You need to figure out what your comfort zone is on communicating. There's only three, there's audio, video, and record and this is gonna be the answer for so many of us in here. The question is which format works for you and then what you need to do is realize the following: Everything is about Perspective shift. A slight perspective shift.

You have to give away all your best advice on social media at scale: I'm in Singapore for the last 10 years Um, my heart and my head is all about Healthcare and how can we make Healthcare and vitality really cool so that we can move people to do something about their health before they feel sick? So that's what I'm about and that's what I would love to ask more um of you I mean and how and what is do you have a business in that within that Realm Iran I Used to run a biotech company for four years, build and sold and then because I'm not a doctor um a lot of people who are coming to me saying guys, can you explain whatever my doctor is saying in a simplistic way. um and that kind of became a theme. So a few months back I decided to be a little bit more open about it and talk a little bit more about social media. I'm sorry on social media have a lot of health and what's important but currently the social media component one is very new.

There's No Business behind it per se I'm not promoting any of the stuff that I used to work on. Understood Okay next. Laura Laura in Kansas City Say hi to Gary hi Gary Great to see you again Laura Schmidt Chief positive person with notes to self socks um positive phrases like I am kind on the toes and the bottom of the socks made in the USA So excited to be back. Um, looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Great to see you again! Awesome! Ned Specter Say hi hey Gary appreciate uh being here. um from Minnesota moved to Uh La worked at CAA for a handful of years left to go uh help manage the Jonas Brothers Demi Lovato Got into Uh Brandon merchandise and uh most recently into uh doing content for our company. so looking forward to getting some strategy to bring those uh together. So I'm a big fan.

Good to see you Chris and Ethan up in Southern New Hampshire say hi hey Gary Gary Great to see you I'm really excited to have an opportunity to talk to you. Um, my name is Chris I own a restcom basement Solutions we're a specialty Home Improvement Contractor specializing in based on waterproofing and foundation repair. Been in business for 27 years. really focused on growing the organization Uh, push through some top-line Revenue goals over the past few years and now really looking to kind of bring it to the next level.

It's awesome. Ethan's my drock. Yeah! I'm our content slash digital marketing manager in-house Amazing You? You couldn't. You couldn't have found a different angle.

You had to stick the Brady Jersey right down my mouth I mean like actually we do have a solution for that which I'll take care of right now. So we got this made up especially for you just to hang right up here. Thank you! Took care of it so we'll put that right here for you. So we we had a plan in place to deal with that I don't know if the guy's over in, uh, in Southern? Massachusetts have a better plan but uh, what's going on over in Southern? uh Massachusetts Nick in Austin Hey the good news is we don't really care about football too much so we'll root for the Jets party.

That's fine. Um so I'm Nick this is my business partner Austin we do Residential uh Landscaping Maintenance so mowing lawn care Leaf cleanups things like that. We've been in business eight years and we're in. Southeastern Mass Love it brother Pleasure! Good to see you guys you too David Rappa David still with us hey Gary um last time I saw you was at brunch Bears uh not so long ago I Remember so I have an investment management firm now I remember going to Capital Management Um, it's been all Word of Mouth Marketing I have a handful of family, uh, offices and individual clients I serve them to the best of my ability.

We've been at it for I've been at it for 20 years but in this instance, in this company for seven, um, and I've never really thought of marketing uh, on social media or social media in general above and beyond investing in the companies which we have and and we listen to what you say and where to look. Um, but in the pandemic you mentioned uh LinkedIn as a platform I think I Remember a couple years ago as an underutilized platform and because I wasn't seeing my clients and a big part of you know the businesses seeing people and going to lunches and dinners I decided to start to post a little bit on LinkedIn to just you know, get in front of people and I did get some good response from my existing client base that oh, it's nice to hear you're like, you know thinking about this talking about this So I thought that was an interesting lead-in for me to kind of press more and see if there's more for me to do in social media. Love it. Makes tons of sense, All right we got Jennifer also.

Last but not least, Jennifer say hi hey Gary Super nice to meet you. My name is Jennifer Cannon I'm in Parkland Florida Um I have a skin care company called MD Topicals and my fiance is a huge fan of yours so he got me hooked in Nfts. he's got a bunch of those I have a humble pie I wish I had more Um and I wanted to really thank you because well I follow all your advice religiously and you changed my life with chat GPT because as a startup there is no budget to hire employees and I'm like so much more productive because I'm a horrible writer. So Chat Gbt is like my employee and he puts out all my content with me.

and I'm just really excited to get to be here today. I Love that I love that it's a real pleasure. All right, let's uh, let's restack the deck and go back to Kaz over in Singapore Cass uh let's you got about seven minutes. let's get into it.

Okay, perfect, thank you Cass Before you get into it, you know for everyone here like this is the time to go. Very specific. Like what's cool about this format we've learned along the way is like people Garner value out of other people's thing but this is like one-on-one time. Thank you so much! Perfect! So my first question is I'm super new at this um social media terrifies me after listening to Jeff I'm like oh my God I had so much to learn but with that my question is what My main thing? How can we make longevity and Healthcare cool.

