The Moment CEOs Realize They’ve Become the Bottleneck

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Full Transcript (AI generated and might include errors)

Barry Bradham (00:00)
So many CEOs can become the bottleneck as they're growing and as they're trying to build their teams. Your team needs to know where you're going. You can spend a lot of time not getting where you want to go.

Jeff Holman (00:11)
Welcome back everybody to the breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman. I'm an attorney and you might be wondering what in the world is this attorney doing talking to CEOs? Well, it's because I get to, I get to see behind the scenes from some of my clients and I know that there's a lot of times more chaos going on in the background than what is, whatever makes it out into the public. Of course, I can't share that with you because that's all confidential, but I bring guests on like Barry Bradham. Barry, welcome to the show.

Barry Bradham (00:36)
Thank you very much, Jeff, for having me here. I'm excited to share.

Jeff Holman (00:39)
Yeah, I'm excited to have you share because now we get to see behind the scenes with some people who've been there and done that. And we do it in an open setting so that the audience, other people, scaling businesses, companies, know, founding startups can see behind the scenes as to what Barry and other guests have done. So it's an exciting endeavor for me because I love talking about these things. And I think it's really helpful, to be honest, for CEOs to see, number one,

You're not the only one making dumb mistakes. Not that Barry's ever made a dumb mistake, but you know, other CEOs have. But you're not the only one who's made a dumb mistake before. You're not the only one who's been in a situation that didn't come out the way you thought it would. And not that that's meant to be comforting in the negative, but other people have been there and they've made it through it. you know, so can you. So anyway, let's jump into the show here. ⁓

Barry, like I said, it's great to have you. We chatted just a ⁓ little bit before the show, but we got a lot more we can jump into. So ⁓ you mentioned in our icebreaker questions that we talked about before, you mentioned just the beginning of your career. I'm excited to hear as we get down further and further into the businesses that you started and why you started and things like that. But it sounds like you weren't necessarily ⁓ brought up or trained or

Barry Bradham (01:41)
Absolutely.

Jeff Holman (02:03)
even exposed to the world of entrepreneurship early on. that the case?

Barry Bradham (02:07)
Yeah, very fair assessment.

Jeff Holman (02:11)
So you ended up going to school and becoming a banker.

Barry Bradham (02:17)
Yeah. And then that wasn't planned at all. Going to college wasn't planned at all. that I, you know, I committed to a two year with some scholarships and then did that. then, and then got more scholarships and committed to another two years and just kind of all of sudden ended up, uh, close to graduating and really bear down and change my major a ton of times and found business. And, and, uh, just loved what I had to offer. And I realized that I,

I like starting businesses and I'm very creative. And so there's a lot of creativity and marketing and psychology and how you talk to people and audience and how you talk about products and services and all of that. So yeah, it absolutely wasn't planned. Banking just happened. went to a career fair and kind of just got talked to by the, in the financial industry from a bank called Northwest financial, which is now Wells Fargo financial. then, um, did that for a year and went through some banks and started real estate and.

Left the banking October 2005. last W2 that I've ever drawn and, and got into real estate and then the rest is history.

Jeff Holman (03:28)
Well, congratulations on over 20 years ⁓ of being out of the W2 world. That's an accomplishment in and of itself. Well, so what would you say is it, you know, is there something from your background that kind of drew you into business or was it more like, ⁓ look what I found. This is awesome. I didn't know it existed.

Barry Bradham (03:47)
My dad would say that I was always good at sales. ⁓ You know, maybe convincing him of things to do things or whatnot. But yeah, I, in college, I had a lot of opportunity and in the business club, it was called and bringing students in free enterprise called SIFE is the acronym to the campus where I went to college. And, and that, you know, I didn't really mean to, it just kind of happened. I got asked to be part of it. And then

leadership change, ended up being the president of that organization and then just leading a team of creative people to have, we had to do a stage presentation with CEOs around in Seattle. And, and that just kind of, I guess I realized that that's my calling and we have for that project, we got to start a business on campus and I started a printing company called campus custom printing. oddly I, I went back to that and I now have a pretty big

printing company as well.

Jeff Holman (04:47)
wait, now this is, wait, what timeframe was this?

Barry Bradham (04:52)
That was in 1999.

