EXPERIENCE 55 | Hunter Wylie, Co-Founder and CEO of Beyond Blue Media

My guest today was Hunter Wiley. Hunter is the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Blue Media, a full service digital marketing agency here in Fort Collins. They've grown the business in five short years to 16 employees full-time and have a full service spectrum including SEO web development apps videos, etc. social media. Hunter's a really bright young man, only 25 years old. He's built a great company already. Hunter shares a good number of tips on how to do your own digital marketing well if you're not in a place yet where you can hire an agency. We talk a fair bit about his transition to becoming a local facilitator here for local think tank and the value he's received both as a member and as a chapter leader and he shares a fair bit about the kind of characteristics we look for here at the local think tank as far as our members. Hunter gets into a fair bit of faith journey information as well and it recommends a number of good books and so Hunter's got a great journey. I'm sure there's a lot of good information about marketing and sales and just finding your place, finding your lane as a business owner and kind of finding your path as a servant. This was a great episode with Hunter and we're happy to have him on the show. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the local experience podcast. I'm your host, Kirk Bear. This show is produced by me and my team and sponsored by my small business local think tank and sometimes others. Episodes feature a range of local and regional business and community leaders as guests in a conversational interview format. Our guests are interesting and successful people with unique business journeys and the more business education and unbarnished truth we can uncover the better. You'll feel like you really know our guests after each episode and if I'm doing my job well listeners will find business principles and tips from their journey and a greater appreciation for each of our guests. Woven into these long format experience episodes are occasional thoughtful episodes. Topically focused snippets of five to fifteen minutes where our guests unfold important and timely business truths and also I'll read the local perspective blog post because I'm lazy to infer to listen and read and maybe you do too. Thanks for tuning in and if you'd like to show a please subscribe, review and share it with your favorite people. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. This is your host, Kirk Bear and I'm here today with Hunter Wiley and Hunter is a co-founder and CEO of Beyond Blue Media and Hunter why don't we just start by having you describe Beyond Blue. Great question and so glad to be here. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Beyond Blue Media is a it's a full service digital marketing agency here in Fort Collins. We do everything in-house so we have sixteen full-time employees who are each in their own department so whether it's SEO or website development, app development, videography, graphic design, we do everything in-house. So you don't have a whole bunch of subcontractors that you do stuff. We have we have some but 99% of the stuff that we do is in-house. Oh well. Yeah and it's different than a lot of marketing agencies. Well it is. It is and it's one of the things that has separated us because you know lots of marketing companies you know they'll have you know folks in India or which is there's nothing wrong with that but we we just really value local and having Fort Collins folks work here so it's yeah it's a gift and a blessing it's just a different way to do things. Yeah so who are your clients do you have like niches or types of businesses that you really specialize in? Well it's funny you know when I first started this company everybody told me you need to you need to pick a specific industry and just work in that and looking back I'm glad that I didn't listen to them. I very much diversified all the clients that we brought in so and we see this from the pandemic. All of the digital marketing agencies that worked with gyms are now at a business you know or restaurants or you know just the the really niche industries I mean a lot of those marketing companies aren't here anymore so we're really diverse I mean all over from hospitality to hospitals to nonprofits church I mean everything so yeah very diverse big to small. So how would you characterize like who are the types of clients that choose to pick beyond blue like if they're wide diverse industries like who are the people? Yeah I mean we normally say a couple million dollars a year in revenue and a couple of employees. So that's that's kind of the bread and butter. We do work with you know some mom and pop shops right but more than anything we're working with the like middle middle grade business you know doing five million dollars a year and and needs to elevate their marketing brand that they call us. They've got some marketing people already on the staff or maybe they've had like a turn or something like that or maybe beyond that but now it's time to up level their their marketing they've made it now they've got a budget for it. Right right yeah we we don't really work with the mom and pop that only has a couple hundred bucks a month. I mean we're we're just too hard to actually create change. It's too hard. Yeah so we we've really found our bread and butter. Yeah a couple million a year has you know five ten grand amount to spend a marketing and where they're guys you know so and lots of local we work with lots of Northern Colorado businesses. Okay yeah so we have an office here in an office in Loveland. We also have an office in Tulsa so we're starting to plant some more branches across the country to get into local markets because again we value local it's just it's been some of our core values from the beginning. So let's talk about the beginning like you're relatively young guy you've been in it a little over five years and grown to this kind of medium size yeah kind of probably maybe one of the larger employer agencies. Yeah what was what were there was first days like what was the the inception moment or whatever. May I'll tell you I miss some of those beginning days. Those are some of my favorite days of running this company because just so much dreamy and so much fun at the beginning obviously way riskier than it is now. It's pretty stable now. But you can manage anything when you have a built exactly. That's kind of the fun part of entrepreneurship but then it just goes into execution mode but yeah I mean at the beginning it's me and I have three business partners. All brothers all very successful men here in Fort Collins and Loveland and they each run their own business and so. Do you want to give a shout out to these fellows? Yeah it's the it's the trainer brothers for those of you that are familiar with them but three brothers each in their own industry doing their own their own thing and I run our marketing company. So you were kind of created to be the marketing company for these various trainers industries at first. Yeah yeah and it did so well that we just we say hey we have some special here we need to create a business out of this so that's when we started beyond Blue Media five years ago so I know we're here. Oh I see so you're actually initially you're hired like as an in-house marketing almost. I was. Yeah gotcha gotcha and then you're like hey I've got all these other companies that want to pay us to do their marketing and they're like oh yeah and things were going so well with their businesses I mean we had almost doubled most of their companies. Well it's like man okay we got we got a special juice here that other people don't have let's let's roll with it you know and so that's we just found the right talent the right people the right clients and it just I mean yeah got really blessed us. Well let's go back let's jump in the way back and like who's Hunter I want to kind of explore your journey leading up to yeah to those early days a little bit so are you from around here Northern Colorado. From Loveland. Okay so real close