So the thing that's definitely happening in your world. You're not challenging yourselves to figure out other ways to do content. people get into ruts, they have something that works and they do it for the next seven years. Like you have to try different Like again.

The thing I'm most proud of and I want you all to go. look at my last 100 posts on Instagram We're trying all sorts of I'm saying the same for 20 years. but if you find different creative ways and you understand, you can find that pay dirt. Attention is the number one asset.

Hello, hello, hello Ready Rock and Roll I think I'm sure the teams prepped you for this, but you know I think we've done this long enough to know that you know what I encourage you to do is like to go as deep as possible to your actual question. Uh, it's cool that other people get value from it. but don't shy away from the most nerdy nerdy detail because that's what this portion is about. So feel free and it's nice to be with all of you.

How do we not be commoditized against our peers? Um, you know if you look at the on the field product of you know competitor of the adult sports you know world over in New Jersey It's very similar. Um, so often the first time we're compared to our competitor like hey, how come they're $100 cheaper or you know this or that, why are they $100 cheaper? um that most people are just doing it not to run a business and just kind of as a passion project, side hustle and not really into make money. They usually have like side work or other work to do, but as you can imagine, the consumer doesn't care about that. Absolutely So from a consumer standpoint, What? How do you answer that? Yeah, so well.

to answer the question to them, it's we're more organized website, we have backend, uh, coordination of schedules and all this other kind of stuff. Some people as you can imagine are like take a picture of the Google sheet, email it out, or text it out, or whatever. So so first first you feel like you will. If they value their time, you can sell it back to them.

Yes, right? Like yeah. So I think I I Always think time is like the ultimate thing to sell. Like there's people in here who've literally ordered from Postmates a $4 candy bar and paid $27 in shipping just so they didn't have to go downstairs in in New York City to the local budha and pick it up. So you do answer that by saying we save you time because of the tech stack or don't you? That's a question to you all.

Um, because I think I'm empathetic that you may not realize how big of a deal that is and it might seem like not the biggest thing to sell on and I would argue. It's definitely something you should sell on. and in fact I would try to like, really think about it and get into like text notifications and other things because I think it's I always one thing I really enjoying these things I Really pay attention right? So you talk I hear something I say why is it $100 more you say? Well, it's a side hobby for them. they're not writing the same P&l I'm like that's good businessman stuff.

but I don't give a if I'm Johnny about your problems I'm trying to save a hundred bucks. If you can then communicate what the value props are. that will become really important because nobody's commoditized. It's a really funny thought.

like everyone's commoditized and no one's commoditized like everything we're wearing right now is actually commoditized. yet we chose to pay more for many different reasons. Um, and and everything else I Think the question becomes: can you articulate why you're a better option? Like every single person here is looking to articulate the value proposition in a better way so that they get more people to decide them. So I think you know I Think keep going.

Besides that, is there other things that you can speak to in terms of the value? Um, because by the way, it's okay to go as blank as we think we run a better ship. Yeah, and it's it's worth more. And then if they say why you say like our people are better, you know we do Think we're saving you time and you're all busy cuz the cool thing is the people you're talking to you know are you know it obviously runs the gamut, but one of the great things about being in the Tri-state area is everyone's busy. Yeah, like inherently it's in the DNA and the fabric.

you know it's just in the energy right? um but I think right off the bat for everybody and definitely for you is like you. You've got to be okay with saying our people are better and thus and for someone like me it be like well yeah I want better refs or I want better. You know like when I walk into that like I I don't know every detail yet but like that? no you're there I mean you know we have We We St have site managers on the field. you know we're trying to get.

we're coaching and training them to be more personable. Get to know the captains on a first a basis, be able to communicate on the field. um we do a lot of uh showing off the players in terms of MVP pictures for every game, we getting them posted on social uh videographer. how often is this coming up? The price is push? um not that often.