Jeff Holman (04:55)
Okay, so the whole concept of being in business classes and actually starting a business, that was pretty unique back then. You know, I graduated with my undergrad in electrical engineering in 2000, took a few business classes, and I don't remember any of the business professors saying, hey guys, we're going to start a business this semester. So that's kind of unique. think a lot more programs are doing that these days. There's some that are just like straight up entrepreneurship, try to start a successful business and drop out of school before you graduate, I think.

Yeah, that's not that wasn't common back then was it?

Barry Bradham (05:28)
Yeah, not to me and not to, my experience with everything. was all kind of, I'm kind of a trailblazer, like I said, my family and kind of still in life and, know, used to be a, ⁓ the last adopter of new technology. And now I'm kind of the first to try to be the first technology technology, new adopter of things like, like AI and now open cloth, you know, you know, I've got an AI agent running on its own computer with its own stuff. And that's been very interesting.

this last month exploring that. yeah, to your question, yeah, I think it was. And like I said, SIFE wasn't on campus. wasn't one of the extracurriculars. They had a business club. And that's what I got involved in. And then we pulled SIFE to it, which I think gave it a whole nother level of exposure with other CEOs.

Jeff Holman (06:19)
Wow. Well, I have to say, as simple as that may sound looking back on, I don't know if it was or not, as simple as it might sound to some people to say that you actually did a project in school or you started a business while you're in school and it's still going, you know, like, what is it? 26 years later. That's very impressive in and of itself. So I'm sure we'll hear some more details about that as we talk. I'm curious though, from that time to today, if you, if you kind of look at, step back and look at your, at the

trajectory that you've been on, is there a through line or like a ⁓ theme that maybe has carried through, maybe even developed and matured over time for your business experience?

Barry Bradham (07:02)
You know, and the more I explore entrepreneurialism and what that means and what it means to me, I think that's the theme for me is that I truly am a person who likes to find things that either don't exist or they don't exist well and make them exist or make them exist better. And as technology changes, as the time changes, we've had a lot of examples of that, right? The way people shop, the way I took my first Waymo.

two days ago in San Francisco drive. So a self-driving car, autonomous vehicle, known about them for a long time, but here in Orange County, California, they don't have them. LA has them and I've just never done it. So I was there and I decided, okay, well I'm gonna do my first Waymo. It did a great job. It was very safe. It felt safe. I didn't have my seatbelt on in the back seat, which sometimes I don't when I'm traveling with somebody else driving and somebody called in and they said, hey, Mr. Bratton. ⁓

We'd really appreciate it if you put your seatbelt on. Yeah. So it was very impressive. And of course that's an alphabet owned and Google owned endeavor.

Jeff Holman (07:59)
really?

That's cool. So you're a learner then you like to you like to explore learn new stuff. I sometimes think of myself as a as a trailblazer maverick in the sense that I am perfectly fine looking at the landscape. I say I've seen people have gone this way and I see a bunch of people have gone this way. I wonder what's down the middle here. What can I find if I go down this place? It doesn't look like anyone's been here. I'm sure they have to some degree, but it doesn't look very well traveled. Let's let's see what's down that path. Is that kind of what you do?

Barry Bradham (08:33)
Yeah, absolutely. And especially if it's a path that I haven't been down before. I kind of want to experience it on my own.

Jeff Holman (08:39)
Yeah. ⁓ some people I think believe that that makes it makes learning harder in the sense that you're having to re-experience things that you could have learned more easily than, by doing it yourself. Has that been your experience? I mean, I it's, I think it's a spin. Some people put on it that don't really feel comfortable doing that type of trailblazing, but that's me because I feel like that's a juxtaposition to how I view it.

Barry Bradham (08:53)
is out.

Jeff Holman (09:08)
But I'm curious what your take is on that. Just a quick note about our guests. I host the Breakout CEO podcast to share behind the scenes insights from scaling businesses. As an attorney, I see the real challenges leaders face long before success becomes public. But client stories have to stay confidential. So we invite guest CEOs to share their own moments of struggle and success. I'm so grateful to our guests and my team at Intellectual Strategies.

for making this show possible. Now, let's get back to the show.

Barry Bradham (09:42)
The more I can learn about that, maybe that road that I've not taken best to go down it. I always try to do the proper research before starting a new project or a new venture or researching if some software exists already that I'm thinking about developing. That's an important one. I've learned that lesson before where I spent all this time, energy and money into something. And somebody's like, so you, and I explained it to somebody. They're like, so you mean like XYZ company? I look it up. like, ⁓ yeah.

