Dave Pratt: Why Radio Died, Podcasts Won, and Networking Beats Resumes

🎙️ In this episode of The Hiring Confessional, Michael Hayes sits down with media entrepreneur, broadcaster, and podcast pioneer Dave Pratt.

Dave shares why he left traditional radio before its decline, how he built Star Worldwide Networks, and what employers should really look for when hiring talent. The conversation covers networking, company culture, podcasting, AI, personal branding, leadership, and why relationships still matter more than resumes.

Key Topics:
• Why radio declined and podcasting exploded
• Hiring beyond the resume
• Building a strong company culture
• Networking strategies that create opportunities
• The future of AI, marketing, and media
• Why showing up still matters
• Lessons from decades in business and broadcasting

Whether you're a business owner, recruiter, job seeker, marketer, or aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply immediately.

🎧 Subscribe for more hiring, recruiting, leadership, and career insights from The Hiring Confessional.

#DavePratt #MichaelHayes #HiringConfessional #Podcasting #Leadership #Networking #Hiring #Recruiting #CareerAdvice #BusinessGrowth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, this is Michael Hayes, another edition of the hiring confessional. First little commercial for myself. Um, I own Momentum Hiring Solutions. We fix people's hiring problems. If you don't know what that means, give me a call and I'll explain it to you. First of all, last week I did some tips for job seekers. Today I'm going to do some tips for people that are employers, especially if you don't have uh your own talent acquisition person or you're using a bunch of staffing companies and paying day labor rates and things like that. Today, when you look at somebody's resume, two years is a couple years ago, five years as far as longevity. When I first started working in the staffing and recruiting business, it was 10 years. You're down to two years. So if you're screening people out that have two years experience, guess what? You're gonna screen out probably 75% of the people. Another tip for you don't hire people that are way out of your zip code because with $5 gas, it's awfully expensive. I don't care if somebody says they're gonna drive from Santan to Surprise, they're only gonna do it a certain amount of time. So do yourself a favor and look at those ranges of where they're at. Don't just believe they're gonna drive, measure it. And when to overlook minor red flags with people, maybe you don't have a hundred percent great feeling or what have you, but do yourself one thing is when you're looking at people for skilled labor, they're not gonna be perfect, and their resume certainly isn't either. So if you're looking for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow guy that uh bangs nails into boards, that's not your guy. So cut the guy some slack. If someone worked more than a year at the post office, take that resume right in the trash can because that tells me that you've been indoctrinized into not working, standing around and looking at your phone, just like most people that stand behind these barricades that are fixing the streets. And another thing, HR people love this. Remember, HR is a bad word. HR people love this, checking people's references. By the way, who gives a guy that's a bad reference? Do you give the guy that fired you their phone number to call? No, you give people that you actually know. It's like if you're dating a girl and she gives you her old boyfriend as a reference. It's not gonna happen. So do yourself a favor, think these things through. Reference checks is a waste of time unless you know the person personally. Now, let's get on today's show. Might not be 100% about hiring, but I'm sure this guest has done some. Dave Pratt. I don't know if you really need any introduction, but I'm gonna let you tell everybody who you are and why are you relevant.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Oh, everybody's seen the wanted posters, but uh thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. When it comes to hiring at uh Star Worldwide Networks and Pratt Marketing Agency, we're a little bit different. It usually starts with a uh some kind of tribal dance, and then usually a bonfire is involved, maybe some chanting, dancing, sacrificing of a of a goat, usually a small farm animal, something with horns. Uh that's the way we do it here. I know that that's not typical for most companies, but it's worked really well for us. That's why you'll see the fandango tattoos on all of our staff uh on the on the face. That uh that is kind of a signature uh of working with our organization.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

And is this like an approved thing from HR? Because we know how you're probably HR is a lot more um uh resourceful and less reliant on common things that are in the HR business.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Well, I don't really know what HR is. I think it was a guy who I shared my first Colt 45 with in my hometown of Elko Nevada. Right. But maybe through you I can be educated on the hiring process and HR.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Do yourself a favor, just if you're if you're if you think you're doing something wrong, you probably are. So if it seems okay, then I think that gets through gets us through HR. Remember, lawyers, HR people, they always scare you, so don't ask them questions like this because you'll hide under the desk all day and suck your thumb.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Mike, in all honesty, I'm very familiar with HR because I was that guy on radio for years that would be called into HR literally every week. There was always some reason, and they hated me because I joked my way through the meetings and they told me time and time again to take it serious. And the more they said that, the tougher time I had taking them serious. Uh but now that we have our own company, I do understand that people are acclimated to HR. And a lot of times, you know, with a company, people come from a corporate atmosphere and they're somewhat afraid of management instead of working with management. And we try to be a little bit different here. We try to all work together, and I know that sounds cliche and uh what people typically say, but we really do. We're a family network, and I don't mean like family and blood, although we are uh as far as the ownership of the network and the agency, but a family in terms of vibe and culture, we all work together.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

