EP01 Interview: Jonathan Ogle x Danny Briones

Welcome to the show. As you know, culture and marketing are moving faster than any of us can keep up with. So it’s better to do that in a tribe of people that are curious and that are ready to learn together. Today, I’m excited to introduce Danny Briones, the CMO of Crash Champions, a $3,000,000,000 brand, third biggest in your category.

Right? You’re a viral dad creator. You are my chief bicep officer. So we’re excited to have you on today and learn a little bit about you, my man.

Awesome, man. Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Hopefully, your audience can learn something here. Absolutely. That’s what we’re here to do. What I’m excited about to start with is you have a really different path to becoming the CMO.

So what brought you to this stage in your career? Man, so I didn’t have your traditional route when it comes to, you know, being chief marketing officer for a company this this large. I’ll give a quick recap of how it happened. So I started fixing cars.

That’s all I knew growing up. So I grew up in a a small town. It’s Waukegan in Illinois, Lake County. And, I mean, all I knew around me was people fixing cars or working for factories.

I have a love and a passion for vehicles and cars. So I went to fix cars. I went to to college. It was called the the ASAP program, the GM, General Motors ASAP program.

And I had to get a sponsorship from a dealership. So I did that two year program. It was, like, twelve weeks on school, twelve weeks off off school, and technically started my career as a automotive technician attorney wrenches. And today, I’m the CMO of one of the largest collision repair providers in America.

Oh, that’s pretty awesome. When you say you’re the the CMO of the largest… Mean, the the path to get there, of course, wasn’t just like they hired you and you just Oh my god. You know, got to take the ride.

You had to sort of break into marketing. I mean, that wasn’t something that you went to school for or anything like I didn’t anything about it. Yeah. Any training in education and marketing?

I think I got that. I went to school, gosh, later in my, I guess, life and or career. Yeah. The way the way it worked is I I was a technician for ten years, so, you know, working on cars, turning wrenches, for classic Chevrolet up in in Illinois and…

Or up in Chicago. And one day, I just realized that there was something bigger, something more, something different out there. I saw those that, you know, were making really good money. Were out in the forefront of, like, customers and out in the forefront of a brand and a business.

And I just I just knew that there was something different and something more out there for me. So I remember ten years in coming home one day. My son was three months old, and my daughter would have been two years old at that time. And I got home, and I told my wife.

I said, hey. I quit my job today. And she’s like, are you insane? Like, we have a three month old baby.

She’s not working and then a two year old. She’s like, what are we gonna do? I was like, well, sure. We’ll figure it out.

At the time, I was also expanding my career going… I was getting sales training for life insurance, health insurance. So I was kinda doing that on the side when I made that decision, and that was really good part time money. I realized quickly that was very bad full time money.

And so that that was a 100 percent commission, JO. So if I didn’t sell life insurance or health insurance, I didn’t eat. And we we did that for about years after, you know, leaving a pretty good career. I was making…

Mean, back then, was making $60.70 grand. I mean, when you think 25 years ago, it’s not bad, you know, in the blue collar space turning wrenches. And then immediately, you went to almost making nothing. Right?

Couple $100 here and there a week or a month. And did that, and, I mean, we struggled. I mean, we we stretched every credit card you can think of. We refinanced the house to take out all of our equally.

We took my four zero one k out and her four zero one k out, and we were literally just trying to survive. And I remember the arguments that we would have every night, you know, when the bills would come through. And, you know, she told me, she’s like, you you have your toolbox in the garage. Why don’t you just fix cars again?

And I said, man, babe, like, I just know that there’s something different, something more out there. And I don’t wanna go back to that. I really didn’t at the time. I just wanted to do something different.

One day, I mean, when you think about opportunity knocking, like, somebody knocks in my front door. His name was Los. He was a… My neighbor across the street.

He was a recruiter for Sterling Auto Body, which at the time, they were, like, one of the largest collision repair shops, in the country. They were owned by Allstate Insurance, and they had about 62 shops nationwide. And that was big back then when you think about it. He had been trying to hire me for years as a mechanic or a body technician, and I would always tell him, like, hey.

I’m trying to get out of the industry. I don’t wanna turn wrenches anymore. Well, this time when you knocked on my door, it was a different question, right, or a different ask. He’s like, hey.

The company is building out their marketing department, and they’re looking for somebody with sales experience and mechanical background. And we think he’d be great. And so he got me in front of the right people. I had, like, six interviews, you know, the president, the CMO at the time, the sales people, you name it.

I I met with multiple folks, and I got the job. I got the job as a… Gosh. What was I back then?

A sales associate. So what they wanted me to do is if you can, you know, think about a collision repair shop and and how that that ties into insurance carriers or insurance companies. If you get a car accident, your insurance company will more than likely recommend you to a body shop. And so what Sterling wanted me to do back then was go out and visit agents.

So you think about your Allstate agents that have those brick and mortar locations out there. I would travel the country, and I would cold call. So would say just cold walk in, build a relationship with an agent, tell them all the reasons why they would… Should recommend their vehicles to our collision repair shops.

And, yeah, that was kind of my first step into marketing as a salesperson. About four years into that, I was at Sterling for seven years total. About four years into that, I had a great relationship. I think relationships are everything, honestly.

And I had a great relationship with the CMO at time. Her name is Sherra Mazonic. And she had mentioned to me that she wanted to grow and expand the department. And she’s like, hey, Danny.

Like, I don’t I don’t want you to feel bad or lose sight of what you’re doing, but I plan on bringing in, like, a VP of advertising to help us grow. So that organization being owned by Allstate, they wanted to diversify their revenue. So we were only getting Allstate customers if that makes sense, and they wanted to expand beyond that. We wanna get, you know, State Farm customers, and we wanna get GEICO customers, and we wanna expand our revenue that way.

And I asked her. Said, hey. Listen. I wanna be that person.

