Hey, welcome back to the Follow-Up Media podcast. My name is Christian Lee. Today, we're going to be sharing a story that showcases the creativity, the vision, and commitment we bring to our clients at Follow-Up Media. Last year, we were thrilled to present an opportunity, and a bunch of solutions to

an outdoor adventure park right here in our backyard called Iron Mountain. Iron Mountain is a beautiful 4,300 acre piece of property where people bring their ATVs, their motocross bikes, their trucks, and they really have everything.

It's like a corporate version of an outdoor park because that's how nice it is. It's beautiful and it's right here in our backyard. So, we connected with them. We had a meeting and after that meeting we had set up a second meeting to really discuss what solutions follow-up media could bring to the table

and we did that. We recorded this pilot episode that you are going to see in between the first and the second meeting because our idea was simple. We were going to bring our capability and leverage one of their hosts that they bring in for events whose name is Lewis Austin. You will see um coming up here

in a few minutes. Lewis has been ingrained in the action sports world for over 20 years. Him and his son Riley, Riley works for me actually, has been riding motocross bikes his whole life.

Lewis has interviewed some of the most notable athletes in the action sports arena. Travis Pastana, I mean, the list goes on and on. So, using Lewis as the face for the Iron Mountain podcast was the idea. It was simple really. It made absolute sense. And then after discussing it and meeting, we determined

that we could leverage Lewis's 20 years of relationships and really tie that in to what we were going to be doing with Iron Mountain. It fit it fit perfectly. We were going to help build their audience by bringing in athletes and then bringing awareness about the property itself. But just like some

things, you know, we thought that this was a no-brainer for them. like how could they say no to this but for whatever the reason their silence said it all. I mean they and you know we can't maybe they thought it was a bad idea. I sit back and go uh how could they? But that's not my place to say

it's not my business and I don't know what it looks like coming from their perspective. But that being said the value of the idea is no less. And because we thought that this idea was so valuable, I was like, well, we need to bring it to somebody else.

You know, we had the perfect combination for a great concept. And whether you call it the Iron Mountain podcast or you call it something else, this episode is a testament to the value we strive to create for our clients. It's not just about great ideas. It's about building something that connects with their

audiences and drives impact. And even when projects don't come to fruition, we use those experiences to push forward with new opportunities. Check out this pilot episode.

I'm here with my good buddy and the one of the most talented hosts of any live event anybody has ever seen in action. His name is Lewis. No last names. Ah, that makes it too personal. Oh, it makes it too personal. Okay. his social security number, mother's maiden name, and first dog's pet or first pet's name

was uh was pet spike spike or something probably something real cheesy like that. Anyway, Lewis has just come into the blend which is a co-working space that followup media operates two studios out of. Welcome, Lewis Al. Oh, man. Nice intro. Thank you very much, Chris. In a world,

we got some history for We do. We got a lot. We might get into it at some point or another, but we have a very big meeting coming up on Tuesday, and I'm hoping that follow-up media will be able to execute um if given the opportunity and help this one of the most beautiful concepts I personally have ever seen.

And I know you have frequented Iron Mountain Resort. Oh, yeah. And Iron Mountain Resort, if anybody does not know, is a a 4300 acre. Let me say that. 4,3 Do you know how many square feet that is? It's 187 million square ft. Damn. You're good.

You don't even have a calculator. How'd you do that? Well, if you take the acre size and an acre is 43,560 ft. Oh, jeez. You times that by 4,300 acres and you've got 187 million square feet. Man, you totally just shut me down with your numbers. I blacked out. Yeah, you did

for like 2 seconds. It's hard to think. 187 million square ft. Is it really? That's what my calculator said. Lee, I knew it was big. Pull up your calculator and see if yours matches mine. Let's do it. Come on. 43,560 square ft to an acre. What? 3,000? I think so. Yeah. Times 4,300 acres.

184,900. Are you sure it's Wait, sorry. Let me There's so many zeros. I've never seen that many zeros. The charts. It is. It's 18= 3.14444.