What uh because we know your DJ career and stuff like that, but what made you decide to do your own podcast studio? Because lots of people do their podcasts at Dave's place. Um I met Dave from a business group I'm in, and um we're starting to do more podcasts within our group, but how did you get into the business?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Well, you know, it's adapt or die, and don't be afraid to pivot. And unfortunately, a lot of people in radio they're afraid to pivot. They get in their comfort zone, they get their two-week paycheck, they do the same thing over and over and over again, and that's all they've ever known. I was never like that. Uh, when I was in radio, yeah, I was on the air and uh I really enjoyed the experience, but I was more of a sales guy. I was always looking to make the best living possible for my family. So the minute the microphone turned off, I was hitting the streets. I was selling, I was getting endorsements, I was getting appearances, I was opening up retail stores, I was selling merchandise, I was treating it like a business, and that really helped me later in my career. So in 2008, when two things happened, it was the perfect storm, actually. Uh 2008, if you remember, the market crashed, and at the same time, radio started to really show its wounds. It was crashing as well. And how do we know that? It's not an opinion. You follow the money. If you follow the money, the money will seldom lie. And when you looked at radio revenue in 2008, it was already on a constant decline. So all I did was bet on the winner. In 2008, when my contract was up uh with CBS, I had a decision. Do I take one of the other morning show offers in town or a television morning show, kind of take the easy way out? Or do I embrace the future and what I truly believe in? And this little thing, Mike, called the internet, seemed pretty interesting to me. And this deal called podcasts, I felt like had a really long tarmac and a future. And I took my money and I invested in Star Worldwide Networks and Prad Marketing Agency because I truly believed in it. Now, at that time, a lot of radio people that were trying podcasts, they were kind of being pansies about it. They were dipping their toe in the water of podcasts, but hanging on to the security of the two-week check and radio. Well, that means that they weren't playing with desperation or urgency. It meant nothing to them. They were just taking the radio show and putting it on the internet, calling it a podcast. I didn't want to be that guy. I jumped in and started swimming all the way. Everything I had, I just put in. Middle of the table, let's go. Here's my chips, and I bet on ourselves. And it turned out really well.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Tid, um, where when do the signs hit? I mean, like right now, like when you tell people about listening to terrestrial radio, they look at you like you're some alien or something. Or me, because I was a big fan of reading newspapers because of the getting the paper, everybody was opening it up. Everybody. And now, you know, my kid will laugh at you because he goes like the paper's like eight years old. A paper's like a payphone, it's like a beeper. Yeah. Right? But I like beepers because then you could really be selective. I like that selectivity of not being able to call back. You get a message like, okay, I'm not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Well, when you put the payphones and the beepers together, it's probably not a culture I wanted to be in. Yeah. But it was a different time, and when people think of AMFM radio, they think of Blockbuster Video, they think of Sony Walkman's. Uh I I have four kids, all young adults now, and we were laughing the other night at dinner because I gave them a little quiz. I said, guys, do me a favor, name one, just one, name one radio station in town. You could see the question mark floating over their heads. And then my oldest son said it. He goes, Dad, the uh the stations you used to be on. I said, name them. The rock station. No, name it. Took them a few minutes. And I have it, I have awards in my office and stuff with the name of the station. Apparently we didn't look at any of those. They don't care. They don't care. I mean, AMFM radio is a dinosaur to them. They've never heard it. They don't listen to it. If you get in a car with a young adult and you turn on the radio, they're freaking out because they have no control over the music. There's a 10-minute commercial break and they're just two thumbs on their phone as fast as they can possibly get them. It's a different generation for them. Now, boomers like you and I that grew up reading newspapers, listening to radio, it's habitual. But radio's aging out. When guys like you and I move on, the next generation is not going to be listening to radio. It's a dead industry.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

And I just noticed that early. Didn't uh and then I think the even Sirius XM and all those, that started off like a big deal. And now that's even a wink.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Well, it's so funny if you think about it, how Sirius FM started off with Mel Carmazan and those guys and and Howard Stern. They wanted to be the pure boys on the block. No commercials, we're serious. It's subscription, that's where you pay. We're commercial free. And then all of a sudden, whoa, wait a minute. This thing called radio is dying. There's some money in commercials. Let's start getting them in there. And it's so funny. I laugh all the time when a new big boy on the block like Netflix comes around. No commercials. Now we're a media agency. We we buy Netflix commercials all the time. Well, yeah, they started slipping those in.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

It was like a little bit of poison every day.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

There's there's too much money because the cheese is moving from radio. So there's too much money to turn it down. But you're right, Sirius started out as the new pretty girl, and now it's moved on to where there's so many options. If you want to hear a song right now, you pick the song, get your thumbs working, and you'll have it going within a minute. You don't need radio. If you want to find out the results of a sports game, if you want to find out what traffic is on your way back today, if you want to find out what's going on in the news, it's in the palm of your hand. You just don't need it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I read this quote about you because this has a lot to do, what I think, with like networking and uh relating to people, because we, you know, then the class I teach at GCU, you run into this where there's a lot of kids that just don't have that communication background. First of all, they haven't been taught the right way, or they've done stuff in in places where there was no input. They got too addicted to the phone, and that's you know, the doom scrolling and all this other shit. But I think I read a quote that you said you worried more about the audience, not the microphone. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

I was what happened in between the records. So at one point, nobody got hired on our air staff at the last three stations I was on without pass and go with your buddy Dave. They had to pass the Dave Littmus test. So I would have to meet with them. And if they wanted the job because they were into music, you're gone. I don't need you. Anybody can play music. How hard is that? DJs that go in and they play Two for Tuesday or half hour commercial free. Well, how hard is that? You click a button, it's nothing. That's not what the job is. But if they would tell me that the job is showing up on time, because think about it in radio, if you didn't show up on time, everybody knew it. You you had a hard stop, that was it, right? If they didn't understand what it meant like uh to be on a public team, if uh radio disc jockey, if they're well known on an airstaff, gets a DUI, if they get caught with a younger girl, if they're 22 and they're caught with a 17-year-old, that's a black eye on the station, not just them.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

And you can't now your picture would be on the internet before you got to.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Oh my god, you can't risk that stuff. So somebody that truly understood what the job was was really important. Most disc jockeys are just about traffic, time, news, introduce the song and get out. And that's why so many have failed in podcasting. Because when you take them out of that radio atmosphere where they have crutches around them, let's go to news, let's go to traffic, let's go to news and traffic together. Whoa, how creative is that? Let's introduce the next song, let's give away a pair of concert tickets. You take away all that crap that doesn't matter, and you set them in front of a microphone like you and I are doing right now, they have nothing. They have no game, they have no content. That's all they've done.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

So they don't have anything to discuss that would be relevant to somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

How you open the show, believe it or not, even experienced radio people, most of them can't do that. And I do it because I practice so much.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

