From Finance to Netflix "Million Dollar Secret" with Chris Allen

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Speaker 1 If nobody knows who you are, nobody cares. So ultimately, we had to play in that game.
And when you're a nobody, like me, you have to take action on that.

Speaker 3 This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

Speaker 3 We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month,

Speaker 3 taking the BS out of business for over six years in over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.

Speaker 1 Right about now. What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now.

Speaker 1 We're talking about what's now, what's hot.

Speaker 1 And, you know,

Speaker 1 you may have heard of Netflix, but have you heard of Million Dollar Secret? I think you have. It's a game show.
It's a lot of fun. And Chris Allen is here to tell us all about it.
What's up, Chris?

Speaker 1 What's going on, Ryan? How you doing? I'm good, man. I was excited.
We get a lot of great guests. And sometimes it's like stuff from 15 years ago, great.

Speaker 1 You know, you never know where the business or what the concept is. But something when it's here and now and been on Netflix and been popular, I'm always excited.

Speaker 1 I I have to admit, I started to go down the rabbit hole because there's so much content now. Like, I had heard of Million Dollar Secret, but didn't know it.
It's fun, man.

Speaker 1 It's intriguing. Well, yeah, I'll tell you what, this show is very much in the news right now.
I mean, this is kind of like you think about reality TV.

Speaker 1 You have kind of like your trashy, you know, relationship stuff. You got The Bachelor, Love is Blind, You Out to Handle.

Speaker 1 You've got those like slice of life things, you're like the Vanderpumps, Real Housewives, whatever, just day in the life with famous people. Kurdashians started it years and years ago, right?

Speaker 1 What's getting really popular is competition TV shows like Survivor, Big Brother have been around. Traders is kind of the hot name in the streets, right?

Speaker 1 Million Dollar Secret is Netflix's take on the traders, right? It's kind of a very similar show. Obviously, got critical differences, but Netflix is like, okay, this is what's popular.

Speaker 1 We got to get in the game. And when Netflix goes in on something, they go in on something.
And with Million Dollar Secret, you can tell they put a lot of resources behind this show. Yeah, they did.

Speaker 1 And I think they're proven to be right with the popularity, especially as we talked pre-episode worldwide. We've got a worldwide hit on their hands.
Uh, let's set the table, though.

Speaker 1 I mean, Chris, I mean, we can tell your background.

Speaker 1 I wanted to tell your background, but I, you know, I definitely want to, for anybody that maybe not have seen the show, explain a little bit of the concept, how you got involved, all that.

Speaker 1 Maybe we could ball that into one. Yeah, for sure.
So, you know, I came up in the finance world and I went to Notre Dame finance career. That was kind of where I started, did that for several years.

Speaker 1 And like so many young finance people, I burned out in my late 20s. And I said, you know what, like, I got to do something different.

Speaker 1 I don't, you know, I'm seeing my bank account go up, but I'm not feeling any happier. I got to do something different.

Speaker 1 So in 2018, I left the finance world, went back to business school, and I went to Orton. And that's a hallowed hall of business education.
I was with some really, really talented people.

Speaker 1 I felt like the dumbest guy there almost every day that I was there. But being around really smart people is great for inspiration and great for ingenuity.

Speaker 1 And that's a great place for businesses to start. And while I was there, got kind of really interested in startups.

Speaker 1 And that was around the same time that White Claw was taking off and everybody was drinking Spike Seltzer.

Speaker 1 So I met a guy who was working at Anheuser-Busch and he's like a South American Uruguayan immigrant, right? Child of Uruguayan immigrants. And he grew up drinking coconut water.

Speaker 1 And he's like, what if we did what Spike Seltzer is doing, but we did it with coconut water? And we kind of like aimed it at health conscious people.

Speaker 1 Said, you know, I don't really know what I want to do with my life, but that sounds as good of an idea as any. And we dove in to that world as people were creating new spike seltzers.

Speaker 1 We dove into that world and we've launched in 2021. We got about like half of the U.S.
under distribution, started distributing to cruises, luxury resorts in the Caribbean, all that.

Speaker 1 But what's really cool about starting a business, especially with a co-founder, is you guys can kind of trade roles back and forth and cover for each other.

