Transcript

 

Michael Palumbos (00:00.178)

Welcome everybody to the family biz show. I am your host Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York today we have Eriksen Dickens from Platinum Peak and welcome

 

Well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me and happy to be here.

 

So getting in business with your brother is not something that, or a family member is not something that everybody, you know, dares to venture. Talk to us if you would, a little bit about how that came about. I did a little bit of research background on you guys and it was pretty interesting. You've been doing some of this together for a long time. So why don't you share that with the audience today?

 

Yeah, most definitely. you know, I've heard that throughout the years as well, from a lot of people, them saying essentially, how are you working with your brother? Like family members mixing that with business, probably not a good idea. Right. And I always say, you know, honestly, it depends on, the family. It depends on the relationship and, my younger brother, he is just him and I, so we grew up just the two of us and, we were always really close. And as kids, we.

 

really embrace this hobby of making movies, making films. We'd get our mom's camcorder, we'd go out, we lived on a ranch. So we had this kind of little creative kingdom and we'd make films and whatnot. Unfortunately, over the years, sports took priority for us and our love of filmmaking went on the shelf a little bit. But our whole goal was to get scholarships to play sports in college and we both did. Unfortunately, we both got injured.

 

Eriksen Dickens (01:38.638)

in college and we ended up at the same school, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and we had a bit of an identity crisis. We were like, what do we do with our lives now that sports is gone? And so we got back into our childhood passion of filmmaking. And that's kind how it all started. And sure, you there's obviously some bumps in the roads, but our personalities complement each other. both bring a different type of skill set to the table and we've been able to work very congruently together throughout the years.

 

Very cool. So talk about, you know, this transition. You guys are having conversations somewhere along the lines here. I mean, 2017, is that when you guys, you know, left college or was there space in between, you know, that, that, that, is there a gap there? guess I'm looking to see, did you do separate things before saying, let's do this together?

 

So we both ended up at the same school. And we, when we got back into filmmaking, we spent about a year, this was probably 2016. And we spent about a year just dabbling around, working that muscle again, picking up the camera and just going out and shooting anything we could. We just wanted to learn by doing trial and error. didn't go to film school. I was a philosophy major. My brother was a business major. And it wasn't until about 2017, after a lot of conversations in the college dorm room, a lot of late nights,

 

where we decided to actually try to make a career out of this, right? Like we love doing this, this is a passion of ours. Why not actually try to build a company and actually do this legitimately? And so 2017, I would say was probably the actual start of taking this more seriously. And, you know, we worked really well together. He was pretty much the main shooter. I was the main editor. And it was just the two of us, you know, a lot of time behind the keyboard, a lot of time on sets and...

 

Yeah, we sacrificed a lot. didn't really do the whole typical college experience, partying. weren't in fraternities and stuff. So we dedicated a lot of time to working and building something.

 

Michael Palumbos (03:43.15)

That's very cool. And again, usually not the story I hear, it's like, hey, we just finished college. We both gonna wanna do something and immediately start doing it together. So that was why I was a little off on that one for you. But that's pretty fantastic. So you guys have been working together since day one out of school. Talk to us about Platinum Peak and 2017 you start kicking this off. What are you doing?

 

What kind of movies did you want to shoot and what are you doing? What's different today from when you started?

 

Yeah, most definitely. So in the beginning, you know, when you're building a portfolio and you're trying to network and get deals and all that, you can't be too picky. Right. And so we did out, we went out and did everything we could. I mean, we're shooting videos for just friends, their birthday parties, fraternities, sorority videos on campus. Um, and as we built our skillset and got better and better, we started to, um, you know, get higher paying jobs, higher caliber clients. Um,

 

And eventually after a couple of years, we started to really focus in on digital advertisements for sales funnels. We partnered with a digital marketing agency who builds out sales funnels, media buying, and a part of that is they need video. And so we got to work with a lot of wealth management companies. Actually, we got to travel all over the country. In fact, one year we went to 32 states flying around everywhere. And so we really got into this mindset of

 

creating videos that solve people's problems, right? In terms of business, there's like three main pillars. There's sales, there's marketing, and there's operations. If you're just creating a video for somebody with no intention behind it, no purpose, it's not gonna be a very positive ROI for the client. And so that's how we started to market ourselves in terms of Platinum Peak. And then along the way, aside from videos, just doing these types of advertisements, we...

 

Eriksen Dickens (05:40.396)

started to create passion projects as well, right? More story-driven films. And that was kind of the birth of our passion for documentaries, more human-driven stories. And eventually doing that led to another vertical within our business that we call legacy documentaries. And we've branded that under a different name, essentially Dickens Brothers, our last name. But that, as of late the last few years, has been more of an emphasis for us.

 

in terms of projects we take on.

 

So you and your brother have kind of split duties from a standpoint of the filmmaking. What's it like for you on a day to day, week to week? You've been doing this now for seven, eight years together. What's it like working with your brother today versus when you started?