Like, if you give me the opportunity to learn this, I will not let you down. And she believed me. She actually sent me back to school. They paid for my college.

I got a marketing degree in in in marketing. I went to Rutgers University. That was when online was cool. Not during, you know, after COVID.

These kids weren’t doing anything but sleeping in the room. That was like when you were actually doing online, you know, online school. And I did that, and I started learning advertising. I got partnered with an agency at the time.

They were J and A Advertising. John Oey advertisement was actually the name of them. And I just… I was interested and, like, intrigued by how all this worked.

It was like a new world for me. And so from that time to the time the company sold to what would have been Service King in 2014, we grew our revenue from… It was, like, 60,000,000 to 116,000,000. Oh, wow.

And in a pretty short time frame, we diversified our revenue. I learned a lot about advertising and marketing, and then from there, I’ve never looked back. And then I’ve been part of acquisitions from time to time. And every single time, you know, just I always say survived them, which is really difficult.

I think people, like, internally when they get acquired, sometimes they’re like, really were nervous about the job, but you made it. Will say based on all the acquisitions I was part of, there is always opportunity in the chaos. That’s how I’ve looked at my life. And, in that chaos, there’s always an opportunity to move up.

Yeah. And I think you need to look past all the headwinds and all the chaos and just realize, like, look at the writing on the wall, look at the… How big the department might be, and just figure out how you can make it better. Build that trust relationship with the person that’s in charge and continue to move your your way up in your career.

And that’s what I I did. And today, I’m the CMO of one of the largest collision repair providers in America. It’s an incredible story, honestly, like, where you’ve been to where you are. And, also, like, keeping your mind, like, open.

One of things that, like, rings to me about that story was when you quit and it could be like, oh, man. That would have… Could have been a really bad decision, but I gave you all of the tools necessary. You probably don’t have that…

The job that you had or that they hired you for if you didn’t have the sales component. You know, you had the the industry knowledge a little bit from Absolutely. Fixing cars, but, like, that’s cool that both of those things came together. Yeah.

100%. Yeah. So today, like, I mean, there’s a lot of, like, change in the advertising and marketing space. Like, what skills do you think young marketers and advertisers need to learn right now to be most successful?

Yeah. I would say… So couple things. So one, I think, is anybody getting into, you know, advertising or marketing.

And I’ve seen this firsthand, so we just had a intern come in and work with us. She’s amazing, by the way. We brought an intern in this summer, and I realized that their understanding of marketing is smaller than they realized. And I don’t know if they…

People actually learn this in school, but marketing is big. And my my best advice and my base… Best suggestion I could give anybody coming out of school is don’t pigeonhole yourself into one area and or one vertical in marketing. Learn it all.

And I I feel like that is where the industry is headed when you think about, you know, just advertisers, marketers overall. Back then, you you know, when you think about when we were growing up, you didn’t wanna be the jack of all trades. Today, with AI, I feel like you have to. You have to know enough about enough in order to win in this space, in my opinion.

That’s the first thing I would say. And the second thing would be you have to be a really good storyteller. You have to know how to tell stories. And so if you can get in drama at school, right, and or figure out how to communicate, I feel like communication is going to be one of the key things that any marketer or CMO is looking at.

And it’s not so much, you know, just on the story aspect of it, but it’s how you can, I guess, help prompt and or work with AI that’s coming coming out currently? Yeah. And so, you know, what’s your skill set? How can you, you know, create Storyline?

And then how can you help me utilize this, you know, new artificial intelligence tool that’s here in order to help either push my brand or my initiatives forward? So I think those are two key things. So that’s kind of a hot take for you to say that, like, you don’t think that, you know, the best thing for a young marketer to do is specialize. You think, at the beginning, learn as much as you can.

Go wide. Just just learn. Go as wide as you want. Yeah.

I would… And I… I’m saying that from personal experience as well. Yeah.

I didn’t have the luxury of, you know, taking your traditional route to school. I was kinda thrown in it, but my… I I I guess my approach was to try to learn everything. I learned design.

I learned communication. I learned… I mean, you name it. Underneath this realm, I got my hands dirty, and I understood all elements.

But it’s given me the ability to understand what it takes for the people that I’m asking, you know, for them to do the job. Mhmm. I know what it takes to do, one. And secondly, I think I can appreciate what they’re doing as well because I’ve done it.

But at the same time, again, I think where advertising is going, I think the more open you are, more things that you have in your toolbox, I think the more powerful marketer and or opportunities that you’ll have in your future. I guarantee it. I agree. And I also think young people don’t know what they’re good at, and they kinda need to explore a lot of things.

And then you’ll learn that, like, the way in which you’re doing something for one category can slowly start to apply to Yeah. Another which is really smart. In collision… In the collision repair industry, it’s unique.

It’s b to b for the most part, but then it’s b to b to c as well. You’ve taken an interesting approach because it’s not just like run a bunch of ad campaigns. Mhmm. You know, we know how that…

You know, it’s different. It’s it’s it’s unique. Tell us a little bit about, like, how advertising and marketing works in a b to b style business and specifically in the collision repair industry. Yeah.

Absolutely. You ever heard the story, you know, the difference between marketing and branding? Have you ever heard that? Yes.

Yes. Tell it. Yeah. So marketing is like…

It’s like asking a girl on the date, and branding is getting her to say yes. Mhmm. And so I think anybody out there that’s selling b to b and or b to c, like, one, you have to know what it is that you’re selling, have that good storyline, right, in order to get out in front of the right people. But secondly, you gotta have something to sell.

It’s not as easy as just, you know, stating, like, I’m gonna go out there and, you know, put together all the closed lines and, you know, right sound bites in order to get people to say yes. You have to have a good product at the end of the day. So I feel like those are two things or two key things that are important. And then last is I would say, man, in any business I’ve learned this, like, there’s a difference, y’all, between, like, funnel vision and tunnel vision.