Speaker 1 And we were noticing that so many of these spike seltzers were having success with celebrity front people. And we couldn't afford a celebrity front person.
We tried to negotiate with a couple of them.

Speaker 1 We're like, dude, we can't even afford like a tenth of what you're asking for. Right.

Speaker 1 So I came up with this crazy idea of like, well, what if I just tried to become, you know, the celebrity front person myself and started pitching to reality shows.

Speaker 1 And ultimately, nothing really was a fit. I mostly got cast into like dating type shows.
And I was like, I don't really know if I want to go running around making out with people on TV.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's not a good look for our brand, much less myself. And ultimately, Netflix called me in 2024 with this concept, Million Dollar Secret.
And I knew right away it was a winner.

Speaker 1 You get a chance to work with Netflix. Like you just take it.
They're kind of like an ascending power in reality TV. And this idea was so interesting.

Speaker 1 We didn't really know too much until we got there, but this idea was so, so interesting. So I just had to take it.
And I'm really glad I did it because it's become sort of this global phenomenon.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man. A couple of things to unpack there.
Then I want you to delve into sort of the concept. But

Speaker 1 people realizing it pays to be known.

Speaker 1 Someone owns a trademark for that. His name is Ryan Alford.
But look, we have this democratization of the the internet and media and all these things.

Speaker 1 And yes, you got to be interesting, good looking, and talented, which Chris knocks out all three. I'll give you that, Chris, man.
You got them all going. You're and I say a really nice guy.

Speaker 1 Once you get to know you a little bit, I'm a quick study once we've been on. I can already tell, like, you're not a jerk.
Like, you got the right.

Speaker 1 I think the fans of that show might, the fans of Million Dollars Sigma might be kind of split on that. Yeah, I think it's probably 50-50, but I can tell already talking to you for 10 minutes.

Speaker 1 I'm like, this guy's not a jerk. Like, he's smart.
He knows what he's doing. But But look, you were smart.
I mean, like, can't afford your own influencer, then become one yourself.

Speaker 1 And it does take some help and it helps when Netflix calls, but you did the work to get there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's kind of interesting because, like, you know, I think a lot of, especially consumer, like beverage, food entrepreneurs, they end up competing product attributes, right?

Speaker 1 Like, they're like, oh, you know, we make a protein bar that's like 20% less calories than the next one, right?

Speaker 1 And it gets to the shelf and then you start looking at a shelf set and you're like, how the hell will anybody pick me over these other 400 options?

Speaker 1 And then you see people start streaming into the store because they're like, oh, I have to buy the new Kardashian vodka. I have to buy the new Ryan Reynolds, this, that, the other thing.

Speaker 1 I'm like, damn, nobody actually cares who you are. Nobody really, you know, when you come out there, nobody cares about like X calories, X fat, X this, that.

Speaker 1 They're like, I want to go for whoever my reality TV star or famous person is, my favorite actress, the guy who I like, you know, see on TV.

Speaker 1 And I was like, well, if nobody knows who you are, nobody cares. So ultimately, we had to play in that game.

Speaker 1 And when you're a nobody, like me right you have to take action on that so it's a process to try to get on a show like this it took me years to make it happen and look you think anyone cares uh about prime it's jake paul's sports drink you know immediately like taking down gain raid for a little while for because it's jake paul's sports drink right prime

Speaker 1 i was told my co-founder is like notoriously kind of like you know pessimistic about the fact that this works right he's always just like, I just hate that this is the reality.

Speaker 1 I'm like, listen, man, like, I don't make the rules of the market. All I do is play by them.
And I'm just like,

Speaker 1 hate the game. Yeah, this is like the way it works now.
It's like we've kind of replaced religiosity in our culture with celebrity worship. And that's just kind of how it goes.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And, but with social media and streaming, being Netflix, kind of being in this,

Speaker 1 I'll call it new media world. Yeah.

Speaker 1 New media. I call it now media.

Speaker 1 That's my brand. But exactly.
You took advantage of that. Talk to me about Million Dollar Secret.