 

Yeah. So we definitely have a better understanding of each other and our individual skill sets. We're able to communicate a lot more effectively. And I feel like as leaders of the company, if the two head honchos aren't able to communicate their thoughts, their ideas, their feelings about certain things, then you're going to see a reflection of that in how the company is led. And so we've gotten very good at communicating with each other and we built a team. We now have 13 people under us. About half of those people are full time.

 

about half a part-time, but luckily, because like in the beginning it was just me and him doing everything and it was causing a lot of, might I say burnout and we had to learn how to lead and how to delegate and how to communicate to a team and collaborate. So that took a lot of learning for us. And now luckily we have a team of editors. We have some shooters, we have a project manager. We have salespeople doing outreach for us and whatnot. So me and him literally aren't doing.

 

Eriksen Dickens (07:29.674)

everything anymore, which is, which is nice. But it's one of those things too. You kind of in the beginning have to learn. kind of have to learn a little bit about everything, right? You kind of have to wear a lot of different hats when it's just the two of you. And then once you build that team and get people around you, then you can settle in a little bit more to your more specific skillsets. And my brother, he's very business minded. He's much more tech savvy than I am. I'm more on the story side of things, the concept development, the editing process. So we just.

 

been able to work together very well to create what we have today.

 

Nice. What would you say was one of the hardest things personally for you to learn and moving from the two of you, I know there was a lot of different things that you had to learn, what was one of the things that was difficult for you and how did you adapt to it?

 

Yeah. So aside from learning how to be a leader, essentially the team learning how to communicate effectively, you know, collaborate well, aside from that, I would say what was difficult for me and still can be to this day is sales. Like in the beginning and stuff, you got to be the one that fosters the lead, gets the leads, cultivates it, and then, sell what you're, what you're doing.

 

we're not going to be able to make money and not going to be able to make a living. it really, a lot of it comes down to sales and I don't really consider myself a sales person. I've struggled with like kind of self-promotion marketing. And so that has been something that I have learned to get better at for sure. Over the years, I still struggle from time to time, but it's one of those things where if you don't have sales, if you're not bringing in deals and the company is not going to go anywhere. And so I'd say for me personally, it was, was kind of

 

Eriksen Dickens (09:22.636)

learning the ins and outs of the sales process and with video, it can be a little bit more challenging as well because there's not always a guaranteed ROI attached for like the documentary side of things that we're doing. You really have to find somebody who gets it and that was a challenge I think for us is just really mastering our sales process and building systems around it.

 

I think that's very well said. I think a lot of owners, regardless whether family owned or not, they have this, we know how to do something or we have a skillset that we can provide a service or a product, but at the end of the day, somebody has to talk to somebody else and make those come together. Just out of curiosity, what were some of the things that you did?

 

to get better at that sales process? Because I think you're not the only one that's gone through that before. What were some of the things that helped you through it?

 

Yeah, for sure. A lot of preliminary research sometimes on the person I'm going to be speaking with, trying to identify before we even hop on a call, OK, how can I appeal to this person? How can I figure out beforehand what problem they might be facing and then develop a plan around it before even really embracing in the conversation and then tweaking it from there, tweaking the messaging from there. That's helped a lot. Psychology, I got my master's in psychology.

 

And it's true that a lot of sales really does come down to psychology and feel like you're speaking directly to them and helping them see the value of what you're offering and helping them identify where they're at now and then what you're selling them, where that could lead them in terms of a better monetary results, whatever that might be, helping communicate more clearly. think sometimes

 

Eriksen Dickens (11:19.854)

throughout the years and the earlier days, people would get lost in the weeds. And so we've learned to, I don't wanna say dumb down our sales process and stuff when communicating, but just putting in a way that they would understand it in a way, because we obviously understand it. We're in the industry, we do this and stuff, but sometimes too much jargon, too much technical terms and all that, people just get, they get lost in it. yeah, learning how to communicate effectively too is really, really big for us.

 

That's great. I remember for me, I've been in sales or some form of business development pretty much my whole life. over, you one of the things I experienced was we got to the point where I spent probably a good eight years just with the clients that I had. We really weren't, you know, we would bring on a referral and when you referred to somebody,

 

the sales process is a lot different, especially based on the strength of the referral. They're just like, you're my guy, get going, this is great. And we, about a year ago started to say, we're gonna start growing again. And I had to go back and say, ooh, wait a minute, I forgot all of my, all of the things that are really important in this process. I had to go back and dig through, actually found a book called Start With No by Jim Camp that I thought was,

 

an excellent book on negotiating and just communicating so that things were in a manner where you're helping somebody rather than selling something, which think sales has a negative connotation, but helping somebody to buy. And they're not talking to you because they don't want your service. They don't just call you out of the blue and say, Eriksen,

 

you know, let's chat, you know. They're looking for your services, so now it's like, how do I help them to know that, you know, we're a good fit together?