I guess so. So yeah, the, more experience, I guess you can gain experience from learning from other people, their experiences, which is always, always great. But to, you know, experience something yourself, I might see things or experience them in a different way. ⁓ then, you know, and and I like to be the expert on as much things as I can. So my employees, I can teach them better. can train them better, develop them further and quicker. ⁓ cause I feel like I can learn something.

Jeff Holman (10:12)
much.

Barry Bradham (10:41)
deeply really quick and then to be able to make it simple for somebody to really grasp how to do it and get them onboarded in a very, ⁓ I guess, free of chaos and just more efficient.

Jeff Holman (10:53)
Okay, yeah, and that's its own thing, right? To be able to learn something fast is a skill set and it's a separate skill set to be able to then teach that to somebody else. Where has this mindset taken you from the time that you were in undergrad to business school, you're part of SIFE and you became a banker, you did some real estate? What are the major pit stops along the way since then?

Barry Bradham (11:17)
Well, the more I knew, the more I learned then the more I realized I didn't know. And I just wanted to know. I would love to have, had known somebody who like an Alex Stern back then, the founder of constant conscious and we're stationed with him at a private little meeting that we had listening to Spanish music. It was just great. was away from the venue. So him and I really got to chat about things.

And, ⁓ and that really grew my experience. I might just, I got so into that moment just now. I forgot your question. I was trying one of the pinnacles of my year so far, so I apologize.

Jeff Holman (11:53)
It's such a.

No, that's awesome. That's awesome. ⁓ My question, we can come back to that. Happy to hear more about it. My question was about going from where you were early on with SIFE and banking and getting into real estate to ⁓ today. As a learner, I'm curious how that has, you know, what have been the major milestones or pit stops along the way with your businesses? Because you've got multiple businesses.

that you've started and run and are running. So what are those highlights?

Barry Bradham (12:33)
And that's, and that's the whole story, I guess, of me is the, more I've, I've learned, that's how I've grown. And I knew then when I was in banking, real estate was shot, the bubble burst. ⁓ and I had some decisions to make. What am I going to do with my life? Am I going to go back into banking? I can't continue in real estate right now. There's, didn't see an avenue for that. I wasn't a realtor, so I didn't get into the short sell market. I looked at maybe doing that, but I just,

needed to start learning. So I taught myself something that I love. I've always been an artist and I was curious as to how, how they put art on computers. And so I learned about Adobe and the master suite and Photoshop. And I remembered using Photoshop back in the day. And, you know, I had to develop logos for new businesses and things, and I hired somebody to do it. And then I wanted to learn how to do it. And so I taught myself very quickly how to use Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver back then, Flash and all these things. And that's

You know, exploring that, think really led me into so many things that I do now, but graphic design, the basics files, you know, file types and all of that is needed and necessary for every business. And now with AI, it's still even more so necessary. Why can't I, why can't Gemini maybe something that I can print on a, on a huge banner? Well, escalation, distortion, all those things are so important that a lot of people now clients in my other companies, I'm teaching my people how to talk to clients about.

AI because they're like, why can't I put this on a shirt? How come it doesn't look good? So, learning that and again, being able to, you know, take that experience to my, to my team so they can learn faster. ⁓ but yeah, it applies to everything. That's, that's my whole, my whole journey. And that's what got every single business that I've, I've started in every single product that I've developed has all been about solving problems for other people.

Jeff Holman (14:23)
Yeah, I'm curious. So, yeah, let's go through maybe the, what's the chronology then? We'll do an overview and then we'll dive into a couple breakout moments in those businesses.

Barry Bradham (14:33)
So yeah, so I started BFW, that's what you're asking, right? The real quick journey.

Jeff Holman (14:37)
Yeah. Which, businesses have you started? I love for love to have the audience know. Okay.

Barry Bradham (14:42)
Okay.

So after that, I started a marketing company and ended up being Manhattan beach. I moved from Bend, Oregon to Manhattan, and I was across the street from the original Skechers. Well, I don't know if it's original, but back in 2009, the Skechers corporate headquarters was across the street from a little office that I rented above Starbucks right there up from Manhattan beach pier. ⁓ a great place to go if you're, if you're broken starting over, by the way.

