Deevo is a photographer, videographer, blogger, serial entrepreneur, former corporate executive, single father of two promising young ladies, and now an emerging strategy consultant who is fast making his way as an expert in creative digital architecture to help small businesses and entrepreneurs brand and market using social media effectively. His current company, Fusion Photography, is an international photo, video, and content creation studio, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is consistently recognized as one of the top three photography studios in the South.

Prior to Fusion, Deevo started, scaled, and then sold the largest adult social company in the Carolinas. Running concurrently to his entrepreneurial life, he worked for a Fortune 50 company for over 20 years as the Senior Project Director managing multi-million dollar projects and international business teams.
Deevo is currently the Co-Director of Sprout Connectors, a human-centered digital outreach agency, with offices in Charlotte and Hilton Head, and is the co-anchor of the popular podcast Mind Body Business.

• CEO Hack: Journalling, planning my day ahead, and having a roadmap of what I want to accomplish for the day
• CEO Nugget: Live by the arete philosophy- do everything like it's the last day
• CEO Defined: Being a good listener and having the ability to engage with other people

Website: https://www.sproutconnectors.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sproutconnectors/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/fusionphotog
www.instagram.com/sproutconnectors

FULL INTERVIEW

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Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:30 – Gresham Harkless:

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I had a very special guest on the show today. Deevo Tindall of Sprout Connectors, Deevo. It's awesome to have you on the show.

00:38 – Deevo Tindall:

How are you doing brother? Good to have me. Thank you.

00:40 – Gresham Harkless:

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Deevo so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Deevo is a photographer, videographer, blogger, serial entrepreneur, former corporate executive, single father to promising young ladies, and now an emerging strategy consultant who is fast making his way as an expert in creative digital architecture to help small businesses and entrepreneurs brand and market using social media effectively. His current company, Fusion Photography, is an international photo, video, and content creation studio based in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's consistently recognized as one of the top 3 photography studios in the South.

Prior to starting Fusion, Deevo started, scaled, and then sold the largest adult social company in the Carolinas. Running co-currently to his entrepreneurial life, he worked for a Fortune 50 company for over 20 years as the Senior Project Director, managing multi-million dollar projects and international business teams. Deevo is currently the co-director of Sprout Connectors, a human-centered digital outreach agency with offices in Charlotte and Hilton Head, and is the co-anchor of the popular podcast, Mind, Body, Business. Deevo, you're doing phenomenal things. Awesome to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:49 – Deevo Tindall:

I'm ready. That sounds good. I got to get that guy in here so he can talk to you.

01:54 – Gresham Harkless:

Exactly, that's why I'm paging Divo to the podcast studio.

01:57 – Deevo Tindall:

We all have that imposter syndrome when you read it. It's like, wow, I've actually done a few cool things in my life.

02:02 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, it becomes definitely surreal. So I guess I wanted to start everything and hearing how you got started, could you take us through what I call your CEO story and we'll let you get to start it with all those things you're doing?

02:12 – Deevo Tindall:

Well, so I originally worked in the Fortune 50 world working for corporations straight out of college. I was selected as one of only 2 people across the planet who was selected in this executive management program. I worked in New York City for a year and hated that. So I was, I asked if I could graduate early out of the program and move back to California, which is where I'm from, and I was granted permission to do that. So I actually left the program and moved back to California where I set up shop, doing the corporate thing for almost 20 years. Simultaneously to doing that, I always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

So I started a few smaller organizations in the athletic world. I started a men's soccer program, which quickly morphed into dodgeball volleyball softball, and some other things. Before I knew it, I was running a sports and social club out in San Diego. I got married in 2003. Prior to that, I'd been taking photographs as a hobby all my life. In fact, the first camera I got was when I was 12 years old, and I just kind of fell in love with the idea that I could create something, freeze something, and then have that for posterity's sake forever and ever. And so I just kind of kept taking photographs. In 2003, when I got married, I realized that I could take better photographs than my photographer. And I was like, shit, this guy just got 4 grand to do this. Why am I not charging for my services?

So before that, it was just a hobby. So that's kind of where Fusion was born. And then I ran those 2 concurrently. I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2006. I got divorced and things just kind of, I just needed a fresh start, a fresh location. The business company that I was working for was purchased. And so everyone in the company was laid off. And I was like, wow, I got divorced. I just got laid off from my job. I've got these 2 small gigs I'm doing on the side that really aren't making a whole lot of money.

How do I, where do I go next? So I ended up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I went forward with all the details and got another job working for the same company that purchased my company and just continued that process while still growing the 2 side businesses on the side. And then in 2013, I quit the corporate job full-time and just jumped full headstrong into the 2 side gigs which now became full-time gigs.

04:31 – Gresham Harkless:

Nice, absolutely. And I know when we were, you know, talking a little bit, you know, before we hit record, you talked about how they're in the 2 businesses kind of overlap and they both kind of, it sounds like they help each other out, synergize each other. Could you talk a little bit more about that?