I have never seen that many zeros. All right. So, and commas. So, it's 184,900,000 square feet. It is a piece of heaven. It is a piece of heaven. And to expand a little bit, not only is it a beautiful property in North Georgia in Delana, this the owner definitely had a vision.

I don't know how you could go, hey, I'm going to try to acquire 4,300 acres with no plan, right? And he bought it. I mean, he definitely probably had some coin. Uh, I'm not even going to get into the possible numbers of what it would have cost even at 5,000 an acre, which I've already done the math on just so I

could play around with it. I I just had to know uh roughly like what are we talking about here? And it's definitely in the, you know, 20s, 30s of millions if he built an off-road adventure park essentially motocross side by sides, they do races, events. He built this beautiful lodge that has a store that's

just got any like helmets, boots, I mean any type of gear you would need for this off-road extreme adventure like hobby job, business, I don't know, whatever. Lifestyle. Lifestyle is the way to do it. He's got camp grounds now with power. He's got cabins. Back to the lodge. The the restaurant there is like

I swear to God it's like fivestar. Like it is really good. I don't know what the chef's name. I have no earthly idea, but man, that the the restaurant's on point. Well, I think if if everything goes right on Tuesday, we might need to have the chef on because you are a fan of I am. Let's

get Huerto. I don't know. I know he wears black latex gloves, kind of like a tattoo artist, but does that make you That's all I saw was hands. That's why it's all right. That sounded really weird, but that's all I could see. You got these gentle black hands. No, no, it's not that kind of party. I just

wanted to back up to the lodge because not only is it beautiful, it is functionable. Like that's where you go in. That's where everybody sees when once they step on property, they walk into this lodge and epic. Oh my goodness. Beautiful. It really is. You know how many Colorado is? There's so

many doors and you don't know where they go. I went with your son who helped get us the meeting with and so did you with Iron Mountain because you know we saw that while they have this immensely beautiful property while they have it it is a destination they've created campgrounds I mean like I said

campgrounds uh cabins now a restaurant they're building a service center right so so and they have so trails that go I mean 187 million Yeah. Right. Right. And you can rent machines side by side.

Right. You'll be able to service, but not just one kind. Like there's several kinds cuz there's all different levels of riding, right? Like there's there's advanced, there's novice, there's beginners that you can rent a machine and hit these woods. And a rented machine, it is like a freedom like no

other. It really is. And it's in our backyard. when I took a look at their stuff from a from a production and marketing agency standpoint and I'll be real as soon as I started, you know, because that's what we do. You know, we are kind of a grassroots company while we love business to come to us, but a

lot of times we will identify businesses that we think have a remarkable amount of potential that are not operating like from a company at their fullest. And that doesn't mean what they do at on property and on site is wrong.

Obviously, they're doing something right. But in this case, their digital presence, their content creation, their social media consistency and brand level, I guess you'd say, um, brand awareness. Well, brand awareness, but you know, you've got a destination property resort. Mhm. Your social media

output should not only have the consistency but it should also look the part, right? Yes. Yes. It needs to be as top-notch and it needs to be managed correctly because and so once we identified that and their YouTube has nothing. So there there were just some very things that I thought they could

take this thing to the next level. Oh yeah. And you mean of off-road parks and off-road destinations bringing people in from other states featuring all these amazing things. And so after a lot of hunting and found in the pavement Yeah. And and calling and leaving messages and calling

again. Followup media. Followup media man. We don't stop till the money drop. No, I'm just playing. No, no. We had a meeting and you know I I'll be honest with you. when I first when he, you know, he was very he was polite when we when he pulled up in one of his side by sides because I think I didn't know this

until we started talking. He was about 20 minutes late to our meeting. Oh, well, you were airing out some dirty in here. Okay, go for it. No, no, no. But it was very it was very cool though because when I I guess he had decided there's a few I think there's like an overlook place that there is on property

where you can see downtown Atlanta. Um I don't know if is it 360° of view almost pretty close. It's pretty close. Well, I think there was another point on the property that would be another potential spot. So I think he woke up that morning and said, "Hey, I'm going to clear 30 acres. Get out of here. That dude is

something else." You would not recognize him if you put him in a lineup and said, "All right, show me which one of these guys up here or ladies that owns this property right here." You would not pick him. You would not pick him. I I don't think so. No. I mean, he obviously does very well, I would imagine. And I think

he's got a beautiful home. Uh you've seen I don't even know where it is. Like it's not off the main. Do you have to go down like one like a dirt road or some road at one point you do, but you I think you can get to it from from Iron Man. I'm sure there is multiple ways to get there. I mean, you're talking about