And a lot of times when you’re out there selling your company, it’s it’s easy to get stuck in your own industry and in your own company on things that… Like, what your competitors are doing and what you’re doing, but never look outside of that scope. Mhmm. I call that tunnel vision.

If you can take that and look at other industries outside of what you’re doing and figure out what’s making them win, what struggles they’re having, case studies on things that they’ve done and succeeded and or failed, I call that funnel vision. And I think you can take other ideas, other opportunities, or learn from other people and bring that into your organization to give yourself an advantage over anyone that you’re trying to go out there and sell to. And then lastly, I mean, whether you’re selling b to b or b to c, there’s a person. It’s a conversation just like this.

Mhmm. And so I’ll go back to what I said earlier. Communication is Yeah. So important in any realm of marketing and or advertising.

And so know who you’re selling to. Know what it is that they want. They want a cheaper, product. They want a better product.

They want a more efficient or quality product. Learn those things, be able to speak to them, and meet them where they are because I think that goes a really long way. You’ve done so many creative things. I I consider you like a really bold and creative marketer, especially in a space that oftentimes can feel sleepy.

So how did you convince leadership to buy into things that wouldn’t just pay off this quarter? Because I think a lot of marketers struggle with that. They may have a big idea, but they can’t necessarily put a ROI on it in the next three months. Yeah.

So how do you convince and how would you coach others to convince their their leadership to make bold decisions and create a Remember what I said earlier? Be a really good storyteller. Yeah. Like, you have to you have to be able to sell, I think, overall for sure.

But, no, I think it’s… Man, when I when I look at what it is that we’re doing, it’s changed a lot. You know, when I when I first got into this, there was a difference between, like, contribution and attribution. And you’ve probably seen the change in that.

And, you know, from a body shop standpoint, you don’t think you’re ever gonna be dealing with PE. And private equity plays a huge role in what I do and where the industry is headed. It’s a fragmented industry, and you have private equity playing, you know, everywhere. And they’re they’re looking to consolidate this industry down to a couple players.

But with that, it changes your your entire approach of of marketing, how you, I guess, how you communicate your ROI or ROAS, right, return on ad spend. And forever, when I first got into this, like, contribution played a huge role in, like, the storytelling, the reasons why the emotional connections with consumers and all of that. Today, it’s been all about attribution. How far does my dollar get me and what am I making on the back end?

Right. And I think the best advice I can tell to everyone is, like, yes, attribution is key. This whole last touch attribution component, you have to focus on those things, but it will drive you into the ground if you’re not focused on the right elements, which I believe the contribution part of marketing and advertising on what we do is more important than the attribution. Mhmm.

And you have to be able to connect with humans. You have to be able to tell that human storyline. And then lastly, just know that at the end of the day, no matter what digital platform you’re launching on and or what AI platform is coming out next, there’s a human behind that decision. Right.

And I think if you’re really good at telling that story and just testing and trial, and I think in organization, they’re open to understanding, like, just because you’ve done thing… You know, a thing one way doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever, but you have to be you have to be bold. You have to be willing to take risks on this side. You have to be willing to try different markhams and or different campaigns in order to prove your…

You know, what you’re doing works. And what I’ve seen on my side, I think most people are scared to make decisions. As long as I’ve been in it and as much, you know, strategy and campaigns that I’ve changed, I can tell you I’ve… We’ve never gone backwards.

To say, might end up even On, you know, your return on ad spend versus, you know, what you spend and what you came out of it. But I don’t think we’ve ever bankrupt the company. Company’s never gone upside down. A company’s never closed down because of that.

So, again, I would remind any marketer out there, like, the decisions that you’re making are important, but they’re not important enough not to make the decision if that makes any sense. So I would say be bold, be willing to take risk, and be a damn good storyteller when you get it. I love how all y’all all… I would say, like, Crash Champions is one of the best experiences from a trade show where y’all have a GM conference that I’ve ever been to.

Oh, thank you. And that’s a lot of a true to your storytelling. Y’all think about it differently. Y’all think about mindset.

You think about coaching the people. And getting your employees bought in to the vision or to the brand story is a really big part of success. And I think that y’all done a really good job doing that. I was reading an article I I share from DigiDay.

So the headline is this, why brands like Gap Inc. And Staples are inviting their employees to be creators for their brand. So companies are increasingly increasingly treating employees as creators rather than thinking influencer marketing only means paying someone outside of the organization. For years, companies that were terrified of employees building personal brands, They’re realizing those employees might be their most credible media channel out there.

And so a few questions come to mind. Should every company be teaching its employees how to build an audience? If you’re 24 years old, right, sitting there as as trying to enter into the marketing career today, should you be building your personal brand as part of your job? So how do you think about this?

And I know you guys have, you know, leaned into this a little bit. So I’m interested in your take on that. Yeah. That is super interesting.

And I will say, yeah, we have tested this and are currently doing it. So, you know, for for us, we have a couple technicians out there that we bring under our umbrella. We outline the things they can and can’t do, what we wanna see, but we let them kind of be them Right? They built their their personal brand of a technician, with their own ideas and their own following, and we wanna be genuine and authentic to what they’re doing.

But we ask them to, you know, make sure they mention Crash Champions here and then and tell people… You know, again, we don’t want them to tell them anything that’s not true. But if it is a great work environment, why they should do that? But that’s been something we just tested, like, two years ago, but we’ve learned a lot.

I would say I’ve I’ve probably learned more about… In my… This is personal, Joe, to me in in my industry, more about advertising and marketing in the last two years than the last twenty years. Wow.

And here’s why is people follow people at the end of the day. I’ve been on the average… Again, telling the story of all the things that I’ve tried. The one thing I’ve I’ve tried to do the most of is, like, get the brand, Crash Champions.

This is… And prior to Crash Champions at Service King and so on and so forth, I’ve always tried to get them on mainstream media. matters. Mhmm.

