You have to build a brand that nobody else can buy anywhere else if you're a retail store in 2021 2022 and you don't have a private label. That is the number one thing you focus on. You will never win. 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 we'll kind of just go around the room. One time i'll uh introduce you to some folks and then uh we'll go through the second time and go deep with everyone. So uh i'd like to start by introducing you to jonathan cott who's down in australia, jonathan, say hi to gary. Give him a little bit of your vitals cool, hey gary.

How are you doing? I'm uh, hey, i'm a sports scientist, but i use uh physical health to get leaders to practice mental skills like optimism, courage, grit and accountability, so they can create a work life that i love and experience the five elements of fulfillment. So i just wanted to share that. There's a very heart-centered mental performance, the mental well-being aspect of what i do. I don't train athletes.

I love it cheers cheers. We've also got andy richards, uh dialing in from north dakota, andy, say: hi, hey gary pleasure, being able to see you on this. I've always watched you and i really appreciate all your work um. Thank you.

I got my master's degree in aerospace. Space studies, designing human life support systems around 2017 and i realized i had a knack for complex systems, but it also applied to people, and i started helping companies find out problems or sales revenues or getting into different markets or whatnot and uh. One of the things that i'm kind of looking for the cannabis space, with helping some of the true thc companies create delta delta 10 products to develop brands that are national prior to their ability to access the full national market. And then i also help with some companies that do marketing and creating lead funnels and whatnot, and my goal from this is to learn how to maximize myself and have a brand for what i can bring to.

Companies learn as much as i can, but then also uh kind of glean, some information on how to help the emerging markets that i'm forging and do that. I have a personal passion, for i understand very cool and uh over in california. We've got bobby thompson who's in the legal space bobby, say hi to gary, hey gary, how you doing man i'm well bobby? How are you good good, so i have my own personal injury, wrongful death, um firm and i'm kind of one of those guys where nobody needs me until they need me. You know right right and um, and so my i'm not a billboard guy, i'm not a volume guy um, i'm very selective in the cases i bring on.

So i'm really trying to just my my social game and then have targeted campaigns for niche. I got it cases, i got it well. Well, yours is gon na, be i've been thinking about your space, for who knows what reason probably saw a billboard, so i'm very prepared i'll be ready. Awesome thanks, dude and uh sticking in california.

We've got a guy that built and sold a cafe and is now running a content agency, and i love it robin xander robin say hi gary so good to see you um jack of all trades, self-taught, acrobat, circus performer uh started a restaurant with no experience on Three weeks notice sold it three years later on. Craigslist came here because i run a conference in the hr space that claude spoke out in new york in 2018.. These days run xander media, mostly we're doing explainer videos and just trying to figure out how to scale this uh to build an agency. Where i understand i understand, i think and uh somebody that i've really uh thoroughly enjoyed reading all of his e-newsletters recently lee over.

In denver colorado with turbine labs, lisa gary hey gary lee. How are you good to see you man good to see you so uh, founder and ceo of turbine labs, based just outside of denver colorado uh founded the company several years ago on the premise that the way that we're getting our news and information is completely broken? In fact, it's been broken for over a decade. Our job is to fix it, so we're an ai powered executive intelligence software platform that dramatically reduces information, overload and media fatigue for executives, policymakers and decision makers. I, like it, understood, hey there thanks for having us gary.

It's great to appreciate, thank you um, so back in 2005 to make it short and sweet. I started in wholesale i sold to retail barney's bloomies anthropology, some really big, wig clientele and i always um had a passion for fashion. It was always in, like you know, my dna. It was always who i was but the life.

You know that todd and i live. It was never something that we were able to do on our own. We always hustled. We always worked hard.

I always sold software. I worked for groupon, i always had side gigs, but on this you know for 10 years i built a side business which was an e-commerce website and it was um designer clothes. Similarly, to some of you know what bloomingdale cells or denny cells um, but my um, my niche, has always been customer service based. It's always been driving, um self-confidence and self-awareness and self-esteem and all different.

You know we're all created differently and our bodies are all different, but we should all feel beautiful and look beautiful and um. I really try to hone that in with young girls and really build uh awareness when you start so love that you started a um, a brick and mortar during this time where you know, stores, are closing, left and right and we're really trying to set ourselves apart. In the industry and be somebody that's here in the front runner, you know as a front runner for the long long haul. So where is that store right in central new jersey in manhattan um? So we have a good market and when did you open it? We opened the brick and mortar in november uh this past november, so it's been a year and we've been online as this um as this business, which is called spirit animal for uh about four years now, and and were you able to lock in just like a Really attractive retail situation, given the reality of the world.

Yes, we were prime space right on route 9, which is the main like we're right next to a starbucks like right in the middle of um of town, and we got to go and are you and are you there every day for the most part? That's you know, i know, of course i know we do. Okay, awesome! Thank you. That's amazing, very cool yeah. Thank you thanks for having me, of course, back around the room.

