Why Authenticity and 'Being Known' Are the Keys to Success in Today's Media Landscape Amid 2025’s Turbulent Business Climate

0:00This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. Now, Happy New Year as we start 2025 here on our weekly marketing and business news of the week, January 3rd, 2025. What's up, Chris Hanson? What's up, big dog? How are you? Good, man. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. If you're listening to this, it is the new year.

0:48We are admittedly, we do pre-record these, but we are in 2025 when you're listening because this release on the Friday. I am definitely on the beach at this moment in time. I'm just going to play shift myself. I'm having, okay, it's around noon when we're recording this. I'm probably on my first like beer and margarita mix with some pancakes. Nice. That's breakfast and chip. Brunch of champions. Exactly. What's cooking, Chris? In Miami, you know, like it's the new year. New year, yeah, man. I expected Jim to be very busy with New Year resolutioners. Yes, exactly. It's so funny. Like, it is funny how like, you know, we joke about that.

1:39But like, it's so true. Like every, that's why I built my own home gym. Like I'm doing it all. I got the garage. My garage been converted because I kind of I'm getting old, man. I know it. Like I go in and I like having some people around some humanity, but it just sort of drives me crazy because like, you know, I'm not Mr. Olympia, but I got a routine. I'm consistent. Doesn't take New Year's and I walk in and I'm like, I'm proud of people. But at the same time, like, damn, man, I'm waiting for shit to only have to wait on. waiting for it to hurt this thing out a little bit come like you know march yeah february march exactly we're on a little bit of a skeleton crew i'm in my new office got the wall of fame behind me the many big time guests we've had on our weekly guest episode of right about now i'm standing i do i'm set up for the you know i got my mic in here got everything I thought this thing shining on the lights would be good.

2:39Number one in business and marketing, nine countries. We appreciate you wherever you are, whatever language, hopefully getting translated to you. But we appreciate it. And, you know, just felt like, hey, it's New Year's. I needed some bling. So I got it on the shoulder. This thing's heavy too, man. This is not, you know, when they make these, I'm not kidding around, you know, we'll be taking the business. Sounds expensive. that's real steel right there hey we're taking the bs out of business for you we've had a lot of great stories this year some good things kicking off that play into the trends that we've been talking about and you know it was wouldn't be the the the cookie crumbling anymore with the administration that's leaving unless we had a good hacking from china before they left right a nice hack from our biggest adversary just come on in you know we we try to you know the edutainment is what i'd call our show trying to educate you opinion and have fun but i mean this shit's it's it's scary when you think about like you know one of our biggest adversaries in the world uh obviously we don't want to be you know fight in the middle of a war but we fight of resources, other things.

3:55And the fact that they can break in, even if it's unclassified info and get to the computers of a lot of elected officials or non-elected officials, just government people, it should scare you a little bit, right? Yeah. Especially when it's our treasury department, you know, it's our money. So money does rule the world. It's concerning because it makes you think, if they got in, what else can they get into? And exactly. That's what it is. That's where the fear comes. It's like, okay, all right, maybe they did or didn't get the most important things this time, but the fact that they can, what happens when they do?

4:35And just like, you know, all China has to do is go, no, you know, the U.S. is trying to slander us. We didn't do it. And they came out and said that, like, yeah, we didn't do it. like you know like okay what are they gonna say yep you caught us uh sorry damn we're just they got us we're looking around i was you know on my space and i accidentally hit a button and it got me into the treasury department i was just scrolling around on 1010 or whatever the uh version of amazon is over there uh in china and president ye just happened you know whatever secretary ye backdoored his way into the oh it happens you know i hit the wrong key up up down down left right left right be a start and got in how do you know who knew so sorry we didn't do it i mean it's just like denial and i mean it's hard to know it's even hard to believe our own government sometimes right like what really got taken or not the fact that they're acknowledging it shows you that something happened but will we ever have truths in there yeah you know how bad was it really they got in but they didn't get any classified oh yeah of course no classified stuff little soft soft landing yeah they got president biden's solitary history you know that was it right yeah yeah yeah they got his metamucil formula for the morning yeah like whatever it is They got his nap schedule for the day.

6:12I mean, that is 62 pages. Let's be honest.

6:18Oh, man. Sleep at the wheel, whatever you want to call it. I mean, it could happen under any presidency, so I'm not saying that it's specific to that, but it does sort of follow the general line that's been the last few months with, like, sleep at the wheel, everyone, right? Yeah. So no new codes. just really unclassified stuff. Yeah, nothing important. Nothing to see here. But it did say in a major incidence, quote, but non-classified. I don't know, man. It's just, okay. A digital key was compromised. I don't know. I think my son Clayton could probably break into the State Department. I don't know.

