Rich Paul & Junior Bridgeman On $600 Million Business Blueprint, World's Top Sports Agency & LeBron

23:04Rich Paul:Well, first thing I would say is, speaking for myself, I don't believe I'm any smarter than anybody in the room like that. And probably, as said earlier by Robert Smith and Steve, you probably, a lot of the people in the room are much farther ahead than where I was at your age. And I had to go learn a lot of things. I mean, I remember I got a restaurant. I didn't know what a P &L was. I had never had to worry about a P &L. So I had this accountant that I had had for all these years. I spent a lot of time in his office asking question after question after question, learning about what makes up a P &L, what's the amortization, what's the appreciation.

23:53Rich Paul:I did the same thing with the attorney. You know, I had paid him all these years when I was playing just trying to get the knowledge. And then once I got to a certain point, I thought back to that time when, you know, I said, well, if you're not helping anybody, what are you really doing? And I think a lot of us don't. We look at what we can acquire now, what business we'd like to have now. We don't think generationally. And I think for a lot of us, the Chinese saying is, they plan for a hundred years. And I think if we do that, we'd be more willing to help people because we'd be focusing on our kids and their kids and trying to set people up to be successful down the line.

24:41Rich Paul:And we were talking about the athletes and the kind of money that they make, and I'm proud that they make and happy that he's able to get the contracts for them. but I think you can kind of lose focus and think that I'm in this level up here. And you really aren't, because once they stop playing, that income stops. And if you can have the money, what I call wealth, is what Robert Smith was talking about, where he is, where it can go for generation and generation and generation, that should be what the goal and the plan is eventually, you know, not to have two Rolls Royces in the driveway, something like that.

25:19Rich Paul:Rich, can I ask a follow-up to that? Yeah. Because as we're talking about that education process, when you're taking on a client, how important is that they're thinking about life after their career before you involve them in signing them to Clutch?

25:34Junior Bridgeman:It's very important. And I'm telling you, man, athletes, they live a tough life. It looks great. but when you think about all they endure and the pull down, you know, I always tell my family, let me be your back line of defense. You know, don't allow yourself to think that what's mine is yours, but if I'm your back line of defense, then, you know, we can really stay afloat. For athletes, we all have survivor's remorse, right? We all have that feeling that we feel obligated. And like Mr. Bridgman said, I got guys 22 making$200 million over the next four or five years. I got several of those guys, right?

26:29Junior Bridgeman:By the way. But the reality of it is I'm constantly telling them that's not a lot of money based upon where you're starting because you're starting from zero. So how do we understand how to compound that? Because they're done at 33. Everyone's not going to be played to their 40. They're done when they're 33. That money's taxed. They're paying a 55, 51 % tax. not to mention jeans today the ones they want that they're buying in excess which they probably don't really need that cost two grand it's not the same his jeans cost$25 the difference and so it's all relative no athlete can afford to fly private all the time yet we see so many athletes on the Instagram flying private I fly Delta I cannot afford to fly private and that's okay with me.

27:26Junior Bridgeman:You know what? And I'll fly. I'll sit in the comfort plus as well. Comfort plus? Yeah, because I'm just trying to get where I'm trying to go to make the money. I'm not trying to spend the money. I'm trying to get there. And the times I do fly private, you will never see it on Instagram because it's not for show. And so I think that, again, it's just this mentality. You have to value infrastructure in any business, in anything, whether that's a family infrastructure, whether it's a business infrastructure. You have to have that. You can't scale without the infrastructure. But again, growing up, all we know is how to compete amongst one another.

28:13Junior Bridgeman:He's been around a long time. These guys have come in and out the league. They don't aspire to be him, right? But they want to be the rappers, etc., because they want to do things in excess. He's got an unbelievable portfolio. Imagine if we had our own fund that we allow him to oversee as well as someone from Blackstone or someone from Apollo or someone from Aries, and then we compounded just 20 % of that income. I don't need the whole tree. In the circles I run in, they're much more wealthy than I am. But like I tell them, I just want a little piece of the bark. I don't need the whole, you know, I don't need, I just want to get in the back seat, ride, I'm gonna shut up, I'm gonna sit back here, you don't even notice I'm here.