04:45 – Deevo Tindall:

Yeah, so Fusion Photography traditionally was a human-centered photography business. We focused on weddings and family portraits, we did some commercial work, but primarily human stuff, kind of the artsy side of the photography world. But I was also starting to get a lot of inquiries for doing commercial work, and event photography, and because I had a decent social media presence, I was getting asked to teach others, primarily photographers and people in the wedding industry, how I grow my social media to what it was. And so I started doing free workshops, and then I started charging for the workshops. And then my partner and I, Lisa and I, we came together in 2017.

And in 2018, we're like, man, we're giving away all this intellectual spirit to people for free. We're actually really good at it. We really, enjoy doing it. How do we bridge that gap between the business world and the art world? And that's where Sprout was born. So we created Sprout Connectors, which is, for lack of a better explanation, it's an intellectual thought seed agency that bridges strategic social media and content creation and puts them under the same roof because traditionally they've kind of been separate worlds where you would hire a photographer to come in and create content.

And then you would hire a marketing strategist to come in and do your marketing strategy. But because we both have a vast amount of experience in both of those worlds where like, let's combine the 2. And I don't like the word agency, but for lack of a better word, it's a creative agency that creates content and kind of brings all of that strategically under one roof.

06:11 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I definitely correct myself if I'm wrong. I feel like when you have both, you know, in tandem and a lot of times when you have them in 2 separate houses, so to speak, a lot of times you don't get that synergy. You don't really get the next-level finished product, which it sounds like you all provide.

06:26 – Deevo Tindall:

Yeah, that's a great analogy you just made. So imagine if you were building a house and you were constructing your dream home, you wouldn't hire 2 different architecture companies, you wouldn't hire 2 different builders, you wouldn't hire a whole bunch of, you wouldn't hire different people to build the same home. You'd hire one project manager, one builder, and one architect to encapsulate your entire vision and then carry out bringing in the necessary bodies, the contractors, et cetera, to fill those roles, right? So in essence, that's what we are. We're one builder and one creative agency that works with you.

As let's say we're working with you, Grash, and we wanted to, you wanted to create social media content or you wanted a new website or whatever it is, you would bring us in and we work strategically with you to encapsulate what your vision is, bring that into a storyboard concept, if you will, and then strategically go out and fill that with our contractors, if you will, but the content that we would be creating for you. Does that make sense?

07:16 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love that you said the word vision because it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, that kind of is a foundation of everything you're doing your brand, and what you're trying to create. And as you said, fill in that storyboard where you have that vision and you figure out how to execute it and it manifests itself in many of the ways that you all work with clients.

07:32 – Deevo Tindall:

Yeah, your vision might be different than mine. And while I'm a great photographer, I don't necessarily know how your business runs nor what you want to accomplish. And so what we set out to do is a really rigorous discovery process with you to better understand your business, what's your mission, what are your values, what's your value proposition, is And why are you in business. Why would I go to you, as opposed to 25 other people who are doing very similar things? What makes you different? And so then once we kind of nail down what those parameters look like in terms of what are your pillars, what are your pillars of success that make you, and why people would buy from you.

We then go around strategically to set about creating content that fills in those pillars for you in an aesthetically pleasing way so that your vision, your mission, and your strategy, all are cohesively told with content that tells your brand story. And that's the whole point. And you could do this with stock photos to a certain extent. I think I was having this conversation with a nonprofit that we're about to start working with last week. And she's like, my CEO originally thought that we could go, you know, just get a bunch of stock photo and video, but you know, it looks like everyone else's.

You can download that stuff from Canva and have basically a decently told story. But if you really want to separate yourself and your brand and your company and the vision and the mission that makes you who you are and why you're in business, then you need to spend some time and energy around telling that story properly so that when people hear it and see it, they're like, Holy shit, I would totally buy from that cat. That makes sense.

08:53 -Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I love that word that you use cohesive because I think so many times, a lot of times when you tell your story, and then you look at somebody's website, you look at their images, it seems like they're completely different stories, completely different businesses, but having that cohesiveness is so big. And obviously doing the work to get to where that cohesiveness even makes sense is so huge. Would you consider that to be what I call your secret sauce, the thing you feel kind of sets you apart is that ability to be able to obviously, you know, listen to a client and be able to kind of, be able to hear the story, synthesize it, I guess you can say, and really replicate it in so many different forms and fashions for the client.

09:32 – Deevo Tindall:

Yeah, I think that's part of our secret sauce. I think what makes myself and Lisa, my partner different from other photographers and other people that I have worked with. And again, this is not to denigrate anybody. Everybody has something they're good at. Our ability to intuitively understand people,

09:50 – Gresham Harkless:

I think, is our secret sauce. Definitely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:04 – Deevo Tindall:

I journal every morning. I plan out my day the night before. I follow up with follow-up in the morning and I have a roadmap of what I want my day to accomplish. I did not used to do this and I was kind of squandering time and then wandering around. And while I've been relatively successful for most of my life, I didn't really start seeing the compounding effect of my results until I really started strategically planning out my days, my weeks, my months. And I know exactly there are 3 things every single morning that I write down that I have to accomplish that day come hell or high water. And I set out every day to accomplish those 3. That list might have 46 items on it, but there are 3 marquee events that I have to accomplish.

