Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

Build A Five-Star Brand

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 1 • Episode 30

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The fastest way to waste money on “branding” is to start with the website and skip the story. On The Diaspora Show, we talk with Grant McGaugh, CEO of Five Star BDM and a globally ranked brand strategist, about what actually creates a five-star brand: the experience people have with you and what they say when you are not in the room.

We get concrete about brand strategy and business development for small business owners, creators, and solopreneurs. Grant explains the biggest mistake he keeps seeing, doing things out of order, and he shows how to fix it by starting with point of view, differentiation, and a personal narrative customers can retell. He breaks down storytelling as a “campfire story” that includes emotion, dramatic tension, and a clear villain, plus a look at his BRAVE framework and why boldness is the first move toward authentic leadership.

The conversation goes deeper into healthcare technology and health informatics, including why system inefficiencies and medical errors matter to everyday families. From there we shift to practical AI for marketing and growth: why AI amplifies whatever you feed it, how to assess workflows before you automate, and how customizing ChatGPT with real context, documents, reviews, and market details changes the quality of decisions.

We also touch global opportunity, including Grant’s work tied to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands and the bigger goal of moving minority-led businesses closer to capital, commerce, and global relevance. If you have been sitting on a business idea, this is your push to build the foundation first and then scale the right way. Subscribe, share this with a builder who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest change you are making after listening.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates, visit 5starbdm.com
.

And don’t miss Grant McGaugh’s new book, First Light — a powerful guide to igniting your purpose and building a BRAVE brand that stands out in a changing world. - https://5starbdm.com/brave-masterclass/

See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Meet Grant McGaugh

SPEAKER_00

It's not just anybody guys. This is nationally and globally recognized and ranked. Huh? We're talking with a general uh in military terms, but he's in the financial tech healthcare space, the CEO of five-star BDM, Mr. Grant McGull! McGull! First, welcome to the diaspora! He's loving it, guys. He's loving it.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah, I am, I am, I am.

SPEAKER_00

Did you guys know that I can get somebody so excited? Did you guys know that? Let's not go too far into that. Okay, okay. Grant's a jokester, guys, huh? So, first, welcome to the show. For those that don't know, huh? A little bit about Grant. I got some, I got some, I got some details on you. My mom's listening, just so you know.

unknown

What's up, mom?

SPEAKER_00

I got some details on your son here. Guys, Grant McGall, huh? CEO of Five Star BDM, huh? A visionary brand strategist with a network of the 20,000 experts at least. Named to 2019 South Florida's top healthcare professional. True. That's you. That's me. Brandmaster back in 2021 by Martin Lindstrom. That's you, right? That's true, yeah. And and you're also serve or serving on the board of Cornhusker Capital, right? True.

SPEAKER_03

That's right. Three for three.

SPEAKER_00

Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. Guys, by the way, Cornhusker Capital, guys, is an Omaha uh investment and banking firm, right? Yeah, investment banking, that's true. Come on now. Guys, welcome once again to the Diaspora Show. I got a lot of questions. Okay. Alright, so first and foremost, uh, where should I start? What is I I've been saying this all show. Five-star BDM. What does BDM stand for?

What Five Star BDM Means

SPEAKER_03

BDM, and I'll tell you a little bit about the uh some background story around that. I started the company in uh 2020, uh January 2020, right before COVID. Great time to start a company, right? Right before COVID, right? Just smack right that into COVID. But I have been uh a career uh 35 years in technology um for a long time. Got my cut my teeth at um was it ATT, Lucy Novaya, uh did that for a number of different years, morphed into Cisco data center uh infrastructure for a long time, got into app development, um, got into the machine-to-machine learning, and then artificial intelligence where I'm landed right now. But during that journey, I got into healthcare about 10 years ago uh when I was employed and and then worked with a lot of different healthcare entities in the South Florida market, helping them to upskill and up uh to raise their tool sets from a technology standpoint to get better better patient outcomes. So I'm also the program chair for HEMS. HEMS is the Health Informatic System Society. About 100,000 people uh are part of this association. They just they're having right now their uh one of the largest uh conferences in Las Vegas. So when you go to your hospital and you see all those blinking lights, those are the people that are in charge of that from a health informatics standpoint. So I did all that and then I got involved with investment banking with my family uh here in Oma, Nebraska about six years ago. So that gives me that healthcare technology and um financial background. So BDM, because I did I'm the guy that carried a bag for all those years, right? So sales and that type of thing for business development. So it first started out as business development manager because that's what's my title, BDM, right? Makes sense. Business development manager was the original. But people started to come to me. I went through a layoff in like 2019 and they said, Grant, you built out this incredible network of people on social media, namely LinkedIn, and we like your brand, and we want you to be able to be a voice for us. We would like to hire you on a part-time basis to represent our company. And that became like, hmm, they like my brand and uh they like the business that I can bring to them, so I changed it to brand development masters.

SPEAKER_00

Now that's what it is.

SPEAKER_03

That's what BDM means. That is what it means. But it also, because I'm I'm multi-dimensional, when I when I get on my elevator pitch, right? What is BDM? And that's what I would tell you. I said it is business development and marketing. Done. Right? So that's your that's your BDM. Business development and marketing kind of encapsulates the the what is the the business of itself. Five-star means it's a premium brand, five-star BDM makes sense.

What Makes A Brand Five-Star

SPEAKER_00

What does a five-star brand actually look like?