I just totally But that's hard for for radio to do. They they don't have the content, and that's what really made the difference between a high-performing morning personality and just run-of-the-mill disc jockeys.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Because the money back then was a lot better. That's got to be the only job where the money went down for people that worked in there. For some it was, surprisingly, for most it wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Because, like I said, they had no game. Think of sports, you guys. If you had a really good primetime athlete, they're gonna make the money. If you had an average athlete, not so much. Uh so a lot of times it was top heavy at radio stations to where you had one guy making a lot of money and then you had the rest not, and that can create some problems uh in the hallways. But I always negotiated uh negotiated my deals completely different. I never did it on look how funny I am, I sing parody songs, I can do a good interview. I never did that. Anybody can do that. It's it's just not that big a deal to me. I negotiated on the amount of money I could bring to a station, and then I took a portion of it. That's where the big money was.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

So that's a bit different than that's kind of like a commission, like a salesperson. So that's basically what you were doing, a high-level salesperson.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Talk about interviewing, this is kind of interesting. When CBS first contacted me, they wouldn't let me negotiate locally with Phoenix because Phoenix didn't have I'm gonna be honest with you, Mike, that's what the show is. Phoenix didn't have enough money. So I had to negotiate with New York. And when I negotiated with New York, they said, tell us about your show, tell us what you do. We're in New York, you're in Phoenix. And I said, No, it doesn't matter. And they said, What do you mean it doesn't matter? And I said, Am I funny? Do I sing? Do I have a band? Do I know jokes? Do I know every album title that Led Zeppelin put out? It doesn't matter, guys. It just doesn't matter. And they said, What do you mean? I said, We're negotiating about money, right? And this is where I was different than every other personality in town. Every other personality in town, they were so shallow that they negotiated just on that silly stuff that morning shows do. Right? What I did is I negotiated on money. So I would get ATT and Carl Jr. and Earnhardt and KB Holmes and Coca-Cola and Hensley all in my corner, whoever it was, and I would get them spending a million dollars a year. And wherever I landed or negotiated with, I would immediately move that cheese to CBS. Now I had leverage, and I would say, Hey, if I can bring you $10 million tomorrow, what will you give me? So you change the narrative. They would they would look at me and they would say, What do you mean? I'd say, look, right now, if I gave you $10, would you give me a $5 bill back? And they said, Yeah. And I said, You'd do that all day long. And they said, We would. I said, What's the difference? Why do you care about my show? What difference does it make? Let's just talk money. So I did change the narrative, but most radio people they couldn't catch on. Like it was too deep for them. They couldn't get it.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So when you decided to do this gig, did you how many employees did you start with? Just you? Which gig? This gig here.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Oh, uh, when I started Star Worldwide Networks and Pratt Marketing Agency, Paula, my wife and I, my wife of 37 years, God, she deserves a halo. Uh, we put our initial capital in and we made each other a promise that we weren't gonna put any other money into it. And could we, yeah, of course, you know that. But we thought that if we had to keep investing money, that the business was a failure. The business either had to sink or swim. So after we put in our original nut, we hired one employee, my best friend, who's crazy talented, Rob Trigg, as our executive producer.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

And then we grew from there. Do you think it's I always tell people it's easier when you're a smaller company because you get to see people's potential quicker than if you have to swim through this corporate BS, the the application and the interview and the resume that we've totally chat GPT engineered.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Yeah, most of it's bullshit, you know that. Uh, but the way that we hire is we never post for a job because I don't want to go through the process. I don't have the time to go to the process. We're not a huge company, and we are looking for specialists and we're looking for people that fit our culture. Our last hire came through you, Mike Hayes. I went to speak to your class, and I was so impressed with your class that I invited them down to the studio to see the real world. And that's what you preach, that's what you teach. You have real world business people come into your class and talk honestly with your students. I love that. And I could tell that your students were digesting what I was telling them. So I asked them to come down to the studio and see us. Well, that sounds pretty generous, right? And I hope it was, and I hope everyone learned something. What I was doing, Mike, I was bird dogging really smart young people coming out of GCU. And during that visit, I picked two and I asked my staff. They had no idea they were there for a potential job. But I asked my staff afterwards, I said, Who did you hone in on? Who did you like, and tell me why? And we came down to two. And one of them was leaving Arizona after graduation. The other wanted to stay in Arizona, and that's who we hired. And she is now a significant part of our team. But that's how we hire is through recommendations and through meeting people where they don't even know that we're discussing a job with them. It's just a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Well, the interesting thing is because I always I mean my wife always laughs when I because my wife's been teaching forever, and she teaches a lot of special needs kids. And of course, I'm special needs. So when I teach that class, I'm always shocked that when you provide an opportunity. Like I would have thought if there was a bunch of people in there that I know, you would have had 30 kids in here. But you probably had seven, I think, if I remember the picture. Yeah, maybe 10. And I'm like, okay, so you get a speech, you get invited to see something. I mean, I would have said, I don't care what I'm doing, I gotta go. I'll get an excuse or whatever it is. But the interesting thing is the gal you hired was a friend of the person that was in the class. She wasn't even in the class. She was asked to go to a happy hour, and then she came, I think. When you spoke, she wanted to sit in. And then so all that extra effort, see, most people don't go through that effort. But if she didn't do that, that opportunity would have never presented itself. And that's why I tell people the networking part of looking for a job is number one because you just stumbled uncontrollably into that. And it would have never happened if you didn't go.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Well, I I figured that the 10 people that made the trek across town from GCU to where we are in Scottsdale in the middle of a day meant something. That meant that they're interested in learning, they're interested in knowing more. And then when the 10 came, there comes a point in our tour after we show them the whole facility to where we're sitting right where we are now, and I take their questions. And what I was looking for, not questions like, hey, tell me about when you met Ozzie Osborne. Tell me about when you hung out with Bon Jovi. I wasn't looking for that. Isa, the one we hired, asked the simplest question How do you guys make money? Ding. That's what I'm looking for right there. And then she continued to ask questions, and we got done, she followed up with me. And I went, okay, she is on my radar. And that's how it happened. And now she's not like some intern or starting person with us. She is in the mix. We had a team meeting yesterday, probably for about two hours. She's equal with everybody. She is in the fight, she's in the arena. And now she's starting to shine. I'm really, really thrilled.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

