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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
[00:00:00] DC: Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Oh, we, you know how excited we get when we have a new episode of Brands, Beats and Bytes.
A lot of times brand nerds. You all will hear someone that we call family on the podcast and they might be family to both Larry and I or they might be family to me, which makes them family to Larry and sometimes they're family to Larry, which makes them family to me. We are in the latter category today, Brand Nerds. This is Family to Larry. He'll go into that in a minute, but I got three things I want to drop on y'all Brand Nerds about this brother. The first is in brand management. Throughout my career, and I know this is the same for Larry, when I have been at my best in a leadership position with the team, my team and I have a simpatico relationship with the sales team.
This, this is every, there has not been a time where there has been a failure in a band and a business where marketing and sales were simpatico. There are voluminous examples of failures when marketing and sales are at odds. Healthy tension. Good. Hate each other. Bad. This next guest understands exactly what it is, on the sales side and how a successful organization runs when marketing and uh, sales are working symbiotically. Number two, we just had a, uh, a gathering at, uh, Georgia Tech's Business School. Larry, I think it's Schiller.
[00:01:56] LT: Yes, it is.
[00:01:58] DC: Schiller Schiller Business School. Great business school. And, uh, the professor that invited us over is a Coke alum, His name is Tim. Tim is a practitioner, not just a professor. This next guest has deep university experience, but also deep corporate experience. So his students are not just learning from an academician, no disrespect to academicians. Love them, have been taught by many of them, would not be where I am without them.
But as my daughters have taught me, someone who is only taught tenured many years, peer reviewed writing, that is fantastic. When you add real world corporate experience, as my daughters have taught me, it just hits different. Mm-hmm. That's second and thirdly, uh, I'm a member of Divine Nine. This next guest is also a Divine Nine member.
Larry will talk about that, but let me just say. He has a certain affection for George Clinton and the song Atomic Dog. Lemme just say he has that kind of a, a just affection for that particular song. And when you see him for your brand nerd that actually see the YouTube and you see how he's all like, crispy white shirt, got the suit on, it's just like laying on him.
Look like it's been custom made or something like that. Uh, do not let the smooth taste fool you. Alright, Larry, who we got in the building today?
Oh,
[00:03:41] LT: uh, DC I've been waiting for this for a long time. We have Bernard Bell in the house. Welcome, Bernard.
[00:03:46] Bernard Bell: Thank you, Larry. Thank you DC man. What a, uh, what a opening, bro.
What a opening, man.
[00:03:51] LT: Well, that's just the opening Bernard. That's just the opening. So we have to tell the Brand Nerds who you actually are and what you are about and what you've done. So, okay. Brand Nerds, I don't know if you can tell from my voice, but I am super excited today since we have been working on our calendars for a long time to get Bernard on the podcast and we have finally done it.
He is a great friend, as DC alluded to, and fellow Tarheel, who is actually a double Tarheel. More on that in a minute. Bernard is a native of Greensboro.
[00:04:23] DC: I'm sorry, Larry, can I just interrupt here? I just want to interrupt for a second. I don't know that y'all should have fired Hubert Davis. I don't want to bring down the podcast.
[00:04:34] LT: You're bringing us down.
[00:04:34] DC: Best player was out. He's his best player, is going to go number five at the lowest, maybe number three.
[00:04:44] Bernard Bell: Maybe. Maybe.
[00:04:44] DC: Uh, so I just wanna express that I'm not a Carolina person. I just wanted to get that out the way. Okay. Go. Please go Larry.
[00:04:50] LT: He's throwing some hate on us, Bernard, but that's okay.
[00:04:53] Bernard Bell: I feel it. I feel it. I feel. That's shade. That's shady.
[00:04:56] LT: Yeah, it is. But we, but, but we'll, we'll, we'll traverse through it. All right. So. Bernard Bernard is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, where his dad was a professor at North Carolina A&T. Bernard earns his first of two degrees at UNC Chapel Hill undergrad in economics, where he serves as captain of the UNC speech team, and they actually win the Natty, they win the national championship.
Pretty big accomplishments. Brand Nerds, You'll hear, see and feel this in a minute. Bernard's first job out of undergrad is at IBM, where he successfully sells consulting services for four years before coming back to Chapel Hill where he earns his MBA in marketing in the 19, it's the 1990s Brand Nerds and cable TV is booming.
Bernard jumps on that train. First, joining Discovery Networks where he is an account manager responsible for launching the Learning Channel and other nets to the Midwest. He then joins HGTV Food Network as a director where he is responsible for the Eastern seaboard and under Bernard Stewardship in his region, HGTV and Food Network go from zero subscribers to 30 million, which is 38% of full national sales goals. After this success, Bernard joins the Tribune Company as VP of Sales and marketing for a new product called Zap To It, which is an electronic program guide. With Bernard's leadership in just one year, they quickly grow the business to 30 million households.
This success leads Bernard to obtaining a truly special opportunity, becoming a founding member of TV One, which at the time is a new cable network targeting African American viewers. Bernard manages all sales and marketing, and the network grows from zero to 34 million subscribers with a net revenue impact of over $400 million.
After three years, he has then elevated to Special Assistant to the CEO and spends the next five years managing a variety of items, including helping the network achieve profitability and obtaining more than 53 million subscribers. Now, Brand Nerds, this is where Bernard takes a major pivot. Not sure if you caught earlier when we said Bernard's dad was a university professor Bernard gets the opportunity to join his and my alma mater, UNC Chapel Hill as the Richards Donahoe Social Entrepreneur in Residence. Helping students with high level startup strategy by teaching courses, courses in the entrepreneurship minor. Additionally, he serves as a mentor to students in the minor and across the campuses they pursue innovative projects in all areas of entrepreneurial activity with a special emphasis emphasis on reaching diverse populations. After two years, this pre-program becomes so successful, bernard is elevated to the executive director of the shuford program and entrepreneurship where he leads a high, high performing team of faculty, entrepreneurs and residents and corporate partners.
Additionally, with Bernard's leadership, the program grows from 200 students to over 600 students, secures more than 35 million in endowment support and gains national recognition as the number four ranked entrepreneurship program in the country. Also, Bernard teaches the capstone class in the program impacting more than 200 students annually.
Concurrently, Bernard is also CEO of Urban Media Solutions where he advises CEOs, founders and executives on leadership culture and Gen Z engagement with a trademark focus on EQ over IQ, known as the "Confidence Professor." He equips leaders to translate emotional intelligence into business performance.
In this realm, Bernard is also on the speaker circuit where he helps attendees grow from confidence to competence, mastering presence in every part of your life. In closing, Bernard has served on boards, including the American Film Institute, IClub and the American Dance Festival. He's also a proud member, as DC alluded to of the Omegas Omega Psi Fi fraternity, and he is deeply committed to mentoring young men in leadership and life skills.
Bernard is married to Stacey Cole Bell and attorney turned government relations lobby for NBC Universal Comcast Turn Political consultant. Together they share a passion for leadership, service, and empowering future generations. Welcome to Brands, Beats and Bytes, Bernard Bell.
[00:09:09] Bernard Bell: Ooh, that was a lot. That was a lot.
That was a lot. That was, uh, that was a lot. Thank you for taking me on that journey, Larry. 'cause I've forgotten about some of that stuff.
[00:09:20] LT: Yeah.
[00:09:22] DC: Your story. Uh, Bernard, I, I love watching Larry elegantly move his way and traverse the background of our guest. Oftentimes, far too often. And you know this, Bernard, we hear things like that said about other people as an obit.
[00:09:44] Bernard Bell: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:45] DC: They're gone. Yeah, they're gone.
[00:09:47] Bernard Bell: Well said. Well said.
[00:09:48] DC: But this is where on Brands Beats and Bytes, You get your flowers while you are. So this is Larry giving you your flowers and they have been well earned, well earned.
[00:09:58] Bernard Bell: Well, DC Thank you. And Larry, thank you for that man. And that was, uh, you know, I always get a little self, uh, conscious I guess when the spotlight's on me.
Yeah. So hearing that, it's, uh, it's interesting to hear, but it's also a little uncomfortable, you know? So, so thank you. Thank you man.
[00:10:18] DC: Very welcome. You're very welcome. Alright, now Bernard, we're gonna move to the first section of our podcast. It's called Get Comfy. Mm-hmm. Where we ask a question to get you warmed up before we get into the meat of the podcast.
Yeah. Serendipitously, we were just on a college campus. Um, and, uh, the students brought something to our mind. We talked to an undergraduate class and we also sat with a graduate ca uh, class Bernard. And when you and Larry and I were in business school, 'cause we were all in business school around the same time, if a person coming outta business school did not get a permanent role, it was a surprise.
Mm-hmm. It was a surprise. Mm-hmm. Most of the students, not all.
[00:11:14] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[00:11:14] DC: Most of the students got hired in a, in, in their major at a well compensated job. Most, not all.
[00:11:24] Bernard Bell: That's right.
[00:11:25] DC: Today the students remind us that's not the case. You know this.
[00:11:30] Bernard Bell: I see it a lot
[00:11:30] DC: Except, yeah. Many who are exceptional students.
They're not getting the jobs that they want. They're not, they're not, some of them aren't getting any employment, let employment let alone underemployment. Mm-hmm. So here you are as the "confidence professor." It makes sense to me as Larry went through your background, that someone who is now described as the confidence professor, you had to have some of that to go through the, the matriculate through the career that you've had.
However, your first job was at IBM Bernard. This is coming outta undergrad. And these students wanted to know about the glory that some of our guests have, which we'll get into later, but they were really interested in step zero to one. Yes. Yes. The first job where you maybe didn't have people calling you.
The "confidence professor," what was, what was your mindset coming outta UNC tobacco Road going into IBM unproven? Walk us through that so that students listening might glean something from you, brother.
[00:12:54] Bernard Bell: So DC first of all, that was a great question and I loved how you teed it up. And I think my response will be a little long-winded 'cause I'm gonna take you on it journey
[00:13:05] DC: Please.
[00:13:05] LT: That's why we're on a podcast.
[00:13:06] DC: We're here. We're here.
[00:13:08] Bernard Bell: Okay, good. So, so my senior year, you know, I had been four years at Chapel Hill, going through a lot of ups and downs emotionally because in reality I had low self-esteem. Mm. But that low self-esteem manifested itself as the loudest guy in the room. And so I'm the guy in the corner looking like everything's great, and I've come away from that experience saying the loudest guy in the room is usually the most insecure because that was me, but I played it well.
So nobody really knew. I share that because I went through my entire senior year with no job. And so fall semester, all my fraternity brothers and my friends are getting the jobs. And we had this thing in the fraternity. Every time somebody got the job, you rang the bell. So, you know, in uh, October, November, you hear the bell.
