0:00

Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass.

0:02

I'm your host, Rashan McDonald. I want

0:04

to hear from you today like I want to hear from you every

0:06

day, because I recognize that we all have different

0:09

definitions of success. For you, it

0:11

may be the side of your paycheck. Mine is

0:13

inspiring you to accomplish your goals and live your

0:15

very best life. It's time to start reading

0:17

other people's success stories and start living your own.

0:20

People always talk about what you cannot do and what

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you should do, and don't let your friends, family,

0:24

or co worker stop you from planning or living

0:26

your dreams. This show is for you, so

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welcome to Money Making Conversation masteric Class.

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If you want to be a guest on my show, please

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visit our website, Moneymaking Conversations

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dot com and click to be a guest.

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Button press submit and information

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will come directly to me. Now let's

0:43

get this show started. My guests

0:45

on the show is Bobby Cartwright Jr.

0:48

The executive producer of Gospel Superfess

0:50

Live in Columbus, Ohio, Gospel

0:53

Superfest, Holiday, Gospel

0:55

Superfest, Easter Jam. Please

0:57

welcome to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. I'll

1:00

be caught right, Junior, how doing Bobby.

1:02

Hey Rashwan, thanks for having me, Thanks

1:04

for being patient with my technical

1:07

savy to get on your clue today.

1:09

I will use branding the word of the Lord. I got

1:11

to be a singing the word of the Lord, a praise

1:13

to.

1:13

The Word of the Lord.

1:14

I have to be patient. I apologize.

1:17

Talk about the history of

1:19

of these superfest events that you've been putting together

1:22

for years.

1:23

Well, in nineteen

1:26

ninety eight, I got a vision

1:29

from the Lord in my sleep and the Lord

1:31

showed me Gospel superfessed in

1:34

a vision and I was like, oh Lord, this is

1:36

too much to work. And I

1:39

could not sleep for days. I

1:41

kept telling my wife the Lord has giving me something big. He's

1:43

giving me something big. And she said,

1:45

okay, it's big. Just let me go to sleep, please,

1:47

you know. I said, you don't understand, honey,

1:49

this is going to be big. And

1:51

she said okay. And so I couldn't

1:54

sleep until I start planning the first one. It

1:57

was like a burning and so

2:00

the Lord gave me the day June ninth,

2:02

tenth and eleventh, the year two thousand. That

2:05

was the year when the computers

2:07

were going to crash. The Chinese were going to attack

2:09

y two K. We didn't know what was going on. We

2:11

had never seen to zero zero

2:14

anything. It was nineteen always nineteen

2:16

something, and so I decided

2:19

this was going to be the granddaddy of them all. Three

2:22

day festival in Louisville, Kentucky,

2:25

and we invited thirty something acts

2:27

to come, and to my surprise,

2:29

they all came. And I

2:32

mean, we had the Who's Who's the Gospel back there

2:34

twenty three years ago, and

2:36

we did the first one and we

2:39

almost lost our shirt since you hit

2:41

the first one. And then we did the

2:43

second, and then we did the third, and then we did the fourth

2:45

one and it kept going and now we

2:48

just finished the twentieth Gospel

2:50

Superfest. And through that time

2:52

period, we've been syndicated

2:55

for twenty three consecutive years on domestic

2:57

syndication, reaching eighty percent of the country

3:00

with five one hour specials

3:03

a quarter, actually five one hour specials

3:05

a year. And on top of that, I

3:07

was telling a gentleman the other day. Gospel

3:10

Superfest has played on

3:12

every major black cable network

3:14

in the United States, from B E T to

3:17

TV one to Bounce to

3:19

Aspire to Byron

3:21

Allen's Grilloh in some form

3:23

of fashion. We've delivered content to all of

3:25

those black networks while simultaneously

3:28

being in domestic syndication on ABC,

3:31

NBC and Fox affiliates

3:33

around the country.

3:34

But all of.

3:34

That comes as

3:36

we were novice and just obeying,

3:39

you know, the word of the Lord of Baning what he told us to

3:41

do, and we just, you know,

3:45

year after year after year, compiled knowledge

3:47

and year after year after year created

3:49

relationships and now this

3:52

particular year we've

3:54

been picked up by BEET.

