Digital Social Hour
How This Ex-Alabama Player Built a 7-Figure Marketing Empire | Mac Hereford DSH #951
Thu, 05 Dec 2024
🏈 Discover how a former Alabama football player transformed his collegiate experience into a thriving 7-figure marketing empire! In this episode, Mac Hereford shares his journey from playing under Nick Saban to becoming a marketing powerhouse. Get an inside look at what it's really like playing for Alabama's legendary football program, including exclusive stories about Coach Saban's unique leadership style and the intense team culture that shaped Mac's business mindset. Mac reveals how he leveraged his football connections to build powerful relationships and create win-win opportunities in the business world. From creating viral content across multiple niches to building equity partnerships with major brands, Mac breaks down his blueprint for success. You'll learn how he approaches social media strategy, builds authentic relationships, and thinks long-term to create sustainable business growth. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, marketing professional, or sports enthusiast, this conversation is packed with actionable insights about relationship building, personal branding, and turning athletic experience into business success. Join Sean Kelly for this inspiring discussion about football, entrepreneurship, and the power of authentic relationship building in business. Watch now to learn how Mac built his marketing empire from the ground up! 🚀 #howtomarketyourclothingbrand #howtostartaclothingbrand #7figureclothingbrand #startingaclothingbrand #clothingbrandstartup CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Balancing Ego at Alabama 00:39 - Mac's Training Regimen 03:36 - NFL Aspirations 04:54 - College Football Team Structure 13:13 - High School Football Memories 16:02 - Most Challenging Position in Football 20:59 - Partying Lifestyle 21:55 - Building Relationships 26:37 - Unique Marketing Strategies 29:30 - Transitioning to TikTok and Instagram 31:04 - Going Viral Across Niches 33:18 - Future Plans for Mac 35:57 - Final Thoughts and Messages APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [email protected] GUEST: Mac Hereford https://www.instagram.com/mac_hereford SPONSORS: BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did Mac Hereford balance ego at Alabama?
How did you balance your ego out of Alabama? Because I'm sure everywhere you went, you were the man. It wasn't hard for me because I didn't play as much as most guys. You know, the fans pump you up. Football in Alabama is literally a religion. You can go anywhere in the state of Alabama. Football's life. Yeah, it really is. Like, it's at a different level.
Chapter 2: What was Mac's training regimen like?
I don't know if there's anywhere else in the country that's like that.
All right, guys, Digital Social Hour in Nashville. We got Mac here for today. Thanks for having me, man. Dude, I'm excited to be here in Nashville with you and glad you can make it out here. Dude, I can see why you live here now too after being here for a day. It's pretty lit. I tell people all the time, Nashville is a great city.
Chapter 3: What were Mac's NFL aspirations?
Yeah, and I know you're big on sports and you got a crazy sports background, which we'll get into, but you're still really active training.
Chapter 4: What is the college football team structure like?
Yeah, so I train all the time. I train four times a week with a guy named Justin Todd at a gym called Athlos. Talked to you a little bit about it before the pod, but he has a unique training style, always gamifies stuff, makes it competitive and train with a bunch of pro guys.
And it's like, I don't know, I feel like I'm in better shape and my body feels better now than it did like four or five years ago. Wow. So you were playing football in Alabama four or five years ago, right? Yeah, I was playing in Alabama. And you know, we were lifting every single, you know, three times a week, and also doing practice. And it's like, I felt great, then don't get me wrong.
But I just think there's like a change in the way I've been working out now from then, like,
originally in college football you know it's a lot of heavy lifting a lot of olympic lifts and a lot of weight you're moving um along with you know as well just um the training like of practices and so now moving towards today the training i do you know we do about 45 minutes of some kind of competitive game some kind of competitive movement uh and mobility and then we get into the gym and it's like
I don't know. I don't even know how to describe the lifting. We had so many hands on deck at Alabama that after I graduated, I didn't even know how to lift because they just always told us what to do.
Wow. So they were really hands on with you personally or in group settings? In group settings.
So we would have... The way it worked at Alabama, we would have lifting groups and... I can't know the or tell you the exact number of guys that would be in each lifting group, but maybe it's around, you know, 20, 30 guys would split up into groups around like, you know, sometimes two to four. And we would have like a strength intern or strength coach at our rack in the weight room.
with every single group. So they're super hands-on. Alabama had amazing resources, obviously, but the ability just like to have someone say, hey, you're supposed to lift this much weight. They tracked all of our data, how much we're supposed to be lifting so that we could see our improvement and increase in strength. But it was pretty crazy.
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Chapter 5: What are some high school football memories of Mac?
Like they're like helping change the weights and you're moving from one station to the next. It's a process. I mean, it was under coach Nick Saban. So you can only imagine like the process part of it. But yeah, it was really cool. How did you balance your ego, Alabama? Because I'm sure everywhere you went, you were the man. Dude, it wasn't hard for me because I didn't play as much as most guys.
But there definitely was a lot of that. You know, the fans pump you up. And obviously, football in Alabama is literally a religion. I don't think people get it when I talk about it. You can go anywhere in the state of Alabama, and you're going to see an Alabama flag or an Auburn flag waving in the front yard and kids wearing those jerseys to school. Football is everything in Alabama.
Football is life. Yeah, it really is. It's at a different level. I don't know if there's anywhere else in the country that compares to college football in Alabama.
Chapter 6: What is the most challenging position in football?