That was tough. Life is one of the most expensive places to live and that's where I chose. But I think something guided me there because there were the people that I was around the knowledge that I gained being in the right area. We're, know, like Silicon Valley, but you know, back in the seventies, for example, you know, so there's places like that, that as an entrepreneur, if you're around that coffee shop, with the right people. So anyway, I met those guys. wanted to, asked, what do you do flags?

flags, they wanted to do a nonprofit walk to the beach in Manhattan. So I, that led me to banners and flags. And now I have a company, my first company that I started that's still existing. It's a printing company. Like I said, um, just to correct one quick little thing though, the campus business that I started, that's not what I own now that I just did that. That was ownership of the university. we, that was a fundraiser, a place to develop people and their skills.

Jeff Holman (15:51)
Mm-hmm.

got it.

Barry Bradham (16:06)
in all different areas. So anyway, so BFW displays, how, you know, I, so I did that and, and, you know, we've got great clients that order all the time. I'm thankful that I made that online. knew that was going to be important. So I made that an online venture and automated and scaled that way I can reach people in all States, which became very important when COVID hit because many States closed down and events. didn't because of that, you know, I was able to

continue operating and I lost a of employees. So because I was automating and using all these tools before AI, um, that allowed me to pivot and change a little bit of how I do that business. But it also had people come to me that are my friends or other CEOs saying, Hey, we've got the same problem. How have you done it? And because we're just, you know, we're having little coffee networking sessions on zoom, just trying to keep, you know, keep from going insane during that time. But also just share these tactics and

I was able to help many of them with their businesses. One's an economic development council down in San Diego to help my friend Jim structure that in a way to where, you they once had employees to do all these jobs. I'm not a huge proponent of, of removing jobs, but when you lose employees and it's hard to get them back and there was a, that was a very difficult time to hire people. And so we, but we were forced to figure out other ways to do so many of these things. And so that started Surfline media.

which is my media company where I do that type of work. ⁓ and then that, that quickly, you know, I realized it's tough to work with other business owners. They need that type of thing. They have to be in the mindset to make some decision changes to, you know, to incorporate, to execute, I guess, on those things. And they're not always ready. They think they're ready, but they're not ready to do what it's going to take to do that. And that's kind of some things I talk about one of my books that I'm writing right now.

⁓ but then, you know, from that point on, I'd really fallen in love with building software that has helped my company and now software that's helping hundreds. I just launched it this last week and it's, it's very amazing. And Alec even told me, said, Alex turn constant contact. says, your mind's going to blow when you start to see a software take off and people start using it, talking about it, your life's going to change.

I'm kind of in the process of that right now. So I'm very excited about workflow and what that's doing. and the, you know, it's really becoming so important for companies that like do go high level or graphic designers or these things to scale, you know,

Jeff Holman (18:43)
Yeah, that makes sense. sounds like there's kind of a repeating theme too here that ⁓ you can tell me if I'm seeing it wrong or not. But as you're talking about scaling a business or you're talking about other business owners, you know, come into you asking, how are you doing it? even when you're building a software platform out. I mean, I think a lot of this has an underlying, a consistent message around

In order to do this, you have to learn the system well enough that you can then put the rules in place or the systems and processes, the SOP, whatever you want to call it. You have to know it well enough to be able to define how it's going to work, whether that's in software and automations, whether that's with good employees that are willing to work or whether that's replacing employees who, who due to COVID aren't showing up to work, whatever it is. Like a lot of this comes down to.

⁓ really defining the operations in a business so well that the business starts to become a business, right? Instead of being just your job. What do you think it was that people were seeing about the way you were doing stuff when they were coming to you and they're like, Barry, looks like things are going well. Help me out. I'm struggling. What were they seeing that you were doing differently than they were doing?

Barry Bradham (20:04)
I probably surviving calmly, probably being able to do it without the employees. And, and, you know, they, and they, at that point they needed to do something too. And, and I would say also being able to golf a lot. I golfed a lot during COVID like, like 30 times a week, or I mean a month I would golf and that was a lot for me because I'm so focused on my businesses, but I had to, I had to work things out. I had to work through, you know,

what that meant for me and my companies and try to predict the future. And so many of the things that I saw in 2020 are things that I've developed or in the process of developing now. So COVID was really, really negative in so many people's worlds, but very positive in mine.