and it's a that's a loaded question. Yeah I mean back in the day I've always had a in this entrepreneurial book I mean I've started so many different things and some have been successful and I've sold them or some have just been complete failures. Let's hear about the very first one that you can remember. Yeah man I was always slinging whether it was can be lemonade I mean everything I could sell it felt like everything that's just always been one of my gifts is I can just sell and I think that's you see that quality in lots of CEOs you know that they can just sling just about anything if they have the right charisma so yeah I mean that's that's a huge part of my story and my entrepreneurial story is I just knew I was gonna be in this place. Yeah from day one. Are you from a family of entrepreneurs. I am yeah my my mother single mom I'm an only child but I saw her work you know four or five jobs start you know a couple companies. Oh really she was working not stop so some of that is healthy some of that's not healthy and I've had to learn the work life balance deal but I mean seeing a woman you know who raised me just work her butt off is like there's nothing more special than that. Yeah well she was doing it for you. Exactly. Probably. She yeah she was 100% so were you raised by her the whole time your dad was never in your life? My dad was yeah I mean we we weren't super close in you know in my younger years but in recent years we've become I mean really good friends so I really enjoyed relationship with my dad recently but yeah I mean growing up in a divorce family you just kind of go back and forth. Right and it's yeah relationships are our interesting. Yeah so what was what was your mom involved in what was her business? Yeah mental health. Oh yeah counseling starting residential you know facilities and counseling agencies and so she lots of counseling. Interesting. Yeah that's very cool that's very cool interesting background to have a perspective and so what kind of kid where you like we baseball player and stuff like that or you were just like getting the value pack a candy and making money on the underneath the but I'll tell you this the only thing I cared about as a young man was basketball like that's the only thing I wanted to do it was an idol to me I mean any second I had I was playing basketball okay so yeah did that and played a little college basketball. Okay so you got good enough to got good enough I'm a short white guy so I'm not you know I couldn't go anything past college ball but it's yeah it was a blast. So where was where was that in Nebraska okay a little NEI school and so yeah I mean it was it was a joy to get to that level yeah don't ever want to go back you know just but I needed to get there just to say that I got there. What was your like special talent on the basketball court? I just shot three's that's all I can do. Well I just want I was a want to be Steph Curry. Right right. That's about it. If I'm driving to the lane I'm gonna get blocked. I'm just that guy I'm just not athletic so I'm a shoot to three. Okay well I'll play it close if I ever have to defend you. Exactly. So you're like rolling through high school that's your your focus so your grades are okay but not super focused great and things like that you weren't involved in a lot of other things it was all basketball all basketball all basketball and I mean all the business groups I could be a part of so FBLA Deca I mean all the things that you know most business kids want to get in. Business and basketball. Yeah business and basketball. So you go out to school and then do you finish your college? I didn't. No. Nope. I'm kind of hit rock bottom in a lot of different ways. Actually yeah yeah yeah found a relationship with God when I was at rock bottom and I say that I broke both my ankles. I couldn't play basketball this idol that I created of oh man I all I want to do is play ball and couldn't do it anymore. Let's hear the story around that you're in college at this point. Yeah college was in a toxic relationship broke both my ankles. Like you're gonna tell the story about breaking both your ankles like that doesn't happen. I know yeah I mean I just wasn't wearing braces and I don't remember if it was a practice or a game or whatever but at two separate times broke both sides. Oh it wasn't at the same time. It's like stress fractures almost right that kind of thing. Right okay I was imagining being dropped off of a high place. No no no no. But you weren't just you weren't in a good place basketball. I wasn't turning out like you're hoping for your relationship with this woman I presumably wasn't turning out like we've hoped all that kind of stuff and you hadn't had like that was where you came to faith kind of. It was yeah I mean I think God had always been drawing me to him but man I just all I had was my Bible and I just devoured it. I mean nonstop 24-7 is all I wanted to do was read. You didn't grow up going to church with your mom. I mean it was talked about it and my mom did go to church but I went to church by myself a lot of Sundays. So it you know again it was always a big interest I always had so many questions and went to some of the groups and stuff but like really solidified my faith with Jesus when I was in college. Okay and so that changed everything for me. Yeah and then that led to dropping out. That led to dropping out. Yeah I came back and it took up a sales job selling selling paint. Yeah going door-to-door selling you know painting exterior interior homes. Oh really. And at that point I was at CSU and and was selling paint you know 40 hours a week and I realized you know as a 18-year-old I am making more money than all my professors. Right. I'm literally making more money than everybody who's teaching me marketing or sales or whatever like I need to drop out. I like and make $100,000 a year selling paint. Right. Like I'm gonna do it so I yeah quit and just went full-time with yeah going door-to-door leading teams and yeah selling paint. Interesting. And then what's next? Yeah after that went to work at several different marketing agencies really just fine to my craft of marketing and sales. Because that was what you somehow kind of knew you wanted to focus on. Yeah growth was always a big piece of okay well I know I want to start a business I also know I want to grow it so I need marketing and so yeah it just came really naturally both the sales and marketing. Yeah and so yeah worked a couple different marketing places and then ended up meeting my business partners. Oh sure I'm through a mutual connection and yeah from there we they're like yeah this kid seems pretty smart and motivated. It's a risk yeah yeah it's a risk it was cool yeah and so six months in or something like that after they hired you then beyond blue was born. Yeah blue was born. You were junior partner in that or I guess their majority they put more of the capital in and stuff and gave you the budget that you could hire people. Yeah yeah they gave me a couple thousand dollars as a loan. Oh so you should get your stake. Yeah yeah and so I yeah obviously paid them back extremely fast and became the primary owner and the CEO of the business and so yeah and that's that's been the case ever since. That's super cool. Yeah. What an interesting journey. So talk to me about like those first hires like as you're like because just because you've put a sign up doesn't mean you really know how to have a digital marketing agency right? Well and it's true yeah yeah yeah all right my first two hires one was a good friend of mine who needed a job and was great with people okay and I was like man I need I need somebody to help me manage some of the things that I'm working on someone customer service based and so good friend of mine needed full-time work and so I just it ended up working perfectly for him to be full-time with us okay and then second hire was a was a salesperson I stay at home mom with seven children so yeah she and she has she's been with us for five years nice both of them are still with us oh that's cool that doesn't happen that much it does not happen yeah and so she she was