Being a Buffalo: Using Purpose-Driven Culture to Charge the Storm

Michael Mendenhall: Welcome to the TriNet PeopleForce podcast. I'm your host, Michael Mendenhall. TriNet is a full-service HR solutions company committed to empowering small and medium size businesses by supporting their growth and enabling their people. We recently changed the name of our podcast From Shifting Grounds to PeopleForce Podcast, our franchise of people. For us, content continues to expand through multiple channels and grow as we evolve the brand.

Three years ago, we launched the broadcast event TriNet PeopleForce and it has since continued to provide insightful and actionable content. We recognize our goals for this podcast were rooted in our vision for trying new PeopleForce and the best way to move forward was to combine our programs into one to ensure our audience hears it through multiple channels in a very similar way. You can catch new episodes of PeopleForce Podcast every month on Apple, Spotify and Rise.TriNet.com.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing Charley Humbard, the founder and CEO of UP Entertainment; Home to UPtv. Aspire TV, Faith and Family and Cine Romántico. Charley has a unique business background, having successfully transitioned through several different mass media platforms, starting from local broadcast TV to cable networks and now to streaming.

His entrepreneurial spirit and passion to help others has resulted in building an entertainment company that leaves a positive impact on people's lives. Charley, thank you for being here.

Charley Humbard: Michael, it is my pleasure, my honor to be here with you today. Thanks for having me on.

Michael: I mean, how exciting. Let's go all the way back. Elvis. Johnny Cash. Are there any others? I mean, here you are, just a young kid and you experience some of the best artists that we've seen, not only in writing and publishing, but their vocal performances. How exciting was that? Is that sort of what got you very involved in what you're doing today?

Charley: Well, you've done your homework. You did a little digging there, but many years ago in my life. But yes, I had an opportunity to grow up around those type of influences and certainly had a lasting impact on me. You know, I was born the son of somebody who was the first televangelist also. So some days, today, when you think of televangelists, you might not see them in a good light.

But back then, in the 50s, when Dad went on TV, was on radio. Before that he was a real entrepreneur himself and using technology to reach people with it, with his sermons and an uplifting message, I guess you could say. And with his national television exposure and then international, a lot of our biggest artists wanted to be on the show.

It was a great time for them to share the gospel side of their life. You know, Johnny and June had obviously the countryside, their life that was really close to it all along. So it was really a great opportunity for me to get around those people, do concerts with them. And we played Madison Square Garden with Johnny and June and it was really an unusual experience.

It feels like another life to me now.

Michael: Were you ever pulled into it? Did your dad ever pull up? Did you ever have to perform?

Charley: Oh, we all did. We had the immediate family. There was four of us kids. My brother's a little bit older, but there were also all the grandkids that traveled the world with us. So we had kids all the way down to three or four years old, all the way up to us adults. There were 13 family members that traveled the world and we all performed part of the Rex Humbard Family Singers.

And no, I didn't share any of that footage with you, but it was a great opportunity. And, you know, I played guitar and sang and I guess you could say that's why I have a desk job too, because I wasn't that good.

Michael: Well, I was going to comment because here I am in an amazing sort of recording studio in Bozeman, Montana, that's recorded a lot of artists. So it's sort of appropriate and no, I can't play those guitars, but you probably can that are hanging on the wall behind me. But all right. And yeah, so it's interesting because you come from a live entertainment and we didn't really talk about that when we talked about your company.

You really came from a live entertainment background performing as well. And your career sort of wove—it wasn't like, you know, just this sort of horizontal, you know, transgression. You were sort of doing other things that have led to where you are today. But certainly your background has helped. Do you feel like the way you grew up and that environment you were in helps you today?

Not only, you know, with what you're doing in content, but actually your ability to understand what world class content is and what that looks like and did that… did your youth really influence your ability to do that today?

Charley: Oh, it certainly did. And it shaped a lot of my value systems. It shaped how I understand audiences. You know, I was doing live performance, but at the same time we were doing television. So, you know, we would do the big concerts from Madison Square Garden or wherever, maybe around the world. But we were also in between that doing single camera shoots for multiple days.

