Sponsors And Tools For Business

Build Launch Grow Scale Framework

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Welcome to the Market It With Nat podcast where we give you the tips, tools, and strategies you need to be successful. My name is Brian, and I'll be your host today. And today we have a very special guest joining us, and his name is Mayor Jim Ross. Mayor Jim Ross has dedicated his life to serving his community and his country. Elected as mayor of Arlington in 2021, he brings decades of leadership experience across military service, law enforcement, law practice, business, and public service. He served as a United States Marine, spent over a decade with the Arlington Police Department, including SWAT and the DEA task force work, and later became a successful attorney representing thousands of clients. In addition to his legal career, he is also an entrepreneur, owning businesses like Mercury Chop House and Hearsay Arlington. Today, as mayor, he plays a key role in shaping the future of Arlington, serving on multiple regional and national boards, and leading initiatives that impact economic growth, infrastructure, and community development. Mayor Ross, welcome to the show. But before we get into the show, we'd like to say thank you to our sponsors. Today's episode is sponsored by NouveauxDesk Coworking, the home of Arlington's most accessible production-ready podcast studio. Whether you're launching your first show or leveling up your content game, Nouveau Desk gives you a professional studio environment where you can walk in, hit record, and create. But NouveauDesk is more than just a podcast room. It's fully equipped business hub with private offices, conference rooms, and workshop and event spaces designed to help you host, collaborate, and grow. If you're ready to elevate your brand, your business, or your voice, book your next recording or your next tour at nuvodesk.com. Create here, work here, build here. Today's episode is brought to you by Nuvio, the all-in-one business platform designed to help you build, manage, and scale with confidence. With Nuvio, you can build your own website in minutes, manage all of your leads and customers through a powerful CRM. And if you're in the restaurant industry, you can run your entire operations using Nuvio's modern point-of-sale system. Whether you're a startup, a service provider, or a full-scale restaurant, Nuvio gives you everything you need in one place. Simple, connected, and built to grow with you. Discover why entrepreneurs are switching to Nuvio. Visit Nuvio.com and run your entire business on one platform. Well, welcome back to the Market It With Ama podcast. And like I said, we have Mayor Jim Ross with us today. And this podcast is about helping businesses, organizations, and people build, launch, grow, and scale. That may look different, Jim. Thank you for being on here, but that may look different for all kinds of businesses. And if you're not familiar, like you know, build, launch, grow, what does that mean to us as a marketing agency? So build, we like to build a foundation. In our eyes, the assets, the websites, the branding, the logo, anything that we're going to use to launch into the market, which is like advertising, uh grow. We help, you know, businesses with uh nurturing those relationships, uh, whether that's through content or resources, and finally scale through automation. But that may not look the same when you're a leader in the community or business leader in the community. And so we are honored to have you, who has been leading us uh here in Arlington, Texas. And so I'm just grateful that you are here to teach us a little bit about what build launch growth scale means to you. So thank you, Jim. Would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Well, thank you for having me, Brian. I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about Arlington any chance I get. So let's jump into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. So we talk about foundation, what what building looks like, right? And I mean, you've you have a very uh unique story. I mean, you've done a lot. All right.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I'm the weird mayor.

Integrity And Relationships As Foundation

SPEAKER_01 4:03

You're the You're the Weird Mayor. But let's start from the very beginning. You were a US Marine, you know, and first off, uh I'm I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for everybody is thank you for your service. Thank you. And so, but you were me a Marine um and you went into law enforcement and eventually uh law and business. And so what found foundational lessons from those early years guide you today, still guide you today?

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Wow. Uh as a young Marine, one of the biggest things you learn in leadership is uh the best trait you can have as a leader is leading with integrity. Um doing things in such a way that makes people want to follow you, not because of a rank, not because of a position, not because of anything like that, like a title or anything, but because of who you are and how you carry yourself. Uh integrity means the world in leadership. And the second thing I guess is relationships. Um I don't care what kind of career you have, whether you're in the military, whether you're a cop, a lawyer, a plumber, uh whatever it is, you're never gonna be the best you can be if you don't know how to develop and nurture relationships.

