Love the Mud

In this episode of The Rise, Skrizz and Adam engage in a conversation about the significance of having a hands-on approach to business and the need to have a basic understanding of different functions within your business. Adam shares insights into his lead generation company and emphasizes the importance of automating and delegating tasks to focus on bigger picture thinking and growth. They also touch on the dangers of outsourcing too quickly and the role of quality control in ensuring the success of a business. If you are a fan of building business - or a music career - then this episode is for you.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Adam: Talking music, building businesses, and the grit in the journey. We're Skrizz and Adam and welcome to The Rise

[00:00:17] Skrizz: And we are live. It is screwing Adam here with episode 17, um, still relatively the beginning of the year. Um, on this episode, I would like to discuss with you, Adam. , what's going on? I have no idea. I just see you on Instastory, on a beach, on like a big rock by a waterfall surrounded by thousands of beautiful women feeding you fruit.

[00:00:41] Skrizz: That's not true at all. None of that's happened. Talk to me. What's going on? Where are we at? I love that. And what's gonna happen? Cause I wanna know, 

[00:00:48] Adam: I I am hoping that one day, what you just described is actually thousands of women. So, so I, I'm hoping that we get there, but, uh, yeah, right now I'm in Oahu. I came to Hawaii, early December, I'll be leaving here end of, uh, end of February, so for March. So, cool. I've been, uh, I've been kind of bouncing around as you guys know, and I'll be going back to the mainland, spending some time in Texas, in New York and March, and then I'll be heading over to Europe for, for, uh, probably the remainder of the year, at least a good chunk of it.

[00:01:14] Adam: But yeah, for me it's been. . A couple things is my focus is one, enjoying life, spending time with my family. My father's out here. I have a new little baby brother out here. Nice. So spending a lot of time with him. That's awesome. Uh, two of my sisters came here to visit, so that's been nice to see them. And so I'm trying to enjoy life as much as possible.

[00:01:33] Adam: I'm trying to find things that inspire me, but I'm also focused on building my business and I've been focused on my, on this new company, which is a, a lead generation business. So we help people get more sales opportunities , and we've been doing it for a, a little bit over a year and a half now. And over the last five, six months especially, we've been seeing some, some good signs of some really good potential.

[00:01:55] Adam: Okay. And right now we're going all in on that and, and seeing how far we can take it, 

[00:01:59] Skrizz: um, with this sales company, is this your company? Is this someone else's company you're working for? Are you a partner in this company? What is, what's the, what's the origin of this? . 

[00:02:09] Adam: Yeah, it's my company, so I have a co-founder on it.

[00:02:11] Adam: And then we have, uh, about nine people that are working with us, uh, from all over the world.

[00:02:16] Skrizz: Cool. So like we discussed in the past episode, kind of like the, the chaos and the kinetic energy that kind of comes from traveling. How, how has that, lemme just be honest. How has that affected in, like in the inspirational point or how has it hindered kind of this business?

[00:02:34] Skrizz: Like, you know, everything down from. The mechanics of it are the, the people element of it, or is that not applying at all? 

[00:02:42] Adam: When I had my first Tech start up in Boston, it was, and I've described this on past episodes, it was I all day, all night in the office, seven days a week. And I, I don't exaggerate that. I don't even say that as a badge of honor.

[00:02:54] Adam: Like I'd never want to do that type of life again. Um, but part of that life was, . I didn't really need to have any other life outside of that. It was just work, work, work. So I would just do a little bit of everything, even if I had team members that could do it. I always took the mindset of whatever, I'll just get it done.

[00:03:09] Adam: I could do it better, faster, whatever. Sure. So I'll, I'll just do it. Even the busy work, I just threw all that stuff on my plate. Totally. Now, when I, whether I'm in Hawaii, whether I'm in Italy, whether I'm in wherever in the world, I wanna spend as much time as I can enjoying places, meeting people, experiencing everything I can.