So the uh again, if you don't meet people, even as an employer, or you don't, you've you've got to be. I always tell people you've got to hang out where the employees are at. You can't be over at the global ambassador, you know, sitting in the lobby with a $40 Manhattan, and you're not gonna meet people that you're probably gonna hire. Um, so you need to be around other people that can introduce you to those people, and you need to be able to relate to them. And that's what I think is the a lot of times when people the bigger they get, the harder it gets for them to relate to regular people. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah, and and you really have to watch behaviors because sometimes actions speak more than words. An example, when I had that group down, as I was talking to them, if any of them were on their phone, done, you're out. But you have to be careful because some take notes on their phone. Yes. So you just have to be careful, but you can tell when somebody's texting because instead of taking notes, they're looking at the phone, they're like, no. And you can tell if they're being social on their phone. Like for this interview right now, I don't have my phone on me. I didn't bring my phone in. Why? Because I'm a guest on your show. I'm a hundred percent focused on you. I don't even take my phone in. And that's hard ask to be a hundred percent focused on me. Yeah, it's really hard. Yeah. Uh, but I don't even take my phone in because I'm a hundred percent focused on what I'm doing at this time.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I bring mine in and turn it off because I'm because I get my stuff stolen all the time, so I can't leave it in the car. But I I always tell people, you said the thing about the taking notes. I tell students, I go, listen, don't take notes on your phone. Bring a small pad because then I know what you're doing. Don't have me question it because if I see you doing it, I don't know that. So, like you said, you saw the guy laugh, but maybe, you know, maybe he was laughing at what he wrote, didn't know that he's he's basically showing himself as disinterested.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

What you said is a great tip, though. You and I are in a business networking group together. And if you notice, I always take a pad with me because we have speakers every time we meet, and they're profiling their business. They're telling us, fellow members are telling us about their business. If I'm on my phone, that's discourteous and it's not respectful to them. It means that you're only in the network for yourself. You don't care about others, you don't want to learn about others. But if I have the notepad, and that's a great suggestion you just gave, if I have the notepad, they know that I'm taking notes about what they're talking about. So that's what I always do uh whenever I go out. And I know it sounds a little bit old school, but I think it's respectful.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Well, I don't think people the phone thing for a lot of people is still a no-no in a lot of places. And I think, and the other thing is is we don't teach all these things we're talking about are not taught. So everybody learns the hard way, or you have to have somebody go, okay, this is the reason why. But because nowadays, when I was looking for work, you know, in the 80s, um, you could call somebody and say, hey, um, you know, I didn't get that job. What can you tell me why? And they probably would say tell you, nowadays, because of who? HR. We can't answer any of those questions. So I'm not gonna answer your email, I'm not gonna answer your calls. So it's a very you're blind, you don't hear diddly squat. Yeah, and that's your key that you didn't get picked. But I'm like, it would be better if you were allowed to do things like that. Hey, listen, you know you smelled, or you came in and you smelled like weed, which I've had that happen to me. You dress like a slob. I'm not talking you have to look like if you're coming in for a construction job, clean shirt, you know, jeans, whatever, that's totally fine. Or I've had people call and go, hey dude, I'm coming from work, and you know, there might be an air conditioning guy. Well, I'm expecting the guy to be dirty. So but I told you that today. I said, I'm gonna wear a hat because I help my son move this morning. You're just like the rest of the people I talk to. Yeah. But no, that way, that way, people, and that's a lot of times that person, if he goes into a company and he hits the HR room first, that's the first thing they're gonna tag you with to get you out. And I'm like, you're not paying, you're not paying attention. These are working people with their hands, they're not in a clean room. So um, but what I wanted to ask next where I got derailed, which is what I do all the time. How did you because a lot of these people that I talk to that work here have known you for years. I mean, how have you been able to cobble all this together and have a very low turnover, apparently? Well, number one, I have a great wife who's involved in the business. So she is that do you get like money every time you do the I get allowance every two weeks?

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I get allowance.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

There's a ding-ding. Well, this is an extra because this wasn't really a planned event, so you probably get some extra planned.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

She um I I think one of the reasons that we work so well together is from the moment I met her, she comes in the finance uh industry category. She was doing finances at American Express when I met her, so she knows numbers, and she pretty much took my money away. And she said, No, we're gonna do this from now on. And she handled the money, which has really been a blessing for us because she's done very well with that. But when we started the company, she handled that, and that structure is very, very important. And over the years, because I'm in radio and television, it's always the day, Pratt name, it's on the network because that's a public uh profile. But the truth is we are a true team together. My producer, my executive producer has been with me for 45 years. We started together, and he's still with me. How can you trust anybody more than that? Well, that's a pretty that's a long time. And then uh Robin, our studio director, who does such a great job on your show. Robin? Rockin' Robin.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Twiddle matter. Twiddly-d. Yeah. Uh lovely. Sometimes she tries not to laugh.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

So it's good to make her laugh. She's been with me for years, and everybody that we bring in, nobody comes in with some ridiculous title or um position. Nobody works underneath anybody else. We're all just a team. You saw when I walked in today, and I'm giving everybody hugs and saying hi. There's it, it's not that kind of situation. As long as each of us do our jobs for each other, then we're in good shape.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Did you know, I don't have you ever put your uh name into like I have this ongoing argument with AI software that I like to, and it gets pretty uh nasty sometimes because it doesn't pay attention very well, kind of like a little kid. Yeah, but I put stuff in about you, and Chat GPT said you're one of the things you're known for, which I'm suck at, is remembering people's names. Did you know that that has that listed in there as something that you're good at? Yes, Mark. What uh why how did you like how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02 31:05

It's really important. My my wife always laughs because we'll go to an event or we'll have an event at the studio and there might be 30 people. And when they leave, I'll say, Hey, nice to see you, Brett. Good to see you, Gina. Come down again because it makes people feel really special. And then I go home and I make notes about who they are, and if I feel like I'm gonna see them again, I brush up on those notes so that I know what high school you went to, I know about you, I know a little bit about your history, and it's just relationship building, and that's the difference between somebody who truly knows how to network and somebody who's just in it for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