Jeff Holman (20:52)
Well, is that, is that partly a personality thing or is it more, uh, I mean, cause there are a lot of people, right? That are, they're pretty chill people. Now, a lot of, a lot of those people don't become entrepreneurs because that being, super chill about stuff, uh, it doesn't necessarily go along with the effort it takes to build a company from scratch. But some people just have that personality trait. Other people, I think they, you know, they, maybe it's partly that they know their system so well.

They know what they can and they can't control. And when you know what you can control, you know, and you're proactive about it, you go in and you start to control it. And sometimes, maybe counterintuitively, when you know there are things you can't control, stressing about it doesn't really help a whole lot. You could be frustrated, but, you know, going in there and trying to control the things you can't. Whether we're talking business, whether we're talking life, whether they're talking kids, like, if you can't control it, you can't control it and trying to control it might...

be more frustrating than just saying to yourself, you know what, this is, I don't have a way to control that lower. But what free, there a, is there a mix of those things for you?

Barry Bradham (22:01)
Yeah, of course. And, know, I, I used to use people to brainstorm with, and now I use AI to brainstorm with, it knows me so well that I could, you anybody can go on there, ask, ask you to write a full report on me and it nails it. Like it knows everything. So you can develop a relationship with an AI, whatever one you choose. Some are better than others, but, and, and then it will know you, it'll know your weaknesses. It'll know your strengths and it will know.

It'll help you to go through what those controllables are. Sometimes maybe something's controllable that I'm afraid of it, right? Or I don't know that I can control it, but you know, you just have to try and there's a lot of things you just have to try. You just have to ask and you got to find, yeah, you got to, you got to explore. spent a lot of time exploring and, writing to-do lists and action plans and gosh, AI has been just phenomenal for that.

Jeff Holman (22:55)
What are some ways that you've put this stuff into practice then in your own business?

Barry Bradham (23:02)
Specifically, like.

Jeff Holman (23:03)
Yeah, just how are you so yeah, how are you how are you taking AI and leveraging the fact that it you know that it has captured your personality or captured some of your your the way you think and the stuff you're focused on? How are you how are you taking that and leveraging it in your business?

Barry Bradham (23:21)
Absolutely. ⁓ I love just walking around with my phone to my, and talking into it and brainstorming and asking a questions. And then I really love how I get, it'll prompt you at the end, you know, everybody knows this now because you're using AI, but, then just go down that rabbit hole. And then my employees have access to my account. So I just tell my employees, Hey, look at this, this, ⁓ you know, this, ⁓ maybe it's marketing copy or something that I wrote for this new product.

And that will give them everything they need to build a funnel page or an email campaign, or they can take that, copy that into their own AI, and then they can do a lot of work with it. But that original copy starts from me, and I'm just explaining to AI, and this is helping me to make it more clear, I guess. And then being able to give that to my employees, helps them understand quickly too. And then now that I've built workflow in one flow from my own company,

I can just take that and say, copy it and paste it into workflow and give that to any of my contractors. And then now my contractors have all of that and they know what to do with it. And I just, you know, the way that I invented a workflow and that's why it's such a game changer right now is because it helps the customer know either what to ask AI for, but what it gets them answering the right questions. So my team is going to do a better job of building a website for them.

building a software tool for them, doing a graphic design project, whatever those things are, working with Ingo High Level to fix their funnels or technology, whatever it is, that makes it easier for people. that all start, for me, that's how I start now is through AI. I could go on and on about it. I could write a book about it, how I use it.

Jeff Holman (25:12)
Or have AI write your book for you more or less, right? Or at get the outline.

Barry Bradham (25:17)
But

it knows my tone and it knows my style. it still feels like it's my words.

Jeff Holman (25:21)
Yeah, I love that we this feels so impactful and yet we're also on the very front edge of it. So it's who knows where this is going to go. It's going to be exciting to watch. I want to ask you as you look back on your career, ⁓ maybe think back on the last, you know, five or six years or some timeframe. What's one of the moments when you when you really hit a wall and you

Barry Bradham (25:32)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jeff Holman (25:50)
And you know, you're like, man, I don't know about this. This is maybe this is the end of my game here. And then you somehow switch that perspective. You got exposed maybe to a new thing you were learning that day or, or talk to somebody new and it, and it kind of brought new life back into what you were doing and maybe even change the trajectory of that business. Is there a moment that stands out for you like that? ⁓

