Guys Who Do Stuff

Stuff In This Episode: 

• We talk with former Director of Creative Media for Football at North Carolina State University, Mike Jones, about what's next in his career and how he got to this point.
• Mike shares how it has been a life-long dream to work for the Charlotte Hornets, and the dream started as a player, then after he obtained a B.S. in Sport Management with a minor in Coaching from Liberty University in May 2018, it changed to being an agent.
• Shortly after that, he got experience with his first camera and fell in love with Photography. 
• Mike sought out mentors, worked hard, and created a career for himself as a creative, even though he struggled with that term.
• Mike shares stories of "making it happen" and working with celebrities.
• We discuss advice for creatives to make their dreams happen
  • Be consistent. Do good work where you are at. You can get noticed.
  • Network. Don't be afraid to seek help and take risks to make your dreams come true.
  • It's Tuesday. To attract celebrity clients, you need to act like you've been there and not just "fan-girl" out.

Links To Stuff We Talk About: 

• Follow Mike on Instagram | Twitter | or his website at MikeJonesNC.com

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode of The Guys Who Do Stuff is brought to you by The Studio Cary, your local neighborhood podcast studio. Connect with your audience. Grow your brand. Visit Podcast Cary Today for more info and booking.

Help your friends who do stuff get unstuck, tell a better story, and have a good answer to the question, what are you doing today? 

If you like the Guys Who Do Stuff, visit GuysWhoDoStuff.com to subscribe for free, and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like the Guys Who Do Stuff, we'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two). 

Stuff In This Episode: 

• Gopher is an on-demand marketplace for services, they are a dual platform. They have the Gopher Request App where you can make an offer for how much you think is fair for what you're asking for. Gopher will then broadcast that request out to a bunch of "gophers" on the Gopher Go App and they will see with full transparency how much they are going to make, what they need to do and when and where, and if it works for them, the two are brokered in the app. The work is done very quickly. And the gopher is paid immediately after. Everyone is happy.
• Tom talks about how the company was started and how other similar apps were using the technology and how they thought they could bring unique value. The requestor sets the value and it also empowers the "gopher" to pick and choose with full transparency what they want to do.
• Gopher is creating equilibrium between supply and demand in the gig economy.
• Delivery, alcohol and tobacco, groceries are popular requests on the app. So is junk removal.
• John shares some pretty unique things people have used the platform to accomplish. One story of a man who asked someone to come pick up an injured bunny during his kid's birthday party, and upon following up the bunny survived and was released back into nature.
• John talks about how he has done over 500 requests with other companies to learn how much money gets passed down. One company charged $100 and paid him $40. Where does that other $60 go? Gopher takes $1.99 to make a request and 8% of the total. So in that case the worker would have made $90 out of the $100. 
• Many of the current food apps will take the restaurant's menu and mark it up before selling it on their platform. Gopher doesn't mark up restaurant prices or try to take more out of the hands of the gopher. So restaurants get their full margins and workers get more money. 
• Right now they have over 15,000 downloads and ramping up to a series of 18 months worth of enhancements that will make the platform better for everyone involved.

Links To Stuff We Talk About: 

• The Gopher Go App
• The Gopher Request App

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode of The Guys Who Do Stuff is brought to you by The Studio Cary, your local neighborhood podcast studio. Connect with your audience. Grow your brand. Visit Podcast Cary Today for more info and booking.

Help your friends who do stuff get unstuck, tell a better story, and have a good answer to the question, what are you doing today? 

If you like the Guys Who Do Stuff, visit GuysWhoDoStuff.com to subscribe for free and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like the Guys Who Do Stuff, W'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two). 

Contender eSports Cary was opened in October 2020 by Caleb Smith and Vinny Smith. As a top-rated esports gaming center, Contender eSports Cary is The Triangle area’s go-to facility for online gaming training, workshops, tournaments, open play, and more.

Caleb talks about his background and how he and his company decided that Cary was a good place for them to set up their business.

Caleb played soccer overseas and what living in Germany for 3 years. We talk about his experiences in a multicultural city.

Joe and Caleb talk about how the view of video games has changed from when they were younger. There is more opportunity for gamers to be able to make money and to get scholarships more than there ever was before. When Josh and Joe were kids they would get in trouble for playing video games too much, playing games was considered lazy and their parents would tell them to go outside and play as if video gameplay was bad for them.