I used to do a trick where I'd get somebody's business card, and then as soon as they walk away, I'd write on the back of it. And one time I met this uh person and I wrote some very unflattering things on the back of the card because I wanted to make sure I remembered it. And then I put it in my business card case. And then when I went to an event, I handed it to some guy, and so he's got like Susie Jones's business card with pain in the ass written on the back. And I it really kind of sunk the moment for a while. But that's just some of the dumb stuff that I do. Um, and so I stopped doing that because of that thing, it was so embarrassing. And the guy he sent me an email too. He goes, I don't think you should be writing these things on the back of a business card. But I mean, the girl really was a pay in the ass.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

So if it helps you remember, and I'll tell you another trick I do, I'm telling you all the tricks here. If I go to lunch with somebody who's a potential client or somebody who's gonna be a strategic partner, and during that lunch, they mentioned some. Well, in fact, I had a lunch last week and they mentioned that they were huge Springsteen fans. So during the lunch, I told them, I said, Hey, by tonight I'm gonna send you an email with something special on Springsteen. I think you're gonna like it. I'm gonna send it to you tonight. And then I go home and I send them an email, and it might be a photo of me in Springsteen or when I did something with the band or whatever it is. It doesn't sound like business, does it? But the reason I do that is you're telling them that you're gonna do something, what they told you is important, and you're gonna follow up with what you say. So when I follow up on that, by the end of the night, think about how I would handle their business. So I always do that, and I try to find stuff that has nothing to do with business, it's just something about them. But it tells them that in the rhythm of life, their business and they are going to be important to me. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah, because it's a small thing, and then it's it's not like it's uh, but you again you gotta remember that. So you gotta for me, I would have to immediately send myself an email. Um I think when you meet people, uh I always tell people the secret. They always go, what's the secret to interview? I go, ask a lot of questions. And I've I've and then you mentioned something earlier too about interviews. Everybody that comes in here will bring up something about being on time. When these clips get posted on uh social media, 60% of the are the negative connotation of being on time. They think it's bad, they think it's a boomer thing, they think it's a um, I'm not getting paid enough to be on time. And I'm like, okay, so how much is being paid enough to be on time? Is it $100 an hour or is it $25 an hour? But I I don't get the time because people would complain if I told you, hey, I'm gonna be at your house at seven for to fix your air conditioner, and I showed up at eight. Now, the same person that doesn't care about being on time for work would lose his shit over that. I mean, is that stupid? Or why do people think that way about the time thing now? The new generation, I think probably 35 or below.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Is that well it depends if they're smart and they're interviewing with a typical generation, like if they're interviewing with a boomer like you and I, they'll find out what's important to boomers and they'll bring that into the conversation, which isn't a bad thing to do. Our little company is so it's not that little anymore, actually. It's it's not a huge agency on Wall Street, but what started out as small isn't that small anymore. There's a lot of clients and big network and stuff, but still our culture I feel is small. I come from a small town and we've still kind of maintain that. I'll give you an example, and I don't think she'll mind me telling you. Issa, who is our newest hire out of GCU, so funny. She sent me an email, as she should. I mean, she she's learning the culture, and she told me her vacation times for the year. And she asked how much vacation time she has. And I sent it back uh to her and I said, Why are you telling me this? I don't run your life, we just work together. She called me and she goes, What do you mean? I go, we don't track vacation time. And she goes, What? And I go, get your job done. I'm good. I'm good. I don't care if you do it at two in the morning, I don't care if you do it at one in the afternoon, I don't care if you take three months off. I really don't care. Just get your job done and we're good. It's really an unorthodox workplace. And and Robin, your studio director, will tell you that. Nobody reports to me with vacation time. That's how we're different than a company now. I'm not saying that's wrong if you're in a big corporate environment because you have to do that. Somebody has to have garbage. You have to. But in a company like ours, I think that that's what makes us different. Everybody's very comfortable, and it's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Well, that's what you give. I mean, that's how you can be different because you got a if you're in a smaller deal, you can make exceptions like that. So those are the things you when you have a job that you sell, because some that means a lot more to people than money sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

You know, I think something from family kind of came into work with me. Paula, my wife said to me once, she goes, Honey, we kind of have a different style. My wife's Italian, she will take somebody to task in a minute, right? But I'm completely the opposite. I'm always really calm. It doesn't mean that I don't have discipline with the family, but a little bit different demeanor. And she said, Do you know what the kids told me? And I said, What? She said, They never worry about you getting mad at them. They just don't want to disappoint you. Well, there's a big difference there. So with anybody on our staff, I don't think they've ever heard me yell. I don't think they've ever heard me get mad. Because I don't need to. They just don't want to disappoint me. When I come in, they're dressed nice, the place is clean, because they care about the company. That's the way it should be. But they just don't want to disappoint me, which is more powerful than somebody being afraid of you.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Do you think um throughout your career and stuff, did uh did you ever have any regrets of anything you did said or and then how long did that last?

SPEAKER_02 38:30

You know, I did. And are most people dishonest with you? I've been telling you a lot of transparent.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Yeah, I like to get people to yap about themselves.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

I have. Most people say, No, I've lived my life, I'm happy with everything, and whatever. No, I have two regrets, but not to the point to where I would change my decision during those times. But curiosity gets the best of me when I think about the offer I had with MTV that sucked.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Was that when it first started?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Or was it about five years in when they got rid of the first five? Okay. And they brought in the next level. The ones that are now on Spring. So I was offered a job there and I did some spring break for them and stuff. It was horrible. You show up for 30 minutes, you don't even see the videos, you don't pick the videos, you just talk into a camera and you do your little bit and you're out. You don't you have nothing to do with the show, and then you go out and you just promote the company. You're you're a robot, you're kind of a widget. However, the exposure from a big entity like that can propel you to the next level of your career. I was always curious if I ended up in New York as a young single guy before I had a lot of responsibilities, and I really took that to the point that it could have been. I wonder what it could have been. The the other one is a big offer from Los Angeles. I had three stations at one time making offers KMET, KO Q, and KLOS. When you were on KUPD, was that one? Yeah. All offering the morning show, and I told all three, I said, here's the way we're gonna play this. I'm not gonna go back and forth, I'm not gonna play that game. All of you make your best offer, not just money, but terms, and the best offer I'll take, but none of you will have a counter.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Well, that's interesting because most people want to use one against the other and be that back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

In a way, Mike, I am because they don't know what the other's offering.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

So you get somebody that might buy it off more than they can chew?