How can I craft my voice and my brand to really support that in a long run? I Think there's there's a couple things with your situation I Think there's two variables. There's one which is universal To everybody here. Back to what: David I Think has like a good understanding about intuitively and I'm excited to get to his part as well. but this is for everyone.

Nick Chris Everybody you always like there is no thing on Earth Not religion, not the biggest bands or pop stars that Ned was working with. not selling wine. Nothing could be accomplished unless someone knows about it. It's not super complicated, you know that's why I've bet my my prime years on building the biggest infrastructure in the world to understand at every moment from a media standpoint from a creative standpoint from what's happening in popular culture standpoint, where is the underpriced and where is the overpriced attention, right? So first, cast, like in crafting your message, there's there's the need to understand that and that's going to be Universal for everyone here.

The second need is what do you want to happen, right? So for example, if David was like I'm looking to sell my practice in the next three years, all of a sudden the content he's putting out on LinkedIn is very, very different and very targeted than it would be if he's looking to acquire. So for all of you, what I'm going to be trying to figure out is where are you, what would you like to happen right? So I think you're in such an early stage where you're willing to use your you're you're starting the Journey of building a personal brand But you know the question becomes what is that personal brand trying to accomplish right? So you've already had a business to exited you may want to. You know this is very common. People want to run the same blueprint again, slightly different with all the new nuances.

Other times people want to go completely away from the last exit and do something completely different. The thing that's most important in your situation is I don't need you to know yet. You may not need to know where to put this energy of longevity like you can imagine. You know? Uh, for example, back to Lara like bringing kindness to the world can be in the format of a personal brand like me or it could be in the form of socks that say positive and things like you can put all of our energies when I get to Ned when you know when I get to you know Nick and crew like like the energy can be put into anything right? So I think for you the questions are a couple things.

Do you have what you want the next business to be figured out, product, service, event, business and so I'm gonna go right to there. Do you yet? or do you have some running hypotheses because it's going to impact the advice? But the good news is I don't need you to have that figured out because the advice and the work you have to do to even without that being answered is quite substantial. We'll get into that in a second, but that's the first question so the answer is not fully. What is kind of a slowly started happening is that because of my background and also um, my pre-health prebiotech world was all finance and investment I was invited to multiple companies just to speak to their these sweet people basically how to feel better on a daily basis because I don't I'm not a doctor I don't speak doctor and I simplify things.

Um so that kind of it became almost like an like I didn't think that would be a thing but suddenly from one company to another to another. but it's not a business line by any means at the state and I have no idea. um I think it's an interesting I I For example, I could have instead of building what I'm building easily on a bad day, built an eight-figure income per year. doing that right like when Cons: you know, building a one-woman show that works with sweet.

The C-suite that over a period of time has seven employees and does 10 million dollars in revenue on 70 margin 60 margin is very realistic, especially in the category that you're playing because every future C-suite executive is only going to care more about mental and physical health. It is Just the cat is so out of the bag right? It's like that is a runaway train. It's all going to be around the gray and the EQ and the not black and white. Do you want that? Do you think? or do you want to build something with more scale that's less on your back? Um, good question.

The the initial feeling I was having when I was giving um, those talks is I can really see people? just something moving and it's not even because I'm not even I'm not exactly giving them something they don't know about. Maybe a few tweaks here and there because everything else literally you can Google it's all about why should you even care and why Vitality matters and how much this is literally your rocket fuel to anything else you're doing in life. So it was that psychology bit so that was fun. I probably wouldn't do it on a daily basis and building something to me is also.

um, honestly, you know being born there where I was born Healthcare sucks and it still does. So I just want to almost like I feel let me jump in Kevin Joe Just give me a 60-second warning. The number one thing you need to do regardless of where we go with what we just talked about is you need to figure out what your comfort zone is on communicating. Whether that's the written word which it is clearly not for me or Jennifer right? Like the written writing wasn't our output in is it audio? There's only three.

There's audio, video, and word and this is gonna be the answer for so many of us in here. The question is which format works for you and then what you need to do is realize the following: The number one, Just this is going to work with you because you're doing it for others. Everything is about perspective shift. A slight perspective shift.

The number one perspective shift that you have to make sure you understand and it might not be a shift. It might come natural to you, but it is the punch line for what you're about to embark on. You have to give away all your best advice on social media at scale, right? So the the biggest things are: A How do you want to make content? Video, written word, audio. Be the team here.

I Put out tons of free content. will help after this like figuring out which platforms right? Is it YouTube Shorts Is it LinkedIn Is it Snapchat Is it Twitter And then you have to make sure that the content that comes out of your mouth is your best content and you're basically saying the same 23 things or four things four thousand times with different contexts. It becomes like hey, are you the CEO of a 50 000 person Fortune 500 company, blah blah blah blah. The next video is literally like hey, are you the you know leader of a small business with nine employees.

You know what I mean So it's about distribution, contextual format. but the biggest thing is the strategy of your words has to be all your best advice. Too many people like that fit your profile. Hold back some of it because they think that's the thing that people pay for.