Interested in checking out eSports in Cary, Caleb talks about the ages of the kids who can join, how to join, and more in-depth about the whole joining process.

Caleb talks about how you don't even need to be in a team you can work your way up to the top by yourself in eSports.

Caleb talks about how e-sports are different from regular sports as companies own the games so they have to be careful in how they navigate some things.

They all talk about how streams and youtube videos are up and coming and how it is beneficial to be able to teach kids how to do things like coding and editing those types of things.

You can find them at contendercary.com

2020 was a year filled with ups and downs for RoadRUNNER magazine, but 2021 begins on a big note for our guest, and new editor and chief, Florian Neuhauser.

Florian breaks down why RoadRUNNER is continuing to grow while many other competitors in their industry are closing their doors.

They consider themselves a travel magazine, they don't just focus on the machines. Reviews have become an online resource for many motorcycle enthusiasts where travel content and tours are evergreen content.

We also talk about the navigation app called RoadRUNNER rides. This allows users to take part in the many tours that you have read about in the magazine over the years.

Florian shares about the history of the magazine. His parents were photographers and avid motorcycle riders in Austria. When they moved to the US, they found themselves shooting weddings. His father noticed a lack in the market for a different kind of magazine and decided to launch it (even though English is not their first language.) 

RoadRUNNER is a premium magazine and they attribute their success to avid fans and readers.

"People that want to work, put forth a completely different effort than people that work just for a paycheck."

John is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ablr, he and his team are focused on helping organizations become more inclusive by making digital content accessible for people of all abilities. 

John's passion comes from the fact that he is blind himself, and was often locked out of opportunities in my education, career, and daily life, because of digital accessibility barriers. 

Hear some amazing stories of entrepreneurship, inclusion, and overcoming in this episode.

Ablr was born from an exciting joint venture between LCI and Walk West. Its story began in 2017 when I joined LCI, one of the largest employers of Americans who are blind, when I was asked to start a new business focused on technology services – which resulted in the launch of LCI Tech. 

When websites and applications are designed with inclusion and accessibility principles, the result is a more usable and enjoyable experience for everyone, and benefits businesses with a larger market, lower legal risk, and greater brand value.

To learn more about Ablr at https://ablr360.com/ 

Kevin Dunn has been in the motorcycle industry for over 35 years. He is currently general manager at Capital Powersports. His first bike was a Yamaha Riva 180 scooter. He grew up in Northern California, moved to southern California to be an actor/model, but after a while, he started working at a Suzuki Kawasaki dealership. It was three months before he was the sales manager and ended up working there for over six years.

He shares his knowledge of motorcycles and the industry he has come to love in this episode as well as sharing some tips and tricks he has learned managing people and running a business.
 
When asked what advice to give to business owners and entrepreneurs, Kevin says "Don't overthink it. Stick with the basics, is your business clean? Professional? Invest in your staff both in recognition and wages and offer them the ability to make more if they do more. And care a lot about customer experience."

Kevin shares about the effects COVID-19 had on the motorcycle industry and their record-setting sales in the Triangle. 

We spend some time talking about the ever-changing persona of a typical Harley Davidson rider.  

Josh talks about the joy of riding and the ritual of going on a ride. We talk about the experience of riding and the sense of community between other riders.

We only briefly touch on the social media incident that happened to Johnny at the beginning of the Summer. To hear the whole story listen to the Girls Who Do Stuff episode from last week.

The inspiring thing about this situation is that Johnny has turned this negative attention into positive attention using his platform to bring attention to Black Lives Matter, and spotlighting local black-owned businesses.

We get into the weeds with Johnny about growing his social media following. At what point did he bring in help. What was his experience growing his followers, and the strategies he has used to effectively engage using that platform. It takes an incredible amount of work to reach that level of success, don't be fooled that it is all dumb luck or a viral post, it is work.

He shares about the phenomena of working hard on a post only to have it flop, and the ones you spend less time on are the ones that often go viral. Isn't that just the way it goes?

Johnny also shares about why he is passionate about speaking in schools and other places, his addiction recovery story.

Like many entrepreneurs, Johnny remembers the time when his company was growing and he had to embrace the transition from doing it all by himself to having a team that helps him.

We also discuss Instagram scams to grow followers, bots, and other mistakes people make when trying to grow their network.

Johnny shares the candid story about how he lost his first pizzeria, and the struggles he had to overcome to relaunch. Johnny defines success as "family."

We asked Johnny if he would ever consider franchising. His response, "I will never do a franchise."