incredible she's been I mean she went from making nothing and now she's one of our highest paid you know folks that beyond blue because she's just I mean she's our seniors elsewhere she gets it done she gets done yeah that's awesome I love it as you get in more children since she started no she called it she called it tapped out yeah that seems okay yeah so um so you're kind of building your client base and building your team like what did you do like early on to kind of set the tone or the vibe of like who the right people for the team are because you must have done some of that because there's still here five years later yeah you know from day one there's been this word that's been instilled in me and it's just a word integrity and so that has been the core of our company I want to work with people that have integrity and then I want clients that are filled with integrity so I mean it's it's really created this lens of I view everything and make every decision based on integrity yeah so if it's the right move even if it's not financially right for me I'm gonna make that call yeah um so it's not always profitable it's not always the best but long term we have created a team 15 members who if you ask them right now hey what's beyond blue about all of them will say integrity oh that's cool it's on the front page of our website we know we do digital marketing with integrity just what we do yeah and so that comes with how we hire how we create teams how we you know do our own marketing I mean it's it's pretty central well and your industry is one that's kind of most fraught with peril or potential conflict of interest and what I mean when I say that is like um you know if you're charging a client three thousand or five thousand dollars a month for their digital marketing stuff well that's for this suite of things or whatever but the less work you actually do on their account the more profit you'll make because you're paying your people to do that work and stuff and so just being having integrity but also building the system so that you can show your clients exactly what you're doing yeah they're free to five thousand dollars a month or whatever exactly then it can feel like snake oil at times I mean like working other marketing companies I'm like man what are we actually doing for people right now and so that's where's really the word integrity was birth from is man I want people to know we're doing work and going above and beyond that's why we created beyond blue media because we wanted to go above and beyond from what we were seeing yeah so talk to me about that name like it was that like there from the beginning or did you like test market a thousand names and we yeah we did not test market we were sitting at egg and I near my three business partners and said man what do we want to do what we want to call this thing and I say man I just want to go above and beyond for people and we all said oh we like that we're beyond our favorite color is blue let's roll with it and done and done we didn't have to go daddy search like oh yeah blue media dot com yeah got it purchased done is that your website yeah from blue media dot com yep so that's how that's how's bird pretty easy story yeah yeah right so um so that integrity and that's part of probably your communications with your clients and things like that um what would you say are some of the main reasons that businesses should hire an outside agency yeah that's a great question I mean at the end of the day when you are paying for somebody in house you're paying for them to sit in a seat you're paying for their you know insurance you're paying for their payroll payroll taxes you're paying for their lunches you're paying like there's a lot of expenses that go with having somebody in house right when you have an outside agency and I always recommend that to people you know for most circumstances because you're paying for their expertise so you're paying for you know people to to use your funds on google and on facebook and on linkedin when you pay for somebody in house you have to pay their salary and then anything add spend or you know any more expertise that they need you have to pay on top of that right right so well and what I what I've been concerned about I guess is if you've just got say one in house marketing person where do they get their new ideas and stuff yeah whereas if you're an agency model you can be like oh look this thing we tried over here for client a right is something we can use for clients c and d and f you know and and so you can kind of try those new things and stuff because you do have to have failures in marketing otherwise you're not going to have success is there well that's very true that's very true and you know when you pay you know $80,000 a year to have a marketing person normally they have one expertise so they might be really good at SEO they might be really good at ads but there's not a person on planet earth that has every single thing regarding marketing dialed in they just don't it's not they're not a unicorn like that so that's the great part of of an agency it's like okay we get a I'm not the guy but we have another guy on our team that's the guy yeah you know yeah it makes sense to me so is like an ideal fit for you guys like there's somebody on the team maybe they're not even an 80,000 dollar a year but they you want somebody that can send you the brand things or this and that and you know they're they're maybe a whatever a 50 60,000 other person that can do some things but mostly they want your guys to support in some of the strategy and most of the execution right I mean most of our most of our you know bigger clients and you know to be honest some of our best clients are the ones that have a marketing person in house that can coordinate with our team because it makes our life so much easier to have one person all they're thinking about is marketing for that business yeah and they can just I mean communication just flows back and forth right obviously that's a bigger that's a bigger business which is great I mean we we love working with guys like that cool so um I guess if you're going to do a quick primer for general small business listeners you know kind of a self administered marketing 101 is there certain things that you always kind of like when you're onboarding new clients and stuff you're like okay when these three things in the foundation are built then we can start getting a little more creative with the strategy or anything like that that's a great question and yeah I mean maybe I can just speak some some wisdom or advice I'm not the smartest guy but I do know marketing so I'd love to speak to some of the things for even some of your listeners that are you know smaller businesses would love to give some like they can hire you for right thousand dollars a month right yeah let me give some helpful tips to that I think the first the first and foremost if you're a local business focusing on your Google My Business page is key it's essential I mean you need to put your focus there um whether you're a rougher you know age fat guy cleaning business whatever it if you're not selling an e-commerce product then you need to focus on your Google My Business page it I mean we work with construction companies and oh you know all over the board and when it comes to their Google My Business page they can make a million of dollars off of you know phone calls that are coming in from construction company near me and construction company for Collins love you know if you're ranking there I mean it's there's some real calls that come through right right highly recommend especially when there's that this kind of known service painting company yeah like nobody ever often anyway Googles like pure advisory chapters because they don't even know local think tank exists so we're a little different than that but especially a right normal even if you're a pizza shop or something like that yeah right pizza near me right right I mean I think even even for local think tank I think that there's real value of finding finding those type of keywords that business executives are looking for hmm and because