Truthache

Salespeople are the worst part of humanity. Our guest, Ian Illig, is not the one who said this, but we almost got him to agree with us. 
Think about it. They wear plaid jackets or moisture-wicking fabrics, and promise you they’re giving you a good deal while selling you a lemon. The average salesperson puts pressure on you and disappears after they get their commission. And you're left with the memory of a creepy smile of a guy who calls you "buddy" all the time. That’s what we often picture when someone says “salesman.”
Ian, on the other hand. He is not a salesman. He doesn’t need to be. He has luxurious hair and genuinely wants to see you thrive. Who wouldn’t beg to buy from someone like that? That's why Ian says high-integrity people should go into sales. Because the bar is low, but when you apply the traits of being a good human, you end up making friends, and sometimes, you sell something while you’re at it.
In this chat, we discuss the worst parts of humanity and how you can avoid being an insufferable gasbag. We also discussed the hot air coming out of Washington and the biggest referral fee in history.
About the guest:
Ian Illig is a sales strategy consultant for early-stage companies at stompbox.io.
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

AI is a joke, and we should take it seriously.
What do Cody Sharp and a software engineer have in common? Neither one of them writes any code. In Cody’s case, he has not been writing code for even longer. Now, with two working SaaS products on the market, I’d say he’s an expert at it.
When we talk about artificial intelligence, Cody is always the first person to come to mind. Not just because of his own intellectual makeup, but because of our ongoing conversations off the mic about the junk AI has allowed us to produce in large supply, and our angry posts online about it. We talk about the necessity of AI in the survival of our economy, as well as its role in creating the modern city dump.
About the guest:    •  Cody owns a web development company, https://sharpguyswebdesign.com/, and is a software developer, basically, thanks to AI. He recently launched an app called RECACE.com.
Mentioned in this episode •  Cody’s newsletter about desperate AI (https://mailchi.mp/4cad0684d3de/turkeys-8342264?e=0a0da13c63)  circus pitches  •  Daniel's screed on LinkedIn about Asana and AI (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danielherndon_hey-asana-were-friends-right-why-do-activity-7360715123545595904-IG-e?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAG_Aa4B7U6u1QOl_j0Mo-1ZpLBX645FICw)  •  Reflector’s episode about paid protestors (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/paid-protesters/id1743666262?i=1000752900076).
About The Hosts:  •  Daniel Herndon (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielherndon/)  is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency (http://hrndn.com)  and author of The Lorem Ipsum (http://danielkherndon.com).  •  Michael Salemi (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-salemi-40b54b16/)  owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads (https://colored-threads.com/).

If you want to relax and feel good about yourself, there are two good ways to do it. Visiting Stacey Blanton's spa, Skin Renew, or being a guest on our podcast. Stacey, for an afternoon, decided to do the latter, to share how she looks back on business. To learn and then move on. Another good way to relax.
What keeps us up at night are the decisions we made that were maybe the wrong ones, or at least a bigger bite than we thought they were. Stacey shares how she grew her spa business to a second location, from the lessons learned in startup mode, to a new kind of lesson in scale-up mode. 
In either case, if you tell Stacey she's not going to make it, then she almost certainly will. And we can relate (and throughout this episode, we do). 
About Stacey:
Stacey Blanton owns Skin Renew, with locations in Greenwood and Southport, Indianapolis. https://skinrenewdayspa.com/
Mentioned in this Episode:
The time when Markwayne Mullen challenged the President of the Teamsters to a fight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBD4Ous5zY0 
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum, found at https://hrndn.com/ and http://danielkherndon.com/.Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads, found at https://colored-threads.com/. 

Oliver Mast was about as close as you get to becoming a pro golfer as anyone ever gets.
He was playing full-time in tournaments, moved to Hilton Head, and was carving his way forward, until the love for the game began to wane, and the uphill battle to get a spot on a major tour became bleaker. Eventually, he decided he needed to hang up his clubs. 
Oliver moved back to Indiana and found an enviable spot as a golf pro on one of the most beautiful private courses in Indianapolis. We talked about what it's like to come within a grass club head’s distance of your dreams, and to give it up, how to pivot, and how to find happiness in chasing a new dream.
About the guest:
Oliver Mast is a professional golfer who had aspirations of making it on the PGA Tour.  He is currently the Assistant Pro at the Woodstock Club, where he continues to chase his dream, albeit in a much different way.
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