[00:03:29] Adam: but I also want to grow my business to the highest level I possibly can. So what I need to do now is I need to build, build the systems, the processes, the automation so that my team can execute without me needing to do everything myself. So that's been the biggest focus, um, not just as of late, but really since I started this company, is because I want to do it with using, uh, live while living this lifestyle.

[00:03:53] Adam: I can only do that if I set up all the backend work to automate and delegate Potass, either I don't want to do, don't have time to. Or, or aren't the best for me to do if I wanna scale. 

[00:04:04] Skrizz: Totally. Um, I think a lot of, I think a lot of being able to kind of rid yourself of that insecurity or that, uh, I don't, maybe insecurity's wrong the word, but that, that neuroticness or that over controlness kinda just comes with age.

[00:04:17] Skrizz: But I, I can, I'm trying to relate here. It's like, would you say that this, this effort put in to create the automation, to create the systems, to use all this experience to. Less busy work for you is driving you to be more of a visionary or more of a bigger executive. Like I think, uh, Jeff Bezos always says, you need to make two big decisions a day.

[00:04:43] Skrizz: That's it. You know what I mean? And that's kind of the position you want to be at. Like, are you, if that's the end tunnel, is that what you're chasing right now? Or is it more just a shuffle of you're getting older and you don't wanna do busy work and you want to enjoy the le or is it accumulation of all of it?

[00:04:57] Skrizz: Like what is, what is, what is your. driving you towards with this, you know, cause I get what you're saying. 

[00:05:04] Adam: Yeah, it's, it's a great question. So the big thing is if you can free up your space from busy work and that isn't worth your time and energy, it allows you to think big picture. If you're stuck in the weeds, you're gonna be thinking about just how do I finish this task so I can get onto the next task first.

[00:05:21] Adam: If you have that space, if you have that freedom, you're able to solve bigger problems and find ways to solve bigger problem. Now I don't mind playing in the weeds and playing in the mud. I've done that with this business, but I did it for the first six to nine. With the whole focus of being, how do I build the systems so that I do not have to play in the mud nine months from now, 12 months from now, 15 months from now?

[00:05:43] Adam: So you gotta play in the mud with every business, especially when you're getting started. But if you are playing in the mud, it should be focused on how the hell do I not play in the mud six months from now so that I can grow bigger and bigger and bigger. 

[00:05:55] Skrizz: Totally. Um, it's funny, uh, Ken Lewis, who is also on the show, he, he runs, um, He runs like a mixing night on Wednesday.

[00:06:02] Skrizz: He has like a, a very big audience of like engineers or producers that whatever. And, uh, I was, I was a guest that was a guest on his show. And, uh, I think I, I did a, I did a film, uh, like a 92nd something and, uh, I think you kind of nailed it. It, it was essentially give advice for what, you know, if you could, you know, Skrizzly, if you're an expert on being an artist, what is your advice for people that wanna be artists?

[00:06:24] Skrizz: And I think I deduced it down. know how to do everything. Have the ability to understand everything, um, everything in making the record down to the mastering, the mixing the drum programming, whatever the singing, whatever to the record labels job, to the lawyer's job, know everything, know every single bit of it, but then just focus on the one thing you're really, really fucking good at and do everything like that.

[00:06:50] Skrizz: Weird analogy, but it's what actually really profoundly inspired me. I can't say I'm a Tom Cruise fan by any means, but, okay, this is weird, but bear with me. Uh, so Tom Cruise, I guess he came out with, uh, that movie recently. That was huge. Like the biggest picture. Top Gun. Top Gun, and uh, was it Jerry Brook Heimer?

[00:07:06] Skrizz: I think it's Jerry Brook Heimer. One of those big producer guys produced the film with Tom Cruise and he's on the red carpet. And I saw the clip and it really changed the way it looked at things. I mean, it was like, he's like, oh, Tom, you know, Tom. Tom understands every single fucking element of filmmaking.

[00:07:23] Skrizz: He's an expert on every second, you know, not, maybe not an expert, but a deep, deep understanding that he can do the job himself of everything, so that way he's over to see, over able to oversee the quality control of everything. But when it comes to being the action hero, Tom's up there with fucking Jackie Chan.