High Pressure Policing Perspective

SPEAKER_01 5:27

That's awesome. You know, it's funny you say that because we I just had a conversation with my mentor, and um, one of the things that he says is that you can you can say and you can do action, but none of those things matter without principle. True. Right. You know, what what is your intention? You know, what's our intention? I think that speaks volume when you're you're leading, right? Um during your time at the Arlington Police Department, though, especially I mean, you were in the SWAT, you were part of the DEA task force work. I mean, you were operating under high pressure uh environments, and how does that help you shape your leadership style today?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Well, it's strange because yeah, I did a lot of high pressure stuff. I did all the SWAT team stuff. I spent seven years undercover buying drugs for a living. So when I encounter people that may be upset about their potholes not being filled, it doesn't seem as stressful to me as it was when I was being shot at or you know having to fight a big drunk cowboy or something like that. Uh those things all come with a new perspective, I guess. Um I like to say don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff. You you take bites at what you can get and you deal with what you can as you do it.

Why He Went To Law School

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, absolutely. That's good advice. A lot of people, especially in today's age, um and especially younger generation, you know, we we grew up at technology and that's all we know. We have this fight or flight, you know, I think we all have it, right? The fight or flight. Um, but you know, I think a lot of us are using it the wrong way, and it happens to the best of us where you get an email from a customer uh or an email from somebody and you're like, I need to respond right now. And like you're talking about getting shot at and finding like that's this email is minimal to that, you know. So looking back, what drove your decision to pivot from law enforcement school to ultimately uh you know becoming an attorney?

SPEAKER_02 7:22

You know, when I was a police officer and with the DEA, I did a lot of testifying in court. I was a use of force expert. I taught self-defense to police officers all over the country. I testified in my drug cases quite a bit. And I remember going into court watching these lawyers try cases and thinking, I could do better than that. So I had done all the fun things I wanted to do as a police officer. So I just decided in my mid-30s, you know what, let's go to law school. So I I quit the police department, took out an early retirement, paid my way through law school, and uh I was blessed to get through it quickly and pass the bar and hit the ground running.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah, talking about the bar, you completed it uh in just 28 months. You pass you you went through school in just 28 months, and then you completed the bar on your first attempt. Um that's not that's not a small thing, you know. I mean, a lot of people take the the bar and they they have to take it multiple times, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah, but I was older than the average student and I was scared to death that I'd fail it and I'd have to take it again. So I studied extra hard, I guess. So I don't know that I was super smart or anything. I was just determined.

Building A One Person Firm

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Hey, you know what? That is uh there are a lot of smart people in the world, right? And uh but determination, perseverance, I believe, is one of the best traits you could have. Yeah. As any any, you know, even if you're not a leader, right? If you pursue we're all gonna go through trials and obstac obstacles through life, but if you don't have that perseverance and and and determination, I mean, uh it's kind of hard, right, to get through anything that you're trying to do in life. Um you went to represent thousands of clients under your your you know launching of your new practice. What pushed you to step out and build your own practice?

SPEAKER_02 9:18

You know, uh every time you work for somebody else, you're subject to being compensated, whether it's monetarily or whether it's otherwise, with what they choose to do for you. And I remember sitting back thinking, we're making a lot of money for these big law firms, and m my part of it was minuscule in comparison. So I went out on my own. I struck out, it was just me. I took out the trash, did my own typing. I I did it all, and we grew it from a one-person firm to about a 60-person firm.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Mm-hmm. You know, you wore a lot of hats.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yeah, yeah. Still do.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah. I think that that shaped you today. You said you you've got a lot of things going on, right? But um, you had to say something too. It's like you you're you're a hard worker, right? And and and you know, you're you're in the midst of a campaign right now, and you you're really I mean, I see you on social media, you're working hard.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Yeah, I'm working hard, but y you know, it's not all real work. Um it's real fun.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Because when you're doing the stuff that you love to do, whether it's as a mayor, whether it's as a lawyer or restaurateur, whatever you're doing, when you love what you're doing, it it makes it a whole lot more easy to do.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

And uh and I love what I'm doing. So uh, you know, so I'm I'm gonna work hard because this is my passion.

Lessons From Starting Restaurants

SPEAKER_01 10:52

That's awesome. That's awesome. Um, and speaking of that, you you you've not just launched your own practice, but you've launched two restaurants, right? Mercury Chop House and Hearsay.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

You know, tell us a little bit about you know what you've learned about entrepreneurship and going from a legal practice to now restaurants, like, you know, that's kind of funny that different verticals and and but what what has that taught you?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah, you know, I I stumbled into my first restaurant and I moved my law firm beneath an old restaurant in Arlington called Casherel, and uh they closed down right after I moved my law firm into that building, and I thought, wow, this is an opportunity. I always joked with a buddy of mine that we're gonna start a restaurant one day, and I just said, let's do it. Well, I made the mistake, and that restaurant was successful from day one. That was the Mercury Chop House. So I thought to myself, well, this restaurant stuff is pretty easy. I can do this again. So I opened my second restaurant after COVID and everything, and that wasn't quite as easy. Yeah, we're doing okay now, but it took us a little while to get our legs underneath us, and then I started to realize maybe that restaurant world isn't quite as easy as I was led to believe the first time around. Yeah. But we're doing just fine now.