We're gon na start with jonathan uh jonathan you're, up with gary you've, got probably about six. Seven minutes and then we'll we'll move on so jonathan, say hi again and uh what you got going on: okay, sure, okay, to share my religion, so your religion is day trading attention. My religion is that your physical health is the foundation of your mental performance and emotional well-being, and so the biggest benefit i see when i coach, ceos and leaders to live this statement is in their self-esteem and in their personal and professional relationships, and so this is, I'm talking to a man, who's invested in this and really prioritized this in his company, but you can imagine who i'm selling to like i'm saying totally execs and group exec level is a big business. So if you were in the room, how would you sell physical, mental and emotional well-being of their people? I wouldn't, and let me explain what i mean by that.

I think you have the luxury of being in a moment in time where the conversation is elevating and i think to your point, you're talking to somebody who's, probably further along down the path. But when you're not talking to me nine years ago, when i was like, where is everybody else, you can feel everybody coming? I think for all of you that this is something i've got to really do a bigger job of. In my content, i might even write a damn book about it. I don't think you should try to sell to people that are unsellable when, for the majority of you, and definitely for what you're doing um, you only have so much limited resources with your time.

So i think from a macro strategy standpoint you need to think about. I think one of the things you need to think about who you want to get in front of and vet them as much as they're betting. You, i think, um, you know. One thing, that's very wild about the vayner x world is how little i try to spend time on convincing people and to your point, similar to you we're selling something that's different, we're going to be able to aspirate.

You know. So i think, first and foremost, jonathan try not to get you know convinced, like. I think that there's enough people in australia that should already know that it's a viable conversation - and i think before i let go of this - is why i'm still talking, i think you need to think about creating a scenario where you're very much up front, letting them Know that you're vetting them as well, because you really don't have time to convince them yeah, so that there's two things that said like i've, i've heard your your message about: don't sell the unsellable. So if i like the person that i'm talking to believes in my religion, but then they are someone who's ingrained in that, but then they have to go to the upper levels of their organization.

That means selling that doesn't just because you have a rabbi or a co-signer that doesn't mean you're, not you're. Still, the only person that i refer to don't sell to the unsellable is the person writing the check, yeah yeah? Okay, fair enough to your point. It's a really good point, though there isn't an organization that doesn't have a jonathan cheerleader in it right now. Yeah the problem is, that's not what i'm referring to and i think that's a huge waste of your time.

Potentially i'll give you another example. I think you can make money to get customers, so i will i i wonder if you should build a front-facing layered virtual scalable business that charges, people two hundred thousand jesus christ. Sorry two hundred dollars for two hours of a virtual workshop. That is the gateway, and maybe i don't like that price.

Let me start over maybe twelve hundred dollars for two hours in a virtual environment that becomes the gateway. It's really the reverse of what i tell james and and and joe here on, the call like literally this is not a joke and i'd love to get your body language on this. They know that if anybody that ever does a four d's feels that it was a setup for a bigger engagement that they're in deep, but i actually want you to build the reverse. I want you to build a business potentially that charges a thousand virtually because now you know they're committed to the hypothesis yeah.

I think you get a lot more business by working that and then using that as your leads than just kind of doing any other version of that. That's just another important thing for you to think about, because to your point, every company hates the company right like every employee, like every company, has employees that, like think the company doesn't get it right, and so, of course they want to push this, because this is A progressive you know, angle in the scheme of things. I don't think that that's a good use of your time unless you're paying 1200 bucks, for you know for the ability to sell it harder in your organization. Otherwise you're going to get too many run around some too much wasted energy yeah.

And if i've got time to, i just asked for a similar question and i asked her right, so she got it like we're developing people, but the biggest like business benefits, so the people who's looking at the dollars and cents uh. The conversation went through like retention, that is the dollars and cents that this religion or looking after people is going to have the biggest benefit of business. Do you agree or do you have a different take, i meaning that you believe if you tell a cfo in that environment, that you have better retention and that's why it's a good investment? Do i think that lands, no, not not necessarily like convincing the cfo, but just like to to actually create the business case like to turn this religion into a business case like what's? What's the reason the business invests in this like yeah? Yes, you can get like. I don't know, i think i think i think it's not only retention, but i also think it's employee acquisition acquisition as well right, of course, because it's a value prop that others are bringing to a workforce that now believes in it yeah cool cool all right.

So, thank you. Yep we'll go around. If we have more time, we can do a little free form at the show. Now you guys know if uh, if i feel a little bit despondent when we're talking about your business, it's because i'm not trying to sell you things.

I have scared joe quite a bit like a one person ever feels that you're in trouble. Let's roll over to andy uh, andy up in north dakota, what you got for us, hey gary, i got a couple sets of questions that are pretty, should be fairly easy for you. I have a feeling but um my whole life, i've sprinted and pulling and shot at everything i've ever done. I started a gym while i was in college to be able to train executives, and then i realized that most those guys didn't eat healthy.

