If you're willing to be the content creator, all you have to do. This is very crazy. It's only two simple things: it's gon na sound, so ridiculous. Like a grandmother, this portion is like with me, so i think this is when you need to get selfish.

Like you need to ask your question, hiring is guessing firing is knowing like you got to go fast. That's how you get done, that's how you figure stuff out. This is the television and the television is the radio. The 40s george said gary.

Take yourself off mute as well thanks joe hi gary, it's a pleasure to be here, i'm from bulgaria, seven hours after your time. At the moment, it's seven in the evening i'm running a real estate brokerage. It's called primo and we have 30 agents here in bulgaria and i'll be delighted to discuss some questions with you. Thanks again, are you sure you're not in my office, my friend? Yes uh? I would love to be, but unfortunately i'm not thanks for being here.

Oh thanks, man, uh and now to seattle, washington, jeremy, uh who's uh, going to be bringing a bunch of ceos into the 40s over the next few months. Jeremy. Why don't you go ahead and say hi to gary thanks joe good morning, gary jeremy hill from seattle run a company called jb capital uh, we invest, make credit investments across the sme landscape across the country. I've been talking to joe and james for a while and have one of our portfolio companies ryan, along with us today, so happy to share some time real pleasure, my friend and with that ryan hogan, uh ryan, keep yourself off mutant, say hi to gary, hey gary Brian hogan uh co-founder and ceo at hunt to killer um.

I know that sounds pretty pretty crazy, but we send immersive murder mysteries each month, um episodically and we've uh. We have our eyes on digital, so great to meet you. I love it real pleasure and down here in cali, we've got russell mcdonald, russell, say hi to gary: hey gary how's it going russell mcdonald. I am a mortgage broker in the san francisco bay area, real pleasure russell thanks for being a part of this.

Thank you and in california as well, we've got dylan, dylan, say hi you're on mute, buddy, hi gary. This is dylan and uh, i'm from bay area as well. Uh we run a direct consumer. Dental product company called just into lab.

We make custom night guard for people who grind their teeth at night, very important product yeah. They help people sleep better. It's awesome real pleasure. Thank we've, got ace and jamie ace and jamie say: hi, hey gary, how you doing buddy ace and jamie here real pleasure.

Great to see you guys, uh, we run fmo media out of long island, new york and we help businesses grow their revenue through social media marketing and we are pumped to be here and learn uh. So let's go back and we'll start with george over in bulgaria, george uh you're got your moment in the sun with gary um. I'm gon na go ahead and and say we're gon na try to aim for 12 minutes, but uh bear with me. So george go ahead and start firing off some questions for garyvee joe uh, gary first of all, um.

Sorry, if i'm being so nervous. Second of all, congrats on the video that you post today on instagram and for no video, it really pumped me up for the 4g, so i'm really excited about it. Talking about our real estate brokerage, i've heard you a lot of times saying that if you do a real estate brokerage, it will be the best in the world. I don't doubt about it.

Um really. I have two main issues. I have to ask you, and both of them are lead generation, because i have two core pillars in my business. The first of all is me, generating sellers that sell properties same in the us.

The inventory is very low, so we have to find ways to you know, to create creatively, attract sellers and do the strategy i mean the funnel and the second one is. My skill is obviously based on quality, real estate agents. We don't specifically aim to attract experienced agents. The idea is to communicate with the world the benefits of our company, and we recently launched a program of 100 commission for the agents you have it in the states with keller williams with exp realty.

They have these cap commissions, 100 commissions, which, actually, after they uh placed a specific amount of money in their office for a 12-month period, the rest of the months until the 12 months. They take the commission's 100, which is good for us, because we do our annual budget and it's good for them, because they bring home a lot of money which is really interesting. So so, basically, my question is how gary would do the um, the gateway, sailor attraction and the real estate agent's attraction, with keeping in mind this hundred percent um? Let me break it down for you, so i think on the let's talk about the real estate agents and let's talk about it in real life: how six? How many do you have? Let's start with that and and what? How does the percentage of? Let's call it exceptional good and average of that. You know what percentage are exceptional of those 35 out of 35 people, which is like 15, and how many are good.

Then we have let's say well, i have about five at the bottom, so that means that 20 are in the middle, so i think you know. I think i think that um, the the way to think about it is a couple things. One you're only is if you're not going after, there's two ways not going after experienced agents or going after experienced agents right to me, i'm always going to go after nod experience with a couple of experience. So you get a couple of experience because you need it, but i would spend all my time and energy on the training so that you could take literally bright-eyed bushy-tailed.

You know people that just want to get into it. What i've noticed from a lot of real estate brokerages is that they don't have a good training program and they're not actually committed to it. They're rolling the dice and they're hoping they get good people they're, not cultivating good people. So the way i would do it is, i would spend more money than most people would expect on one two, three four or me george me: gary spending a lot more time, training up people most people don't want to do that because they always worry that.