7:14I don't know what to believe here, but let's get that shit locked up. President Trump, let's button it up a little bit. We could buy the best hackers in the world. Can't we buy the best? Takes a criminal to know one. Let's just put them on the payroll. Maybe they do that. I don't know. That's what I saw in Born Identity, right? that's where i get all my my uh government knowledge so they offer the bad guys a deal and convert them over yeah what's uh what's the biggest i mean you know we talked last time about winners and losers but anything like on your radar like 2025 like you know we've got a few more news articles we'll talk about i'm gonna talk about podcasting we've been talking about that a while radcast network some exciting trends in podcasting and video the things we've been telling you for years go look at my instagram feed i've been telling you this story but we'll get to that shortly the uh but what what's what's 2025 feeling like for chris hansen i'll pick you back on what you said and i know i said this you know last week the personal branding social media short form content i mean literally right before we recorded there's another girl i just started following her she does you know talks about laws of the universe and stuff like that.

8:35She's educating. And even she said, you know, I started this like six months ago. She's like, I put up one video on TikTok and got a million views. And she's like, you're never going to know unless you put yourself out there. And I think we all need to probably the older generation, just kind of get comfortable with the fact that this is where media and entertainment is moving to your smartphone. And it's probably going to be on streaming platforms or podcasts or whatnot. And we talk about all the time with podcasting, but just as someone newer to it, I think, you know, you've been in this, what, eight years now, year and a half, two years in.

9:12And, you know, I don't think everyone should have a podcast, but I think if you have a message that you want to get to the world and you have the time and dedication, or if you're a business owner, I don't care if you're building houses or cleaning pools, make content, you know, like if you're a pool cleaner, shoot TikTok content, you know, I think we're at such a point where people are craving authenticity, normalcy, where 15 years ago, everyone's watching the Kardashians. Now you have people and I, another perfect example. I had lunch with a buddy of mine back home over the holidays and his wife is a pretty big fitness influencer, her sister, they built out a platform.

9:52They've got their own app, you know, and he's telling me, I mean, like they've got this many subscribers paying this much a month where it's like their followers are invested in them and their family, you know, his, he's, they're kind of do the family stuff, the kids, the workouts, the nutrition, but he's like, we're making good money on just doing what we would normally do. The only difference is my wife is just filming some of it. Right. So I think to tap into that, people are looking for other financial opportunities right now, right? Everyone wants diversified income streams. Social media is an easy thing that you can jump into that may or may not work, right?

10:30But Ryan says it all the time. It pays to be known. I will stand by that. Regardless if it's making more connections, could you have a presence online, meeting other people in your network, working with cool companies, put yourself out there. Just fully be yourself, put yourself out there and the right things will come back to you that's my advice yep for sure 100 we've preached that a lot and i think but it's it's never been more true with the proliferation of all these channels and it i think tell them about the radcast now yeah man i mean you've seen in real time yeah exactly like we're building the you know we we spent eight years building this show And then the last year, sort of pressure testing like eight to 10 shows on the network, using the things that we've done to tell stories, to build audience growth.

11:23And eight out of the 10 shows have 10x their downloads, seven out of 10 are top 30 in their category. And we're helping brands and people grow and monetize their podcast because podcasting is the future of content. and podcasting is a kind of a word. There's a lot of purists that want it to only be audio. But the reality is it's multi-platform, audio, video, social media. And you can do serial content. You can do weekly content. There's a lot of ways to do it. But this genie is not going back in the bottle. Like literally, we have all the data. I'm actually even going to pull up like one of our charts, some of our research we've been looking at.

12:09one of our partners sounds profitable give them a shout out um that really show like where the industry's going and what we're doing with the network uh with shows that come on but but here's the biggest thing and this may like not seem like a big statement but more people now tune in and watch podcasts than those that don't this was this just passed the threshold you know it's always like 30 or 40 percent of people so it was somewhat niche now it's fully mainstream and we can all agree, unless you got your head in the sand, that the presidential election was in large part determined by what happened.

12:48And it's crazy. So this genie is not going back in the bottle. More people are doing it. Watchable podcasts are growing in popularity. One in three people now say they actively watch podcasts with videos. So again, the two-year change is significant in how this landscape is changing from just audio to audio video and then the interplay of social media. And it can't be ignored. Hopefully you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify or any of the social media networks, but YouTube is driving over 50 % of podcast discovery. So you've got nearly double the next source. Next source is the internet and Facebook, 27%.

13:32So what does that I mean, when people were asked how they find or learn about new podcasts, over 50 % said YouTube. That's crazy, isn't it, man? I mean, even as you're talking, I was thinking back home over the holidays. My mom was telling me, you know, she listens to a podcast every day. And she shares an office with a woman and she was telling me, oh, well, now she started listening to it every day. where I'm thinking, all right, she's near 70 years old. And that is now her biggest source of entertainment and information. Yep. Even my dad, he doesn't have cable. He uses YouTube TV. You know, you can call it TV, right?