[00:07:38] Skrizz: He's like the fucking goat. He's. Strapped on two planes doing it himself. So yes, he's like elite level at the specific thing he does, but he's good enough to make it in every other job as well. And I think that's kind of what it comes down to. It applies to music and hearing you, you say that it's like, no, like you're grateful that you spent those first six, nine months in the weeds on it.

[00:07:56] Skrizz: But now that you're at the executive level, making those big kind of almost enlightened kind of decisions, now that you're in life seeing the big picture, you can expect exponential growth and you can expect big breakthrough. 

[00:08:07] Adam: Yeah. Cuz it right off the front, if, if when I started the company I said I'm just gonna outsource this right away.

[00:08:13] Adam: There would be so many gaps in the process that I would never know. And even when managing people, like I had to let somebody go a few months ago. Yeah. And the reason why is because when I was asking him basic questions, I knew he was lying to me and I knew he was lying to me because I've done his exact role before.

[00:08:30] Adam: So it was impossible for him to pull the we wool over my eyes because I knew. I, every question I ask you, you're digging yourself a bigger hole because I know you're lying to me because I did this stuff not too long ago. So you can't just start by outsourcing it or you can, but if you do, no, you're gonna miss a lot of gaps in the process.

[00:08:47] Adam: And one of the things I always share, cuz I teach a class once a week to, uh, small business owners, and I don't care if you love numbers, hate numbers, love sales, hate sales, love websites, hate websites. I don't need you to be an expert in those things that you don't like. You're never gonna be great at.

[00:09:03] Adam: You don't want to. , but you need to be 1 0 1 level knowledgeable about it. Yes, exactly. Because if you're not, you're gonna have the wool pull over your eyes. That's the shit that happened to me. My first tech startup. I knew nothing about tech. There was times I could have lit money on fire, thousands and thousands and thousand dollars, throw it in the trash.

[00:09:20] Adam: And I swear to you, it would've been a better use of the money . 

[00:09:24] Skrizz: But that's the truth. I think that's the quote I'm gonna use at the 1 0 1 level. Understand everything at the 1 0 1 level and I, I think it's. And I think this applies so much to the entertainment business. I, I mean, people wanna take shortcuts and people wanna say like, oh, we're gonna outsource this.

[00:09:41] Skrizz: The first 30%. It's like, dude, the first 30% might be the fucking foundation of everything. I mean, I'm sure you , I'm sure after selling your company, you weren't thrilled to be fucking digging through the fucking mud or whatever the fuck it is you were doing. But it's like, now you know, now you're grateful.

[00:09:57] Skrizz: Like the, the quality control is there. Trust me, like I. . I have a, an assistant who works for me now, and her name is Hannah, and she's, she's in here every single day working. She's amazing. Shout out Hannah. Um, and like, yeah, like she does a job that I know how to do and I, I, I still like, if I didn't know how to do it, , it wouldn't work.

[00:10:22] Skrizz: You know what I mean? Like she was on the computer for two hours straight, just in the weeds editing things. But then I'll sit down for 15 minutes and be like, okay, I don't like this. I don't like this, I don't like this. We should have done it like this, but you killed the 95% of it. You know what I mean?

[00:10:35] Skrizz: So it's like, yeah. It really goes down to like know the one-on-one level. I, I forget who the Chinese billionaire is, but it's like he's the guy who knows every single. Every single operation by everyone in his factory at the same time. So it's like. 

[00:10:50] Adam: Alibaba, the Alibaba Fund, or is it, is it, 

[00:10:52] Skrizz: no, don't think it's Alibaba.

[00:10:53] Skrizz: I think it's a Chinese guy, but Oh, maybe you're right. Actually, I think you're right. Yeah. I mean, actually, you know who it is. Um, we need to get my friend Ag who, who will be on the podcast at some point too. But he, uh, he owns a bunch of mids and like he really applies that too. It's like his. , his ability to understand mechanics of cars, his ability to work with, you know, the type of people that are mechanics, which are, you know, complicated people.