Well, if i trade them up, if they get good, they might leave it's a waste of time. The problem is you're in the business of people. Right, that's the same problem i have at vaynermedia. It doesn't stop me right and when you're a good person - and you do the right thing - you can have a situation like i have with james and joe and many people in my company where people stay a long time, not just a couple years.

So that's the real answer to attracting talent. I think you know this. You can get a lot more people that are raw that want to get in where you have to spend more money than you are spending, or your time is on the cultivating of people, not uh johnny's, not johnny's, not good. You know, like you, got ta end when you know the bottom: five aren't good.

You need to turn them and get rid of them in a nice way in a human way, but they're taking up too much energy. I would throw the message and uh build this machine of attracting of attracting this unexperienced people. I mean that and i'll explain why, in a second and and really matters to your marketplace, so i have a very good understanding of the global market, but i'm i'm not as up-to-date as i wish. I could be on the bulgarian market.

So we have to talk about it and i thought i might have walked in when james orsini was talking about tick tock and why i like it, you know to me it's always the same game. You know what i do know about bulgaria with youtube and facebook is and instagram is, there's scale there and i, i believe, for all of you from you know, christy with red vines to you to everybody. Everybody is underestimating how much you can build a brand and build a business through social media branding, branding uh, and so some people have decided. Finally, you can do business through social media selling, but where the big disconnect in the world is social media branding.

So george, you know the other thing is. How do you acquire somebody in bulgaria who wants to maybe be a real estate agent? It's you preferably or somebody else, making videos that say. Are you happy with your job? Are you happy? Would you like to get into this industry if you're, naturally a good people person and you have good work ethic? This is a very lucrative industry comment and fill out. This form on google form, which then you would make a very good google form where you would ask them to make a video.

You know after they answered a bunch of questions and then you and your team would go through a lot of them, but the applicants would come in heavy if you ran a very smart youtube pre-roll campaign where you were making the videos - and it was against interest. Like soccer proper football or against real estate, you can go broad of things that everybody likes in the country, food and wine. I know the area proper football, but also your expertise, and you can see how the numbers work. Are you getting better applicants from going abroad because it's everybody or you paying more for very narrow, real estate, but you're getting better applicants? You run that math and that becomes the same thing for listings and awareness.

It's just all like your game. You've got 35 human beings that are working to find and sell. Your job is to build brand. It's no different to why uh.

You know, i didn't i'll, give you a good example. I don't think ace and jamie are here, because they saw seven good ads on instagram or facebook and we kept retargeting them. We've built the best brand for what they do this once they became aware of this and went through the mind process. They're, like this is a good arbitrage for us same for you right, i mean look what you're literally doing right now.

Your background of your screen is my branding mechanism. Absolutely so so i think you've got to think about how to if you're willing to be the content creator. I think that that is a very big and then all you have to do. This is very crazy.

It's only two simple things: it's gon na sound, so ridiculous. Like a grandmother, you have to be yourself and tell the truth now the way i'm myself is very unique, and that's probably why i've done well. You know when i speak the truth. I also have the skill set of seeing you know.

I don't like to say, i see around corners, but i put in a lot of work to understand consumer behavior earlier than other people, and so between my uniqueness and my truth, which often most people don't agree with at first. But then it becomes reputation when you're right. You need to develop that over the next three to five years in the marketplace where all these two problems become a non-factor, and i think you do what i mean by non-factors. It starts coming to you.

Instead of you chasing the way you do, that is in the underpriced nature of the social media platforms that are winning in the country, the end for everybody here and then and then real quick. I apologize because i'm answering a lot of times for everybody, because i want this to be very valuable and then, when you pick, let's say again i'll just use christy, because i am a huge fan of red lights like like. You know what they're going to say on tick tock, which they know is more of a 15 to 30 year. Old crowd may be different than the ad they put on on facebook, which might be older, where they may tap into nostalgia, whereas with tick-tock they may tap into something relevant in culture diff.

You know, so you got to make different content. So if you go into linkedin and make videos you're going to talk differently than you are as a pre-roll before a entrepreneurial piece of content on youtube, i got it. I got it thanks man, i i really wanted to kill it because, since the last four years, this is what brought our brand to the place that so the key there is is getting better at it like even like, like i've seen over the last eight years, With my brand and with the businesses i'm associated with it ebbs and flows, it ebbs and flows right, we're about to do a reorgan team gary and i'm so confident. What's gon na happen and if i will be better at it in q4 of this year than i've been the last year because we're just making a bigger commitment to being even better on pinterest, even better, i mean in the last month.

You know last three weeks on tick, tock, i've done so much better, because we've made a bigger commitment. We were at a seven now we're at an 8.5 and what peop, when i hear what you just said, my concern is it's kind of like exercise. You went from doing none of it now you're now you're doing some exercise, which is amazing, you're you're you've lost that kind of ridiculous 10 extra pounds. You really didn't need, but everybody here knows even if they're good at working out they've got another 10 pounds more cardio, more muscle you could you could and that's how i think about social media content distribution you if i can get much better the way i even Have in the last three weeks, i can't even imagine how much everybody else can so, i think, pushing yourself further on being a platform, strategist, really understanding the products.