3:56

So it's just a miracle.

3:57

Really well, you know, it is a consistency

4:00

because alan that ride how we met was

4:02

when Steve Harvey and I were doing

4:04

the BT Celebration of Gospel, because

4:06

that came right after you started in two

4:09

thousand and we did it for thirteen

4:11

straight years and guess what, you're still doing

4:13

it. So I commend you because the journey

4:15

is about effort, A journey is about consistency.

4:18

Now, unity media, which came

4:20

first? Did the did the Gospel

4:23

Superfest come first? Or did your production

4:25

company started by you and your wife come

4:27

first?

4:28

Well, the production company come first. I'm

4:31

glad that you asked that, because that's an

4:33

interesting story. I was a

4:36

station manager of a an

4:39

AM radio station in Cincinnati.

4:41

I was the morning morning drive host, the

4:44

janitor of the PD whatever. When you got a little

4:46

small daytimes day

4:49

what you call it daytime or where you can hear it in the day, you

4:51

better can hear it in the night.

4:52

When the signal goes down.

4:53

I was running a radio station

4:56

in Cincinnati in the late nineties,

4:58

and so the manager or the

5:01

owner, he wanted to get out of it. He wanted

5:03

to sell an He offered it to me, and

5:05

I was like, oh, this is too much work. I

5:08

said the same thing again. Got the AM

5:10

station. I knew every passage cars,

5:13

Marcedes, I got my business cards. When I'm trying

5:15

to get him fifteen minutes of airtime selling you

5:17

know, AM Christian radio, and

5:20

I said, oh, you know, I want to get out of this.

5:22

So I went home and.

5:23

I told my wife that John

5:26

had offered me the station and I

5:28

told him no, And she said, why did

5:30

you tell him no?

5:31

Go back and tell him we wanted. Well, she

5:33

don't do no work at the stage.

5:35

I'm doing all the work. And

5:37

so I went back to John and

5:39

I told him. I said, okay, you know, I talked to my wife.

5:42

We want to try to give it a shot. Well,

5:44

we formed the company Unity

5:46

Media.

5:47

We got an.

5:47

Investor, gave us a few things, you know, a few thousand

5:49

dollars whatever, and we got to the

5:52

point where we were getting ready to get the radio station

5:54

and we got out bid. So

5:58

somebody that was you know, I wasn't want to get two in

6:00

the weis with someone who was under me at the

6:02

station that I was their manager, ended up putting

6:04

the group together and they outbit me.

6:06

They got the station. Wow.

6:07

So I went back to

6:09

my investors and I

6:11

said, well, I got to give you guys your

6:13

money back because we did we lost the station.

6:16

They said, no, no, no, we weren't investing

6:18

in the station. We were investing

6:21

in you. So you figure it out,

6:23

but we don't want our money back. And

6:25

so then so we started consulting.

6:28

So at that point we started, you know, picking up clients

6:31

is just telling them how to run their stations.

6:34

You know what consultants do. We s would supposedly

6:36

know it all.

6:37

And so I changed

6:39

it into a consulting firm and

6:42

started consulting low

6:44

power TV stations. And I ran across

6:46

the station that was a black owned

6:48

WB affiliate.

6:49

You remember the double W, the.

6:51

Frog and all of that, and these

6:53

business guys bought this

6:55

station but didn't know how to run it. So I

6:58

basically talked my way into a job. I said,

7:00

look, I've been doing radio. I said, it's

7:02

really no difference. One spot's got pictures

7:04

and one spot doesn't have pictures. I

7:07

believe I can handle this for you. So I

7:09

came in as a consultant slash general

7:11

manager of a low power TV

7:13

station that had cable carriage, and

7:16

that was my first step into television.

7:20

So as I was.

7:21

The general manager and all of that people

7:23

were the syndicators like Don Cornelius

7:26

and Byron Allen and all of those folks were

7:29

trying to get our markets. So they would come

7:31

to me to get Dayton, Ohio,

7:33

which is market fifty three at the time, and

7:35

I would have to sign off on their contracts.

7:38

So I was like, Okay, I tell my secretary,

7:41

I'll sign that contract, but make another copy

7:43

of it and put it on my desk and I'll look at it later.