Speaker 1 For our audience, sure, there's a lot because you fit right in our demo. They've probably seen it.
But for anyone that hasn't, like what the premise of the show and what went down.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I mean, if anybody hasn't watched it, you got to check it out. The show is so awesome and it has so many different layers to it compared to a normal reality show.

Speaker 1 Like you can think about 8,000 different things when it comes to the show. But the basic concept is you have 12 people.
I'm talking about like 12 different archetypes.

Speaker 1 So we got like a grandma, we got a grandpa, we've got a cowboy on our show. We got like the sort of typical LA actress type influencers on the show.

Speaker 1 And then me, sort of like the business guy, we arrive at this mansion

Speaker 1 in Canada where a mysterious owner of the house has prepared a welcome gift for all 12 people, which is a box to be laid on the foot of your bed when you arrive. In the box,

Speaker 1 one of the 12 people receives a million dollars on day one like the second they get to the house right 11 people get an empty wooden box and the goal uh is essentially to figure out who has the million dollars in their box and vote them out of the show if they do that successfully the money is given to somebody else and the process continues from there So if the person who gets a million dollars on day one is able to keep their identity clean the entire season, they just go home with the million, right?

Speaker 1 So our job is to figure out who's acting weird, who has a guilty conscience, who's changing the way that they're acting, who's being nervous, figure out who it is, vote them out, and then get the money to our box.

Speaker 1 You've only been on our radar for a few weeks. I'm going down the rabbit hole, but I was like, I guess they've got things set up.
What if this had been like vetted too fast or something?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, the person like completely. I mean, I assume it's all, has it all been aired now? It's all been aired, yeah.
It came out in late March and was finished up by kind of like mid-April. Okay.

Speaker 1 And so the secret's out everything's been exposed because i'm only uh one and a half episodes in the secrets out we we know we know the winner and uh the way it went down is uh pretty interesting because you know if you think about it right that there's a lot of different ways you can play that game yes there's a lot how much were you clued in

Speaker 1 to that like what the strategies may or may not be, different angles and all that beforehand? So 0%, which I think is what makes the game so good, right?

Speaker 1 If people are familiar with reality TV, I think they're on like season 50 of Survivor and like season 25 of Big Brother. And by the time you get 20 seasons into a show,

Speaker 1 a lot of times people are sort of game bots. Like they're super fans of the show.
They know exactly they're already read it. They read the

Speaker 1 formula.

Speaker 1 They know the formula. They call them game bots, right? So it actually leads to pretty dull TV, I think, when you have that, right?

Speaker 1 We knew nothing about the game that we were playing other than that a million dollars was on the line and it was going to be some sort of a game of deceit, right?

Speaker 1 So in episode one, the owner of the house sort of tells us the rules on camera. That was actually the first time we realized what show we were on.

Speaker 1 And what's so cool about that is there's no strategies. And in a lot of ways,

Speaker 1 you result in pretty messy gameplay. I mean, so we made a ton of mistakes.
And it gets super messy because of that. I think the reason is because we didn't know what show we were on.

Speaker 1 We hadn't read up. Now, like, I did a little bit of homework.
I watched the traders.

Speaker 1 I watched shows that I thought it would be like, and I saw, like, basically kind of the trends of what would be work, what would work.

Speaker 1 But then, when I learned what the game was, we basically had like six hours that night to go back to our hotel rooms and figure out, like, what are we going to do? Like, how are we going to play this?

Speaker 1 Yeah, real-world gameplay. I mean, for a million dollars all at once.
So,

Speaker 1 Chris, you mentioned it a little bit, but like the Netflix factor and watching sort of that behemoth work and how it markets, how it, like, how privy were you to all of that that's going on with marketing the show,

Speaker 1 all the components of the business side of it?

Speaker 1 Well, I think what's so interesting about the Netflix machine is that if you look at the statistics around like total percentage of hours streamed by Netflix compared to like the other players in streaming, so whether it be like HBO, Max, or Disney or Hulu or Amazon Prime, Netflix kind of like is television now.

Speaker 1 Like they're such a dominant player in that space that they've kind of just become television. And we know that they're global, right?

Speaker 1 So what's super interesting about Netflix is they obviously market their shows.