 

Eriksen Dickens (13:21.12)

Exactly. Yeah, it's a strategy to it. means it's its own language really. And I think sales, like you said, gets a bad rep because a lot of people, think they think of sales and you're just a good talker or you're a slick talker, that kind of thing. And automatically goes to that use salesman stereotype. No, it's like there isn't a legit strategy in it. And like you said, it's all about helping these clients understand what you're offering and how you can actually bring value to their lives and their business or whatever.

 

Yeah, and sometimes it's helping them probably understand what they want because when they come to you You know, many times is it where they don't know exactly what they want and and all of a sudden, you know Once they start to realize the scope of what they're really looking for You're like we're not the place for you, but we can help you to find someplace that can do can do that. I'm pretty sure that happens

 

That's very often. That's up in the lot throughout the years is we'll get an interested prospect to they have a general idea of kind of what they want. So they're a little scattered, but it always makes our job a little bit easier when we have a client who knows exactly what they want. know the problem they're facing. But yeah, no, to be honest, I mean, there's been a few deals I can think of that fell through just because we, they wanted something, but what they wanted wasn't actually going to help their problem. And so we would

 

propose, okay, this is what we can do for you. It's going to be a little different than what you think. But, you know, based on our experience and what we know, we know that this type of output or these types of projects, videos could actually bring you results. But they just, it was out of line with what they were thinking and they didn't really like it like that. And so that's kind of the two ends of the spectrum when it comes to media and video production is balancing like the results and then the creative artistic side as well.

 

Sure. So, you know, when you talk about video production, you know, a lot of us, you know, or, you know, creating a movie or a documentary, we're thinking about, you know, what we see on Netflix and, you know, the big production houses, help us to understand, you know, for you, who's a good client, you know, who are the types of people that you love to talk to and, you know, typically find it's a really good fit for you guys to be.

 

Michael Palumbos (15:39.158)

working together. You mentioned the wealth management firms. So that's, you know, one avenue. Who else?

 

Yeah, so as of late the last few years, like I mentioned before, we've been really hitting it hard with these legacy documentaries. So can speak on behalf of.

 

Yeah, talk about that a bit.

 

so for those it's, we've been working a lot with, family foundations, it's, people that's, they have a story and they haven't really told the story. might be on their website, you know, about those types of things, but in terms of getting it out there and preserving it and really exploring the ins and outs of their journey. those are the types of people we have been, successful with in terms of our sales process. they just, kind of.

 

get it. And oftentimes we found that when we're talking with these prospects, maybe they haven't exactly thought of a legacy documentary per se, but at some point it's, they're, they're thinking about different ways to preserve maybe a book or something like that. You know, it's, things have crossed their mind in the past, which honestly makes the sales process a little bit easier and less high touch for us because it's something that they've already been dwelling on in some, in some way or another.

 

Eriksen Dickens (16:59.06)

Like for example, we're working with the Family Foundation right now out of Texas and incredible story. The man who started it years ago, he came from deep rural South, very impoverished upbringing, faced a lot of adversity, went on to become very successful. And he and his wife, they created a family foundation. And since then they've, gosh, they at this point, they have over like 300, 400 partners in Texas, Tennessee. So they've been able to do a lot of good.

 

with their wealth, with their capabilities. so the daughter now, she is now in charge of the foundation. And when we approached her, cold outreach, it's not dead. She loved the idea and she said it was just kind of like a light bulb clicked in her head. And so for the past about six months now, we've been working with this family and preserving their story. yeah, yeah. those are the types of people we see. And part of that obviously is

 

those types of people tend to have significant stories. And then the other more practical side of it is they can afford it as well. You're not griping over pennies most of the time. right.

 

I had a colleague of mine wrote a book, it's like a library burning. so the analogy was simply put that capturing people's stories while they're here and alive and can share them and we can record them in some way, shape or form is really important because if we can look back in history to say what were the decisions that

 

you know, those that came before us made, what were some of the struggles that they went through? What were the things that, you know, how they made their decision processes so we can learn from those things and capture them. And it's so important. I happen to be doing a, what I would call a legacy light. I don't do what you do and I don't have the production value, but we're capturing Mimi's wisdom. And, you know,

 

Michael Palumbos (19:08.462)

This was a really great story. She's born in 1944 in Nazi Germany. And so we spent time together and going through the process and just a really interesting woman. I said to her, like, we have to capture this story. And so we happened to be doing it this Friday. And it'll be my first time doing, know, but it's.

 

Wow, okay.

 

Michael Palumbos (19:36.396)

I'm like, have enough podcast interview pieces to this stuff, so I'll try to put it together, but I can only imagine how you go through your process to talk about that. since that's one of the things that you're doing the most right now, do you mind talking about what does a process like that look like from your perspective? How do you take a family who just says, I think our story is interesting, and we want to make sure that, you

 

two or three generations from now they have the ability to know what we were thinking about. What does that process look like?