We are part of the culture we created or the one we’ve accepted.
Jenny Vance is very, very lucky. 
She’s a strategic growth consultant and a CRO at a tech company. But I’m not talking about some financial achievement, a business exit, or a lucrative executive role, although she’s had some of those; I’m talking about everyday, strange luck.
She tells us about 30 rounds being fired, feet away from her bedroom window, none of which hit her home. She and her husband we’re 100% safe, too, even as one person in her driveway was not as lucky. She also tells us about a car that flipped over nearly as close to her house, from which she also escaped harm.
Her career path has looked more like course terrain than smooth pavement, but with plenty of worthy achievements and successes. Along the way, she’s learned that she needs to trust two people. Her paid advisors, and herself, with the latter being most important. You might say she’s lucky in business because she has made her luck when she needed it.
Add to that, trusting her employees. Jenny talked some sense into Daniel when he did his typical Gen Z rant in which he almost certainly has a good point, but a change of heart comes when we discuss how generations have learned secrets to work-life that the prior never understood, or took for granted. Jenny says that while Gen Z may use different language, they know what treatment should look like. She explains that culture is created by the leaders, and, as we learn in our conversation, what those leaders create often comes from the lessons they’ve learned, or failed to learn, when they were the new professional on the team.
About the Guest:
Jenny Vance is the founder and CEO of GrowthJen (​​https://www.growthjen.com/) and the CRO of software company, Encamp.
Mentioned in this episode:
Senator Chris Murphy questions Jeremy Carl, who Trump has nominated for Assistant Secretary of State, about his complaints about the “erasure of white culture.” https://www.instagram.com/reels/DUrOt_YjSGA/   
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

They say it gets harder to make new friends in your adult years. Kids, work, and being annoying can all be factors, but that's not the case for Michael and Daniel, because they need at least two hands and maybe even a foot to count their closest friends – in other words, they are successful geriatric extroverts with a busy social life.
This conversation is all about making friends, keeping them, and thriving because you have them. We define what qualifies someone as a friend, versus a really, really good acquaintance who you hug at the end of the meeting, or a terrible friend who you love to hate. We count our actual close friends, and if you're thinking about listening, I will tempt you by pointing out that we may have even mentioned you by name.
We discuss how to avoid dating apps, how to be better at networking (and why it's good for your social life), and all this while enjoying some really, really good coffee.
Mentioned in the episode:  We made sure to talk about our weekend plans to not watch the Melania movie, which did okay (but not great) at the box office.
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads.

How to live out your beliefs on the streets, at work, and in the community.
Alex Holt was a creative director at a church when a job loss pushed him to start a full-time creative agency. A bad weekend turned out better than what he would have chosen.
Since Alex focuses on helping his clients understand the beliefs that shape their business decisions, we thought we’d ask him to talk about what *he* believes.
So, to keep things light, we decided to discuss political protests and whether they are a problem or a necessary part of culture.
After that, we discussed religion, how one arrives at their beliefs, and how religious institutions become political. Pretty easy topics.
We also discussed the creative business, why bigger is not always better, and how the business community is seeking ways to be flexible and cost-effective, leading to more gig workers and allowing entrepreneurs to build lean teams and optimize for quality rather than quantity. 
Also in this episode, Michael Salemi rubs his warm vacation in Mexico in our faces, and I dealt with some mild technical difficulties as a host who is simultaneously also a producer. Everything worked out great.
About The Guest:
Alex Holt is a founder and owner at CRTR Studio (https://www.crtrstudio.com/), a brand and identity design studio. He also hosts the podcast, Creative Belief.
Mentioned in this episode:
We briefly discuss how effective managers are often hated or viewed as controversial, a point which referenced a discussion in the comments section of The Lorem Ipsum, an issue that inspired some of the content of this episode.
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

Why should I hire a coach who has never played my game?
If you are an entrepreneur or manager, you probably make a lot of decisions based on intuition mixed with data. Why do you need someone else to charge you to talk you through doing what you do every day? And why are there so many business coaches out there?
As business-coach skeptics, Michael and I talk with Adam Weber, a tech founder turned business coach, about this and ask him to help us with our unbelief. We talk about how the best business leaders are people with strong intuition who gather information quickly and make decisions without friction, but that the decision-making in a vacuum can get fatiguing and lonely.
Adam shared with us what 10 years of research taught him about people management. He also shared what he sees as the biggest challenges plaguing businesses today. We asked whether anyone can be trained into leadership or whether management roles are reserved for some and not others. I think you know his answer. 
About The Guest:
Adam Weber is a former executive and business coach at https://www.adamweber.co/.
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and swag company, Colored Threads.