40. Like, we're driving down the road because we got there early and we like the restaurant wasn't open that day. So, I was like, "Oh, that sucks." Cuz we were going to go there and eat. Um, so we had to drive to this the closest place. Oh, the gas station. The gas station has a sandwich shop. Yeah,

right. But when I pulled out to go to the sandwich shop before the meeting, I'm like, how far are we going to drive and it still be part of his property? Oh, right. We don't I don't know the outline. I haven't looked at a plat map, so I know it goes back obviously, right?

He told me from his mouth, he's like, "Dude, I would love just nothing more than to get up, grab a a little um uh like you pick up trash with a little little pinchers and pick up trash all day long and go through the trails." Like that's what he wants to do and he's content with it. He like mind-blowing

all these great, you know, envisions of okay, I want to put this here and I want the service coming up. He really listens to people that are coming up that suggesting. He's not too big for any of it. and you tell him good, bad or indifferent, he's going to listen to you. But he's a good dude. Well, I told

him before we sat down actually when So, we ended up going to the conference room, like which was upstairs of the lodge. Oh, yeah. And that's when I started like, man, how many doors? Where do all these doors go? Like, I got to know. I got to know what's behind door A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Right. Um, and

let's make a deal. Yeah. And so we go into like I guess it would be the back side um of like when you go up the stairs there's still more shop. You go through you there's some executive offices to the right. He probably could rent that out for bigger parties that wanted to like be up there but there's a

big conference table. I'm sure that's where he gets down with his meetings and that's where we got down. Okay. And I told him, I said, you know, uh, before we even start, I said, obviously you have a tremendous vision for this place, which I'm sure some of which I still can't even I mean, I don't know you,

right? Like that's the first time we met, but I'm sure there's a ton behind this vision that has not even yet been realized. And he goes, one day I'll share it with you. And I'm like, god dang, what else? He died on this. Was this would be a Is this going to be a a naked and afraid? Can we do like naked

and afraid out here? Like turns into like Oz like Wizard of Oz. One day I'll share the rest of my dream. Yeah. Enter the father show. It's a sun hunter with some virtual glasses on flying stuff around. I know. I knew that's what that's how you got all this done. So, but we're we're meeting on Tuesday to

talk as a followup. So, I think from what I gathered, he wanted to come here and see these studios. Mhm. He loved the idea. He saw the value. He needs consistent content creation, whether it be B-roll, sizzle reels to recap some of the bigger events on site, right? Um other, you know, um other pieces of

content that showcase some of the features of the property, whether it be maps or what I mean, just it needs to there's so much to talk about, right? There's a lot of information, right? And then I presented him with launching the Iron M podcast hosted by none other than this man sitting across from me, Lewis

the crowd. Awesome. We'll see how that works out. But no, and he loved it. And so now I'm hopefully on Tuesday and and what Lewis besides his creativity and his tremendous hosting and people skills as far as when he's got a mic in his mouth.

Oh, here we go. You have you have loved the extreme sport arena for your whole life, I guess. Would that be? Yeah. All my whole life. You've been hosting events like Glamus uh stuff for Polaris. Um, what are some of the other events? Red Bull.

Yeah. Uh, hosted some things for Red Bull. Everybody all over the Polaris has so many different divisions. There's Razer, there's there's Ranger, there's Slingshot, there's so many different ones. So, I've kind of put my hand in a different like different parts of Polaris that I've hosted for. Um, what a

corn maze. Yeah. So, there's a band there's a um a company that works for uh Polaris 6 that I really have gotten in good with and they they'll send me to Vegas, you know.