Every platform has and then trying new platforms, especially when they have organic reach and the big ones like what my friend huge. I mean tick tock for you. I know it's exploded in the country because we do the european business for them and is a great avenue to require new agents who are young? Yes, i'm doing it already. I still have seven thousand followers only, but i'm on it, but the good, but the good thing with tick tock is.

It does not have anything to do with uh followers. It's completely. It's completely interest based. I literally my last two videos.

One got 24 000 views. The next one got 7.9 million. It's completely interest-based. I have 7.5 million followers.

I can get 25 000 views on a video because nobody gave a got it thanks. Man, love him, cheers love you back uh, so we're gon na head up to seattle and we're gon na talk to jeremy, real quick, who has a question uh for you before we head to ryan jeremy: go ahead, hey gary! How are you thanks for the time today? So you know really. Focus for us is on uh, providing value to uh our portfolio, companies right and and the guys that it's which james and joe just been fantastic at helping and so uh joe, is allowing you to be selfish. You know for two minutes before it is that we get to ryan.

So thanks for that so um, our business is investing into uh, making credit investments in the sme market across the country right. So, if you think about these companies that are past, that friends and family mom and dad which uncle round are raising money but they're, really not yet to a point to where the guys in chicago new york or london can actually afford to pay attention to them. We're writing these five seven ten million dollar checks, so the the i guess the two pieces it is for us is really our audience by which it is that we want to communicate and build um, either or either brand value or or audience with is really the Uh family office, wealth manager, ultra high net worth guys. The institutions and pensions are not our investors, that's just not how it is that we're set up, it's the so so so jeremy.

I apologize you're we're now talking about not you acquiring deal flow but acquiring llps. Acquiring lpng yeah exactly we, we have a uh, an inordinate or a disproportionate deficit to demand on deal flow right, so every dollar we get in the door. We've got about seven dollars, looking for it, which is uh, you know a first world problem. It's still a problem that first world problem right got it so so you've got you've got companies you actually want to invest in.

So you just need more. You want more capital into the fund right, so we're raising capital into the fund, and so the two issues it is we run into is i spent 20 years as an investment banker before moving from a advisor banker, standpoint investing principally off my balance sheet and then Raising a fund alongside that, and so part of that is, is going back to the market and the constituents. It is that normally, where the folks it is that we're writing checks on our behalf, most of those guys. Now we become competitors of right.

So it's this strike friendly to a certain degree, but adversarial to a certain degree as well. The the challenges that we run into to a certain degree is the credit. Landscape is really made up of apollo and kkr and carlisle in like the big 800 pound gorillas and then a modicum of smaller guys, and there certainly is the adage, as you were growing up, that nobody ever got fired for investing in apollo. And so, whereas we may have something better and cooler and faster and shinier, and all this other kind of the guy, that's managing half a billion dollars of somebody else's money may love me, but if goes bad, he could lose his job.

If goes bad. For putting 10 million bucks on apollo nobody's gon na blink, i know it well, i know your landscape. Well, i understand and then on the other side of the equation, you have too many high net worth individuals who want to do it themselves and don't want to pay a big right. Like you know, as everyone, you know it's kind of for a lot of people, especially in my emerging class.

It's more fun to do it themselves. They want to do it themselves. So there's that kind of, like sweet middle, that you really need to win on right. Yeah - and i think that we've done a good job of that - and it's certainly not a pat of any time, but the the the big headache it is that we had is that ultimately we're going to make the move.

It is to move out of the middle and do from a principal position. I wanted to make sure that we created something that was markedly different than the other thousand credit funds that are out there, because there's no point in just being another flavor of vanilla ice cream right like so. We got french, vanilla and vanilla bean like no, not yep. Yes, the the contra by which it is that we created, i think, while i'm confident, creates a degree of parity.

It is that becomes attractive to the family office offices, because we're not locking up capital long term. I'm not charging him a management fee, we're not using leverage all of those normal points of consternation. It is that you have between so so so you're winning on the product right, you're, winning on the financial arbitrage. You've got a better financial.

You know opportunity for the person on the other side, totally yep. Now what what what's the size of the check of norm currently of like normal lps and and are they really for the most part family offices? Or do you get some high net worth individuals who don't want to do the work or have their own family office and view you as a good option, yeah, so individuals so for the the old, rich guy kind of individual checks? These are, you know, 100 grand to maybe a million for the family offices, and that kind of thing these are two to five: two to seven million dollar checks, a piece and then ultimately, on the other side, the portfolio companies. That is what we're investing in. I'm writing kind of two to ten million dollar checks.

Jeremy, i think um, you know just to get the punchline, because i've got enough context. I think the biggest thing that people don't understand is every company in the world right now is actually a media company like when, i think about your business. I say to myself even the way you were just talking, which built up this. It probably would have been my answer anyway, but it gave me more conviction.