The people don't pay for that, the people pay for the when you get in there you're really getting detailed to their reality. You can still stay top level but go into very heavy detail on your advice. Got it? That is awesome! That's fantastic. Thank you so much Gary All right we're going to Laura Next, you're Mueller Okay, thank you.

Um, my question for you Gary is I've been in business 12 years you know you and I talked years ago when I was just a few years into it I Remember you telling me at that point, spend absolutely as much as you can afford on Facebook and Instagram ads and influencers and I wish I had spent more at the time I did I took your advice but I wish I would have 10 times that. Um, and by the way, it's important for everyone here. There's no worse feeling than not squeezing and orange as hard as you can when you have unlimited oranges coming from the tree because in this game you wake up one morning and there's no oranges on the tree. to Laura's point is really important for cats and everybody like this is day trading attention.

What? I do for a living is day trade attention. You know, knowing what Ned was doing for a living and knowing the places he was doing is like he's been I don't know how much or how little but like he's been aware of my trajectory over the long period of time at this point. And so there's a reason that I'm consistently there because it's it's the obsession of understanding this point and just so everybody hears this because it's gonna be the theme for next hour. What? Laura went through when she did this before and probably why she's back is it was right and then it changes and it's not as good of a deal anymore and you're like damn it and then what's really And by the way, Laura you think you're upset.

It upsets me because I'm like the Godfather of this game and I don't squeeze it all the way every time I promise myself the next time I see it I'm gonna go eat and I do and it's still never I still never go hard enough because the value is so high. So I just wanted to call that out for everybody because I'm pumped that you've felt that and the reason she said that is because if she went to go do those same behaviors now it doesn't work the same. no no and and my um, just overall. you know, Notes to Self.com has been the channel: That I focus the most on I also sell to Hallmark stores Hospital gift shops, boutiques Recently airports are big expansion area for us and there's a lot of potential there and we're getting good traction there.

Um, 12 years into it. Like you like just what you said Gary that like more people need to know about my brand like everybody that knows about it loves it. You know, best socks you'll ever wear made in the USA People write me and give me stories about how they're changing their lives and what. What are we trying to figure out because I don't want to run out of time I don't want to give you as much as possible? Go ahead yeah.

I I Guess my question is like if you or me, what would you do next like Part of me feels like I didn't I didn't start the company to sell it but I'm not going to live to be 200. So I you know there's got to be some kind of strategy and I think I'm at the point where like I I think I could help the world more if I could grow faster and so that's kind of what's the top line revenue? A couple million and where's most of the business coming from? About half and half? You mean store and.com Yes. and on the.com part, where is most of the same? Do you have a sense of where most of the sales are coming from? Facebook ads and Instagram mostly Facebook and I pay a lot I Know you do. Where do you pay and are you doing them I Am And that that's part of my thought process this year I mean I'm kind.

I'm doing it all. Tick Tock has to become incredibly important to you. Like all that time and energy that you're putting in your business. Like, you know you need to send out like 25 packages of socks like a week and know that like only one of the or two of the 25 tick-tockers are actually going to do anything about it.

But that one tick tocker one time can actually change the outcome of your business. It's actually what influencer marketing looks like, but nobody wants to. It's all the same game. Everyone wants to look good, but nobody wants to go to the gym.

You know, like like you know, it's just that's what it is with business like. Nobody wants to have the patience to do the right marketing tactics for you. It's sampling to influencers with a very low ratio of good things happening because it's disheartening, right? I Tell you you have to send out 25 different packages. Takes you two hours to find these people a week on Tick Tock Then you gotta message them all.

Most don't reply with an address or they have you find the address in their profile. then you. then you send it. Most people don't post like and becomes like disheartening.

pretty quick. yet four months in the one right person thinks it's the cutest thing ever, makes a video two million views and like. Now you do more Revenue in 48 hours on those organic views than you do on your entire Facebook spend on the year. that's 2023.

Okay I just signed up for that Ltk. you know, like to know it influencers. Yeah I don't I'm not educated enough to tell you I want you to do your own work on it because I think what will happen is if you do research in the trenches you'll find the moms You'll find. you'll find your people right.

You'll find your people. Plus what I like about you and anybody who has a consumer business spending an hour or two in Tick Tock is you'll know what's happening in culture and it will change your creative and it will give you a pulse you'll most. You might also pick up on a line you know a slang term or a sentence that you put on a sock because you're in the trenches. that is the viral one that you make like it's just good work.

An hour day searching on Tick Tock and getting good at that over the course of a year is just good research work. Thank you! You got it right. let's shift over to Ned Ned it's your your turn, you're up. Um so Gary over the last 10 years um have built um the promotional products business doing Brandon merchandise for companies the business is built but just to be completely completely honest with you, um I don't I don't love it and it like drains my energy and it's become and it's a really hard thing for me because I'm so grateful for it I have two young kids it pays the bills.

but the 10 of my time over the last handful of years that I'm pitching to companies to say hey, you're not producing enough video content let me come in be your social media reporter. Interview staff, interview customers product reviews doing that content. It's consistently working, but I have no time during the day to do that and build that because there's so much business coming in on the promotional product side and I'm too afraid to make the higher of a higher I know I have to make and I've been talking to James for the last you know year or two and he's like we'll take out a business line of credit that's like my like blood money and there's twenty thousand dollars left. The business has never been hotter on both sides, but I've never been more overwhelmed working day and night.