SPEAKER_02 40:38

So they all made the offers, and the station I chose was KLOS. And I went over there. I actually took the gig. Great gig. They gave me a condo in where was it? Where did uh Brentwood. Yeah. Where the Not to Live In, they gave it to me. Oh, well that's nice. That was a bonus. It was nuts. It was a crazy contract. They gave me a national show on ABC because KLOS was owned by ABC and it was going to be called The Adventures of Dave Pratt because I was wrestling bears and walking on planes and doing all sorts of stupid shit. But that was all part of the contract. When I went over there, I was there for a week and I begged KUPD to come back because I hated it. I hated it. What was the problem? Well, I'll I'll tell you one quick example. David Lee Roth had Skyscraper coming out, and he had a song called Yankee Rose.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Oh, I remember that song.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

And uh I had done a lot of business with Van Halen, David Lee Roth, and at that time it was very contentious. Sammy Hagar was in Van Halen, David Lee Roth was doing his solo thing, and David Lee Roth and Steve Vi was a guitar player, called me and said, Hey, um, we're gonna bring down a copy of Skyscraper and you're gonna be the first to play it. This is our hometown. I said, Great. Now, Mike, if you were just hired to do a high-paid show in Los Angeles, and David Lee Roth and Steve Vi said they want to come down with their first album, are you gonna say no? No. Okay, guys, come down. They come down and I can't even tell you the problems it caused. The minute I got off the air, the GM called me up and said, Warner Brothers is so pissed off because Van Halen's coming out with a song called Why Can't This Be Love, and you went ahead of them, and the program director now has to deal with the mess. And I'm like, look, I'm just trying to do my gig. Right? And a couple more incidents happened throughout the week to where I went to the GM. God, they were pissed. And I said, Guys, I want out. I said, Here's your money back, here's everything. I'm going back to Phoenix.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

So, how long were you gone here from? A week. I don't I that that's something that probably most people don't remember. Because you they could have just told you you had the flu.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Yeah. And not say anything. Oh no, it was all over. I mean, I was on Entertainment Tonight and Lisa Gibbons was talking about this new show.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

And I mean, no, it was big news. Now they must have been mad because they went, you know, they they made an aggressive offer and now they're back.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

But um the runner-up to me at Kale West was uh two guys who are great guys from Birmingham, Alabama, Mark and Brian. And they ended up staying there for 20-some years and they did a terrific job.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

So but I was sitting at home watching television one night, and it's the adventures of Mark and Brian, and I'm like, so they they basically took that show and just plugged the new people in. Wow, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

So when you ask about regret, I just always wonder where that would have been. Because remember Ryan Seacrest? Mm-hmm. Really just a disc jockey. He happened to be there, and they had a new show called American Idol, and they needed a host that was inexpensive. It's a brand new show. So they brought on This disc jockey that was local from KROQ or something. Today he's Ryan Seacrest. Then he wasn't. He was just disc jockey. Um I always wonder where that would have would have gone.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

That put that again is a thing of you were in the right place at the right. He was in the right place.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

Jimmy Kimmel was just a producer, a guy on the air, Adam Carolla.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

But they're in LA where things happen. I always wonder. I wonder where that would have led to.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

I don't know if you you don't look like an LA person.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Oh no. Plus, I hate the Lakers. So I was happy to come back to Phoenix and it was a local ownership, and I pretty much begged them. I said, I am so sorry. I've learned my lesson.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Do you ever have anybody call you and uh get you back in the radio? Oh, all the time. What's the pitch? Like what do they say?

SPEAKER_02 44:48

The ones that are the most intriguing are the ones that are honest. So they'll call and they'll say, Dave, you know radio's struggling. You know that it needs help. We're interested. We don't want you to give up your company, but we're interested in having you come back, host four hours a morning, and using your name and heritage, and then the conversation ensues. I'm always complimented, grateful, and flattered that they think of me. There's no way. Why would I go back and take a job at Blockbuster Video? It's nothing against the people that contact me. It's old. It's it's rearview mirror stuff. And Mike, to come in here and be on your show, right? You're a friend, and I think you have a cool show. So I immediately said yes. But my days are full. Ask Robin and the whole staff. I'm hardly ever at the network. I'm never at the studios because I'm running the agency. I'm busy. Can you imagine taking 20 hours a week sitting in a radio studio?

SPEAKER_00 45:55

But it's not 20 hours. That's more like 20 on top of that, because you got a you just can't, you got stuff to do before the show starts. People think they just walk in.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

It's just such a time vampire. There's no way I could do it. For what return? They can't afford to really pay. Who's advertising?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Nobody in the market in radio makes Who's advertising for because you're probably shooting for these are people that are pro their target market has got to be 50 and over.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

I mean, yeah, it's a lot of the accident injury attorneys. Oh my God, please. Stuff like that. I'll tell you, the Hispanic audience is very big and very powerful. They still listen to radio. And I don't mean to stereotype anybody, I'm telling you the truth. Uh the boomer audience, you and I, very powerful. They still spend a lot of money. That's pretty much what's left in radio. But there's still uh an audience, if you do it right, that you can probably cut a living off, but that's about it.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

But it's a dying medium. And I think the I I think the satellite thing is not far behind. I just don't see like when you spend like a hundred and fifty bucks for a yearly subscription and I can get the stuff for free.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Um what we're doing now is the future, and it'll continue to be the future, whether it's in long form or taking nuggets from this interview and then distributing them in 30-second, 60-second clips so that you're all over the internet. That's the game. It's what you do after the podcast, how you carve it up and how you serve it up to get the highest reach possible to build your brand. When you look at some of the big boys like Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and these guys, um, if you're ever scrolling through your phone using your two thumbs, going through YouTube or anything else, they're gonna pop up on your feed over and over and over and over again. And you don't see the full interview of Theo Vaughn with Ella Langley or Joe Rogan with Trump.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Unless you want to order it. Unless you want to.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