Most… You know, a lot of marketers today are only focused on paid and different things, but earned media, especially with all these ChatGPT models and so on and so forth, authentic content goes a really long way for your brand. And if you can get on national mainstream media and not pay for it, why wouldn’t you do it? Right?

There’s a lot of trust that goes into that. And for years, for years, I have tried to get in front of the, you know, the Fox, you know, the Fox News and your different outlets and, you know, have the brand highlighted. But here’s what we found out, and I learned this the hard way. And I…

You know, it didn’t matter how hard I tried, but people don’t care about collision repair. They probably don’t care about your business. Whoever’s out there right now, they don’t care. At the end the day, nobody cares, but they care about people.

And that’s one thing that I’ve learned, as I was mentioning the hard way, is forever, we try to get in front of these mainstream media outlets. Couldn’t do it. Two years ago, we took a different approach on Crash Champions. We have our founder, Matt Ebert, who’s the founder and CEO of the company currently.

He built this company from nothing. He started in ’99. He was a body technician. That’s how he started or got into the career.

And today, he built a $3,000,000,000 enterprise. And he go… He didn’t go to school either. But there’s so many learnings, like so many fact based components there on, like, this entrepreneur storyline, and it’s a human interest story.

Right. So what we did two years ago is, like, we still pushed the the Crash Champions brand, right, because it’s important and imperative for people to understand kinda who we are, what we do, why we matter, of course. What we’ve done is we’ve built this personality now. I think for any business where trust is key, the more important trust is in any business and organization, the more important it is to have a personal brand.

We put Matt Ebert alongside Crash Champions, We run them simultaneously. And I can tell you there’s two different things that happen there. The sentiment piece of it and the reach far outweigh anything that we can do from the brand side. Wow.

Not only that, but the personal brand gets in front of Fox and Friends, Success Magazine, Inc, Fortune, you name it. Why? Because there’s a human. There’s somebody that you can connect to.

That whole human interest story of like, man, you built this company from nothing. That’s amazing. But as Matt grows, he brings along the Crash brand as well. So for me, and that story, I think, is key, the one that you shared, because we’ve seen it from both realms.

It’s like we’re not only, like, allowing our employee base to kinda share their experiences. Now there’s guidelines and rules that you have to build. Trust me. If you don’t, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble.

But we also took it to the extreme, and we took the head of our organization, and we built a personal brand around him to bring the company along all his success. And it’s just been night and day on what we’ve seen. It’s been hugely successful. It has been amazing to watch just how his brand has helped build the Crash brand.

What you’ve done is just learning, like, what it takes to build a personal brand. I’m sure there’s a lot insight that people, you know, wanna hear about. Mean, y’all have YouTube hard work now to prove it. Right?

So, like, tell me about what it took to really build a successful personal brand. Like, what did you learn, like, worked and maybe didn’t work? Yeah. So there’s a lot of things that didn’t work in the beginning of it.

I think you have to have go in with the understanding that you’re just not gonna get it right up front. Yeah. And I think the thing that we learned the most is you can’t run a personal brand like a corporate brand. There are two different entities, whether you want to or not.

And that’s kinda where we started. It’s like, hey. We’re gonna treat this like the corporate brand, and we’re gonna, you know, create content the same across the board. We’re gonna tell this story x y z.

And that works, but I don’t think it works to the… It’s best, you know, as best as it should. I think each mark on, each platform, each person, each people, so to say, have different interests. And when you look at social media and personal branding, that’s where it’s gone.

It’s it’s gone away from… I mean, followers are key, don’t get me wrong, on social media, but it’s so interest based marketing now. Right. Hell, you could post.

Now you can have a personal brand. And before they would tell you, don’t go outside of your four, you know, your four walled box. Mhmm. If you’re gonna talk about one thing, you can only stay in that one thing.

Mhmm. I can tell you that’s bullshit now. Wow. Social media is so focused on interest based marketing that you can post about entrepreneurship.

You can post about a car if you want. Hell, you can post about the cookies you had last night. And the platforms will send the content who’s interested in it. Right.

And so I feel like social media is really pushing towards that. You know, views are way up, engagements way up. Following… You don’t need necessarily a huge following today to reach a lot of people, but what they want to do is keep you on the platform and interest based marketing.

They’re proving that that’s the key or that’s the way to go. And so I think those are things that we’ve learned along the way. It’s like you don’t have to stay in your, you know, four boxed wall component or approach like you would a corporate brand. You can get a little bit more free, a little bit more open, a little bit more personal on a a personal brand.

I love that. So you also had this awesome experience of just watching him build this personal brand probably interviewing now on his own podcast on Oh my god. The mass podcast. Like, you’ve been in the room with amazing thought leaders, celebrities, entrepreneurs, brand builders of all types.

Who are some of those people that really stick out to you? Like, what are some of those episodes and some of that, like, deep insight and conversations that you’ve overheard and been in the room with? What have been the most surprising ones? There’s been a lot.

And I will say, I mean, just… I pinch myself every day. I mean, I… I’m in these rooms with, you know, your Jesse Hitzlers, your Anthony Scaramucci’s, your Germaine Johnson’s, your…

I mean, you name it Damon John’s, David Meltzer’s. Wow. I’m sitting in the same room, Robert Herchevich, you know, from Shark Tank, having conversations with Kevin O’Leary, you know, agents and, like, it has gone… It’s absolutely insane.

And… Or being on Fox… We were on Fox claiming countdown last week on national news representing the industry and the trades on what we’re doing. And, again, I pinch myself every day.

And the conversations and what I learned, like, I… I’m sitting there. I have, I guess, the opportunity and the blessing to work alongside, you know, an entrepreneur like my my my CEO who started from nothing and built this organization, and he still has that grit and that grind in him. And he interviews other entrepreneurs.

Right? That’s technically what the show’s about. We have different verticals. We talk about blue collar.