So, we've hosted a lot of really cool things over the years. I think the most gratifying I would say it would have to be the Camp Razers only because this is my 10th year doing it and we started off by doing one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast and now we're just kind of doing the West

Coast which I think we should bring back east coast. But that is one of my all-time favorite things to to host. But I I'll host anything like I did I hosted Thursday party for little and over nine and over there's laws in Georgia about anyway. Um, so now there

is he just so there I got to host a ton of stuff and and to be able to to have Iron Mountain in my backyard like I've been all over the country to see different off-road parks or and and some of them are are really good. Some of them are are just that or just off-road parks

kind of real backwoods, not commercial. No, I mean Iron Mountain has that kind of commercial front. It's a resort, right? Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's exactly right. It the resort part of it changes the whole landscape of what it really is like and what it could be. Yeah, exactly. I didn't I have

never seen a place where you can go rent a machine, a cabin, and be there all weekend long and have something new happen. Like there's something new coming in. There's new people coming in.

There's new new groups coming in. There's new events that they have. Like there is so much to do on just this one property. Like you were saying earlier, the tail on the doggy. It's my favorite thing out of there. You silly. Yeah, we do it. It is very refreshing to have a off-road park in our backyard in Delana,

Georgia that caters to everything. Motocross. Uh there's I love the motocross track. There's uh short course, there's overlooks, there's trails. This is what's really cool about Iron Mountains trails. Uh like not like other people. The other trails that I've been to, there's either Hey, you can go

on this one if you're intermediate. This one you don't even want to touch, right? But a lot of the the trails that they have, they'll have a red and green. It's on the same trail. Red, you better be a little bit more experienced. So green split off. It splits off and and a lot of the But everybody starts at the same

spot. So cool. Yeah, it's so cool. So if you go up with a with a group of your friends and you've been doing it a while, but the guy in the back has never done it, then he could take the green trail and you you know, you can show him what you're doing. But it's it's really familyfriendly. See, I didn't know that.

That that's that's inside information, right? That you know that Lewis is going to take you on these adventures through the 184 million square feet. I'm going to write him down. Right. Why do you have to write it now? That's a lot of numbers, man. Those zeros get me every time. Million 0000 comma 0 comma 0

comma dot dot. No. And so your son Riley, who works with my company, Follow-up Media, who is the vice president of sales and he is not here. Big name man, just turned 22 yesterday, right? Are giving a shout out. Um, but you are what you bring to the table as far as the

relationships you've built. Let's not forget all things all things. Lewis been on the radio. uh in Atlanta for 99X for um what was the other one they changed it to? It was the Oh, 989.

The Bone. The Bone. Yeah, that was fun. That was right there with all things Gate 94 hours. Not to get off track, but I learned about that when I was doing a live broadcast down at AMS Atlanta Motor Speedway. The bone. As soon as I was done with my shift. Hey, by the way, you're on the bone. And he goes, "Hey,

Lewis, just want to let you know uh that was the last shift of 99x. were changed to 989 the bone. What in the hell? What? Like I blew my mind and I was like, "Okay, what kind of music?" And I started listening. I was like, "Oh, it wasn't that bad, right, man?" It was like fat girl anthems. Like it was

nothing but Oh, wow. Hey, what's the name? Nothing wrong with Big Girl an Hey. Hey, we're going to put that on repeat. Fat Girl anthems. Butterbread anthem. How about that? Butterbread.

Muffin top anthem. Yeah, right. The anthem of the muffin top. But no. So, you have built relationships and you've hung out with Travis Pastana. You've been to his property, haven't you? Yeah.

Yeah. Took the family, Riley. He never invited you back, but it's No, we're supposed to go back cuz Hubert Hubert's uh is I guess still his Travis Pastron's mechanic, but he's everybody's favorite redneck. And I see him. We're at always We're always came from his sleep. What I'm getting at is like we have a list of

extreme athletes that have won that are recognized in many different oh like extreme sports, right? And that we will feature eventually, you know, and space out on the Iron Mountain podcast that's mixed with the celebrities and athletes that frequent Iron Mountain anyway.