14:15But it's YouTube. Even if you've got the major networks utilizing it, it's streaming. Exactly. So, I mean, like you said, we've talked about this as long as I've been working with you. but i can if anyone takes a pause and just look at your own life in your group of people you're around and how they're receiving most of their data it's all through the smartphone only people i know watching a tv is because they're streaming a movie or sports yeah or sports or or or movie or like you know a netflix series yeah i mean no one is watching normal cable television. Very few. Even if you are watching what we used to be on and say The Bachelor, that's on Netflix now.

15:02Half of weekly podcast consumers follow a favorite host on social media. This is that interplay. 62 % of people that listen to the show follow that host on Instagram. You know what I'm saying, man? It all is the interplay of social media and podcasting combined with the power of those channels all working together. And that's what we're doing at the Radcast Network. The biggest thing is you've got all these people that are measuring audio. You've got people doing measuring video. You've got measurement of social media. Well, we're bringing that all together. It's called Podcast Total Influence.

15:41PTI, baby. Podcast Total Influence. We're branding at. We're literally bringing to bear the multi-platform impact that podcasts have. And you can fight the audio game all you want. But the reality is this industry with sponsors, with ads, needs to be integrating all of these things in for a multi-platform experience for sponsors. And that's what we're doing. Because, again, the interplay of these media is what makes it super powerful. And you know how I say super powerful? I integrated in right here, baby. It's called X. Mark the spot, exponent. It is the energy drink that fuels right about now and Ryan offered.

16:25And again, it's exactly what I'm saying. I'm practicing when I preach, but it's true. I only work with the brands I love. I love these guys. I love the branding. I love how clean it is. We're talking about fusion energy, adaptogens, nootropics, electrolytes, and amino acids, zero sugar, plant-based, healthy as it gets gives you that pep you see it X marks the spot for energy and clean energy which is what matters Exponent official energy drink Ryan offered and right about now boom that's what I'm talking about you need to watch that on YouTube you gotta see how cool these new cans are got some new flavors coming out Chris I'm pumped man you know it's take a lot to get me excited but damn energy drinks will boom woo I go Hulk Hogan at my belt do whatever I'll go Ric Flair whatever you want good old Ric Flair so yeah man podcasting is where it's at the Radcast Network if you're interested look shoot me a DM on Instagram go to or better yet just go to the RadcastNetwork.com you fill out that form if you're interested in helping us we'll help you grow we'll help you monetize.

17:39We'll help you leverage this. Whether you're a business, solopreneur, all you got to do is be ready to grow. We'll build a big community. We've got an app launching February 1st. The Radcast Network official app, which is the community for growth, hacking, in, podcasting, and everything else. Got a lot going on, brother. Excited about it. Heck yeah, man. Oh, what else we got in the news? Hey, lots of predictions for Bitcoin. $200 ,000. That's an IOU. You might want to hold on to that one. That's one Bitcoin, 200K. That's real dollars. I mean, you know. When you got my dad starting to talk about predictions, that's a good time, right?

18:24That's when you know. And I said this six months ago. When the mainstream media starts talking about it and all these random people that haven't talked about in four years, it's not going anywhere, right? where it's down a little bit we're at 94 800 today big deal okay it was at 68 000 three months ago um but yes there's all kind of wild estimates here you know all the way up to 200 000 i don't know who knows right i'm comfortable saying 120 but i think with this new administration and who knows what's going to happen with banking policies and whatnot. So it's looking bright. Future is looking bright.

19:10Yep. It said approval of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 marked a pivotal moment, broadening institutional and retail investor appeal. 2024 Bitcoin halving event reduced supply, supporting price momentum. You know, I'm seeing everything from 120 to 250. you know and i think yeah it's safe to say isn't it that the broader market seems to come along if bitcoin's raising universally i mean unless it's just some crap token like what hock to a girl whatever the fucking scam that was like yeah but yeah like what do you say high tide raises all ships exactly yeah so you're you're big movers bitcoin and then you know your dogecoin stuff like that you know i think all that is going to rise up with it and probably just things like doge and more of these quote-unquote meme coins will have larger gains probably but then they'll probably drop off harder as well yep so big things coming from crypto was in our uh winners losers and recommendations for uh 2025.

20:24so i it's really just another investment platform i mean let you It's a legitimate place. I joke a lot about gambling and all that. It's sort of his legalized gambling. It's so funny. I saw somebody joking about brokers just are essentially bookies. They did the whole analogy. Stock market bookies. We just legitimized it. We put them in suits and called it Wall Street.