But I want to increase the price but like bring the value in in the same same way you know? Yeah, I think that's right, You know I think you know it's funny I grew up in a liquor store called Shoppers Discount Liquors Price was what my dad traded on and I got ingrained in that. and and and ironically even before I went to my dad's liquor store my baseball card business was based on price I would literally walk the show in the eighth grade as everyone was setting up, memorize all the prices of like the key 50 cards that everybody gave a about at the moment and go back and repriced them cheaper like it was such an easy thing to understand on price and obviously over the last. you know since that kid over the last 40 years I understand like there's many different variables one can play on and you know like now everybody wants to play the 1% of the 1% because that's real good business when you know playing price. but I I like where your head's at and I would tell you and for everyone who's listening as well with whether it's Scots protein balls or anybody else in between always challenge yourself of why someone would pay for this at this price is like like I don't know if there's a day that I go by that I don't think about that and I think most people don't think about it at all and I think there's something in there.

so I love that that's where your heads at and that's what leads to innovation of value. Like all of a sudden, here's a good example. The amount of people that want to be sports broadcasters that are on social media is like a billion. Just adding a live stream component to every game that's aired on Twitch to four people but has a wannabe sportscaster actually broadcast the game I would pay for our back I would pay for that I'd pay $ thousand dollars for that dinner last night we were talking about like what's could we make? Could we wck some style? Follow one of the teams from the league Yeah.

I mean those are really fun. like clever ideas. um I think that's cool I think of that as like the sprinkles to the Sunday and the Sunday has to be something like we broadcast your games and commentate. What's cool is the cost is nothing.

You've got Twitch, you've got all these live streams and again, trate area has advantages and disadvantages. There's just like literally a thousand people who would work for nothing to be able to call the game with the hope that they get discovered. That's why I like challenging yourself of like what's in it for them. This that's what I think a lot about.

like notice. The example I gave you twitch is free. It's not like by the way do you know why I used YouTube Within weeks of it being available cuz 3 years earlier I tried to do Wine Library TV and asked my tech team and they said it was going to cost $50,000 a week cuz streaming bandwidth cost in 2003 were literally like $50,000 if like 10 people watched three minutes and then you know three years later YouTube was like it literally took me like 20 minutes to be like no, no, it's free like it's free like I'll post it and YouTube's not going to send me a bill. It's funny to think about those things.

so I think you're on a good path? keep try to add four more bills and whistles that aren't your staff as nicer? Those are right? Yeah yeah, but you're going to need like the thing on the exactly the menu of like oh oh oh oh of course 150 more Yeah got it? Yeah, by the way. you could go local college that has a sports broadcasting thing because I assume there'll be content at scale right? There's multiple leagues going on at all the time and again you. you could also create teers so one of the ways you could raise your price is whatever imaginary price you had for increase. You might not do it for everyone.

You may have a double that price for the SPO Sports cast broadcasting way. you can still net out at the same Topline revenue and have real justification of why more? Yeah and that I just came up with one idea in two seconds that I think would work I think you keep building on that Yeah for sure do you keep hardcore stats? Uh for basketball? We? yeah yeah. I mean I used to do it across the board but it just got sloppy and like 15% aside from basketball. we're looking at it so it was just like not worth this Yeah I think with that gets me immediately into like really actually producing meaningful actual trading cards for everyone in the league with actual stats on it.

There's just like you just keep looking if you can just you're just trying to ARB notice how he picked up on like oh, there's no risk like I'm always thinking of like cost of goods against perceived value Yeah yeah right right Yeah yeah. I I I Like that you started there and I would tell you that that is a good Cadence forever I mean there's a million ways to do this. Food and beverage, Food and beverage could be a reason like where are you like physically, uh, anywhere from we hawk and a Wayne to withy that whole area kind of thing. A lot lot of W's there.

um uh I Really think that I really think that the restaurant Sitch in Bergen and P County also is like an opportunity. Maybe you start using your business as a platform for discovery of food. So like you reach out to all 7,000 restaurants that are on 80 and and 10 and say hey, we have this we have captive audience High net worth individuals that are paying for this would you like to Showcase you know another reason is like our food and beverage program is better. Another notice what I did there lowc cost I'm using my platform as a marketing engine so I can ARB the cost of goods because I'm not going to pay for that food but there's perceived value on the other end of people there and they yeah show up at the field yeah like my number one thing especially with buddies that I play with is like oh we could eat afterwards and shoot the and talk about the game and just continuous stuff like that.