SPEAKER_03

I mean, that's a great, great question. And really, it's in the eye of the beholder. Right? Right? Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. What is the customer experience? It's a brand is not what you say about yourself, okay, it's what others say about you. Okay. That is the brand. So you can anybody can label yourself a five-star brand. You got five-star hotels, but as you see the reviews, they might not be five-star. Like, you know what? I got like a two-star. You know, I got a three-star, a four-star. So a five-star is really what you're going to gain from your clientele who's been through the experience of your business. I do personal branding, I do business development, and I do investment banking. And if you ask any of my clientele, they say, hey, uh, was that a five-star experience? I have video testimonials from them. When I first moved back to Omar, which is only about a year ago, I uh one of my clients was uh Siobhan. Siobhan Washington Crowd, she works for children's uh hospital here in Omar, Nebraska. She she wanted some some some assistance around personal branding, and I did that for her, and she did a very impactful uh video testimony about her experience. You can see that live. Uh put it out on my social media. She was very, very uh uh happy about that experience. So a five-star brand, again, to answer a question, is not what you say about yourself, it's what others say about you.

The Biggest Branding Mistake

SPEAKER_00

Once again, guys, for those that that are just tuning in, I'm DJ Cadero. Uh, this is the Diaspora Show, and I have an awesome guest, not just any other type of guest, nationally and globally ranked brand strategist, Grant McGaugh! Mag McGaugh! We're gonna get that name. We're gonna we're gonna get that name right. You're gonna get that name right. You mentioned earlier that you're in media. This is this is guys, for those that don't know, Grant has a podcast, huh? Follow the brand, right? Question. What are some uh what's one common branding mistake that you constantly see?

SPEAKER_03

You know, that's a good question. That's a very good question. Follow the brand, guys, by the way. It's on YouTube. And I see it a lot. What do you see? I see it a lot, especially the small business owners, right? The solopreneurs. They come to me and they'll they'll think, build me a website, that'll be their thing. Okay. I said, okay. So you want to build a website. Do you have what is your point of view about your business? What is your personal story about your business? And you understand that a website is a platform. So let's just start there, and then you have to position that particular brand in the market that you're looking to influence. Have you checked all those boxes? Just build me a website. I'm like, you're out of order. And I I tell people this all the time. You can take a cell phone. Everybody everybody's got one of these cell phones, right? Okay. I say, well, call me up. And you're like, Well, I don't have your number. Exactly. You have all the the uh opportunity to call me up. You have the same 10 digits as everyone else on their cell phone, but if you don't know the exact order of those digits, you'll never get me on the phone. That is the biggest problem I see in Brandy, is that they try to do things out of order. Okay, you have to do the hard work first.

SPEAKER_00

So let let's let's let's go for an example. I I love examples. This is me personally speaking. I've created a food truck. Okay. Okay. Um I created a food truck, let's say I sell pizza by the slice at my food truck. What is this order that I should operate on that's not gonna be a mistake, like you say, a branding mistake? My first question is you why a food truck?

SPEAKER_03

Why did you go in the business doing a food truck?

SPEAKER_00

I grew up eating pizza, I love pizza, and I've seen bad, I've tasted bad pizza, and I know that I can do better than some of the stuff that I've seen from brick and mortars. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03

So that's why I'm choosing a food truck. Now you get into the root of it, because you gotta have a differentiation strategy, right? What does that look like? A mentor of mine told me this advice, and it was so powerful. And this is the beginning, the starting, the root of your business, right? And your business journey. That is, for whatever it is that you take on as an endeavor, and you start looking at it as a passion, right? Two things. Start picking these two things up right now. What makes you cry and what pisses you off? Why should I ask myself that as a Because now you have passion, because now you've created dramatic tension and you have a story, you have a point of view. See? And a lot of people make pizza. I can get pizza anyway. It's a commodity. But why should I choose your pizza? You've got to have a differentiating story behind that, right? DJ Codero's pizza, a pizza that won't piss you off when you suck your teeth into it.

SPEAKER_00

That's really good. You like that? That is maybe hey, gosh. Cadero's pizza might be coming soon. Huh? To a nose near you, huh? Right, right. Okay, okay. You like that? So the why, okay.

SPEAKER_03

The why is very important, but it's gotta be emotional, right? It's gotta have an emotional fabric to it. Something that stick to it. People remember the story. So your personal story is something that you can sit down and tell at a campfire, right? All right, take you there, right? We're all sitting, you know, we're amongst our friends, we're beneath a great mountain, we can see the sunset in the distance, and we're all sitting around, we've got this campfire going, we've got the fire going, we've got our tents all around, and now we're telling campfire stories. Your business needs to be a campfire story, it has to have a story that has a heart and a soul and a journey, and you've got to introduce a villain. What are you up against? What pisses you off? What is this thing doing, right? What makes you cry? You come all the way over here from Kenya. Your family brought up. Okay, you grew up in the Midwest.