We talk about entrepreneurship. We talk about culture, and we talk about, you know, building a system and processes in any organization. Like, those are technically our verticals. And the folks that we bring in fall within that.

Some of them are big names. Some of them are just very successful people. But I can tell you… I’ll speak broad, and then I’ll go narrow on this.

But the one thing I’ve learned sitting in that room amongst all these entrepreneur… Hell, even you, Jail, like, opportunities I have with you and the conversations that we have, there’s a different mindset when it comes to an entrepreneurship. I didn’t have that growing up. But what I say, I didn’t I didn’t have an entrepreneur mindset.

You know, I didn’t go out and take… You know, just go out and build my own company and do different things. But I… There’s a…

Y’all are different, man, and good different. I can say, like, risk everyone that’s on these shows and everyone who made it big, they took a risk somewhere. So, like, having that ability to just believe in yourself, like, I’ve never seen that in my life or or you bet on you because that’s all you have. At the end of the day, you built infinite agency by betting on you.

And that’s what all these successful entrepreneurs have done as well. And, like, the difference too is… I I have learned this along the way. Like, working alongside CEO Matt Ebert is there’s there’s this momentum that takes place.

And your everyday person looks at that momentum, and they mistake momentum with sacrifice. And I was victim of that growing up. I would mistake momentum with sacrifice. They mistake momentum with sacrifice.

Your everyday person, not your entrepreneur, your everyday person will look at momentum as, like, what am I giving up? What am I losing? What is this costing me? I’m missing out on x y z.

We look at things, I say, or nonentrepreneurs. They look at things as, like, what what it cost. Entrepreneurs look at it like, what’s the value? Right?

And that’s the main difference that you see between an entrepreneur. Stop asking yourself what it costs and start telling yourself what it’s worth. And that’s the main differences I saw sitting in these rooms, and I see it till this day, is there’s like this thing. There’s like…

Momentum is a real thing. I never… I’ve heard the word. Yeah.

But once you experience it, it’s a real force. Yeah. You have to create enough opportunities. You have to be able to take enough noes.

You’re gonna win 3% of the time. And knowing that, if you create enough momentum Yeah. To feed that beast, you’ll find yourself rising to the top. And that’s what I’ve seen personally on the Matt Brand is, you know, these guests, can sit here and talk about, like, all the great guests we had.

It’s not easy, Jill. Like, for every three yeses, get 10 noes. Every opportunity, every guest, everything that happens on the Mad Brand personally, we fail more than we win. But if you create those…

You know, that momentum and you create those opportunities and you’re not afraid to a no or take a loss, that momentum, what what you’re feeding will build upon itself. And that’s what entrepreneurs do different. Yeah. That’s not true.

I think that is true. Mean, think about it sometimes like we’re we’re naive, and we don’t know any better than to just believe and give it all we’ve got. I hope can Admire that shirt, Brad. It’s freaking amazing.

It could drive some people crazy, but, yeah, it’s funny. It is different. We try to… Infinite…

Like, wanna have, like, a growth culture mindset, and I find that true with you guys. And as you call it, like, momentum, we call it, like, velocity sometimes, that it’s just, like, you’ve gotta get on that train of, like, winning. You know, as an agency, it’s, when you can win one presentation, that confidence builds into the next presentation, that confidence builds into the next idea. And I think that is what sometimes creates that growth culture.

Because if you get defeated all the time, everybody’s just talking about licking their wounds and trying to, like, you know, help each other from not falling off the ledge. And so winning is a lot better than than it’s losing but but it does cost off. Well, what’s a perfect way to say it is, like, define winning. What is winning?

That’s a great question. You gotta find… You get… Everyone gets to define success for themselves.

Mhmm. And I think that’s a big part of understanding, like, so if if you can define success for yourself, you can oftentimes reach it. If somebody else is defining that for you Yeah. I think it’s a lot lot more difficult.

Yeah. The concept around that question too is, like, if you ask young entrepreneur entrepreneurs, right, whoever’s watching right now Yeah. What winning is. And most of the time, you’ll get, like, well, championships, rings, money, success, champagne.

Nobody talks about the beating. Yeah. Yeah. And the hard times and the, you know, almost going bankrupt Yeah.

And not having anyone or anything to rely on. That… That’s the part most people miss. But that’s what entrepreneurs experience all the time.

And so for an entrepreneur, I think winning is… It’s a it’s a grind, man. It’s a series of, like, opportunities that build into this, like, one moment. And those opportunities are more than likely losses majority of the time, but that far outweighs what you get in the end.

And it’s been pretty cool. And then to answer your second question, like, there’s two people, two conversations or two quotes, let me say it that way, that come to mind. One was with Damon John, and Damon John taught us this. He taught us that you have to walk in the room before you have a walk in the room.

I didn’t understand that when he first said it. And what he meant is, like, your reputation has to step in It has the procedure. It has to step in the room before you ever get there. And we experienced that for the first time with the Maddie Burt brand.

We were in Georgia at the Skills USA competition, and Matt and I were going out to meet with Jesse Itzler. He invited us into his home to do a podcast, which was cool. So we flew in the night before, and we’re having dinner at, you know, the hotel dinner bar or or the hotel bar. And, lo and behold, like, Mike Rowe, you know, the the blue collar job.

30 Yeah. 30 job. Yeah. Yeah.

He comes walking right past this. Wow. And I freaking tap Matt on the shoulder. I was like, dude, look who it is.

And, of course, Matt’s like, oh, he’s a lot shorter than I thought. Right? That was his first words. But they they go into this private room, and Matt and I are sitting there, thinking like, dude, we’ve we’ve been trying to get to Mike Rowe.

So for context here, I’ve been trying to get to Mike Rowe, obviously, blue collar guy. He represents the trades. That’s the dude you wanna get in front of. Mhmm.