So i created a food delivery service that i outfitted my parents, lake home, to coach the food and delivered to them so that i got more videos and high level people and, as my career progressed, i ended up becoming a vp of a radiology company where i Realized there's a lot of people in there that wanted unbiased advice, and i started doing that and, as i progressed for my career, my education, i realized that every company buys promotional and branded materials, so i started doing that so that i could work with the marketing Companies and then also have input and giving free additional input and, as i've worked through all this, what i've kind of realized is there's a lot of emerging markets that are available, that a lot of companies are able to pivot into, or i myself and now set Myself up to be able to help career into some of those opportunities that are coming and with the point-and-shoot mentality, and i know that you do things very fast uh. What is your criteria when determining emerging markets for expanding your markets and then, what's like the list of criteria that you look at and then the second part of that is of that list of criteria? How are you determining what is more important over others? What is the most important aspect to help you pick the one that you decide to move forward on? Are we talking about completely new genres of doing new businesses or opportunities where we talk about expansion of current ones? Well, a lot of the companies that i've been working with have infrastructure and i've helped them pivot into industries that didn't even exist yet like delta, 8 delta, 10 and other derivatives, and then i've also stepped in with other people and started setting up emerging markets. That don't aren't really there yet that are speculative. I'm trying to figure out a way to well essentially uh when you start looking into potential wars that are happening.

Government contracts are going to come up and there's low-hanging fruit for individuals to fill. Those contracts is one of the emerging industries that i'm looking at for the next three to six months and then some of the other industries is. You can go through the uk into europe to get the stamps of approval with cannabis products that then can be distributed. All throughout the eu - and i have a distribution network - lined up uh through a guy who owned swanson health products.

So let me download in a world where arbitrage comes natural to you yeah. The thing i would start with is you actually are interested in okay, because i think what's happening is what you're interested in is the arbitrage i'm a little bit similar to you this way? This is why i think i really made a big great decision with vaynerx. It wasn't what i decided to do 12 13 years ago, would have been very different than what you would have decided, because i could have made a lot more money doing a hundred thousand other things. But i had incredible self-awareness and - and in hindsight foresight to understand that everything i was going to do in perpetuity would still find itself doing.

The thing that i do, which is really understand. Marketing of the second as the arbitrage to make consumer demand happen for something you know. I think, and - and now you know, knowing all the charges i have on my wall like be friends, is just like the logical thing that happened right and rezzy and empathy and all these things worked garyvee the brand it all worked. You know the thing that strikes me andy is for you to consider maybe starting a company that is omni and more leveled up similar to what i did that is built around your skills but scales it so that you can then deploy it against anything and everything And or taking a step back and realizing, okay, i'm good at the science of figuring it out.

Why don't i deploy that against a subject matter? That is the single most interesting thing to me from a standpoint of it would be my hobby, okay, you know, you know, i think you because then you could have retention and you could build something meaningful over the long term. Okay, do you see where i'm going? Yeah see the thing that i'm kind of at a crossroads that is, money is arbitrary to me. It's i'm more about learning and experiences throughout my life, i've been blessed with some great people who have mentored me and one of the things that i i want to do something that actually changes the world, and i don't know how to apply some of my background. Yet to do that, so i'm trying to gain as much experience in as many industries as i can so that when i come into complex situations, i can draw from my rolodex my experiences in different contexts.

So is your world based on being a company that helps different scenarios or is it you go to thing to thing and you do deals within it that i usually find people through not to be overly spiritual, but opportunities happen to fall in my path that i Am capable and no people to fix the situation or create the next market? Have you created the container that this talent sits in? Is there like a company like? Is there an andy, richards consultants um, i created a promotional products. Company called pledge promo, where i bought out all the partners and now that's my vehicle that i do things and it's pledge consulting because i pledge to my the people i work with that. I will put every ounce of energy into figuring whatever it is out yeah. I mean okay good, i mean, i think i you know it's very similar to what i'm doing.

I wanted to get the context of everything, so i could use it in the future, which is why i built vayner, and so i'm a buyer of this. How big is the company? Is it just you and and you then it's an army of me. It's just an army of me and friends of mine that do various things, but i get it. I got there's a couple very wealthy and i'm talking in the billionaire range that have acquired my services on retainer, which has funded me to be more philanthropic through what i decide to do personally.

But i just have to at the core figure out when they have issues. I understand. Okay, is there, you know, as far as to answer your original question now that i understand uh on complete intuition of what makes me happy. Okay, when you're trying to import - and it's a really interesting answer - and i think you'll understand - and i appreciate your response to it when you want to do everything in perpetuity you're not crippled by the next decision.