 

Yeah, that's the main thing when working with these clients is it always comes up one way or another. We want future generations to be able to learn from us, learn from the subject. We want to be able to show this to our kids and our kids' kids and so on. So it's always memorialized in history. But part of the initial process once we decide to work with the client, they decide to work with us, is really diving into the actual story and then the story that we want told.

 

And that takes a lot of preliminary research, right? So like you said, it's like oftentimes they know their story, like they lived it or they've indirectly lived it. But in terms of communicating it effectively, that's where my job as the storyteller comes in. And a lot of that, to be honest with you, is around building trust. I mean, if you're going to be tasked with preserving the legacy of a family story, you really have to build trust in order to

 

get the right information out of people. mean, you people experience a lot of adversity, a lot of trauma in their lives. And you can't just sit down one day, turn on the camera without any type of rapport building and expect them to be able to communicate effectively with you. You have to really put that time in the beginning to get to know these people on an intimate level. So our pre-production process is really big for us. I mean, we spend months just in pre-production, whether that's preliminary Zoom interviews,

 

Eriksen Dickens (21:35.926)

with the subjects, we figure out, who can speak, who can be the mouthpiece for a certain part of the person's life, whether that be personal relationship, business relationship, family, whatever that is. We do a lot of pre-production and that has really helped us get to know the people, one, in terms of crafting the story, but then two, building that rapport and connection so that you're gonna extract the right information out of somebody.

 

It's a delicate process, but it's a lot of fun. It's like you have to wear a lot of different hats. You have to be an investigative journalist. You almost have to be a therapist in a sense. You have to be a storyteller, obviously. But it's really cool to learn by doing throughout all these projects. And once we essentially figure out like the story we want told and collaborate with the clients in terms of what we want to do, we developed...

 

essentially the backbone of these documentaries. We call them the seven storytelling pillars. So number one is history. History of the person is number one. Number two would be the passion of the person. Number three would be their process, their philosophy on life, their unique approach. Number four would be obstacles. Number five would be successes. Number six would be their impact. And number seven would be future. If they're still with us, we want to explore future goals. A lot of times these people, they don't like to slow down.

 

right, there may be retired, semi-retired, but there's always something on the horizon. those seven pillars have allowed us to build from that. And it's allowed us to just construct a more robust, fully fleshed out type of film. And then the editing process, you know, that's tedious and that can take anywhere from, gosh, four or five, six months, sometimes longer. It really depends on the length of the final output that the client is looking for.

 

Regarding history, I've got two competing thoughts here. So I'm have to take them one at a time. One, I wanna hit on the history. When you and your brother were doing films at home, just the two of you, what are some of your, you gotta go back and say, we did this one about X, Y, and Z, and that just popped into my head as we're talking history. That's what went to my head.

 

Michael Palumbos (23:57.826)

Do you mind sharing any funny stories or any of the first movies that you did together?

 

Sure. Yeah, I mean, on that topic of history, I'm a huge history buff, especially American West history. so naturally when we're kids, it's like, we got to make a Western. you know, we went out and got prop guns and actually we grew up on a ranch, so I'm not going to lie. We weren't always prop guns. know, 10, 11 years old out there with guns. Oh God, shouldn't have said that. But yeah, costumes, you know, scripts. And it was just a lot of fun.

 

They weren't prop cut.

 

Eriksen Dickens (24:31.822)

just do what we could using our imaginations. We did this one Western called The Man with No Fear, and I was this gunfighter hired by the sheriff to track down this outlaw. Didn't win any awards on the festival circuit, but you know, learn from it.

 

I think it's important because you know that creativity and that passion that's really where it hasn't gone away and it started at a very young age you guys were really creative and now you get to do it and say all right how do we make a living doing what we've been doing for our whole lives practically it's at one level or another

 

Exactly. Exactly. And one thing just snowballed. I look back on it and the actual reason why we got into documentaries, the first documentary we did, it's interesting to look back and kind of connect the dots of how things transpire in your life. But the first documentary we did was on our late father. He passed away when we were kids. And so the first documentary we did was a legacy documentary on his life. And that essentially was

 

what sparked that idea for us in terms of how can we do this now for other clients? How can we make more legacy documentaries? This was a very cool and cathartic process for us going through it. We spent about a year in production for that, brought a lot of people together, premiered it. It was really cool. So after it was all done, we wanted to do more of those types of projects. that was essentially the start of the whole legacy idea. After that, it was just finding the right clients, right?

 

Good for you. The other one that sparked for me was your seven pillars. And it's interesting for the last 10, 12 years, I've had a pet project that I wanted to bring to life. And just in the last six weeks, we've actually brought it to life. We're in beta with it right now. But it was designed for CEOs, family leaders that for the last 10, 20,

 

Michael Palumbos (26:39.316)

usually 30 or 40 years, they've only known themselves as the leader of this company. And now, I'm doing this transition or the succession plan to the next generation, and who am I when I'm not the CEO? And so, going through those same seven pillars are what showed up for us. Talk about your history, talk about your successes and your failures, or your struggles.