I Really want to let go of the logistics of the all of these orders that are are coming in and really focus on the content again. I know it's an and game and I have to stop looking at these as separate businesses. potentially. But what I really want to ask is how do I do I structure a deal with somebody I pay part-time and maybe give a percentage of sales like this is like such a James and Gary love this problem because we just like you do understand that there's an unlimited amount of 24 year old uses in the world I don't think I do I I'm like so I know it goes back to that's what why this is so fun for me.

Similar to what Cass was saying about like what's fun for her the high of like you're saying people know but it's amazing how the words matter, the semantics matter, the moment matters, the context matters like brother the amount Ready for this the Now this takes work. but it's the work that gets you to a Finish Line Otherwise you're in a hamster wheel the amount of 24 year olds that have pure talent and work ethic but didn't get lucky enough to be born into the right family or the right area of the country or the right you know like I Always say that if I was a good student I would own the Jets Nixon I Always talk about this to myself: I don't say publicly if I knew what an SPV was I would have best beat Facebook Four years before IPO and I would have made it I wasn't like if my roommates at Brown and Yale and like all the things I've learned about how the world Works my life would have been on a different path now. I Don't I'm so happy where I'm at I Can't even imagine to worry about those things where I'm going with that analogy is there's a 23 year old kid right now that was born on the wrong side of the tracks that will work for free for 10 of equity of this company for free. Man, forget about minimum wage.

Now you're probably gonna have to do minimum wage. You probably have to do maybe a little bit more, but like I would spend 100 of my time to find the person to give 10 of the company to that had almost no cost associated with them up front and they had no equity until they proved it over a year like I would. Literally, there's a lot of people there's even people born on the right side of the tracks that would take that deal because they just want to be an owner and they just like the business. And you know better to be owning 10 of your business than being a logistics or project manager at a company you need to spend all your time dating for your Junior partner.

you know James Thoughts on that. Yeah when I was uh uh, speaking with him earlier and he was worried about being cash strapped and everything we talked about. look just just get yourself some breathing room right? The time to get a credit line is when you don't need a credit line you and and he and he deployed the money and used it well for what a year and a half you've been you know, leaning more into your passion project and I think it's more than 10 of where you are right now, but uh, you know it could have even been a client on the other end. I mean look, you're the one that sold us this so you know you have a lot of a lot of clients that you uh that you may have somebody who's taking the orders with and back to being cash strapped like you.

I mean you could literally again I'll say it again, there is doing that work. There are a lot of 24, 23, 22, 25 year old talented people on earth that you're offering them a better opportunity at a close to minimum wage minimum wage to 10. Ownership is bananas for a lot of people, especially like First Generation you're you're in Cali right now. Uh Michigan outside of Detroit right? Like even even better, you have like unlimited kids graduating, got hundreds of thousands of 22 years coming out of the system in a 40 mile radius 100 mile radius of you.

you know me University of Michigan or Michigan State kids would literally do this would literally take especially in this environment where everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. and yeah, they would have normally taken the 150 000 job in New York 20 years ago and you and I were going up the game. But like today, they'll literally take 20 bucks an hour to prove it for a year to own 10 to do this very mundane, achievable work. which is why it's driving you crazy.

Got it? I appreciate it on real quick. If I have one more minute look like I have a humongous coconut that I'm about to drink real quick. So on on on my content. What you said a while ago about like you call it like almost like being like the digital like like become the mayor.

It's like I'm so passionate about small businesses here in Michigan that when I go get a haircut I go eat a pizza I'm like I would do that content for free and that's my version of a podcast for them and some of them now are turning into to clients. Should I just quadruple down on on that kind of content because I don't need anything from my audience like I'm not trying to get anything when I post on social. it's just like sparking joy and man on the street. and I mean like that? Yes, the answer is yes because the coolest part, Similar to me not wanting anything from my audience, it leads to B2B Behavior right? You're going to wake up one day if you 8X that behavior and you're gonna get an email from Visa saying we're our big initiative is on small businesses.

You know we. we've been scouring Detroit or Michigan as a pro is a top five market for us where we need it. We think you're the face of this. Can we JV together and you're getting a 250 000 a year ambassador to the Visa Small Business program? I mean it's It's a humongous space.

Okay I appreciate it. Thank you thank you thank you. Let's see we're moving over to Chris and Ethan up in New Hampshire Hey guys, hey how we doing Gary The first thing before I asked the question I Just want to say thank you for everything you've done. Long time follower of your content.

Really instrumental in some of the changes I've made in my life over the years. um Joe and I were talking. you know I've been sober for five and a half years. It's made a huge difference in my life.

