From Ground Zero to Kingdom Growth - Brian Boyd | Faithly Stories

Isn't the goal of a clergy or pastor or missionary to reach the lost? We may not all agree with X's platform or Facebook's platform, but that's where people are. I mean, Jesus went where the people were. He went to the mountainside, he went to the sea, and he spoke to the people where they were congregated. If podcasting is where millions and millions people get their content every day, there's no better place for you pastor than to create your content and distribute it there. Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders. Learn more at Faithly.co. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired on the Faithly Stories podcast. All right. Here we go. Brian Boyd. Welcome to the Faithly Stories podcast. It is. Thank you. It is great to have you here, my friend. You are, of course, the founder and CEO of CCB Marketing, which I want to talk about, but before we get there, I want to talk about our first meeting. Our first meeting was in a diner in downtown New York City, where we discovered that we were both 20 plus year New Yorkers. And when two people who have been in New York City for 20 plus years, when they meet and talk, the conversation inevitably goes to 9-11, which is coming up very quickly. So I want to ask you a few things because I know that you had a very deep and impactful experience around 9-11. So the first question is, you know, as the anniversary, as the anniversary approaches, take us back to where you were, Brian. Wow. Well, yeah, literally I've got goose bumps just you bringing it up. It's, it's, it's funny. You know, it seems like yesterday and it's funny because the kids who were born after 9-11 are now over 21, right? Which is weird for me to think. But on that day, my wife and my two kids, the four of us lived about two blocks away in a neighborhood called Battery Park City. And it's a pretty much a residential neighborhood that borders World Trade Center and tried back in lower Manhattan. So if you're looking at Manhattan, it goes down like this, it's over here on the, on the bottom right. Yeah. I mean, it's basically ground zero, right? It really is, you know, when, when the towers fell, pieces went into Battery Park City. So I mean, it's, it's, it's literally right there. But on that day, I had gone to work over on Wall Street and, you know, I forgot the exact time there was eight o'clock, eight forty eight or eight forty five, right? My wife had dropped off our kids at school, which was about one block away from World Trade Center. And then she was actually going to head to the World Trade Center to have breakfast with a friend. So on that day at eight, you know, whatever in the morning, my wife was, was getting ready to start walking from the school to World Trade Center and she was with a friend and they got held up walking there because they ran into another friend that they hadn't seen in neaters and years and years. And they had a conversation on the sidewalk that while they were having that conversation, the plane came overhead in the first plane to the tower. And you know, we, we kind of call that a, it's not a coincidence, we call it a God link. That's what we call it because what are the odds that that would all happen? So she immediately runs back to get the kids at the school and calls me Brian, a plane just ran to the tower. By the way, for those of you who are younger than 20, our phones back then weren't, and nearly as good as the arts today, I had what was called a blackberry phone. And it's a technology that's not around anymore, but it's like a phone with a keyboard itself. Anyway. Well, what the interesting thing about it is that those calls were able to go through, like that's how close to the actual event your wife was because just minutes later, no calls would be going through to anybody. That's right. Well, the call at that point, and you know, I forget which tower had the antennas on it and stuff. Maybe it was tower two, I don't recall, but when those towers fell, the antennas went down to and then it was, it was nothing was good. But she calls me as a Brian plane to set the tower. And I'm like, oh, wow, that's crazy, you know, that's horrible. And then back in the head, I'm like, well, I hope nobody got hurt, I hope they can fix it type of thing. And I said, well, just stay there with the kids and I'll, you know, I'll see you have to work. I mean, at that point, it wasn't, we didn't know. And if you didn't live to that's fine, maybe that doesn't make sense. But we just thought it was an accident, a horrible accident, right? So I go around here, side of my building and look at our window and the timing, I don't remember the timing, but I look out the window and I watch the second plane go right into the tower. And as I recall this for you, Alicia, I can actually see the fireball and I can picture it again in my head. At that point, I'm like, well, this is not an accident, right? And so people are at my office, they're saying, do we stay at work? Do we leave? And I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm going to find the kids. So I try calling Fran, can't get a hold of her, no connection at this point. So I say, I got to run to the school and see, because I, last I noticed they were just staying at the school. So I started running to the school, but, but you know what, Alicia, between my office and the school, as the crow flies, you go directly through the World Trade Center complex. And so that's what I did, because I was trying to get there as quickly as possible. As I was running to the school, on the sidewalks in Manhattan, there are these metal, usually they're yellow, metal grates in the ground. What are