Value DRiVEN: Scaling Brands Through Connection with Adam Sutton

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:18)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here with my co-host Tullio Siragusa, and we have a special guest today, and we're going to have a lot of fun with, and we'll introduce in a moment.
The strongest brands grow through connection. They connect with their teams, their customers, their franchise owners, and the communities they serve. When that connection is grounded in clear values, growth becomes more than a business objective, it becomes an experience. People can feel them. We talk about trying to build that experience a lot. Today, we are exploring scaling brands through connection, and we'll talk about franchise growth, customer experience, culture, community impact, and how leaders can build brands that scale without losing their heart. So Tullio, introduce our special guest.

**Tullio Siragusa** (1:11)
My pleasure. Today, our guest is Adam Sutton. He's the CEO of DX3 Brands and RNR Tire Express. Adam leads a value-driven approach focused on developing strong teams, scaling brands, and creating meaningful experiences for customers and communities. His background spans creative technology and executive leadership, and he has helped scale multiple companies while producing work for some of the world's most recognized brands. At RNR Tire Express, for example, Adam helps guide a national franchise brand serving customers through tires, custom wheels, and flexible payment options, while staying rooted in a people first culture and long-term community relationships. It's a great business, by the way. Adam, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast. We're excited to speak with you today.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:01)
And I know we got to pull him off mute there for a second. As he was having a little bit of technical difficulty. Adam, I think you're on mute there for a second.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:11)
Still. I think I'm back.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:15)
Yeah. As soon as we press the button, that's when something happens. Like everything will work fine before a show. And then as soon as you press the button.

**Adam Sutton** (2:22)
We had great audio and then I thought you're.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:24)
One time we pressed the button and the Internet blew up.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:27)
The Internet literally blew up across the country at the same time.

**Adam Sutton** (2:30)
Yeah. That was you guys. Okay. Good to know.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:32)
Yeah. Blame us.

**Adam Sutton** (2:34)
Yeah. Well, I apologize. You can hear me.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:36)
Okay.

**Adam Sutton** (2:36)
I can hear you. Excited to be on. Thanks so much for having me.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:40)
Adam, great to have you here. So today we're talking about scaling brands through connection. And let's start with that idea. What does it mean to build and scale a value-driven brand?

**Adam Sutton** (2:54)
Yeah. I think for us, like many people believe, at least many people that I admire and watch across the space, really utilize values as the foundation for that growth. So I think when you look across some of the best companies and best experiences, and two I talk about a lot with our team is Disney and Chick-fil-A. They happen to be former clients of mine and my former pre-franchising life. But I got to experience them both as a fan and on stage as Disney calls it, but also backstage and was always just enamored by how they accomplish that.
Try to take some tips from that and learn from the best and try to replicate that value-driven experience across everything we do.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:42)
What do you think separates a value-driven experience from a traditional sort of customer transaction?

**Adam Sutton** (3:48)
Well, I think you hit the nail on the head with the last word there. It's from my experience as a consumer, it feels transactional, right? And it's just, you're just a number, you're just another person that opened the door, gave your money and left.
I think value-driven is you can feel a difference. I mentioned those two brands, you can't go to Disney Park anywhere in the world or eventually, and really have a bad experience, right? And the latter one, it might be the only fast food restaurant that's ever gotten your order right, you know, nine times out of 10, you know? And so something's different about it, and I think you feel that difference.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:30)
I think Tokyo, I always think like this idea of like, yeah, you're going for a job interview, and you decide, I'm gonna go get a new suit, but you really, that's just a transaction, you can buy that anywhere.