There was a lot of things that that was gone through beforehand. um but anyways a lot of your content was responsible for that. So I gotta thank you. Very excited for the fly fish Club to open Vf1 holder been at both the Econs anyways I'm gonna let Ethan ask the first question because this is really a lot of this is for him.

Um so I'm gonna let him ask the first question just be quick. I do have a question. Okay, so I'm 22. I I Uh, went to school for a little bit.

went to college a little bit. didn't know what I wanted to do I left I Um I've been working for him I Started working in the field doing the construction for about a year and a half. two years and now I jumped into this marketing role in-house I have a certificate through UVM in just the basics of fundamentals of digital marketing and my main focus right now is on the creative aspect of what we're doing. We're going to be working with the Sasha group as well and my main question was as a 20 year old entering this digital marketing slash creative content space, what skills do you think are going to be the most needed within the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years that I should focus on learning? There's a couple places you can look at.

one is This Acronym of pack platforms and culture will never go away. What are the platforms that people pay attention to today? their social networks? they're streaming TV services. Obviously, we saw the Apple announcement Facebook's working on it like VR is going to happen in your lifetime. So that would be a platform people pay attention to.

And then there's Culture right? Who's Ice Spice? You know? who's going to be the number one pick in the NBA draft? Who's You know all the stuff that's happening in popular culture, so you can make your commitment to that. So you're great at understanding how the algorithms work. What are all the different creative ways you can make content? You might know this like if you go look at my Instagram you can see I have all sorts of different ways I do content right. Video characteristics: We're doing all sorts of different.

so being great at that game or you could become a prop engineer. So AI is going to completely eat up marketing during your time and something that you should Google is prompt engineering like what you ask AI is going to be the punch line right? So like being good at asking chat GPT mid-journey these things questions is definitely a skill set that I would focus on. Okay, do you think AI is going to take over the creative aspect of things or more so paid SEO and those kind of things I don't think it's gonna take over either. The way you're asking it when everyone's like oh my God all the jobs are gonna be fine.

like it's going to become a compliment. It will change, but there's no absolutes. there's people that still have AOL Do you know millions of people use AOL Dial up like the world takes a long time to adjust to everything. So like it's it's going to make a change in every area.

Okay So cool! So now you know Jen and I don't have to hire a writer to write our stuff, you know, Chat sheep. He can do it first. Like It's also like we're still gonna have to either us ourselves or hire someone that's good at asking chat. GPT The questions you're still going to have to conceptualize if you're going to use mid-journey so you may not hire someone to do Adobe Photoshop But you still have to be great at coming up with the idea to input.

So prompt engineering. Okay, thank you. Okay, so my quick question? All right. I'll try and be quick about it.

So 27 years in Gary Been running Rescon Basement Solutions as the brand um but have also been in love with Why Be Wet as a quick easy to remember kind of tag from a branding perspective, what would you do if if you were coming on board have these two names which would what would you do? well I think Nike and just do it are both things that that company focuses on. Okay, so just kind of blend the two together. I Don't think it's that you blend like this. You know what that? this is what you'll like.

this. This is when people go into Academia versus real life. We're We're pondering the challenge here when there is no challenge like you don't need to blend them together like you have a slogan that is memorable and you have a brand and a company name that also should be built right. Okay, so it's just a game of and right Like when you say Blended together I have no problem if the two of you put the slogan in every piece of content and I have no problem if you put the slogan in half of the pieces of content.

this is where I where I get into like philosophy versus real life Okay, back to him quitting college and like feeling like when he said you know I I know his psyche because I was his psyche when he's like well I got a certificate from like I'm like I don't give a what certificate you have from digital media that certificate sucks I promise you that whatever they taught you in that class was dog I agree I paid for it So I get it? yeah! I've shipped in my mindset over the past year after being by the way like me. but now that I'm out, less and less I'm like I I'm okay with it as another dude that struggled with school I understand the Journey of going from like thinking it's a vulnerability or it's an issue to realizing it means nothing and this is kind of I'm bringing that back up because same here. There's no right way to manage a brand and a slogan properly. There's just doing it right.

Okay, pun intended, right? right? So that's it. You don't have to You don't have there is no right way. Just use them both, play with them both sometimes together, sometimes separate and just keep going on. Feel okay.

Joe Do I have time for one more quick question? So it's a scaling question. We're at 30 people. Um. I've capped out.

You know the core people that have been with me for 10 15. 20 years. I've gotten the growth that I can out of them now. I've got to really hire some people and bring them on.

How did you jump that shark to Bringing on people and getting to that you know 50 100 person level and keep them trained and maintaining that culture by having one-on-one conversations with the 30. you know what to do? Your problem is the 30. Okay, so spending more time with the 30. spending more time with the 30 and understanding you have 30 different things going on there.