they? Well, they are the exits for the subway. So they open up somehow and their stairs and people can exit out the subway, their emergency exits on the subway system. So as I'm running this way towards the school, people, these things are opening up and people are coming out of the ground. I'm like, I'm like, what is happening? And they're going this way, but I'm committed to go this way. So I run to the school, I get there. I found out later that just behind me, one of the engines had fallen and landed on the sidewalk. And so it's, you can look that up and it's a public record. I get to the school and I'm like, I'm looking for my wife and they're like, she's gone on. She took the kids. I'm like, OK, she's really smart. She's evacuated somewhere. I know she's at the inter-control. So what do I do? I go around the block to our apartment and go up to our apartment to just collect myself and think about next steps. I dropped off my briefcase. I think I changed it to my sneakers because I was in dress shoes and dress clothes for work. And I actually got my camera and I took a few pictures from my balcony. They'll tell you the balcony we had and I'll share those with you. Alicia, if you want to edit them into the podcast, you're welcome to. So I took some pictures, took that record of the event. I don't know why. My wife still asked me why did you do that, but we didn't know what was about to happen. So that's my like, well, let me go find my wife and kids. So I go downstairs to the first floor of our building and I'm sitting there just for a second and there's this incredible thunderous shaking of the ground. I felt like it was quick, you know what it was? The first tower was falling. And then I'm like, we got to get out of here. So a bunch of us leave our building and go to Westside Highway, which is on the west side of Manhattan. And we start running up the highway and there's this cloud or coming down the highway, this gray cloud of what we found out later was cancerous dust, right? Cancer carcinogenic dust. And it kind of slowed down. So we started walking again. And then at some point the second tower starts to fall and we start running again. Because here comes a more, you know, and you know, it was just a bunch of us on the highway all escaping. And if you look at the footage, the people are running into boats, they're people running over bridges. Another one is trying to get away from that area. So I get up to the Soho area of Manhattan, which is a little farther north. And my blackberry phone can't make any local calls. But I'm able to reach my sister-in-law in Michigan. And her name is Karen Banda. And I get ahold of Karen and she's like, oh, you're alive. I'm like, yeah, I said, I can't reach Fran. And I said, can you call Fran, my wife? And can you call my mom? You see her? And tell them I'm okay. And we're, you know, so she's able from Michigan to call Fran to call my mom. And she calls me back. It tells me where Fran is. And she's up in Soho at a friend's house. So I slowly make my way up to Soho. And it was quite a bit later that the timing is a little off how I'm explaining it, but it was it was mid afternoon by the time I got there and I get there. My son comes running, dad, you're alive, dad, you're alive. And we were able to, we have a union there later that day on the 11th. Now, at any point, did you think to yourself, maybe you're not safe in Soho, maybe you've got to get further north or get somewhere else? Yeah. I, you know, I think none of us knew what the extent of it was, terrorism or whatever. And so my main thought was, how do I keep everyone safe and some sort of normalization of life? Yeah. Well, this isn't practical. We can't stay at somebody's house. And we couldn't go home because that area of Manhattan was closed. So we actually went to my wife's sister's house up in the health kitchen area for a nun. And then the next day, we went to a hotel in Columbus Circle, which is a 59th street. Yeah. And I asked the manager, can we work out something to stay? We need a place to live. And the manager for name is Susie, we're still Facebook friends today, said, move on in. And we'll figure out the whole pain of situation later. And so all we had was one of our backs. We had no way to couldn't go home. So we just had what's on our backs. And we ended up staying at this hotel until Christmas. Wow. We didn't end up paying anything for the whole stay. It was covered by our renters insurance and FEMA at the time stepped in and helped the people who lived in that area. And so after Christmas, we were able to go home to lower Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this was a national tragedy. You know, there's no one that at least are age, right? Who doesn't vividly remember where they were and what they were doing at this time. But there is something about being a New Yorker and being a ground zero that just changes you and changes you forever. Now, Brian, I know you eventually went back. I remember you told me about eventually going back downtown. And in fact, I remember you telling me about a ministry response downtown. Oh. Yeah. Tell me, tell me, remind me about that. Yeah. The, the, we have, well, the ministry response that we, that happened to us was, was a church in Oklahoma. Let me think if it was Oklahoma or Seattle, like a church that, that we knew, it was actually Oklahoma, sent us a big basket to our hotel. And it was full of things that we didn't have and things to keep the kids busy, like an Nintendo for the kids and little food items and things like that. And that was pretty remarkable. It was very moving. I had a photo of us holding the basket that we took that day. And certainly, people were, I'm sure, looking to face at the