I'm like, that's my boy. I'm happy for him.
[00:14:05] DC: Yeah.
[00:14:05] Bernard Bell: Christmas. You ring the bell. I don't have no job. They getting jobs. I'm like, you know what? That's my boy. I'm happy for him. Come spring break, right? Mm. Other people getting jobs, and I'm hearing that freaking bell ring and I'm like, okay, I need to be happy because everybody says you're supposed to lift your brother up and be supportive.
Yeah. Well, here it is. It's coming around the corner for graduation and everybody's saying, what are you gonna do when you graduate? Now let me tee this up. My brother going to Chapel Hill here. He got out and went to medical school. Okay? My sister went to Chapel Hill here. She got out, got a master's, went to get a PhD.
So nobody in my family's been in business. Everybody's either been farmers or teachers, couple of doctors, some lawyers, but mostly just nobody's in business. And so, I had decided I wanted to go into business, and my family's like, well, why would you want to do that? I thought you went to school to be a doctor.
And I said, well, I did until I got that D in organic chemistry. Right?
[00:15:08] DC: Ah, yeah.
[00:15:09] LT: Like many do, by the way.
[00:15:10] Bernard Bell: That's Well, well, it was actually an F, but my sister got an A and she would, we would, she got exempted from the exam. Well, this is before cell phones. I didn't know she wasn't coming to the exam. My plan was I was gonna sit in, let's just say in close proximity.
[00:15:25] DC: In close proximity. Yeah.
[00:15:26] LT: Wait, Bernard,
[00:15:27] Bernard Bell: also, let's give, and then we would let the universe do what it does.
[00:15:30] LT: Right? Right. Let's give a shout out to Benita. That's Bernard's twin sister, who I know and love. Okay, keep going.
[00:15:36] Bernard Bell: And she's brilliant, right? Yes. Chemistry major from Chapel Hill. So she doesn't show up.
And I'm sitting there at the exam, I'm like, well, where the hell is she? And you know that guy or gal that you have this very complicated exam. And then 20 minutes later somebody walks up and they turn the exam. And you're like, really? Right? I'm struggling. It's a three hour exam, I'm gonna need at least two hours and 59 minutes.
And they done turned it in. So I'm sitting there and saying, I'm like, well, I don't wanna turn the exam in 'cause it'll make me look like I'm flossing. 'cause I had, I knew nothing. So finally after about sitting there for two hours and I'm thinking about, okay, I need to pick up my laundry, I need to do all this stuff.
Everything except during my exam.
[00:16:17] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:18] Bernard Bell: And so I turned the exam in and I got an F, never got an F before. So my sister, who was one of the professor's favorite students, so I go to her, I said, can you talk to him and see if you'll change my grade to a B? 'cause I'm like, if you're gonna ask, if you ask for the B.
Okay. You ask. I said, A is probably a little too, that feels a little too disingenuous. Mm-hmm. And um, and so he. Called me into his office. She talked to him and he says, now, Bernard, I will give you a D under one condition that you never take another chemistry class at this university. And I was like, oh, wow.
[00:16:55] DC: Wow.
[00:16:56] Bernard Bell: I was thinking, you know what? We thinking the same thing. I ain't got no problem with that. And so, uh, so I got my d and, and it changed my trajectory on what I wanted to do. And so now I, so I ended up majoring in economics. I'm minor in math with the thought that the math piece would tee me up for a good job.
Mm-hmm. So I'm so back to interviewing, interviewing, interviewing. And so I remember three weeks before graduation, I'm sitting out on the steps of Grand Memorial and I, and my college career had been so up and down personally, professionally, emotionally, mental health stuff. Mm-hmm. And I sat there, I was thinking, would all of the growth that I've had, would it stick?
Like, was it just a, a, a, a symptom of me being in these four walls or with the lessons that I've learned and some of the, the, the things that I had espoused with, they carry on after school and I was really, um, I was really conflicted. Well, I got my job at IBM, 1 week before graduation.
[00:18:03] DC: Wow.
[00:18:03] LT: Wow.
[00:18:04] Bernard Bell: And up until then, yeah, I got 34 first cousins.
I got 24 aunts and uncles. Everybody's coming to graduation. They wanna know up until then. They're like, so what are you gonna do when you graduate? So what everybody whatcha you gonna do for graduate? And so my response was, I got so many things going on, I just need to pick one.
[00:18:23] DC: Ah, okay. Okay.
[00:18:24] Bernard Bell: Okay. And, and, and I didn't, I shared that story because I am now in real time going through this with the students and there are nobody's getting jobs.
We've got about 40% of our class, senior class. We have 200 students right now, maybe 50% now that have jobs. And I remind them number one is all you need is one. Right? You just need one job. Um, most of our students don't start companies. They go out and get jobs. And last year, 84% of our graduating seniors, by the time school started, we're gainfully employed.
Okay? So where I would encourage the students to think about is, number one, what are your EQ skills and how are you leveraging them to circle the wagon of a job? And when I say that, I think most of the students, they're going to handshake, they're going to LinkedIn, and that can take you so far. But now there's so much demand out there, and the supply is not consistent with the demand.
[00:19:29] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:30] Bernard Bell: And one of the things we teach them in our program is, who's your network? And many students that look like me don't have networks that can really help them get gainfully employed. So I say, how do you leapfrog into the networks of other people? Because other than my IBM job that I actually got through someone I knew, but I had to apply.
All my other roles have been jobs where I was referred. And so I filled out one job application and all the others were referrals. And then I filled out the job application once I already knew I got the job. So it was kind of a, a formality. And, and so what I encourage the students to do is to level up their, what I call power skills.
How do you walk in a room? How do you engage with someone you don't know? And so we teach them things like we have a thing called a template called F.O.R.M. -Family Occupation, Recreation Message. So just as I get on this Zoom, our students, before they take my class and my program, they'll get on the Zoom and if DC You're there, Larry, you're there. They'll just sit there. And wait for you to talk to them. Mm-hmm. And my position is it is not anyone else's responsibility to engage you.
[00:20:45] DC: Yeah.
[00:20:45] Bernard Bell: It's your responsibility to engage the room. Mm-hmm. And so when we walk in, the first thing we ask them to say to anybody is, so where you from? Larry? Where you from?
You say Brooklyn, you say New York. I'm gonna say Jets or Giants fan. And we teach them in DC If you say Atlanta, I'm gonna say, you know, you're a Hawks, Braves, or Falcons fan. You know, who's your think? And what we try to encourage them to do is curate your brand in a way so that when you walk in any room, you've already thought about a couple of things.
You've thought about your eye contact, you've thought about your handshake, you've thought about how you're gonna traverse that room with your chest up because if you walk like this versus walk like this, it sends a different message. What's your initial conversation that you're gonna lead in with? What are three things?
If there's nothing else that anyone has to talk about, what are your three things you're gonna talk about? And for me, I've always got my three things. I keep it in my pocket. Speaking of lunch in the day, I knew I was walking in with people I didn't know. Always get the guest list. I'm looking three people I wanna meet.
I find out little things about 'em, and then I get about the business of building an engagement. I don't network, I engage. And what I found is so many of these students are on this thing. And everything they do goes through this. So for example,
[00:22:14] DC: That's the mobile, mobile, cell phone Brand Nerds, cell.
[00:22:16] Bernard Bell: Yes.
Sorry. Yeah. And so if I am go, if I'm watching a sunset, I put my phone down because a phone cannot replicate the beauty of a real sunset. Mm-hmm. But my students say, oh my God, a sunset, let me capture it.
[00:22:33] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:34] Bernard Bell: And so this distance that they put between themselves and their personal brand and the individual or the entity that they're trying to engage, it gets filtered down by this funnel.
And so what I am encouraging these young people to do is to get the person off your resume as quick as possible so they can get to know you. And that's a EQ skill and nobody's teaching these young people that, and I hate to say nobody, and I rarely say nobody, never always, but I would argue in academia, no one's teaching what we call power skills are durable skills.
Mm-hmm. Everyone's focused on reading, writing, arithmetic. My rule of thumb DC is that being smart is an eight slice pizza and academics is only one slice. But what someone has encouraged these young people to do is make academics the full pizza. And so, you know, our motto in our program is people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
And the reason we made that,
[00:23:44] DC: Mya Angelo.
[00:23:46] Bernard Bell: And so the reason we made that our motto was I wanted to take how smart you are off the fireplace mantle as the litmus test.
[00:23:55] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:55] Bernard Bell: Because I think that so many students now, at least I see it at Chapel Hill, being correct is their badge of honor. Being right is a badge of honor.
But we are entrepreneurship. And the one thing that you learn in entrepreneurship or as an entrepreneur is that, you know, you fail, fail, fail, fail. Little success, fail, fail, fail. Little more. Success. Fail. Fail, fail. Little, little more success. And rarely does it happen the first time. And when you've been so used that as are your determination of how smart you are.
[00:24:33] LT: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:33] Bernard Bell: And then we stick you out in the desert and we, and we give you 24 hours and you've got to create something or build something, and b, resourceful. They can't do it. Yeah. And so there's
[00:24:45] LT: No resilience.
[00:24:45] Bernard Bell: None. And so what, what, and that's a long way to answer the question. What, what I'm seeing is these students are so focused on being right and having the right answer.
[00:24:55] LT: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:56] Bernard Bell: Which works in academia. I say that works in academia, it works if I'm having, um, hard operation, it works in medicine. But most parts of the world and most situations we, in just being right. That that doesn't get you over the finish line. And so right is important and right is being, it's the first step, but then you've got to have those other seven areas of that pizza, in my opinion, to walk into a room and walk out with the thing you walked in to get.
Mm-hmm. And the reason I know that is most things I wanted early on DC I didn't get. And I think not getting them, it created those valley moments. And it's interesting, I'm hearing Larry talk about my background. Mm-hmm. And I always think about it and I'm always, when I, when people introduce me, and it always sounds like it's peak to peak.
To peak to peak. Yeah.
[00:25:59] DC: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Bernard Bell: And what we most of us don't do is from peak to peak, you typically gotta go through the valley.
[00:26:07] DC: Yeah.
[00:26:08] Bernard Bell: Yeah. And every time he mentioned something, and he mentioned the peak, but I thought about the valley.
[00:26:16] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:17] Bernard Bell: How I got to the next one and I was thinking, how did I get to Tribune?
But, well, some stuff happened at HGTV. I left, I ended up at Tribune. How'd get to TV One? Well, some stuff happened at Tribune, I left, I got to TV one, and so forth and so on. And I think that's the piece that I don't think many of us adults are vulnerable enough to share, because I think the detail, you know, devil's in the detail.