Build A Campfire Story

SPEAKER_00

What is your story? It sounds like you did some research on me, huh? Look at that. Hey guys, I don't know if you know this, but uh I always get surprised when my guests do research on me. What is going on, huh? I'm talking again with CEO of Five Star BDM. Look, he's got me flabbergasted, huh? I'm fumbling now. This is Grant McGall. Got it right. Okay. Man, I I I I have a lot uh for you. You just I'm sorry you threw me out of the room. I didn't know, I didn't know you pulled up research on me. I'm kinda I'm kinda taken away, guys. I don't know if you can hear it. I try not to be surprised. Huh? Before we go to a break here, because I need to maybe take a walk. So you have a brand called B-R-A-V-E.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. What does that mean? Brave. Yeah. Brave is an acronym, right? We all know when you take on an endeavor, you've got to be brave. Remember, I'm going back to the campfire. I'm telling you this story, right? I'm telling you the story of Brave. Now I've got a new book out called First Light. And the First Light, it dictates this Brave journey, right? And I break it down, but I don't break it down textbook style. I'm not gonna give you a bunch of one, two, threes and ABCs, right? I'm gonna tell you a story. A story of a client who now is taken on this journey. He wants to become a system chief president officer of a departmental, huge corporation. I'm like, great. Tell me your story. Tell me where you've been. Tell me what you feel are the skill sets that you have, the tool sets that you have, and the mindset that you have to become a president of a large institution. And he begins to tell me the story. I'm telling you a little bit of the book right now, right? Tells us the little bit of the story, right? And I said, Okay, are you now finished? He says, Yes. Now let me tell you the story of a true, brave person who can now ascend to the opportunity and the level of operating at a presidency mode, right? And automatically he's in this room. He's in a cave, he's in a dark cave, is just transported in there automatically. He's there in this dark cave, he can't see anything around him. But he can see this slight opening, the very slight opening at the end of the cave. He starts to gravitate to that opening. As he gets toward that opening, he sees a wolf. And this wolf is trying to get into the cave, and he's growling and he's scratching and he's clawing. He's like, ah, he's trying to get, he's like, oh man. So now the client is scared. He's very, very scared. Oh my god, this is horrible, right? But he remembers brave. He said, Okay, brave. Can I be brave? And he looks down, he sees he has a lighter. And he pulls out the lighter and he sees a small stick with the little paper on it. So he lights that, right? He lights it up, and now he's got some light inside the cave. And as he looks around the cave, he sees all these skeletons in the cave. He's like, oh my god, people have been stuck in this cave and they died in this cave. This is horrifying. But then he looks around because the wolf is almost getting inside the cave itself. And he's like, oh my god, I gotta do something. The wolf is coming in. And he notices that this thing that he's holding that has the light on it, that he's burning his paper, has a very sharp point. Very, very sharp point. It's chiseled. And he brings himself up and he notices, he says, Okay, if it is death that this wolf wants, it is death that this wolf will get. And he slays the wolf. And then he walks out of the cave. And as he walks out of the cave, he looks up and he sees this giant moon, this giant star. That is this north star. That is what he's trying to ascend to. Now he starts to understand the first letter in the Brave Framework, which is B for bold. Because you've got to be bold in order to then begin your journey and get beyond fear. That's the beginning of the book.

The BRAVE Framework Origin Story

SPEAKER_00

Man, guys, guys. I don't know about you guys, man, but I'm captivated, huh? I'm at the edge of my seat. Huh? I'm DJ Codero. You're listening to the Diaspora Show here on 879 of the culture. And I'm with an awesome guest, national, global, internationally, ranked, and and and and also this guy dresses the part. Every time that I've been every time I've been around this guy, he's always dressed the part. We're talking what talking with Grant McGaugh. Magaugh. Magaugh, CEO of Five Star BDM. We're gonna go to a music break, Grant. So that way I can take a walk and think about how you pulled out some homework about me that usually doesn't happen. Before we do, Grant, later, if you get hungry, uh, you know, just a suggestion. Uh, you know, there's a there's a certain restaurant that, you know, might might tickle your crazy. Yes, yes. Wayne's New School. Wayne's New School. School not school.

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh.

Omaha Roots And A Painful Loss

SPEAKER_00

School. It's SK Double O, huh? S K Double O. Yes. Wayne's New Skew. I got that. You gotta talk like you're from Baltimore. What? Bmore? Okay, okay, okay. You know they say the T's and the G's. Oh, I know, the B More people, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Wayne's new school barbecue, huh? So if you don't have the, you know, a vehicle or a way to get to their physical location, order DoorDash. You can do that. You can do that with Wayne's and new school barbecue. But if you do have a means of transportation, maybe you're stealing your girl's car while she, you know, watches your child, huh? You can head over to 4865 Center Street. And then give them a call. Order a hat because the Lions, they usually are. Oh. So they're in demand. I like that. Man, come on now. They they might have talked to a branding strategist. What? Huh? And I think I know one too. Their number is 402-359-1125. Hey, I am DJ Cadero. Don't go anywhere. We we got some we got some talk. Yeah. Because, you know, I've been talking about this national and internationally recognized man, right? So we're gonna like people probably asking, why does he keep saying this? We'll get into that. It's throwback Thursday, and this throwback comes from Wiz Kidd. He's looking for Cod O, and I'm looking for a brand strategist. We got one. Come on now. The culture where hip hop and RB lives. I gotta have an in-depth interview with global brand strategist Grant McGull. We got we go we gonna get this right. You got it right. I like it. You said that better than me. I appreciate it, man. We uh here at the diaspora, we work hard to make sure that enunciation is correct. Crossing our T's and datting our I's is one of the things that we try to do best. Speaking of what we try to do best, I've been hinting at this all show, huh? And that is that you're nationally and globally known, huh? For being a brand strategist, huh? How did Omaha shape that of you? Whoa! Wow!