 

who made you who you are. Let's talk about what really matters with the time that you have left. What really matters so that we're using time as a tool and then to start to put a framework together to make the next chapter, we call it from success to significance. And it's not that there weren't significant already, but at the end of the day, you've never meet somebody on their deathbed.

 

and say, jeez I worked so much or I wish I worked more or I wish I made more money. It's always about the significant moments and the experiences that we have with the people that we care about. And so your films bring a lot of that to life, I'm sure.

 

Totally.

 

Eriksen Dickens (27:54.254)

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think about one film we did for a gentleman who migrated from Lebanon, built an empire here, really successful story. But after it was all said and done, he told us he's like, you know, doing this film with you and embarking on this process, it really made me realize that the most important thing to me is my family.

 

And he knew that all along, you know, but I think just seeing the film come together like it did, it's like looking back on it, I wouldn't have worked as hard as I did because, you know, I have one life and it's short and make the best out of it. Spend time with your loved ones. Don't don't run yourself into the ground. So, yeah, these these films, I think they help people throughout the process understand themselves better, understand their family better, because like you were saying, it's sometimes.

 

if you're so business minded and business driven, CEOs, et cetera, they almost lose their, lose our identity in a sense, or their personal identity, like who's behind the CEO, who's the person. And so these films with these seven storytelling pillars that we call them, as you know, it's like, it helps, it helps people visualize in a practical way, like the story we're trying to tell, which has made the process a little bit easier because they understand it.

 

From there we dive in and really try to understand the human. Because that's what it's all about, I feel like, at the end of the day.

 

Nice. Talk to me if you will. You're building a team today. What are some of your as you're as you're doing what you're doing aside from sales or business development or helping people to buy your product? What are some of the what are some of the tough things right now that you're dealing with? came you know we're three years four years outside of COVID. We've had inflation and supply chain issues and

 

Michael Palumbos (29:49.976)

We have, even trying to find talent, for the two of you, what are you struggling with today? What are the frustrations that you wish you could wave that magic wand and get rid of?

 

Yeah, so, you know, work-life balance is always a struggle for entrepreneurs, business owners, I'm sure everyone can relate to that. We can't pour from an empty cup, And so that's something that we've worked on throughout the years is taking time for ourselves, setting boundaries. That way we can deliver the best service to our clients, right? You got to take care of yourself first and foremost. So that's always been a struggle for us.

 

Yeah, 100%.

 

Eriksen Dickens (30:29.772)

More on the business side of things, I would say.

 

Eriksen Dickens (30:42.688)

say in terms of that, I would still take it back to the sales process. Honestly, like that's truthfully what it is. Even though we have found this niche that has worked for us, it is still it's still an uphill battle in terms of just the time and energy it still does take.

 

So we're working, we have a bunch of different strategies in terms of what we're kind of working on right now, but that's something that never really goes away. Another struggle, which this isn't a huge struggle, but would say just being able to collaborate with our editors, for example, we have some amazing editors on staff and sometimes they just don't quite see the vision like we see it and as much as we communicate with them.

 

something that's just off with it, right? And so that just comes back to being able to work collaboratively, accepting feedback on both sides of things. That's something that never really goes away as well, because truth be told, it's like the you can get as much good footage as you want during the production phase, but the cake actually gets baked in the editing room.

 

So, I was very.

 

ideas.

 

Michael Palumbos (31:58.295)

It's that pregnant pause. It's that the look on somebody's face and making sure we're cutting and moving right at the right moments, 100%. It's reading that body language.

 

Right, yeah, and it's very nuanced and everyone kind of has a different style, but it's just, that's something too, it's just, I think about too, it's like, there's a lot of revisions, a lot of, know, commenting on frame IO, okay, do this, do that, hop on a Zoom call, let's talk about it. So that just takes a lot of time, but luckily it's like, like I said, our editors are great, they're very talented, so we've been able to make it work.

 

Talk to me about the vision for the future. Before we go to the vision, I do want to talk about that, but talk about how many of these legacy films have you guys done at this point? Are we talking, we've got five of them done, we've got 500 of them done at this point.

 

Which I like to say that we have thousands of thousands, but no we've had six six six or seven six. Yeah, I believe

 

But you're coming at it from a really different perspective. One, like you said, going in, doing the documentary and your father, so it becomes a heartstring project. And whenever you take on anything from that perspective, it's just different. I know this because, so my father, I'm second generation, dad was a life insurance salesperson and

 

Michael Palumbos (33:29.516)

wealth advisor, you know, as those times changed. Serving, you know, my top clients today were dad's top clients years ago. And so I, you know, I try to explain to the family and I don't know if they get it, but because my dad served your grandparents or served your parents and did it well, you get more from me.

 

And I don't know if that resonates for you, but it's like, because we did this project with my dad, with your dad, and you know what this is like, there's just might be, it's not just making a film. It's helping them to feel the same way that you two felt about making the film about your dad, I would imagine.