Arlington’s Growth And Diversity

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, I we work with a lot of restaurant owners, and it is never as simple or easy as make people make it out to be. Um there's a lot that goes into running a restaurant and managing restaurants, doing marketing for restaurants. I mean, there's there's an entire, you know, aspect to restaurant ownership and management that I believe that uh people misperceive when do when opening up a restaurant for sure. Um so you know, as you you've opened up practices, um you you you know, you started to grow as a as a leader and and so you you started to get more involved in the community. You've been but you've been deeply involved in Arlington for over 40 years. Um from your perspective, what has been the biggest transformation in the city?

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Wow. Um when I first came to Arlington in the very early eighties, we were a little sleepy bedroom community lying between Dallas and Fort Worth. We are no longer a sleepy bedroom community. We are a thriving top fifty size city in the country uh with a character all our own. We are the largest entertainment venue in the southwest United States. Uh we bring nearly 17 million visitors a year to Arlington. Uh we are at the center of the world stage now, literally. And um it is exciting to see those changes. Not only has the growth and what's transformed in the entertainment district been fun to watch, but seeing what's happened to our neighborhoods and our communities as they become more and more diversified. Arlington last year passed Houston as the most diverse city in the state of Texas. Wow. And now we're the third most diverse city in the country. Uh I like to say we're the most diverse because we're the most welcoming. Here in Arlington, we don't care what you look like, what color your skin is, who you love or who you worship or how you worship. We care about how you treat your neighbor. Yes. Do you treat each other with dignity and respect? Do you show love to your neighbor? Um, those are the things that matter. And when you combine those aspects of Arlington, then you get all these businesses coming and knocking on your door and asking how how can we be a part of this community? And that's what changed now. We have businesses coming here wanting to be a huge part of our community.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah. You know, it's funny you you say that because um Adventure Marketing Agency is a is a faith-based marketing agency. So people always assume that each team member is a Christian. And the reality is they're not, right? But but here's here's where and and you said it, right? We could have different team members with different religions, but we all have one principle, which is are we treating people with kindness and love? Right? You you can't get past that. You can't you you know, you could be um I think I think a lot of us we have to be careful, and this is me speaking to my own religion, be careful getting involved getting consumed by religion instead of faith and love and joy, right? You have to be careful with that.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

I've had people try to tell me that Arlington is a Christian community. I'm a Christian, and I'd say no, we're not. Arlington is a community that's let you practice whatever faith you wish to practice. Arlington is a community that welcomes the different faiths. Arlington is a community that says it's okay to be a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or Hindu. It doesn't matter as long as we treat each other with decency and respect. So um you know, I'm proud to be a Christian, I'm I'm happy about my faith, but I'm appreciative of other perspectives and other faiths as well. Because those differing perspectives don't make us weaker, they make us stronger, they make us better.

Why Arlington Helps Businesses Thrive

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, we we had something this morning um and the key topic was our table, right? And I had stated something, I said remind us that our table is should be inclusive instead of exclusive. Right. And so we go we be careful of being trying to be exclusive. We we want to be inclusive, right? And so um but as you began to you know, we're talking a lot about Arlington uh and the business owners that are listening. What makes Arlington a strong environment to build and grow their companies today?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Um we do one thing better than anybody else that I've seen anywhere in the country and I or the world for that matter, and I've been all over the place. Uh we do relationships. Um we talked about faith, that means relationship with your God, with your family, with your friends, with your colleagues, with your co-workers, with your employers and employees, with your community. We do relationships really, really well. I think that explains why the Texas Rangers came here 54 years ago, and in spite of other cities trying to take 'em, they've stayed here.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Because nobody beats uh our relationships.

City Priorities And Desired Legacy

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. And and you're right. I mean, we've had we have great companies here, right? And great organizations, large organizations, small organizations, and they all we all uh find a way to work with each other, right? That's what we're gonna talk about next. Is as mayor, we're helping shape Arlington's future at a large scale. What are your key priorities for the next three to five years?