29:03Junior Bridgeman:That's how I look at myself. And I really believe that. And so I just try to get my guys to understand that because we come from an environment to where we only want to conquer. We want to conquer. That's why we're killing each other. We want to conquer. There can only be one king, which allows you not to collaborate. If you don't collaborate, then that means we're not communicating. If we're not communicating, then that means we're unable to build what? a community. If we don't build a community, then how are we going to build anything generational? You're just saying some shit that sound great.

29:39Junior Bridgeman:You know what I'm saying? But that's not, it's not realistic without taking the proper steps. You understand what I'm saying? And we've all been there. You know, I've come from just as tough places as anybody in the world. But at the same time, I can't have the same habits once I made it out. I can't go back and glorify the same things and not give it up, right? But if you're going to ask me for a job, you also have to be capable of doing the work. I can't give you anything, right? You've got to be capable of actually doing it once that opportunity is given. And so it's a two-way street. And I've just, you know, I stress, I really stress this all the time.

30:22Junior Bridgeman:I want to be able to hire as many people as I can, right? But you've got to have the capabilities. And so, you know, let's match each other's energy from that perspective. And like he said, everybody's not going to get rich. That's not realistic. But you're in position. We didn't grow up next to people that have careers. They had hustles, jobs. Some had decent jobs. Very few had good-ass jobs and careers. it's just the truth and so we're trying to fill our way through and life is all about managing transitions you have to be able to that's why a car comes with a transmission to understand those gears you got to know when to park when to reverse when to stay neutral when to accelerate that is real in life itself as well we've all been in a situation where we had to make decisions say you know what let me just back up a little bit or let me just park it right here before or if it's going great.

31:21Junior Bridgeman:Let me hit the gas and get to where I'm trying to go. And so that's how I think every day I wake up. I've never celebrated one deal I've done. Not one. When I started working with LeBron and for LeBron, the most money I ever made working for LeBron was$48 ,000 a year. That's the most I ever made. I was only on his salary for two years. that was since 06 I've been off his payroll right we're in 2023 it was important for me to get off of his payroll as fast as I possibly could that was very important to me hold hold talk about that

32:01Rich Paul:you know before before you jump in there he he said one thing that that I think kind of went over the went over the crowd that that that I think is very important what he's doing and and back in my time I was president of the player association and we used to always deal with the agents and talk about what they weren't doing and how they were taking advantage of guys. What he said was he'd like to take his guys, take 20 % of their money and put it in something that can grow and they wouldn't get it until later on so they wouldn't be able to use the money or blow the money. But the thing that I, and I don't know whether it's something inherent with us is we've got a lot of guys, if you take on making a lot of money, and if they got together and somebody put them together and they combined just part of what they earned in a fund, in a way that it could benefit people who are trying to improve themselves, start their business, do all those kind of things like that, I don't know why that hasn't been done.

33:05Rich Paul:I don't know why someone hasn't been able to get everybody together to do that because collectively they have the ability to do that but it's a

33:14Junior Bridgeman:mindset that I think we have to get over because we I can tell you why junior I I can tell you why it hasn't been done because society has conditioned us to always try to outdo so because we're always trying to outdo one another if you start a production company then I want to start one too instead of me saying, okay, well, let's do it together. I don't have to have the same ownership of it, but let's just do it together because unify is a lot more we can do. If David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg can start DreamWorks, what the hell makes you think that you can't? And they didn't start it when they were broke.

33:59Junior Bridgeman:they were already well off very wealthy when they did that but that's a different mindset right when they're in these when we're in these clubs everybody's competing with how many sparkles how many bottles i got coming and that's cool enjoy the light but in order for you to do that we also got to make sure that we're doing the other thing what's most important was really allowing us to buy those bottles right because i'm not saying don't enjoy i'm not a debbie downer I'm not saying don't enjoy it because I definitely enjoy the fruits of my hard labor. But I'm just saying it's just so important because if we're able to do that, then that's not necessarily putting a dent in the kitty from that perspective.