you guys are downtown for Collins you know guys have a space down here and there are business owners who are looking for things that local think tank offers they just are yeah it might not be peer-to-peer advisory but you want to start to write content on the back end of a Google My Business page to speak to that hmm so even things that speak toward like oh I wish I had a mentor you know and somebody's like mentors near me if maybe I'll take a shot oh exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah any business consulting near me you know like some of those keywords right right to rank for I mean it's it's money anybody that you anything you can imagine that somebody that would find you would be looking for yeah okay exactly so what's number two if I'm a if I'm a small business owner I'm a mom and pop shop I don't have a ton of employees and I don't have a huge marketing budget I'm probably not going to spend a ton of money on ads okay I'm just not unless I have about $1,500 a month to spend on ads okay it can be a waste of money okay and I say that because there has to be real time to test ads to make sure that they're going to work to find the right vein then doubling down and if you don't have the cash to get you there it can be a waste of money right and you're talking about like digital ads pop up ads digital ads yeah so that's what we tell clients all the time it's like listen if you don't have $1,500 a month to spend on ads just don't do it I mean there's exceptions right but as a general rule that's what we tell people okay I will say I mean and I've seen this this is how I built my business this is how I you know got to a place where you know we'll do two million dollars this year is simply from getting in front of other people networking groups peer-to-peer advisor groups like this the real referrals is how you work your business if you don't have a marketing budget so getting involved with every single networking group you can get involved with and connecting with people at coffee shops I mean the first year of Beyond Blue I probably met with 10 people a week at coffee shops right and then at the end of those meetings I would say hey who do I need to meet who in your network do I because I don't know that I need to meet and every time somebody had somebody for me yeah yeah and that's how we build our business yeah for when I had zero dollars to work with are you still the key rain maker for Beyond Blue I'm not no I mean I of course I still do that I'm talking about your director sales kind of go yeah yeah exactly so we have sales people but I mean of course I love sales so I want to meet with people I want to so I definitely still do it but just not to the extent of the last couple of years sure so so anything else on the guerrilla tactics marketing tips yeah Jim be low on the ads be everywhere yeah I mean obviously everybody knows this but doubling down on video video these days I mean the normal content copy just doesn't work so as much as you can build a brand around a person and around video it's a game changer I don't think you've done this really well like you have built a brand of I mean we see your beard on your local think tank podcast like right right like you are the face of it I mean we see this on a large scale with I mean you think of like progressive right progressive commercials the the gal flow sure everybody knows flow and everybody knows that flow is a part of progressive and that she didn't be in all the commercials and the same thing is true even for some of these small businesses now who are hiring I mean TikTok influencers and and you know people who are just in front of the camera so all that to say it really works when you're putting out content and you're you know you're the business owner and you're the face of your brand and you're putting out tips Tuesdays and you know whatever it looks like but as much video as possible this episode is sponsored by logo think tank logo think tank provides pure collaboration for business owners we build smart safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage with a business journey and we love what we do and who we do it with our model features gift back minded business veterans and the role of logo facilitators and we're always looking for abundance minded individuals to add to our membership facilitator team local community or to feature on this podcast listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of logo think tank get their sixth month of membership for free just mention the local experience podcast on your application to learn more visit our website at logo think tank that's l o c o think tank dot com good to know and threatening for somebody like me you know we've yeah we've got the podcast with my little face sketched out and stuff like that and I've done some videos and stuff but truth be told I kind of I get kind of shy and awkward when I'm talking about my own stuff for sure for sure but whether you want to admit it or not you are the face of this brand right it's actually how you and I connected I remember seeing you downtown for calling so many times and I'm like this guy is always meeting with somebody I got I got to know this guy and I don't know if you remember but I literally message you on Facebook several years ago yeah I was like dude what are you doing I'm meeting with people like what do you do and so that's when we kind of hit it off for sure that's pretty funny I didn't realize the context of that though yeah yeah so uh so I guess own it like if you're not ready to be that face of your brand in all the ways that does required um maybe you don't want to try to start your thing or whatever right like yeah or you find the person that does gotta be willing to own that to an extent um cool so um I guess talked to me about like what's next for Beyond Blue like you've got 16 employees I think you've said now you've hired a financial person recently and kind of a an ops person yep you're facilitating now and and actually that would be another chapter would like to jump into yeah about that story but you've been a facilitator for several months now I love both think tank after membership for a while talk to me about that um I guess decision tree and and like how that um kind of came came to be something that you wanted to consider yeah I mean I've always valued intimate relationships and being a part of local think tank has been wonderful for my business um really from the perspective of I get to meet with ten other business owners once a month and have them pouring to me important to my business and I get to create value as well and that's a game changer and so um just seeing how much it's impacted beyond blue media I'm like man I want to be a part of this because I I love being in you know in a round table with ten other people getting deep and intimate not surface level like let's really get in the nitty gritty of your numbers of like your limiting beliefs of all the things that you're you're not believing in how can I speak into that what what are you not seeing that I'm seeing and so that's one yeah I think we just kind of hit it off of okay man I could I could actually lead a group and it could be fruitful yeah yeah yeah so thanks for doing that by the way it was great to get you in there and and that chapter you took over has been uh you know adding new members and kind of rebuilding so thanks for yeah thanks for that and who's who would fit well if there's somebody else are listening to this like who the kind of members that you feel would be a good good addition to your group yeah I mean what we see I mean our current group is rock solid incredible people and the qualities that we see in in our and the great candidates for a you know a chapter like what we have is a someone that's ready to bring value like speak into other people's businesses and be someone who is humble um humble enough to receive criticism humble enough to see I actually don't have it all figured out and I need help so that is a quality that we really look for and lastly I mean somebody that's not there with ulterior motives someone that's not there wanting to sell