SPEAKER_03

I wouldn't expect that. Omaha. So people don't know. I am from Omaha, Nebraska, and I graduated from Omaha Northwest High Ski Husky. Go Northwest Huskies 1981. Yes. Uh, and then I was here. I went to the Bryant Institute of Technology in Kansas City, and then I left Omaha in 1991 with the Marriott Corporation and went out to New Hampshire. Now, I stayed here like seven years and then went to Miami, been in Miami since 1998. Circle back to Omaha in 2025. How does Omaha play into that? Ultimately, I think in that story right there becomes my father. My father, if anybody remembers Jurell McGall, Jarl McGall Jr. was a heck of personality. I mean, he's a guy, they would walk in the room and light it up. You know, the the party was a so-so. He walked it in, took it to a whole nother level. It's Hollywood production now. That's just how he was and how he behaved and how he could bring that kind of joy now. You could be at your lowest level, and he walked in, and you see, I don't care what I was going through, I feel so much better now. That that was his personality. That was what he brought to the world. Good vibes, huh? Great vibe, great vibe. Great vibes, I love that. Um he was a combination of Sammy Davis Jr. and Richard Pryor and a little Barack Obama. If you mix all that stuff up together, you might get Joe McGall. That's a good gumbo of your dad. What it? What?

SPEAKER_00

What it was might even put a little special sauce on you. Okay, great. Okay. Okay, so you're saying your upbringing Northwest High, your pops. That's what has shaped that part of Omaha has shaped you to become this nationally and Global. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Now take that into context, and then what had happened was, what had happened was happened was uh my father passed uh away, but the way that that happened, remember I just described this incredible personality, and then he uh had he got a broken leg. He was at work. He broke his leg, no big deal, right? And then and then he before he could get his leg uh looked at, they had to discern whether they were gonna use workman's comp because they did it at work, or they're gonna use this regular insurance, right? So they brought him into the hospital, and they when he first came in and said, hey, we gotta put this uh uh we gotta take this temporary cast off and put on a permanent uh cast. Again, very routine, right? And we went in there, me and him together, and then they said, Oh, wow, well, who you we haven't determined your insurance, who's paying for it? So you're gonna have to go back home until we figure this out. Yeah, yeah. So I'm thinking, well, you know, we gotta go back home. Uh I take him back. Now it's been a week, over a week, one or two weeks, two weeks. And then he finally calls him and said, Look, just use my insurance. Let's just get this get past this. He has a broken leg. He has a broken leg. Broke, right? He's 67 years old. So I then take him back to the hospital and said, All right, we're gonna do this whole thing, and and and everything was fine. We we he goes through the procedure, they keep him overnight, right? Right? I I go back home and then he calls me in the morning. He says, Come on out, uh, we're done, just come pick me up. I said, Okay. But five minutes later, the hospital calls me up and says, Your father is going to cardiac arrest. You need to come out here right now. And I can hear him in the background struggling. I'm like, oh my god, what what what? I just talked to him. I get out there, he passes away because a blood clot came out of his leg, got into his lung, shut down his entire system, and he passed away right in front of me.

SPEAKER_00

Probably because they didn't look at it for two weeks.

SPEAKER_03

Well, they didn't, no blood thinners, he only had one lung to begin with, because he had surgery when he was very young. They should have known this, but he he did no blood thinner, they dislodged it, it got into his lung, shut him down, he passed away right in front of me. That you think that was terrible, which was terrible. But then I had to go home where he lived. He lived with my grandmother. My grandmother at the time was in her 80s, and I had to tell her that her only son just passed away from a broken leg. That broke my heart. Right? You're talking about what breaks your heart, what makes you cry. That's what I'm playing with. Is that your wife or BDM? Yeah, oh yeah. When I got a chance, well, Brave, he had a company called The Braver Way.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, this is all connected.

SPEAKER_03

It's all connected.

SPEAKER_00

So this is so the Omaha upbringing and everything that has happened with your pops. Yeah. Guys, guys, man. For those that don't know, again, I'm DJ Codero here on the Diaspora Show, having an in-depth, awesome interview.

SPEAKER_03

No, I've never told that story completely the way you just framed it to anybody but yourself. So that's a that's an original.

SPEAKER_00

We're making history here. And recipes to your pops, man.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Why Healthcare Tech Became Personal

SPEAKER_00

Recipes. Uh I'm DJ Codero, man. He's almost having me shed a gangster tea. Is here, Grant? Huh? Um talking with Grant McGaugh. And and recipes to Big McGaugh. That's right. Gerald McGaugh. Gerald McGaugh. Gerald McGaugh. Recipes, man. Woo! That's that's deep. That's deep. So I see that healthcare was in your background. Sure. Was that with your pop situation? Did that also project you to go into healthcare to be like, we gotta make this?

