AL EP 27: Andrew Stallings – Position Your Personal Life Over Your Professional Life

Show Notes

Andrew Stallings is the founder of Athelo Group, an athlete management-marketing agency. With over 15 years in the arena of sports and entertainment, Andrew Stallings has put all of his chips in on the rising tide of sports athletes and properties. With a bevy of knowledge on the brand, property, and media marketing side of sports, Stallings is looking to bring a unique and innovative dialogue to how the evolution of sports can be brought front and center to a whole new audience of consumers.

Connect with Andrew Stallings & Athelo Group here –
Web: https://athelogroup.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athelogroup/
LinkedIn (business): https://www.linkedin.com/company/athelo-group/
LinkedIn (personal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/astallings88/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AtheloGroup

Episode Transcript

00;00;04;02 – 00;00;32;14

Everybody is adjusting to your agency and transformation coach and founder of Mission Control, Greater of Leverage for Growth. And I’m Lucas James, founder of Twist, which scaled from 0 to $200000 a month with my own agency. We are the host of Leverage for Growth podcast Agency, Leverage and Episodes. We know that in order to scale your agency successfully, there are multiple shifts that need to happen within the founders mindsets, skill sets and leadership styles.

00;00;32;23 – 00;01;02;22

We are on a mission to interview marketing and PR agency owners on their journey to six, seven and eight figures and leverage the lessons from their journey to save you time, energy and money in order for you to get your agency to the next level. If you find value in these episodes, watch the case, Study video to learn more about leverage for growth and how we successfully scale agencies quickly at Niche in control Icon slash Key Study at Niche in Control Icon slash kingdom.

00;01;02;22 – 00;01;25;16

You’re now listening to Leverage for Growth. Hey everybody, This is Jesse Gilmore, founder of Niche and Control and creator of Leverage for Growth. Welcome to the Agency Leverage Edition. Today I am here with Andrew Stallings, the founder of Othello Group, an athlete marketing agency built around one simple observation When brands and athletes team up for an effective partnership, everyone wins.

00;01;25;19 – 00;01;47;06

Thanks for coming to our show today, Andrew. Thanks, Jesse. I sincerely appreciate the time. Absolutely. You can tell us a little bit about the history and background of your agency. Yeah, So it’s funny, I think as most businesses to date somewhat start to be the term side hustle and the Gary Vaynerchuk model, if you will, it’s kind of how I fell into this.

00;01;48;01 – 00;02;23;26

For those not so familiar Alpha 2015 ish, Gary Vaynerchuk is blowing up all of our social media platforms, telling all of us about Jab, jab, right hook, and how we need side hustles and selling and doing this. And around that same time I was working 18 hours, you know, at another agency. And then initially when brand side doing all this, you know with the understanding of what I was always groomed to be, which is, you know, say yes to everything you’ll go up the corporate ladder effort you know, is is better than output.

00;02;23;26 – 00;02;50;09

You know, I’m sorry effort is better than results. In the end of the day, just be that endurance person that keeps going. But what I quickly realized is that burnout is a real thing. And it, you know, pretty much hinders you on creativity and the ability to really take things to the next level. And it was around that time in that crossroads, you know, probably around 2015, 2016, when a few buddies who I played hockey with, they were just like, yeah, we should we should have a side hustle, which have a side business.

00;02;50;17 – 00;03;04;10

And I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a few Bud Lights later it was like, okay, you know, what is that? What is it? You know, what are we going to do? And they were like, Well, like, let’s pick a sports agency. I’m like, Yeah, that sounds really cool. Like sports agency. Can I be a sports agent?

00;03;04;10 – 00;03;26;13

And, you know, it was kind of the one question that you went right to Google. I do. I have to be a lawyer to be a sports agent, anything like that. And I think you’re seeing now more than ever that common answer is no. But you have to have your ass covered, like you have to have that security, that you have to have a really good common understanding of of law and practice and stuff like that.

00;03;26;27 – 00;03;49;10

Luckily for me, I’m surrounded by an incredible team of lawyers, different practices, both here in North America and globally. But all that kind of shaped out to be something that was my goal to explore what a makeshift model of an agency could be. I was an octagon for several years and I got to see what the bigger agencies and models look like.