Okay, like you know that i i don't struggle with decisions i'm trying to get around to everything anyway. So if we're going to do denver right now or if we're going to do you know nfts or if we're going to do production like cool, it's we're going to get to everything anyway, eventually yeah cool. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Gary got it we'll head over to bobby over in california bobby what you got for gary gary you, you said: you've been thinking about my space, so why don't? I just say what you've been thinking about man. I think that a better, more upscale version in this space than like the infomercial billboard thing requires you acting like a publisher, not a marketer. Can you explain what you mean by that? I can so instead of running the ads.

I think you should build a franchise, core youtube or podcast show right and that you should have guests and educate and give out tons of free advice, create content that, on that show that helps people for not reaching out to you or your contemporaries. The ones that are good and the ones that are sleazy when they don't need to because you're giving them information that will stop them from. Like you know, it's like the whole. I always thought the best lawyer brand in the world that if i had that skill set, i would have built the biggest company, because my whole motto would have been i'm giving you as much free information as possible.

So you never hire us again. It's a very common theme: it's what back to james and joe right julia like let's like do. This is not 4d. This was huge.

James will tell you i spent weeks on this. I was like guys, you know because they would bring it up. They're, like oh, my god, 4d is going to be cool and we can use it as a sales. I'm like it is not a sales engine, not a person.

If anybody leaves that spent real money - and i think a dollar is really money and leaves like this was just we got - we got we paid to get pitched, i'm gon na kill you that's literally how passionate i was about it and i i really believe humans Are animals and they sense intent? I believe, bobby. You had a weekly podcast where the people over time and you could cut up the content and the whole model that you know we'll go through and you know you'll know about. I don't know if you've done that. Yet or we won't, you know, but i it will work because then you're, not a marketer, you don't have to market it.

People will find you over time in perpetuity right got it. You see where i'm going and by the way that stuff, then you start chopping up that one hour episode that 30 minute episode and it becomes your ads on linkedin on facebook like, but the ad is like a quality piece of information. It's not an ad right. It's like a movie trailer instead of an ad.

It's just a clip right right, it is the disproportionate. The reason i've been thinking about you is it's very obvious to me that in markets that have some hair on it, that this model is over indexing because i've been speaking to this model for quite a while, and so i'm receiving a lot of emails from people That are very transparent. Like hey, i was a scammy of the scam in this space and something you said in this video made me do this, and this happened, and this is what happened or my dad was in this space and he was like a pioneer in it. It was a little infomercially and i did this, like you said, and this app like i just i think, there's something there there yeah what so so it's you know i just need to be like in the back of people's head when something bad happens to them And, like that's the i need to call right now right, so how how how would you scale that or how would you build? I mean like easy: it's the life i live yeah literally like and very, very easy.

It's why i'm trying to give you the formula right? I am at the forefront of people what people think about when marketing, because rachel and todd like me, because i'm putting out free information, that's good and motivational and tactical and - and i don't know what they or anybody here first thought when they saw me. But you know, after a little while no matter the most cynical, if the other shoe never drops, and there is no mastermind there's, no eight thousand dollar course that there's no eventually you got ta, be like what i guess this you know, and then you start digging Deeper you're, like oh he's, got other you know, and i that's what i want for you. I want you to be top of mind because you're providing value information, you know and you can put out tons of content. You know how for people to avoid getting sued, you know, you know that i don't know but like if this would stop me in my tracks for my dad, if i'm just scrolling and says how retailers can stop from getting sued, i would literally just click that And said to my dad and be like dad: don't mop the floors during working hours? Okay, you know so, like you know what i mean like there's a lot of weight.

You know the first thing. You're supposed to do. That's right. James jab jab jab right hook, is right like, but i i think if you know if i can get you to think that you're a podcaster, not a marketer you'll, be more top of mind.

Publishing publishers are always more top of mind than marketers right when suzy orman's on tv and jim cramer's on tv people, think of them for financial advice, a hell of a lot more than whoever the showed up in their google adwords or on the infomercial in between At two o'clock in the morning on cnbc, you could now establish that brand on the internet for no cost yeah talk to me. Does that make sense. Yeah totally um talk to me. I use the word the 80 20 rule.

I i think i heard you have a one percent rule, so my bandwidth is max right. So just give me some some some, so i got some good thoughts on that, so how i'm spending you know. Eighty percent of my time trying to get twenty percent of my assets. How do i spend more of my time getting 80 of my assets? Well, first of all, you raise your price one of the things that a lot of people are confused about when they're at a max capacity.

Practitionership is the need to raise the price. If that's true, you need to raise your price talk to me about that before i go to the next part. Well, i i don't have a price, i'm a contingency fee, so i don't. I don't build by the hour, so god it's kind of hard for me to do resp.

That's why i wanted. I knew you were pausing and i was like there's something i need to know got it so you're, making a piece of the action so you're making you're spending your time deciding if this is quote unquote worth your time right, okay and so fine comma. Go back to the 80 20. you're spending 80 percent of your time to get the customers for the 20 of your work.