SPEAKER_03

It gave me an opportunity to begin to work on that kind of trauma and that kind of pain, right? Because that's the kind of trauma and pain you don't just get through overnight. After the funerals and all that, you know, so five years later, I was then being able to, through when I was doing for a job, working in technology, say, hey, why don't you work in the her healthcare world? And I loved it because healthcare has a mission. Healthcare has there's a there's there there's a reason, right? You don't just go to work trying to make money and project the profits, PL, and everybody's happy. Healthcare is about saving lives, right? I said, look, this was a problem, and you said, who who was to blame? Was it the healthcare system? Was it the payer system? Was it the clinicians? Was it the patient not having enough information about it? Technology can help to to become the connective tissue in that world. So I felt like that I could make a difference. And no one else would have to go through that kind of pain because I think a lot of those things um could have been preempted. There's no reason to delay a patient from getting care for two weeks. You have a payment system, you're going to be paid. You're just trying to say who that that has nothing to do with the patient. Take care of the patient, you're going to be paid. That should not be an issue. Even in Cuba, they're not. And you're putting it back on the patient to make it this like what I don't I don't know anything about how this works. So the healthcare system, if everybody's been through it, well a lot of people are, it's very complicated. And they they make mistakes. Did you know this? That the fourth, fourth leading cause of death in the United States is the healthcare system itself.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, come on, please. I need you to bring that back, man. I need you to bring that back. Go ahead. Please repeat that again, man.

SPEAKER_03

The fourth leading cause of death. In the United States. In the United States. We're talking about heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cancer. Number four is the healthcare system itself.

SPEAKER_00

It's not people's mother-in-law.

SPEAKER_03

No.

SPEAKER_00

It's not somebody's.

SPEAKER_03

Not black on black rhyme.

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_03

It's not DEI. No, no. No, no, because there's medical errors. There are diseases that are prevalent in hospitals that you could go in with one thing and come out with another, right? Called sepsis. And these things are prevalent. There are about, let's say, four to five hundred people die every day from medical errors. That's like saying two jumbo jets crashed and burned and everybody died on that plane in the United States every single day. And no one's doing anything about that. If you do don't you think if a jumbo to two jumbo jets crash in the United States every single day, there would be outcry, absolutely. There will be legislation. There would be stop plane.

SPEAKER_00

Speaking of jets, I mean, in September of 2001, there was uh three, you know, some believe maybe less, but there was a couple airplane accidents and security at the airports changed uh forever. Yeah. So yeah, what you're saying, yeah. I mean, absolutely, things would change.

SPEAKER_03

The public needs to be aware of these things. You need to understand these things. This is not new knowledge, this is something that's going on for a long time. Going back to the Civil War, like, man, you go to the Civil War and uh uh a warrior gets hurt, you like take me to the hospital. Oh no, fuck forget that. You might shoot me now. Because you know you're not gonna have a leg. I mean, it was it was terrible. You get some kind of infection and you're gonna die. It was terrible. But these things have not stopped. So you need to understand the healthcare system as much as you can. Uh, and not to say that people are doing single purpose, they're not. It's just there are inefficiencies in the delivery system of health care that needs to be managed.

Using AI Without Amplifying Chaos

SPEAKER_00

Man, guys, skies, sky. So for those that are just tuning in again, I'm DJ Codero here on 879 The Culture. This is my show, my show, the Diaspora Show, and I'm having an awesome interview with CEO of five-star BDM Grant McGall. Okay, you said a lot. One of the things that uh that you had uh talked about in your frustrations. It sounded like you had frustrations with the healthcare system and you use tech technology. It's 2026, Grant. AI is everywhere. What's the first thing that business owners, because you are a brand strategist, huh? What's the first thing that business owners should do to utilize AI for their brands?

SPEAKER_03

Uh man, that's a great question. If you look at myself, no, I'm just one person, but through my use of AI, I got those accolades that you just talked about.

SPEAKER_00

Wait, wait, so you use AI? Oh, yeah. You're not scared of it. I invented AI, no. Are you the Oracle? Oh, wait, wait, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. I think I'm Neil and I think I found the Oracle.

SPEAKER_03

You are in the matrix, so you took the red pill.

SPEAKER_00

Shout out to A79, the doctor. We're all about the red pill. Shout out to all the blues, by the way, too. Right, right. All due respect. So, okay, how should again, how should business owners uh what's the first thing that business owners should do to utilize AI for their brand?

SPEAKER_03

Hunter, the first thing you should do is take an assessment of your current workflow processes. What does that look like? That is taking a um, I would say a technical assessment uh of where you're at. And the reason why you have to do that, because what AI does is amplification for the most part. It's amplification and orchestration. So if you bring it uh information that is already bad data, let's just say a bad process, it'll amplify your bad process, right? And make it sound like it's good. Because the way AI is programmed now, it's an absolute. It'll give you an answer that if when you read it, it sounds this is the absolute truth. Well, it really isn't. It's a recommendation, but it's based on the database of information that it has. So you don't want to just feed it um, you know, uh random um thoughts, random ideas, random workflow processes, and expect it to fix it, and then you're going ahead and and and be able to be on a better working plane. So, my first thing I would say you have to do an assessment of where you're at. And you what you're looking to do is to fix a broken process. Or you want to amplify a process that's working well, but now you want to get outside your zone. I want to get outside of just Omaha, Nebraska. I want to get all of Nebraska, I want to get all of the Midwest, I want to get all of the United States, I want to get international. AI can do that because it's uh the platform has plur pro proliferation throughout the United States and when you or the world, I should say, and when you know how to speak, when you know how to speak AI, when you know how to speak machine-to-machine language, you can then utilize the algorithm to work for you, not against you.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so let's let's give an example. I love examples. This is for me. I have that pizza food truck, yeah. I sell it by the slice, and I sell great slices. I'm talking about and I say to let's say ChatGPT. I say to ChatGPT, AI agent. I say, hey ChatGPT, last summer uh when I launched the food truck for the beginning of June through the end of September, ChatGPT, I've attached all my receipts uh that customers have paid. What I want to identify and what I want to have us come up with, ChatGPT, and I'm typing this, okay? Yeah. Uh I'm confused because I only made$10,000 in sales.$500 every weekend. I feel like I should have made more money. Where did I go wrong? Is that something that would be this AI talk that you mentioned? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