time and, and what to do. People had lost loved ones. Yeah. But that church outreach to us was really one of the highlights. It's interesting how that was, that was such a highlight for us. Yeah. How they were remembered. And they went to, to do that. We also did a lot of volunteering at a couple of local churches. That name just gave me. But churches were put together backpacks for the kids and food items and, and we were, everyone was donating. You know, I don't know if you recall, but there was water everywhere. There were the cases of water everywhere, everywhere. And so the churches were, or you could volunteer and put together packets and backpacks and things for people. So there was a lot of effort that the church is coordinated. Yeah. And I know the church certainly stepped in. And in fact, my local church in, in Lower Manhattan, it was planted in response to 9-11 by a pastor who felt led to come into the area and, and bring the Lord. And so, you know, even in the darkness, there were these moments of light and light has come in. Does, does all of what happened impact how you live and how you lead today, Brian? Yeah, I mean, you know, you don't get up in the morning and think you won't go home that day. I'm sure you didn't get up this morning and say goodbye to your family and, and get into the subway or take your bike or whatever and, and you assume you're going to go home to the end of the day, probably, at some point. And so, you definitely look at every day a little differently anyway. Every day is a gift. That's, that's kind of cliche, but it really is. We're, we're very blessed that, that we are here today. I think, you know, there's, if my wife would have been a little farther ahead, she would have been there. If I had, we're on a certain different way. And so, you know, I think, I think it, there's nothing that changes your life like a day like that. I really like that. Yeah. Of course. And so we're very grateful for our family and, and the hugs and stuff like that. Yeah. Of course. Well, thank you for sharing your story with me, Brian and with the faithfully community. What do we switch gears for a moment now and talk about CCB? So CCB marketing, near and dear to my heart, faithfully is, of course, a very happy client of yours. Tell me what all started. How did you start CCB? It started on 912. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Perfect segue. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 913. But what happened is the company that I was working at the time, shut down, truly thereafter. In fact, I never, I don't think ever, I did go back to the office. They opened up the offices a month later or two months later or something. But they eventually couldn't make it. And I went back to our hotel with my box of stuff. And now we're living at a hotel without a home and without a job. And my wife and I looked at each other and she says, listen, you've got a rola dex. You, you, you smart guy, let's start our own company. And so we started our first company in that hotel room. It's in Columbus, Circle in New York City. Wow. It's an IT consultant company. So that eventually changed a little bit to become a, about six years later, we changed it to become more of a social media agency. And in a big change, 2017 we created CCB marketing. But it really, all the, the, the, the, the, the epitous was, you know, us having no job and, and being in that hotel. Wow. That, that is an incredible story. I didn't realize that's how CCB was birth and when it was birthed. So today CCB marketing is digital marketing. Can you explain what exactly that runs? Sure. Our favorite client is someone that comes and says, listen, we know we have a marketing problem. We just aren't sure what it is. Or we have a marketing team and they are so busy, they can't do it all. In marketing, it really is a discipline. I mean, I have one great person on our team that just focuses on email. I think a lot of companies said, why aren't you marketing experts or maybe more if they're big, you know, but you can't know all the disciplines all the time, how all the email platforms work, you know, convert kit, constant contact, Mailchimp, etc. Or how all the ad platforms work, Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn. And so what we've done is we've created silos that talk to each other in our company, where we have an expert in ads, an expert in social media content creation, an expert in email. And we all work together for our clients in a holistic, tight manner. So when we work with a client comes to us and says, we know we have some marketing issues, we'll put together a plan that incorporates all the marketing disciplines, even traditional PR. You know, getting on the today's show, we're foxing friends or whatever. We can put that all into one plan. We're actually working right now for a new rideshare company here in New York City that just started. They're coming in to upset Uber and Lyft and no one knows who they are. So the CEO and I had a call this week and we've put together a plan to get them some market share. And the thing to all the ads, who is everything we do is real data driven. So we don't discuss everything's measurable and we create marketing strategies that have measurable output and the measurable outcome. And so that's really our goal. Well, I'm proud to say that I know what all that means now after working with you for quite a while, Brian. And so I will say for those out there who don't have a marketing strategy yet, Brian and his team are wonderful and we'll get you up to speed and get you going. You don't have to have a marketing team or strategy in place. And that was us, right? Day one working with you and your wonderful team. So you