What you see is 30-second clips that become powerful, and that brand gets out there over and over and over again. What we're doing now is the future. Here's the difference everybody assumes that if they do a podcast, they're going to be big and successful. Just the opposite. You can take me, and you can take the best race car driver in the world, and you can give us the same car. I don't have a chance. Because it's the talent behind the wheel. That's the differentiation. You still have to know what you're doing. It's not just, you know, get a podcast and it's going to carry you forever. You still have to take it seriously, promote it, put money into it, treat it like a business, and try to rise above and elevate above the competition. That's that's where the game is.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Where do you think this um because now I was listening to stuff the AI is big. I mean, I they only say they only say there's like 16% of you know the populace is actually using. I think that's wrong. I think it's more. But where's the where's that going for your industry and the marketing and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 49:21

It's enormous. As you know, we're an agency, and one of the things we work the most on now for our clients is called AEO, and it's answer engine optimization. You've heard of SEO, search engine optimization. But people are using AI incorrectly. And you know what? Businesses don't have a choice. You have to play the game. So you go to Google and you put in what are the top pizza places in Scottsdale? And through SEO, you're gonna get an answer on the top 10 pizza places in Scottsdale. Depending on where you are, where your IP is, we're in Scottsdale right now. It's gonna give us a radius around Scottsdale. It's gonna tap into our phone and geographically give us the 10 best pizza places in Scottsdale. Some people are using AI in the same fashion. They'll go into Chat GPT or Grok or Claude or whatever it is, and they'll say, what are the top 10 pizza places in Scottsdale? AI does not care about being right. Nobody knows that. They don't care. AI is a product of giving output depending on the input. So if enough people put in that a place that doesn't even serve pizza is the best pizza place in Phoenix, then that's what it is. It's gonna come out in AI is the top pizza place in Phoenix over and over and over and over again. Now that's not gonna happen because there's thousands of thousands of millions of inputs going into AI every day. But AI takes an aggregate of every pizza place that gets mentioned in AI. Whether it's where's the best place or hey, I'll meet you at this pizza. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. AI takes the aggregate and they bundle it all together and they spit it back out as a search engine. It's not a search engine, but that's how people are using it. So it is what it is. So now when we have a client and any agency that's up to date would be doing the same, uh SEO and AEO are both very important.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

You know, when you start getting into it like that, it really confuses me because I've got I just stupid enough to learn enough to where I think the AI thing, the difference is is if the the more I'd say mature and know more stuff about the world, like the recruiting thing, it's wrong on recruiting a lot. At least 50% of the people. They don't care about being right. So I'm always in there arguing with the thing about you know that's not right or this is wrong. Yeah. But I think you need to know how to ask the right if you don't know the subject and you can't ask the question, like you want to know something that's related to the subject. You have to know some answers about the subject first before you ask.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

It's all robots. Um I gave a client an example yesterday. I said, Hey, have you ever heard of the singer S-H A K I R A? And they said, Yeah, Shakira. I said, watch this. I put it into AI and it spit out a story on her, chakra. Because it's just looking at the spelling. It's a robot. These aren't people, it's a robot. But you think people have to-play the game.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

But are you relying are people relying on that to bail them out too much? Like you can see people at work almost running back after they have the meeting where they got crushed, and they're they're back at their desk trying to figure out, hey, how can I get these uh whatever I did wrong fixed, instead of, oh, let me pull up the eventualities or questions I might get so I can have answers for them in advance.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

Mike, as a professor, you probably see it all the time. So when you and I were in college or whatever, there were Cliff Notes. Remember Cliff Notes?

SPEAKER_00 53:23

Oh, I love those things.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Okay. AI is the new Cliff Notes. Uh, if you give a student an assignment, they'll go into AI and they'll say, write a paper on this. They will then go in and personalize it so you can't pick up the spiders, and they'll turn in the core of that information as their final.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

I've had kids that were in my class tell me that just graduated, and I I know this happens anyway, they um they did their last couple classes almost entirely through AI and turned it in. And I'm like, that's why I think the education system is in trouble because people aren't gonna pay 25 or 50 grand a year for crap like that. I mean, if I can pay 20 bucks a month to answer those questions, why do I need you to go to four years of school? And I think there's gonna be an absolute avalanche of issues for these schools, especially with the costs are out of control and you don't get what you want. I mean, even Harvard's reporting, you know, the grades are 60% better. Well, duh. Yeah. I mean, those kids are supposed to be smart, and of course they've been using this thing.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

That's why your class was so refreshing because you're teaching the real world. More people need to. I'm not going to mention a different university, but uh very large one. And I went out to speak to their class, and they were being taught, they were being taught how to stand on camera or how to put together a news package or which camera to look at when they're in studio. This is what they were being taught. So it was an auditorium class, and I asked them a question. I said, guys, how do media outlets make money?

unknown 55:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

I said, if you're on Pick a Channel, uh 6 p.m. news, what does that commercial cost? Nothing. I said, how do you differentiate pricing between the internet, cost per point, reach, efficiency, proportion? Nothing, nothing. These are college kids. They're teaching them how to come out of college and get a job at Channel 12 standing up talking in a rainstorm. Oh, that's my favorite. Or the puddles. But they're not teaching them the business. It's the business that's important.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Well, you know, business a lot of times business gets a bad connotation. Like I tell people sales with college kids is a bad word. Um, they call it marketing, and I go, no, that's not marketing. That's part of marketing, but it's not marketing. I want to be in marketing. Oh, so you want to be in sales? No, I don't want to be in sales. And I'm like, okay, you don't want to be in sales, but you want to be in marketing. So you want to be the guy that sits at the office putting together the stuff that the sales guy does. You're gonna not make that money. He's gonna make that money because he can go out and present it in a smart way and answer the objections. You're just putting together like the brochure or the presentation or things like that. So this marketing thing, I just I don't get it.