You know, I started when I was five, actually six. I think it was my sister was nine. We hosted Charley and Elizabeth Visit the Holy Land. So that was in 1968. And it was televised worldwide and it was an opportunity to really talk to audiences and take them in the footsteps of Jesus. So all of these things combined and I really didn't understand it.

You know, you go through life and you have these things that you do in your career that you think they don't connect. And then one day you wake up and go, wow, I grew up in that side. I grew up in the kind of the music and ministry and those pieces. And then I went into cable for many years.

I was always an audio engineer, so it was always close to the production side. And then one day in my life I saw how these two big pieces of my life actually came together and I launched Gospel Music Channel out of it. And in that, you talk about influences and you sort of think about things. I grew up the gospel wasn't just black gospel or country gospel.

It was really all forms come together. And that was the first time that it ever happened was on Gospel Music Channel. So that influence I had from my youth, I brought forward and then how I shaped that brand. We said gospel music channel, rock, pop, country, soul—it's all gospel. And it was the first time I'd ever been done in the category and it really helps set us apart in that category.

Then if we were just black or just country like the radio stations had done and the record labels had done, the artists loved it and the fans loved it. And I think it really gave us an edge. So yeah, all those learnings you have in your life and things, if they come together for you in the right ways, I had that opportunity to have that happen for me.

Michael: Yeah, it's interesting you say that having been, you know, the Walt Disney Company in the film and television side, but I really started as an actor and it was live on stage and I always felt and you sort of see it play out with actors today and directors today, those that have done live, you know, entertainment, understand all the aspects that go in to making a great production.

And certainly you have to adapt to television because you're playing to a camera and not a live audience at times. But you really understand all of the components that make up a great production. I want to talk about that relative to your company today, because it is about all the components and all of the experiences that your workforce has that really make up what you produce today and what you air today.

Talk to me about who you look for. Do they have those type of experiences that really can understand what quality entertainment is?

Charley: We do. I mean, you know, it's very different. I think when you look for an entertainer, we like to say that our characters have character. So it's kind of a theme that runs through our content. It also, I think, runs through how we hire. We want people that have leadership abilities and, you know, those great personalities you want to be around during the day.

But when it comes to hiring, you know, we are a business that has, you know, a lot of technical proficiencies necessary, a lot of marketing skills, all the different things that many media companies have. You know, we are a marketing, sales, distribution company, so we have to have all of those parts to it. So as we as we approach people, we look at their skill sets. We look at their life experiences.

But most of all, I think what we look for is character. And we look for people that share our mission and share our values in what we want to accomplish with uplifting others with our entertainment.

Michael: That's awesome. It brings me to another point, and I'll come back to sort of, you know, how you work, the culture you've built. We'll come back to that. But I want to talk about your purpose. You know, so many companies, when you ask them, what's your purpose, it meanders, that it wanders and they're not as precise about what it is they're doing. What is your purpose?

What is the purpose of your company?

Charley: Well, I think I'm glad you asked. That is, you know, something I like to say we were purpose-driven when purpose-driven wasn’t cool. Seems like it’s the thing now, which was great, but we were a little bit of pioneers in that because the business really formed around uplifting others and you know, I went through a stage about five years in and our purpose was to inspire hearts to be better.

And since then, we've modified it a little bit and just quite simply uplift someone. So in the end, I looked at everything we did and how we put our energy into this, the kind of content we want to have and what kind of lasting effect we want to have on people. And so uplift someone is a very simple purpose for us.

It's what we think about when we look at different programs we're doing. We make decisions about content marketing, how we voice ourselves. We go back to that purpose again and then again, like how we hire people. We want people that share that when they come into our company, it'll help them help us with retention; help them with engagement if they really see the things that we say we do have lived out and the impact it has on people when they experience the content.

Michael: Is your content original and acquired or licensed? Or are you a combination of both?

Charley: We are. We make about 25 movies a year. We have a couple of series and then on that's on one brand of TV. Then we buy off network, you know, Gilmore Girls and Last Man Standing. We have a lot of the comedy series, really great Blue Bloods, but then we also have other channels that you mentioned, I think, in the intro and in those other channels such as Aspire. We're now producing all of the lifestyle content ourselves.

So we're out finding, you know, it's the next HGTV, HGTV Food Network for Black and urban America. They're a very underserved audience in that category, but yet they drive fashion and they drive our food tastes. They drive music. So we're really excited about that area. And then also beginning to take all of those originals and then go to our streaming service, which is our Faith & Family.