You know i say to myself: if i can convince jeremy to do a podcast and interview entrepreneurs, lps family office executives, you'd, be stunned, guys and gals who have not returned your email, even with a good career that you've had to your point, because it's just you Know it is what it is, you'd be stunned if there's that plum family office and that person, you kind of want to have a relationship with, and he kind of knew him from back in the day. But they just have a big response and when your email in the title says hey carl, hey kyla would love to have you on the guest of my podcast to talk about family offices? You would be flabbergasted. I mean people like like, because if you have the dna of mark cuban or ray dalio or mike novogratz or michael rubin, you actually say nut yes to these things, like i watch this, this is like my great fascination of how big this arbitrage is. You can't get the four people i just mentioned ever you're a cockamanian tier 4 podcast, and you say you want to be on and one out of nine times.

They say yes, so for me why i like that is not only do i want you to do that podcast and kind of vary on a hot. Take intuitively think you should be the host of it and then you do successful entrepreneurs like the one you have here in that stage. Taste makers from the game like me for awareness, literally literally the people you're trying to say have you know, sell to as a guest, which is like a mitzvah and a half and and and then what's really cool is linkedin. Is such good organic reach? It's people are going to cry in 10 years when they realize they missed this golden era of linkedin.

That happened in 2017 through 2023, where you can just post and people would see it and then much like the content model. I do not only do you do that the whole episode, but you take one little clip where somebody says something viral. You chat that up you get one viral clip on linkedin you'd, be i don't know how to say it other than you'd be downright fascinated. How easy it is to close business uh! You know what the comp is.

It's the media equivalent of how sad it is that sometimes getting sidelined passes to a football game. Taking somebody out for a golfing round to a club, you can't get into having a safe dinner with a 4 000 bottle of wine, because the person is a huge wine. Collector humans make ridiculous big business decisions predicated on very little proxies that just happen to hit them on their interests. For you, you know the right clip of a family office person getting a 100 000 views on a linkedin and then getting an email from a buddy that they admire or someone they admire or old college friends saying you looked great on the show: you'd be stunned, Where your firm would be in two years, it's always the same game.

The first two answers build the moat that comes to you, but what's amazing about what i'm telling you to do here is you're actually hosting the dinner party you're, throwing the high school party, your podcast you're gon na get the people you're trying to sell to be Your guests, yeah and so we're doing the podcast now so we're about 15 or 17 episodes in of exact that strategy that you're talking about and ryan's, come on. Let's let let's break it down the 15-17. How many of those guests are actually the decision maker at a family office that you would like to do business with um of the family offices? None. So this has been other fund managers, entrepreneurs, big business, guys, friends of ours - that we've helped go public.

That kind of a thing first right rather than yep, i want you, i want you now that you have 15 17 in of the next third 15 guests. I want five of them to literally be the human that you want to pitch to be part of your fund, but none of that gets brought up in recording them to be on the show. Perfect can't do it where are? Are you posting clips of the podcast in video or audio form for its entirety on linkedin from your company's profile or your profile links to the entirety? Yes, not um, not chopping it up. It is in little bite size pieces and doing it across so you're put you're posting a link to the audio out of linkedin correct.

That's that's correct, haven't chopped it up and done that purely just from resources. To be honest with you more, you know, that's the answer, the investment of the resources to make sure it's done on video, you presume in real life to then put fully in video and fully five clips per episode into linkedin because it gets crazy or not jeremy. You can then run ads against employees of organizations so check this out. Now you did the video thing that i need you to do now.

There's a good clip that organically did well, which the market then tells you affirmation. Then you take that clip and you run it against all of the employees of apollo blackrock. All of the you know. Some of the firms you're going at better family offices might be big enough to hit the radar on linkedin targeting it's really quite scary.

How effective this actually is excellent. Thank you right. You're welcome and uh we're gon na zip over to ryan hogan who's. One of jeremy's investments at uh, hunterkiller ryan, go ahead.

Ryan. Give me the context of what you're sending people yeah sure. So it's evolved over the years. We initially started off as a well.

I i guess, if you, if you rewind about seven years ago, i used to have an event called run. Fear lies, which was the first ever zombie infested, 5k obstacle course race. We scaled that nationwide back in 2011, um 12. We had our peak year 13 that um that whole scene collapsed, tough mudder and warrior dash made it through a few more years um.

But when we did it did it did it collapse because there was too much supply uh like every like every like there was like 900 of them. Yeah i mean. Not only were we competing at that point with warrior dash and tough mudder, but then every farm started, seeing you know tens of thousands of people on their property over any given weekend um and felt that they could do it themselves and then and then color run And and foam run and everything else coming in um so fast forward to 2016 um, we launched another event called hunter killer and hunter killer was basically, we use the same sort of concept that we used in 2010, which is we looked across the industry at different Types of experiences that people were gravitating towards 2016 was, you know the off-broadways immersive theater, like sleep, no more um you've got escape rooms coming over from europe and asia. You've got um uh obstacle, races, which are still kind of prevalent, and so for us it was all about okay.