Speaker 1 They market their originals and the shows that they have that do well, but it's also a really democratic platform, right?

Speaker 1 Anybody who has Netflix knows like every day, it seems like definitely every week, there's a ton of new stuff coming out, right?

Speaker 1 And what bubbles up to that Netflix top 10 is based on who's watching the show, right?

Speaker 1 So things can kind of catch fire for Netflix similar to how they do on like a TikTok algorithm or a YouTube algorithm, like out of nowhere. And, you know, Million Dollar Secret is a brand new show.

Speaker 1 So like they put it out there, not knowing what would resonate on it. And I think two days later, we were the number three show globally.

Speaker 1 So we've kind of seen like what that, what happens when you achieve that initial success is Netflix pours gas on the fire. Right.
And

Speaker 1 what's so interesting about it is a global platform, right? So like we're thinking about a lot of shows like Survivor, Big Brother, those are like primarily U.S.-based.

Speaker 1 And we think about reality, TV, and television and our culture as being U.S.-based.

Speaker 1 What I wasn't prepared for is like every corner of the globe, people are talking about me, people are talking about what I did on the show, people are getting interested in what I'm doing outside the show.

Speaker 1 And that is like pretty hard to wrap your head around. So, I think it'd be curious, people like listening.
So, you

Speaker 1 smart enough to recognize that it pays to be known, and lo and behold, you went and did it for yourself.

Speaker 1 What has surprised you, delighted you, and scared the shit out of you now that it's come true? Well, I think what surprised me again the most is just the global aspect of it.

Speaker 1 Like, I was totally expecting to walk down the street and have people recognize me.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, I was like, okay, the night before the show came out, it was like, this is the last day of normalcy for probably a really long time.

Speaker 1 For example, you just go to the grocery store and you get someone come up to you and say, hey, like, I watched you on the show.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, my fact that I can go to a different state and my face, like, prompts a response from people is something that you just don't expect.

Speaker 1 Like, when, you know, you've lived your entire life in anonymity. What has been scary about that is the, the level of just online discourse and dialogue, especially with anonymity.

Speaker 1 So like, I made the mistake, like so many other reality TV stars do, of like poking my nose around in Reddit.

Speaker 1 And because

Speaker 1 subreddit was growing and like, you know, I was pretty controversial on the show, surprisingly to me, because I don't really feel like I'm a very controversial person, but there are certain things that I did on the show.

Speaker 1 I was trying to win, right? I was trying to win the game. So I competed hard.
Like, I'm a business person. I compete with disregard for feeling in a lot of cases.
That is like pretty wild.

Speaker 1 The level and toxicity of online discourse is actually pretty shocking to me.

Speaker 1 So, like, eventually I kind of just learned, okay, just leave that where it is and like focus on what's in front of your face.

Speaker 1 But yeah, that's, I mean, like, anybody who acquires, let's call it like instant fame.

Speaker 1 And I say that like in air quotes, because this is still, you know, just the first foray into what I hope to accomplish is

Speaker 1 a little scary the first time that you encounter it. I can only imagine with this, I don't know, the

Speaker 1 way with which reality TV sort of gets devoured, and then much less. I mean, but I will say, we have a pretty popular show.

Speaker 1 I didn't know I had made it until a Miami airport sighting, and then my forever, my kids, thought I was cool finally, you know. But yeah,

Speaker 1 it's so awesome. I was

Speaker 1 down in Florida. I took my dad on a retirement trip to Florida, and

Speaker 1 I got recognized out at the new Universal Park down in Orlando. And

Speaker 1 I got recognized by two people. And then four more people came over.
And they were like, I know I've seen you somewhere. What show is it?

Speaker 1 So at one point, I was kind of holding court with like six people. And my dad was like,

Speaker 1 he kind of panic. It was the first time he had seen me get recognized in person.
He kind of like ran away. He's like, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 And he called my mom and he's like, your son is being mobbed by people on the bridge. Like, what did we do?

Speaker 1 I'm just his son. Like, he doesn't know what from, what from

Speaker 1 most people been in person been pretty cool? Everybody in person has been cool. Everybody in person is cool.