Yeah what else? um tough one. um growth in New Markets So uh we came into New York City last year. uh stumbled a little bit just in terms of bandwidth from running in New Jersey coming to New York we didn't have any foods on the ground in in New York why' you come to New York uh the lore of it yeah yeah, 100% cuz then you know we take a step back and we're like what the hell like we're not even in Hoboken you just took you just ate every word out of my mouth. like knowing the size and scale of the New Jersey market and knowing the supply and demand of opportunity.

Like when I think about you going to living like the Livingston Short Hills Milburn area and doing it there versus playing here. It's like you haven't people do this all the time in business? Yeah, like they get excited about expansion for the sake of expansion. Like the thesis, the the ideology, the the concept more than like the actual business. Reality like this business is way better executed in New Jersey and Connecticut and Rhode Island and all those places.

Manhattan just has so much pull and cogs. Competitiveness? You know? Um, yes. ironically Hogs are very very low for field space and that's like one of our top things aside. Co: uh, hidden cogs, right? Fair fair.

Got it? Yeah. I'm sorry I'm using my own slang. you're right. more than I am energy? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, your time is the number one.

Cog Yeah, and especially living across there. You know what? Crossing take I'm always sad I do it plenty too. which is this is I think I'm giving therapy to myself when you haven't fully squeezed the out of this grapefruit. What the are you grabbing that orange for? You know what? I mean like there's still a lot of juice here.

Yeah, totally. I'm sting my stopwatch because I am going to be selfish. This is a don't worry James is I trust him more than anything but we can double it up. Go ahead this this.

this is a big day for me because I worked hard to get back to this point. Um, just to give you some context. Well, first of all I want to say the reason I'm here and you're always about context and relevance I listen to your I listen to the Gary V stuff that you repost through my Spotify when I do cardio I think it was on the first of the month this month maybe last month October we run an agency and you mentioned something about like you know maybe you lost a big client today. you know right at the end of the month often times agen turn over that was super relevant.

Then you guys started talking about Sasha group and 4ds. my assistant kind of look it up and we booked so it's amazing. Thank you for that feedback. Um but just uh, here's my Eric Godfrey moment.

Okay Eric Godfrey is the kid I met outside when I was seven and he's when I literally moved to Addison New Jersey and they were throwing a Nerf football and he said who do you like in football and I said I was I was just in America for a little while at this point he's like well you're a Jets fan and that's literally how I became a Jets fan and it's like the Cornerstone of my interest in life. So here's my Gary Gary V Eric godre uh I went bson College was one of the Pioneers at premum MMS made a shitload of money, got invited to some boat I'm on my way to the casino to to roll craps with the founder of Groupon and Living Social and my friend Ryan Cesler goes I'm going to see Gary Vayer Chuck you got to come with me, you weren't Gary be that you Gary and I said who because I was into Tim Ferris because I was I love him yeah Ryan Cesler, who's just a an acquaintance of mine goes Andy Tim Ferris Gary Vayner and I walk in there you came out you were I Guess you were 35 at the time. you looked like you were 16. You're wearing a shitty pair pair of cargo sh a t-shirt that sounds exactly right.

You did the best keynote speech I'd ever heard in my life. Gary comes out on stage and goes I'm the most ruthless entrepreneur you've ever met does his whole Spiel I used to pick Po and looks right at Russell Simmons and goes you Russell I did I did I did I remember and that moment I've been the I've been all in since anyway and by the way to give me context so you don't think I'm a complete jerk off what was and he's painting a very clear picture. what was happening was everyone here was my point I'm very good at at I'm a good public speaker but I'm very good if I have a lot of context. So what was good about this boat was I was speaking about a day and a half in all I do is watch.

So I was watching how everybody was rolling and what I noticed was right. You're probably remembering more now even like I Couldn't believe how first of all this was already a bougie thing. Why do you need to look at everyone's name tag before you decide how important they are and this was at the height of like Google and like and I was just. it was just very obvious to me that like what people were doing and I was like and I'm So Into like loving people like blindly.