Well, how do we take these three things? Combine them into just one. Gigantic immersive live experience, um and that's when hunterkiller um came about and we transformed a 200 acre campground into a living crime scene um, the first event went great. The problem was, is that it just didn't scale. So when you think back to obstacle races, you we can make a million million and a half in any given weekend for this to keep it immersive and and distort reality.

We couldn't have thousands of people sitting around um, a a staged crime, scene um, and so we looked at a different type of business model. 2016. Loot, crates, birch boxes, everything else. We said.

Okay, let's evolve this immersive storytelling concept into a subscription box platform um. We did that and and that really became uh, the flagship of hunter killer, which was episodic deliveries each month of uh clues items and correspondence that arrived directly to our detective's doorsteps. Um. It went great over the the next few years, but we saw the same thing that um both birchbox and loot crates and everybody else.

That's in that space, which is you're just it's a game of increasing pack and and trying to to fight off churn uh. So for us it was about diversification, um and different things that we could do so. You know right now. Our focus is really on diversification of revenue streams.

We're currently sitting on the shelves of target um amazon we've got licensing deals with nancy, drew agatha christie um. How much? How much is it uh depends on the experience. So if it's a subscription um, it's 30 bucks a month if you're buying us off the the shelves of targets 30 for a single experience once episodic, the other is all than one. I understand keep going so um.

I guess that was the the whole background. The future for us is really about digital um. You know licensing is going great from an inbound standpoint. Now we're really looking at outbound at the heart.

We are a media company, we've known since day, one we're a media and entertainment company and so other ways that we can monetize and license that um is very interesting to us. Have you thought about standing up original characters from the original game and launching an nft project? We're not we're not that sophisticated, again yeah we haven't felt that good yeah yeah, what's crazy, what's crazy about it, what's crazy about it is it's! You know i've done! 51 million dollars in revenue on v friends in the first 68 days now before you say, yes, you had a big platform this and that board ape yacht club, which came out of nowhere, has done hundreds of millions in the same 67 days. If you were to take and create your versions of colonel mustard and sherlock holmes and really go deep into character creation, because you're right, you know, you know, you know, what's happening with nancy drew and all that you become a platform with them - dilution over saturation, and You know, and you you've been through two rodeos of over supply and saturation, so you know exactly what's going to happen with the licensing part it'll, be that continued game. You can run that game longer, but but what you want to be is the brand more so than renting out the you know the platform, i think - and i think you're stepping in poop right now being part of this for these in the moment where i think I'm sitting at the forefront of the knowledge base of this, and i think your game and your whole concept that you are a media company, like you, have to make a movie a television show a netflix show a video game, an iphone game or an nft project, Or you're, not gon na get you're gon na get to some sort of new version of what you felt already twice, which is fine.

I already know why jeremy invested in you, like you, show me an entrepreneur that continues to pivot and i'll, show you and actually successfully pivot for moments of time. I'll show you an entrepreneur, that's somewhere along the line, going to find the thing that they don't have to pivot. Out of so i love it, i'm like listening with. Like smiles, i really think you need to spend 25 hours of your personal time in the next two weeks three weeks and really understand what the is going on with nfts, because i think you can change your business forever.

Interesting um, that's a hard pivot! I i wasn't expecting to get an nfp, so yeah i mean i'll, be honest with you. It's not, even because i have a bug for nfts right now. It's because i know what's going on. I know that if you have the creative chops, which i don't know if you do or don't or if you teamed up with somebody did that could create call it 25 core characters from this game.

And then you made, you know 400 tokens of each of them made a 10 000 token play and went into the crypto punk sport. Api club kind of you know: uh environment uh that if god forbid aka god willing it went viral. Not only would you make millions on that execution, it would then trickle down to your core business and give you a spike in that business that you wouldn't even understand, interesting, um and the other interesting part i mean the the television shows the the book deals. We've got a book deal with scholastic it'll hit shelves this um.

This fall so like we're doing all of those things which is very exciting, but we don't necessarily own it. So it's what you're talking about we're continuing to build the hunting killer brand is extremely important. Um, it's the only it's actually, the only thing you have like. I don't care what you're doing currently with it like.

I do because you do and jeremy does, because that's your current p l, but in real life you're in the smurfs scooby doo, v, friends, pokemon, sherlock holmes, you know nancy drew business and and you've got ta triple down on that part. Not hey. We don't have a big enough brand. We have this idea: oh we're good sales, people and tenacious entrepreneurs and we're getting intellectual property to rent with us jb.