Speaker 1 It's just the trolls behind the keyboard, though, but they'll, you know, and it's hard to, but you can't, you got to stay away from that, man. Well, yeah, well, what's interesting is that.

Speaker 1 Send me a message on, you know, if you're being tempted, send me a message. I'm going to go, back away, Chris.
Back away.

Speaker 1 Maybe I need to do that, Ryan. Maybe

Speaker 1 my personal just like fire lightning. I need to email you for a password to get into my message account or something like that.
It's just no good because,

Speaker 1 you know, I do a pretty good job of like not, I don't know, listening to other people, like not caring. But if you go down that rabbit hole, there's some really disturbed people.

Speaker 1 And then it's also, you'll start like questioning yourself, like, oh, I mean, you're a good guy. Like, I'm a good guy.
You don't want to be impacting someone in that way. Right.

Speaker 1 But, but if they've taken it that far, it's a them problem, not a you problem, you know?

Speaker 1 What I think is so interesting about that, too, is a lot of times they'll take it to like your your court too. Like they'll put it on your personal pages and things like that.

Speaker 1 And in a lot of cases, like I went into this with the intention of like, if someone writes me a message, I'm going to respond to it. Right.
Like, I want them to feel seen by me. I want to feel like,

Speaker 1 and so like

Speaker 1 it's kind of on the board. Sounds altruistic, but yeah.
Right. Yeah.
If somebody says something that's kind of on the line negative, I'll respond to them. Right.

Speaker 1 And then in that case, and then a lot of times what they'll do is they'll be like,

Speaker 1 they immediately fold and they're like, oh, I thought you were awesome. I'm like, so sorry about that.
Like, you know, whatever.

Speaker 1 So it's kind of interesting to see like they're just doing it for attention or like whatever it might be. I don't know.

Speaker 1 But, you know, obviously, I think there are valid critiques out there too. Like, there's a lot of things that I did on the show that I was kind of like, yeah, it was kind of tough.

Speaker 1 Like, but, you know,

Speaker 1 you're in a competition. It's not like we're out there holding hands and like dancing in a circle.

Speaker 1 It's a competition. But it's also business.
Like, you nailed it.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm pretty, I'm not, I'm not like, I don't think I'm a ruthless business person, but I'm very driven and I can remove emotion from it. And it sounds like you're built the same way.

Speaker 1 And it's not because we're screwing people, but we're doing business. And I think there's a lot of people that just aren't cut for that.

Speaker 1 And so when you get to see it raw, some people just get turned off, you know? Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, like anything else in your life is you try to do things with like the purest of intentions that you can. But in a competition setting, like there can only be one winner.

Speaker 1 And a lot of times that's not going to be the nicest version of yourself that plays that game. And this is like very real money.
Like we were in there competing. It wasn't scripted.
It was all real.

Speaker 1 We were competing. And I got very close to winning.
Right. So

Speaker 1 as that happens, right? You know, you're going to see

Speaker 1 tensions rise. You're going to see people do things that are cutthroat.
Like if we were just playing a game for no money, I don't think that we would have done the things that we did.

Speaker 1 But it required difficult decisions to be made and difficult, you know, in a lot of cases, behavior in order to win. Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 So drink company, I sense a pivot coming. Where are we at with the business? Yeah, no.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that we wanted to do is obviously we've been out there in the seltzer world and the seltzer world was very popular when we launched and is much less popular now.

Speaker 1 And almost every large drink brand is losing volume year on year. They're declining 15, 20% in a lot of cases.
And a lot of brands that came out in that sort of like, let's make a white clot knockoff.

Speaker 1 Go try to find a case of Bud Light Seltzer.

Speaker 1 Good luck.

Speaker 1 Good luck.

Speaker 1 Go try to find Cora Seltzer. It's hard, it's hard to do.
So, as that's sort of happened, it's been challenging on our business, right?

Speaker 1 One of the things that we've done is think about let's respond to the show, and the show is global, you know, so we have a global audience.

Speaker 1 So, I think what we'll likely do is try to find something non-alcoholic that we can ship to our fans around the world, especially our fans in Brazil and the Philippines, those markets where, like, this has really, really become a very popular show.

