IAM1136- Entrepreneur Makes Business Fun

David Addi is Always Fired Up. Literally and figuratively. David helps clients find swag that'll inspire them and get them FIRED UP!

• CEO Hack: Gmail extension- Boomerang
• CEO Nugget: Don't give up too early, stick in the business for as long as possible
• CEO Defined: Letting go of some things and delegating a little more

Website: https://fireduppromos.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidaddi/

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Transcription

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00:30 – Intro 

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:58 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have David Adee of Fired Up Promotions. David, it's great to have you on the show.

01:06 – David Addi

Hey, thanks for having me on the show, Gresh. I'm glad we were finally able to connect and do this.

01:11 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. You're doing so many awesome things and super excited to have you on the other side of the mic so we can hear about all the awesomeness that is definitely to follow. And so before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about David so you can hear about a little bit more of that awesomeness. And David has always fired up literally and figuratively. David helps clients find swag that'll inspire them and get them fired up. So David, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:36 – David Addi

Absolutely, man.

01:37 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick it off, I wanted to rewind the clock and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:45 – David Addi

Yeah, sure. So I'm kind of a typical, a lot of business owners didn't plan on going to this at all. I actually went to college for air traffic control and CCDC up in Kingswell and graduated there in 2013 my final was kind of, you know, to use the school and use the school that I got and, you know, pursue a career in air traffic control.

But towards the end of 2013, actually, June, January 1st, of 2014, the FAA changed a lot of their hiring procedures and I threw a lot of what I was going to do into doubt so I sort of had to come up with a plan B just in case it didn't really work out and just was working a lot of part-time jobs full part-time jobs and then a friend of mine his brother owns a uniform company in Manhattan and he was telling me about how he was helping him, you know, build up a market here in Maryland.

And he asked me if I knew anybody at the ballet company I was working at he could talk to and we just started talking. And so I, you know, started doing uniform like midway through 2014, just doing uniforms in the car, learning the business, trying to build up a market here in Maryland. And basically eventually left both part-time jobs, and took it on full-time. And then I, middle of 2017, kind of came to the realization that like, you know, I could probably do this myself.

I don't really need to be part of a company because the company was in New York. I was in Baltimore, so it wasn't like he was getting a lot of, you know, getting a lot of support And the owner was actually moving out of the country. So he was gonna keep the company around, but his father was gonna run a lot of it stateside while he moved out of the country. So yeah, 20, I just had to come up with a name.

Came up with fired-up promotions and basically branched off and not just doing uniforms and power, but doing anything, you know, promo-related and swag-related. So yeah, I joined up with this great company called I Promote You. So basically they helped me grow my business. So it's not like I'm not a franchise. I own my own brand and name, but they help me with a lot of capital and sourcing products and things like that.

It's been a great relationship with them. So I've been with them now since I was getting a 2018 going into my fourth year. The last 2 years finished in the top 100 wall affiliates in the country. So I'm really, really excited about that. And I'm on trend again to finish at the top one, but again this year, so.

04:08 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, happy early congratulations. Definitely happy for 4 years as well too. And I love hearing about the progression of how you guys are where you are now. I think so many times people don't see all of that, don't see the steps that you took and everything to get to where you are and how you kind of branched out and how you had the support of a different company and then they kind of moved forward from there. But I think a lot of times we don't hear or see those stories.

04:32 – David Addi

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think sometimes in life, you just have to go with the flow. And I look back at it now, I definitely have no regrets about going to school. Going, and finishing college was a big deal for me. I didn't, you know, I never thought I'd even go to college, let alone finish it. So that was a big confidence booster for me. And to be honest, you know, I think it probably wouldn't have been a great career as an Air Traffic Control, being with my core of kind of an affluent personality.

I like being out there, I like doing sales. I think it would have been tough to be kind of cooped up all day in a box and given orders to claim. But I mean, it's a cool job, don't get me wrong. It's definitely a cool job, but what I'm doing now is much more to my skill set, in terms of sales and marketing. And it's a fun, it's a really fun industry. I mean, as you can imagine, our industry is constantly changing with trends. So a lot of the stuff we do is tech-related, right? So phones are always changing, so tech's always changing. So it's fun, cuz you always gotta pick up the next thing. What's the next big product out there? What's the next big trend out there? And it keeps you on your toes for sure.