Well, no! I'm spending! You know, like 80 percent of my time, dealing with with twenty percent of the that i have to deal with. Instead of focusing on what one the stuff that actually makes me money, respect like what the lower end cases um, can you hire a lawyer to do that? Content developments all that sort of stuff? Let's talk about the lower end cases? First, because content is easy, uh lower, lower cases are you willing? Can you hire lawyers to do that or i'm just farming them out now and rev sherry right? So then has that problem been solved somewhat yeah? Have you considered adding a per people or no lawyers? Yeah, i'm pretty built out right now how many, how many lower level lawyers do you have uh four, and is it better for you to farm it out and rev share than it is to add a fifth or sixth or seventh? I sleep better because that that's a great answer, yeah, that i love okay, uh talk to me about the content, part that you refer to next. Well, i got a guy, i'm paying! You know a shitload of money a month, four grand to do what develop for instagram facebook and just get it all out there and it's not working right, not really yeah, and do you spend any media dollars to amplify the four grand of content? No, but i i will, from time to time, like um higher companies, do targeted campaigns on very niche type cases that you know, i'm not not like. You know like, like a billboard guy trying to get car crash cases.

That's not going to work for me right, but if there's some case that i know that's out there that nobody else knows about i'll spend some money on a targeted campaign for those types of cases from an scm standpoint, yeah people's intent, what they type in, and You show up and because you know it right, long-term right right, and is that effective? Yes, so why don't you do more of that? Well, these niche things only come along and they only niche for so long before everybody else finds out about them. I understand what about paying more for them, even though more people found out about it so, instead of paying 39 a lead spending 297. yeah i'll. Tell you i'll tell you why i'm asking these questions, because they're common things that i've seen friends startups things i'm involved in.

You know people get emotion, people take so much pride in finding the niche that when the niche gets crowded, they actually think it's time. This was a huge problem for me in my 20s. I would know things about wine. I was buying customers for 10 cents.

It was a different day back then and then and then it'd be a dollar and i'd be like. Oh everybody figured out the australian shiraz thing. Meanwhile, in hindsight years later, i'm like i'm an idiot, it was working for me at a dollar. I should have poured more, lighter fluid on it right thoughts on that.

Well, i guess i'm just sort of i've always been more organic and i'm i'm just sort of afraid of spending money, because you have pride in being organic and by not spending money it makes you feel less like the others. No, it's just sort of it it. I guess it's just: it feels like an ideology versus an actual business. No i've just thrown some money.

I've just thrown some money away. I hate doing it because sometimes it doesn't work and i you know i spent a hundred thousand dollars bobby, sometimes sometimes a lot of things. Don't sometimes you lose the case. I i think, there's something really here i'll tell you why long tail sem in your business is a real thing, if you complement it with what i want you to do, which is to do a show, instead of having 4 000 wasted on content, that's probably not Effective turn that 4000 a month into a production team of two people that has a weekly podcast for you and then you clot up the clips from the show and now you're putting out good content in digital form and video form complementing the sem.

I think you're going to build more of a brand and then over 24 to 36 months. People are just subconsciously coming to you and then you really stop spending ads yeah. You had already given some thought to that. Like fireside chat with, like really kick-ass lawyers, sipping whiskey, talking about shop, oh i'm telling you that, based on everything i've heard from you and just like the way you your feelings, are it's gon na work for you more you're, wasting 4 000 a month.

I can smell it from a million miles away, because i know what that looks like in social media land, and i think you should convert that into a show that produces 12 pieces of social media content from each episode. The way my content is produced right, i do stuff, and then we chop it not make it for it right. Okay, how much content should i be blasting out on a daily basis as much as humanly possible? I swear to god. This is back to some of the guys here on health and fitness.

You just asked me: how well should i eat and how much exercise should i do a day lots as much as possible now in workout land there's a little bit of resting and some other variables not in this one as much as possible. Yeah promise. Let's move on over to robin uh robin definitely creates a lot of content. He's got some great questions for you.

Gary go ahead robin i feel like i never create enough um so sold my restaurant event. Space in san francisco um woke up two weeks later said. I didn't create enough content about it and and really throughout my career right, like done a bunch of weird things, never really told the story. Well so said.

Okay, i want to make that mistake, never again and there's other people making that mistake too. I saw you start talking about that uh, unfortunately, after the fact right but like if my nephew could come in and uh. You know his eyes got big because i owned an ice cream machine right incredible stories, so xander media mostly were doing explainer videos. Nine people didn't realize it was an agency until i hired my second employee, because i don't know anything about agencies until now, two and a half years later, this summer's been incredible.

We opened up our first office in the bay um hired our first full-time designer after video folks. Uh are managing a 30k ad spend on linkedin for the first time, but there's so many moving pieces of an agency um and then, of course, the piece around personal brand. I'm happy to be on stage i like performing um. I don't need to be right.