[00:11:20] Skrizz: Um, it's very blue collar kind of work, but you bring to the executive level, it's it's executive level business for sure. 

[00:11:29] Adam: And that's the thing. It's like if you are for anybody who is in more of an entry level type of job or you feel like you're more of a worker, And you want to become more of an executive or leader or visionary by having the skills of do feeling every groove in the process.

[00:11:46] Adam: It makes it easier for you to be an executive because you understand what are the gaps in the process, right? You understand things that aren't being done efficiently. You understand those pieces and those inefficiencies that you can improve upon, and that's why I think for every business owner you need a play in the mud.

[00:12:02] Adam: You need to feel every groove. Cuz if you can do that again, that's how you systemize, that's how you find gaps. That's how you can think big picture and think about the bigger opportunity. But for me, very much of what I do right now, I used to be, I remember when I started my first company, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed entrepreneur, you know, thinking billionaire or bust i p o or bust, you know?

[00:12:22] Adam: Yeah, exactly. Just a pup. And uh, and I, I know I've shared stories on that in the past. Yeah. But, . You know, for me right now, it's, it's very much just like one base at a time. Like, go from home to first, first to second, second to third. 

[00:12:39] Skrizz: You're like totally ringing a bell with me. Like, um, you're saying that it's like, no, the people doing, you know, in the weeds kind of work, like they have the upper hand.

[00:12:45] Skrizz: I'm becoming an executive. It's, uh, you definitely, where'd you go to college?

[00:12:50] Adam: Uh, teeny tiny ecology outside of Boston College. Not, 

[00:12:54] Skrizz: I went to, I went to nyu. Nyu Good times. Um, and it's, uh, dude, the inverse of what you said was so abundant, like, especially like Ivy League people I knew and stuff like, and, and it was just like, I don't wanna call people stupid, but it's like how oblivious, like the amount of people out of these high level business schools and like Ivy League schools, I, I knew, you know, I knew them very well personally or approached me about things.

[00:13:20] Skrizz: And they had all these startups, like it was just startup, startup, startup, startup. And then it was like the actual business itself was just like, let me add wings to my guitar and sell. Like what? Like these aren't actual businesses, they don't connect with actual people. This has nothing to. You asked how much money business you're working in, like the industry.

[00:13:45] Skrizz: Like I remember someone like doing something with like live music. They knew nothing about live music. I'm like, so you took a management course and you have a P PhD. I don't even fucking know what the degrees are called , but it's like this is not an actual business. We have, remember. Sorry, what's that?

[00:14:01] Adam: Well, it's a trick. It's like, it's the same in the music industry in a different way as it is in the startup world. One of my biggest beefs in the startup world is that whole mindset of being an overnight success. The billionaire bust. Yeah. Everyone's gonna build that big tech startup. Red is the new black.

[00:14:14] Adam: You know, losing money is, is better than making money. Scale, scale, scale, um, pre-revenue, all these BS terms that you hear about in Star World is probably the same in the music industry about, you know, get the one hit, you know, just get that what, whatever are. Of, uh, of, um, of, you know, cutting corners basically.

[00:14:34] Adam: It's the same shit in every industry. And we all want that. We all want overnight success. We all want to reach success tomorrow, but it's just not the reality for 99.99% of people and nor should it be. Cuz if you did get the success overnight, you wouldn't appreciate or value it the way, the way it means to be appreciated and valued.

[00:14:51] Skrizz: Even aside from like the appreciation and value or whatever, the emotional whatever. It's like, and, and there, trust me, there are people in music who do. The one in a million, like the right singer gets in with the right producer at the right time, and the right a and r signs it and it goes straight to radio and it miraculously catches.

[00:15:08] Skrizz: So that's already a one in a million situation. Then in those, it's a 1 million that they actually follow that up. So it's like, I mean, if I can walk away from this podcast episode with one thing, it's like, like get in the weeds on everything. Get to 1 0 1 level on everything. and then be an expert at what you are doing.