7:46

So I started studying all of

7:48

the syndicators and what they were doing and how

7:50

they were syndicating their shows, and basically,

7:52

to be completely honest with you.

7:54

I duplicated that.

7:56

And then I took a Gospel

7:59

super fast and modeled

8:01

it after Soul Train. So

8:03

if you remember, Soul Train was Soul

8:05

Trained Awards, sol

8:07

Trained Weekly, Soul Trained Quick,

8:10

Christmas Starfest, Soul Trained,

8:12

Lady of Soul. You had Soul Trained

8:14

as the umbrella title. Then you had all of these

8:16

subtitled shows that Don

8:18

Corneus and his genius had

8:20

put, you know, put out in the marketplace.

8:22

And so I said, this is a great idea.

8:25

So we did Gospel Superfess, Holiday

8:27

Gospel Superfess, Easter Jam, Gospel

8:30

Superfess, Black History, Moment

8:32

Gospel. So it was really basically

8:34

the second the Soul Train model flipped

8:36

for Jesus.

8:37

So that's our and

8:40

that's ow I syndicated.

8:41

A lot of people compared me with other gospel

8:43

shows, but to be completely transparent,

8:46

I just really co teil

8:48

Don Corneus and changed Gospel Change,

8:50

Soul Train, the Gospel Superfessor and put the

8:53

subtitles under it. And that's how we

8:55

syndicated the Gospel Superfessor.

8:57

Congratulations and the congratulations from having

8:59

a wife who every time

9:02

you said something, gether went back to sleep

9:04

or tell you to go go do it, and

9:06

both of y'all because we were syndicated

9:10

over twenty HBCU stations and

9:12

both of you guys are HBCU grads.

9:14

Correct.

9:15

We went to HBC's I got my I

9:17

dropped out after two years. She got

9:20

her degree from Howard. But we

9:22

met at Kentucky State and

9:24

so and that's another thread.

9:26

But I left Kentucky State

9:29

after my sophomore year. My schoolmates

9:32

and classmates were all of the members

9:34

of Midnight Star. Remember Midnight Star

9:36

was formed on the campus of Kentucky

9:39

State University. We're all friends to this

9:42

day. We were all studying together. My

9:44

wife was in biology, so she wanted to

9:46

move on, so she moved over to Howard her

9:50

junior year and finished at Howard.

9:52

I didn't finish.

9:53

Then I went on the road with the Ohio Players

9:55

and M two May and Heat waving a whole bunch of R

9:57

and B groups because all I really wanted

9:59

before I was saying.

10:00

Barb barbar barbar barbar barbara A

10:03

Players. You used to have to semi new

10:05

women on the album cover too.

10:08

Nne come on Night. When I was

10:10

twenty one years old, I joined the

10:12

Ohio Players as a

10:14

stage technician. So

10:16

a friend of mine was getting a job. The High

10:19

Players had lost most of their road

10:21

crew. I don't know

10:23

why they did. People said, well, they weren't getting

10:25

paid. They was upset. So all of their really strong

10:28

tech people went with the Commodores and

10:30

hire Players didn't have any road crew. So

10:32

a friend of mine named Kenny Thomas, who's deceased

10:34

now.

10:35

He kept coming over my house said hey,

10:37

man, we're going out in two weeks. You ought to come with us. Man,

10:39

we're going out. You're gonna go on tour.

10:41

And I was like, oh, man, I'm trying to start my own group.

10:43

I don't know.

10:44

So he come around the next week, Man, we down to

10:46

three people. We need three more people, and I said,

10:50

my band started not making rehearsals.

10:52

The singers was like, can't find babysitters and

10:54

stuff like this. Like, oh, this band ain't going

10:56

nowhere, you know. So he came around

10:58

again. He said, like, I got a one position

11:01

left. It's the violate position.

11:03

You'll handle all of the clothes and wardrobe.

11:05

You need to come on and go out with us. So

11:08

I looked at what the band was doing. The

11:10

band was doing nothing, and so I disbanded

11:13

the band and jumped on the High.

11:14

Player's crew and when.

11:16

I was twenty one years old, congratulation

11:18

and went out went out with them for three years.