And I think when you share that detail, especially for these young people, it gives 'em a realistic takeaway of what their potential journey will really be like. So I know that was a long way to answer the question that I don't even remember what you asked.
[00:27:04] DC: No. That No, no. You, you have, you have nailed this, Bernard.
Yeah. You, you've nailed this, uh, Larry, any responses from what Bernard just laid down for the Brand Nerds?
[00:27:17] LT: Uh, we're gonna get into it more later in what's popping, just so you know. So I, I love where Bernard's going and. You know, um, I, I knew Bernard is just awesome. I mean, you know, you know, we go way back, you know, DC gotta share this with you and the audience.
Bernard and I lived in the same apartment complex,
[00:27:37] Bernard Bell: Right.
[00:27:37] LT: That's right. So we would be going this way, in that way, and then we, you know, we, we met each other early and then we, we'd start talking, Hey, how you doing? Yes. And then the next thing you know, Bernard and I would sit down, we, we'd look, oh shit, we got, I gotta get to somewhere.
We always would have these like deep conversations,
[00:27:55] Bernard Bell: real conversations, real conversations,
[00:27:57] LT: real conversations about a lot of stuff. And, and so, you know, that's why I was so looking forward to having him on the pod because, you know, he's, uh, he's been through a lot and he'll, he, he's happy to talk about it too.
And Bernard, we always say the best guests are vulnerable. And you, you can tell already, like even talking about the valleys and how that gets you to, you know, uh, where you need to go. So I'm thrilled to have him on. And I think we can move to the next, uh, segment.
[00:28:26] Bernard Bell: Great, great opening.
[00:28:27] DC: I had something I wanna say before we move to the, uh, next segment, uh, Larry, but I, right after this, Bernard, we are gonna go to the next segment, brand nerd's, a little context.
Uh, Bernard went to IBM at that time. IBMI mean, they're one of the top countries in the world now. They may have been top 10 or top five in the world at that time. So he goes from not having a job
[00:28:53] LT: right
[00:28:53] DC: to one week out, going to IBM. It's not like he, he left and went to I'm, I'm, I'm not defaming at all.
[00:29:01] Bernard Bell: I know what you mean.
[00:29:02] DC: But that he, that he, you know, that he, he went to, he went to like, uh, I don't know.
[00:29:07] Bernard Bell: Like working at working at, you know, a a Target as a
[00:29:10] DC: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. That's not the defame Target. That's not,
[00:29:14] Bernard Bell: yeah. Right, right.
[00:29:14] DC: Yeah.
[00:29:15] Bernard Bell: But if we gonna defame anybody, Target would be obnoxious.
[00:29:17] DC: Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. Well, uh oh, that's gonna be a different set.
Just
[00:29:20] Bernard Bell: joking, just joking, just joking.
[00:29:22] DC: Number two is, uh, you talked about form, uh, which is acrostic. You said family, occupation, what's r and m?
[00:29:28] Bernard Bell: Yeah, so R is Recreation and then M
[00:29:31] DC: is recreation. Okay.
[00:29:32] Bernard Bell: And the M, DC is what you really walked into the room to do.
[00:29:37] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:38] Bernard Bell: And so, but I can't come in and say, Larry, would you hire me?
But I'm really there to get a job.
[00:29:45] DC: Yeah. But
[00:29:45] Bernard Bell: I'm engaging them. Right. So I'm following them around. What, and if you follow me around at any cocktail party, any engaging network event, yeah. I have the same conversation. I have the same conversation, I'm asking the same questions, but based on the responses.
The narrative's different. So if you say you're from, uh, you know, LA I'm gonna say, you know, are you a Raiders fan? You know, who's your, who's your favorite team? If, and then I'll go into family. So I might say, so DC you from such and such, your, your mom and daddy grew up there. Yeah. And they meet how many brothers, sister you have with your brothers, sisters where they at.
[00:30:25] DC: Understood.
[00:30:25] Bernard Bell: And then occupation, what industry you in? And you say, and then I'm like, so is that something that you're enjoying? Do you, what brings you joy when you go to work? Understood. And to get them talking and then occupation, you know, you look like you out going to the gym, you're a Carolina basketball fan.
Mm-hmm. And then I'll say, well listen man, this has been great. Would love to stay in touch. What's the best way we can connect? Mm-hmm. Uh, because I am really interested in the industry you're in. Mm-hmm. And I'd love to grab a cup of coffee if you're open to it, and maybe pick your brain on how I might expand my thinking about your in.
[00:31:01] DC: Beautiful.
[00:31:01] Bernard Bell: And we script. We script this, and in class, every class I bring students up to the front and they have to form each other. Because what I realized, if you don't do it in real life, you think you got it, but you don't have it.
[00:31:16] DC: All right. Final point, and then we go into the next section, Bernard, is, you talked about, you walk in with three things.
You want to talk to three people. I love threes. There's science behind why threes are important, but we're going now to five questions. Larry and I go back and forth hitting you with a total of five questions. I'm up. What was the first branding experience that you can recall? First, I see you already laughing that you were so into it.
Bernard, you lost track of time. You, you weren't into it because mom or dad said this is, or siblings said, oh, you should do this, Bernard. You were into it because you, you loved it. Almost like a first love. Mm-hmm. What was this for you?
[00:32:09] Bernard Bell: Oh my God. So, uh, her name was Theresa Graves.
[00:32:13] DC: Okay.
[00:32:14] Bernard Bell: She was an actor, I guess they say actor back then, but she was an actor.
And the show was Get Christie Love.
[00:32:20] DC: Get Christie Love.
[00:32:21] Bernard Bell: Okay. And get Christie Love was a police detective in Los Angeles.
[00:32:25] DC: Yes.
[00:32:26] Bernard Bell: And she had beauty, she had brains and she had a badge. She had a afro.
[00:32:31] DC: Yeah.
[00:32:31] Bernard Bell: She would tighten up that, that belt around her waist. And I think I might have been, I might have been nine or 10 or something.
Yeah. But I would say, I think they did 22 episodes. I saw all of them.
[00:32:45] DC: Okay.
[00:32:46] Bernard Bell: And, uh, and I, and I just remember, I remember her, I can tell you what clothes she wore, how she had her hair. Oh. You know how the pants, how the pants would fall over. Her bomb, as they said. Yeah. Yep,
[00:32:59] DC: yep.
[00:32:59] Bernard Bell: Understood. And uh, but you know what, I think part of it was weren't a lot of black women on television then?
[00:33:05] DC: Yep. Yeah.
[00:33:06] Bernard Bell: You did not see a lot of black women with power. And I grew up in a family where my dad had, uh, it was 12 of 'em. He had eight brothers and four sisters. My mother had six sisters, and I grew up in a family where women were very valued. Mm-hmm. And we were taught to respect them. And when you grew up in a household where there's a lot of black women around, and my friends would be like, they're like, why are your aunts, why they shouting at you?
I'm like, they're not shouting. That's just how they talk. They get up in your face, they talk to you like that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I, and, and I, I, I had a very healthy respect for I think black women in power. Mm-hmm. And, but I'd never seen it. And so I'd never seen a black female cop. I don't even know if they had them then.
And, uh, so that would be, that was, um, very iconic in my, uh, in my youth was, uh, Theresa Graves Get Christie love. We even named our, first we got a puppy and her name was Christie Love.
[00:34:07] LT: Wow. That's great.
[00:34:08] DC: Okay.
[00:34:10] LT: That's great. You know what I love about this, Dee? Is that the reason why we ask the question, Bernard, is that, that brands that really you connect with, you can wax eloquently without even, you know, just, it's just there, right?
It's just, and, and so here's something that when you were a kid that you're giving us us all this detail for, uh, and we just love getting that from our guests. And, and that was awesome the way you just described that. Man, that was great.
[00:34:39] DC: That really was. Okay. I'm gonna go, um, nature for a moment. Larry knows this about me.
So does Jade and Jeff with Bernard. I use nature often as a reference point for business.
[00:34:56] Bernard Bell: I understand.
[00:34:56] DC: Because there's a balance, there's a rhythm. Yes. There's a perfection even in its imperfections. Yes. So I try to find analogs in nature and apply them to business and also my personal life. Now, let me come to you in this, uh, get Christie uh, Christie Love. Uh, a fruit in nature.
If you, if you have an orange and you squeeze the orange, what will come out of the orange is orange juice, because that's what's inside of an orange. Mm-hmm. You're not gonna squeeze an orange and get pruned juice. Right, right, right. Impossible. 'cause that's gonna come from a different fruit. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
I would dare say that personally for you, the reason why get Christie Love was so important is because the fruit that you became being around all these black women that were valued is when you squeeze a young Bernard Bell. The juice that comes out is respect for women.
[00:36:08] LT: Yes.
[00:36:09] DC: Respect for valuable, powerful women.
[00:36:12] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[00:36:13] DC: Yes. So because that, that squeeze of your fruit, this is how you can look to, this was in my home. I'm now seeing it on TV outside of my home. The converse is also true. I think it's hard for a brother who has not seen a woman, a powerful black woman in his life that is valued. He's never seen that or experienced it.
When you squeeze him, Christie Love ain't get Christie Love is not coming out. It's not because he is angry, it's not because something's wrong with him. It's just you ain't gonna get that orange juice outta him. You gonna get pruned juice.
[00:37:00] Bernard Bell: Analogy.
[00:37:01] DC: Yeah.
[00:37:02] Bernard Bell: Cs. Good analogy. Ironically, on my mother's side, um, all, all, she had six, she had five sisters.
All of them except one went to college. You know, my mother got her, her, she got her master from Columbia, aunt got her PhD from University of Chicago. And my aunt, if she were alive today, she'd be probably 115. Oh wow. Um, my, uh, other aunt went to wins, Salem State. Uh, my other aunt went to Bennett College.
They all had terminal degrees and I think, uh, I, I was raised, it's interesting, a lot of my uncles were a little more, um. Uh, probably chauvinistic.
[00:37:40] DC: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:37:41] Bernard Bell: But my daddy was the first black person in this little town of Reedsville to go to college. Mm-hmm. And I think as a result, he picked my mother. She spotted him in the library at A&T.
She was at Bennett. He was at A&T. Okay. And, uh, so the girls at Bennett would go over to a and t and they, their mindset was, well, they, in the library, they study and if they study and they're gonna be somebody and they're gonna be somebody. Okay. A good husband, good logic. Good logic. Makes sense. Right.
And so, uh, so they were all over in the library and she met my daddy and she said even though he had his pants, his belt belt buckle was right under his nipples, like way, way high.
[00:38:19] DC: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:38:20] Bernard Bell: And you could see his ankles and, uh, and said he didn't know how to dress. He was grew, he grew up on a farm. Mm-hmm.