But we're beginning also to commission directly for our Faith & Family as well.

Michael: Walk us through your sort of transition. Right? You know, you moved into cable. Now you're into streaming, but you're still doing cable. Does that eventually all go to streaming? Are you or do you still see, you know, engagement and viewership in the cable side as well?

Charley: Yeah, a lot of people think everybody's cut the cord, but there's still 70 million cable subscribers out there. Everybody's numbers have declined because a lot of people are shifting over to streaming and watching VOD. And there's so many forms now, but I don't think there could be a business out there right now that's going through a bigger pivot or change and transition than media has gone.

And, you know, cable has been in the decline since 2012. They started losing subscribers instead of growing. But it was up, you know, 100 million. So it has lost a lot. But there's still a lot of people subscribing to linear television that want that, you know, ease of navigation. They want to know when things are on all the time and they don't want to have to go through the search process, like many of us spend a Friday night or a Saturday. You know, sometimes I'll go in there and search for things on streaming and I'll get so tired of searching for things, I won't end up watching anything. I've kind of satisfied myself on all the trailers. But the pivot for us, a significant pivot in moving from being a linear-focused, you know, we've really gone through several. We should talk a little bit about the pivot because we were gospel music channel and now we're you know more in the UPtv broader range of entertainment but then adding all of these other brands that serve these focused audience, super-serve these focused audiences.

Michael: Yeah. So, talk to me why…there's a lot I want to come back to... but, you know, walk us through what happened when linear started moving in your company to streaming relative to the skill sets of the people in your company. Did you have to change or add or have people adapt to, you know, so much is really about, you know, adapt, ability and velocity at this point.

Did you have to go through that with your company?

Charley: Absolutely. I was going to say yes to everything you said. That's exactly what happened. And today, I guess as you look at it, we are very much proponents of encouraging internal talent mobility. If you want to say it that way and encouraging our current people that have been with us we have average at length at our company is around eight years. I think. But encouraging those people that came on under the linear channels, now that all these digital businesses are growing to get those skill sets to learn that. So to answer your question, we did have to start with hiring that expertise and bringing that in, because you've got to have those leaders in the company that helped train people, help them understand and move and broaden their horizons.

You know, we're luckily still a small company, 110 employees. And people have the ability in our company not to get siloed and they have the ability to come in and learn and, you know, start in a marketing area and grow—start at the front desk and become, you know, a programmer. So we really encourage the entire mobility that way.

And I think it really helps us nowadays in this competitive job market as well. If you can grow from within, you're going to get a leg up on other folks. And you know, for us it's not just growing in traditional media, but it's growing in all these new, exciting places that consumers are consuming our content.

Michael: Did you have to bring in, I'm assuming some of this is ad supported, some of this is subscription. Did you have to bring people in that really understood how to, you know, promote market and manage a subscription-based sort of medium?

Charley: We did. You know, marketing in the funnel world is a very different exercise. I like to say it's change. You know, used to be ready, aim, shoot. And it's very much now shoot, ready, aim. You take a shot in the digital world, you understand the impact it had. You adjust and shoot again. You know, in the marketing world of the linear traditional, we would do, you know, months of research on a campaign and give it our best shot across the mediums we were buying to reach the demographics we wanted to reach.

But now it's a very different world. So we, you know, we had to do like others do in the funnel where we had to go out and hire data scientists. We didn't have data scientists working in our research teams. So the way we look at information, the way we look at data, the way we study, churn study. Audience groups now significantly different than what our company was just three to four years ago.

Michael: You know, when you think about having had the experience at the Walt Disney Studios, you know, so many people are picked off or if they're doing well, you know, another company will come in and try to hire them away, certainly in the content space for sure. Do you feel that or see that in your space? I mean, do you have like the Hallmark Channel and people like that you know, looking at your folks and saying, well, these people are talented, let's try to pick them off?

Do you have any kind of sense of that type of attrition going on within your organization?

Charley: There was a time and some days I feel like we've been a training ground for some of these other companies. Right. We used to steal from them and now the bigger companies come and steal from us. So, you know, I look at that in a way as a compliment that we've developed systems, we've developed that kind of talent. And now the big companies come and try to poach our people.