their products or their services to other people so I think if you have those three things I mean you're in good company yeah very cool so um anything like on the on the local front you you and I actually talk today you'd like to you know do another group down the line and things like that what where did your like heart for giving back in that way come from man I don't know what it is but being able to just sit down and take the mask off with other people that is so free and being the ones to facilitate that and be the first one to be vulnerable is I mean I think it's it's so empowering to myself and other people right when I can be the first one to sit down as a leader to take my mask off and say oh man this really sucks and this COVID is hard on business and here's all the things that I'm struggling with you know what I mean and to have other people be like ah me too is I mean that's the whole point of the local thing thing is like for people to say ah me too like I struggle with that and I and feel lonely as a business owner in that and I don't know what decision to make with this and you know so that's the whole point yeah I love it I love it so um I guess you're I mean you're young guy so your business journey doesn't have like decades and decades of twists and turns necessarily um what uh like if you were gonna be like yes this last five years has been awesome like what would what would the next chapter chapter two or chapter three of Beyond Blue Media look like for you yeah I mean I'm gonna I'm gonna take the bag of integrity with me you know whether it's you know continuing to run beyond blue or start something else or whatever it looks like that is gonna be there that's gonna and that's gonna be a very real part of anything that I do like do you want to get it bigger still do you want to have 50 employees five years from now it's a great question um and you mentioned the branch office and Tulsa I think yeah stuff like that is that what one of the big visions for us is planting as many branches as we can because again we value local we value being in the community so as many as these small little branches across the country as a team you kind of be kind of a home office here with a lot of those skills right and have one or two or three good sales and admin kind of team yeah yeah and this idea really honestly came to me when I met with somebody who works at Edward Jones oh sure and their model is beautiful I mean they have a headquarters of all the folks that are executing trades and really the ones that are producing sure and then they have thousands of these tiny little offices across the country in every small city and big city and I'm like man there's nobody in marketing that's doing this yeah and so we're the I'm sure there's a lot of people doing this but from what I know of I mean we're one of the first to you to be kind of an Edward Jones of marketing we're doing the Edward Jones of marketing of hey we want to be in in the community at the Chamber of Commerce at the local think tank in you know Dallas you know right wherever wherever and you know them communicating back with our production team here for Collins to execute on a marketing right right so well because it is too as you mentioned like even if you hire a unicorn as your in-house marketing person or whatever that it's too much it's too hard you can't fill your brain with enough stuff to know all the stuff yeah same thing with like a solo printer trying to start a marketing agency yeah like good luck having enough skills in your person to be useful good word yeah completely agreed so well that sounds like a great way to you know let people develop their skills yeah re realm to you know develop as from a sales perspective and things like that right and to be part of something right right because that's the other role sort of if you're just a solo printer like Kurt's marketing agency it's like now I'm lonely all the time right you know it's a good team don't know what my values are all that kind of stuff so good point well we always transition into faith family and politics segment love it after the business zone and it's as much or as little of each of those three segments as you would like do you want to start with one of the other first oh man I always want to talk about Jesus okay all right let's talk about your faith so like it sounds like it you faith was an unfamiliar to you before college yeah but it really kind of rededicated yourself at least or yeah in that time talk talk about your state of mind and place and if there's somebody that needs a shout out for yeah keeping on inviting at a church when you tell them know a whole bunch of times yeah yeah I mean again like I said I think I was always drawn from a young age was drawing me to himself when I was at rock bottom and saw that my you know idols were gone and decimated and I had nothing and I just looked at Jesus and I just said wow he has everything that I need and what I realized was very quickly it became I had always thought that man I just need to be a good person and God will love me and I just need to be a good person and all man I'll eventually get to heaven and what what the Bible really says and what Jesus really says is it's not about what I can do if it's about what I can do then man we're all screwed because it's it's it's not about my works your own ladder to heaven right it's not about my works that are going to get me to heaven but it is about my faith in Jesus the man that died right next to the cross on we know with Jesus he was rebellious his whole life right but all it took was a little bit of faith in Jesus I want to believe I want to believe that's it and so when he got to heaven he just said hey I just knew the guy in the cross that's all I have to bring and that was enough yeah and so I you know the same is true for me is like I have nothing else to bring to heaven except for my faith that's it and so were you just like on fire from there did you find a local church and start just jumping in yeah man I was on fire came back and just really got plugged in joined as many you know groups and you know churches as I could and really got rooted in a in a local church and to be rooted is to be known and so I started to really become known by people and because yeah got a really great community around me and a really great tribe that changed how I viewed God and Jesus so yeah does that answer the question yeah I think so I mean it's not really a question and some more of a topic yeah if you were going to like characterize your faith in terms of like differentiating it maybe because there's a lot of it's like Ben and Jerry's right 31 flavors or not even Ben and Jerry's but like where would you put kind of the church that you choose to be associated with and you know free will and all those things associated yeah it's a great question I go to a non-denominational church in leveling called Ben tree okay my wife and I absolutely love it there have found great community yeah I mean there's there's so much there I'm a I'm a huge theology nerd so I'm okay you know I'm reading you know 40 to 50 books a year that are on theology oh wow and so I just love learning I'm a learner at heart and so what are some books on theology that you'd recommend um man great question I'm chosen by RC Sproul really good probably the best book that I've you know a couple of the best books that I've read spiritually are ruthless elimination of hurry unbelievable that sounds really good I believe probably for half the people listening they're like yeah I can eliminate my hurry yeah yeah yeah and I'm really good and I worry can I get rid of my hurry and my worry you can you can yeah I've always struggled with anxiety and with being rushed and so this book changed my life and I recommend it to everybody you know who the author is John Mark Comer okay okay um the last book that I recommend is a gentle answer and this is a biblical um Christ centered book on diversity um of opinions um because there's been so much divisiveness this is a this is what Christ says about um so much division and unity among the world and among believers so great book very