[00:15:29] Skrizz: Like that will work. That will always work for you. I mean, you telling that example of you firing that person cuz they couldn't pull the wool over your eyes. Like that's just a piece of it. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. like, like you don't know what you don't know, so you know your shit. That's about it.

[00:15:46] Adam: Yeah. And uh, there, there's days now truthfully where I'm like, I feel a little guilty cause I'm like, I could have went to the beach all. Did nothing and the business wouldn't have skipped a beat. Like sure we would. We have made as much progress today. No. Would we have gotten probably new business today?

[00:16:02] Adam: No. But could everything function and run and would our clients have any idea? No. But the reason why that's possible is because I ate dirt. I built out systems and automation to allow other people to execute on the jobs that I was originally doing. Now, obviously I want to work because I love growth and I want growth.

[00:16:21] Adam: But if you are somebody that wants to have a business on, on, on autopilot, which everybody should want that, everybody should want that. Cuz that's how you scale on top of that, that's how you build to sell. Every company, in my mind, should build their company to sell their company. Every artist should build to sell like Justin Bieber just did, right?

[00:16:39] Adam: Like everybody should be able to build to sell. Say you can make the decision. Do I wanna sell or do I want to keep growing?

[00:16:46] Skrizz: Sure. I think like if you were to take the last two, this episode, in the episode before it, it's. where you, Adam and me, Daniel s Grizzly are kind of aligning at the same point. Like we are at this place now where we have the freedom to let the train keep rolling without us, but because of that, we now have the decision to work at the pace, work at the intensity, work at the left, right?

[00:17:09] Skrizz: Whatever, like, and I think that's the kind of beauty of where we're at. Cause I don't think either of us were there two or three years ago. You know what I mean? That's definitely where I'm at with going nomadic and like all those things it. It's like, no, I, I can, I can write as I want. I mean, I'm pursuing a lot of wild things we'll get into and it's like, but I have the ability to do that.

[00:17:28] Skrizz: And, uh, it's because you've put the decade of work and you know, those, my streaming catalog is going to keep streaming. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. . And that's going to keep the transit to keep rolling. 

[00:17:39] Adam: Yeah. And now is the time where Yes. Could we just kind of let things on autopilot, let things go on autopilot?

[00:17:45] Adam: But I know for me, and I'm sure you feel the same, like I feel like I've just barely scratched the surface and I'm just starting to exactly where it's like right now. Like we talked about last episode, for me, it's put the put, put, put the foot. on the gas pedal and just keep going. Stay aggressive. Stay aggressive, stay aggressive, stay aggressive.

[00:18:03] Adam: Because once things are working, like I don't wanna sit back and just watch them work. We wanna make sure are we optimizing so that they can work even better tomorrow? Are, are there more scale opportunities? Are there other things that I'm not seeing? So right now, for me, and it seems like for you too, obviously it's all about staying aggressive right now 

[00:18:20] Skrizz: and that's, that's the name of the game and I think a lot of things, supply is probably more to music, but it's like when things are working, that is the.

[00:18:28] Skrizz: where all your doors are open. You know what I mean? Things might not keep working six months from now, and those doors are gonna close and you're gonna be pissed off. You didn't walk through 'em. You know what I mean?

[00:18:35] Adam: It's the same with business. It's the same with business. I mean, look at Blockbuster, you know, they probably, you know, they, they got comfortable.

[00:18:43] Adam: Now it's like there's, yeah, right now there's restaurants that are blockbuster themed restaurants because it's nostalgic and because it doesn't exist anymore, I guess. Joke. Yeah. Yeah. So just with anything, business, music, sports, Yeah. If you, if you get lazy, if you start sitting down, you let yourself get fat, you know, quote unquote things are gonna pass you by.

[00:19:02] Adam: Cause there's always somebody else that's hustling behind you that's willing to work harder and do things better than, than, than you were trying to do it.

[00:19:08] Skrizz: Always. Totally. I totally, totally agree

[00:19:13] Skrizz: and I think that's a good stopping point. Adam, it's been good. I will see you next time. 

[00:19:19] Adam: All right, my friends, I'll talk to you. 

[00:19:23] Skrizz: Peace!