It's just so foreign to the way I see the world especially because everyone's on a journey which was the point of like you don't get it I'm going to be the most important guy here, but you don't know that yet and and what my point was was like stop pegging everyone. Let's spend the back half of this boat just being nice to everyone. You don't know who you're going to meet. One thing you did on that trip too.

we got in a like a Circle started with like three of us, then it was six. I think by the end maybe 10 people. you stayed up all night just talking to people I went to bed at 2: in the morning but I watched you walk off that boat like going like this and I was like what the was the ROI and that guy doing that but I mean it's just amazing. It's cool man.

I'm very humbled. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Um so anyway, it's been a long journey for me.

I got I got into some legal issues in that premium SMS space. It took me out of the game for six years. I started working with a with a Harvard neuroscientist. uh, we were trying to sell a military grade uh, mental protocol to Darpo which is the advanced research in the military.

wasn't making any money doing it, but it dialed me the in when I got out of that kind of six years of kind of going through legal. Health Y and this guy, you know he's doing brain mapping and all this stuff I've been sober for seven years I eat organic I meditate I do all this. He really dialed me in and but I was making three grand a month, wasn't wasn't doing much and all of a sudden pandemic comes and I'm the most calm, clear-minded version of myself ever. I'm sitting my parents home in Cape cot I Get a call from a girl who who remembered me when I was this young, highflying internet marketer Andy need your help I've got $100 to my name I'm some Jewish ladies nanny in La doing her grocery shopping I'm stressed out about getting coron virus so only fans but I can't figure it out.

Yeah, so what the hell is that I logged in I said oh wow, you're trying to thirst Got no marketing logic really robust in the sense that it can you know s make these transactions but it doesn't do a good job of taking a crater with a blindfold on and saying do steps one through 10 and you're going to make it back Yeah yeah, girl had 50,000 followers on Instagram no Tik Tok no twitch no Twitter no nothing wasn't a Creator I shoved her out of the way and I started to storytellin made her a quarter of a million dollar in a month. she starts running around La starts telling all these Instagram people uh hey, don't trust your business to night promoters and right you know there's these guys in Boston and it exploded and it what what's happened is the owners of that platform who are Ukrainian Russian guys um they they now. they now use us basically when they've got larger celebrities like Denise Richards MIAA People like that that they can see on the back end aren't quite taking advantage of their opportunity. They bring them to us.

Here's here's why I'm here built this company to $100 million a year company without a brand and without uh, without putting content on the internet and it was all these kind of intellectual face-to-face zooms where I would get on the you know, get on FaceTime with these content creators and really say like hey if you get a fan when you attract an audience you can make $5 off them or 5,000 off them. What's the difference? That's what we bring to the table. The analytics the Special Sauce oh my God I didn't know you existed da after about year three I said it's time to Brand this thing So we built our brand creators Inc and went all in on that. We just had this big house party with Steve aoke we activated New York Fashion Week so all of our clients who don't just want to be only fans creators could come and walk on a Runway we do stuff like that Yep problem is now that we've this big fancy brand they're not coming like they were when I just got on FaceTime with them and I was like you know what's quantitative analytics like how what's a wall post for what's this for? what's that for? is that a macro or micro thing? Do you think because the the space is more mature as well like I think a lot of times people remember when we lost a Subway pitch and I was shocked.

Were you here for that we like we won like 13 pitches in a row and then like subway said no and I was like baffled I was like how is that possible and what I didn't realize at the time was uh-oh when we said social media in 201 like 10 and 11 people were like okay like like my brother's laptop literally created the Pepsi and NHL and Campbell Soup like Facebook and Twitter like it was that early. Obviously, as that ecosystem has evolved, that's why I'm asking you, do you think it's a macro or micro issue? It's a micro? Because uh, well, that's then. then that's golden. If you believe that it's micro, you just go back to the number one thing that always Works in business.

which is, and it's I. Can't believe the fact that your story touched on this. What was the ROI of that guy doing it? Scaling the unscalable always works. The cool part is, your story is so simple, right? Why don't you just go back and do that? Now you may not want to, and that's awesome.

That's okay because then you can have a diluted version of that. meaning you hire other people like nobody sells the way I sell my stuff. But if I was the only person doing that, then it would only be what it is. So I'm okay with the B and the C and the B minus and the a I mean you're thrilled when it's the A minus version of what you do.