 

sure. And that's what we like to say. It might sound cheesy, but we like to say that we deliver more than a product. We like to deliver an experience. This is going to be a journey that we're embarking on together. You get to know us really well. We need to know you really well. It's interesting. We had one client actually tell us that she felt as if she was watching her funeral while she was still alive because she's getting to hear all these things that people say about her that normally just wouldn't say to

 

It was really cool. We've seen that this process for a lot of clients not only brings family together, their friends together, but it allows them to revisit memories that maybe they haven't thought about for a while. It allows them to work through things.

 

We like to, I guess it's a selling point for us, honestly, is using my dad's documentary. It builds that trust, it builds that rapport. It's like, look, we lost our father. We did this for him. This is something that we take very seriously because of our own experience. And it helps people see that we're not just trying to make a quick buck. Like we're actually very invested in this. We love doing it and that's why we can do it. So yeah, for sure it helps build that rapport.

 

Michael Palumbos (35:30.222)

I had an experience and I've shared it on the show about a year ago, a little over a year ago now. A client and family friend was in hospice and I had the pleasure of being able to sit with him alone. I'm one of those people that if the conversation comes up or whatever, the thoughts are in my head as long as I'm in a trusting...

 

situation I'll ask. And I asked him, what do you most regret? And it was, he worked too much. And the one that I got that I had never heard before was, I didn't spend enough time with my adult children one on one. Together, there was four girls and they were just like this own organism when they're all together, how they act and who did what when and how they interacted. He said,

 

individually they were different kids and different human beings and he wished that he had had more time to do that. So one of the things that we did was he couldn't type, he was trying to get a message to each of them. We just set up the recording on the computer and he had each of the girls come in, he just recorded a message to them and just to let them know how he felt about them and whatnot.

 

That's that reminds me of that's so true. That is so true is sometimes. Yeah, that reminds me of this one project we did. was actually the gentleman from from Lebanon. Great relationship with his five kids. But like you said, a lot of their time spent together when they're adults because they're all adults now was just family gatherings around the dinner table. And I remember one of the kids he mentions pre-production. He's like, I want I want to understand what my dad thinks about me. I want.

 

And what does he think about us individually and stuff? And so that was one part of the documentary where literally I asked the gentleman about each one of his kids, tell me about this person. And what do you value about them? What do you think of them? And so was really cool because I know that the five kids got to watch their dad for about five minutes each for each kid talk about them.

 

Eriksen Dickens (37:46.562)

what he was proud of, some of the stuff that he's seen from them throughout the years. And it made it very special, I know, to each one of those kids.

 

It's a gift that you, it's priceless. It's priceless. Now let's talk about the future of the business. What do you guys see? Where do you wanna go with it? What's next for, you know?

 

Yeah. So, I mean, ideally we'd like to do these legacy documentaries long-term and we want to get to a point where we're able to take on three, four at a time. And what that requires from us essentially is continuing to build a team, being able to replicate myself as the director, being able to replicate my brother as the operations guy, the CEO. And that's going to take time. And like I've been saying, a lot of communication.

 

But eventually we would like to be able to just take on more of these projects. So we always have one in the pipeline that's continuing to go. That would just be awesome. And I do worry sometimes it's like the more hands off I am of a project, the more anxious I get because it's like, want to make sure it's getting done right. And I want to be able to build that relationship with this family, with this client. And that doesn't mean like scaling, that's just going to go completely away.

 

But I do have to get to a point where I'm okay with not being as hands-on with this person's life and story in general, as I am now with some of these clients. making sure that whoever steps in and is the replication of us gets it and truly gets it and puts the time in and is on the same page as us. So to answer your question that and then on the creative passion side of things, you my brother and I were always floating around different ideas for

 

Eriksen Dickens (39:38.902)

short films that maybe we can do just for us, know, in our film festivals. I do some acting stuff as well, which has always been a passion of mine. So we have some ideas brewing right now and maybe producing a short film just for fun.

 

You're gonna pull out the sheriff roll again?

 

I might, yeah, we've some years to maybe look back on it and tweak some things in that story. Maybe a little better, hopefully.

 

love it. Let's see, talk about your family a little bit if you don't mind. What does your family look like today? I know it's you and your brother. Are you guys married? Have kids? Where are you at that stage of life?

 

Um, so I am not married, single, no kids. Uh, my brother has a pretty serious girlfriend at the moment, but again, not married or doesn't have kids. Um, we, uh, pretty tight knit family overall. Like I'm from originally a small town called Oakdale. Um, it's like 20,000 people. in the heart of the central Valley, which is like all agricultural and rural. I don't know if you've seen the movie or the show Friday night lights, but it's very similar to that in terms of, um,

 

Michael Palumbos (40:31.288)

All good.

 

Eriksen Dickens (40:50.38)

So all my family is there. My dad passed when I was a kid, but his three brothers are all in Oakdale. My mom, her family's right outside of Oakdale. So literally my entire family is in this town. So very tight with them, very close with my mom, obviously like losing your dad at a young age naturally became very close with my mom and get to spend a lot of time with her still, travel with her. And she actually, she was the CEO of a company.