05:36 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's definitely exciting to hear. And I think so many times we forget like the evolution that we have, you know, through our lives and how a lot of times we think at one point this is the great fit. And then maybe as we learn more about ourselves, go through life, have experienced, then other things start to open up and we realize we don't want to necessarily go back to that mindset or where we were there, not saying that is bad or anything, but that we learn more about ourselves and we know that we've evolved.

05:59 – David Addi

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. Sometimes you just play outside and you just, you know, entrepreneurs will say the same thing. Just kind of sometimes, you know, you can get these robots, you just got to go through them and you sort of realize, you know, down the road like, wow, that was a good decision. That worked out well.

06:16 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And so I know you touched a little bit upon the trends and the changes and all the things that have evolved, you know, within the industry. So I want to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more about that and how you work with your clients and how you serve them.

06:28 – David Addi

Absolutely. So I mean, really, like any business, COVID definitely affected us in the sense of what we're doing. I actually thank God even though our industry was down 45% last year, I was actually up 25%. I think a big part of that was I didn't have a lot of event business meetings. I didn't ever do a lot of clients that were in the event space meeting trade shows and things like that. So the businesses I sold to, you know, they were staying open. It wasn't like they were going to close shop. So that helped a lot.

Definitely, a big trend is a lot of people, even now that I don't say COVID, but I guess like, you know, things have been less restricted, you know, things open up a little bit, but then companies are starting to find that their employees like working from home, maybe they are more productive. So really, something I've never done until COVID really was doing a lot of boxes, like swag boxes, And then we were shipping them directly to the employees or directly to the clients. So they're all over the country.

Just for an example, have a company out in Pikesville, Maryland, a company that does therapy over Zoom for kids. So, and maybe this was way before COVID. So this was, this is not, this has always been in their space, but we have these therapists all over the country and they want to do something really cool for them. So we did like 600 teddy bears with the company logo on it. And then each therapist's name underneath the logo and we mailed each one individually to the therapist and it was a huge hit. It kind of went like sort of viral on their social media.

People were going crazy about it. So that's a really big trend. Sending things directly to employees or clients as opposed to shipping them to one location is becoming a bigger and bigger trend. So I think and I think that's going to be here to stay for good. I think I think a lot of businesses are going to stay virtual because I think they're seeing the cost benefit and they're seeing maybe we don't need an office as much as we probably do.

08:22 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for yourself individually or the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:31 – David Addi

That's a really, it's always a really good question. I think, you know, people are sort of always go to the obvious and they go, you know, price and service and things like that. I think our industry, even to somebody who's been in for 6 years can be very, very daunting. Like there are so many different products. How do you know? What makes you different? I think sort of my unique sign proposition is A, I'm not a big company.

I'm like, I'm small enough that I can, you know, give you the service that you need, but big enough to give you sort of the overall pricing that you would get from a lot, you know, bigger competitors because of my affiliation with my large organization in Boston. And the really cool thing about that is I'm able to tap into a wealth of knowledge with people that work at, you know, I promote yourself. They're able to give me, you know, all sorts of ideas and things like that.

Whereas, if you're just trying to do this by yourself if you don't know a certain supplier, you don't really know how to handle a project or tackle a project, it can be very, very daunting. And, you know, sometimes I get projects and, you know, honestly, I'm not sure exactly how to approach it, but a big part of it is you go there and say, hey, Gary, one of the business development guys, here's my project, how would you do it? And You can give me exactly the steps sort of to succeed.

09:51 – Gresham Harkless

So 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?

10:00 – David Addi

Absolutely. So my day-to-day is pretty much dominated by email, getting, and sending purchase orders and things like that, and responses from customers waiting on proof approvals. As you can imagine, like anybody using email, I mean, you sometimes just send an email and you never hear back and you totally forget about it. Like how are you supposed to remember that? I mean, one thing that I just, love is this extension for Gmail, I'm pretty sure it's also on Microsoft Office now too as well.

So boomerang, basically, you know, if you can set it to, if they don't respond to you, they can boomerang back in 5 minutes, 5 months, whatever you want. That is like a must-have. We'll feel you really easy to keep track of, you know, hey, we need an order in like 2 weeks from now. Okay. I'm not gonna remember. So I'll say, hey, thank you. Thanks. You know, John, I'll follow up in 2 weeks. Hit the boomerang for 2 weeks, bring the boomerang back. And I'm like, oh yeah, you gotta respond back to John. And you know, it makes my life wait.