Barry Bradham (26:13)
We've

got a lot of them actually, but the, the, biggest one is fresh now because it just kind of happened. I was, I was going to close my media company and I was going to quit doing the work that I do in that space because it, I love it because it serves others when they're, but the other people aren't as efficient in communicating. And so that takes a lot of time and it creates mistakes and it creates just inconsistency in the work that we're trying to do for them. But when I developed one flow,

in the sense that this is how we now do it. You get an account there and you're talking directly. One of the problems that it solves is if you're, if you're using outsourced labor, somebody in Bangladesh, for example, or Philippines or wherever, you don't want them emailing. And if they're just a contractor, they're not an employee. You don't want them to email directly with your client. Right. So the portal, what it does is it allows for that open communication where everybody, my whole team has access to it. So every, so the visibility in the

Jeff Holman (27:02)
Sure.

Barry Bradham (27:12)
⁓ the transparency on the billing and the communication and all of that is just critical. And that allows me to step out of it and not be the bottleneck in my own company, which so many CEOs can become the bottleneck as they're growing and as they're trying to build their teams. that that's just been the, the, biggest game changer, I think. And now I've, I recognize how to use this tool for all my companies.

And so many other people, when I do demonstrations, I don't do one-on-one demonstrations anymore because it's so popular. I fill rooms. So I've got this other thing that I do where it's like a zoom, but it's like a huge convention hall where we meet and I can do a presentation and show them how to use it. I can do a Q and a afterwards. And so that's, know, man, that's, that's the big one right now. I'm really excited about it because it's changing so many business owners in the way they do business.

Jeff Holman (28:05)
Yeah, what does your team look like and how would your team characterize the difference that they're seeing in the trajectory of the business?

Barry Bradham (28:13)
Wow. That's a really good question. ⁓ I have a new executive assistant and she lives in Kosovo and she's incredible. She's, she's the best I've ever had. And I, I hope that she knows that I tell her that as much as possible. ⁓ not just financially rewarding, but also, you know, communication. ⁓ I would say that, you know, the things that she's seen only in five months has been, and she's told me this, that it's just incredible to see that journey and she's excited about it. She's excited to be on this team.

And she, you know, and she's kind of involved with all my companies. So she really is, she's got the aptitude to really keep up and to help me in hiring decisions and other things. So I think that she's blown away. Other employees are a little bit, a little bit, maybe a little scared of where they're going to fit in the future. And I try to be good at letting them know you're not, nobody here is ever in danger of losing your job. So long as you have the right attitude.

Like we're using AI, but we need people and teams to use AI. That's that it's not so good that it, that you can just give it your vision and it's going to build a business and make it happen. At least not today. So, you know, and I don't want anybody to be fearful of that. And I try to keep that as I'm expressing my vision to them. think that's another important thing. Your team needs to know where you're going. Otherwise they're forced to make their own assumptions.

Jeff Holman (29:36)
Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, that's, that kind of ⁓ touches on one of the, what I, what I see as one of the struggles of being a CEO of a growing company or maybe any company, but, especially a growing company where you've got maybe a team that, you know, it's an intimate, you know, personal relationship with people and ⁓ trying to keep that balance of, Hey, we're growing, we're adding people or we're adding tools, but we're, you know, we're building the team that we have.

and trying to keep everybody happy while still, you know, catering to what the business needs to grow is, it could be a struggle. you can't always, as a CEO, you can't always turn to your employees and be like, hey, let me bounce this idea off you. What if we consolidate our team and add some more tools here? How would you feel about that? You know the answer to that, right? So it's, and that's why I've talked to some of my clients before, just...

almost off the record, I'm like, Hey, we got this project done. But let me ask you, like, how are you doing? It feels like maybe you're, really lonely here at the top and you're, you're, don't, you don't necessarily have someone you can turn to because your investors are saying you got to impress your investors with the numbers and you got to keep your team happy with, what would be the impact on them with anything that happened in the business. Like where do you turn when you, when you're, when

maybe you just don't have the right people to go to. And I'm to take AI off the table because I know everybody today says, well, I go to AI, it's a good place to bounce ideas off. Is there somewhere else that you turn or someone else you turn to? How do you balance that? What I'm just going to call CEO loneliness sometimes or isolation.