 

Okay.

 

Eriksen Dickens (41:19.31)

300 employees. And so we actually got to see kind of firsthand what happens from time to time in terms of the CEOs almost losing their identity and losing their personhood because they become so invested in their work. And we got to see that with my mom. We've had a lot of talks with my mom, like, was it really worth it? know, and she has a lot of regrets regarding that just in terms of negating her personal needs, not maybe not spending enough time or.

 

us as she wanted to. She busted her ass and she built an incredible business and she's seeing the rewards from it now that she's retired. But yeah, it speaks to what we were talking about earlier in terms of how she's in her early 60s and she's kind of finding that who is she again now that she's retired for a few years and what makes her happy. So that kind of thing. So yeah.

 

I have a few things that I'll send over your way for you and do what you want with them. It might help some conversation with mom. Talk about, and this is the Family Biz show, so talk about what are some of your favorite family traditions? You got that big family, small town.

 

Yeah, gosh, I mean, it sounds simple, but I love Thanksgiving. That's my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving is just the one that sticks out to me in terms of the family when they all get together. Another one would be Christmas Eve. My whole family comes over, my three uncles, their wives, all my cousins. We always have Christmas Eve at my house in Oakdale. And that's just such a good time.

 

And at Thanksgiving, if what dish wasn't there, would it not be Thanksgiving any longer for your family?

 

Eriksen Dickens (43:11.954)

I already I've already had this conversation. Yeah, no, it's, it's my cousin's husband's ham. He makes his ham that he puts in a pit for out. Did you not like it's the best ham I've ever had in my life. put it up against any ham I've had elsewhere. I'm like, dude, you're not welcome to this.

 

Okay.

 

Michael Palumbos (43:29.91)

I love it.

 

Unless you bring that. Yeah, that's hilarious Yeah, and it's funny for every family. There's there's a there's a couple of things, you know, it's not always the apple pie it's the you know, my wife makes a chocolate mousse and You know, everybody's like what you didn't make chocolate mousse. What are you doing to us? And so it's like it has to be made every single year Yes. Yes. Yeah, I love it In terms of

 

you know, the next 12 months, what would you say are the top two or three priorities for you and your brother when you talk about the business? You know, what has to happen for you guys to get to the next step for you guys?

 

Yeah, first and foremost, want to finish strong with this documentary we're working on right now for the Family Foundation I mentioned out of Texas. We're little over halfway through the production side of things, but it's going be a two-hour film. So when it gets to the editing room, it's going to be a lot of fun.

 

So we wait a two hour film. No, it's right. Two hour film. How many hours of video did you shoot? And then you're going to turn it into a two hour film.

 

Eriksen Dickens (44:48.238)

But right now we have three terabytes worth of So we've interviewed, I think, close to 30 people already. And we still have one more location we're going to be doing with them in Connecticut, actually, at the end of September. So yeah, it's going to be a lot of rewatching footage and just get some premature gray hairs probably early. But no, yeah, that's priority for us is really finishing strong. We have made it.

 

as well, like our absolute goal that by end of July to get one more documentary in the pipeline, whether that's literally going out and knocking on doors, going to Rotary and begging people, whatever it is, just get one more deal in the pipeline as well. Just so we have something that we can immediately turn to once this documentary is done. And those are the big things. Those are the two that are really top of mind right now. And there's some other little things, obviously, as every...

 

business knows but those are the two things that we think about all the time.

 

I'm peeking at the Dickens Brothers filmmakers telling the stories from boardrooms to neighborhoods. I love it. I wish I had had that beforehand because it's just interesting to see both sides of the business side where you're helping people with their marketing funnels. You're helping them tell their story from the business side. I want to talk about that for a

 

just a few minutes, because I do think it's important. My gut says you're still doing a lot of that work as well, or would take that work on, but I know how complicated what we do in my business is, because when we're dealing with family businesses, there's a lot. We are a multi-family office, we provide all kinds of different services. Like I said, I'm going to do an interview.

 

Michael Palumbos (46:45.526)

with somebody that's like to see light and having this conversation, I'm kind of like, man, am I doing this person any favors and doing what I'm doing? maybe this is the conversation and we get some of these things record and I say, how would you like to take this to another level? that might be a nice introduction for you along the lines.

 

Yeah, we'll take it.

 

But you know video, video tells a story better than anything else out there. You can have a lot of words on your website, but somebody who understands storytelling and can tell you know your clients, your customers, why you want to do what you do. What is your purpose for doing this beyond the profit of you know making these things and selling them or helping you buy them?

 

That means something. My license plate on my cars, the shortened version is inspire change. That's what we say that, you I do what we're doing because we want to strengthen families. We want to strengthen their legacies. We want to strengthen their wealth. And we do that by inspiring small amounts of change here and there. It's, you know, because it changes not

 

our favorite thing is human beings.