00;03;49;10 – 00;04;08;26

Being at Anheuser-Busch a little bit, I got to sit in the room with a lot of other bigger agencies globally to see how they were structured, and I said, Man, you know, I really don’t need 75 people on one account. I’m not managing, you know, a $10 million piece of business. You know, what do I really need? And I learned the gift of scale and helping out athletes at scale.

00;04;09;05 – 00;04;31;27

So a lot of my friends were professional athletes and more niche rising sport properties around the same time was when second screen streaming at its platforms were becoming very popular. So I said, okay. Action. Sports, Motor sports, fitness, pickleball. As we’re seeing today, they’re becoming a bit more popular and the consumers have massive buying power because of the ability to engage with them.

00;04;32;05 – 00;04;55;14

So I said, okay, great, I can help brands come into these worlds because I’m going to have this relationship with them. I can speak the brand in the marketing language, build out toolkits, assets, etc. boom. Got it. The other thing too, on the athlete side, traditionally there would be very old school lawyers or former players that really didn’t know what they were doing in terms of managing talent, managing those deals and communicating effectively.

00;04;55;25 – 00;05;15;15

And as somebody that sat on the media, the agency and the brand side, I have a unique gift where I can understand, at least historically, what those individuals and stakeholders are looking for. So for me, I was able to be the center of excellence where I could help them and breathe, you know, a little bit more knowledge. But from the athlete side, I get it.

00;05;15;16 – 00;05;37;17

You know what they need, what their wants, what their desires are. But they also I can help them unpacked ideas in terms of how they want to position themselves beyond just financial success and competitive success in a lot of other areas and build out their brands like never before. So we took two words athletes opportunities, smashed it together to make a funky little run on word that most people can’t pronounce called Othello.

00;05;37;17 – 00;06;01;05

So it’s already good marketing out of the gate, and we just let the snowball run downhill for almost the last five years. 20 athletes on retainer, over 130 brands on retainer. It’s been a wild ride. Wow. That’s awesome. Was there like you talked about a couple of different things. One of them being burnout in corporate and then making the side hustle and kind of doing that.

00;06;01;27 – 00;06;21;08

That’s one of the things that if anybody has been following me for a long time, they’re talking about burnout and making the jump. Can you talk a little bit about that process? Because maybe some people that are listening right now, they might be experiencing burnout and they don’t really know it. What were some of the things that kind of made you realize that either you need to slow down or make a change?

00;06;22;12 – 00;06;42;28

Yeah, I mean, I think there is a one point where I was working at Octagon and on the Anheuser-Busch account, and for those not in our walk of life or understanding some of these bigger agencies, they have what they call hero accounts, at least internally. And those are the accounts that every employee dreams of being in. Like being on and being involved with.

00;06;43;07 – 00;07;07;04

Anheuser-Busch for us was a very small account. But if you could find your way in there, you’re going to be doing the coolest stuff. You’re going to be traveling to the craziest places and getting to learn like never before. I remember I applied several times when rare opportunities came to be, you know, to work on that account. And I finally was able to convince them to let me come on board as an account manager.

00;07;07;16 – 00;07;46;04

And I was in Russia doing the Confederations Cup and FIFA World Cup activations. I spent a month in the Maldives on a deserted island with Chris Hemsworth and Mia for Corona. You know, I got to do some of the craziest stuff in my mid twenties that I could never even imagine, and I got to call it work. The good and bad thing to that is that, you know, when your work becomes this roller coaster party ride in experience, you know, it, it bleeds over into, you know, again finding the time, the time management, you know, in the day because it just feels like you’re battling with time zones and other people’s calendars wants, needs, desires,

00;07;46;13 – 00;08;06;19

you know? Yeah, it was an amazing opportunity, but it was a lot it was an incredible amount of work. And, you know, again, being North America based and a lot of my clients were in Australia, they were in Sri Lanka, Colombo, the Maldives, like I mentioned. So the time zones were brutal, not to mention dealing with a girlfriend, a new girlfriend at the time.

00;08;06;19 – 00;08;25;07

Who’s that? My now wife trying to balance out being a 25 year old that’s still traveling. It just took a toll on you and it took a toll on me. That is a little different than today because, you know, I was even on the phone with a colleague of mine before we started this podcast, Jesse and I was telling her, I just it’s Monday.