20:56Dressed it up a bit. One step away from off-track betting. same skill set yeah oh it's so funny like i also i you know saw the news lots of ceos turning over this year ceo departures says nearly 2 000 ceos have stepped down from their roles between january and november it feels like it's a tough year in business tough you're in business and I almost feel like we're also like this short term is a man everything like it's easy come easy go convenience rises it seems like it's all related to me a little bit and look we all love our conveniences we all love this stuff but I think that how does that relate to business just think people they're impatient and they think they want change and sometimes you got to stay the hard road and then sometimes just you know it's time for change i mean i'm not every situation is unique i just think it feels like a sign of the times right the all right out of the end out with the old end with the new and old now defined is you know 18 months and you see it with your own workforce yeah with our own businesses right the employee turnover is it's not someone giving you 20 years of their life, you know, like they used to in the old days right now.

22:27I mean, I think most people I know, they're at a job maybe two to five years and move to the next one. Yeah. At most. I mean, I had a conversation with a buddy yesterday. Hey, I want to completely switch industries from real estate to software because he's bored. yeah and hey eat your own it's fine yeah it's just i'm getting more and more to this like lean approach of like okay i my recommendation is and i mean look once you're coca-cola size different game you know like but let's just say micro teams like five to ten people that are all highly skilled, highly smart, and all pulling the same direction and building, you know, like high equity stakes so that everybody's kind of rowing it.

23:21And then build, you know, build your administrative, you know, overseas VAs, whatever around that. But you have like a central nucleus of a centralized skill set, all pulling one direction with, well i mean that's a centralized like company but then like five or six people that all have unique skill sets but then building the ancillary around it but not necessarily a company where you have 50 employees on the book i think that's the way it's lean mean baby nimble nimble nimble got to move quick got to you know like be able to i i just think and again i'm kind of painting with a broad brush that I don't mean to, but like, I just think being able to move nimble, consistent revenue, the exact same way is not consistent anymore.

24:16Like, I think you've got to be nimble month to month or quarter to quarter when you're a small business and entity. And there's a lot of different ways that you can sort of pivot and evolve throughout a year's time across a subset of disciplines. And that's sort of what we're doing with Radical Inc. We've got the Radcast Network, which is obviously, I think, the mainstay and been building that for seven years. But I think the ancillary things around it with ways with which to monetize when you have a group of skill sets in business services is becoming unique. It's a little volatile, but if you're nimble, you can take advantage of it.

25:03That's my thoughts on that. But lots of CEOs stepping down, except for this one. CEO of life. We're saying right here. I know. And hey, speaking of that, getting your life right. You got to get your health right. That's what Chris and I do on Vibe Science. Go check that out. Vibe Science podcast. Got some big hitters coming up on that show as well. We're taking you to your highest vibe. Look, all this circles around. You can talk about business, talk about all this stuff, and podcasts, personal brand. All that means nothing if your health is shit. Because think about it, Chris. The moment we do all this stuff, I could hit the lottery.

25:46We could have a big sales. We could sell one of our brands for nine figures. But does it mean anything if you're in bed with the flu in that moment? Or even worse, something more. So you got to take care of your health and wellness, mind, body, energy. We bring on the best guests. We're empowering you. We're navigating it for you. Like we're not, we don't know it all. We're not doctors. We just play them on our podcast. No, I'm kidding. We don't. We bring in a lot of people smarter than us that tell you about it. So we're empowering. It's an empowerment show on health, wellness, mind, body, energy.

26:27Isn't that right, brother? That's right. yeah this park vibe science yes check that out vibe science podcast look it's the new year got hacked by china we're not going to overwhelm you with uh this with too much you know we appreciate you for listening we know you have options i like wearing this belt so i'd appreciate if you keep listening you know i don't want to have to hide it or send it to somebody so uh go subscribe to that youtube channel go watch us spotify or youtube you can see chris and his pretty face with his mark walberg t-shirt on yes shout out to mark municipal sponsor plug and we appreciate all our sponsors branded bills independent center exponent appreciate everyone for making this happen for us we couldn't do it without the support of the listeners, the sponsors.

27:27And I appreciate you, Chris. Likewise, brother. Cheers to a great year. Any final words as we close out today? I just want to send everyone good vibes, abundant energy for the new year, health, wealth, happiness, love, and I hope everyone just has an amazing, beautiful year. Yes, well said. Hopefully your college team won in the playoffs. that will have been determined by now. So good luck, whoever's playing. I went to UCF. I know mine didn't. Yeah, you said you didn't. Clemson got knocked out by Texas. Texas probably beat Arizona State. We don't know. Recorded this before. But anyway, we wish everyone a beautiful, lovely 2025.

28:12We can't wait to be a part of it. We got big things coming, and it all starts with you. Check us out at RyanIsRight.com. All the highlight clips, links to our sponsors, linked to all of our social media. And of course, we appreciate you. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.