How much to promote xander media, how much to promote myself uh and then how to build a content machine around the promotion to to feedback to the business um as much as you can, as much of you being on stage and building your personal brand. As you can afford to that doesn't come at the detriment of the operations of the business too many people don't understand how the world is actually structured. They have this philosophy that, if it's about them, they can't sell their company one day because they're right, they think about that they think about. Well, then all our clients won't want any of my account people they're always going to want.

They come up with all the things that all of them are secondary to the fact that a human being is always going to be a bigger brand machine and builder to business development and then on the client side when they come in. You say from second one: hey kieran, you know before we even get started here. I am robin xander, but xander media is not robin sanders. Xander media is the joke of drones.

Intermediates james, you know so you control that when they come in the pipe and you the human bring in the most pipe and as far as building a content team around it, you need a copywriter, a media person, a video person and a design person. And that's a lot of people. One person could be all four in the beginning like it was for me. Eventually, it's four different people and those become managing resources, and that becomes a game of you, leaving money on the table from the distributions of the profits of the business and pouring it back into the business right and i'm building this for the rest of my life.

Because i'm going to do other things right, so no desire to sell uh, no desire to leave this behind, i'm still delivering all of our work, and so i think in some way uh, i'm afraid of letting go of the reins of like client facing control yeah. I think that's that immediately has to be step. One step one, two, three, four, five, six seven is who is going to be the account person that you trust, if you go into a tree for 19 months, that is your business will not scale in any shape or form without that, if you're, the deliverer of The client work right, yeah right now, we're we're trying to decide between rpg content, personal brand content and xander media client work right and and because i'm the limiting factor, correct yeah you, the account person on xander media, is everything cool um where to go niche. So, like most of our money in the last two and a half years has been video production, but we're i i can do other things right.

The team is starting to get interested in like how do we manage ad spend or we're gon na produce some squarespace websites for a client um where to go niche at this stage right if the goal is long long, long term, the rest of my life? But if you lose your life, then much like the earlier thing to andy. You can go anywhere and i think going to where current employees interests are passions and skill sets is always a good idea, cool right, because, when you're, showing them that you're supporting their decision, they're bought in emotionally and that builds a great culture, yeah yeah, which brought Me here right, i mean i i for five years now run a conference on future work hr. That cloud spoke out et cetera, so like culture, i feel like we've got really going well and and will continue to go well, but then how to scale essentially scale myself by not being scared yeah, you know my number one strength is that it when not? If, when james or see me james can speak to this, maybe now or when i leave when james orsini calls me and tells me, we've lost a client. The amount of energy and time spent on that is shockingly low.

I'm almost disinterested in learning from it, whereas as you can and that you're gon na have to figure out that year, if you're gon na scale, you're gon na hire karen or johnny they're gon na be the account person and inevitably, as you start to trust them. Inevitably, one day, they're gon na call you and say we just lost the blank blank account and you have to become accountable that you hired that person who lost the account not lose your mind and get fearful any recommendations on cash flow. Right like that, feels like such a i mean i'm paying for it on the back of my own savings from the sale of the restaurant, like never had a line of credit. Anything like that.

No debt, um, no investors uh, make more money than you use, and don't it up so much that i then go out of business yeah. I think people get caught on cash flow when they're not in tune with their actual business. Okay, the fact that you even ask that is the follow-up questions already made me halfway. Confident you know when i get you know.

James probably remembers this too, like when i bring in grown-ups to companies because of my casualness and my true entrepreneurship and pure offense, i'm empathetic that people around me focus on all those things, and i just always remind them occasionally of like hey, been in business every Day i have been the person responsible for the pna for the last 25 years of my life with a weekly or bi-weekly. You know paycheck that i have to make for everybody and for the first 12 years of my career i had no credit line, so you know i know how to make payroll, and so that's just being in tune with your business cool i've seen so many trends Right, looking at at v friends, looking at nfts like i remember, google in 2000 before it went public um, what would you do if you were starting an agency now towards sort of web 3.0 and whatever comes next or should i just not bother, and should i Because 100 of my sales is me on calls with people right like 100 of the business, is organic growth through one-on-one conversations and relationships? When i think about we're, not video is is present, but it's not necessarily the only thing in the future. Would you focus on future or start where i am right now? I think you would based on you it's similar to what i did. I think you have to build around your interests and skills, so if you're actually interested and feel like, you have intuitive skills to do web3 strategy, then do it.

You know we built the nft, because i thought i could do it right, because i knew it because i put in the six nine months before that point. That made me feel confident that i could but play in the places that i know the best or that my team knows the best right correct or that you're most intrigued by and you actually put in the work. And then you do it right to your point and it's the right observation. Everything went perfect storm for me with nft land, because it's all my life's work.

You know but uh ai, i believe in heavily. But i don't stand it up as a main thing here, but i invest in it. So i can keep it close to me and then eventually you see right. I care about acrobatics and circus so like keep creating content about handstands and eventually cirque du soleil will come back around again yeah or or what does circus culture mean to every brand? That's what you can get really interesting from a strategy.