You know, but he said when he first met her, he said to her, uh, yes ma'am. And she's like, damn, they same age. I think she might have been a year or two younger, but he said, yes ma'am. And so because he was raised to respect women, even though his dad, my grandfather had a sixth grade education, um, you know, he was a farmer, but whatever they did with the women thing, man, they made sure that the women were supported.
My mother was, no, she was, no, um, she was not a buttercup. Right. Yeah. She was very strong personality. Yeah. She was gonna make sure my daddy was president of NAACP in Greensboro. My mother was secretary. And uh, it's interesting. I just had a very healthy respect. I thought everybody did, but they had a very healthy
[00:39:12] LT: Right.
[00:39:13] Bernard Bell: Women growing up.
[00:39:14] LT: And also you have your twin sister who is the bomb in every way. Yes.
[00:39:19] Bernard Bell: She's a PhD at NASA. She's been doing that for about 22 years. Wow. Um, wow. Wow. Her whole thing is, if you're gonna be a female scientist, you gotta look good. You can't come in, you know, to kitchen all messed up. Some people may not.
Yeah, it is.
[00:39:33] DC: Yeah.
[00:39:33] Bernard Bell: The hair in the back. But, um, and so I think, and I, you know, my mother was a bit of a fashionista, so I think we got a lot of, um, I got a lot of, I never heard it put like that DC I may borrow that analogy about the, please do the orange juice. And if we put it on t-shirt, I'm entrepreneur, you'll get your 10%
[00:39:52] DC: all, uh, no.
No, brother. I, we gonna flip that. I'm getting 90. You getting 10? All right. All next question, Larry.
[00:39:59] LT: Alright Bernard, so who, and this is a great segue, who has had or is having the most influence on your career?
[00:40:05] Bernard Bell: So, you know what? I I, it, that's an easy question. There's this brother by the name of Johnathan Rogers, and when I met Johnathan, I met him at, uh, this restaurant called Jean George in New York City, in the Trump, uh, it was the Trump top, the Trump building, right.
At 57th, the Central Park West.
[00:40:26] DC: Yep.
[00:40:26] Bernard Bell: And saw him, he was going around from table to table. It was a table event, and I found out later he was president of Discovery Channel. Mm-hmm. And before he had been president of CBS News, and he had gone to Berkeley undergrad, got his journalism degree from Stanford.
But when I got to TV One, he had been named President. Mm-hmm. And how I got to TV One, long story, but when I found out he was president, drive down to Silver Spring, meet him, it was just, we just got along great. Hired me on the spot. Second person there. But by the time I met him, when I met him, he was on the board of Procter and Gamble, and had been on it about 15 years.
When I met him, he was on the board of Nike and he was on the board of, uh, of um, uh, NBC University.
[00:41:15] DC: Oh, wow. Wow.
[00:41:16] Bernard Bell: And you know, those boardships that, that's, that's money and stock. But more importantly, he knew how to run a company and most importantly, he had no ego. Mm. And for him to be, have had the roles that he had, black man, uh, education that he had, uh, he was an alpha and he was a veteran, but he had this Okay.
[00:41:39] DC: Can go back again just for the people in the back of the pew.
[00:41:41] Bernard Bell: He was a white, he was a veteran. Veteran.
[00:41:44] DC: No, no, no. I'm sorry. No. Wasn't before that.
[00:41:46] Bernard Bell: CEO?
[00:41:48] DC: No, no, no. In the middle. In the, in the middle
[00:41:50] Bernard Bell: discovery channel CBS news,
[00:41:53] DC: uh, the brother was an Alpha. Okay. Just wanna make that clear. He can't even say it.
I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.
[00:42:00] Bernard Bell: I know it hurt me the first time to say it, but I didn't say so. He was an Alpha, but more than anything he understood how to lead.
[00:42:06] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:07] Bernard Bell: And I remember New York Times came and they were, we launched this network on, it was TV one, we launched it on uh, MLK birthday in 2003. And so big, big launch event, New York Times, Washington Post comes to talk to him and he says, you know what?
I think you need to talk to one of my team members, Bernard Bell. I was so excited. 'cause I needed the external validation. Right. And so he knew how to take the spotlight off himself and put it on everybody else. Mm mm-hmm. And what I learned from him was if I as a leader make it about me, and I have a team, the team will have a challenge in supporting me because I'm just lifting me up.
[00:42:54] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:54] Bernard Bell: And I'm doing it on the heels of all the efforts that they're putting out. Okay. But if I as the leader take that spotlight and turn it around on them Yeah. And make it always, always, always about them, then they will want me to lead them because I make it about them and Got it. It has got that one, uh, metaphor that I saw him do.
It has guided me from the time I met him through my life, and especially in this role, which is a real leadership role, he taught me how to build culture from the ground up. He taught me that culture trump's strategy all day long, because if the people don't feel good about coming to work, they're not gonna tell you which way to go.
Um, he taught me how to listen because I would say things to him and he would say, okay, Bernard, now let me repeat back to you what I think I just heard. He taught me how to manage conflict. He would start saying, so Larry, you and I have a good working relationship, right? I'd say, mm-hmm.
[00:44:02] LT: Yeah.
[00:44:02] Bernard Bell: He'd say, well, we need to put that aside for a minute so we can have a tough conversation, and you good with that?
And I'd say, and then he'd say, when you did such and such, Bernard, it made us, it made it feel like you didn't respect us, or such and such and such and such. But then he would say, but I know you. And so I know you didn't mean to do it that way.
[00:44:23] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:23] Bernard Bell: But I need to know why you did it and what you're thinking.
And he would say, but again, I know you Bernard. I know you didn't mean to do it that way, but I need to know why you did it and what you were thinking. And he taught me to always give your opponent. A elegant way out of the corner.
[00:44:43] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:43] Bernard Bell: Don't deserve it. And, uh, and it has guided me, and he's an amazing dude.
And his network of people is, I mean, he'd have Rupert Murdoch on the phone when Obama was running. He would do mock interviews with Obama. Uh, and it was just his network of his network. He knew Valerie Jarrett, I mean everybody. And you would not know he knew any of them unless you saw them and him physically.
And so he taught me to keep my ego in my back pocket. And I think ego is part of what messes up people and environments and corporations and so forth. Everybody needs to be so important that they can't let the other people shine. And so he would be Johnathan Rogers, that's J-O-H-N-A-T-H-A-N. So one thing he was.
As my, uh, grandfather used to say Pacific about.
[00:45:38] LT: Yeah,
[00:45:38] Bernard Bell: He was very Pacific about the h in his name. And so, uh, but he was, he is amazing. He's amazing, dude.
[00:45:47] LT: Uh, I don't think there's anything to add. That's incredible. Nothing from me up there. That's awesome, Bernard. Thanks for sharing.
[00:45:54] Bernard Bell: And lemme know if I'm talking too long because you know, I'm a
[00:45:55] LT: No, you're doing
[00:45:56] Bernard Bell: great.
I'm a talker. You know, I'm a talker, man. So
[00:45:59] DC: You're good. You're, you're good.
[00:46:01] LT: Do you wanna hit the next question?
[00:46:03] DC: Yep. Thank you, Larry. Bernard, Larry gave you your flowers at the top. You have had enormous success. These are the peaks. You've also talked about the valleys. This next question has to do with one of these valleys, and that is what is the biggest F up in your career?
When we say F up, Bernard, we're not talking about one where, well, if my manager hadn't done this, or the market shifted, this is one where you thought you were right back to your earlier question in the get comfy section about people trading on right and grades and smartness. You thought you were right, you were dead ass wrong.
You made the mistake. And most importantly, Bernard, what did you learn from said F up?
[00:47:05] Bernard Bell: Well, you know, I have a lot of them, but, and all of them are big. And so what I realized is, you know, I have said sometimes Bernard, you have a big personality and so sometimes the things you do because you teed it up, trying to be the man.
Right. The, the, the, um, the F up and I'm assuming that's capital E, FF.
[00:47:27] DC: Yeah. You, you can, as, you don't need all the letters. You don't need them all. But yes.
[00:47:33] Bernard Bell: So when I was, when I was at TV one and I, I was second person there and so I basically hired everybody and helped build a culture and everything. And I was feeling really good about myself.
It was my fir I was senior vice president. It was my first senior vice president title, and it was a real senior vice president. Like he had equity and the salary was good and everything.
[00:47:54] LT: Yeah.
[00:47:54] Bernard Bell: And so I had just come out of HGTV and this whole lifestyle programming and I felt like I knew it. I was a 13th person at HGTV.
The founder was a UNC alum. So I had a little gravitas coming in and, uh, ego got big. I'll talk about it at some point, but, so get the TV one and. We are trying to make some programming decisions. And so I had decided this lifestyle programming, that's what everybody, that's what the black people need. And so, 'cause you didn't see, uh, like design shows with black folks.
You didn't go into homes with black people and everything. So I was like, I know, this is it. Gardening, home interiors, architecture, so forth. So I get the board to allocate $55 million for us to do programming lifestyle program. And you know, we, I'm, I'm
[00:48:48] DC: sorry, Ben, our, what year is this?
[00:48:51] Bernard Bell: This would've been, uh, about 2004 or five maybe.
[00:48:56] DC: So we're talking 50, $50 million back then.
[00:48:59] Bernard Bell: Right. And that's 55. 'cause five a lot.
[00:49:01] DC: Oh, 55. 55 million. Yeah. 55. Oh wow. Okay.
[00:49:05] Bernard Bell: And so, uh, so we're going through all the programming. It's our first programming slate. And when you're. Back then you would introduce your program and you'd either do it at a upfront,
[00:49:15] DC: upfront,
[00:49:16] Bernard Bell: so advertisers come, uh, we would show it internally so that all the sales team knew it.
They wouldn't go out and sell. And my job was to get distribution. So we would go out to all the cable systems across the country, and now I'm in charge of all of it plus Canada. So we get all the cable systems across the country. And the metrics were, if you get owned in New York City, New York City had a million subscribers.
Mm-hmm. The me, the financial metrics were Time Warner. Manhattan would pay us say a quarter per subscriber per month. Mm-hmm. If you do the math, you got a million dollars 25 cents
[00:49:54] DC: Carriage, brother carriage.
[00:49:56] Bernard Bell: Yeah, I understand. Right. And so with the increase in that, they were 10 year deals, so once you got a deal done, you knew 10 years.
So we could do programming deals knowing that the future revenue was coming in.
[00:50:11] LT: And that's without any money coming from advertising. I just
[00:50:14] Bernard Bell: Correct.
This is all, yeah, this is not,
[00:50:16] LT: yeah. This is distribution carriage is DC alluded to. So brand nerd. That's just like foundation money. Go ahead.