Yeah, no I know. So it's just spending more time with that because you know four of them are going to be upset about like new people coming in and you know three of them are going to suppress the new people and try to them up because they don't want to take their spots. and you know five of them are going to be sad when the new people come in and become their bosses. but you know that they're not good enough and four of them should be fired.

but they're your family and you don't want to fire them and so you have to have one-on-one conversations and you need to tell them the following from One By One The General Theme is: I'm taking this to the next step because that's my responsibility right in that I see things are going to change. Somebody in these next 20 is going to get hired and maybe come your boss and you're gonna think that's crazy because you've been here for 17 years and they've been here for three. I'm speaking to you because I actually am okay with hiring no people but everyone here now has families like same thing happened to my dad's business. you can't work weekends you know, like I need Young Blood because you you're going home at five o'clock and you're not about you used to I could have you work full-time on Saturday now I can't even text you on Saturday without you giving me attitude right? right? exactly? Yep, got the 30 conversations to tell them what's happening and 10 of them are going to say actually that I'm ready to step up and it may help you hire five less people and 20 other people won't get at won't have a leg to stand on when they're upset with you because you have the conversation right? Okay, I can do that.

Okay, all right, let's go up there. how's it going Gary Good brother? Yeah, just to say real quick. uh you're you're a beast and uh, you've influenced us both in our our the culture of our company so we appreciate that. um, means a lot to me.

at a pivotal point when we were 18, that's when we were looking at your content and we could have gone Steve Jobs or Garyvee and we went Garyvee. So yeah I think I said that on the back of somebody yesterday that works for our company and it was my first one-on-one with her and she broke down and cried because she grew up in Tech and flat out used the Steve Jobs and me analogy of a turning point in what she sees and for you to then bring it up complete when I tell you the last time somebody used the Steve Jobs and me and algae was like five years ago and for that to be in back to back days I Love that kind of kismic because I because I really believe in it and I'm pumped for you guys because here's the AHA that nobody understands. You guys are going to make more money and people can be happier. It's like a win-win Oh yeah, but um yeah in terms of uh of a question so a little context.

so we've been using, we're at about a little over 2 million in sales. we've been using Facebook ads. We're like the only people in our area that do it. um any you know remotely well.

Um, we've seen like 10 15 more leads year over year over year and then this year all of a sudden boom we get half as many leads uh coming in. Um, so we went from increasing 15 to getting to pretty much half. Uh, the saving Graces We've been improving operations and things like that and we've had much higher close rates our services better. So our Tech's good, our operations good.

Um, you know we're getting some tactics from your team which has been awesome. Go ahead, go ahead. go ahead. I Was saying we're getting tactics from your team in terms of like best utilization practices of the the platforms which is huge um and I feel like we're going to get some more of that after this too.

So I guess for my question goes with this is you know, So as much as you can put us yourself in the shoes of a marketing person who's trying to sell people on cutting grass and keeping weeds out of their lawn. and I think I know where you're going to go with it. But um, what is what does Garyvee do when he steps in and walks? How big is the general area that you're Marketing in? So it's about 11 towns. We have about uh, 50 to 60 000 homes.

We think roughly just based off Um analysis. So like I said, we're at like two. We think we could be About three times the size we are now in the same area. We also have the infrastructure to support being about 50 bigger right now.

Um, as a result of previous you know, um, mistakes in terms of getting on bringing on too much um infrastructure. So we have a lot of room to go and we just we can't catch up to ourselves fast enough. So that's that's what. that's where we're at.

Yeah, I Think what's super interesting about the Facebook thing is I think you're hitting saturation point. It's not that Facebook's the problem, it's that your area. you've just hit saturation of how many people are paying attention and the other saturation is the creative, right? So the creative is the variable. How many different pieces of creative are you guys running? So right now for for in terms of AD we would, we would put up like maybe three or four ads, run them against each other and every year we make new ones.

Um, you know we've done things off Your advice like we've put Town names with like the high school colors on there. that's improved it. Uh, like we've done all that tactical stuff. but you're only running three to four ads right? right? per town.

So I obviously have 11 ad sets and each one has three to four different ads all pinned again with a per Town contextual to the town. So on. Just Facebook Tactics I Want you guys to do three to four new ads that are completely different video and imagery per Town per week. Okay, so you're talking like ads ran on the platform.

like throwing in New pieces of creative ad content running it as like a conversion ad every week. We love that. You'll love this brother. The only variable is the creative.

you're in a set Target right? So one thing that was mentioned previously was kind of like Top of Funnel. So we've done. We've done a good amount of organic like value posts like look, Look Out For This weeder Here's how you do a professional mulch Edge or things like that I Love that. How much so my my question is is that could Should we I need you to answer that Answered me: how much organic posting you're doing? Probably like 10 of what we do is probably organic posting I probably post like once every two weeks? Maybe? Yeah, most of the focus is on paid ads.

We don't I think we don't. We haven't done enough in the organic space because we haven't had it right away. Right right right up right off the top. If you go to Facebook real ads, not just Facebook feed sure and you go to three to four variable Completely different.

I'm not talking font and colors I'm talking about like flat out new commercials like completely different. Got it three to four times, three or four posts a week changing. You've got your last weeks. So basically think about it.

The world used to do one post for the whole year on Facebook This was real talk when you guys were in diapers. they were running one post for the whole year against all 11 towns. and what you think about you doing it. You're doing four posts a year times 11 towns.