It's giving us exposure, but every human really sees you as an afterthought when they buy it at target. It's they're not buying you, they're, buying, nancy, um and you've got to become intel right, like like nobody thought about chips inside in that scenario, like you'd, have to build the brand of we're powering all these things, which i think is a very diminishing return, hard game Or you get people to really give a about donald, the detective through this incredible arbitrage called nfts, which then trickles down to your core business profitably. You like make a ton of money. If you hit on the nft, it's something, i really really want you to spend 25 hours on for a million different reasons.

It will be by the way. This is the answer to everybody from including jeremy who's in finding like this is something that has to be understood. The way that internet 1.0 had to and the way that social media had to there's very big things going on in that world. It is far it's the furthest thing from a fad that i can think of the question becomes, do you have the character, development capabilities and if you don't, how do you do that because that'll be part of the equation? You know, i guess the the other question.

I would have is outside of nfts, i i mean you're you're, deeply familiar with the space and the headwinds that direct consumer has right now. You know, as we look at people um uh, reintegrating into society as we look at um, facebook and privacy and everything else. That's going on right, ios, 14, ios 14 is a challenge. No remarketing uh.

I would become a master expert in tik, tok, ads and organic niche. Your business can explode and whether to storm, if you became exceptional at insta at tick, tock, influencer, creator, marketing and my preference, which is where i started right - is that they're talking about donald the detective, not necessarily the you know the nemo version of the platform. I mean because i want you to win twice. I don't want you to just win on the short-term tackle tv business.

I want to get you religious about what you're actually doing right like like you know. I would tell you that, for example, but james on the call here, james gary, you went on mute yeah. You went on mute for some reason: yeah. Sorry about that i'll.

Tell you why i did my pinky touched it sorry about everyone. You know james's career with me has been different than the way he's navigated, because i was playing a different game of brand, not operational, p l. So there was probably a lot of you know, i'm speaking for him. Maybe he'll bring it up later.

There was probably unique decisions at the time that felt foreign or different or he's a bright dude, so he was like. I wonder why he's doing that? I'm sure i'll think you know i went through it right wrong or indifferent worked or didn't. It was that i was religious about knowing what i was building and you know for for me. What excites me about your business? My friend is, if you're religious, about understanding you need to create characters in your game.

That people like the fact that i can bring up colonel buster is the reason clue still sells. Yep um great points and a part of that is uh in the life. Can i give you a ride, can i give you guys i apologize? Can i give you a left field one. The reason i want you to make like is you: let you make a halloween costume like i'm, going to be doing with v friends, you can grab tick tock influencers, you don't want to wear it.

That becomes your own, and your business forever has changed by developing the characters you go into the home run business. Anything then can happen right now, you're in the morrison birchbox i was, i wrote the first check in the birchbox. You can google the story. It was at starbucks, they tried, like the reason it lost, is when you're in the conversion sales business, not the overall brand business.

You eventually die yeah um. It's why mascots work right and i just think you have a huge opportunity because you are in the media business, but i don't, but i want your characters to not be like faceless. Does that make sense yeah and i mean do you think that they become the sub brand of hunt the killer like hunt the killer becomes the umbrella in which they are always a part of, of course, of course, you've heard of disney. But you also know who mickey mouse is, and let me give you some news: mickey mouse and snow white is why you know disney, not the other way around, all right guys.

We got to move forward um. Thank you very much ryan for sharing that uh russell uh down in california you're up next, i apologize russell before you go ryan. One last thought which is to the question you thought we're gon na answer. It will be tick, tock ads that saved your butt on ltd thanks.

That was the main question i know it was, which is why i brought it to the end good russell, excellent thanks gary. So we are my company. Ymash capital is a mortgage broker in the bay area. We are more of a b2b model than b yep, i'm aware um, and so what we do is we partner with tax pros and financial planners, get them licensed and teach them how to provide mortgages for their clients.

This is important because it is illegal to pay someone a referral fee in our industry, so they actually have to do. They have to do the work and what i did is i actually created a proprietary system that makes it very easy for them to do all the steps and do all the work without actually really knowing everything. Okay, i understand cool um, so i started working in this family business in 1991 came up with these ideas that everyone said. No, you can't do it that way, and you know i did all the research and over several years came up with the systems um.

In 2015, the founders decided to retire, and i was passed over to inherit the company. It was given to my little brother and the other found her son. My father was one of the founders okay in 2018. They fired me kicked me out of here and my wife and i i'm sorry why they didn't like the fact that the ip was owned by another company, where i was one of the owners.

We have a software company, so they decided they decided. I was a danger because i had ownership in the tools that made them all their money, so they knew i had permission to start my own company anytime. I wanted to and actually take the iq with, i think so they they were. They refined me in 2018.

Um, my wife and i started a new company tried more in 2018, which is another brokerage which is tiny because it's really hard to start from zero. You know that um and then my brother and his partner realized they don't like running a company. They don't like mortgages, so i bought them out. May 1st of last year, interesting.