Speaker 1 In that regard, is transitioning the fame, the known

Speaker 1 to dollars

Speaker 1 been more difficult than you thought. Well, yeah, I mean, it's something that I'm very much figuring out right now, like, because you don't necessarily know what it's going to look like, right?

Speaker 1 Like, this show could have come out and totally flopped. Like, what we didn't know is that we're going to become the number one show in Brazil for several weeks.
Like, you don't know that, right?

Speaker 1 As somebody who's going onto a show and trying to anticipate things. So, there are, obviously, like when you go on a reality TV show, there are like easy ways to monetize things, like through

Speaker 1 cameo and like through

Speaker 1 subscriber-based based type of content like those selling t-shirts with your shirt on

Speaker 1 those like yeah like uh you know uh keep me away from reddit or something like that

Speaker 1 those are like the easy things what's harder is like okay well i obviously have my ongoing business interests right like how do we transition that?

Speaker 1 How do we make the fans of the show want to care about the drink that I'm doing? Because also they care about me, but like they may not like the drink that I have.

Speaker 1 They may not like, they may not like what product I was producing before.

Speaker 1 Like, how do I make something that sort of aligns like their interest in me me and also their interest in like a product that I can produce that actually will drive value to their life? Like,

Speaker 1 you know, so I can't ship an alcoholic product in many cases to many of the places where the fans have resonated with me. So you just pivot your business.

Speaker 1 So one of the great things about it is like, so the status of social media is that they can follow your journey and become aware of the things that you do.

Speaker 1 And that's been the primary strategy that I've followed, that I've employed. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you a couple tips. But

Speaker 1 you didn't ask for it, but I'm going to. Sometimes it's not about creating your own product.
It's using the leverage you have to create the influence on other things that you get paid for.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying you aren't doing some of that, but to that end, how do you like keep the

Speaker 1 attention is fleeting. How do you keep the attention flame lit? Yeah, it's great.
I think you got to be active is number one. And then number two is I'm like big.

Speaker 1 Obviously like I've been business person, been a a marketer is like, you got to understand that you got to produce things that people want and people want to follow.

Speaker 1 And what I think people have generally sort of followed me for is number one reason is like, okay, they like me because I was a business person and I played strategically on the show.

Speaker 1 I was sort of like the avatar for the business person on the show. Right.

Speaker 1 And then in some cases, it's for more superficial reasons, like they like the way I look or they like the way that I, you know, act or whatever it might be.

Speaker 1 I found that in a lot of cases, like I just did kind of typical testing of different kinds of content.

Speaker 1 What does well for me is like talking about what I do outside of the house, like talking about business and talking about like learn my learnings from my business career. People really like that.

Speaker 1 And then number two is like fitness and wellness content does really well for me. Right.

Speaker 1 So I try to produce as much that people are interested in to keep them around because ultimately, like, you know, the window for talking about like what actually happened in the eight episodes of the show, it goes by very quickly.

Speaker 1 You got to keep them interested in you as a personality. So like, you know, I was,

Speaker 1 I'm a big test and react guy so i produced a lot of different kinds of content and i saw what did well and then i'm gonna kind of just go down that that avenue is it creating any other opportunities like have you heard from other things anything other you know like coming across your radar from the show yeah i think the the number one thing is typically with reality tv is you you get some interest from brands while your show is out and that's starting to happen for me obviously like it's taken some time for my social pages to grow but kind of at the level now where i can do that and i you know having been an entrepreneur and startup founder myself like i like to align with brands that um i resonate with and i'm not going to just take any deal um

Speaker 1 so you know kind of in the process of evaluating those right now but that's really cool because ultimately like i want to position myself as an influencer that you know has been in the the business owner chair before which i think is

Speaker 1 somewhat rare, right? I've been behind a brand of my own before and worked with influencers from the brand owner side.

Speaker 1 So I can be an authentic and real voice and a good mouthpiece for these brands and sort of connecting the dots between the brand and the consumer.

Speaker 1 What do you think the most important business skill is that you have? So such a good question. Ultimately, at the end of the day, everything kind of comes down to sales, right? Sales and influence.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's sort of the fundamental business skill. Like you can learn.
finance, you can learn the fundamentals of marketing, you can learn, you know, pick your discipline, right? Supply chain.