 

Eriksen Dickens (48:11.18)

or aversed to pain just human beings.

 

Right, so, you know, helping them to, utilizing story to make those processes easier, I think is really a great way of doing things.

 

Yeah, no, I agree. mean, I storytelling in general is probably one of the most underrated forms of

 

Eriksen Dickens (48:35.618)

Communication. mean, obviously, if you think about it, so much of our knowledge, who we are, what we know about the world history, it initially came to us in the form of a story. Stories make everything digestible. There's so many studies done out there that show that storytelling, if you hear information in the form of a story or an analogy or a metaphor, you're much more likely to be able to retain that information. It builds trust, it builds relatability. There's been

 

know, stories about businesses who really like they took off because of the story around their business, not even so much of their product, like their product or their service wasn't too different from other competitors on the market. But they really leaned into telling their brand story and building that trust and making their audience see themselves in them. I feel like storytellers really control, dare I say, like the world, they control the masses. mean, everything it's it all comes down to the story and the narrative being

 

told and you see it in the journalists, the news, whatever it is, movies, it all shapes who we are and the knowledge that we have in one way or another.

 

Yeah, I think for business owners that are listening to this, you can think of Dollar Shave Club. Everybody remembers that video. that's really what it was, is a little film, a video that was put together. And your business doesn't have to be that creative and that outlandish that everybody's going to want to watch it. It doesn't have to go viral, but the same impact of telling that story so that it is viral.

 

in the mind and connects in the mind of your customer. That's all you're really looking for it to do. You're sitting on a panel in front of a bunch of other family businesses. People are contemplating getting into business with their family business, transitioning it to the next generation. What would you say are the...

 

Eriksen Dickens (50:18.295)

Absolutely.

 

Michael Palumbos (50:38.978)

the two or three pieces of advice that you'd give them for working, you know, with your family members, working with your brother or your sister or whatnot.

 

Yeah.

 

Eriksen Dickens (50:52.92)

Don't be afraid of hard conversations. Yeah, speak your mind. I I'm personally not a very conflictual person. I don't like conflict. I've learned throughout the years. I tend to shy away from it. People please from time to time, but I recognize that about myself. And so on that note, would say also really putting the effort into cultivate your self-awareness skills as well is really big. And being able to share, being able to keep your ego in check.

 

Brilliant.

 

Eriksen Dickens (51:22.414)

I would say as well and be able to ideas and grow your knowledge so you have a way to get better, stronger. Collaborate. Don't be afraid to communicate. I feel like so many problems could be solved if there was just that transparent communication. That's the advice I would give. I'm not reinventing the wheel with any of that.

 

someone. Yeah, is the foundation for, regardless of whether you're a family business or not, I think, you know, one of my favorite books around that topic is Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of Team. And, you know, one of the things that as a family business we walk right into is that we trust each other. So you and your brother

 

And that's the foundation that everything has to be built on. how do we build that cohesive team that does trust each other enough to be vulnerable, enough to be able to have a tough conversation and know that they're not going to get smacked back for bringing something up along those lines, and then trust each other enough to enter the danger and the conflict. And maybe even sometimes the conflict could go

 

across the line, but there's enough respect inside that team that you can step it back. And you can say, whoops, I crossed the line, to your self-awareness point, I crossed the line, so sorry, that is not where I wanted to go with this, let's dial this back a little bit. And then once we can get through trust and conflict, then it's like, okay, let's commit to a path forward. And it doesn't matter whether it's...

 

Soren's idea or Eriksen's idea or somebody else's on the team's idea and if it doesn't work, we're not going to sit there and say, hey, ooh, see, I told you so. Because then that just dilutes the trust. And now it's like, we tried that idea, let's go do something else now. And so I think that's just a really great foundational book for inside of families, especially if you're in business together, but every team out there to just kind of see that model and understand what that means.

 

Michael Palumbos (53:37.12)

And you just pulled from it, you know, just perfectly. Thank you.

 

Yeah, I agree. think trust is the fundamental foundation for any business, especially when it comes to family business. That's the thing, my brother and I, can give in arguments, whatever it might be, but at the end of the day, we have that trust. He knows I have his back. I know he has my back. yeah, I mean, we have that foundation, which is super, super important.

 

Perfect. Well, Eriksen, thank you for sharing your story and your brother's story with us. Eriksen Brothers, right? Eriksen Brothers is the filmmakers. What's that? Dickens. apologize. hear a lot. Cristina, you're going to help me. Dickens Brothers Filmmakers and Platinum Peak are the two businesses. You've got the business side of things and the legacy side.

 

Dickens Brothers.

 

Michael Palumbos (54:31.65)

Just an amazing story. I love the fact that you did this as kids and wanted to continue working together. Absolutely loved it. Loved it, appreciate it.

 

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

 

Thank you everybody for listening. My name is Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And you've been listening to the Family Biz Show. We're excited to have you on and listen to the next episode. Have a great day everybody. Take care.