What it’s like to take a break and come back to a mess?
Well, it’s nice to take a long break from work over the holidays, and we talk about how unplugging can benefit someone who spends all year working hard. Then, we decided to catch up on the latest headlines. 
After our guest cancelled, we were relieved that we didn’t have to subject them to a discussion about important breaking news, after ICE activity in Minneapolis led to the death of a protester, Renee Nicole Good. We discussed our views on this situation, and, as usual, they are mixed. We discussed what we would do if our own neighborhoods were subject to significant ICE activity.
Then we discuss the USA’s renewed commitment to imperialism, what’s happening with Tesla stock (because Michael’s best friend is his car, although Daniel and Aaron are fighting for second best). We then discuss how tariffs affected Michael’s sales and profit margins, since his import-heavy business became our own little scientific study (consisting of a sample size of exactly one business).
And then, suddenly, this became a sports talk podcast, with 66% of the hosts not following sports. Tune in to get updates, analysis, and confusion about the game(s) weekly.
Mentioned in this episode:
An important fact check on a point of discussion: Crowds at some rallies are indeed planned and compensated by organizations like crowdsondemand.com, which is hired by companies as a PR effort and deploys protestors who are compensated. The organization is often hired by for-profit companies and partisan actors. Indivisible also plans rallies and protests, but claims to be a grassroots organization focused on opposing the MAGA movement and authoritarianism. They do not pay protesters and are not hired by for-profit companies. The claim that protests are staged is true, but the claim needs context. In general, studies show that paid or “astroturfed” protests (as opposed to organic “grass roots” protests ) represent less than 5% of all protests in the US.
This report shows the “bodycam” footage of the ICE agent who shot Renee Nicole Good, which was actually a handheld cellphone.
The department of homeland security claims it is getting dangerous criminals off the streets. It was said on the show that ICE is in neighborhoods for the purpose of serving warrants, however ICE generally operates without judicial warrants, but with a lower administrative warrant issued internally which doesn’t require probable cause nor are they issued by a judge. Some lawsuits assert arrests have taken place without any kind of warrant at all in some cases arresting American citizens, and at least some incidents of this sort have been confirmed. Because this is a critical detail, we wanted to add some additional data for context. According to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) as of November 30, 2025, ICE detained 65,735 individuals, of whom 73.6% (48,377) had no criminal convictions, while 26.4% (17,358) had criminal convictions.  A more detailed breakdown from the Cato Institute, using ICE custody data as of November 15, 2025, indicates that 73% of detainees had no criminal convictions, but 47% had neither convictions nor pending criminal charges—meaning 26% had pending charges (but no convictions) and 27% had convictions.  Of those with convictions, only 5% involved violent crimes. 
 
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and the author of The Lorem Ipsum. He also produces our podcast.
Aaron Douglas is an internet marketing and AI-readiness consultant and the owner of AIRAA.
Michael Salemi owns Colored Threads, a company that produces branded apparel and swag, including the Truthache branded tumblers our guests receive. 
 

How to inspire anyone to be creative, no matter how boring they are.
If the family business has an open door for you, isn’t that the best option? That’s the question Darren Cooper has asked himself. Stability sounds nice, but so does entrepreneurship, and if you’ve got the bug to create, it's difficult to do anything else. Starting your own thing is what it takes for some, stability be damned. But, as Darren explains, even the most mundane topics or businesses are interesting in the hands of a creative, including yours.
We discuss why long-form content is an essential tool for any business, and why it seems like everyone has a podcast. We talk about where marketing is going and why all the changes suggest that nothing has really changed, other than the technology. Finally, we talk about Darren’s naming convention for his kids, which is, shall we say, unconventional.  
 
About the guest:
Darren Cooper is the owner of 1898 Creative, a creative consultancy specializing in “effortless video content creation for coaches.” 
About The Hosts:
Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency and author of The Lorem Ipsum.
Michael Salemi owns Colored Threads, a company that produces branded apparel and swag. 
Aaron Douglas is an AI readiness consultant and owner of AIRAA.