Speaker 1 But in order to get anything done in business that you want to get done, you've got to sell to people and convince them of

Speaker 1 your business, that they should invest in your business, that they should buy your product, that they should trust you, all those sorts of different things.

Speaker 1 It just sort of comes down to influence and sales.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's sort of at the core of everything, don't you? Oh, 100%.

Speaker 1 Like, if you can't sell, good luck. You know, like, because we can get caught up in all these product benefits and like, or the financials, and all none of those financials matter if you don't have

Speaker 1 new lifeblood of the business coming in the door. And convincing, like, convincing is an interesting word.
You know, like,

Speaker 1 it's one thing for someone to be aware. It's another for them to have intent.

Speaker 1 And to drive intent takes convincing. And so that's a key skill, no matter what you do.
And if you've got it, you typically can do anything. Absolutely.
Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I I think like, you know, what I've seen is the most successful entrepreneurs are kind of like lifelong salespeople.

Speaker 1 Like these are the people who are like running trading card rings in middle school and things like that. Now, I'll be honest with you.
All irony. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't really think that that was, uh, that was me.

Speaker 1 You know, I didn't necessarily feel like I was sort of a lifelong entrepreneur or salesperson. So it's been a bit of a process for me to kind of

Speaker 1 develop that skill. And as I've gotten better at it, right, I've become a better business person.
Yeah, well, one way or another, I tell people this, and it's self-serving.

Speaker 1 It's a little bit of a joke, but I'll chill the punchline before I say it. But everything comes back to marketing.

Speaker 1 I was one of the rare people that like my major was marketing, never ventured.

Speaker 1 I knew, learned at an early age how this world worked. I'm like, you can market something and sell it, marketing.

Speaker 1 We combine these worlds a little bit together, even though I think they're different, but

Speaker 1 it's just necessary. It's human behavior, understanding how humans work and understanding what it takes to move someone from one position to the other.
And that's what marketing is.

Speaker 1 You know, you've got a mindset. They assume this or they believe that, and you're moving them to here to get them to take an action.

Speaker 1 It's sort of been, I mean, like across the spectrum of

Speaker 1 human history, right? This is how empires were built is with marketing and sales, right? Obviously, it's built with military power, but

Speaker 1 it's grown with marketing and sales.

Speaker 1 This is like the core human skill. And now like the arena of business, if you don't have that, you know, all you have is like pretty spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides.
It's not going to get it done.

Speaker 1 I mean, Donald Trump and Barack Obama have a lot more in common than they realize. They're two of the greatest marketers of all time.
Totally. Absolutely.
No matter where you fall politically,

Speaker 1 they are.

Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. We just captured 100% of the audience with those two, by the way.
Exactly. So, hey, no polarization here, but it is removing all the bullshit out of it.
You know, that's the truth.

Speaker 1 Chris, I mean,

Speaker 1 what does success in your mind, like

Speaker 1 you've had a successful show? Like, you made shit happen. Like, this is what I love about your story.
We talk about a lot of people. Some people fall into shit.
Some people stumble into it.

Speaker 1 You worked your ass off. You know, like you sent in, you played that, and Netflix caught.

Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe you caught lightning in a bottle, but you created that.

Speaker 1 But now you've, you got what you asked for, and you're navigating it all. When Chris Howard looks and goes, this is my vision of success.
What is there at the end?

Speaker 1 It's such a good question, too, because, you know,

Speaker 1 it's one of those things, like people say the question, like, now what, right? Like when you, when you get what you've been going for, now what, right?

Speaker 1 I love that question too, by the way. Right, yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, and the other thing is, like, people want to look at like a, let's call it a signature achievement, like getting on a Netflix reality show as sort of like an end point.

Speaker 1 I'm like, this is a waypoint on the journey for me. I'm 34 years old.

Speaker 1 You know, I have, I have hopefully 40 more years of making stuff happen before I go retire to Florida and play golf every day, right? Like, that's, that's, it's, it's a whole process, right?