34:46Junior Bridgeman:That's just us enjoying having a great time. Actually, if you're doing it the right way, you actually budget for your vacation like that every year. I know exactly how much I'm going to spend on vacation every year. If you're doing it the right way, that's how it really is supposed to be done. But it's just this competitive thing. We're conditioned. But yet and still, if you go to the Sun Valley Conference, those are all the biggest companies and top executives in the world who are competitors in the marketplace, but at this particular conference, they're sharing information. But yet we get in a club and don't speak to each other.

35:25Junior Bridgeman:Well, how does this even make sense? It doesn't. It does not make sense. So that's how. And that's one of the reasons why we created InvestFest, right?

35:35Rich Paul:Where it was like, just for that, we can get 20 ,000 people here and have a vendor marketplace and have it. And one aspect is people learning from people like yourself. But I think the most beneficial aspect is people that are networking with each other outside and in the vendor marketplace and afterwards because their relationships is ultimately going to take you the furthest in life. So, Mr. Bridgman, I wanted to ask you a question. You had a very impressive portfolio of restaurants, obviously, over 500, and, you know, was extremely, extremely wealthy and extremely, extremely successful and had, you know, a mastery of that.

36:16Rich Paul:What is your thought process in liquidating your portfolio and going into something totally different. How does that work? And most people would be extremely scared to do that, right? Like, why did you do that? And what was the inner workings of doing that? Well, you know, I talk about generational wealth. And what I did was I separated the restaurant business that we still have. I separated the Coca-Cola business. and even Ebony and Jet, put them all in a, let's call it a trust, because that's what it is, and that's for the kids. That's something, you know, and we haven't talked about getting involved in Coca-Cola here in Atlanta, but, you know, why'd you do that?

37:07Rich Paul:Because when I looked around at the people that were bottlers, and there's not a lot of them, there's only 64 in the whole United States, but there were people that were fourth and fifth generation, people that have been doing that for over a hundred years. And I won't tell you how much money you make on a bottle of soda, so you don't need to know that. But anyway. So I separated that for them generationally. That's something that can be passed down and down and down. And everything else that I look at is over here. So if there's a risk or you're taking a risk or you're investing in something or helping somebody do something, it has no effect on where you are today.

37:50Rich Paul:And so that's what I'll do in helping somebody or saying that this makes sense. It'll all come out over on this side, not over on that side. I just have a follow-up for Rich. You said something that was extremely insightful with the car analogy. That's pretty ill. Like, no when to park, no when to accelerate, no when to cruise. That's pretty good information. You said something that was key. You said you wanted to get off of LeBron's payroll as soon as possible. And, you know, people create their own narratives, but a lot of people might say, well, it's easy for him to become the number one agent because LeBron, right?

38:27Rich Paul:LeBron's his guy. But I know you always— It's actually harder. Go ahead. So talk about that and talk about why it was essential for you to get off of his payroll. Why is it essential for you to not be in that type of role? Well, it was essential, number one, because prior to, I've always been someone who had a pretty entrepreneurial spirit, right?

38:55Junior Bridgeman:My dad was a store owner. We made our money selling beer, wine, and cigarettes. You know, I grew up playing people lottery numbers at seven and eight years of age, right? I learned about marketing by selling now and laters and Jolly Joes and Cherry Clans. And, you know, that's how I buy what you came and bought in the store. This is how I learned about supply and demand. So when my dad would send us back to the wholesale store, he would sit in the car and let me go in and pick the candy. I couldn't pick the candy that I wanted. I had to pick the candy that the people would buy because that's how we made our money.

39:30Junior Bridgeman:And so through that, I learned customer service and the importance of customer service, right? Because the community is the job. We got to make sure that we take care of the community. And so that allowed me to have that mindset. But to answer your question, LeBron wasn't obligated to do anything for me or anybody else. The only person he was actually obligated to do something for was Gloria James. That's his mother, right? I was so happy that I wasn't his brother, like blood brother, because at that point, there's a guilt that comes into play. And if I screw up.