That's helpful. It's helpful? It's helpful, but there's a lot more information that you have not given it. Does it understand the context? The first thing you have to do with your chat GPT, especially ChatGPT, you need to personalize it. You need to customize it. You need to give it as much context as it has. Because if you don't, it's gonna draw from generic information. Chat GPT was trained on internet knowledge, so it'll scour the internet about your pizza business and then give you some generalizations of what couldn't could have gone wrong. Remember, it doesn't understand the market that you're in unless you tell it.

SPEAKER_00

Also, I didn't include, hey, I my pizza food truck, I only scoured Omaha, Bellevue, some parts of La Vista, but mainly in Omaha. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So I can get specific languages. You gotta give it some location, uh-huh. You gotta give it some logistics, you gotta give it some demographics, some psychographics.

SPEAKER_00

So I got okay, so so if I'm not taking surveys of my customer and clientele, that can mean a lot in the answers that I'm trying to get.

SPEAKER_03

Really? You don't have any reviews. So if you had reviews of the people that did take you up and tried to repeat, saying, like, hey, three out of five liked it. And then tell you why they liked it. Uh-huh. Now you begin, now you give it more detailed information. The more precise you can give the information to the uh AI of itself, the better the answer is going to be. Remember? So, but remember when you've customized it, customized it and personalized it, you've made a what I call a um a subset of a GPT, right? So you can you can make your own GPT within chat GPT. That's the one you want to customize. You want to give it as much information as possible. You can give it your uh privatized information, your PDFs, your PowerPoints, your receipts, as you just stated. Now it has a base of knowledge to pull from to get a better answer and a better result. Once you've done that, now you start to get to where I was talking about earlier. Why I built a GPT on my website. And I want your audience to know this. I have the voices of the D Aspra on my my site. Why did I do that? Because I've customized it for black people. I've customized the voice so it speaks to you. It's not gonna speak in just you know, machine language or a European mindset.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, like an English accent. But you customize it to where it sounds like I'm talking to somebody from North Oak. A brother from another mother. Serious. What? How you do that? Because I'm bad like that. I'm talking once again to uh international uh brand strategist Grant McGaugh. Wow. Okay, okay. We're gonna go to another music break, man. Uh, and when we come back, we'll talk about that international part, huh? It's gonna be before you go, is that okay? Yes, sir. I know you gotta I know you're pretty busy being a brand strategy. The number number one, guys. He's the number one in the game, huh? Huh? And say, and rock with me. It's throwback, it's throwback Thursday, and this is a throwback from De Vito. Do you know who De Vito is? Tell me about De Vito. He's uh he's a he's a Nigerian just like Burner Boy? Yeah. A Nigerian Afro Beat superstar. Super. Yes, but he was born in Atlanta. What? Mm-hmm. What? Serious.

SPEAKER_03

See, Africa is in the United States. I think there was a switch. We keep thinking we're in the US, we're actually in Africa. I've met more Africans in the US than I met in the Caribbean. I'm like, what? We'll talk, we'll talk about that.

St Croix Plan For Minority Capital

SPEAKER_00

We'll talk, man. This is De Vito with Skele Woop. Let's go. You know what I'm saying? Oh man, you know, it's uh it's uh it's it's it's a C L T R It's Culture Airways, huh? And I and I am your captain, huh? BJ Codero here on 879, the culture where hip hop and RB lives, and I'm rocking with my interviewee. Let's let's let's calm down, let's calm down. There we go, there we go. Alright, and I'm uh here interviewing uh Global. I I get to finally talk about this, huh? Global brand strategist Grant Mugah! Alright, I've been hinting at this all day, huh? Grant, yeah. Let's finally talk about this, okay? Finally, okay, finally, huh? So I guys, I bring up, I continue to bring up global because for those that don't know, Grant, huh? Grant McGull, CEO of Five Star BDM, went to the Virgin Islands and I did my homework on you. I did my homework on you. And I have a quote from you. Okay. And this quote is Five Star BDM. You said this in the Virgin Islands. Five Star BDM is building more than a platform. We're building a movement. St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, huh? This is the international part, guys. I know it's US territory, but rock with me, guys. Come on, rock with me. St. Croix will be the epicenter of a new economic era that finally puts minority-led businesses at the forefront of capital commerce and global relevance. That's right. Why did you feel because you were standing on the same platform with the governor of the US Virgin Islands, right? That's true. When you said this, right? Yeah. Yeah. Why did you feel that well I have so many things to say about that? My first question is why did you feel that St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, was gonna be that epicenter?