We also talk about how COVID-19 has impacted the restaurant industry, the dine-in experience, and the future of how we experience restaurants. Johnny's Pizza will soon have a food truck! We talk about how that decision came about and what's next for Johnny's Pizza.

You can learn more about Johnny's pizza on their website

Follow them them 
Facebook
Twitter
and Instagram

Less than two weeks before we sat down with local pizza entrepreneur, Johnny, from Johnny's Pizza, his company was engulfed in a suspicious and racist post that went viral. This post spread quickly.

Although initially dismissed by Johnny as a joke, in reality, a fake account was created with his profile picture and screen captured with hate speech against black people. 

Johnny talks about what happened, the FBI investigate, out of state death threats, and Facebook subpoenas, and the fallout that has impacted his family, (which is staying in a separate hotel because of the death threats), his business, and the platform that this situation has afforded Johnny to talk about these issues.

Johnny is 10 years in recovery and has had some run-ins with the law. We talk about how people in that situation are "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" when it comes to being given the benefit of the doubt by public opinion.

Johnny answers the question: "What do you say to people who want proof?" 

Hear Johnny's thoughts on what he believes is next for the future of dining. What the changes forced on businesses due to COVID-19 caused many restaurants to pivot to offer curbside that has fundamentally changed the dining experience.

"All that did is take fast-casual, and now we're competing with Chick-fil-A. The mom-and-pop-pizzeria-experience is gone."

"Executing on the quality of food that is delivered, that is the niche. That's what's going to be the difference-maker for people who are still going to want the dining out experience. I just think that they're going to have to tweak it and say, I want the food of the dine-out experience, not the actual dining experience."

Your Pie was the original fast-casual, pick your own topping pizza chains. Efrem shares the story of how the founder started the company. 

Efrem Yates has always been interested in owning a franchise. He was inspired by some mentors early on and knew that was where he was heading. Now he has his first franchise in Cary and in progress on his second at the time of the episode.

Your Pie, like many restaurants, had to quickly adapt to curbside pickup and delivery during COVID-19 to remain open. Efrem talks candidly about his struggles and successes in launching this new part of his business. With restaurants only allowed to open at 50% capacity in North Carolina right now, we talk about how it's time for many to adapt or go out of business.

One of the most rewarding parts of the work for Efrem is investing in the lives of his employees. Many of them are in high school, and just starting out their working careers and at a time where it is critical to learn work ethic and other key life lessons.

Efrem points out that "Nice is free" when it comes to training his staff. It is their only unlimited resource and should be given generously to their customers.

We also spent time talking about the recent protests and their effects on local business owners. We discuss what justice looks like as a result of the racial tensions and the work he puts into place to create a safe place for his employees during this crisis. 

COVID-19 has given him and all of us an opportunity to grow in our compassion.

Your Pie focuses on helping people in the community and giving back. Efrem describes what success looks like for him is not just chasing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but chasing the feeling that gives him purpose.

Some people are born with green genes or a knack for nature in their blood. More than two decades ago, Keith Ramsey started a landscape and design firm in Cary, NC. From the ground up, the firm–then known as Environmental Design and Management–transformed from a small, three-man business to what it is today. In a grassroots effort to provide their community with garden supplies, plants of every type, landscaping services, home decor, boutique gifts, and interior design, the Ramsey’s changed their business name, purchased six acres, one building, and a small shed. Today, Garden Supply Company celebrates over 20 years of growth and employs more than 40 team members who share their passion for all things green.

We talk shop about what it was like for him finding his passion for plants and turning that into a job which led to a career and how he became a business owner.

Gardening is scientifically proven good for your mental health and Keith has experienced a large influx during COVID-19 of people looking to do some self-care. At the same time, Keith experienced a loss of 50% of his staff and has been rebuilding his team.

His love of gardening started when he was a kid and he soon came to decide that it is what he wanted to do with his life. At 13 he started selling plants to a local nursery and that was the beginning of his career.

The garden supply company has about five acres and does more than you would expect in a local nursery. In addition to having all the supplies for your garden or landscaping, they also sell baby chicks, have driftwood and salvage items, a wood fire pizza oven, and a partnership with Bond Brothers to sell their beers.

Joe and Josh took advantage of having the expert and talked about lawn care in NC, growing grass under big trees, cutting roots, preparing the soil, how to get rid of trees, and more.

Find out more about the Garden Supply Company in Cary.