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43:49Junior Bridgeman:Can you really fire your brother, right? You know, and so for me, once I got my opportunity, and when I got the call, when my mother called me and said, you have a check in the mail, and when you guys read my book, this is all, this is not, some of this is in there, but when my mother called me and said, you have a check in the mail, I didn't, I wasn't expecting that. I didn't even know how to really read a check. My mother showed me how to do so. But when I called and asked what my job was, he said he didn't know. He said, I actually don't have a position for you at all. I don't have one and I don't know when I'm going to get one.

44:31Junior Bridgeman:So now I got two choices. I'm definitely not a yes man, and I love to shop, so I can't wait on you to go to the mall for when I get to go to the mall. That's not gonna ever happen. So because of that, I did the things that I created value. I was everything from party promoter before he was even able to party, stylist jeweler you know until one day in the nike meeting he asked me what did i think and it's phil knight it's charlie denson it's lynn married it's all the top executives at nike and now i'm saying well i'm not guessing here this is what i know because i've had every shoe that ever came out since 1989 whatever it was and so i took the floor well that led to me getting a job at Nike because they seen I had value.

45:26Junior Bridgeman:So when I was there, I learned cut and sew. I learned all the legal aspects of it. I learned the footwear business. I learned the marketing business because marketing is not endorsements. Marketing is storytelling. Endorsements are endorsements. Marketing, the best marketing companies in the world, they never tell you a price, but they show you the product, but they never tell you the price. Honda's going to say, this is the Civic 2023 with leather it costs you 36 ,000 that's a different that's a sales thing that's a totally different thing and so I wanted to make sure that I was always creating value and I also didn't want because in life you know you can't you can only ride the horse for so long can't get comfortable riding somebody else's horse that don't make sense so you have to continue to create value, so that's what I did.

46:17And then the reason why I went to the agent business

46:20Junior Bridgeman:is because I felt like our young men were, the game was being monopolized by people that really didn't understand them as people. They saw them as commissions, but they didn't see them as people. And so if I only see you as a check, I'm not going to invest in you, right? When the talent runs out, I lose your number and I get the next talent. Well, that didn't sit well with me. And so I wanted to create something that they can go to sleep at night knowing that, you know what, I can trust Rich and I can trust the people that Rich is putting around me because my integrity and my respect for you as a person won't allow me to do anything that would be detrimental to your future and damn sure not going to do anything that is going to have you look at me a certain way because where I come from, there's a major consequence for that but in the business I'm in those consequences don't exist but I didn't know any different you know we was just just trying to survive the day sometimes the hour depending on what's going on around the corner so I brought that energy and those pitfalls to an industry that didn't know that and they didn't know our children and so I even currently today people talk about it's easier with LeBron oh he just did this because LeBron bit they must don't know what the word envy means.

47:43Junior Bridgeman:They must not understand how hard it is to walk in a room and people tell you, oh, because you represent this person, I don't think you're the right person for me. Even though he's built this big portfolio and I have a ton of other guys that's built great portfolios as well and done well. But for some reason, it's just hard for people to do business with people that look Like, I'm not going to say for people. I'm going to say it's hard for our people to do business with our people at a high level and respect them and not cheat them and not try to say, I gave you the opportunity so you should work for free.

48:21Junior Bridgeman:No, I gave you the opportunity. You're doing a great job. I'm going to pay you what you deserve. And I talk to my guys about this all the time. And for anybody else out there, somebody out there is doing something for you. I don't care if they're your sister, cousin. I don't care if they're on a drug. I don't care about any of that. How you treat people matters. It just really does. And I want to pay you top dollar. I want to pay you more. Right? Because when we go to Van Cleef and Louis and Chanel, they're not giving us no discount. And we're not asking for one. We want you to know how much we pay for it.

48:59Junior Bridgeman:so when I you know but when I come to you with my labor to wash your car and I've washed it and you had the juice in the cup holder and all this stuff but you want to and you don't even want to tip me well it don't work you get what I'm saying and so I instill that in my in my clients from day one when we go to a restaurant I pay attention I watch how they call a waiter or waitress ain't no hey yo yo no no excuse me can I have thank you and then when that bill comes we're going to make sure they get 25 percent you understand what I'm saying that's how it should be and if it's like that when you think about the ecosystem for an athlete an athlete need a barber they need a handyman they need a nanny they need a driver they need a uh their wives need a makeup artist and a and a and a cosmetologist you know they need all these things this is the ecosystem of the athlete, there's jobs available.