SPEAKER_02 18:32

So we have a lot of projects in the pipeline. Our key priorities include opening the Northside Police substation, uh, the design and building of a joint police and fire training facility, big compound down on the northwest part of uh Lake Arlington. Um we want to uh complete our form-based code in downtown to make development for both businesses, multifamily, and everything uh smoother and easier for the downtown development, the beautification of the international corridor, the transformation of Rolling Hills Country Club into a phenomenal luxury home development, and the transformation of stuff like Lincoln Square into the anthem. There's a lot of things going on in Arlington. None of those things I want my legacy to be, though.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

I want my legacy to be that whenever I leave this office that people look and say, Jim left this place better than it was when he found it. And that there is no doubt about how much I really love this community. Um I do what I do because I love this community. I am convinced that we have, if not the best, absolutely one of the best communities on the face of the earth. And I will do anything for this community. So that's what I want my legacy to be.

Winning Business Through Relationships

SPEAKER_01 20:15

That's awesome. That's awesome. You're involved in infrastructure workforce development and na and national level initiatives. How do you ensure Arlington stays competitive as it grows?

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Well, we stay competitive because nobody does relationships like us. We just did a deal with a company called eSpace, huge low-orbit satellite manufacturing firm. We made a substantial investment into getting eSpace here by helping to build and pay for this nearly 500,000 square foot manufacturing facility down at the airport. The night before we were supposed to do the deal, the CEO calls me and says, Jim, the other city that we were looking at has called and they put twice the money down that Arlington's put down to get us in their city. He says, I have to share this information with my board. What do I tell my board? I said, It's easy. When you originally came to Arlington and you shared your vision and you told Arlington what it you needed, we were the only city that shared your vision that saw what you saw, and that immediately went to work and delivered everything you needed in the time that you needed it. So when you want to crawl into business with somebody, do you want to crawl into somebody with in the business with somebody that gets it or that lies behind the log and tries to ambush the deal at the last? And he called me back at 2 30 in the morning and he said we called an emergency meeting with the board and we're staying with Arlington. And that's because of relationships. We got them when they first came here. We saw their vision, we understood, and we went to work and we made it happen. The secret is don't focus on the deal. You're in the marketing and advertising and branding and all of that business. And the secret for any business is don't look at the deal itself. Don't try to bring the one event. Don't try to close the deal on that one thing. You've got to focus on the relationship, whether or not the deal comes or not, because the odds are you're gonna get, if not that deal, some other deal because of the relationships you're building. So you've got to work on the relationships first. You can't treat everybody like you're a salesperson. You can't go in there and pitch them like you're selling a used car. You've got to work on the relationships. How many times do you shop or eat someplace because you got great service? It may not be the cheapest place, it may not be the best food or the best clothes, but you love the service you got and the relationship you developed. So you go back. We all do it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yeah. And people buy from people they know like and trust. And if they the first part is, you know, you gotta get 'em like you. I mean, you gotta connect some some who are chemistry. Because of relationships. Exactly. Exactly. You know? And and that's a that's a uh some people f they some people think if they know me, they'll buy. And and if they don't if they don't like you or trust you, then how are they gonna do business with you? Yeah. You know. So um when you think about legacy, and and you kind of ask uh answered this, but uh what do you want your time as mayor to represent for for you and the city?

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Oh you know, I want it to represent the love I have for the city. I want my time here to be full of trying to make sure Arlington becomes the best Arlington it can be. I think we're well underway. And it's uh to be candid, our our community makes it easy.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Because they love every bit as much as I do, and uh and they care every bit as much as I care, and they make it easy. So I just get to be like the number one cheerleader with it. So it's pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

That's awesome. Well, Jim, thank you again for being on this show and thank you for sharing some insights of your journey, not just as a mayor, but you know, your entire journey from being a U.S. Marine uh to opening up your own law firm and uh you know becoming an entrepreneur and build building some restaurants around here in Arlington and and then finally becoming mayor. Like that's that's a journey, right? It's a journey. That's a journey and that's a legacy. And we we thank you for for sharing your story, and we hope that everybody that's listening has taken some notes, learned a little tips and tricks and tools that they need to to help them build, launch, and grow. And um, we're honored to have Mayor Jim Ross share some insights of his journey and how he was able to build, launch, grow, and scale. So once again, thank you for listening to the Market It With Atman podcast. My name is Brian, and we will see you next time.