SPEAKER_02 56:30

You know what, Mike, for a while, my name really hurt me in terms of the marketing agency side of our business. It helped me on the network side because I'm so grateful that a lot of people wanted to be on Dave Pratt's network, which is great. God, I'll take that all day long. What a compliment, right? So for the network, that's really cool. And I had an advantage on everybody else at building this podcast network. But on the agency side, because the name is so stereotyped at being a performer, that clients it was hard to get them to look at what we do as an agency. So a client will give us our goals and I'll give them a follow-up as an entry point, and they'll be like, Who did this? I'll say, Well, I did this. That's what we do, that's what my team does. Oh, you guys do marketing like any other agency? I'm like, uh, we're better. It's called Pratt Marketing Agency. So you guys can do media buying? Yeah, that's that's what we do. You guys do social network management? Yeah, that's what we do. You guys do brand authority? Yeah, you guys design logos? I'm like, we're a marketing agency. Oh, I thought of Dave Pratt as the guy who I saw on stage with guns and roses, and I'm like it was hard. I just I appreciate him, but I I just want to give him a big hug going different conversation.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Well, it's you I think it's because you're pigeonhole, just like the guy that played, you know, um, you know, the skipper from uh Gilligan's Island. Everybody thinks some of him is a skipper.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

You know what, Mike? I once interviewed Ron Howard, and I thought it was really telling because Ron Howard said, Dave, I can go anywhere, and people come up to me and they'll go, Hey, it's Opie Taylor, it's Richie Cunningham. Yeah. He's even had people say to him, What are you doing now? I'm so sorry I haven't seen you around. It's one of the big next to Spielberg and Tarantino, the biggest producer and director in all of Hollywood. Da Vinci Code and Cocoon and it's all Ron Howard. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Because they grew up watching Opie Taylor be funny with Barney and Richie Cunningham with the Fawns. They could care less.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Well, you know, the nice thing is, is at least they, you know, you they remember something.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

But I mean, people are they're very, you know, they get those characters stick in your head, and that's why they always, you know, you hear stars go, hey, I'm gonna get typecast, instead of just you know, figuring out a way to write it.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

After my time at KUPD, people would come up and they'd go, Dave man, you're a rocker, and I'd be like, Yeah, because I don't want to let them down. But truth is, I don't own an album. I I can't even think of a concert ticket I've ever bought. Uh I don't follow it. I'm a news and information guy. But obviously, we did the job really well, and I'm so grateful because that was my job. That was my job. Uh just like Ron Howard was Richie Cunningham, that was my job to entertain. It's my show.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

And you sometimes you wake up and you're like, I just want to punch people, and you still have to go do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

But that's why I did country.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:03

Wow is because they punch more people too.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

Yeah, country hat with hats on. Yeah, exactly. But we were number one in rock, and everybody thought, well, yeah, you know, music or whatever. And I said, okay. Nobody's ever done it in both on a national level, been you know, named top in both. So I thought this is a challenge. So I went from rock, I went country, everybody freaked out, and we did it in country too. Well, that means it's not the music, it's what you're doing in between.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Well, yeah, people like to hear um, you know, when you're when you're driving in your car, which especially, you know, today, this it's not a fun experience in this town. Yeah, I know. And so anything that's gonna calm you down, I mean, that's why they play music, you know, at the gorilla cage to keep the thing, you know, calm. Same thing with people that drive. Um I uh what do you think's uh as far as for hiring, what's before we wrap up, and this has been great, what's the what's one advice that you could give somebody that's hiring? And somebody don't we're not talking about big companies, somebody that has under 50 employees. What's a good tip that you think you could give them that's not the same crap you read about all the time?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

For the person hiring or for the person being interviewed for the person hiring? Do both, that would be better. I would say pay as much attention to the behavior of the person as to the actual content they give you in their resume. Yep, very good. And my other tip would be short questions that require long answers. Tell me about yourself. Why are you interested? Those require long answers, and then you can do follow-up questions. But you don't want to give them the answer to your question in your question. You see that a lot in bad interviews. No yes or no questions. Do you want to work here? Yes. Tell me why you're interested in this position. Open-ended questions, short questions that require long answers, and then if you really pay attention to them and their behavior, I think that you'll have a big advantage.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

One of the things I like to do, because I just like to share all the time, that's part of my problem, is I like to look up uh the company and then I'll go do some search on LinkedIn. And if it's somebody that I want to try to throw a loop for, I'll ask them. I'll go, hey, if I now I know the name, I don't know the person. I go, hey, Todd Johnson works over there. And they'll go, yeah, I go, so if I call him today, what's he gonna say about you? And then you should Oh, I love that. Yeah, I love that. Because you know what happens is you get the stutter step or the oh you freeze because that means that he's gonna tell me something I don't want to hear. If you just go, oh man, I work for him, but I he worked for my boss or he was my boss's boss, he was a great guy. That's really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

I think any boy, that's good. I'm gonna keep that. Thank you. Um any kind of any kind of information you can get ahead of time will give you the advantage. Mike, you and I recently had a lunch with a great doctor. He's a pain doctor named Dr. Gupta. Yep. And we went to lunch with him. And I don't know if you noticed that that lunch, I didn't ask him how many locations do you have? I didn't ask him that. I said, You have five locations in town. Tell me about them. There's a big difference there in that approach. Big difference. So, yeah, doing your research ahead of time, and I love that trick. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

Well, Dave, I appreciate you taking the time. It's been awesome uh doing this podcast here. I appreciate your help. And again, this is Michael Hayes with Momentum Hiring Solutions. We fix your broken hiring. Stop paying for temp service labor and things like that. Hire somebody that can come in and give you sensible advice. And oh, by the way, I'll give you everything for free until you sign a contract. That'll help you make an easy decision. And today, do yourself a favor reach out to a friend you haven't heard from and from in a while and check on them. Again, Mike Hayes with the hiring confessional. Thanks.