It's a very competitive market in the digital space now, and especially as you get into companies that are driving subscription and really understanding how to do it. People have watched us grow from, you know… Really we started a few years before, most others just not long after Netflix. And we really started to learn about the space. And then three or four years ago, we put the pedal to the metal.

We felt like the market was right. And we've now grown to over a million subscribers on our, you know, independent based system.

Michael: Congratulations.

Charley: So thank you. Yeah, it's you know, it's a big seat, especially for an independent these days. You read a lot of the articles. The other thing, it's important in that it's not just your growth, but we took a different strategy, which is everybody else was, you know, get big at any cost and they're still bleeding money today.

A lot of the bigger subscription companies as they try to grow, they're trying to figure out how to get those costs back in line. We have always been profitable in our growth of our digital system. Our subscriber, our Faith & Family. So the streaming service, and that's really a testament that, you know, how we thought about the business, how we approach the business very measured and we produce more and more content as it grows to serve a bigger and bigger audience.

So we've been very methodical about that.

Michael: Yeah, it's interesting and trying that, you know, we try to help companies like yours, you know, retain the talent and to grow. And we see so much is about the leadership of a company, the culture and the benefits. Do you find that that has helped retain your employee base from, you know, the competition?

Charley: I do. And by the way, we've been a customer of TriNet for eight years and love it. So thank you for all the work of all the TriNet people. It was one of the early companies that helped us. You know, it's so important because companies like TriNet can help us focus on the things we need to focus on and not the things that other people can do for us and really has been important in our growth and allowing management, allowing me to worry about the things that are most important in our growth.

And, you know, going out there and competing in the marketplace, competing with hiring people and the things we need to do so we've been a big fan of TriNet and other companies that have helped us like that focus on what we need to focus on. But you had asked on the, you know, employee retention and all and culture.

Culture is such a key. And, you know, so many people, though, don't understand culture. You know, it's not things. It's not like we got into foosball and it's a really fun company. That's not what in the end when the rubber hits the road, that keeps employees around, keeps them engaged. I always like to say to my management, ”Culture provides guidance in the absence of supervision.”

You know, if you have the right culture at your company, employees know what they're expected to do. They know what they're accountable for and they're engaged and enthusiastic about doing it. So I think, you know, as leaders, you got to really focus on those things that engage your employees in the right way. I'm not saying having a foosball table and having a fun environment is a bad thing.

It's great, but it's not what shapes culture and how you hire shapes culture. You know, you've got to have the right management to hire the right kind of people. And I think, you know, in the end, we only have a couple of things. We have our people right. And are kind of a unique product. That's it. That's our sword out there to fight and to win and be competitive.

And if our people aren't the right culture with the right experiences, you know, we're not going to win. So I focus on that as much as, you know, what kind of content we make or anything else. I think that's the role of a leader in the company is to make sure we get the right talent that has the right culture to produce the right kind of product for us.

Michael: Well, that's why it's interesting, at TriNet we have the organizing principle, people matter and they absolutely do. And it's what builds success in these small to medium-sized businesses. I want to go back to culture. I think it's interesting were you a hybrid where you are mainly remote and you have people sort of coming to work as well.

So go back pre-COVID. How were you organized? How did that change through COVID and where are you today? And I think culture certainly plays, as you've talked about, a big piece in all of this. So why don't we talk, why don't you talk about that?

Charley: That could be a podcast in itself. I'd be brief, but you know, none of us knew what was coming, right? I don't care what business you were in when COVID happened. This generation had never experienced anything like it. And as leaders, you know, the first thing I wanted to do is say, look, I don't know what's down the road, but I got our executive team together and I said, “Let's make a promise to each other that we will come out of whatever this storm is that we're getting into as a better company.”

We will find ways for our employees to be better. We will be better. And let's start focusing on how we're going to do that. And, you know, I spend a lot of time out west, kind of like you do. And there's a story out here that I learned years ago—and that's the story of buffaloes. And you know, people know when a big storm comes out west, whether it's a hailstorm, a snowstorm, whatever it might be, the cattle circle up in a tight little group, sometimes even suffocating some of the cattle in the middle.

