gonna say would you change anything now.
Mark [00:40:12] Think that that's that's why it's so hard for me to answer the question cause I don't think I would change too much.
Aaron [00:40:16] Exactly. I think like what you've led into in the beginning was like it's a lot about your faith. So if you have a face you understand that look sometimes there is a fork in the road and then another fork and then another fork and if we were gonna predestined this this road then we would have gotten to a place it probably wouldn't be nearly as good as where you're at now perhaps.
Mark [00:40:32] Absolutely. So I'm Catholic I was errands able to put my words.
Aaron [00:40:38] It's because I know Mark I've met him like that really is a hard question though.
Mark [00:40:41] If you look at life that way. Mm hmm. And you know it's also I've told people that there's no there there's no real problems in life. If you have the faith. Mm hmm. You have the experience to know that every heart spot in life that I've had I've come out better.
Aaron [00:40:58] Yeah. And actually since I'm a Christian and so I'm I'm a firm believer in that philosophy too I'm also a firm believer and I said to Christian too that there's no real problems that you can solve with money. Yeah. So you don't have a real problem like OK I need a new car. Well that can be solved with money. You can fix that it's not a real problem. Cancer is a real problem you know. And even that you could probably have the best doctors and you could solve that with money. So anything that has to do like that that's not really like a real problem. You know it's really bad to say no. So on a podcast cause some people may think that like I'm coming across as like I'm super loaded. They would know that I'm driving a 2000 Honda Civic. What's up. Which is wired super loaded you know. But no that's the point is that like you know it can be solved with money that you can always make more money. So it's not like that's not that's not a real problem in the world. Overpopulation A.I. that's those are real problems in the world like that. Yeah.
Mark [00:41:51] Hey going back. You don't have to edit this in but you just touched on something and that is the biggest mistake I've made. The biggest mistake I've made is not listening to people that I knew were telling the truth not listening to my grandfather when you told me about saving money not listening to the college professor who said hey you may not think it's important but you probably get me in this class. If you can not listening to people who've had the experiences not listening to people that live through experiences that know what kind of issues you're gonna have that can predict the future because they lived the future they lived through it and not taking the advice of others is definitely the biggest mistake I've made. And that seriously is a mistake. You bring up the money part. I spent the first even though I told you my first salary was fifteen thousand but you know the first figures out of college I spent trying to figure out how I'm going to make my first made dollars rather than just letting it happen rather than just deciding what I wanted to do. I was very money driven I was very well I have the community store I was working 90 hours a week yeah. Chase just chasing money. But I think not listening to the advice of experienced people. It's something that a lot of young people fall into. Yeah yeah.
Aaron/Christian [00:43:07] Wisdom is it's so funny because it's like wisdom is so underrated but you can't talk sense into people who don't understand wisdom and then when they finally do get it it's too late for that. So that's like yeah it's a unicorn. So obviously we're no exception to this. There's obviously you know oh I should probably listen to my parents you know respect your elders. There's a reason that they say that or like you know you should listen to your grandparents. That's a good point. All right so let's jump to a much easier question and I'm upset because I know that this isn't your your your answer right now Mark because I've told you this for probably about a month now. We're still friends. But anyway so the question is what is your current Netflix binge.
Mark [00:43:47] Wow OK.
Mark [00:43:48] Where you're going with this but I am.
Mark [00:43:52] I just started watching a little mini series about the Central Park Five. Oh cool I heard about that. That's really good. And I haven't seen it. It's only four episodes and I'm like our episodes are it's a little bit longer an hour I think. I'm halfway through the second episode. It's fascinating to me how the whole crime drama stuff and especially the docu dramas that are about real events. Mm hmm. And all law enforcement I'm just fascinated by the psychology of how they were able to get these kids to confess to something they didn't do.
Mark [00:44:27] Yeah. And you know I can definitely see how it could happen. But watching the interrogations in the dramatizations of the interrogations is very fascinating.
Aaron [00:44:36] Yeah. Yeah I know we need to check that I guess on my watch list. All right. Second to last question actually in his last question really. And we we don't want to take too much of mark time or put him too much on the spot but like both of those once I'm with Tom I'm good.
Aaron/Christian [00:44:55] So what does 2019 look like for free donation productions or 20 20 or 20 20.
Mark [00:45:00] Hopefully 20 19. OK. I'm about six months behind on this project. Well I've wanted to do and I'm going to do is start three live streaming online stations I hate to say radio stations. I think he talked to me about that people around radio but the three audio streams one for faith one for business and one for women. They'll run 24 hours a day right 24 hours and basically what's going on is I've got and it's just gonna be the podcast production already. You just packaged differently and so for example I've got six female oriented podcasts that I do that I produce and basically the way my business model works right now is the people that I produce buy cars for or paying me to produce a podcast. What I'd like to do is be able to lower that price. Mm hmm. So I get more people involved and make up for it with a sponsorship. Yeah advertising. So my thought process is I'm going to package those six different female oriented podcasts make a podcast stream for donation female.
Mark [00:46:09] I just mean that's actually all woman to woman comes in and just put all that content on that feed and have a title sponsor that is the beginning of a podcast hey this is a woman to woman rock Brock podcast brought to you by turtle or whatever. And then that way I can lower my prices get more content because what I really want to do is be able provide very good content for women and support each other faith based so that you know you can be really niche and you can listen to to stuff that is quality but it's not going to be on radio stations or anything like that. Yeah so that the female or any one is probably the first one to really launch and that will probably be hopefully by August.
Aaron/Mark [00:46:55] All right you heard me here fair skies August 2019 and if you want to sponsor it. Oh my gosh yes. So that's it. That's a good segway. How can our audience find out more about freedom in a nation productions or sponsorships or getting on podcasts or anything like that.
Mark [00:47:08] Incoming first of all 214 250 1321. You can go to my website which I don't want beer branded to go to right now I'm on air and. I've got some um some website guilt in me because it's not really the greatest website but free donation dot com gives you the basic info gives you the basic contact information for me to any chamber event.
Aaron [00:47:27] Yes literally in the Metroplex right collin county. Yeah. Collin County. All right. Awesome market. Thank you so much for jumping in and coming up. His office is literally like down the hall and down the stairs like right below you guys. Yeah but now you're a little bit farther this way but we're close. We're very close. So thanks for coming in on a Saturday. Thanks for recording with us. It's always fun to talk with you and now we have some some recording with that. So I really appreciate that. Thank you. And if you guys are just now tuning in this is your first episode make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss out on any of the podcast episodes. And if you've been listening for a while please do us a favor and go to I tunes and leave us an honest rating and review. This helps us not only reach more people but to continue to critique the podcast which makes us create better content. All right guys we will see you next week.