Standpoint: cool cool! Thank you! Uh welcome, let's move along, we got to get to lee over in denver, lee uh, take your stuff off mute and then uh. Thank you. This has been. This has been so great.

I mean tons of different variety in the businesses and things that you can pick up from everybody's. Rightly that's why we love this format like, even though the businesses are different. You know i always answer with hoping that there's collateral impact on everybody, who's listening as well, and i think that's why this session it works. Great all my notes have nothing to do with my business, but are totally applicable, so it's good, uh, okay, so uh.

Actually, today we we launched a product uh gary. Our our business is kind of split into two uh sections of executive intelligence delivery. One of them is delivering truth to power, that's sort of the executive side. We deliver executives information that they don't have time or they don't have.

Access to. The new product is around the notion that credibility is everything so uh. This product uh takes uh existing executive thought leadership, content uh, we run through our ai and then it is validated by third-party media and influencer stories that our ai filters out, uh, selects and then packages up to an email, that's sent to prospects employees. I understand yeah.

So um i i'm gon na spend some time on the thought leadership topic. We touched on it a little bit in the media section. What do you think the future of thought leadership is in the b2b space um a more well-rounded conversation around emotional intelligence? Can you elaborate on that a little bit, i think hard information is a commodity and i think you're going to see a lot of the world lean into conversations that look more like therapy than look like training manuals that what people are going to start gravitating have. What i tend to do is not predict has already happened in the b2b space.

I think you're going to get conversations that speak to what it really takes to build out a sales team in 2023 yeah, which is a hell of a lot more about empathy and accountability, and curiosity and words that are just like never thrown around in b2b business World - and i think that is where thought leadership is absolutely going, and do you think that that plays the same at the level of a senior executive at you know i do let me, let me tell you why i no matter what you were about to say. Yes, and let me tell you why i believe in that big business and business and mid-sized business is going to continue to be affected culturally, like they have been around movements like metoo and racism, and we are having difficult and important conversations in our society that are Bleeding into the business world - and i believe that that the youth movement of their thoughts about this, that there will be resistance at the upper level because we a lot of people, think it's over coddling and entitlement and there's absolutely nuances and truth into that. But i think the evidence will be overwhelming that healthy cultures are going to outpace everybody in business results and, more importantly, my perspective is that i come from an angle where this isn't about altruism. This is about actually winning the game and i think you're starting to see a convergence of alpha ambition.

I call it honey empire right yeah. Of course i mean - and i i it's so black and white to me - obviously i'm so in tune with it, but it is absolutely i'm blown away by whom is reaching out to me quietly wanting to learn more about some of these things and their characters that I thought would probably retire before they would care and it would be the person that would take over. I, i just think it's mounting and it's mounting quickly and i think the reason it lands is because it's gon na play out on the field. Like you know, empathy isn't a nice to have this, isn't about being nice, it's not candy at the counter.

This is not a foosball table in the middle of the office. It's not a tactic. It's actually going to be black and white for people sooner than later, and i think it's absolutely where things are going, and this is not, and - and this is a actual answer observation - this is not something i i'll be very frank with you. I care so much about the empire part as a competitor on the field that i have no horse in this race.

I just react to what i see right: okay, so a follow-up to that question again. This uh software, which we think is sort of the first thought leadership, enhancement software. That's out there. You take three paragraphs of your content.

You upload it rai reads it and finds content that agrees with or aligns with that topic. It sounds to me like. We have to play a part in coaching, the exec for that that concept to be its most effective and by the way, we're seeing like 60 70 engagement rates off of test customers um four to ten times what you get off of a blog post, yeah. So clearly, the two variables in that is the training of the input yep and well.

You just hit the nail on the head. The training of the input is actually more important than the training of the ai. Of course, the training of the ai is a commodity. Over time over time, i have to hold on to it non-commoditized for a little 100 100, but the, but that is the commodity over time, the what is not a commodity in that is - and i i am very fascinated on how ai, because i'm spending a lot Of time on it, and i'm very aware of how nascent it is compared to the hyperbole and your point was well taken, it's a marketing term there, the two variables of you building a monster, are the training of the input and the ability to create uh ai.

That is extremely strong at tonality context, nuance and slang. So what would you tell an executive and we're selling this to verizon aeon? You know large, you know panasonic varys, so on and so forth, and thought leadership seems to have struck a nerve with executives coming out of the pandemic. We're still trying to figure that out. What would you coach, an executive? How would you coach an executive if they were buying from us and we're and and the input is every single week you give i got here.