49:56Junior Bridgeman:But the reason why we don't care to do them in abundance is because how you treat somebody. If you treated them differently, then, and you explain to them, hey, you're not going to get a seat at the table when we at the club. That ain't what this is about. But I actually need you to do this. It's a consistent pay for at least 12 years for the right person, at least. And while you're doing that, you build your clientele, right? Because there's a draft every year, people coming in, a real estate agent. My guys is renting places in every city around America, but it's not many, you get what I'm saying?

50:36Junior Bridgeman:And if it is, they show up late. Like the habits matter, right? And so this is very important. And I tell my own siblings this, there's an ecosystem, find a lane. If you find a lane, you got an opportunity. If you got an opportunity, then you make it work from there. One plus one should equal five by the time we get done with this. That was a lot. Rich, that's a lot.

51:06Rich Paul:As you were naming the athlete's ecosystem, I saw Mr. Bridgman, and he's thinking to himself, man, I ain't had none of that. But Mr. Bridgman, you talked about generational wealth, which is an interesting concept, right? Because we haven't seen generations of wealth in our community. And so I know with your acquisitions, Jet, Ebony, right? How do you go about approaching sustainable wealth, right? Because you have your kids and I know the kids, some of the kids kind of run some of those businesses. So how do you approach mergers and acquisitions with the intent of this is the succession plan for my legacy?

51:45Rich Paul:Well, I think the first thing you have to do is you have to have the next generation involved. And you have to have them talking about it. And they have to see the importance, and they talked about earlier, of hard work. And, you know, one of the things that one of the great books that I really like, Malcolm Gladwell, in one of his books he talks about in order to be really proficient at something, you have to work at it for 1 ,000 hours. And I thought about that, and I thought, well, you know, I've put in over 10 ,000 hours of playing basketball before I got to the pros. And so when I got into the restaurant business, is what makes me think that I should be good at it without putting the work in.

52:41Rich Paul:And I think a lot of times, and I see this with athletes, they think because I got to be a great player that I should go in as the CEO or the executive vice president without putting the work in. So that's the first thing I stress to my kids is you have to understand, and I have three kids, and all of them had to go to college. They all had to get an MBA, and they all had to go to work for somebody else before they got involved with what we were doing. And not, they didn't have to come to work. It was their decision if they wanted to come get involved with what we're doing. And the way things worked out, one of them runs the restaurant side, one of them works with the Coca-Cola side, and my daughter runs the Ebony Jets side.

53:26Rich Paul:But be that as it may, we meet as a family. We're not going to clap for that? Like, you know what I'm saying?

53:36Rich Paul:That's crazy. So what they'll tell you is I don't do anything anymore, which is about correct. Yeah. But we meet as a family and we talk about the next generation, their kids. I've got five grandkids. So you have to start planning for what's going to happen as they get older. And that's what I've seen, especially in the Chinese culture and the other people that aren't like us, look like us in the room. They think about those things or we just think about getting gratification today. And we need to focus on the long term and we need to focus on, you said, working together. because as I said earlier in some of the presentations, if we just did business with each other, whenever we could, there'd be, I don't know how many millionaires in this room today, but we, for some reason, don't want to do that.

54:40Rich Paul:So, Rich, I want to ask you about your collaboration and partnership with UTA. We have a great relationship with UTA, And I know that was something that was done a few years ago. So what's your thought process in doing that? And how does the dynamics of that relationship, you know, unfold into what it is today?

55:02Junior Bridgeman:Well, I had I had two choices. I wasn't you know, I owned all my business. I wasn't looking for a partner. But what was happening was the athletes desires was changing. and so I didn't want to be somebody that's just you know trying to figure it out in a cookie cutter way and so I had two choices I could either go raise a couple hundred million dollars then go and find the the expertise for the the departments that I needed to grow in or I can find a partner that actually came with that expertise and so UTA was actually that they were the partner that came with that expertise. And so I was just trying to do what was best for the clients.