11:20

What a great story. We're talking to Bobby

11:22

Cartwright Jr. He's the executive producer

11:25

and the founder of the Gospel

11:27

Superfest. As he said, he just used

11:30

his brain. He looked at what Don Cornegius

11:32

was doing and just did his own version

11:34

instead of the R and B spind It was a gospel

11:37

spin.

11:38

Please don't go anywhere. We'll

11:40

be right back with more Money Making Conversations

11:42

Masterclass. Welcome

11:51

back to the Money Making Conversations Masterclass,

11:53

hosted by Rashaan McDonald.

11:56

I'm your host, Rashaan McDonald. I'm speaking to

11:58

Bobby Cartwright Jr. As he said

12:00

earlier prior to our break, Unity

12:03

Media, a Christian based firm owned

12:06

by husband and wife Bobby and Reneeda

12:08

Cartwright, everything starts with a dream. Everything

12:10

starts with the idea we all have these

12:13

opportunities. What do we do with

12:15

these opportunities.

12:16

He saw an.

12:16

Opportunity presented to him

12:19

to do a radio station. He didn't think he

12:21

was capable of doing that. He didn't think he wanted to do

12:23

the work.

12:23

His wife looked at him.

12:24

She knew who she married to, she knew what he

12:27

could do. Push them right back out that door.

12:29

And when she pushed them right back out that door, he

12:31

realized the dream was superseded

12:33

by somebody else. And then he found out

12:36

it wasn't about the station. It was about him.

12:38

And there's so many of us out there in the streets

12:41

today don't understand our own personal

12:43

value. And if you don't understand your personal

12:45

value, then you will never have significant

12:47

growth. That's what Money Making Conversations master

12:49

Class is all about, bringing people like Bobby

12:52

Cartwright Junior on the show to let you know, if

12:54

you see it, you can do it. But you better

12:57

be consistent. You better realize the amount

12:59

of effort you got to put into it. And more importantly,

13:02

you got to surround yourself by

13:04

someone of some people who

13:06

believe in you. In your case, Bobby,

13:09

it got to be your wife, Rinita, talk of talk

13:11

to us about it.

13:12

It is it definitely is her.

13:14

I mean, she is the perfect temperament for this

13:16

because there's a lot of things that

13:19

you know. I went very very fast with

13:21

this interview, but around the

13:23

second Gospel super Fast, actually

13:25

the first Gospel super Fast.

13:27

The people kept telling.

13:28

Me because the tickets were so slow, and you know how black concerts

13:31

are, wait, wait till the last minute, and so

13:34

this three day event and tickets were slow,

13:36

and the people kept coming up to me, aren't

13:38

you going to counsel?

13:39

Aren't you going to cancel?

13:40

I'm like, no, no, the Lord

13:43

told me not to do that, and the Lord told me to

13:45

do this. I'm not canceling Rashan

13:48

Monday morning. Those folks

13:51

were wrapped around that at lunchtime when

13:53

we were wrapped around that colicy and buying

13:55

these last minute tickets on Monday morning.

13:57

The week of the show, the

14:00

show was in June.

14:02

I had been up on the air since February

14:04

trying to push this concert and

14:06

they didn't respond until a week

14:09

before. And that

14:12

week I said, Lord, I don't know if I have promoted

14:14

stomach or not, because this is just ridiculous.

14:16

But there was the last minute, and I

14:18

helped Faith and we had a sponsor

14:21

that year and well, I can just

14:23

say it.

14:23

It was Kmart.

14:24

You know, cam I was in for a nice bundle

14:26

and the week of the show,

14:29

Camar got in some bankruptcy trouble or

14:31

something was going on, and they pulled out. Yes,

14:34

So on Monday morning, I did have no

14:36

sponsor, no major sponsor. The

14:39

tickets looked funny, but

14:41

the lord said, this is what I want you to do.

14:43

So you know, we kept. We

14:46

kept what we were supposed to do. We did

14:48

it, and we were about eight grand short.

14:51

And so I went to my banker and

14:54

I took a second mortgage out of my house.

14:56

Because I'm a man of integrity. If I tell you I'm want

14:58

to pay you, I'm going to pay you. I don't you hook a crook or I

15:00

shouldn't say it like that, but I'm gonna pay you. So

15:04

I went and got I took a second mortgage out of

15:06

my house, and I brung the papers

15:08

on to my wife and I said, honey, I need

15:10

you to sign right here and see what the yellow sticker

15:12

is. And he just sound right here and he just said right here.