That's Monumental You've got 44 different ads versus one, right? I Want you to do four ads I Want you to do 44 different ads a week at the whole year and I want you to post four times organically a day if you're asking. should we put money behind? Like So if we run like if we put the when you say ads, should some of these ads not be geared towards conversion, it's like, should some of them just be putting ourselves out there. in terms volume. The first answer is volume.

The second answer is do organic at scale and if something goes viral, turn it into an ad. Okay, and the organic stuff purely just organic. Like you're just talking like throwing up a reel on Facebook or Instagram or a post just like a photo. a video of Nick walking a property just like straight up, no paid, no nothing YouTube shorts and Tick Tock in addition to Instagram in addition to Facebook Facebook Reels is a monster.

Go ham and your you guys are at one percent on your creative variable testing. one percent I want you to literally 52 x what you're doing by changing the app. Now when you find something that works you now you're running five ads because you kept one from the prior week that you love and you've added four new ones. Your entire game is based on more creative, more creative ways to storytell more creative ways, organically, more creative ways to run ads.

So you'd even advise still on like Tick Tock and stuff like that even though it's just posting to the world not contextual or 10 times still be posting on Tick Tock right? That's right, because when you do something that's super aha or like like makes sense then you're gonna take it. So the algorithm is going to show you what people give a about. So if you're like 15 seconds on how you can fix your lawn and then you go and people like this is insane. Well now you just use the algorithm to give you affirmation on Creative that will work and then you run it as a Facebook ad that is with supported copy and is being done as a performance ad in Facebook And it's the best ad you've ever run because you figured it out in an organic Tick Tock because it has the best interest algorithm.

Okay, so it's like a testing thing like not necessarily we're not looking for for clients because obviously we can't Target them into our you're gonna love this. It's a it's an insights thing that also built top of the funnel awareness for you, right? Okay, and that's yeah, right? you guys have. You guys have an awareness issue because you're you're penetrating you by the way, all your ads that you're running right now on Facebook in the same style of just four different ads that you've been doing for a while. nobody's seen that anymore.

I'll tell you why because all the people that you could get you got right. Yeah, it feels like of course that's what's happening. Yeah, you've hit a saturation point now just by changing your creative on. Facebook you can get a whole new world.

Okay, but you start adding Tick Tock you start adding. you know YouTube Shorts is amazing because people search and you might have a how-to like so that's that's there's. plenty of that content. it's just a matter of like.

All right, Yeah, one other question if I have a sec. Um, so one thing I noticed you do a lot of is like you'll spend time and you'll like you post about it. So like you change you know one word in a phrase or something like that like these really? Nitty Gritty tests that you're doing on organic posts for somewhat at our size. With our workload, it's like would you still suggest we try to get that? Granted, even with the ads like say we have, you know we start posting that often.

Uh, obviously we're a B testing I'd Love to know what you're doing with your 12 hours a day I Mean that's that's a fair answer I'm a kid trying to build a big ass business. You should be working. You have the capacity to work 12 to 15 hours a day and I'd love to know you're busy you know I'd show me your calendar. With that said, Love it though.

Thank you Gary David Rapper We're not going to ask to see your calendar but we are gonna have to step up and talk to. Gary I know how it feels Gary I didn't put Palantir in an SPV in the early 2000s. It hurts so you live and you learn right? right? I've got a bro I got a lot of those I know I know I know I I've seen um so we have a good little business. We're at 400 million AUM so it's a small asset manager.

It's all. uh, individuals. They're all like my family. I do anything legal for them I have everybody from Mark Lazri and Ken Langone who let me say their names.

so I'm not talking at a turn to a dentist I treat them all equally and they're They're literally like my family. So um, the quick. You know? why wouldn't I want to grow it I want to have more impact I want to do more? Um, and So you know, the bottleneck is it's a very unique business, right? Because it's TR It's really big trust, right? So it takes years to build trust. Why would you give and why would you give me money to manage when you can go to Morgan Stanley or Fidelity or whoever? So it's it's really a long, long long sales cycle.

If it, if it's even sales, it's it's mainly someone saying you can trust Dave he's good. They've done really good for me. and you know people, people turn you know. give up.

give us a portfolio to manage. So the question is, does digital play a role at all? How would you know Growth Hacker: How would you? How would you? How would you get from 400 to a billion under management by realizing that digital is how trust is built. It's how. think about what's happened in American politics.

It's all been done by digital, right? Like people's entire perception is based on communication. The more you if I'm you I'm doing Unlimited video content on LinkedIn and YouTube shorts because YouTube is a search engine. YouTube Shorts is a monster. but this.

but I Think the way you do it is create a format of a show and you interview people. Okay, contemporary Finance Contemporary event I Love the I Love contemporary, modern uh of the moment. The way you get people to pay attention in your world, in my opinion, is giving them the sense of shit's changing and that's where the Arbitrage is and that's what this show focuses on And my CEO's interview. You know people like that are in my network.

What do you do right you? That's right. And by the way, once you have, this is why: I Love this. Once you have a podcast I've watched Ray dalio your Arthur Blank I've watched some of the most iconic business men and women do the most random shows because the person cold emailing them said the word podcast. hmm I'd love to have you on my podcast to talk about your journey.