Okay, um last year was the company's best year since 2012., um back in 2012. The company was twice as big, so i've brought some different changes that i wanted to do now that it's mine um. I changed the compensation plan for the agents, i'm reaching out a lot more to my agents, trying to make them feel supported. You're running the action you're actually running the business, that's what i'm doing and and there's been a lot of mismanagement over the years right, yep um.

So i'm trying to do everything i can to increase morale. It's been really tough since we can't get together. You know because we were basically forced to close right before i took over um and so everything's been virtual now instead of meeting in person um right, but i try to reach out to all my best people several times a week, hey how's it going do you Need anything um, i i made sure to meet with each of them at christmas time went to their homes and brought them a gift which the company's never done. Just all kinds of stuff.

Good news, i've got the i've got the full context of this story. Let's get into the question i understand so my question is because what we do is a little bit too late. How do i get the message out to the independent cpas taxpayers financial planners to entice them into listening to the message, so they want to offer the service to their clients. Um have do you know what is going on with facebook groups um, i'm in several facebook groups.

So what do you mean? I believe that facebook groups, for this kind of scenario, are an incredible super weapon. I think your company should start many facebook groups and you should hire after you know you either you or because you've got you've got what i've got, which is like you like scaling, unscalable things yeah, because you know that's because you know that's how business is done. So now what i'm gon na do, for you is try to give you a model that scales unscalable things that are still unscalable but are much more scalable than what you're doing right facebook groups. So, for example, a couple questions is the business regional by nature or no, so each state has its own licensing requirements, so we are in california and utah right now, perfect.

Let's start there. Let's just start there. I think you should take the seven biggest cities in those two or the seven your favorite cities to target, because maybe s7 la and even salt lake city might be too competitive. But let me tell you what i would do i if you create many different facebook groups that are either broad or narrow right so uh, the salt literally.

This is what you name your group, the salt lake city mortgage and real estate. Friends group: that's it okay! Then you run facebook ads against real estate, employees or real estate interests or whatever the targeting capabilities are on facebook right now in that area, right, you promote it. You look at your current business and figure out what city it like. What what i want you to do is get the industry into your facebook group, where you're the host a bigger, slightly different version of what i just told jeremy, to do journey higher touch bigger checks.

I want him to host the party own the podcast. I know what he's done for his 15 17. Yes, but notice. The little tweak jeremy, two things you got, ta get the fun man.

You got ta, get the decision maker to be your guest, because you're gon na get a relationship, and you need to make video and create content for you. I want you to stand up facebook groups. I believe facebook groups is one of the incredible arbitrages, because you're basically becoming the pta the chamber of commerce. Virtually the virality russell is insane if you run ads and spend 2 thousand bucks and get 91 people.

Let me say that number again: 91 people into that facebook group for the fresno real estate and mortgage friends group you are going to wake up if you work it put in put in questions, say hi to people if you're working, which is why you have to Scale this a little bit, you will wake up one day in seven months and go how the hell does this have 9 000 people in it. Okay, what's amazing about that 500 700. 9 000 people is they're, so targeted and just like the book, i wrote jab jab jab right hook when you're just putting out good information. You're talking about the market.

You're talking about family work, life balance, it's a friends, group you're jabbing, but then every 12th time. First of all, they're going to look at your bio who's. This guy that started the group and in your bio, you're gon na, have a link to your business you're, not even gon na have to say it. They're gon na start asking you questions like russell.

What do you do? You will be flabbergasted what a facebook group can do for your business model. Awesome, that's a completely different direction than i thought you were going to take me so cool good. It's been invaluable right for the last. You know it's always like.

Where do you think and you've got the rest of my team there, because i put out enough information on that you can brush your teeth and eyes the rest of the day, but again much like nfts for the last answer. Please spend russell and i know you will already, which is why i love the context. The first three minutes spend 10 hours meeting and watching youtube videos about facebook groups. Don't pay for don't pay for courses from all those internet spammers.

There's plenty of good information on youtube of how to run a facebook group, but it will work brother. It will work if you make them very regional, don't make it california, because now you compete it's too general. You want to win regionally, got it fresno sacramento! You can go even smaller, you may know where there's a hot pocket, where you want to do business or where you used to do business really well, and you want to reboot it. It could be a city, it doesn't even have to be.

You know like you, can go very narrow if you want that's how you can do it, but then you've got to be the pied piper and the mayor in there or start to hire one person underneath you to scale it very cool. Thank you very much. It's gon na work, you're welcome, awesome, you're, welcome next we're gon na talk to dylan dylan who's, also in california, sag to garyvee, hey gary, hey dylan, so i fire with my question right now: right yep, all right awesome, so i have two main questions. One release to branding uh the other one really to um hiring and training, so i'll, follow with the branding first, so um from you know the way that you do branding gary.

I can see it's somewhat. It has a really big overlap between your business and also your branding. You know audience people that are entrepreneurs, people that are you know what are hustlers right, so i feel like there's a good mix there for me um, you know our product is teeth grinding and when it comes to content, there's just so much you can talk about When it comes, you know, bruxism, teeth grinding stress, so one of the things i thought about was you know, talk about things that people that are integrating might be interested in what our targeted audience would be interesting. Maybe you know when we run ads, we can see the demographics and interest and all of that so we create other related type of topic to talk about uh.