[00:50:25] Bernard Bell: And so, so when you paid your cable bill back in the day, part of that, you pay $150 or 200.
Part of that. I got 25 cent of that. SBN got a dollar history channel got 10 cents, so forth and so on.
[00:50:38] DC: Right? Yeah.
[00:50:39] Bernard Bell: And so $55 million shows go up on the air. Nobody's watching, nobody's watching. We picked, we, we, and there were a lot of men there. We picked hosts for the shows. Mm-hmm. That were beautiful light-skinned women.
[00:51:00] DC: Yeah.
[00:51:01] Bernard Bell: And what we found was that a lot of the people who were watching were working women or single moms and they were home during the day. 'cause this is daytime program. Mm-hmm. And you know, back then nobody, people weren't working from home, they'd go to work. Mm-hmm. And so what we found, $55 million one season later, nobody's watching.
Mm. So we amortized it, we amortized it 55,000 over 10 years to go along with the distribution. So it's really $5 million a year. Five and some change. But I had to go before the board and say, you know what? Ratings are down. And so the question was, was why did we do lifestyle programming? Mm. And, and Larry, do you know the reason we did lifestyle programming?
I thought I knew the black viewing consumer behavior experience. Mm. Because I thought I was smart and I thought I knew my people. And I thought I knew the industry and I thought, and I thought, and I thought, and I thought, without doing the market research, right? Mm-hmm. With customer discovery, interviewing the customer, finding out who the customer is.
Mm-hmm. Going so deep as to what's the playlist that our customers are listening to. Right. What cars are they driving? What's hanging up in their closet? Right. And had we done some person, some customer personas, but I was so smart, right? Mm-hmm. Got this big job, got this title, and I need to make a name for myself to let them know that I'm a veteran.
'cause I, you know, I've been in the industry for a minute, and any other person, I believe mm-hmm. Would've been let go. Mm. But because I had a relationship with the CEO.
[00:52:59] DC: Yeah.
[00:52:59] Bernard Bell: And you know, we were being a bit entrepreneurial. We raised $130 million to do this.
[00:53:06] DC: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:07] Bernard Bell: So, you know, you do the math. Now we taking five, even though it's 55, we're amortizing over 10 years, so we're really pulling five off the balance sheet.
[00:53:14] DC: Yeah.
[00:53:14] Bernard Bell: But it was a public, um, it was a, you know what it did for me, it made me realize that, number one, I was not as smart as I thought I was. Mm-hmm. And I really thought I was really smart. I mean, like, I thought I was, I hate to say it, but I really thought I was smart. Smart. Mm-hmm. And what can happen many times when you have success in one vertical, you know, we leapfrog into other verticals and we make the assumption that the same competence that we had in this one vertical, we take it over to other areas.
And that's not smart. Now I don't do that anymore. Um, but that was a, that was, if you can imagine going to our board meeting and having to defend that. You see what I'm saying? And it was, uh, it was, if, if, if that, don't put your ego in your back pocket DC I don't, I don't know what does, but that was, and sadly, that wasn't the biggest one, but that was the biggest one I wanna talk about.
That's a big one though, a big one.
[00:54:17] DC: That, that is a great one. That's a great one. Larry, any response to that? That what, what a fantastic answer and what nuggets are in there for the Brand Nerds, but Larry, you got any thoughts? I, I have one.
[00:54:33] LT: Yeah, I just wanna say two things. One, Bernard, thanks for sharing.
That's a, that's one of our best ones. Honestly, that was that. That's really awesome.
[00:54:40] DC: No, no doubt.
[00:54:42] LT: The second one is that, as you said, you know, Brand Nerds, we all build up chips in life. Uh, you know, you build up things that when you do well, you, that they're positive chips and when you don't do well, there's negative chips.
Right. So Bernard had built up positive chips.
[00:54:58] DC: Yeah.
[00:54:59] LT: But he was also standing in front of that board and I guess to the Brand Nerds, you know. Is there anything, the way you handled that, Bernard, that, that, uh, enabled you to stick? Like did you, did you try and fight it or did you just own it? Did you own the whole thing?
[00:55:15] Bernard Bell: Well, you know, Larry, it's a, it's interview would ask me that. 'cause that is one of my, um, pet peeves with people like my attitude, and I learned this from Johnathan, if it happens on my watch. It might be 15 people down in the organization somewhere. But if it happens on my watch, I stand up and say, I did not make this happen.
[00:55:37] LT: Right.
[00:55:38] Bernard Bell: My bad. And I learned that from my boss, Johnathan. 'cause he took the bullet on that one. Right. As a good lead, as a good leader. And, but I also had to learn. I think it, I think I lost some agency with the board. Yeah.
[00:55:53] DC: Doubt.
[00:55:54] Bernard Bell: Um, I think I
[00:55:55] DC: You should have lost some agency. You
[00:55:57] Bernard Bell: should have. I agree.
[00:55:58] DC: Yeah.
[00:55:59] Bernard Bell: Thank you. DC sometimes just hear, you don't have to comment.
[00:56:02] DC: Yeah.
[00:56:02] Bernard Bell: Uh, but I, I think I, I lost some agency. I lost, I lost a lot of agency with the board. I think things like that make your judgment get questioned.
[00:56:15] LT: Sure.
[00:56:16] Bernard Bell: Mm-hmm. And what I have learned as my career has kind of going in different ways is that good business is good judgment.
Mm-hmm. And I think good judgment is a reflection of asking good questions to smart people who will tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I think that I tended to surround myself with people who would tell me how great I was because I needed that. And, and I, you know, and that's, and all of this, I think, ties back to my whole, uh, piece on self-esteem and confidence.
You know, I was so needy in having them think that I was smart, that I wanted to show them how smart I was. Mm-hmm. And in my attempt to show them how smart I was, I didn't do my due diligence, right. Mm-hmm. I should have been out on the street corners in the hood. Talking to people. Yep. And then going to Prince George's County and talking to the folks and getting all these different pockets of data.
But I just assumed because I had been at HGTV and the programming was good that if I built it, they would come.
[00:57:32] LT: Right.
[00:57:33] Bernard Bell: And it didn't, it didn't work like that. The other thing I realized was from a, uh, from a female branding perspective, you know, many of my cousins, my female cousins may want to add this out, but they're not 95 pounds.
You know, they're not 120 pounds. We picked hosts for these shows that were light skinned and like frizzy hair and like 120, 130 pounds. And what we learned was that many of our viewers who were female and some of 'em were single moms and they're working. Mm-hmm. And some boy, the name got time to go to the gym.
They're looking at these women. They didn't know, they didn't know those women. Right. That was not what they thought of when they thought about black woman. Mm-hmm. So, and that was, and again, I did not take time to do the due diligence in the customer discovery. 'cause I thought I knew, I thought I knew the black community.
I thought I knew how black people, and especially if you're the college educated. Mm-hmm. So forth and so on. Well, what we found is that that demographic of black consumers, they're working. So they're the least folks that watch television 'cause they're not home during day. So all these insights that you get after the check done cleared mm-hmm.
You know, it's hard to go back and say, oh yeah. So, ah, and so I, it that, that one decision guided me on how to make decisions, how to communicate those decisions, but also how to do your due diligence before you even open your mouth.
[00:59:16] DC: All right, Bernard, I'm gonna say this quickly because we need to get to the next question.
Two points. One, regarding the fact that you thought you knew and didn't do market research. I'm gonna give you a little bit of, uh, grace here, because during that time, early two thousands, quite a bit of what was happening at cable stations and networks was led by people who were working almost exclusively off of instincts.
That's true. Jeff sucker at NBC let's Moonves at CBS. Peter Churnin at Fox, Ted Turner. Before that, these folks had a feel for it. Yes. So I'm gonna give you some grace for that. Still, she, you should have done the, the research. I agree. But the metrics at that point were different. Than they are today. The metrics, that's the data.
That's number one. Number two is this, when you said that you all had light, lightly complected, black women with frizzy hair, uh, and, and, and, and some of the, uh, resp, your, your viewers were like this. I don't know. Uh, this person, sometimes brand nerds, we make decisions that are almost into our brains through osmosis.
Nothing is necessarily directly said Yes, but something's coming into us. Yes. So brand nerds. I'm just gonna say this. I don't even want you to respond, Bernard. I don't. I wanna go to the next question 'cause I know she didn't do this, but if you think about Kathy Hughes, founder.
[01:01:10] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:01:10] DC: Bad, bad a and yeah, bad woman and how she looks and how she likely looked at that time.
Pretty close. Pretty close to what you described. Bernard. Don't want you to say anything about it. Don't want you to say anything about it. So to decide to put up a bunch of women that look like Oprah, when you've got Kathy Hughes as the founder, a trailblazing pioneer. Will, will, will cut things off. I ain't gonna get into what, okay.
She's a bad woman. These kinds of decisions can get made. They can get made without even recognizing it. All right, Larry, listen to the next question.
[01:01:58] LT: Alright Bernard. So regarding technology and marketing, you've seen a lot from a lot of different angles. Can you tell us where you think marketers should lean on a best leverage tech?
Or you can take us to an area that they should be leery or simply avoid what Say you.
[01:02:12] Bernard Bell: So, you know, uh, as a, as an academic who's got one foot in the business where I've really been trying to lean into ai, AI tools, um, I, I am optimistic on many fronts. I am extremely pessimistic on many fronts. Like, I think, I think many of us.
But I, I have found that the AI agents, number one, there's so many of them coming out. I'm, uh, on some newsletters and just trying to keep up with the volume of AI agents. It's overwhelming. I know for me the, you know, I use a lot of ChatGPT, I use Claude, I use Perplexity. Um, I'm using Claude to build websites.
We have our students build out websites, so interesting. Last year they would build their own websites and it would take 'em forever. This year it takes 'em maybe a day.
[01:03:04] LT: Right.
[01:03:04] Bernard Bell: Um, but I am using, uh, AI tools primarily for productivity. I do things like, given a given month, I have to do 30 letters of recommendation.
And what I used to do is get the resume and then I'd sit down and write out this letter of recommendation. 'cause I needed to make it very personal.
[01:03:24] DC: Mm-hmm.
[01:03:25] Bernard Bell: Now what I've done, I have a template that I use. Mm. And then I take that template and I take the template and the resume, and I put that into ChatGPT or Claude.
[01:03:36] LT: Mm-hmm.
[01:03:37] Bernard Bell: And it spit out something that's much more elegant than, than, than I can use.
[01:03:42] DC: Mm-hmm.