15:14

She said, what is it? Don't worry about it neither.

15:17

She said, well, what I said, it's a second mortgage. I need to

15:19

pay the lighting apartment. Just sign right here. She's

15:21

like, oh boy. So every time I

15:23

made my house payment, I was like I'm paying for Gospel

15:25

Superfast And this was twenty something

15:28

years ago. But that's the kind of wife

15:30

I have. It's like she is in all

15:32

in, you know. And so we

15:34

second mortgaged our house, paid

15:36

the lighting department off, kept our integrity,

15:39

went on to the next year, and then we started making

15:41

money, probably out year three or four. We

15:43

didn't make any money in the first two or three years.

15:45

It was you know, that's just the

15:47

way some of these projects go. You have to

15:50

invest, and you have to believe in what you're doing.

15:52

Well, you know, the inconsistency. I'm speaking to Bobby

15:54

cart Right. Gospel super Fast

15:56

is is his dream,

15:58

is his brand. He's developed over the

16:01

years, Like I said, over twenty years. He's

16:03

been doing over twenty three years. Now, let me talk

16:05

to you about you know you have you know, you

16:07

have pop, you have pop music,

16:09

you have rap music, you have R and B music,

16:11

you have gospel. Now, there are different age

16:13

groups that are attracted to those basic

16:16

basic music genres. I'm just talking about

16:18

black because I could mention rock, I can mention

16:21

a gospel I mean our country, but I'm

16:23

not gonna talk about it. I'm just talking about black people and

16:25

these ranges of music they do. Now,

16:27

does it frustrate you when you know

16:29

that a rap autist will sell tickets like

16:32

that, or or a hot r and b

16:34

artists will sell tickets like that, or

16:36

or crossover act like Weekend will

16:39

sell tickets like that. When you see how even

16:41

today the hottest gospel

16:43

acts really don't move tickets as

16:45

fast as the hottest rap act.

16:47

Correct, that is true, That's

16:50

definitely true.

16:50

It's definitely an economic

16:53

golf gap between the

16:57

fact I used the word psychond definitely

17:01

economic dynamic

17:04

to that. And I don't know a

17:06

lot of times they expect gospel

17:09

people to travel and pay,

17:11

you know, and play for free,

17:13

or preachers to come, but they have expenses,

17:16

the two they've got over and

17:18

things and families defeeding the whole nine,

17:20

just like anybody else does. So I

17:23

don't know why there's such a gap there. The

17:25

attractions might not be there, but some artists

17:28

have garnered larger audiences

17:31

than others down through the years.

17:33

Absolutely, Bobby, let's talk about

17:35

sponsors. What do you know, because what you're talking

17:38

business it might have made conversations master class. What

17:40

does a sponsor who sponsors your

17:42

events? What do they look for because people

17:44

are always talking to me, I can need a sponsor

17:46

for this, I need a sponsor for this. You've seen

17:49

what you had to build, Like you said, your first

17:51

concert, you had k Mark and the filed bankruptcy.

17:53

They went away, but you still had smaller sponsors

17:55

that what do you think has been the magical

17:58

hook for you to get sponsors and build

18:00

your dollar on each sponsor over the years.

18:03

Well, you know, it's been, you know, to

18:05

be what I feel personally,

18:08

it's been an anointing that God has given

18:10

me an ability to just

18:13

create something that would appeal to corporate

18:15

America because we have been We've

18:17

been sponsored by Procter and Gamble since two thousand

18:19

and two and we've been sponsored.

18:21

What we did an eight year it

18:24

was either eight years or nine year run and we I

18:26

don't know if you remember Rashan, but we were the All

18:28

State Gospel superfestor right from

18:30

two thousand and nine to twenty

18:33

sixteen.

18:33

So we did eight years six

18:36

years. What is it? I got my math, I'll

18:38

mess up.