55:49Junior Bridgeman:Like for me, I'm always thinking about, I don't want to be the agency of yesterday. I don't want to be too, too happy about what's happening today. I'm really trying to build the agency of tomorrow and figure out what that looks like. And so that was my decision with UTA.

56:06Rich Paul:So UTA, if anybody that's not, I should have said this, United Talent Agency is one of the top Hollywood talent agencies.

56:12Junior Bridgeman:They represent actors. Some of the biggest actors in the world, writers, directors, you know, in music, Carol G, Bad Bunny, 21, Post Malone, and, you know. Earn Your Leisure. Yeah, Earn Your Leisure. By the way. Yeah, and comedy, Issa Rae, Kevin Hart, you know. But, and a ton of others, right? Timothy Chalamet, Jonas, you know, a lot of people. and again that was my thing because my clients they don't need all those toys in the toy box but if you want to play with you know like I want to have enough toys for you to actually play with whether you choose one or 100 of them I wanted to be prepared to have that and for me again don't box me in I'm I'm not an agent I'm um what I would say I'm a innovator that have agent capabilities.

57:06Junior Bridgeman:And so I never wanted to be boxed into just being an agent, although I don't plan on stopping anytime soon, even though they want to push me out to be an owner of a team. I have no desire to own a team at all. I don't have enough money to own a team and I don't like the front. So with that being said, I just wanted to continue to grow and it was really about the athlete and their families. Rich, I want to follow up and maybe for both of you,

57:33Rich Paul:when we actually visited, so UTA is here in Atlanta, so shout out to UTA, and shout out to Atlanta for being here.

57:38Junior Bridgeman:Yeah, UTA being in Atlanta was something that was very important to me. Exactly.

57:43Rich Paul:So when we visited, it was impressive because you were able to combine two things, what you do professionally, but your passion for ultimate investments, which is art. And so when we visit the showroom and the offices, it's nothing but black art throughout the entire building.

58:01Junior Bridgeman:so talk about your love for art and talk about the intentionality of what you did behind that yeah so i have a i'm on the board of lacma uh and i'm in the i'm on the i'm on the acquisition committee with elaine winn and um i'm on the education committee because i wish that i actually paid attention in art class instead of play tunk playing tunk or falling asleep you know but today I wish I you know I wish that kids understood the importance of art back then and I wish I knew who Kerry James Marshall was and who Sam Gilliam was and you know and who Barkley Hendricks was back then today I own some Atlanta artists you know Alfred Conte is an artist I own and I own over a hundred works but if you go across the Atlanta office or the LA office there's a ton of African-American artists, both figurative and abstract.

59:00Junior Bridgeman:And I teach my kids today and my clients as they come into the league, one of the things I do is I take them around to these museums and these galleries to help them better understand that there's more areas to park your finances in than just clothes and shoes and cars because all those are depreciating assets, right? You don't need 60 pair of jeans, although we all had them, but you don't need that. And so I get them to invest. You know, I have one of my favorite pieces I have is an Ernie Barnes piece that I couldn't tell you when I bought it, what price it was. And I'm not looking to sell. I'm just saying.

59:43And so I get my clients to, a lot of my clients are into art now.

59:48Junior Bridgeman:A lot of them are into different investments. and so it's one player at a time, but it's happening. And so the earlier we can do that, the better. So I just try to continue educating. I don't know it all. I don't pretend to know it all, but I just try to continue. And Mr. Bridgman don't know. I'm going to have a standing call with him once a month going forward because I got to pick his brain. I'm going to be on him like a chief suit. I have no idea. But it's just important. It is important. So if you guys want to get into other things, you know, I tell my guys, when you're on the road, you're in Detroit, when you're in San Francisco, when you're in New York, Chicago, all these places have galleries and all these places have museums.

1:00:31Junior Bridgeman:Don't spend all your time at a hookah bar. Don't spend all your time playing a Call of Duty in your room. Get out and go to these galleries and spend some time there and learn some things.