Right. Right. that we will potentially, this is a potential, have access to. And so, which not only will it create great entertaining content, people who love off-road adventure and sports, off-road sports, you know, people that, you know, that embrace the extreme adventure lifestyle, right? I guess you'd say some

spectators, but also some that are actually are embracing the lifestyle that have toy haulers, have their own vehicles, have, you know, uh, you know, basically that's what they like to do on their Well, and they say with age comes a cage. So, there's nothing like getting a side by side. That's what they say.

With age comes a I make that up. That was that was Travis. That was Travis showed that to me, man. man. And so I think that content strategy now now going back to cuz you know I'm a business but going back and and while I haven't embraced like I have I've done some cool I've done some extreme

adventure type stuff. I've never been in a um a racer. Right. Like that's crazy. No. Right. That's crazy to me. But but but you you did I've done that nine. I didn't open water. No, I mean I but so what I have done is I've traveled 600 miles in 5 days from Juno, Alaska to Prince Roupert, British Columbia on a

modified jet ski. Insane. With nothing but a 30 lit backpack in my hull, man. One day on the podcast on Iron Mountain Podcast, I got to bring you on. You got to bring some of those pictures. You can put footage video. Oh yeah. Insane. No, no. We the glaciers and the colors and you're riding by on a jet ski that has

gasoline on it. Oh, I mean it was so gnarly. And then I made love to see. Oh god. From a content perspective, this will elevate Iron Mountain, the resort, and all of the beautiful things it has to offer. All 184 million square feet.

There it is. Their content strategy to a whole another level. Oh yeah, without a doubt. YouTube, social, um, web, it will take it to the next level. I'm so confident of that. And so, I'm super excited because while we help other businesses and, you know, to people in the extreme into this lifestyle would

look at, oh god, that's boring, boring content. But it it appeals to somebody. But having an outdoor resort like this in this arena in like the like is something that not only your son who works with me but myself can appeal to everybody and it's fun and the and I'm not saying

there's nothing wrong with attorneys content uh multifacilities management content or or even chap I've got a podcast the chaplain's compass which actually you would think would be boring but they have some chaplain that are using mushrooms. Get out of here. To treat and help, which is like next

level, right? I thought it was just holy water. You're good. Silicide and like these these chaplain are tripping their butts off and I don't know that that's true, but so so this content is going to be I'm I'm all for it. And I want to be I want to go up there. I want to be able to help tell the stories of these

events, right, the right way. Like you said, it's a lifestyle, right? But and and and nothing wrong with what they've with what Iron Mountain has done, but the branding, the the video, the way that the videos are shot and put together could be told in a much more epic way. And that is what one of the

way I'm excited to tell those stories from the mountain. Right. Yes. And let me back me back you up in the mountain. Yeah, I like that. I happens in the mountain stays in the mountain unless it's a seal. There's a seal involved, right? All right. Look, as I said, I have been to a lot of parks across this

country. I'm not trying to boast. I'm not trying to to to get a big head. I'm just I'm setting the tone that I've seen a lot of parks and I've seen how they operate and I see what works and what doesn't work. I have not yet in my what have I've been doing this 20 years, 15 years. I have yet to see what your

vision that you're telling me that you can do for Iron Mountain. No one is even coming close to what you're about to provide. I'm not blowing smoke. I'm not trying to get brownie points that you guys did me. I have never ever seen what you guys are about to do. Dude, if if if we are given the opportunity, it is

going to be next level. Yep. I see it. And there's a couple things that that need to happen in order to do that. Obviously hopefully my relationship with um Craig um uh hopefully he's as we get going down the road hopefully a little bit and we start to build our relationship and trust right and I

understand his vision even more right I mean I'm just going on what I see from what's available you know what I'm saying he could have a nudist colony right there when you pull ahead don't don't don't suggest that he probably that's not the conctional section. All right. What

you see here, I'll be in the restaurant is is neutral. Do you know how this conversation was going to go? Like, you know, I mean, obviously, I knew it would be funny and I knew it would be good and I knew you would provide insight, but I almost think this right here, this convo could be used as a great trailer episode

as what we are going to showcase for the Iron Mountain Resort. Oh, yeah. on the Iron Mountain podcast um and with celebrity interviews with um action extreme adventure record holders. I don't know how you would even classify some of these uh people. I know that um some of them almost all of the people on

that list hold records in some No, in some aspect. Yeah. But all of them will provide great insight. Um I'm sure will be they're probably characters in their own right. It'll be very entertaining.