You know like maybe yoga, maybe meditation - maybe you know stress management, but not really, training right. So my question is: how do i play the game of personal branding versus business branding, so i can come from the angle of personal branding and talk. You know even talk about things that aren't related to you know our dental business at all. Maybe just talk about my uh challenges as a business owner yeah, four, four, four or like i do with the jets and garage saleing or you know wine, or that you like fishing, the answer is going to be both dylan.

I am blown away by people's um. Fascination with, or the answer is both and right, you do that yeah, you and the companies handle right doing the best it can. Yes, by the way, i don't want to be a dead horse. I genuinely believe your product could go viral on tick, tock, okay, we're showing that with harvest dental right now, gary and uh a couple a couple: people on tick, tock, doing a lot of stuff with dentures, believe it or not.

Okay, thanks for the answer so not at all, but where are you i mean one of the first major take top freaks, hey gary, we lost. You might want to turn your video off for a minute to let your food back up. Can you guys hear me yeah? We can hear you now, okay, go ahead, oh um! I i lost you for a while there. I i i wasn't really.

I thought it was my internet connection problem. It was. It was mine dylan. So, yes, the answer is both and and i bring up the tick tock thing because i and james brought up the dental thing.

I think you can really, if any consumer product, like you, especially yours, at the price range and what the benefits are for stress mental health like you, can make one video once you understand tik tok, which may take several months. That's like cramming for your tests and struggling it's actually your teeth grinding and for some reason it just goes it. You can't believe what i'm seeing with one post on tick, tock, changing dtc business results yeah. That was that was very interesting.

We mentioned about one video. You had over a million view, the other one was just 27 000, where you know it's interest based, not followed, based so definitely testing that out um. The second question is actually related to um. You know we'll just talk about which is the video going virals, which is our production capacity, because everything is handcrafted um.

So you know, the scaling of the business is. Is changes strongly on how much production? How many you know trained technicians? We can hire and train um here in the bay area. You know, cost is relatively high and as a technician uh, you know you're, really not gon na get paid a lot of money initially, because it's a skill based so you're you acquire skill as you. You know um as time go on, so it's not a really attractive of career per se initially, because you know you're really just being a um.

What is apprentice um initially, so the uh our hiring and training strategy right now with you know, one of the points i picked up. You know one of the earlier answers you you had to uh the other um. I forgot his name, but the first one, the best yeah invest heavily on heavy training. If you, if you and george, made content that that i'm gon na be paying you for me to train you, your whole deal flow of talent would change.

If you and george made the same video, that said, we have done this internally in our company so that we're literally paying you while we're actually training you so not like college, where you pay to get something that helps you get a job, we're gon na, be Paying you on your job and we're gon na be training. You you'll have a totally different funnel of people coming to you right, yeah, that's a good point! Uh! That's you! Just! I think that's you you just have to make you have to make those videos you have to put them on youtube, facebook and linkedin and get good at it, tick, tock, and then that will then change that flow. It will work thanks for uh, confirming that yeah. So um that's one of the things we played uh not play, but one of the factors we stress during the interviewing process explaining to them why their initial pay is low because of their lot of training, a lot of education going on and um um yeah.

I think that's the next thing we're going to be doing is actually launching some campaign, like you said, the paid ad campaigns and really target the people in our local area and talk about this point and some of the other key points of why they should start A career as a dental technician and really play that yeah make the video punchy fast and contextual, send it to a landing page. That explains it in detail. The mistake that most people make in your situation is they try to explain everything in the video and then the video doesn't do well make the video interesting thumb. Stopping with a link to the full description right sounds good um.

That's really all i have thanks a lot good. We had a quick follow on about uh how to find influencers in each of their niche. Is there any recommendations you have? Is it work with an outsourced agency? Is there a tool you prefer when you say out? What do you would i want to make sure to get clarity on that? Can we get clarity on that when you say influencers we're talking jeremy, now, like guests, like what jimmy are you asking like the guests that you're looking for no when you're talking to christy and each of these guys you're talking to identify the you know the topic? Yes got it got it, got it um and find those guys. If you go to google right now - and you say the top followed people on tick tock or the top ranking podcasters, you literally have your answer in two hours.

Awesome. Thank you thanks gary and then what happened. Usually those lists are only top 100 or top 1000 journey, and then you start digging right you, you start looking like, like you get into the trenches of instagram and tick tock and you just start clicking around like who's. Following who and what and you just see verified check marks - and you start just it's actually like research work, you know, but it's all there all right team looking forward to it um i uh i i apologize that we ran out of time, but that's in a Weird way: ace jamie, that's gon na end up being good news, because i have a weird feeling: it's gon na work out for you, so i'll see you soon.

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