[01:03:43] Bernard Bell: But I'm also finding chat and Claude, I use it. My, my little side hustle is, uh, real estate. And a lot of my properties, I will rent them, I'll buy 'em. I renovate 'em, I rent 'em furnished. And I'm finding the, uh, ChatGPT is an amazing. Uh, 3D rendering tool. Ah. So yeah, I can take a, a, a blank space or floor plan. My strategy has been, I live in North Carolina, so high point. So you can get great furniture at great furniture, like $10,000 sofas, four, 500 bucks come furniture market time. So I can furnish a place about $2,500 with $25,000 of furniture in it.
But I can take these tools, take the furniture, and have them do everything.
[01:04:32] LT: Wow.
[01:04:32] Bernard Bell: And all my guys have to do, it's go pick up the furniture and place it. 'cause I have a 3D diagram that they already have.
[01:04:40] LT: Right.
[01:04:40] Bernard Bell: That process for me used to take me probably a month.
[01:04:44] LT: Right.
[01:04:45] Bernard Bell: Just have to get the stuff, put it in, get it in the property, have to think about how to do and so forth.
I'm not there all the time. And so that just, that's one redesign that I've used, uh, technology tools in. What we're doing though at home is. At nine 30, alarm goes off, we take our phones, we put 'em in the garage, in the car, in the garage, and we don't pull 'em out until seven 30 next day. 'cause what I was, me and Stacy, we get in bed, she's on her side, I'm on my side and we're swiping till like midnight, one o'clock in the morning.
Mm-hmm. Right. And even though we're physically right next to each other, yeah. We're miles away.
[01:05:24] DC: Yeah.
[01:05:24] Bernard Bell: Intellectually. And, and, and I have seen, uh, entire difference in my personal productivity.
[01:05:33] LT: Mm-hmm.
[01:05:33] Bernard Bell: But when we watch movies, we used to watch movies and we'll run the movie back. Like, we'd be like, stop, rewind, rewind.
'cause we'd be on our phones watching the movies.
[01:05:42] DC: Right.
[01:05:43] LT: Yeah.
[01:05:43] Bernard Bell: And, and what I'm realizing is I'm not, there's a lot AI gives me personally, a lot of productivity. But I'm also not sure if the overall net productivity score is positive.
[01:06:00] LT: Right?
[01:06:01] Bernard Bell: Because I'll go home in the kitchen before I take off my clothes and everything and I'm on that phone for like two hours going down rabbit holes, just sitting there and I'm not even aware I'm doing it.
And so there are a lot of other tools I use, but I'm still basically using, uh, Chat, Claude, and Perplexity.
[01:06:21] LT: Love this. I don't think there's anything to add from my standpoint. Do you have anything to add? Do you wanna go to the next question?
[01:06:28] DC: I don't. I use the same three we do. Final question.
[01:06:33] LT: Yes we do.
[01:06:35] DC: What are you most proud of?
[01:06:40] Bernard Bell: What am I most proud of?
[01:06:42] DC: Yeah.
[01:06:42] Bernard Bell: Um.
What I am most proud of, and, and I, and I, and I'll say it, but I, and I'll qualify it, is, um, myself. Hmm. And the reason I say that is when I got to Chapel Hill as a freshman, you know, I didn't know who I was, didn't really like who I was, wanted to be everybody else except myself. Mm-hmm. And I think about this song, Allen Rigby puts on her face in a jar by the door.
[01:07:28] DC: Mm-hmm.
[01:07:30] Bernard Bell: And so I had my athlete friends and I had my nerve friends, and I had my weed smoking friends, I had my alcohol friends. And depending on who I was, I was that person. Hmm. And I think I went through most of my twenties, even when Larry knew me of e going from thinking I was all that, which I think is a, is a typically insecurity to not thinking I was enough, which is also, you know, insecurity.
And I have finally, after I've read over 200 books on how to win friends and influence people. Mm-hmm. You know, I've been doing therapy for 20 years, uh, amazing dude by the name of Lloyd Bowers in New York City. And, um, I am proud of the fact that I'm an amazing leader.
[01:08:25] LT: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:25] Bernard Bell: And the reason I'm an amazing leader is I think I learned from Johnathan about the power of culture and the power of.
If you're gonna, if you gotta walk beside the people that you, that you're leading, sometimes you gotta walk behind 'em to push 'em. Sometimes you gotta walk in front of 'em to, to pull them. But I think I'm proud of the fact that if anybody who knows me, they would say, if I'm a shepherd, I smell like my, she, like, I'm in there with 'em.
And I, I, I never get so far ahead of them. Um, there are times I'm right by them, right beside 'em. Um, but there are also times, and which is most of the time that I let them leave. 'cause I think even in an academic environment, tho these young people are amazing. They're smart, and I wanna be a lifelong learner.
And I, I, I, I feel like I have finally wrestled my own ego, um, into my back right pants pocket. And I've been. Uh, I've been fortunate enough to keep it there and there are times that I pull it out and I'm not, uh, I'm, I, I think when I do, I am aware of the fact that I am doing that and I try to check myself.
And it's interesting. Like I, you know, I, I have a healthy ego. It's, it's not, and I think I'm confident, but it's genuine confidence. It's like from the inside out, it's not performative. And a lot of me back in the day was very performative. It's not, um, it's not loud. And a lot of me back in the day was loud and I think it's very, um, genuinely trying to lift as I climb.
Um, my old boss, Jonathan, used to say, well, ain't no fun being on a private jet by yourself. Right? And so you're going to do it. You wanna be able to floss just a little bit and have your boys with you. And so I have learned that so many things that we do, you know, we, if, if, if the team's not there with you, the, the victory is not as sweet.
And I think I have finally gotten to where I thought I'd get to when I was in my forties. Mm-hmm. Um, but I know how to lead and I, I think you could drop me down in any environment anywhere in the world and I could get you from point A to point B 'cause I finally understand that thing. Right. Hmm. And that thing, I believe it's, it's, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Mm-hmm. And then it's lifting as we climb and it's making sure that you smell like you sheep. And, um, and I can do it all now. It's my DNA now. Right? And, uh, and I, and I think as a result, when I, in the morning when I'm brushing my teeth and I look in my eyes, I like the person that I see for the right reasons, right?
And, um, so it sounds very egotistical to just talk about not having ego, but tell you all that I am most proud of myself. But I would say that I think,
[01:11:58] DC: yep.
[01:11:59] LT: I actually get it. I wanna say one quick, I Yeah. D, we get, we, we DC and I have a lot of these kind of conversations. And Bernard, I wanna say one thing before we head to the next section, uh, because we've known each other for a long time, um, and we always connected.
[01:12:18] Bernard Bell: Didn't we always, always.
[01:12:19] LT: Right. And, and when we were in our twenties Brand Nerds, both of us, I, I was the same as Bernard. We were gonna make shit happen.
[01:12:28] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:12:29] LT: Right.
[01:12:29] Bernard Bell: Cocky. We were cocky about it.
[01:12:31] LT: Exactly. And so that was who, that's part of the life experience. That and the, and the journey that one takes. And DC and I just a few years later, we're a Coca-Cola.
And you know, if you don't have a healthy ego and exert yourself in a way that is a bit performative there, I say, right. D right. You know, like mm-hmm. If you don't have the wherewithal to do that, you don't accomplish stuff. So this is the path that you took that DC took. I and that I took and branders what we want you to take away from this is that it's really important for you to get down.
And the way you need to get down at the time you're getting down, but get, get underneath it all and get to know yourself as quickly as possible. That's,
[01:13:24] Bernard Bell: Well said.
[01:13:25] LT: That's really the key here, right?
[01:13:27] Bernard Bell: Well said. Well said. Hard to do. Hard to do.
[01:13:30] LT: Very hard to do.
[01:13:31] Bernard Bell: And well said..
[01:13:32] LT: And by the way, Brand Nerds, we've now, uh, I'll say this, we've all been in therapy, all three of us, okay?
We've all accomplished stuff. We've all had to, had real valleys and real peaks. And that's part of living. And, and you know, you, you learn a lot more from the valleys than you do from the peaks.
[01:13:53] Bernard Bell: You preaching, Larry, you preaching, bruh, you preaching
[01:13:55] LT: Right?
[01:13:56] Bernard Bell: Very much so.
[01:13:57] LT: So last segment, this is gonna, and, and it's, we've already touched upon this because we talked about this Jade, uh, Bernard and I the other day, but I, I think it's really important Brand Nerds for us to double down on this.
And, and this is our what's popping segment. And you know, Bernard, again, we, as we tell, uh, you know, tell our Brand Nerds who are listening, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening in and around marketing today that we think is good fodder for discussion. And it goes to Bernard, you touched upon it in the get Comfy is presenting oneself.
And it's the first thing that people see, Brand Nerds, whether you're at the first day in class, the first job, uh, uh, the, the first job interview, it's you're sitting down and there's that moment of truth in the way you present yourself. And by the way. The usually, I don't know, I, I forget what the statistics are, but usually when you're doing a job interview or when you're presenting yourself and just meeting, meeting someone, people are making judgements in like five seconds, right?
Yeah. Yes. It's how you appear, how confident you are, how you present yourself, how engaged you are. So, Bernard, can you talk a little bit more about that? Because again, you, you talked a, a little bit to, to us at the beginning and then the other day about when you, you have kids sit down in your class and they say, my name is Joey Smith and that's, yeah.
Um, and that's it.
[01:15:25] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:15:25] LT: Can you go further on that?
[01:15:27] Bernard Bell: Yeah. So, so, so my whole thing is executive presence and I look at individuals. The people go out and they wanna network and they go to the, I say the cameras start rolling when you get out the car. Right, because you don't know who's watching. And what I have tried to make sure that I help our students do is you think about what everybody else is doing, and then you do the opposite.
And so at Chapel Hill, if you ask a student, so tell me about yourself. The first thing they'll say is, well, I'm a junior majoring. And I'm like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. That's what everybody says. You just put yourself in a sea of the other. 3,999 seniors that are graduating, coming to get jobs. And so what can you do to give yourself that 10% minimum, uh, elevation?
And so what I teach them to do is you craft your 32nd elevator pitch because everything you're doing is curating your brand.
[01:16:34] LT: Yes.
[01:16:35] Bernard Bell: And the students will say, you mean fake it till you make it? I'm like, not at all. Curating your brand means that you start doing, you start being intentional about certain activities, skills, conversations, and you start doing it and you build upon them.
And so there's some memorization, but my counsel is, if you wanna be an investment banker and you're talking to the head of Goldman Sachs and he says, well, tell me about yourself. My suggestion and recommendation I've seen worked is take me on a journey. From the time you were born until you're now.
