Inc: The Duo Dominating Athlete and Celebrity Appearances and Branding
Ryan Totka and Adam Alson make it a habit of being seen around the biggest events in sports.
Emailing with Mark Cuban, dinner with Mark Wahlberg, texting with Terrell Owens, going to Dez Bryant’s house, bringing a deal to Dak Prescott and taking an NFL prospect to a Dallas Mavericks game doesn’t sound like your normal day, but according to Ryan Totka, this has become his life. As explained by Totka, it has also become the standard type of day for his “bro” (not by blood, but through business).
Totka’s “bro” is Adam Alson. Together, they have been rubbing elbows and working with quite the list of who’s who in sports and entertainment. Normal days for these two include fielding booking requests for sports and celebrity folks like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, while the other is building and extending the digital footprints of professional sports most well known athletes, entertainers and brands.
While it seems like Totka and Alson have a lot on their plates, you would not know it if you caught them hopping from party-to-party in Houston around Super Bowl 51. How do they manage to have fun, accomplish their tasks and concurrently grow their respective businesses and ventures in the cut-throat world of sports and entertainment?
“Turn your lifestyle into your career. It’s not even a job anymore,” says Alson. “That’s the only way you’re really able to make it work. It’s 24x7x365, you have to constantly come up with new ideas on how you can leverage your relationships and manufacture innovative marketing strategies for your partners and clients”
In speaking with Alson, it seems as though he and Totka, who regularly attend large events like the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl and SxSW, have their routine down to a science.”
“It goes from waking up in the morning, jockeying emails for the first half of the day, meeting someone for lunch and talking about what they’re working on, then taking a few phone calls while on the way to your next meeting for dinner and drinks somewhere else to meet someone else . . . then maybe entertaining a potential partner or client at a nightlife venue,” explains Alson. “We are constantly networking. Constantly on the hunt for the next deal or to create the next deal. Then, when I get home, I’m laying in bed thinking about what happened that day and how can we turn that into some type of opportunity? “Turning off” can often be the hardest part of being an entrepreneur.”
Alson and Totka are living examples of the work ethic necessary for entrepreneurs to succeed in any line of business. They must eat, drink and breathe their business and enjoy it, because countless hours are spent in servicing existing clients and attracting new customers. They also are proof that there is a process, and that success does not occur overnight.
Alson was first bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at 17 years old while the Internet was still in its infancy, starting a local online business directory for his hometown of Staten Island, New York. Over the last 20 years, Alson has gone on to work with an impressive roster of names such as Muhammad Ali, Vince Carter, The Jonas Brothers, Brad Pitt amongst many others.
Totka was focused on Internet lead generation for a variety of companies, and was fortunate enough to find his way into doing search engine optimization for LeBron James’ official website in 2003, when James was just a senior in high school.
The “bros” are also always on the move, which is typical for young entrepreneurs. Totka mainly resides in Dallas, with bases in Los Angeles and Orlando. Alson lives in New York City and Hollywood, California.
The two met each other during NBA legend Vince Carter’s annual charity event in Daytona, Florida. Totka knew Carter from high school, while Carter was already a client of Alson’s. Ultimately, the two discovered they had many synergies and relationships in commonm and they quickly became close friends and colleagues 5 years later. It is apparent that their success is at least partially due to their real personal relationship.
“We are a one-two punch,” says Alson. “When you get to work with people who you genuinely enjoy, it shows in the work and people take notice! It’s like it becomes a party everyone wants to go to!”
Originally published at Inc.com