intriguing um so anyways yeah I mean I'm just a huge nerd I just love reading do you ever listen to the the Bible project podcast I do when you like oh yeah love some Bible project so you kind of jive with that notion that the Bible's a unified story that points to Jesus kind of no I mean I do yeah the the founder of Bible project he does have some kind of shaky theology when it comes to hell oh interesting okay which is real interesting tell me more um he would say that hell is man made it's a it's a man made idea um and that's what he teaches interesting so I struggle with that that's in contrary to the Bible but it's yeah so either he's right his name is Tim Mackie yeah yeah or God's right it's I'm always gonna put my money on God that's what he says he says there there is heaven and there is hell and the only the only thing that you can do taking into heaven is just have faith again it's not about your works not about how great of a person you are or how great of a person you think you are it is just about having faith in Jesus repenting of your sin and having faith in Jesus that's it yeah and so there is there is a difference between the two a heaven and hell isn't it funny how there's kind of this notion that you can kind of recognize your own sin and still love yourself or you can kind of ignore your own sin and usually end up kind of hating yourself more yeah for sure for sure and there's obviously there's trenches on on both sides of both of those arguments I mean you can get so down about your own sin that you are just I mean down and out and we're legalistic legalistic yeah but there's no condemnation in Christ there just isn't so am I a broken sinful human absolutely but grace and mercy have restored me you know Christ dying and being resurrected has restored me yeah and so that's what I cling to is yes I'm broken yeah and yes I'm sinful and I've been sinful for a long time and we'll always be sinful but thank God that I have a savior yeah one of my friends from rotary club moved away now but for years and years he was always talking about this hot rod that he was building with his son and it took him like 11 years and who knows how many thousands of hours probably but then right when they started taking it out and taking it to shows like he got one of the like three builders choice awards for this huge car show auction on this 36 Ford or something like that and then they restored it right and so when you were using that language just now you know I was thinking about Charlie's car and how probably that car is not only restored to the condition that it was built under but probably in so many ways better than it ever was before right it's gonna be eight in it for one thing right you know and and all that kind of stuff and that's kind of that restoration that you're talking about as well like better than you were even if you weren't broken right man and you just nailed on that I mean that's what scripture says is that when you become a believer when you put your faith in Jesus that God's spirit the Holy Spirit does a work in you to restore your heart to restore your brain to restore your soul and make it new yeah that's what he does that's what he did with me yeah I was a completely different person I mean my my interest changed my habits changed my I mean things that I looked at changed you know whether it be looking at idols or looking at success or like all of that change and how I view things yes that's what he does I like to say because I'm kind of a belligerent turd like in the disc profile like my compliance is super low so tell me to do something I'm like whatever jerk but I used the word of the year a couple of years back for me was a surrender come on you know and obedience feels gross almost but surrender feels appropriate you know when you and so anyway I don't know why I think of that and it's you know it's probably grasping a bit of myself that I don't want to let go of is this kind of rebellious youth that you know question authority thing and stuff like that right at least from an obedient standpoint that's got that kind of connotation right but surrender to somebody awesome that's way more powerful that's something better for sure and there is there is nothing more free than surrendering they're just isn't yeah as someone who's a control freak myself as someone who is anxious and yeah once the control all of the things right because I think I haven't figured out the second that I'm like man I just which is a slavery of sorts right there right this slavery yeah so the second I can get out of my prison cell and surrender at all is the second that I'm free yeah cool well thanks for sharing that yeah you want to talk about family or politics with your next segment oh man I love talking family well let's talk about it yeah I was able to meet your wife at the summer picnic this year and she's got some really enjoyable conversation what's her what's her name her name is Megan Megan yeah Megan Wiley sorry Megan I apologize I got you name I didn't forget you where did you guys meet um we met at church okay briefly and then reconnected at a Christmas party and um yeah she was living in Chicago at the time oh really yeah and so I you know you were out here in Northern Colorado she was yeah she was out here came back for a Christmas party she with the CSU met her Christmas party and then you know texted her a couple days later just said hey I want to take you on a date and she's like well I live in Chicago and I said I don't care I'm coming to you and so I flew out for our first date 24 hour flight um for our flight oh you flew there it came back it came back it came back in less than 24 hours like we were there um went you know all over Chicago and then I flew back like didn't even sleep I mean and it was awesome just hit you I was like this is the woman this is the woman of my dreams and so um yeah I was awesome and we got married six months later wow and then um and was she from Chicago or she'd gone to school here at CSU and then got her first kind of real big girl job or something like that she was at um seminary oh I see yeah okay yeah we got engaged excuse me engaged six months later and then married six months after that that's pretty good yeah and then we had a baby four months after that yeah that's how we just man we roll we go quick yeah yeah we knew exactly what we wanted I like it and did you have a second baby already nope not yet nope but she's expecting no no oh I'm misplacing you with somebody else sorry yeah it's okay it happens so um what's uh what's one thing that she would say like why she fell in love with you um man I gosh I don't even know why she fell in love well pursuit has to be part of it right like you met this girl and all of a sudden you're like ready to come to Chicago to meet her yeah she's for sure out of my leak so I I think you're right the pursuit of man I know exactly what I want I've always known what I've wanted yeah and so I think she probably admired that about me um and I know go ahead that was just gonna say there's a lesson there I've had conversation with my wife and a couple of her girlfriends before were they just shared and like to be pursued by your husband come on is something that that women everywhere yeah are looking for yeah and so husbands if you're listening out there you know it's it's even it's even probably more flattering when there isn't like maybe this reason to be pursued or whatever like for Megan she's like what's this hunter guy like he's wants to come to Chicago to date me you know I hope he isn't think I'm that kind of girl right but but that's so it's so honoring and so uh you're special and turn it back to faith like the knowledge that you're being pursued by God like Christ in your life it's also very honoring right it's a good word yeah me left left the 99 for the one yeah so what was it about Megan that made you go like I'm imagine like the bugs buddy like holy who's that you know yeah yeah she's just got something about her that is like oh my gosh I want to just hang out with this person yeah um I mean high energy high passion um just a lover of people I mean ever since