I don't think so, dude. Dude, those games probably had, what, 20 million viewers for the title game? I mean, I don't know the exact numbers, but it had a shit ton. Was your goal to make it to the NFL? Was that number one goal for you?
So honestly, my goal it when I was a young little like when I was a little kid, we had like books in elementary school that was writing about what you wanted to be. And I can I still have a book that's from like kindergarten or first grade or whatnot that says I want to be an Alabama football player. So it wasn't the NFL. It wasn't some other thing.
It was literally just an Alabama football player. That's all I wanted to do and all I wanted to be. And so when I got there, it was like, okay, you know, like what do I do next? But yeah, it was never to be in the NFL just to play at Alabama. Okay. So that was like the pinnacle for you.
Yeah.
That was it. It was huge. And I think like, that's why I love still talking about it today. It's like, Dude, if you imagine having a goal and a dream your whole entire life and then achieving it, it's massive. The feeling is awesome.
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Chapter 7: How did Mac build relationships in sports and business?
So once you achieved it, was there a moment where you were like, what's next?
Yeah, I would say once I got there freshman year, it was like, okay, these are some of the top players in the country. And I don't even know if I can compete with them. But then after a short period of time, I'm like, dude, I'm not too far off from these guys. And so it's then what's the next step? And that was to play. I really, really wanted to play.
uh so i worked my tail off did everything in my power to play um and didn't play as much as i wanted to but i really really loved the experience nice how many strings are there on that team dude there's i mean first string second string third string this episode of digital soul flower is brought to you by betterhelp how do you keep cozy during the holiday season my favorite way is wrapping up in a blanket and watching christmas movies with my family and two dogs milo and otis
Chapter 8: What unique marketing strategies did Mac use?
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fourth string I mean there's even fifth string guys uh maybe even more than that and the thing I would tell people that's crazy about the University of Alabama and I'll stand on this is that guys who are fifth like fourth fifth string in Alabama could start at almost any other division one school wow it's that deep I think it's that deep I really do so were you fifth string at first
Yeah, I would say just bat. I wouldn't even consider myself a string, just in the mix. Whoa. And then as time went on, I mean, the furthest I got was the spring game. So we have a spring game leading up to the next season, the next year. And I started in that spring game. My quarterback was Mac Jones. And I played the most reps, I think, on my team out of anyone. And that was the next year.
Then they brought in other guys like Jalen Waddell and Jerry Judy, Henry Ruggs, et cetera. I can go down the list of Alabama wide receivers. Yeah. Uh, but it was a powerhouse.
I think that was just the, one of the biggest differences that I saw at the university of Alabama is like most teams, you know, they've got great first and second string guys, Alabama, you know, you're going to have a five star who's sitting until his last year of college. Crazy. It's crazy. And, and it was easy.
My dad always was fascinated with the fact that these guys could like stay, like, why would anyone want to stay in, you know, they're a five-star. They know they can start somewhere else, but they're here at the University of Alabama, and they know they may have to sit three or four years.
We have guys like Kenyon Drake, who was a running back, who didn't play too much throughout his career and had a huge kicker turn against Clemson in his national championship and gets picked up in the second round. Like, you have guys like Josh Jacobs, who played for the Raiders, now plays for the Packers.
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Chapter 9: What are Mac's future plans?
Like, Josh wasn't a, like, true four-year starter his whole career at Alabama and then was drafted first round. So you can, it's, you know... if you put in the time and the effort, the University of Alabama, like you're going to make it, you know, eventually when you get your chance, like you're going to go to the league if that's your goal.
Absolutely. How high was the turnover every year? Were you in a new locker room every single year?
I would say like, you know, they did a good job of keeping guys there throughout my time and the transfer rules have changed a bit now, but most of the time we'd see the same, you know, same teammates. The biggest turnover was in coaches. I had to think four or five different offensive coordinators and wide receiver coaches in my tenure at Alabama. So that was nuts to me.
Cause you build a relationship with these guys and you, you,
grow to love them and you know respect them and then like oh gosh they're out and you can't really blame them because most of Saban's staff most of the guys under Saban are getting head coaching jobs at other schools they're getting crazy offers yes I mean you have Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss right now you have Kirby Smart at Georgia you have Billy Napier at Florida all those guys were like under Saban at one point right and there's a lot more that I didn't even speak on but like that's the crazy thing to me if you want to become a head coach like you just come to Alabama and learn from coach Saban and then boom like you're competing with them in the next couple of years it's like working with
Belichick right yeah yeah they compare uh Belichick to coach Saban all the time I mean both of them are very similar I haven't personally met Belichick but Saban is just one of a kind best college football coach to ever do it a lot of people say he's the goat right yeah college football I mean I think there's you know very very high percentage there's a very few people who don't think coach Saban is the goat why do you did you ever ask him why he didn't want to coach NFL
No, he obviously coached NFL for a little bit. I think that the way he coaches his system works better at the college level. I think it's a little bit harder now when you throw in this NIL money and players being able to get paid so much like they are. But, you know, the NFL level, these guys are it's a job for them. It's strictly a job. And so they come in, they're doing their thing.
And most of them are doing whatever they're on their own, their personal life away from the stadium. And college football compared to high school, like high school, you got this brotherhood, this bond. It's not exactly the same in college. The guys aren't hanging out as much.
I mean, I did because I really took, you know, was intentional with trying to spend time with my teammates outside of the locker room. But you still have that feel in college and you still as a coach, you can still get in demand respect from players that are younger and they're still developing.
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