1:00:40Rich Paul:We thank you, Rich. And see, I'm only about 40 years too late. Because we didn't have anybody like him when I was coming up. And so you kind of get to appreciate art. And anytime anybody comes in our office today, I take them down a hallway and say, I want to show you this. And what is it? There's four, not quite murals, but. Quick one before you jump back in. You're listening for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions and turn scattered context into work they can use. Chat GPT for Business can help. Chat GPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in Chat GPT.

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1:05:00Rich Paul:We'll see you next time. It's Investment Banking. And there are four paintings done by Nelson Mandela. And he drew them when he was in prison. And there are various pictures of parts of the prison that he was in. And then underneath it is the actual photo of the prison. And he signed everyone and they're documented that it was done by him. and I make sure that everybody sees that when they come in. And the other thing that I make sure people see, I have a picture of the Little Rock Nine. I mean, it's a drawing, but it's autographed by each one of the nine people that were involved in the Little Rock Nine.

1:05:46Rich Paul:And now you can't get that because they're not all alive, but I make sure that everybody sees because the mindset, what that does is just changes the mindset, that changes everything when people come in and see that in the office.

1:06:02Junior Bridgeman:But I'll say this. Society didn't teach us that that was cool. The same reason why our kids don't play soccer was in our schools. We only played the sports that gave us fortune or fame. And so we have to regurgitate a lot of things that was built around us, but it's not too late to start.

1:06:25Rich Paul:So, Rich, my last question for you is walk us through what it looks like actually negotiating contracts with teams or negotiating contracts with Nike or, you know, Adidas for your clients. You represent some of the top clients that's ever done it.

1:06:41Junior Bridgeman:So walk us through the boardroom. Well, just in case there's some people in here that work at rival agencies, I'm not going to give you the secret sauce, because McDonald's don't give us the secret sauce to the Big Mac, so I'm not going to give you that. But what I will say, I will walk you through. Most people think that you go into a room and you yell and scream and you get something done. That's not how it works. the player and the agent has a job to do we both have a job to do the player's job is to allow me to go in and have some type of leverage whether that's through character because nowadays your character has to match your talent right when the shit get bigger than the cat and i said this on another podcast but i'm saying it today they're going to get rid of the cat right it's just just how it is but what you're going to start to see now going forward is you're going to start to see the half and a half knots in our league because we're basically at what they call a soft hard cap which is a very tough thing so the middle class which is happening in society they're removing the middle class and you're gonna have the lower class you're gonna have the upper class right it's the same thing happening in sports and so now more than ever guys have to come in ready on all on all fronts character professionalism approach right willingness to listen and more importantly starring in your role i understand you was a star player on your high school team i understand your parents think you're the best player in the world and they only live in your world but let me tell you what the reality of it is right and so now as i'm going in there, I don't need you to average 25 points to get you 25 points type money.

1:08:37Right?

1:08:38Junior Bridgeman:Because everybody's situation is different. If your team doesn't have any cap space, but your value to the team warrants them to keep you around, then we don't need, I don't need, you can, Tristan Thompson, average 6.6 rebounds, he got $82 million, fully guaranteed. But ultimately, I have to be in a position to where I can show that you have what they call gradually, you're gradually getting better over the years. So don't score 25 in year one, 12 in year two, and eight in year three. Now we're going backwards. But if you score eight, 12, and then 15, and you have great character, great professionalism, great approach, then I put all that in the middle, and now we make the deal, right?

1:09:27Junior Bridgeman:And now I have to just, when I first did well there's several deals but I'm also thinking this may be your last deal so now I have to do what's best for you at all times I can't do what's best for me right and so whether that's being whether that's me understanding that okay I can't sit here and argue about this little item for Darius Garland when I got a 193 million dollars guaranteed already you know agreed upon I can't make it about me. It's not about my newspaper clippings. And that goes all the way to a minimum deal, right? And so as I'm going into each negotiation, number one, I'm never telling the player a number.