we've been married I'm not joking you we have never driven past a homeless person and Megan didn't say turn around like we gotta go we gotta go buy them dinner and I'm like we gotta get home or we gotta you know she's like no we gotta go run through McDonald's you know we gotta get them some coffee like whatever every single time I'm like man I as much as I'm get frustrated by that I'm like that's the that's the type of woman I want to be with for sure for sure I could appreciate yeah so talk to me about uh how old are you little he's a year old just you're ready just celebrate his first birthday just getting sleep for the first time in a year awesome so yeah I'd like to ask my guess uh is it one word description that you could place of your of your young man and what's his name his name is Malachi Malachi yeah yeah a curious the dude just wants to like I mean he just is very very intrigued by all the things yeah and it's convicting to me because a man every sound every thing that's in front of him like he just takes so much time to like introspect and look at and inspect and like man I don't ever stop for a second to look yeah you know he's just is a he just wants to explore all the things it's pretty cool that's awesome that's really best is a interesting thing like for generations really for most of human history like gathering information was like one of the things that separated the successful people from the less so now like to some extent the successful people have found out good ways to screen themselves from excessive information we've got so much of it flying around these days good point um so yeah that that that discernment that's all I'm gonna have right like yeah wish that upon Malachi to be curious about the right things and be able to uh to not to tune out some of that other stuff yeah I would be praying the same thing over him as well do you want to talk about your your mom your dad your extended family over here in this segment um sure yeah I mean I'm open to talk about anything yeah I man I I really do have great parents yeah um a mother who is is caring and passionate and a father who is the same I mean gentle and um a lover of people so learned so much from both of them I mean yeah even though they were divorced and kind of had to go back and forth and there were really hard times obviously as it everybody can probably attest to yeah um yeah there there's something special about the family unit and is there anything like striking about some of those hard times that made you stronger or more capable for the journey ahead um better worthy of of mention man I you know I've because I had to fly my dad lived in Florida for oh really so I I've been on flights I mean hundreds of flights really and so as a kid I just had to navigate that on my own and I think that really that really strengthened me in a lot of ways of free range almost yeah and so I'm an introvert and an independent soul yeah yeah my guy that's just kind of how I've always been an introvert but I can still do any whatever I want to totally totally that's cool which can be hard on my marriage right yeah I've been an extroverted wife can be hard so how do you guys manage that like because she's mostly home with kids right she is yes stay a home mama yeah and and she's got to probably be starving a little bit like you're getting more than your cup full of interactions with people and stuff too much she's getting less yeah yeah like how do you guys manage that yeah she's like all over you when you get home from she is I love it I do love it I take it for granted at times yeah I mean for me I have to wake up early so it's I just have to wake up at like five o'clock and get an hour in the word an hour in prayer and you know thinking about what what today's gonna look like when I'm asking God to do and then I read and then I get to the gym and you know what I mean like I have a whole kind of ritual deal and man that's all I need for the rest of the day I come good that charges you charges me man people don't charge me but my long time does yeah interesting yeah I I'm just charging when I'm in a long time I might have a introvert wife and I'm an extrovert so we probably should hang out as couples sometimes for sure you even Jill can go sit over there and probably like muse on things and me and Megan can we have a great conversation exactly I love it so uh so let's see anything else on family that's really worthy of mentioning any grandparents or uncles or people that really bent your world enough that they should almost be considered family yeah I don't think anything I mean I had had an incredible grandmother um who I mean really showed me a diversity they my mother and my grandmother wrote a book oh called which way okay and it's all about my grandmother's experience as an orphan who was very brutally abused has had 40 plus surgeries on her body and then my mother's perspective as a therapist from growing up because your mom saw this yeah she saw it later or just saw the the impact of some of that trauma in the way her mom interacted with her and stuff like that yeah so the two of them have deeply impacted me as well as obviously my dad so yeah the the three of them have been I mean those are the ones that raised me yeah he's really interesting so my uh my dad's no my yeah my dad's mom's father was an orphan that came to the US from Greece they thought from Lutheran social services when he was like 10 or 12 oh wow and uh so one eighth of my family tree is like orphan probably Greek boy wow kind of thing so anyway it's a it's neat to see that like from every circumstance you know I hard to say what the conditions of that orphanment and whatever are right but there's there's strength and awareness and perspective that that are lent to the world from those hard things absolutely yeah um politics is our third statement here what uh let's we've got the nothing nothing really going on we've got the state of the union address this evening we've got the Ukraine yeah uh we've got so much you know with the Minterns coming COVID went hastily into retreat right right what uh like what do you want to talk about in that yeah man I definitely don't I don't swing hard right and I also don't swing hard left I feel like I'm fairly balanced in my political yeah independent yeah yeah I'm pretty I'm pretty in the middle um but I will say man this Ukraine thing is just breaking my heart so we talked about right before this podcast um just absolutely crushing to see yeah to see really innocent people I mean having to throw on a K-47s to protect their country right I mean that's man can't even imagine but again I've just been asking God to do something in the in the midst of chaos and economic turmoil and you know what I mean like right the whole thing like what is God going to do yeah um yeah I'm also fascinating um like we take our second of member granted and stuff and there's certainly you know elements of our political engagement that would have us you know make everybody safer by whatever but Ukraine's like hey we just passed a second amendment and we're passing out guns you know a pretty interesting dynamic at play there you know really I think kind of I guess evidence is the urgency by which that they're looking for that for pushback if you will right right yeah I mean my wife and I have been having so many conversations about what we do if we were there and how do we help now and I mean what can we do right as as Americans living in the middle of the U.S. like what do we do yeah and so I I don't know the answer other than yeah can give money can obviously pray like what so that's the that's the million dollar question for us yeah it's an interesting thing I saw a meme recently foundation for economic freedom is one of the things I follow or whatever it's like you know people don't make war nor wish that governments do and and I think that's by and large pretty accurate like there's never been like a people group like even Russia like that just have this like innate hostility like let's go kick those Ukrainians asses right you know and but yet over the centuries certainly power struggles between nation