SPEAKER_03

That is a great question. And I want the audience to really lean in on this when you do your research, like DJ K. Girl has done, you will see why the United States Virgin Islands, it's a little bit south of Puerto Rico, to give you some context of where it is. First of all, it's a black territory. It is the only black run territory in the entire United States run by black people. Black governorship has been going on for a hundred years. We should know this like we know anything else. But because it's a territory, you don't get as much information through our U.S. public uh school systems. But we need to know this. We're gonna know this right now, right? So in the U.S. Virgin Islands, they have special laws, special laws that are different from the mainland, right? It is a U.S. territory, but it also has a thing called the Jones Act. What does that do? That means that if you have a US based uh uh company or enterprise that you then locate in the uh U.S. Virgin Islands, you can just just it could be a subsidiary, an office, or whatever it may be, right? You will now not be subjective to federal income tax.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna ask about that. Yeah. So, like if I have a second food truck in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, I don't have to get those federal taxes.

SPEAKER_03

No, I can't. As long as you're there for six months in a day, you've established what they call residency, you then register your company there in the U.S. Virgin Islands, right? You're then exempt from 90% of the taxes.

SPEAKER_00

So just like the current U.S. president, uh Codero Pizza, can can can slide away from the tax man.

SPEAKER_03

See, you a lot of U.S. corporations have done this and they've benefited from it. The problem is that they take the profits off the island. So the islanders do not benefit from this. So we're looking to change this. So I'm a part of what we call SETI case. SETI case means St. Croix Economic Development Initiative.

SPEAKER_00

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

Right? Yeah, with the government with the governor. With the governor, with my partner uh Anthony Weeks, we have set this up. We're setting up a financial markets in the United in the Virgin Islands. It will be a stock exchange as well as commodity exchange. Now, here's the cool part. So, well, St. Croix.

SPEAKER_00

That's cool enough. You guys will have a stock exchange in St. Croix. St. Croix. Yeah. U.S. Virgin Islands.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Anthony Weeks did this in New York City. He was part of the New York stock exchange. So this is not pie in the sky. Uh so we're setting this up in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. But here's the cool part. People are like, well, say St. Croix, Virgin Island, it's a small place. 40,000 people live there. There are more black people in Omaha, Nebraska than there are in St. Croix. Really? Uh uh or all of Virgin Islands together. It's not a large place. But here's the deal: they have an MOU agreement with CORACOM. CARICOM is the EU of the Caribbean. Yeah. So now, through St. Croix, because it has a stable banking system, it utilizes the U.S. banking system. It now becomes the stable coin, quote unquote, people that know cryptocurrency, but it's more than that. It becomes a stable currency for the Caribbean that's not in place today. So now it can you can do business with Barbados, you can do business with Jamaica, you can do business with uh uh any Caribbean nation, Guyana, which is a huge uh oil exporter now, one of the richest countries in the um Caribbean itself. And and and because you're utilizing uh the the uh launch pad from St. Croix, you have now have uh extended your market. So now you can be in Omar, Nebraska. You're doing business through a SETI case, and you now you're doing business with the entire Caribbean. The yes, yes. They also have an MOU agreement with Ghana. Okay, hey, hey.

SPEAKER_00

You said a lot. Yeah. Um in the chat, again, if you don't already know, guys, you're listening to me on the app. If you haven't created a username, password, create a username password. Come on, what is wrong with you? Stop being lazy. Come on, especially if you're a man. What's wrong with you? Come on. As men, you need to be you you need to utilize. Come on. DJ Mr. Soul. Oh, the DJ Mr. Soul show at 3 p.m., by the way. Uh-huh. Grant, just FYI, if you have not got enough. He says in the chat, I didn't know it was black governed. Yeah. He's talking about the US Virgin Islands. Yeah. Look at that. Just information like that, Grant.

SPEAKER_03

Governor uh Bryan. I I was there. I'm telling this is an African Caribbean American experience. And I want to say it when I say it.

SPEAKER_00

Say it again. No, no, say that. Because you said that when we first met. Can you say that again? The U.S. Virgin Islands is what?

SPEAKER_03

It's a first an indigenous African. Yeah. American Caribbean experience.

Start Now And Join The Accelerator

SPEAKER_00

You're pretty busy. I want one last question. Please, before you go. Yeah. Please, because I need you. Bro, this entire 2026, if the governor of uh U.S. Virgin Island allows, please continue to come back on the Diaspora show. Sure. Grant McGaugh! Alright? Yeah. CEO of 5-star BDM. Global. Global brand strategist. Grant, the people sitting that are listening to this show right now, that are sitting on business ideas, brands they believe in, but haven't taken them serious or haven't taken the first step. What do you have to say to those people?