I got it: hey, hey ceo, conservative old school ceo build a committee of 12 editors for the input. I want you to give me a mix of your six to 12 key executives who all hit the spectrum of the hard and the soft so that the collective content is well-rounded. Fantastic, okay, one last question: uh: do you mind james? Do i have some another? Okay, great um, the last decade has brought to the forefront the concept of information overload and media fatigue that bleeds into mental health. Yes, there's a little bit of paradox going on here, where we're trying to find eyeballs of individuals who are feeling the impact of information overload and media fatigue and using media to reach them.

That's that's easy! That's no different than going back to jonathan, who i'm sure or or andy when he realized executives, weren't eating. Well, you know. I think we all can agree that, if you're a poor eater for two decades and then you've decided to get your together - that the notion of cutting everything all at once and demonizing any escapism is a bad idea. You know, i think i you know, i think, all of us, even the healthiest eater, that's raising a healthy family.

If you over demonize a random cupcake once at a blue moon, you're, actually doing a detriment. I would argue lee that you're building the random cupcake no humans will always want information. I love that we might use that somewhere. This is what you're here for uh.

You know that that's exactly right! Um, final final question: um. We have spent a lot of time debating whether or not the feed user interface is a broken way for humans to consume content. If they think i've got a really good answer for this one and over or if you gave me the option of getting it in feed, getting it in text form or getting an email form or getting in voice recording form, i would be very happy, and so, When you're cuss, all of your customers, don't make the decision for the customer give them the options uh. That actually is - and i think that's a great you know piece of advice for everybody on the call is that the the feed uh in in terms of certain demographics may be wilting somewhat because it's you know, this never-ending thing is connected to other problems that we're Dealing with including fatigue and inflammation overload in the workplace that re, you know in some cases that reduces productivity, so we're trying to i mean humans, humans, humans are the issue with productivity yeah.

You know like to your point. I mean, like you, know, a feed versus a book versus a tv show versus a video. If your intent is to not be productive, you won't be productive. I don't think you worry about the mechanics.

I just think you just give people options and you call it a day, good advice: you got it: okay, let's move on. Thank you very much. Rachel and todd. Take yourself off mute, guys, hi hi, thanks again for your time, i feel like we had a lot and i do and my head is like constantly spinning with a lot um, but that's really um.

You know what drives this question. I think that we're two people like with moving parts and we need help prioritizing like not only just time management but allocating dollars like yeah, we're making the money we have an average of 30 000 per se. You know per month in sales. We have we're up to date per uh.

What is it 300, 000 to date, right for sale? Let's start with, let me help you right away, because this talk about something i know you have to make pretend the store doesn't exist, that's hard when i have to run it good news. I did this and i ran a store for 15 hours a day. Seven days a week for 13 years, so so you it's a little bit different. Let me say it again: you have to make pretend the store doesn't exist.

What did that? What does that mean? It means that every minute you spend on this store is is a questionable minute, because it's not scalable by any stretch of the imagination compared to your dot com infrastructure, it doesn't mean you don't spend time on it. It means that you consciously look at each other and say: are we giving eighty percent of our energy to the dot com or are we giving you and you've, and your 20 has to be good enough for the store? What does that mean? That means all of a sudden, very quickly. You say: wait a minute we're going to hire a manager for the store. That's a young kid at a you know, that's really going to dominate and they're out there.

I've lived my whole life in this they're absolutely out there. People don't think they're out there. It's hard people get paid more to stay home. All that shit's about to go away like you.

You've got to really understand that for you to build the best possible business, you have to build up the dot. You have to put crazy energy on your best work on the dot com, because the comparisons aren't even close to building an actually bigger business. It's not even close, like i feel like we just can't get ahead, no matter how much money we're making we're. Also, spending right on what on product on inventory, on marketing, on supplies on staffing on indonesia, somebody to clean up our images, so everything is cookie cutter and looks the part on the website.

So it's professional. So one of the things is my dad had the same problem when i came to his business, and so the first thing i did was made much higher margin product. So let's start there. If you were able to create a brand, that is your private label that has some juice to it.

All of a sudden. You can charge 60 for a t-shirt instead of 12., so one of one of the ways to get ahead in a retail business in your category is to create a low-cost item around a brand that you own. Okay, because one of your biggest issues is the margin structure that you play with it and, as you know, there's only so much you can get away with on a piece compared to the competitive market space right. It's not like you're like oh thanks, gary you're, a genius and go mark up everything double the price.

The problem is nobody's gon na buy it right. You could google search anything and price match and price count, but what i think you need to think about is creating your kirkland. The number one thing i would do if i was the third new partner you know, kirkland is costco's private label. You need a kirkland.

If you build a kirkland, it will change your business okay. I just need to figure out what that kirkland is yes, but you have to understand. This is like exciting for me because it really matters yeah like if you nail that it changes everything, because if you're actually hit pay dirt on that, then your your margins in a totally different place just feel like so much about the retail store. Again, it's like customer service.

You don't walk into a store, there's nowhere to be seen like when you walk into our store, we're there. We care like we're fully in everything that is like matters to you as a child as the parent. I love it. It's great.