You'd be shocked. Many people will say yes to that. It goes back to what I talked to the you Know Nick and the boys just now on. It's are you gonna spend one hour on it a week asking people to be on the show? or are you gonna ask? try to do four hours.

The way you do that is by having a 45 minute video weekly show where you interview someone and you chop up. You know how I do my content I know I'm I'm one of the most prolific content producers in the world and I don't sit down and make content I do my life and then we post produce your life. In this scenario would be spending an hour or two getting guests because it takes time and then spending an hour making the show and then spending another hour or two cutting up the clips or you have somebody do it if you know, depending on what you want to allocate to, but that's the five to six hours a week that is required for you to do this well. Okay, but in his podcast YouTube LinkedIn at scale like I just said to the last boys like the only difference between me is that calendar you just saw and the output.

All right. And last but not least, Jennifer you're up Hi Gary So um, a very short condensed version of my history. My former my late ex-husband and I were the biggest on QVC and we kind of just set the trend for skin care on Shopping Networks. Um, we ended up getting divorced, he kept the business I kept the kids I left as the largest shareholder and I used all that funding to raise my kids because he he wasn't much help.

um later on I was doing. you know, small things on the side Consulting working with small businesses and I was working with a doctor. He wanted to start a skincare line and I suggested hey, I can I can do this for you? Um, because that's that's my background. it's my field so I'm kind of tapped out like credit wise I've got all my funds in this.

Um, my partner ended up exiting. he got personal problems you know, financially and he gave me 100 of the business we had launched on shop HQ because that was my background. um we were doing great but they had like payment issues so I got nervous about their stability and had to leave. So now I have um, 60 000 in inventory and because I really can't do anything funding wise.

I've been chasing after these big influencers I got like really close to the point where she even liked one of my comments about trying my product. she has my product. I've been in talks with her team. how do I keep her attention? Because if I can get a short hit like that with you know, an influencer that could help me self-fund more to make it back to QVC which is where I intend to go.

but I need to do a 25 person clinical study before I can get there. So that's why another reason why I was on the small Shopping Network So I've got my plan I'm going overseas I've got somebody there who wants to place an order but I really do need to get that quick boost. So do you have any suggestions on without mentioning it? You know, because she's not answering my emails, how can I keep her attention and keep her interested? I Think First of all, there's a lot of high risk with that, the thought of her or anybody else posting and that guaranteeing the sales of those units is not there, right? But just to review just where they say they like your product. When when they say they they like they like your product, what do you mean one more time I Want to make sure I understand.

So a lot of these big influencers what they do is they just take your product, they try it and they're like oh wow you know I had a great experience I got results and boom they move on to the next one. That's really all I need is just to kind of get known out there I'm going to say it again Mike I'm very aware of influencer marketing I'm talking about I'm not sure that would work. Oh okay well I do this for a living at scale right? Like like take a Vanderpump right now that which is top of mind for everyone that post saying I like this does not guarantee the product sell it's happening all the time. that where that's not happening.

My and my biggest concern is that you see that as the lightning bolt to give you the quick pump to get you out of this situation to your next thing and you may end up going for that. Betting the whole Farm on that and then not working. Yeah, that makes sense I'll just say this very well. like just back to everything's friend Yay here putting up your product and saying I love this coconut you should buy it may not sell the units you think right? That's true.

What about? um, go ahead. go ahead like Mary Ruth Organics For example, you did something with them to do creative funding. Do you think I'm a candidate to do something like that? And how do you even approach something like that? Why why wouldn't you just start making content with yourself just like what you were doing on QVC but just doing it on all the social media platforms yourself I was going and now I'm going to start. but I couldn't until I hit a thousand followers.

So and that was hard to get to. Why why couldn't you do that until you? Why couldn't you make content about your product until you had a thousand dollars? It wouldn't let me go live. but I've been making videos? Yeah, well right to me the point is like for me. I Think it's more about sending samples to emerging influencers.

Okay, and not paying at all. right? If you send a sample of your product to somebody has 30 000 followers but is doing really good work on Tick Tock Right now, they're one post away from doing more than what you thought you would do, right? Okay, so stick with the smaller micro. A hundred percent you look because you were affected by your career being built in those big moments like you. I'm very aware of what QVC and Shopping Network has been historically like.

Like, what's happening now is like you don't want to bet a business model on the on the lightning bolt model. You want to build it on the Brick by Brick Brick by Brick back to like Health and Wellness I Don't want you looking for like apple cider vinegar or like the shot I want you to put in the work on eating and going to the gym that in our world in what you do is making four to five pieces of social media content a day. Okay which is what I've been doing okay great. And then what about um, the Mary Ruth model.

How did you do that? Like is am I a candidate to do something like that or Mary Ruth reached out. Yes, you're a candidate. If you put out good content for a decade then people like Mary Ruth and everybody else in the world will reach out to you. Thank you.

You're welcome All right, Thank you very much. Bye everyone.