1:10:12Junior Bridgeman:Because if I tell you a number, now that number's stuck in your head. If we get there, you're going to say, okay, I'm good. We may have more room to go. So it takes a lot of planning. I have to educate the families because there's a thing called friendly fire. So I've had a situation where I've had to move a client out the house, put the for sale sign in the yard because I want the team to think, oh, not only is he not coming in this arena, he's not even in the city. He's gone. I had to fly down and educate the mom that when the owner's wife call, do not talk about whether you guys are anxious or whether you're excited or whether you if anything comes up about comes up about a contract hey talk to rich i'm just mom i'm in here frying chicken for the grandkids whatever the case may be i don't need you because you know we all have grandmothers sunday morning when granny get out of church she in that kitchen no one's allowed in there you're not allowed in my kitchen when i'm in negotiation that's just how it works if you want the best result you know i think i can still i

1:11:22Rich Paul:I can still get eight points a game.

1:11:23Junior Bridgeman:I got you there. I got you there. And the last thing it takes, it also takes patience. And the one thing that you can't make a mistake as a player in the NBA or any sport, comparisons are the thief of joy. They just are. You cannot compare yourself to what somebody else got. Somebody's situation is different. And I don't advise you to do this in life as well either. And so when you think about that, I'm able to get things done at a high level if you're able to have poise and patience. A negotiation has no time clock on it. The negotiation starts when we start it, and it ends when you sign on the dotted line.

1:12:06Junior Bridgeman:That could be one day. That could be 10 days. That could be 100 days, right? And so be patient. We've seen Lamar Jackson this year. He was patient. Jalen Hurts signed his deal. Who came right after him? Lamar Jackson. Why? Because he needed something that allowed him to go in and say, hey, you guys telling me what I'm not? Well, let me tell you what I am. That's us helping each other. And so both of those boys got their money this year. A lot of money, right? That's important. It's a half billion dollars going to two young men. That's important. And so, but the families are so important. You have to educate the families and they have to be willing to allow you to do your job, right?

1:12:50Junior Bridgeman:That's why you picked me. Because I'm not a tiptoe agent. I don't walk on eggshells, and I'm not going to over-explain myself, especially when I got the receipts. I got all the receipts. I got$4 billion worth of receipts right here. Right?

1:13:07Rich Paul:Trust the process. Make some noise, Petunia Bridgman and Rich Paul, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, guys. Before you sign off, If you tuned in for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered contexts into work they can use, ChatGPT for Business can help. ChatGPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in ChatGPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker. Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using ChatGPT for Work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more.

1:14:14Rich Paul:Side by side. About two minutes, free, no phone calls, no pressure. And if there's nothing better for you right now, Insurify keeps watching and tells you when that changes. So you're never stuck overpaying. Millions of people have used Insurify to shop for their car insurance. So insure with Insurify. Go to Insurify.com. That's I-N-S-U-R-I-F-Y.com. Insurify.com. You already know how AI is changing how everyday work gets done. how much ground you can cover, and how fast a team can scale. To stay ahead, you need the tools that give you a competitive advantage, built for this new era. Welcome to Agentic Revenue.

1:14:53Rich Paul:Adio is the CRM for this world. It meets you where you work, compounds every customer signal into context, then acts on it across your pipeline to let you move at unmatched speed and scale. With agents and automations for every job in revenue, Adio orchestrates your work around the clock. Built to handle the scale of your workloads, extensible with API and MCP, and with the infrastructure to keep up with your most ambitious agents. Loved by high-growth startups like Granola, Modal, and Etched, Adio runs the work behind every win. That's Adio, the agentic CRM, the intelligent system that never sleeps.

1:15:27Rich Paul:Picks up leads at 2 a.m., catches renewals before they slip, hands you the answer before you ask. Try Adio free at adio.com slash iHeart. That's adio.com slash iHeart.

1:15:50Rich Paul:We'll see you next time.

1:16:09Rich Paul:Financial LLC and receives compensation to promote LPL. Investing involves risk, including potential loss of principal LPL Financial LLC member FINRA, SIPC.

1:16:15Junior Bridgeman:There are exciting things happening at your local CVS. Shop new extra big deals with ExtraCare every two weeks. No coupon needed. Plus, get access to exclusive sale prices, personalized deals, and more as a member. ExtraCare is the way to save at CVS. Join for free online or in-store and start saving. Visit your local CVS store or cvs.com slash extra big deals for this week's deals. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.