Right? And I’ve been trying my entire career to get to this guy. Never got a callback, never got, you know, any emails back from him. We would forward to his team.

Never heard anything. And to be that close to Mike Rowe now was something. So Matt didn’t wanna leave… You know, we didn’t wanna leave the restaurant without taking a a chance or a shot.

So he kept telling me, like, dude, you’re the CMO. You walk in there. Yeah. I said, dude, you’re the CEO.

Like, you walk in there and kick that door. We knew better than to do that if it’s a private room. And this goes back to the entrepreneurship conversation. But as we’re walking out, Matt’s like, there is no way I’m gonna leave this restaurant without trying.

So he asked the hostess, hey. Can I speak to your manager? Manager comes. And Matt’s like, I’d like to buy everyone in that private room dinner.

Would you give me that opportunity to do that? And the the the owner, right, the GM there, like, yeah. Sure. Like, why not?

But Matt have to be able to write a personal note. And I have photos of it, actually. Matt writing, like, a love letter to Mike Rowe. And he basically tells him, like, hey.

We’re we’re doing the same message. We’re sharing same message. Like, you’ve been an inspiration to the trades. Thank you.

And he put, you know, his phone number. We left that night. And the next morning, we had a an interview. I believe it was Fortune.

And before we got Fortune Magazine, before we got to Jesse Itzler’s house, I told Matt, like, hey. I’m gonna go get a coffee downstairs. Do you want anything? No.

I’m good. I’ll just see you downstairs before we leave. I head down. We’re on the 1st Floor.

And you know who’s standing all by himself down the lobby, Mike Rowe. And I’d beeline to him, dude. I’m like, oh, dude. I’ve never been this close.

In my mind, I’m telling myself, don’t geek out. Yeah. Right? Don’t be a fanboy.

Yeah. Don’t ruin this opportunity. And, of course, I’m asking myself, what conversation can I have with Mike Rowe that would provide or or show value in in what I’m doing? And I go up, and I shake his hand, and I just thanked him for everything he’s done in the industry.

And I tell him one thing. I said, hey. I think everything that you’re doing and everyone else is doing is great, building awareness for the trades. What I don’t think people do enough of is talk about, the career progression that can take place.

I said, started off as a mechanic twenty five years ago, and today, I’m the CMO of one of the largest collision repair providers in the country. And he’s like, dude, cool story. Shakes my hand. What’s your name?

I said, I’m Danny. He’s like, what company are with? I said, Crash Champions. And he says, Crash Champions.

Yeah. Crash Champ… Matt Ebert. I said, yeah.

That’s right. He’s like, that dude bought me dinner last night. Wow. Gives me his cell phone number.

And he says, hey. I’m having lunch down here later. You know, I’ll text you. And so we went to Jesse Ilves’ home to do the podcast.

He texted me that he was in the hotel bar or the hotel restaurant having lunch, and it was just him in the room, him and his agent or him and his right hand person. And he tells he tells me, hey. Come see us in in the room. And we have…

We sit down with Mike Rowe. It’s Matt and I. And it’s Mike Rowe and Mary, which is, like, his right hand person. And I can tell you I’ve been in a lot of rooms.

People don’t know who we are, and you find yourself selling the company and selling what you’re doing. We didn’t do any of that, Dave. He asked us two questions. Right?

Because we walked in the room before we ever walked in the room. And he said this. He says, tell me what you’re doing with Daymond John because I think that’s freaking cool. And then he says, hey.

I saw you on, you know, the Fox Business Mornings Countdown. Walk me through that. Wow. And the conversation just expanded from there.

And came friends. We’re on his podcast later. But that taught me what Daymond John mentioned where, like, you want to walk in the room before you ever do. Make sure…

Again, Earned Media Hit is so important. Make sure that you have, your storyline, your reputation, your… What it is that you want people to know you of. Make sure that it’s out there.

Because when somebody searches your name, you want them to find the right, you know, the right content. And he did just that. So that’s one. I can go in…

And just second. There’s one more conversation that I… Comes to light is Doctor. Alan Bernard.

He does, theory on constraints, mind constraints Okay. Or… And, process constraints and so on and so forth. And he said something that was so profound, and I see entrepreneurs, live and breathe this.

He said the cost of doing nothing is more expensive than the cost of doing something. And a lot of times, you find yourself stuck or scared or don’t wanna do things. And as an entrepreneur, and I see this, you firsthand with my CEO, Matt Ebert, he would rather… for us not to do something to him, that is more critical than us actually taking action.

Because he’s like, if you’re not creating momentum, if you’re not taking action, if you’re not losing, you’re not learning. And that, to me, what Doctor. Allen Bernard said was one of the most profound things that I experienced and saw. I just didn’t know how to put it into words.

And the way he explained that, that the cost of doing nothing far, you know, far outweighs or is more expensive than the cost of doing something means so much to me now because I see it firsthand from entrepreneurs. And it’s amazing what you have built, what you’ve learned. I’m envious sometimes of the rooms that you’ve gotten to be in. The story with micro is like the…

Just the stars aligning. Yeah. 100%. It’s just like, wow.

Like, from where y’all began to where that, I think, opened a lot of doors as well for y’all. It’s pretty cool. So building the map brand is, I think, an incredible, you know, career experience for you. What’s also interesting is, like, you started, like, taking a little bit of your own medicine and building your own personal brand.

That’s one thing that when I think about you, like, you… Like, I look up to you in almost every facet of your life. You know, you got… You’re…

You know, you got the biceps. You got the car, but, you know, you got a great job. Right? But one of the things that’s amazing about you is your love to be a dad.

That helped launch your own personal brand. I remember a couple… I don’t know, I guess a year or two ago, it was like that wasn’t something that you were thinking about, but you started creating some content. So I want to tell the audience here about the dad standard and what that looks like.

And so I want to watch a few of these videos together and just laugh at them. We’ll we’ll show them. Yeah. But these are some of your most, like, viral videos.