10:44 – Gresham Harkless:

Awesome. And so now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client, or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

10:55 – Deevo Tindall:

I think it's a philosophy that I have been trying to live my life for the last year and a half or so and it's a term called erete, a-r-e-t-e, live with erete in it. It's a stoic philosophy from Epictetus an ancient Roman philosopher and that piece of it is that in every single moment that you do, whatever it is, do it as if it's the last day you'll ever have to do that. And that can be how you love, how you journal, how you execute a business meeting, how you show for a podcast. Don't do anything half-ass because those half-ass moments tend to compound over time and talk about karma or whatever you will. You never know when your last day is here. You never know when your last moment is here. And I hate to sound cliche, but look at the world we're living in right now.

11:48 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, I love that. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Deevo, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:00 -Deevo Tindall:

It means being a good listener. I think by and large it all comes down to your ability to engage with people and that starts with listening. I think we have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason. I don't think it's accidental. I guess just the more you get and you know you're a better father, you're a better partner, you're a better lover, better husband, wife, everything. If you can step outside of your own ego and just listen from time to time. And trust me, I deal with it every day. I'm guilty of not listening. It's like, I could have done that a little bit differently. I just shut my mouth and let them say what they had to say, process it, come up with a better response than, you know,

I had a boss when I was just out of college and I was right, but it didn't matter because I was a peon and somebody who was significantly more influential than I was in the company sent me an email and they were just completely off the rock or wrong. And I wrote them back some smart-ass email because I have some wise-ass egotistic prick who had something to prove. And my boss was like, anybody ever sends you an email that requires some sort of thought or might get you in trouble or you might have some fog. Just close the email, come back 24 hours later reread what you wrote, and see how it sounds to you because you know, as humans, we're very reactive, right?

So if somebody pisses us off, we're going to say something shitty back to them. So it all boils down to that listen. What can I do to make this a little bit better for everybody? And how can I serve? And then I think we'll be better off.

13:20 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, absolutely. Listening and serving. Yeah, yeah, I love listening and serving. And I was just about to say that a lot of times we can lose sight of why we're doing what we're doing as we kind of talked about earlier. But as you said, if you're able to close that email, you realize that that reaction that you might have that you wanted to say exactly back, may not be in alignment with what you're hoping to accomplish anyway. So really being able to kind of listen, take a breath, and then come back and say, how can I serve? How can I be of my best abilities at this present moment in this present time and do everything excellent as we talked about before?

That's how we're able to get to where we wanna be. So I love that definition and that perspective. Thank you, yeah, appreciate it. No problem and I appreciate you as well to appreciate your time. And what I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get a view, listen to the podcast, and hear about all the awesome things that you all are doing.

14:10 – Deevo Tindall:

Yeah, there was one thing I did want to add. Thank you again for the opportunity to come to the show. There was one you said earlier that really resonated with me I would like to just kind of hammer a point home. You talked about storytelling and in terms of what we do as business people. It's not just because I'm a content creator or a photographer videographer that this point is important if I would encourage anybody who's in the business space to try to sell their services to somebody, or get the brand out there for somebody, think about, think about what your value proposition is and if you talk, talk to anybody who buys your product, they're buying your product because of the experience that you provide and the story that you tell.

It's not because your product is necessarily better per se or your logo is nicer. It's because of the story you're telling that resonates and that's what keeps them coming back. And humanity, there's an argument to be made that humanity was founded upon that storytelling concept of us all just sitting around a campfire, sharing the stories of our lives. And that's how, you know, we can go into a whole evolutionary process there, but that's how our brains develop was through telling stories. And so never before has that concept been really driven home And never before have you had the opportunity to tell your story than in this day and age that we live right now through social media, through web assets, through digital arsenal, all the different things in the pool.

So that would be my piece. If you want to find me, you can find me on sproutconnectors.com, sproutconnectors, plural.com. I'm also on Instagram at Fusion, FOTOG, F-U-S-I-O-N, FOTOG, P-H-O-T-O-G. And that's where you can find me on either of those 2 digital channels.

15:41 – Gresham Harkless:

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I definitely appreciate that, Deevo. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well for people to follow up with you and find out about all the awesome things that you're doing. And as you said, you know, I think it's so important for us to be able to kind of tell our story because we're all unique and we're all gifted in some form, shape, or fashion. And a lot of times the way we're able to communicate that is through our stories and having that as a foundation and building out through your imagery, building out through your graphics and things like that.

But if we don't have that story, if we're not able to kind of communicate and lean on people like yourself to be able to understand how to do that, then we're doing a detriment to ourselves, but we're also doing a detriment to the world at large. So, yeah, truly appreciate that reminder. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:22 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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