The buffalo, on the other hand, line up so they can see eyesight and they run right at the storm. Right. So I use that as our kind of metaphor into like what we want to be. We want to be those buffalo. We want to charge this storm, take advantage of what we can find in this tragic. But there is also opportunity in change.

And we try to work hard at looking across the company, how we can help people mentally, physically, spiritually be better employees. How we can make a better environment for them at work? How we can communicate better. We kind of brought the buffalo analogy into our values. We have three values of the company to be uplifting, of course, to be your best. And that's at home and at work, but also be a buffalo. We kind of call each other now buffaloes. So we start our company. You hear us touring around, right? So we've really taken it to heart and you know, new employees scratch their head. It's like, why'd you call me a buffalo?

Michael: You know? Well, Charley, you have to come out here to Bozeman. We've got plenty of those at Yellowstone.

Charley: Well, now, I don't know if you knew that about buffalo, but I think it's pretty novel. And I think it speaks to how we approach this unknown challenge. And we really have come out of this company, now out of this period as a better company. And we've got a lot of the things that we employed during COVID that we're keeping, you know, a lot of the things that I think of that affected culture—how we meet, the rhythms we put into our meetings, the Rockefeller habits we adopted.

You know, the good news is we were kind of a video-based communicating company prior. So we had those skill sets. We had some of the tech already in our company. You know, Teams hadn't come out yet, but we were using Zoom and communicating that way with our offices, our New York teams. So that part we didn't have to learn a lot on, but all the other ways of rapid, you know, rapidly increasing the level of communication and our rhythms of meetings and how we flow information.

But to answer your question, in the end, we are now a hybrid workforce. We're in the office Mondays and Wednesdays every week. So that's the other thing I did early on. You know, as we started to look back, how do we come back to work? I said, look, there's a couple of things people need to know. People I've learned are… they would much rather have clarity than decisiveness, even if they don't agree with your decision.

That didn't mean everybody agreed with my decisions. I mandated vaccinations in the company because we did poll the people early on and 80% of people said, I'm not comfortable coming back to work without it. So majority won. And I did lose some very cherished employees over that. But the other thing I did is we made a decision early on to come back two days.

Here's how it's going to work. My executive team and our teams did an amazing job of helping us navigate all that, but we gave clarity to employees early. Really important. Make those decisions. They're tough ones. You may not be right, but you're at least making a decision that's been thought out as well as you can do it. At the time, you know, we didn't know when it was ever going to end, but we've now kept those in place and I see us going forward that way.

I don't think we're going to change. It's working well. People have learned how to manage it with, you know, two days in the office, three days out. We're continuing to tweak meetings and, you know, let's when we're in the office, more in person, don't sit behind your zoom cameras. We all got in the habit of that. It's interesting. The first days we came back, we had people still sitting in their offices doing an in-house meeting when everybody was in the office. Like get out of your office. We have a conference room. That's why we're here. You need to feel people’s energy. Communicate as a human. We're still learning every day.

Michael: Well, Charley, I will tell you, with so many negative stories every day in the media and certainly geopolitically, it is awesome to see the product that you're producing that has a positive impact. And gosh knows we need more positive stories, more positive narratives that make people feel good and feel good about their lives.

I'm so impressed with what you're doing, you know, just keep it up. I hope you get more visibility on your products because I think it's really needed today in society based on what we see every day that that can be somewhat depressing. So, you know, just hats off to you and your team. And I have to say, on behalf of TriNet, you know, thank you so much for being a customer.

We're proud of what you do and hopefully we can continue to support you so that you grow in a very positive way.

Charley: Well, thank you for the kind words and go uplift someone, Michael.

Michael: Yes, thank you so much for being with us. It was very enjoyable. And everybody go check out these channels and these programs. Very, very interesting. And I love the fact that it's a diverse set of content. So thank you again, Charley.

Charley: My pleasure. Thanks for having me on and thanks for being a great partner.

Michael: I want to remind everybody that our PeopleForce Podcast by TriNet is committed to helping small businesses and their leaders with timely and relevant business content. The PeopleForce Podcast drops episodes every month and we hope you continue catching our new episodes on Apple, Spotify and Rise.TriNet.com to get relevant SMB news and info, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and to our newsletter at TriNet.com/insights.