So it started, like, simple and somewhat small. Right? Yeah. A 100%.

Yeah. You start from nothing. You start nothing. Nothing.

You had these really great ideas. So let’s see if we could play these. We’ll get some live reaction here to this. Oh, yeah.

So this is you and Iliana? That’s right. My daughter, my oldest. Yes.

Iliana. Yeah. So that is Halloween. We did a little ghost fun there.

I spammed I spammed the the the social freaking platforms that I created, like, twenty twenty seven different, like, shots of us putting, you know, the the… What is it? The bedsheet over the car and themselves. And I had so much of my family like, dude, will you please just stop at this?

It’s insane. But it went viral over and over, which tells you formats work, dude. That’s what I’m Formats work. Okay.

So so that’s one thing I wanna ask about is, like, the insights around, like, how this happened. Because, like, you know, you’re putting a sheet on top of a Porsche and dressing up like a ghost. And then all of a sudden, 1,400,000 views later, you figured out, like, how to go viral. So when you say formats, tell us about that.

Yeah. So formats have a lot to do with just the way the algorithm works. So if other people are trending and are going viral with, like, similar content, the algorithm sees that as like, hey. People like this.

There’s an interest in this, whether it’s, you know, Porsches and putting bedsheets over it or whatever it might be. If you attach yourself to that algorithm or that trend, Instagram will push you out. And it’s kind of a cheat code in a sense. But, again, I think one thing I learned personally from doing, you know, my personal brand is what I find important necessarily isn’t what the algorithm or people find important.

So you gotta find those key interest based, like, topics that people can relate themselves to. And if you find that format and you create content around it, the algorithm will just push you out. And that’s all organic. That is no paid behind that.

Is a 100% organic. It’s incredible to see what you’ve done. I look forward. sometimes just go to Instagram to see if I’m gonna find one of your reels.

But cool because you kinda built it around your dad brand, your love for your children. You put your own lens on it. But one of my favorites, and I think every dad could relate to this one, is this one’s got 15,000,000 views here. Let’s go…

Let’s watch this one really fast. Is that the chicken one? Yes. You can’t go wrong with the chicken one.

Hold on. Here we go. This is the POV, you’re cooking chicken. Yeah.

That’s so stupid. But tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m wrong. No.

It’s so funny because it’s true. Everybody hates true. Funny because it’s true. It’s awesome.

I… Yeah. So just… Did you just go up with this on your own, or you just Actually, so my daughter is…

Who’s sitting in here. She helped me come up with a lot of these formats. So she’s going to school for marketing, and I hired her on to my Marco Polo brand over her winter… Was it break?

And I was teaching her, like, hey. These are the things I’m finding out on how to go viral. Let’s do the research on what works. And she actually found that, you know, in the algorithm to say, hey.

I think this might work for us. Let’s create content. So she’s the one filming behind that. Oh my gosh.

And sure enough, we filmed it, and it’s interesting. It’s relatable, and it went viral. Like, crazy viral. It did.

It’s hilarious. I mean, I’ve showed it to my wife. I’ve sent it to people because I just laughed so hard when I saw it. So you gotta check out the Marco Polo brand.

Please do. Yeah. At Marco Polo zero 001. That’s right.

31, follow. Yes. Like, subscribe. So you’ve learned a lot about viral…

Just virality, brand building as you your personal brand. What’s one lesson that becoming a dad, you know, changed about you and taught you about building a brand? I would say… So for the personal brand stuff, it’s twofold.

One is you can try and test things that you can’t do in your corporate brand. Yeah. And always take those insights. I mean, that’s a no brainer, but I just have to mention that.

But more importantly, on the other side, dude, for my entire career, I’ve struggled… I grew up with imposter syndrome. Mhmm. Right?

And I still don’t know how I got to where I am. Right? A lot of times I ask myself, like, how the hell, like, am I here? Right?

And do I get to do these school experiences? And I don’t have the right background, the right schooling or whatever to do what I do. And for a long time, I find Find myself around a lot of very smart other executives and just telling myself, like, I I don’t belong here. Like, this isn’t for me.

I’m an imposter, and it it destroyed me, dude. It destroyed a lot of my happiness, I think, over the years and, you know, celebrating moments in in life. And it wasn’t till recently. Actually, as part of working for Crash Champions, I got executive coaching.

Like, It’s just one of the most interesting and greatest things, I think, that could ever happen to me. And you have this coach that works with you that just helps you think through what you’re struggling with and the problems that you’re having. And as a person, I learned that I seek confidence all the time, because I don’t think I’m enough, right, or because I feel like I’m in this imposter. I always go out.

Instead of celebrating in the moment, I always feel like something bad is going to happen next. So I go out and create the next win and the next thing and to try to make myself feel good. But what I’ve missed out on in my entire life and career is actually being where my feet are, being in the moment. And so, I mean, fast forward to today, that’s no longer an issue for me.

I don’t have imposter syndrome. I know I’m worth it. I know I’m enough. I know I belong, and I seek courage over confidence now.

Dealing with things in front of me, you know, instead of trying to seek things to make me feel better has been the path that I’ve been on. And my personal brand has actually helped me with that because there’s so many moments in life. I mean, think about your your time with your kids and the things that you do outside of work. Like, you you commit so much time to work and the things that you’re doing there.

And to have an opportunity to build a personal brand and record these milestones and things that I’m doing with my family is just something that keeps me in the moment. It teaches me and reminds me that I am here. I am now. I’m worth it.

I am with my family. And they may hate it that I sit there, you know, with a, you know, with with with a video, you know, or or phone recording our experiences. But for me, it’s something bigger than that. I’d love to look back, you know, ten years from now and be able to look back on the experiences that we created.

Yeah. But for me, it’s done just that. It’s helped me realize, like, be where your feet are. Enjoy the experiences that you’re having with the people around you that you You should be spending the most time with, but you end up spending the least time with if you’re, you know, in a a career that requires a lot of your time.