18:39

But at least eight years eight years were

18:42

and I know exactly it was eight years because

18:44

it was the length and breadth of the Obama

18:46

presidency that we were the All State

18:49

Gospel Superfast. So All State was

18:51

our title sponsor procerand Gamble has been our

18:53

presenting sponsor or in some form

18:55

or fashion. And you

18:57

know, African American eyeballs are African

18:59

America and eyeballs. And what you have to do

19:01

if you're selling a gospel show

19:03

or something like that, you have to make

19:06

your case, and you have to make your case

19:08

based on the reach that you're able to provide

19:10

to your client, you know, to your potential client.

19:12

It's all about numbers. It's all about reaching

19:14

demographics. Are you reaching women? Are you reaching

19:17

men? Is it eighteen to forty nine, twenty

19:20

five to fifty four, whatever that you

19:22

know, that demographic that you're

19:24

pitching, you have to bring the numbers.

19:26

And one of the things that I did

19:29

because there were other gospel shows

19:32

that preceded me in the business,

19:35

and I knew I was going into territory that

19:37

the folks were already buying those shows,

19:40

and so I never

19:42

sold against another show. It was always,

19:44

you know, if you can find a little

19:47

piece of the pie for us, or if I use a biblical

19:49

phrase, it was crumbs from the master's table.

19:52

I was like but I would never go in there and sell

19:54

against doctor Bobby Jones or anybody like

19:56

that.

19:56

I was always saying, I know you've already been in these

19:59

shows.

19:59

We just asked and you if you could find

20:01

a little place for us in your budget.

20:03

And I always kept my integrity when

20:06

I would get in front of corporate American fron

20:08

of clients. I can sleep at night because

20:10

I never had to cut somebody's throat. I

20:12

never had to go in all underhandedly

20:15

and all that kind of stuff. How people say all these you

20:17

know how people are.

20:19

Let me just ask you this because I got to say this, and

20:21

that's what because I respect

20:23

that. The integrity part. Where it disappoints

20:26

me is the fact that you know, they

20:28

got a big budget for pop, they got a

20:30

big budget for country, they got a

20:32

big budget for rock, And you don't

20:34

have to go in there in the crab and a barrel

20:36

type thing when you into black

20:39

entertainment, black events, you know, because

20:41

that's because they just section off and say,

20:44

well, we just going to reach that audience.

20:46

When we know the power of the black

20:48

dollar, we know the power of the

20:50

black consumer. Because we also know that

20:52

women are probably about seventy

20:55

five of the gospel audience. And

20:57

we also know that black women are the

20:59

decision maker and not

21:01

buying household And so when I

21:03

look at that, you know me, man, I get annoyed

21:06

because I've had the battle the same conversation

21:08

you have try to get sponsors, trying

21:10

to convince them that these same

21:12

black people who they know by cars,

21:15

by computers, you know, by

21:17

homes, by groceries,

21:20

they have to say. They questioned that when

21:22

you when you walk in the room, go, I can put you in

21:24

front of five thousand people, I can put

21:26

you front the ten thousand people, I can put you on the network.

21:29

Themes like that. That frustration is,

21:31

do I understand you go through? And that's

21:33

why I wanted to bring you on my show. Just let

21:35

people hear your story because to

21:37

get to where you've gotten with the Gospel Superfest

21:40

is a testament now who

21:43

you are, but also who

21:45

your wife is as well.

21:47

Well, she's definitely a woman of integerty.

21:50

She's the prayer warrior of the household, that's

21:52

for sure. People

21:54

ask me, you know, how did this the

21:56

holiness woman marry this cardinal brother?

21:59

You know, well, you know mtm

22:01

MA. Now you're out there with a Midnight

22:03

Star. You're out there with a higher player.

22:06

I can only imagine the higher player tour.

22:08

That's I'll just stopped right there because I ain't gonna mess

22:10

up you. I ain't gonna mess up your history.

22:12

I've been I've been born again drug

22:15

free since but

22:18

before eighty seven, you know it was

22:20

on the pop.

22:23

I love it. This has been another edition

22:25

of Money Making Conversation Masterclass hosted

22:27

by me Rushawn McDonald. Thank you

22:29

to our guests on the show today and thank you

22:32

listening to audience now. If you want to listen to

22:34

any episode I want to be a guest on the show,

22:37

visit Moneymaking Conversations dot

22:39

com. Our social media handle is money

22:41

Making Conversation. Join us next week

22:43

and remember to always leave with your gifts.

22:46

Keep winning.