Speaker 1 And I think for me, obviously I'm asking myself that question every day, but it's really about like just making an impact on people for myself. Like, what do I need intrinsically?

Speaker 1 I just want to feel like I'm living authentically and that I'm happy.

Speaker 1 If I'm doing those two things, like, you know, material wealth, you know, influence, whatever it might be, that's all sort of like a byproduct. I think.

Speaker 1 But if I'm doing those two things, I think I'm probably doing okay.

Speaker 1 What I really want to do is think about, okay, like, and I'm making an impact on people. I tried to create what I thought was a healthier, better for you drink for people, right?

Speaker 1 Now, with the megaphone of being on reality TV, can I create some content to help people demystify the journey of starting a business?

Speaker 1 Can I help people, you know, maintain their mental and physical health in the process of entrepreneurship, which is, for me, I was a total fail, total fail, right? So, like, learn from my mistakes.

Speaker 1 Hope to kind of share some content about that. Can I inspire people

Speaker 1 look at my story and say, wow, like, could I do something like that? Or like, can I take things from him that I can learn?

Speaker 1 And then I try to make it just about like service to people. Like, so, you know, try to

Speaker 1 use this great,

Speaker 1 I would say, lucky, you know, accomplishment. It's somewhat lucky, right? Like accomplishment that I've made of being on this TV show and acquiring new fans around the world

Speaker 1 to help people, you know, whether it be through the things that I've just talked about or just like by being a good person and trying to be, you know,

Speaker 1 somebody that they can look up to and that makes them feel good. I think you're on your way, man.
I'll give you one other thing. My favorite saying, everyone should always go

Speaker 1 ask themselves this question. To what end?

Speaker 1 Everything you're doing, everything you're thinking about, everything you're planning when you make a brash decision, when you make a good decision, to what end?

Speaker 1 You know, like that's, that's the question we have to ask, right? Awesome. Yeah, think about, like, think about the

Speaker 1 end of your life and look back on things and think about what decision decision do you think you wish you had made in the present like kind of try to gift yourself the gift of of of hindsight right yeah

Speaker 1 it's a really really difficult thing to do but i do sort of think about those sorts of things i'm out of that like you know mentality that i had in my 20s of like i just got to get as rich as possible and all these different things like no it's at the end of the day like it's about fulfillment and happiness and luckily you know i have a lot more doors open to me now having been on a show like this which is really cool and i just want to make sure that i make the right decisions yeah and And having purpose-that's really what the question is.

Speaker 1 When you say to what end, it's well, you're asking, what is the purpose of what I'm doing?

Speaker 1 Chris, where's it? Can everybody keep up with you, the show, all the links, all that stuff? Yeah, well, obviously, Million Dollar Secret is on Netflix. It's not hard to find.

Speaker 1 I mean, just, you know, we're not on the top 10 anymore. It's a few weeks later, but you can find us.
You can read about us all across the internet.

Speaker 1 And then you can find me primarily on Instagram and TikTok. I'm diving into TikTok, which is a 35-year-old man, 34-year-old man is a little scary.
So I'm brand new to that one.

Speaker 1 I'm also on all other socials under the same handle, which is at C Allen ND.

Speaker 1 And you can find me and kind of track my journey from here, which I hope is, you know, as entertaining as those eight episodes of TV.

Speaker 1 I hope this is just a blip in the story and not sort of the headline at the end of the day. Chris, appreciate you coming on the show, brother.

Speaker 1 I really appreciate your transparency and openness talking about all this stuff. Fantastic.
Well, it was a pleasure, Ryan. I

Speaker 1 we get a chance to talk again. And, you know, maybe it's about another show that I'm on, or hopefully, you know, there's something really cool in business.
And I've brought that up.

Speaker 1 Hey, well, we, I think we put our heads together on something. I'm here to help you, brother.
Hey, guys, you know where to find us, RyanisRight.com.

Speaker 1 You'll find the highlight clips, the full episode, all the links to the show, Chris's stuff, all this stuff. Hey, always ask yourself, to what end? To what end?

Speaker 1 We'll see you next time or right about now.

Speaker 3 This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Radcast Network Production. Visit RyanisRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Speaker 3 Thanks for listening.

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