'cause when you say I'm a junior major in economics, you just became a junior two years ago. So I wanna know not only what you do, but who are you. So I'm gonna encourage you to say, and when I was six years old, I was doing my building blocks and I realized I love counting them. And my love numbers was more when I got to high school, I was the captain of the volleyball team and I played soccer, and that's where my teamwork and leadership skills were hung.
So you checking those boxes and applying to college, if I applied to some Ivys or whatever I'm gonna say, I applied to Harvard, Yale, Princeton Chapel Hill. I chose Chapel Hill. While here I've been involved in my fraternity. I was on the speech team and I learned a lot about intellect and how to process strategy.
When I graduate, I'd love to be in an environment where I'm in investment banking and I can affect other people's lives. But something that gives me a bit of a narrative, because if they're talking to you, they're probably talking to other people and you wanna make sure that you throw in some landing peaks so they will remember you.
So I've got one student who's from West Africa. Mm-hmm. But he went to boarding school in London, and so he says, well, I'm a junior major. And I'm like, stop, stop. You got a whole lot to share where automatically people would remember you. So when you send your email a handwritten note to that gentleman, you remind him, I'm the gentleman from West Africa who was the boarding school.
Now all of a sudden, I remember you. What I see happening is a lot of students say, well, I don't wanna brag. I'll say, well, are you smart? They're like, I'm, I'm okay. And I'll say, okay, well I don't wanna talk to you, I wanna talk to the smart students because this is your opportunity. Yep. It's not bragging, but this is your opportunity to floss.
And you may only have that one opportunity. Mm-hmm. And so when I think about, when I think about executive presence, to me it's how you walk in. Do you walk in with your head down, your head up, your chest up, chest down? And people don't think about it, but all of it's, you just said, it's all of it. You get on a zoom, am I leaning back?
I get on Zooms and people are on their bed with laundry on the bed, and they wanted to, and they're like, Mr. B, I didn't get the job. I'm like, well, did you record the, let me, let me hear it. And they record. And I said, I'm like. First of all, I see some dirty drawings back there on the sheets that ain't going to fly.
[01:19:55] DC: I see it. So, you know, they saw it.
[01:19:57] Bernard Bell: I can see it, right? And you know, I screenshot it, I zoom in. And so what, but what I've realized is they, they genuinely don't know. And I say executive presence, especially when they're in college, right? Because your competition is not thinking like that at all. And when I think about all these schools down in North Carolina, everybody releases 4,000 students to the world.
You got Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central, Duke University, NC State, Wake Forest, all, and you're releasing all these students to the world. And that's your competition. If you don't get your edge, you will know you didn't get it. 'cause you're sitting out there in the desert with no job in a diaper 'cause you ain't got no money.
And it's all because you did not prepare your. And so I use all of that to lead you into developing confidence because I can spot it a mile away. And when you walk in and you're holding your body like this, got your arms wrapped, you and I see it all the time. You stand in front of the class, you walk, you lean, rocking back and forth.
I'll say, stop, stop, stop. Stand still. Right? Figure out what you're gonna do with your hands, because your hands are part of your body. Your body is part of your overall present, but nobody's sharing this with them. And Larry, it makes all the difference in the world. And see, man, I got receipts and I said, I got so many students that have used what I have taught and they've got these great jobs and their careers go up and they know how to ask the right questions to get insight as opposed to telling people what they already know.
Right? And so, uh, it's something that I take seriously. You know, I do seminars across the country doing this, and I think. My goal is to make sure that the students feel good about themselves. 'cause having been one who had low self-esteem mm-hmm. I know how the meeting or the conversation goes when I feel good, but I also know how it doesn't go when I'm walking in with this cloud over my head.
And I had a cloud over my head for most of my twenties.
[01:22:09] LT: Mm. Love this. This is exactly what, what we'd hoped you'd share. Uh, Dee, anything to add before we, uh,
[01:22:18] DC: I do, uh, example, um, when I went to business school, I went to Clark Atlanta University. I started, it was at AU Atlanta University and then became Clark Atlanta University.
[01:22:30] Bernard Bell: Was Mike Parker, that name ring a bell. Mike Parker, fraternity brother of mine. Was he there when you were there? He went
[01:22:35] DC: to work kind of ring a Yeah. And he went to work for mcc. He went to work with McCormick. McCormick. Sharp brother.
[01:22:41] Bernard Bell: Yes, sharp brother. That was attorney brother.
[01:22:43] DC: Yeah, he was, he, he was a couple of years ahead of me, but yes,
[01:22:47] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:22:48] DC: Yes.
[01:22:49] Bernard Bell: Awesome man. Small world.
[01:22:50] DC: Brilliant brother. Brilliant brother. Mike Parker. I, he was heard name. He was smart.
[01:22:58] Bernard Bell: I dunno if he was brilliant, but He was smart.
[01:23:00] DC: Yeah, he was smart. Okay. Alright. Okay. That's your fraternity. That's your fraternity brother. That's your fraternity brother. Uh, so I was there, uh, because my GPA was so low and my GMAT in combination was also low.
I was rejected at first and then admitted on a probationary basis. I was highly intimidated at that time. There weren't many black folks go into business schools, correct. The best business schools around the country. So at that time, the, the number one producer of black MBAs in the world was Atlanta University.
[01:23:43] Bernard Bell: So I didn't know that.
[01:23:43] DC: The best of the best, yes. The creme de la creme found themselves, uh, black MBA found themselves at at au and NCAU. I'm in there just trying to stay alive. The jobs that were offered at the end of these, this two year period were otherworldly and I was just trying to find myself one of them.
So branders for those of you all who've not gone to B-School, the, the courting looks like this. You go to school for a little while and then the recruiting office office brings in these fabulous recruiters from. Top-notch companies from all over the world. And they come in now it's Zoom, I would imagine.
But back then they would come to the campus. Yep. They would host something. That's right. You'd have hors d'oeuvres or as I call them, horse divers. Uh, you, you, they would be wine, but you would counsel don't drink any wine. That's right. Until after this thing. That's right. Don't do it. And so there'd be all of these things and then there'd be a panel discussion.
[01:24:53] Bernard Bell: That's
[01:24:54] DC: right. Uh, with the, with the people who are the executives, sometimes recruiters, there'd be some film that would run. Yes. And, and then came the questions and answer period where the students were given the opportunity to ask a question of the esteemed panel of folks that can hire people and change their lives.
I'm at the first one of these and I'm sitting in the back. I'm just trying to like, and I'm studying it. Bernard and lt. I'm sitting, I'm like, oh, oh.
They say, okay, open for any questions. There'd be silence, right? Because it's high stakes kind of a thing.
[01:25:40] LT: Right?
[01:25:40] DC: A pause that's awkward. And then eventually one of the singers you say, come on, somebody's gotta say something, and then somebody with God. And then once a couple of people went, then the room loosened up.
This is how it went down.
[01:25:54] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:25:54] DC: I'm, I'm studying all of this and I'm like, oh, I got it. The time to get the job is not in the interview.
[01:26:05] Bernard Bell: That's right.
[01:26:05] DC: The time to get the job is when your footsteps in that room.
[01:26:10] Bernard Bell: Yep.
[01:26:11] DC: That's the time to get the job. I also was aware that, uh, 90% of communication is nonverbal and I'm from Detroit, so I could dress brother Allegation.
Yeah. Yeah. Alligator. Listen, listen. Mustard color. I know, I know. I would come in there sharp lt, like professional. I wouldn't, I wouldn't wear my, my mustard color gators, but I might have some reptile, but it'd be classy done in a classy way. And I then the next one, I walk in, I sit directly in front of the room trying to be middle panel, right?
Mm-hmm. Right there. I'm a first year student. Mm-hmm. And I say to myself, from this moment forward, I don't care who else is in the room when they cut that tape. Or the executive says the last word and they say, are you ready for it? When, when the, when the first letter Q question comes out, I'm, I'm raising my hand and I'm asking the question.
And I did that for every single
[01:27:23] Bernard Bell: nice
[01:27:24] DC: reception that I went to. What that did for me is I began, I unwittingly to dictate the terms of what would happen in the interaction between the students and these companies at everyone that I was in.
[01:27:44] Bernard Bell: Wow. Wow.
[01:27:45] DC: And uh, and the, there was power in that. Yeah. And there was not one time where when the reception then broke after the q and a where one of those executives did not come over to me.
Wow. Wow. And the preparation of the questions that I would ask. Yeah, I wasn't asking, I noticed in the Wall Street Journal Yes. No, no, no.
[01:28:08] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:28:09] DC: I, I'm in here if I got to go find microfiche right. To get something about the CO Yes. Or what a board member said I was doing. So I was asking questions where when I would get done, there was a pause.
Right. So I, I'm, I'm corroborating your point. I did not present myself as any of the other students. And then I'll end with this 'cause I know I'm going long here today. And Larry can attest to this. When we are in a room of folks and they ask, introduce yourself. What do you do today, Bernard? I will say I like to do dope shit with dope people today.
Yeah, that's it.
[01:28:56] Bernard Bell: Awesome. DC That's awesome, man.
[01:28:58] DC: Yeah, that's it.
[01:28:58] Bernard Bell: That is awesome.
[01:28:59] DC: Thank you.
[01:29:00] Bernard Bell: That's awesome. And I, I guarantee you that gets everybody's attention right away.
[01:29:05] DC: Yeah.
[01:29:05] Bernard Bell: Right away. And what you did, what you just said. It's true.
[01:29:10] DC: Yes, it is true.
[01:29:11] Bernard Bell: It's genuine. It's true, right?
[01:29:12] DC: It is true.
[01:29:13] Bernard Bell: Well, you know, DC it's interesting we're having this conversation about business school and that.
'cause one of the things I tell, I told students a couple of days ago, 'cause now everybody's on campus, I used to get to those things an hour and a half early.
[01:29:28] DC: Ah,
[01:29:29] Bernard Bell: there we go, Larry. We, because everybody would show up at the same time. It was a man and you couldn't get through. So I'd get there about hour and a half early.
And this, they had the little slide carousels.
[01:29:39] LT: So in those days, Bernard, they used to do the Carolina Inn. Remember?
[01:29:42] Bernard Bell: You remember that? You remember that, right?
[01:29:43] LT: Yep.
[01:29:44] Bernard Bell: So I'd be like, Hey, Bernard Bell got my resume and everything. I'm chitchatting with 'em. So by the time the bum rush, if everybody comes. I could eat the food and I couldn't drink the wine 'cause I had already made my impression.
[01:29:56] DC: You already made you, you done made your impression.
[01:29:58] Bernard Bell: And my mama said the ends of lines were made for other people. And she was like, don't let me drive by and see you standing at the end of a line somewhere. You gotta be creative. You go knock on a door and say you gotta use the restroom. And once you in you find your seat.