have a really diverse set of clients, which includes up and coming tech companies trying to disrupt Uber and Lyft. I know it includes some big corporations. What's special at least to me about your client base is that it does include a lot of churches, pastors and ministries. Can you talk about why it is you serve this particular client base? Yeah, thanks. You know, it's because what I know is because what we know when we first started our company 2007, I actually called a friend of mine who was a good friend who worked for a Jolose and seeing ministries in Houston and I said, hey, I've got a new company. I'd like to pitch you on some social media stuff. And he said, okay, come on down, pitch. And later we ended up creating the social media strategy for what's now called Jolose and ministries in liquid church. And they were clients for 10 years until I sold that first company. But because we had them as a client, of course, people saw that and it just kind of people told people that we grew. Plus we know how to work in that world. We know how to work in the faith infrastructure. We know the kind of vernacular to use. But because of the work we do in secular and non faith, we're learning best practices there as well. So we can combine all of that together. I think if you only work in one vertical, you don't know everything. Yeah. So I mentioned the rideshare company, clearly not a faith-based venture. But the experience that we're learning there, we could definitely carry on to all of our other churches. We've had some amazing, we've worked with organizations that feed the hungry. We've done mega churches. We helped the pastor in New Jersey raise money by running a triathlon for a care center in New Jersey just recently. We've worked for the organization that helps persecuted Christians around the world. We have a client in India. The largest Christian church in India is one of our dear friends' clients. They have almost 50,000 people every Sunday in their church services. Wow. We're very proud to do them, to help them. And I mean, the list goes on. We have a couple of Christian musicians for maybe now we work with that are in the Christian music space that we're helping them with your album launches or reviving their careers. A bunch of authors, including best-selling authors, and one of our Christian authors, actually sold their sword in Netflix, so we ended up working with Netflix on the project. Wow. And so that's a lot, isn't it? So it's a lot of fun, a lot of fun clients. Yeah. Well, with so many, with so many ministries that you work with that have deep impact, can you call out maybe one campaign or one experience that was like it just stood out to you as like a God moment that just brought light into your life? Okay. Good question, Alicia. You're a good interviewer, are you? I've gotten some pro tips from the best Brian. There's two items I'm going to bring up. One was, it's been a lot of years ago, it's been way before COVID, but we were doing the marketing for a Joel Osteen stadium baseball stadium event. And they don't do them much anymore, but they basically ran out an entire baseball stadium and had a big church service. So Yankee Stadium, Nationals Park, all over the country. And we were in the middle of doing this event, and we had set up a digital online prayer room where people who watched via streaming could come in and ask for prayer. And the minute we turned it on, it broke because too many people wanted prayer. And we're like, we didn't think about that next time you figured that out. If you go back to my childhood, all my family are pastors, my cousins are pastors, chaplains, so many pastors in our family. And so they all thought, well, Brian's going to be a pastor to someday. I did, I went to technology and marketing, right? But it was during this one Joel Osteen event where I looked at the counter in our little chat room thing, and I want to say we had a quarter million people participating in viewing and chatting. Wow. Way more than 30,000 in the stadium, right? And I called my mom on the phone and I said, mom, look, look, we are, we're reaching quarter million people with the gospel right now, and she goes, you are a pastor, you are a pastor. So I think that moment, I never going to forget that moment, I'm on pastor way two years ago. And so it's a special moment that I carry with me now. Yeah. So that's, there's probably more stories, but that's one that really stands out. That is a beautiful one, Brian. And it definitely resonates with me, I mean, I, through building faithily have met a lot of pastors and ministry leaders. And some of the most on fire ministry leaders aren't pastors, but are serving the kingdom in really unique and special and needed ways like in technology. And of course, it's one of the ways that we want to be able to serve. All right. So let's, I want to switch gears again and sort of pick your brain for advice for emerging pastors or emerging ministries that might not have much of a digital presence. For someone who's just starting out who really doesn't have much of a presence, but kind of knows that they ought to, what is one piece of advice that you think they need to hear right now? Well, you know, I'll, I'll go back to our favorite client story, you know, it's, it's good if you have content. We've had people come to us and want a marketing plan and, and they don't have any content. They have nothing to talk about. That's a little bit of a problem. So, so having something to say or produce is important. So think about what content you're going to put out there. Number two is consistency. I've seen too many people put out one or two posts, three posts and stop for six months, or they'll produce a podcast and then they'll stop. You need to be consistent. You need the algorithms to do their thing, right? So even if you're not getting huge amounts of, of listens or something, be consistent. You know, we produce a lot of podcasts here at CCB. So if anybody wants a podcast, give us a call. But one of our podcasters is a church pastor out of Southern California. We're, we're heading into three and a half years on this podcast now. He's really done no marketing for the podcast at all, but he's been consistent twice a week every week for the last three and a half years. Year one, 20 listens, 30 listens, 100 listens, year two more, year three more. Now we're getting 50,000 listens a day. Hmm. Wow. Wow. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. So nobody called me on this, but it's in that range. It's in the millions. And really it's the consistency that really is key. And and then I think probably diversity, you know, don't just, don't just do a YouTube video and hope that it lands. You could take that same concept. Let's say you're a Sunday, you have a pastor, you're a Sunday, you do your Sunday sermon. You produce a sermon anyway. You could take that video of the sermon on Monday, put it on YouTube, then you could take a same sermon, strip the audio from it and make an audio podcast out of it. You could take that same sermon, take the audio, run it through your favorite AI program. And you can make a blog out of it, and you can take that blog and make an email blast out of it. And now your one Sunday sermon has created five, six plus social media, right, pieces of content. And you're really working smart, not hard. And so I think I'll tell you how those are the four or five things I would really focus on. And I can almost hear the pencils and pens scratching as our listeners take copious notes here. I asked you for one piece of advice, but we got like four or five for free. Thank you about that. Okay. So let me ask you something else. So I think that some pastors and ministry leaders are a little uneasy about platform building because they've been, they've been warned about, right, the dangers. We all know the dangers, right, but what would you say to that leader who knows that they have a vision or a message from the Lord that they really want to share? How do you, how do you think about that uneasiness where the pit falls? Interesting. Isn't, isn't the goal of a clergy or pastor or missionary to reach the lost reach eyeballs? Yeah. And you don't do that by locking yourself in a closet. So we may not all agree with X's platform or Facebook's platform. And certainly you don't need to send your money to any sort of an organization you don't feel comfortable with. But that's where people are. I mean, Jesus went where the people were. He went to the mountain side. He went to the, to the sea and he spoke to the people where they were congregated. So if, if podcasting is where millions and millions of people get their content every day, there's no better place for you, pastor, than to create your content and distribute it there. I'd say each, each pastor or each content creator needs to feel their own ethics and what they feel like. I've seen plenty of pastors who said, I'm leaving X because I don't agree with, you know, so and so's protocol. That's fine. But, but if you want to be where the people are and have your content be exposed, then then it's just something to think about. I think, I think everyone needs to come to their own conclusion, but, but certainly you want to be where there's people listening and people participating. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Okay. Brian, you've mentioned podcasting two, three or four times in this conversation. Podcasting is becoming a key part of digital marketing, not just within its own channel, but as a source of content that can be repurposed for diversity as you, you know, very smartly pointed out for someone who's looking, and of course you've helped us, I should point how level up, you know, or on our podcast abilities, a great deal, which we're very grateful for. So what are the two or three things that you could share with someone who's thinking like podcasting might be an interesting channel for them to explore? Sure. I think it kind of goes back to that other comments, unfortunately, but one is, is have a content plan or a content calendar, you know, build up a little calendar or six months calendar and put in on the dates what you think you'd like to talk about. Number two, don't be afraid to have a guest. I've never, I don't think anybody who has asked to be a guest of my podcast is called Conversations of the Giants. And on our Conversation of the Giants podcast, every person I've asked to be a guest that said yes, even somebody super important, which I'm interviewing this week, which I can't believe you said yes to me. So you'd be surprised who will jump to tell their story. Yeah. I was super nervous to ask you, Brian, but thankfully you said yes. Oh, yeah. And now you're talking about the next guest that he's going to do the next person. And then back to consistency, you know, even if it's a five minute podcast, stay consistent. You know, every time you produce a podcast, a push notification goes out to everyone. And so it really is a very powerful tool. We do a lot of stuff behind the scenes to make our podcasters really get out there. And that's why we have millions of podcasts a month being downloaded off our network. And I won't go into that here, but there's more than just actually talking. There's a lot of metadata and other distribution that you want to do correctly. And so I feel bad when someone doesn't have all the effort to get the put good content, but they forget how to do the