So I just try to make the most of it. That’s all. That’s super inspiring, not… And entertaining.

And I think any young marketer can take that advice. Seek courage, over confidence. A 100%. Difference maker, for sure.

Alright. So you love being a dad. Well, which of your children would you rather crash your Porsche? Neither.

Come on. It wouldn’t it wouldn’t happen. So my son my son crashed. I had a Model three Tesla, uncrashable car, and he crashed it.

Okay. So neither of them will have have the opportunity to disappoint me in a way like that because the keys will just not be in their hands. Alright. Well, that may be So we’ll take it away from that.

Third child is the vehicle. Yeah. Sure. The dog maybe.

Yeah. Alright. I wanna end with a fun game, s to f tier trivia game. Alright?

So I’m gonna give you a bunch of vehicles, and I’m gonna ask you a question. As a marketer, which car gives you the most aura when walking into the board meeting? Okay? Which car gives you the most aura when walking into the board meeting?

Well, if… What kind of cars are we gonna go over? Alright. I may have you change that phrase.

Because if you’re walking into a board meeting with a very expensive, like, supercar, it’s probably not the right move, man. Yeah. They’re gonna look at they’re gonna look at you too much money. Get this guy out of here.

We don’t wanna lower our Maybe I’ll put it as a pitch or something like that. I want to know, like, who’s got the aura when walking into the meeting? Like, which car do you think brings the most aura into any situation? Very good.

Okay. I got it. Alright. So here we go.

I’m gonna… I’ll list them all, and then I’ll come back to the question again. So Porsche nine eleven, Cybertruck, Rivian r one s, a vintage Bronco, Escalade, Range Rover, G Wagon, Lexus GX, Corvette, GMC Hummer EV. What generation Corvette do we know?

Is it the new C8? What’s the new eight? The one of the new ones. Okay.

And then Jeep Wrangler, Mini Cooper. Okay. Alright. Those are your options to choose from.

And then what are the… You’ll have to remind me that’s it. And then ABCDEF. Okay.

Or ABCDEF. Alright. So we’ll start with the bottom. So Mini Cooper f.

Is as the lowest one? Whatever the lowest one. Yeah. Jeep Wrangler.

F. I own a Jeep Wrangler. Oh. So it’s going in the f category.

A 100%, man. I Jeep brings the… Jeep brings some order. People love Jeeps.

Oh, I… So I thought the same. Right? I’ve always wanted a Jeep Wrangler.

I ended up getting one for my wife, and that thing was a piece of shit. Yeah. I’ve heard this before. It’s like, is it fast?

No. No. Oh, it must be comfortable to drive. No.

No. It must be… The answer is no. Does it break down all the time?

Yes. Yes. Okay. And then you have, like…

You have to drive… Going down our tollways and highways here. Right? Severe from side to Oh, a 100%.

I mean, you’re you’re driving like this just to keep the car straight. So I remember… I took… Last thing there, I took it to the dealer multiple times because it had issue.

Was a diesel Yeah. Wrangler, which is pretty cool. But my wife came to pick me up in the Tesla. That’s when I had the Model 3.

Yeah. Service manager there reminded me like, you know this is not a Tesla. Like, it’s a Jeep. You’re gonna have issues.

And I was like, that’s the worst thing you could say to me. Yeah. ended up selling it. I hated the car.

Okay. So F tier for the Jeep. A 100%. Alright.

If there’s a lower tier, I’d pick that for the thing. That one’s an Uber low. Alright. GMC Hummer EV.

Oh, man. I’d probably go see on that. Okay. Lexus GX.

B. Okay. It’s a nice car. G Wagon.

B. Range Rover? F. I think that they’re pieces of junk as well.

They look they look cool. Don’t get me wrong. The new the new Range Rovers look nice, but outside of a warranty, you don’t want those. This is coming from the expert.

You know if these cars are worth owning or not. I love Don’t own it past the warranty. Okay. Yeah.

And even when you do have it in in warranty, it’s gonna be in the dealership all the time. Okay. So I wouldn’t drive it. I wouldn’t want it for that reason.

Escalade. And I’m not a huge GM guy anymore, so I would pick… I’d I’d give it a c. I mean, they’re nice.

They have luxury, and… But it’s just not my style anymore. Vintage Bronco. Oh, I’d put that in an an a for sure.

I like it. I think that’s that’s nice. Rivian r one s. I’d probably go see.

I’m not a… I like electric cars, but I’m just not into Rivian myself. What about the cyber truck? Probably f.

You know, I wanted one. Okay. I wanted one so bad when it first came out because I thought they were the coolest thing. And now that you see them up close, I think they’re hideous.

Yeah. I I wouldn’t do it. My my, you know, my wife and my kids would always remind me or try to remind me not to buy that car when I was thinking about it way back then, way back when. And now when I see when I tell them, like, remember that time you guys wanted me to buy that car and I hated it?

Like, no. I think it’s a 40 year old male. First time it came out, they were like, the the advertising around it and the vibe of it was like, oh, this could be really really different. Unique, but then now it’s like I don’t think I…

I mean, if you gave me one for free, I’d take it. But I’m not… I don’t think I’d for one anymore. Alright.

So Porsche nine eleven? That’s an S tier for sure. There you go. Yeah.

A 100% S. You heard it from the man. Danny, anything else? No.

I appreciate appreciate the time. Thanks for having me on. I hope somebody learned something from this today. So Yeah.

Which one of your kids do you love the most? I love them both the most. Okay. Good.

They’re both my favorite. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Man, I appreciate you.

You’re an inspiration to a ton of marketers out there. Thanks. We can all keep learning, and I think you embody that curiosity every day getting a little bit better. So I appreciate what you do for the category.

Yeah. Absolutely, man. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank you.