So all you'd have to do is replicate what you would do one-on-one with the Navy Seals and the Green Beret not the general Army That your 100 million is. you have to build a Navy SEALS or a Green Beret to be an A minus B+ hopefully B no worse than B minus version of you doing it and you're also allowed to go back and do it as often as you want to. There's an interesting VAR So one of the reasons I never just took the content of me you know, pitching and selling and talking about quanti. Well that I understand why? Well, there's two ways that people think about that one.

they don't want to be out in front like that's just a human thing which is very real. you're allowed or not allowed. and two, some people fear that they go too far in the details of it and people can replicate it. Yeah, and specifically in our case, what I didn't want to do was piss off the partners that that only fans to be like oh when you're chatting with so and so you're actually talking to us So we were respecting that.

Well that I I respect that because a lot of people because a lot of people screw up and do that and then they just kind of get you know they they they get nixed for that. But we're kind of coming to the point now where I mean a lot of our a lot of our marketing was trying to say things without saying things and that's where I think we were screwing. Yeah, that makes sense. That's where we were screwing up that go I mean that the number one business that sucks is that at some level you can get humongous, but it's going to weigh.

The other thing is just on a side note, the other thing you have to think about is just the business itself because that work is going to get aied out for real. Actually, for real actually like of is going to do that, not let you do that. there's you're right. I mean but in in a lot of ways I Think we know where AI is going to really help in the space versus like some of the parts where you would think that it might completely take over.

Yeah, I would say this and I and I actually am a buyer of what you just said. Just do me a favor. CU I Don't I want you to win? Never underes estimate technology. It's always like it's back to the era we met that next 10 years.

I Watched so many people say versions of that CAC Roow, you know this. I Don't have to tell you so just and this one's such big technology I Would argue even the people that are deepest about it are potentially underestimating how gnarly this Tech is. So I just want to make sure you keep that in mind. I Think the number one thing that everyone should always be doing is putting themselves out of business before someone else does.

I Think you should go all in on assuming that truth and work backwards instead of whatever version of Hope of what variation it becomes because I think that will lead you to innovate the next thing I Just want to tell you there's a lot of Gary ve in our business. So for instance, like when I when I coach content creators and we talk about context right? yeah, can I throw a left field at you thing at you? That's I'm just feeling so much I have to say it. I Highly recommend and I think you will based on everything I've heard please. When you leave here, please debate starting a consumer product.

Yeah! So I'm in charge of growth, right? All these things are we're looking at like we have a large roster. every day we see clients of ours. their content is getting ripped and turned into Snapchat or original shows, right? So like as we grow. we talked about this a little bit earlier too, Right? Like we're trying to figure out how to navigate.

There's this concept of people gatekeeping a good service when they find it in our industry, right? Of course, as we've now started posting content, we're like, how do we navigate going from Top tier service that's behind the scenes to now kind of Walmart distribution in terms of media and kind of navigating that content chain I think a I think that's right B I'm talking about starting a cereal yeah, no or like a handkerchief. By the way, we have to show you serial creators cuz on one of your things you talked about like eating cial on podcast yeah Serial entrepreneur I started something called Serial Creators Breakfast Creator Cal Cereal Creator Cereal Breakfast or cereal cereal Creator Anyhow, last thing I want to plant in your head just so know? um in case you ever have anything to throw um out of nowhere We've Ended up with clients like Denise Richards Like Aelia like you know these typ? well not out of nowhere. It sounds like you're great at your craft and the platform benefits for you making people that should be winning win so much. I would argue it's the least out of nowhere thing.

so much so that uh, agents like UTA looked at buying us because afraid Emily Rakowski was going to come to us, make 400 Grand a month and only fans and then we'd say we'll do your brand deals for free emails right? Your higher value? um and I just kind of wanted to obviously like you've been in the service business for I'll give that some thought cool, send me an email after this I'll keep it I I know where to put it. One other selfish question I have is you were talking about Twitch for them. We're very tapped into culture like we have kids that are some of the bigger IRL streamers y like St kick or twitch like where do you see that evolving you see I think it's Jack any of those I mean yeah I get it. All of it is going to end up going to the blockchain because even all of those exist because they're all scared to get banned for cancelling on something.