SPEAKER_03

The ones that haven't taken the step for business development, are we talking AI development? Are we talking about everything? They got a branding business idea, but they're just sitting on it. If they have a branding idea and they're sitting on it, you're you're you every minute that you wait is thousands of dollars lost. You just say it like that. Say it like that. Because AI of itself as a platform is moving so fast and so vast. If you do not get involved with this, you are losing the opportunity. The opportunity window is now. Think of the internet, think of mobile technology, think of social media, think about the NASDAQ right now. Look at the companies that are on the NASDAQ right now that weren't there 10, 15 years ago, right? And these are tech companies. We're talking about tech companies, right? They are ruling the world. You got now, where I call, you gotta look at this as a dynamic. You have nation states, like the US, South Africa, things alike. Those are nation states. Then you have what we call power brokers. Those are your super rich people, right? And then you have the people themselves, right? That fourth part of that picture is tech states. Tech states, they proliferate throughout the world. So they're not constrained by nation states. This is the first time in history this kind of is happening. That's just why the United States says, all right, we're gonna bring these people in. You know, you got Claude doing this, you got Chat Chi. That's never happened for. These tech states now can, they're they're very powerful, they're very rich, right? So if you're sleeping on the sidelines and you think you got a brandy idea. And you haven't taken the first time. And you haven't, so how do I take so the first step I would tell anybody to you? Go to my website, five starbdm.com. That's B like Bobby, D like Domino's. I like brand developmentmasters.com. No, we're talking to it. Five starbdm.com. You're gonna go there. I want you then to go to my AI called Sentinel and begin. First of all, ask it, do an audit on my website, if you have a website, right? Or give it your business idea, right? It's going to start to give you uh the next step, right? Without talking to me, the AI will begin to modulate and give you even a 90-day plan to get started, to get going, right? Then when you're ready, after you've done this, I call the do-it-yourself approach, and you're ready for mentorship, then you reach out to me, right? Grant.magall at five starb.com. And if you're in Omaha, Nebraska, come out to the Enterprise Center on 96 and L, right? On March 20th, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., we are launching the Omaha AI Business Accelerator. Wait, when is this again? March 20th, Friday. Not this, not tomorrow, but the next Friday, March 20th, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., we are launching the Omaha AI Business Accelerator. It's gonna be sponsored by Omaha 100. If you're not familiar with Omaha 100, they put money in the pocket of small business owners and home ownership. Are y'all hearing that? What? So we're not talking the talk, we're walking the walk. So if you want to walk, you want to sit on the couch and have a brand new idea, but you didn't give it legs, you didn't give it a body, you haven't given an OS, an operating system, then you need to come out to the Enterprise Center next Friday. Where location and time again? 96 and L, right across from the Mockingburg Bolin Alley. If you're familiar with Omaha, Nebraska, you can't miss it. It's a gigantic center. This is a business center. A lot of businesses are located here. I have a business there where Pink Lotus Project Nebraska and Five Star BM. We're located there. We're gonna have our networking event. It's gonna be sponsored by Omaha 100 as well as hosted by the Enterprise Center. You're gonna learn about what we're gonna launch. You're gonna learn about AI and what it, what is gonna the use case for it, right? You're gonna learn about how I how Pink Lotus Project Nebraska utilized it to expand her brand beyond her normal reach and get to become an international entity in a small period of time, right? Then you're gonna hear about Omaha 100. But I want to hear from you. I want to understand your ideas because the first cohort is only 10 businesses, right? These are sponsored by Omaha 100. But you've got to bring the idea. We're gonna vet who's gonna be in that first cohort, but they're gonna do this over a two. They've committed to a two-year program. Two-year program. We're gonna have a cohort that goes six to eight weeks, right? And you're gonna come out with a skill set. Remember, you're gonna bring your work, you're gonna bring that pizza shop, like, all right, bring DJ Connect. We need to see your pizza truck, bring your work to the accelerator and what it's about. We understand where you're at. We're gonna help you build it as far as a platform. This is about using utilizing AI for sales and marketing to achieve a business result that's gonna be 3x or more than what you're doing right now. That's why you come out.

SPEAKER_00

What time is that again on Friday, the March 20th?

SPEAKER_03

March 20th, 6 p.m., right after work, or whatever you may be doing. Happy hour. Everybody remembers happy hour. Happy hour time, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. You're gonna have drinks, you're gonna have some food, you're gonna have some fun, you're gonna have some good people.

SPEAKER_00

Before we let you go, man, you're you're a wealth of knowledge. Grant McGaugh! McAR! Global brand strategists, guys. 25 plus years in the game. What? Right? How can people get in touch with you? How can people get a hold of you?

Where To Find Grant And Close

SPEAKER_03

Best way to get me first, I'm gonna implore you to go to the website five starbdm.com. That's for branddevelopmentmasters.com. Send me an email, grant.magall at five starbdm.com. Do your homework like I did with with the DJ Canaro and what he did on me. Do your homework. And then when you reach out to me directly, we're gonna have a conversation. You got a podcast, right?

unknown

What?

SPEAKER_03

Follow the brand, baby. Follow the brand. We got a book, right? Follow the brand has over 250 episodes. We were ranked number one in the world by Feed Spot for personal branding. That is a true statement. Ranked number what? One in the world.

SPEAKER_00

Hold on, guys. I don't I don't think you guys you guys heard that. And and and and once once again, he was he was he was ranked. He was he was ranked what? He was ranked what? If I can number one. Number one. That's right. Go ahead. Alright. And then you got a book.

SPEAKER_03

You have a book out right now. First Light, the Brave Path to Authentic Leadership. That's available on Amazon. It's available on Barnes Noble. It's available through Firestar BDM if you want an autographed copy. Or you can come on out to what? The Enterprise Center on Friday and get an autograph copy. On March 20th. March 20th, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

SPEAKER_00

I don't have anything else to say, man. It's throwback Thursday. Thank you, Grant, for coming on the show. Man, you're a busy guy, but thank you so much. You've dropped a lot of wealth. I hope you guys that are listening had a pen and paper. I certainly did. Um, this episode, we're gonna try to talk to uh to the head of the studio and try to see if we can release this later in the week, um, just as a recording, so they can hear it at any time because there's a lot here. There's a lot that Grant dropped on you guys as far as information goes. I'm DJ Codero. Continue to rock with me here for the next 15, 17, well between let's say 15 minutes of this throwback Thursday. Grant, thank you so much. Thank you. Throwback Thursday. This is Kiss Daniel with Yebba.