states is you know why we don't have twice as many people on the planet today is we would otherwise but maybe we don't want that many anyway it's like it's such a complicated thing right yeah yeah for sure I mean at the end of the day when it comes to politics or really hard issues like this I just always cling to you know Romans 8 I believe is what it is which which just says God you know he's gonna do all things you know he's gonna he's gonna turn it for good we shouldn't struggle too much against whatever because he's gonna turn it for good and he's gonna turn it to glorify himself for you know especially for believers he he will do a work yeah and we might not see it on this side of heaven we might not see it you know in the next couple generations but God will glorify himself and even in the hardest of times is there things politically that you would like to see effort put into or that would make our political system here in the US work better I think that one one thing I'm thinking about is like when when Trump started using kind of the power of the state to do stuff then the kind of the more progressive or like well you can't do that it's like you know and like I like to say you know of a what do we call us a republic you're right like a republic like it's kind of okay and even good that some states will do it this way other states will do it this way and it gives us that opportunity to not have one big decider in Washington DC but yeah definitely seems like we're going away from that republic notion to more of a democracy right you see a lot of that communicator right now is no we need a democracy where if 52% of people agree that's the rules right right like Canada trucker crisis is kind of that right like there's 82% even maybe of people that agree but yeah does that mean we just hold the other 18% down and jab them and call it a day right right I mean I don't know that's I am so grateful that I am not in the political world you know it professionally because yeah man it's that's a whole different game yeah that I am grateful that I'm not as well informed as maybe I could be on all those things but I do get fired up about it but also in the same breath I can't expect I can't expect if my expectations are really high for the government for policies I'm always going to be let that right it's a broken world and so what should expect for it to be just a right bit of a set show so when I see when I see especially believers that gets so mad about government I'm like man what what do you expect in right it's not this is not necessarily a god ordained right you know deal garbage in garbage out kind of right so just I mean lower your expectations and like just protect your family right and so I have expectations from my family but not for the government yeah fair enough is there anything on this general category that that you'd like to see more of less of you know one of the things I I get concerned of like is like you were in social media right like that's how you communicate with people these days like but that's one of the big things I get worried about is we have different sets of information now right like when we all were like thinking about the Bible or we're all like here's seventh grade math yeah right there's like we're all on the same page right right and now we have first of all there's highly disparate educational experiences some people don't learn crap you know and some people get a really good public education and everywhere in between but then also beyond that is like everybody's new speed is curated by them yeah based on the things that they've clicked and based on the things they've interacted with so yeah you can never get any little news that hurts your little brain because don't worry that will be hidden from you the every algorithm on planet earth if in by and large is curated to be an echo chamber of what you want to hear right on whether it's the right side or the left side which is why we have more extreme you know more extremist on the left and on the right than ever before because you're just getting fed more and more information on the left that's making you more and more left or advise versa right and so this algorithm is killing us which is amazing foretelling of the Bible like if this isn't prophecy that what's that line it's something like they'll put put leaders in place that will tell them what their itching ears want them to hear right yeah boom yeah right there it's scary and I know I hate to sound like a broken record but ultimately I'm just so grateful that I'm not having to cling to truth my truth is not based in the media and and not based in the news that I'm getting yeah how I dictate my life and how I make decisions is based solely on scripture which does not change and it's not your truth at all it's not my truth it's the truth it's the truth and it it doesn't change there's not new versions of the Bible coming out there's different obviously translations but they also the same thing right right and so thank god that that's my truth and that's my anchor so if it's anything else it's going to be fleeting yeah interesting um last chance for any more uh politics conversation here man I know that I can think of so we're gonna roll into excuse me hiccups trying to flush out um the loco experience okay so that's your the craziest experience of your life moment week year in the life whatever that you're willing to describe in a public forum hmm great question yeah I mean the the thing that comes to mind first is as a kid you know in Fort Collins um I'm I'm probably in middle school at this point and my mom is getting her nails done at a nail salon okay um on real close to uh to prospect in lame yeah there's a little nail salon shop over there my mom's getting her nails done and I am walking around I'm I'm probably gonna go get something from the gas station again I'm in middle school probably gonna go get a soda in my free range child yeah exactly as I walk by an alleyway um I see someone in a clown suit and as I walk by um I see that the the clown has something behind its back and he turns around and he looks at me obviously I'm a small child and he comes up to me and he says um hey do you come closer I want to show you something and I said oh no I'm I'm good like thank you I appreciate it he's like no seriously come closer and he's starting walking faster towards me has something behind his back I don't see what it is and then he's just all out sprinting at me and I'm sprinting away from him and I literally dive into the gas station right across the street um and just in like begging for help from the from the cash you're like help someone chasing me I don't know what to do like help help me and um yeah I mean just I guess the gas clerk the glass gas station clerk saw him you know this guy running away that this man clearly had Down syndrome the guy that was dressed in a clown suit yeah yeah and so there was like real mental health issues and and so but man I was he may have been dangerous he may not have been hard to save necessarily for sure I had no idea what was going on I just knew like this is not said this is not safe and so that was probably one of the crazy experiences for sure yeah well was he like a friendly looking clown or scary it's very very scary are you scared of clones still totally totally you will never catch me at the fair you'll never catch me at the carnival I should probably get you like a every year carnival pass for life yeah I should get one no we just got to go through your trial sometimes yeah yeah exactly hey tell people if they want to like look you up look up beyond blue media learn more that kind of thing how do they find you yeah beyond blue media dot com sutures on searchers on google take a big out of reviews our phone numbers there give us a ring um and we'd love to help we'd love to help with whatever you need um but yeah that's how you can find us beyond blue media dot com cool hunter thanks for making time thanks for having me always enjoy the time with together thanks for listening to this episode of the logo experience podcast if 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