distribution for us. So we love helping our friends with that stuff. Yeah. You bring something really special to the table with all of that, Brian. Thank you. Okay. So last question for you, Brian. You sit at a really, really unique spot. The intersection of the church digital marketing technology, working with all different kinds of companies, not just churches, from your vantage point, what really excites you about the future of the church and digital. You know, it's, it's a, I'm not sure, that's a good one, Alicia. We had a project recently that crossed several different mediums at the same time. And that was pretty exciting. There was a book, there was social media, there was video YouTube, and then there was the Netflix film all on the same topic. And it wasn't a, you know, hit over the head, evangelistic product, but it was a faith-based product. And that was really exciting because we got to see everybody work together. And you know, there's a lot of talk about influencers and creators and just about anybody could be a creator these days. But there are some pretty dumb stuff out there getting a lot of millions of views on YouTube right now. So I would get excited if there was a pastor or church who wanted to explore how do I do something different, stay true to my values, my values and my faith, but utilize all these platforms to the best of their ability to reach the most amount of people with a gospel. Like I mentioned, we had this one project where we saw Netflix and YouTube everything weigh in on the same campaign. And that was really exciting. So I think those multifaceted campaigns can be very exciting. They don't need to be millions of dollars. But I think, I think if you can take your campaign and hit all the channels, most people don't do, that can be exciting. Hopefully that answers your question. It does. What I heard from your Brian is that there have never been more ways to share the gospel as long as you're willing to sort of explore and dig in and be unafraid to explore and to even to grow up. In activations, Alicia, in lower Manhattan, after 9-11, there was a church on the corner of Chambers in West Side Highway with like a flipping sign, flip, flip, flip. And they were handing out Ziploc baggies with water bottles and like spearments, mints and gum to anybody who walked by enough car and about the church service was inside that Ziploc baggy, right? Yeah. That's marketing. Yeah. That's also marketing. I'll leave you with an anecdote. It's been a few years ago, but I was driving off of the highway onto an exit ramp and I came to the bottom of the exit ramp and there was somebody trying to raise money, somebody was actually asking for money at the bottom of the ramp. So you come to the stoplight and you wait and they come through. And he's holding up a sign, but I couldn't read a sign. And I said, what this gentleman needs is a better marker, right? So marketing isn't just a Facebook post. It could be the sign flipper on the road, it could be your podcast, it could be, you know, standing up in Sunday and saying, hey, everybody, take a second and scan this QR code. Let's make this thing happen. It's all marketing. I think step back and look at your entire plan and see if your whole plan is holistic and talk to each other. Yeah. I love it. Well, Brian, I am a client. I'm a friend and I still learned something today in this master class on marketing. We are honored to be partnering with faithfully. I think everyone on my team, I know everyone on my team thinks the world of faithfully and we know that you have an amazing future and we're excited about faithfully and your launch. And we just hope everyone has a chance to go to faithfully.co, install the app, create your membership. And it's really an amazing, amazing organization, but you really have a lot of points. Thank you, Brian. I know I keep saying last thing and you keep saying last thing you'll say, but this is the last last last thing for those who are following along in the faithfully journey. We are in the very final stages at the time of recording of testing our new app, which will hit the app store on September 1st. And it took Brian to take a look at the test app to say, hey, I think you may have forgotten your logo on the app. And really like, I mean, that's, we're so busy trying to make sure all the widgets work and all the buttons take you to the right place and it doesn't crash. And when you work with Brian, that's really the kind of person that you work with is someone who takes a step back, looks at the big picture. It's not just about, you know, are we hitting the specific digital channels, but are we marketing? There are so many opportunities to market. And when it comes to sharing the gospel for ministries, church leaders, pastors, you don't want to miss an opportunity. Yeah, and listen, you're doing everyone, you have beta testers on your app and all that sort of stuff. And everyone has different eyeballs and sees different things, different lens. And so I'm sure I missed things that the people saw. So I'm glad we had a chance to look with you on that. Well, thank you so much, Brian. Like I said, this has been a master class and also just a really fun conversation with the friends. I really appreciate it, Brian. Thanks, Alicia. And we need to have Diner French fries again very soon. That's right. Coming right up. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff, and volunteers. The Faithly Digital Platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration, and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the Frontlines of Ministry on the Faithly podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful, and never underestimate the power of your own story.