And not to mention the events that they hold there are getting bigger and better each time we hold an event. It gets bigger and better and we are going to churn out that content. I'm hoping for them in such a way that it makes it it just tells a story. Each event should tell a story like and it should be told.

It does. Right. It does. It's beautiful up there. It's it No. Right. Right. But but we've got to capture and put it on footage otherwise. But that's where you come in. Right. Right. Of course. Well, I'm going to I'm going to try to aid in helping tell that story. Obviously, everybody leaves there with their own

story and their own experience, but most of it's recorded through their memory or what little shots they have on their phone. It's kind of I see my company helping be um capturing some of those moments, you know, on the ground in the air and putting it together in such a way where people go, "Holy I am

not going to miss that next year, right? That's going on the calendar, right? It looked like an experience, a time, a weekend." Because when you think about it, even you go up there, you get out in nature, you got your machine, you're just hauling ass, the weather's beautiful. Whether it's an event weekend

or not an event weekend, you're just you love that outdoors, you're just nature at its finest. Y people got their clothes on, everything's happening 365 days a year. Right. Right. Right. But what I'm saying is is that's fantastic.

and and you know, but there's a certain anything you do over and over becomes a certain redundancy. It's like you go to the bar, but how many times do you go to the bar where all your friends are there? Like the people that are married who never come out come out and then you leave going, that was an epic night that

just stands out in your mind. Right. I'm not saying every time you ride, it's not going to be an epic day. and you're not going to remember it. But anything you do over and over, those epic nights or epic events or epic shows you go to, that is what I believe the goal of Iron Mountains events and races and and

experiences, the c the camping, the bands they're bringing up, the fireworks. I mean, we're just touching. We can't even go. We've got to go and I've got to shut this thing down. But I think the Iron Mountain podcast I hope is coming soon. Yeah, this is it would shine some light on

what a great vid and I believe when we go back and look at this I think it might be funny but people are going to go damn I not only want to see more but I want to check out Iron Mountain Resort. Do it. And we're going to bring interviews. We're going to bring entertainment. We are going to bring

maybe some educational maybe some I mean Lewis likes to make people cry and a lot of times it's not for the best of reasons. All right. Thank you so much for um watching what's to come. Thank you for your time, Lewis. And maybe I'll try to have this edited and show it to Craig.

Here, take this home, buddy. No, I love it. I love it, man. Let's do it. Hey, thanks for listening to the pilot episode originally created for Iron Mountain Resort in October of last year.

While the particular project didn't move forward, it sparked something greater after reflecting on the value we brought to the table and we decided to take this vision into our own hands. And I thought to myself, why create this for somebody else and just give it away? I mean that is what we do for our clients. We want

to drive impact. We want to build audiences. But this to me seemed like we were just giving it away. You know, things that are really valuable that require our time and leverage the relationships we spend so much time building and nurturing, it's hard to put a price on it. So, while we

thought it would be a great idea for other outdoor adventure parks like Durham Town or Brimstone, we decided to keep it in house. We have decided to launch the Against the Grain podcast. This podcast is going to give audiences and fans of action sports an inside behindthescenes look up close and

personal interviews with some of the most notable athletes in those action sports. And when you say action sports and extreme sports, the list is long. We want to provide coverage of big events, X games, maybe even the Olympics one day. So, this new podcast is more than an idea. It's a movement. Against the

grain embodies the same innovative spirit that drives everything else we do at Follow-Up Media, and we can't wait to share it with you. And if your company is ready to take your brand to the next level, feel free to hit us up at any one of our links below in the episode description or at followupmedia.com. And

don't forget to subscribe, like, and join the show if you prefer.