That is, that's a hell of a story man. It's a hell of a story.
[01:30:22] LT: That's a nice drop for that.
[01:30:23] Bernard Bell: I do dope shit with dope people.
[01:30:25] LT: That's right. It's, and he says it all the time and it, and, and it's, and it's perfect. Bernard, I can't tell you how much fun this has been and all the knowledge you have dropped we're, we're hit the close segment now and I, I got a million, I'm gonna try and keep this brief.
What's gonna happen here is I'm gonna hit my learnings. DC's gonna do his. And then if you want to put a bow on yours, uh, of what you learned from the conversation, that would be great. But here's mine. I got, I have 14, but I'm going to ma, I'm gonna put some pace. Number one, know thyself. Number two, are you in touch with your EQ and how you are landing with other people?
Mm-hmm. Brand nerds. Huge. Number three, you need to engage, not just network, it's about engaging much different than networking. Number four, in a new situation, think about who you're gonna meet and how you're gonna engage with them. Bernard does this every time. Bernard, number five, I want you to repeat form for us real, and if you could do it with pace, that would be great.
[01:31:25] Bernard Bell: Yeah. Family, occupation, recreation, and message. And Larry, what I will do, I, I have a list of questions under each one of them. I will email them to you.
[01:31:37] LT: Thank you. Wonderful. That's awesome.
[01:31:39] DC: Put that, we're gonna put that in the show notes.
[01:31:40] Bernard Bell: That'd be awesome.
[01:31:41] LT: Number six, Johnathan Rogers pull pulls up another great John Wooden quote.
I, I love John Wooden quotes, Bernard. And this one reminded me what you were saying about Johnathan Rogers. And this is a John Wooden quote, uh, quote by John Wooden. It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one care cares who gets the credit.
[01:32:03] Bernard Bell: Oh, man. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
[01:32:07] LT: Number seven, culture.
I'm not gonna say eat strategy, but it comes before strategy. I'm gonna take that a little different. Number eight, Johnathan Rogers Always give up, uh, your opponent in an elegant way out of the corner. Oh, that's just genius. Number nine, like Bernard learned $55 million later. Market research is really foundational Brand Nerds.
Number 10, success in one place doesn't guarantee it in another. Number 11, good judgment and good is good business. And good business is asking good questions to smart people around you. You need those smart people around you. Number 12, be a shepherd that smells like your sheep. Number 13, live, lift, lift, lift as you climb.
Lift as you climb. And number 14, what your, what's your elevator pitch and what is your life brand story? You need this 30 seconds and you need to have this now. Those are mine.
[01:33:04] Bernard Bell: Wow, that's awesome. Wow. That's Larry. That's awesome, Larry. That's awesome man.
[01:33:09] DC: Wow.
[01:33:11] Bernard Bell: Wow.
[01:33:15] DC: Bernard, you've given us and the Brand Nerds, what Larry and I call, and you've heard this term before, jew-els many jew-els At this section of the podcast, I go out on a lamb Bernard, and attempt to describe the mosaic of the human that is before me. And with each answer and each comment, I begin with a blank canvas.
And at some point it starts to take shape. The colors, the vibrancy, the layers, and a picture emerges for me. And that picture. My articulation of that picture is describing what is it that this human has, in my humble opinion, that none of the other 8 billion people on this planet can give us in the way that this human can give it to us.
I'm going to attempt to do that with you now.
[01:34:32] Bernard Bell: Wow.
[01:34:33] DC: Starting with Brother Bernard Bell. You are poetic. You're, the way that you communicate your ideas is not like just communicating ideas. You, you're like taking wisdom and compressing it, codifying it into bars. This is, this is how, and there are bars that make an indelible imprint on the mind of the listener.
You're, you don't just de deliver information. You deliver formation for formation. Wow. Yeah. Wow. In your words, there's a, there's a, a structure to them. There is balance to them, like nature, as I mentioned as a reference point. Here are just a, a few of your quotes that I can recall. Theme of the business school, or at least your area of it is people, uh, uh, people don't care what you know until they know that you care.
Yes. Another one of your bars is in careers. People talk about, Larry mentioned this, moving from peak to peak, they overlook the valleys. You can't get to a peak without a valley. So you got you. You've gotta, and, and your desire to examine the valleys and not skip over them. That was a bar. Put your ego in your back pocket.
I know you learned that from Johnathan. That was your bar though. I lift as I lead. Yeah. That, that's five words people. Wow. That's just five words. And two of them are one letter. Okay. Two. But just the, the balance of it. I lift as in the middle, I lead two, two separated by an A.
[01:36:47] Bernard Bell: Wow. Wow, wow.
[01:36:48] DC: And then if I'm a shepherd, I smell like my sheep.
I. Upfront. Larry mentioned that you were captain of the UNC speech team and you won the national championship.
[01:37:08] Bernard Bell: Yes.
[01:37:09] DC: You also jokingly, this is before we were on the show brand nerds. He, he said, do I look good? Do I look like Denzel? Now he, he probably embarrassed that I say that he was just joking tongue, tongue in cheek.
And I said, the answer to the first question of you look good is yes. The answer to the second question, you look like Denzel, was no. And he said, hell no. However, I don't believe there are coincidences or as, uh, Jimmy Smith, he, we call him black Jesus. He calls them Ky Dinks. I don't believe in coincidences. So I, that stuck with me that you said Denzel.
And then I thought, wait a minute. Denzel was in a movie called the Great Debaters. His name was Tolson, right? Thompson. Yeah. Right. And he wasn't just teaching skills. He was shaping these kids. He, he wasn't just like leading from the front. He was actually walking through the va. 'cause they weren't good, they were not expected to be good.
He was walking through the valley with these students to raise them up. It wasn't just about how they spoke, it was about building their voice. This is your brand piece. Their confidence and their conviction. So there, there's this connection between your UNC
[01:38:36] Bernard Bell: Wow.
[01:38:37] DC: Speech team experience. Wow. And your offhanded comment about Denzel Washington and the great debaters.
Alright, now, uh, my, my, uh, my mom rest in power, a powerful black woman. She had a saying that the Brand Nerds have heard many times when I would drone on, she would say, Bernard, um, baby, are you arriving at a point? And I'd say, yeah, mama, I'm, I'm arriving at a point. So Bernard and Brand Nerds, I'm arriving at a point.
And speaking of mamas, I almost fell outta my seat when you said, you know, my mother, when you be talking about the UNC getting there half, uh, hour and a half early, um, to the recruiting events, she said, my mama said the ends of the line, the ends of the lines were made for other people.
[01:39:34] Bernard Bell: Right.
[01:39:34] DC: So she was saying What's your, what, what, what's your mother's name?
[01:39:38] Bernard Bell: Is was Queen Elizabeth.
[01:39:41] DC: Queen Elizabeth, okay. Queen. Don't get it Twisted. Queen Elizabeth. What she was also saying, because my, my folks in Detroit used to say this as well, to be, to be Pacific is that ain't for my babies.
[01:39:55] Bernard Bell: That's
[01:39:56] DC: that ain't for us.
[01:39:57] Bernard Bell: You understand
[01:39:58] DC: that that ain't for, this is for other people.
[01:40:00] Bernard Bell: That's right.
[01:40:01] DC: And this is when it hit me that, how can I honor all that you are all this you, the poetry, the bars, the connection between your UNC speech team experience in Denzel Washington and the great debaters, and I believe it's this Bernard, you are The Shepherd of Leaders.
[01:40:33] Bernard Bell: Wow.
[01:40:34] DC: Yeah.
[01:40:35] Bernard Bell: Wow. DC Wow, man.
That's, there you
[01:40:38] DC: go.
[01:40:38] Bernard Bell: Wow, man. That's, uh, that's, that tells me how smart you are to put all of that together and the fact that y'all really listen, and I'm not, I don't mean, I'm not being tongue in cheek when I say that. Um, it is, uh, it is, this is one of the best, um, conversations that I think I've ever had.
Mm-hmm. I hate to say because I did most of the talking, um, but I really appreciate the fact, Larry, you tear me up in dc you listening, man. I mean, you can't pull all that together without, and fully being, being fully invested in the conversation.
[01:41:19] LT: Mm-hmm. Yep.
[01:41:20] Bernard Bell: And I think so many people talk at each other.
Mm-hmm. Because they can't wait for you to finish so they can say what they wanted to say.
[01:41:29] DC: Mm-hmm.
[01:41:29] LT: Yep.
[01:41:30] Bernard Bell: And, uh, it, man, that that summary, um, that, that meant a lot. Man, that tells me a whole lot about how smart you are DC Just to even put all that together, man and I, until Larry scheduled this, I had not listened to y'all's podcast.
Y'all got some amazing podcasts that you've done? Mm,
[01:41:52] LT: Thank you. Thank you.
[01:41:53] Bernard Bell: Seriously, thank you. And I'm grateful that you thought enough of me because I don't always think enough of me. And so it's great when other people can validate some of the stuff that you've worked hard to do. And, um, you know, I get a little emotional when I say it, but it means a lot.
'cause I think it's so much noise in the world.
[01:42:15] LT: Yeah.
[01:42:16] Bernard Bell: And for people to take the time to do things, to do things. Not say things, but to do things to show that you, that you valued. Um, it's special. That's really special. And, uh, and Larry, I appreciate it, man.
[01:42:34] LT: Thank you. Your brother. We've Bernard, when we don't see each other often, but when we do see each other, it's like, you know, you don't have this with many people.
It's like, we saw each other yesterday, man, and we just, we and, and we, and we
[01:42:47] Bernard Bell: met San Francisco. We haven't seen each other 20 years, man. And just hit it off.
[01:42:51] LT: Yeah.
Just like, I mean, it was, it was just amazing. Um, and I, I'm gonna lighten it up a little bit. Before, at, at towards the end here, DC before you came on, Bernard was saying, man, I just came from, um, uh, you know, an academic event and I'm sorry that I'm dressed, like, took my tie off and everything.
So, and I said, Bernard, don't sweat it. There's a reason why you're wearing that. Yes. And there you go. It was up in the ending there. Right.
[01:43:21] Bernard Bell: Yeah, that was awesome. That was awesome. But it was a great, great, great conversation. Great conversation and great, great team. Y'all have too, so it's amazing.
[01:43:30] LT: Well, I think that puts a bow on it.
Um, I think we go, we go straight to the close here. Uh, Brand Nerds, thanks so much for listening to Brands, beats and Bites, the executive producers of Brands, Beats and Bytes, or Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
[01:43:44] DC: The pod father.
[01:43:47] LT: That's right. And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share and for those on Apple podcasts if you are so inclined, we love those excellent reviews.
We hope you enjoyed the podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.