00;08;25;07 – 00;08;47;20

I’m coming off a weekend where my parents were here to visit. My one year old was a little sick, but he’s fine now. It’s a different type of fog and burnout that you have as a business owner, as a husband, as a young man in his mid thirties. Now that I can’t put into perspective except for the fact that it’s paralyzing and it’s it’s paralyzing to the sense that you just don’t know what to do.

00;08;47;25 – 00;09;08;08

You know, you have so much going on, you know that just a little organization and a little guidance and a little help can can really push you there. But when you’re in this independent process of being a business owner and an entrepreneur and a leader, as we all know and I’m sure many of your listeners have thought about this and learned about this over the time of you, you know, doing this, it’s a lonely, lonely spot.

00;09;08;08 – 00;09;33;20

And, you know, when you throw in even the most my new area paralysis, it’s different than when you’re 25 years old working for somebody else because you almost feel like as much as that pressure is coming down on you and it’s like you never do, right? It’s different. It’s different in the sense that you just you don’t feel like you will fail or you almost expecting failure every single day.

00;09;34;01 – 00;09;57;16

When you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur, you can’t think of failure like. And you have to understand that failures equal great success. You have to learn from your failures to progress forward. There are no such things as crippling and paralyzing failures because it will completely destroy what you’re building in every sense of the term. So burnout, I’ve learned, comes in two separate forms, at least in the last ten years of my professional career and personal life.

00;09;57;25 – 00;10;18;03

And the way that I’m doing things today is really trying to separate how can I remove myself from this quicksand? And I’m learning a run in the middle of the day, drinking more water, eliminating alcohol, all the stuff that we see on Twitter and everything else. And we’re like, oh gosh, Like these thought leaders trying to tell us, you know, oh, how to be the best version of you.

00;10;18;03 – 00;10;37;14

It gets it gets annoying and I get it. But they’re not wrong. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop eating cheeseburgers all the time. No, but at the same time, I at least have the education to know what can help me be 1% better. And I think it will come to a point where I have to figure out we all have to figure out when to take that stuff a little bit more seriously.

00;10;37;14 – 00;11;08;14

But those are kind of the two different types of burnout and I’ve at least dealt with in the last ten years or so now. That’s awesome. Nothing’s going to stop me from eating cheeseburgers either. I love it, man. And you’ve given a lot of different kind of like nuggets of wisdom throughout this. But if somebody is kind of listening to you right now, you mean you have 20 athletes, you have 130 brands, you’re working with a lot of kind of changes and pivots that you’ve made along the way over the last five years.

00;11;08;14 – 00;11;49;11

If you were to give some advice to somebody that might be maybe one or two steps before you and maybe to help them either shortcut their way to success, saving some time, energy or money, what advice would you give them? You could summarize what you already have or maybe something you know, success can be so broadly defined. And I think as I sit here today, on Monday, April 3rd, 2023, success to me is to figure out how to get out of this paralysis phase and find that energy and that motivation to be able to make a dent in my workload today, to make a lot of the successes happen that I need this week, you

00;11;49;11 – 00;12;10;18

know for a busy week ahead seem to it I think one of the worst things as a entrepreneur and business owner that I’m terrible at is my self knowing addiction to technology, to my phone, to social media. As I mentioned several times, I have a one and a half year old. I have a beautiful wife who we have seen the test of time together.

00;12;10;18 – 00;12;29;24

She’s battled cancer. We’ve done all this stuff together and it is very, very difficult when the biggest issues in your personal life are very much right in front of you. But we get we talk about that paralysis, you know, that you should be putting your phone down more and spending more time and finding joy with your son and with your wife and those outlets in life.

00;12;30;02 – 00;12;59;13

But you can’t help it when the success and pressure of the world and how we’re groomed to think that everybody’s you know, if you put your phone down, there’s someone out there doing ten times more than you and putting in that extra hour of work. It is very, very, very difficult. And when that difficulty turns into an addiction, you just become, again, just stuck in a lot of ways and you’re stuck at this crossroads where, yeah, you can put your phone down, but you may not be fully there to spend time with your family or your wife.

00;12;59;13 – 00;13;19;26

And I struggle with that immensely. I really do. So I think, you know, for me, the one bit of advice that I don’t hear too often, but it is really important, you know, success can come and go. I live this very unique mental kind of like mental space day to day where I’m like, I could die at any second.