Barry Bradham (31:21)
Yeah. Yeah. I, I focus a lot on that actually. And that got kind of worse for a lot of people during COVID. And what, what I, what I did then is I started an organization called Entra Engage for entrepreneurs. was kind of a combination of like a BNI, a business networking international and a Vistage or EO, which is entrepreneurial organization. They have a lower group called accountability. I think that's what it's called. Actually, it's been, that might not be called that, that might be incorrect, but.

⁓ so I started developing this and I built a website and I started, you know, having meetings and then I was introduced to this, to this man named, ⁓ named Joe Beck and he owns, he, he, ⁓ national networking organization and of higher level kind of, I don't mean higher level people. just mean people doing kind of higher level things, newers, founders, business owners. We think differently. We talk differently.

We carry ourselves differently and we're on a different kind of a path. And then the normal mind to fiber, that's just kind of in their lane, staying there. So I, so I'm always drawn to that. Like I mentioned earlier about, you know, connecting with the right people and being in the right room. this is a virtual space where we meet and there's maybe 15 or 20 different sessions, um, every month where a member has the opportunity to join in a room.

give a presentation about what they do be introduced properly to that presentation. And then we all get networking tables and got, you know, afterwards and go out and network individually with people, click on their avatar, connect on LinkedIn, follow on Instagram, book an appointment, whatever that is. And so that's been so impactful and that's fairly new that I, didn't have California. So I bought California. So now I'm starting the same thing in LA.

Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno. And I also bought Florida. So I'll be doing the same thing Orlando. I go there a lot for different conventions or Orlando Jackson, go all of those. And then I bought Houston because you know, I've got a strong network in Houston as well. So it's called three linked like Mary three, the number three linked and it's a

Jeff Holman (33:30)
What was that called again?

Barry Bradham (33:39)
It's, an impressive group. I'm catching it young enough that I really have, I feel like I have a lot of, ⁓ a lot of value to bring because I already was doing this with Entree Engage. And so I'm bringing that, my personality and my movement. And essentially it's a round table for lonely CEOs. Getting back to your question. So we can discuss, can share resources and this AI is working great. I'm doing open cloud now. How's that working? You know, what pitfalls maybe should I look out for?

So, you know, maybe I have this, Hey, I've got this great opportunity. How do I get prepared for it? Has anybody dealt with that before? We work together to help solve those types of problems. And that's called the mastermind that we do together. And that's, that's really impactful. What I love also about M3 Linked is what we've created here is a national spot for business owners who are salespeople even, but usually business owners who can do business outside of their state. Usually they're not financial people or things like realtors, but sometimes they are.

And they want to go and they can, you know, go to M3 nation and they can talk to people all over the country. That's pretty fantastic. But some people like an electrician might want to just, if he owns an electrical company here in Huntington beach, he can just go to the hyper local virtual session here in Huntington. But then we also have a live sessions too, that I put on it at some really nice places. And so, so you have live, you have virtual, then you have the mastermind site, the perfect networking spot for somebody who is.

you know, really on a CEOs, CEOs, founders, owners. This is fantastic for people like that. And I'm happy to connect an invite. It's kind of an invite thing. I'd happy to invite anybody listening at any point to any of these locations.

Jeff Holman (35:24)
I love it. Man, you're busy, Barry. You got a lot going on.

Barry Bradham (35:28)
Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. on my team and I enjoy that too.

Jeff Holman (35:34)
Yeah, for sure. I wanted to ask you too, because you mentioned in the, in our other segment about the, the voyage. Did I get that right? Is that the name of it?

Yeah, because it sounds like we haven't talked about it yet, but it sounds like you have a little jewelry business or something. Is that right?

Barry Bradham (35:52)
Yeah. So I started, thanks for asking. It's a passion project, I guess. it's, ⁓ doesn't really need to be profitable. It's something I enjoy doing. I started with women's jewelry. have a lot of sisters and a mom and a girlfriend. And I like to, you know, I'd like, I like jewelry. I like style. I like classy things. And then it just came to me actually a dream. then, and then walking on the beach, I just came home, just grabbed my drawing pad and started drawing. And basically I just drew.

you know, waves down below and the storm clouds up above and the story, the story of the voyage is my kind of my entrepreneurial voyage of being an entrepreneur. Cause you're out on the ocean. can't control it all the time. You're out whether you can't control. And so there's all these things through life that you can't control economic. Impact or whatever it is, other people. And every time, whether you win or you lose, as long as you live, living part's pretty important. I feel like it's like a

It's a gem. It's a, it's a diamond. And so that's why I have the Pabé set stones all between everything is, is those are the reminders of every lesson is good as long as it doesn't kill you. And as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else, but, um, you know, so, so that's what it's about. So I'm done, designed a ring and a wrist cuff and some other things by David German. mean, I love David German as a designer and a lot of his work.