11:04 – Gresham Harkless

So I wanted to ask you now for what I call 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 tell a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:14 – David Addi

Yeah, Absolutely. I mean, I think we live today in a world where people are very, very impatient in terms of like, you know, to see success. Like, you know, my first year I didn't, I didn't do, I mean, I think I did, yeah, I worked half a year, but if I spread out a whole year, I did $80, 000 and so, you know, Last year I did $700, 000 and so this year I'm trending up towards $800, 000. I think the biggest person, the reason people stop doing what they're doing is they give up too early.

I mean, if you're making money, as long as you're able to sustain your income and just maybe you're doing something on the side while you're growing your business, stick with it. I've met a lot of guys who had great distances and like 6 months later they were out and I couldn't believe it. Like, yeah, nobody was buying. I'm like, I mean, it doesn't happen like that. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you can hit a big sale early.

But as long as you, I think the biggest thing is if you just, you know, more than, you know, more than anything, if you can just stick in the business as long as possible, and you see Every year you're making money, stay with it. Don't give up. People can give up way too quickly, especially younger entrepreneurs. I mean, they have great ideas. They really do. And I'm like shocked 6 months later they quit. And well, there were no sales. Well, it takes a while. You know, it doesn't always happen overnight.

12:36 – Gresham Harkless

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 open to different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So David, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:46 – David Addi

You know, it's a good question. I'm really learning how to I have for the first time since I started 4 years ago. So this year I hired I have an assistant. And I'm learning to just try to delegate a little bit more. one of one of my sort of drawbacks to growth is that I don't really have the time for the marketing I used to. So I'm looking now actually the higher marketing person to maybe start off, you know, 5, 10, 15 hours a week, just to do some basic marketing, reach back out to some old potential clients that we've not worked with in the past, but nothing ever happened with.

So I think being a CEO really means learning how to let go a little bit and start trusting other people. I think when you start working for yourself, and it's hard like I'll admit it, you know you sort of get into this mode of being a control freak And it's really hard to grow. It's really hard to grow if you do that. So slowly but slowly, you know, I'm starting to hand things off to my assistant and say, hey, can you take care of this? Can you find out where this is? Can you do this? And not trying to do everything. That really works too well.

13:46 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's such a great lesson that we even talked about from a technical standpoint with the hack, being able to delegate even to technology, but definitely obviously to people and to get people in place so that we can spend more time where we need to. And I think as we start to grow and expand and you start to have to service more people we realize we don't have all the time to do all of the things so we have to bring people on to compliment us.

14:08 – David Addi

Absolutely, absolutely yeah.

14:10 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, David truly appreciates that. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do was just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best to take it all to view, and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

14:24 – David Addi

Yeah, no, I mean, I would just add, you know, again, sort of a unique selling proposition as well, is that I really enjoy helping people. So like a lot of times, I have really good connections in the marketing world in terms of video and websites. I don't do those things, but I love talking to the people who need that stuff because I can always direct them to a few different people and help them out.

So again, if you're coming to me, if you need promo items, great, but if not, I'd love to help you with your marketing. I can definitely give you really good advice or give you who to talk to depending on what you're kinda accomplished. So I think that's another really different sort of spin. In fact, like I've been playing around with a lot of change, I need to fire up marketing to make it more of a, you know, marketing type of umbrella versus just promotional.

But I think as long as you're just trying to help people like I'm not, I'll tell you, a lot of times I'm not the best person for somebody, you know, and I'll send them to, you know, a friend of mine or whatever because maybe they're just doing something a little bit different. So I think it's really helpful when you can just talk to somebody and say, hey, you know, this is what I'm up to, you know, what I do is, yeah, okay, I think you should talk to such and such or so and so. So yeah, it's been a good ride. But in terms of, you know, how people get in touch with me, they can just visit my website, fireuppromos.com, or they can email me at davidatfireuppromos.com as well.

And the website, again, it's a fun site. You get a chance to check it out. It got with this video of this football team like in the huddle, like getting all fired up. And I just like bringing out that excitement. Like when people get their swag, like they're fired up, they're excited. So yeah, That's kind of what we got going on.

16:03 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, David, truly appreciate you. We'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too. And I love that you are a connector as well too. Remind us of how important that is. I think anytime you're helping people and you're being a resource, whether it is they can directly work with you or you just connect them to somebody that can help them out too. You're definitely a great person to know. So truly appreciate you for taking some time out today. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:25 – Outro