00;13;20;03 – 00;13;50;21

I literally think in the sense that I could have a heart attack sitting here with you here today as as grim as that may sound to be, I’ve seen it happen to friends, family members, colleagues. So I’m, you know, as morbid as it is, I’m ready for that. I’m I’m okay with that. I’m content with that. So with all that being said, I need to be doing a better job of positioning my personal life over professional life because I’m set with knowing that tomorrow may not come, but I’m also set with being confident enough that the next ten years are at my disposal.

00;13;50;21 – 00;14;13;01

It’s this weird thing, you know, where it’s like kind of a pendulum swing shift every day, rather. So for me, I always just say, make the most of today, make the most of these moments that you have. You know, I never get enough time. And I know in five years I’m going to resent myself for not being able to be there for my son as much as I have been knowing that he’s probably our only son.

00;14;13;01 – 00;14;30;23

And a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs can relate to that. And I think the best ones are the ones that can offload their work and find that work life balance and understand that, yeah, taking 30% margin out of your business to go hire somebody and really help you kind of find that happiness, it’s worth it. It’s 100% worth it.

00;14;30;28 – 00;14;52;17

So always know that again, big dollar signs, numbers, blah blah, blah blah. It’s not going to make up for the time you have now with your friends, family and your kids. So definitely invest into time too, for the here and now 100%. Hmm. I feel like you’ve been listening to a lot of the daily Leverage episode, which we talk about that kind of stuff all the time.

00;14;52;17 – 00;15;13;17

And that’s that’s really key being here now, figuring out a way of making it to where your personal life has a higher priority, but still being able to make the business grow at the same time. Absolutely, Absolutely. Awesome, man. So what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you, or do you have any offers for them that they could take advantage of?

00;15;13;17 – 00;15;43;00

Yeah, I think our website is probably your one stop shop destination. You know, for everything that we do as an agency, a fellow group Ecom for myself, a Stallings 88 across all social media platforms, you know, I’m always a sucker for conversation. Anybody who reaches out and wants to, you know, look for a mentor, wants to build a community of knowledge or education or anything like that.

00;15;43;23 – 00;16;04;16

Community is big for me. It’s the number one metric of success I’m sorry, the number one tool of of success. That’s been a metric for me to get to where I am today is really leaning on the sense of community in everyone that I’ve met over the last, gosh, 15 plus years of doing this. So please, like feel free to reach out to me.

00;16;04;26 – 00;16;26;16

I can’t always guarantee I’ll get back right away, but I really love connecting people, especially folks that have, you know, again, good purpose and good drive and good reasoning behind anything that they do. Sometimes, you know, I do get emails, you know, someone’s like, Oh, I just got laid off and, you know, I just are you hiring? And I’m like, It’s a little short minded, right?

00;16;26;16 – 00;16;53;13

You know, if if you want to have a conversation and discussion and really bring a plan or a strategy to me and say, hey, could you poke holes into this, this is what I’m really trying to accomplish and I respect someone in your position to do that. I learned that the hard way. I’ve had senior business people tell me for years, you know, like when I used to reach out, it was the reason that I suffered so much in corporate America, believe it or not, was I would always ask too many questions that didn’t have enough meat on the bone.

00;16;53;14 – 00;17;16;03

I would always just ask and reach for help because I was so insecure myself. And I think being more confident and secure in what you’re asking for it, taking that to people, if you do that, the sky’s the limit. So with that being said, please feel free to email me hard hitting questions. DMS are always open, more than happy to be an asset in any way that I can.

00;17;16;25 – 00;17;48;19

Yeah, that’s awesome. And for anybody that’s listening in the show notes, I will include a links to Andrew and another group, and I want to thank you very much for being on the show. I sincerely appreciate the time again, Jesse, Thank you. Agency owners. If you want to transform your agency to sustain and grow without your direct involvement, where you can stop working in the business and switch to working on the business where you can regain control of your time, delegate effectively, get paid what you’re worth, and have your team run the day to day.

00;17;48;27 – 00;18;06;16

Go to niche in control dot com slash case study right now to learn more about leverage for growth, you can book a free strategy session with us to look at your systems, understand what needs to be done in order for you to scale and get a free strategic plan for the next year to live the life of entrepreneurship that you’ve always dreamed about.

00;18;07;02 – 00;18;27;23

Go to niche in control dot com slash k city that is niche in control dot com slash k city now.

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