Jeff Holman (37:17)
That's very cool. I'm not going to dig into the details of the business on that one, but the message I think is it's well worth repeating over and over, right? Which is why you see it every day probably as you're wearing the jewelry that you've created.

Barry Bradham (37:31)
Yeah. And people ask me a lot about it I get to share the story.

Jeff Holman (37:36)
that's awesome. Because it really is. mean, business, especially in the entrepreneur ⁓ realm, the startup world, a lot of it is about living or persisting long enough to get through the failures to find the success. So that's very cool. Maybe we'll have to get an image or a link or something for that. Because our guests probably can't see that very clearly, especially if they're listening on audio, but we can tell them where to look to see it.

Barry Bradham (38:04)
Absolutely.

Jeff Holman (38:05)
That's awesome. Well, what would you leave with somebody else who's maybe following your journey or let put it a different way. You came from a family where you're kind of trailblazing out of the outside of the, your, was your family normal, right? You're the first one to kind of go down this path. If you hope this isn't too personal, but if you had a child and the child came and said, dad, you know, I want to do what you're doing.

But I don't want to make, I don't want to to make all the mistakes, right? Like what would be, what would be a piece of advice that you'd give to them as they're deep in the journey of, you know, starting and building a business? Where would you tell them to turn or what would you tell them to do to make it through that?

Barry Bradham (38:48)
First of all, I think it comes, I don't have children yet and I hope that I do, but I think it comes with a strong relationship with that child and to be really aware of their developmental years, that three years to eight years is just such a critical point for them to be challenged the right way, rewarded the right way. ⁓ People around them that are the right role models, second examples that communicate well. I think that's, that's number one, because if you don't do that,

And then you say, Hey, avoid these mistakes or don't do this. Maybe they're not going to listen. Maybe they're, they're going to be like, I'm doing my own way anyway. And then they're going to crash the car or whatever it is. ⁓ so I think, I think it comes more than just what's spoken, but modeling the right behaviors. And then hopefully through that, they're going to learn, ⁓ because I talk about it in my books. And when I speak about these mistakes or,

you know, challenging times so that they can avoid them themselves. But I also would hope that I, if they're interested in something that I'm doing or interested in something that they want to do that, that together we'll build something great for them. And if they want my help with that or not, and if they don't want my help, well then hopefully then I've been a good enough role model that they have a lot of resources and people that I've helped them in their life to know that will help them through those things. Attorneys like you, for example.

Jeff Holman (40:14)
Yeah, that's a I love that. It's a very thoughtful answer actually. So thank you for sharing that. Wonderful. Where could people find you if they wanted to know more about the many things you're doing or connect with you? ⁓ M3 linked sounds like is one place to turn to find you.

Barry Bradham (40:30)
The best spot would be to go to come win with me.com and fill out a little quick little form. You're going to get invited to stuff. You're going to get some free gifts by being connected with me. You'll be in rooms that I'm in. I'd love to meet anybody listening that wants to know more about a story, wants to share theirs with me, wants to connect in any way. That's what life's about. And that's why I developed come win with me.com ⁓ on Instagram. It's Barry Bradham, entrepreneur, LinkedIn, Barry Bradham.

⁓ things are moving pretty fast right now and I couldn't do it without other people. So if you are at all interested in connecting with me, that would be my, that's how to do

Jeff Holman (41:11)
Awesome. Barry Bradham on social media, sounds like, and come win with me dot com. Fantastic. Well, Barry, it's been great having you on the show. ⁓ I feel like we scratched the surface in a couple ways and got some insights that the audience can take away from this and ⁓ they can dig deeper with you if they want to do that. So I really appreciate that.

Barry Bradham (41:32)
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jeff. I appreciate being connected with you as well.

Jeff Holman (41:36)
Yeah, it's been great. Thank you. And thanks to our audience for joining us again on this episode of the breakout CEO. sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling, sass, e-commerce, and tech companies to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence.

Thanks again for joining us on this episode of The Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman and I'll see you next time.

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