So you have these, We won't ban you until that becomes the it's always. There's centralization and decentralization, right? This is why people are grossly underestimating the Blockchain. In the geopolitics that the world is in. In the media landscape that we live in, there is an inevitable outcome of an and to the world we live in.

Now it's not like a decentralized social network or streaming service is going to put out of business twitch or Facebook of the day in five years, but both will exist and the best, which is the game you're playing in. The best will all gravitate to decentralization once they extract attention from centralization. You know this, all the creators are like yo V I remember when the vine guys and girls went to vine to go yell at them and I was like tell me how that works out and I also tried to remind them that they were babysitters and working at Starbucks until the attention that sat on Vine came to them? So how that's how I think they'll work out you streaming it all on Twitch or my I'll get I'm going to go around because I don't want James to get mad at me. The quick answer is I'm not because I don't think people understand that I work 24 hours a day I'm one of the most prolific content creators, but I allocate zero minutes a day to content creation I wish I could I want to tell you only reason I asked that is because what we've noticed in our space I Get it.

Trust me. the problem is I'm inclined if it was old Wine Library days all of it because I'm sitting with sensitive information. that is that I can get that I just have. You'd be stunned how little people who are crushing it all all they really have versus the people who aren't is good spatial awareness with them and their I couldn't agree more.

they're just doing man I so I so see it. I get it. Trust me. I've been thinking about it a lot.

you stream ended up being a huge factor to me back in that those days not just Twitter and Facebook the early streaming stuff. All right. let me keep going you uh yeah, what's going on Vancouver yeah you? uh. well.

first book was crush it. You actually talked about a realtor that started on YouTube started filming himself in his car that Realtor is Ian Watt? Yep. I remember who I actually consider somewhat of a friend? That's awesome and so I kind of ended up just following that blueprint and um, end up building a very good personal brand and awesome real estate space. um you know, like big, you know we be on Bloomberg interviewing you know CBC news.

but I guess the issue that I'm having or I'm here as a personal brand trying to figure out sort of where my next move or where do I pivot but the residential real estate space I find is very hard to scale and so I'm like it's it's a business to scale. so I'm like most are yeah and so I think I'm just looking ahead as you know I've been doing it now for 10 years I'm still a young guy I'm like now. Started this podcast. it's called The Looney hour and what's that about? So it's it's myself I look at it from the real estate space cuz space.

I've partnered up with the guy that runs portfolios. He's like a macro macro investor, basically runs uh, client portfolios. He's a money manager. he's a money manager Y and then the other guy was uh, worked for a hedge fund.

He love it. So you guys shoot it. Yeah, so that we basic. we literally just shoot the sh.

How old are you uh 32 yeah? I mean this is perfect for me to answer. So from you know from from 30 from 30 to 34 you know when I was Gary Vaynerchuk I was the wine guy just like you're the real estate guy in Vancouver I decided to start making content about other things as a personal brand who's built something you got to understand back to what he he was just talking about. It's not just your pretty eyes like you have other communication capabilities charism so you could actually employ that to anything else that you can speak to I Decided to go very macro and go into overall communication and then that led me to like the insights of like how humans I went through a really weird period where I was like I'm literally telling everybody what to do I'm like do this on Facebook and I'm like no one's doing it and that led me to like oh people are insecure people like people do like all the I talk about but I could have went into like I thought about it sports like I'd be McAfee that's why Pat and I are friend like I whatever I was going to do it was going to work I just chose a certain Lane you know I think what you need to do is decide what if it's what's next or I don't want to scale this you That blueprint continues to be true. The platforms change.

the best practices within them change. But back to what these gentlemen were just talking about: Whether it's streaming and spatial recognition and storytelling to the mundane, whether it's the Ne I mean the next Tik Tock is always one day away. it will happen. You know it could be seven years.

It could be four years. But even back to like the the nerd of all this like the amount of money creators could be making on Snapchat because of the supply and demand of how much ad revenue is in there versus how many people create for it because everyone's fixated on Tik Tok and Instagram is enormous and then o goes from thirst traps to a broader market and patreon, there's just like a million things going on. I Think your biggest debate at this young of an age is what is your favorite stuff? You can only win on passion or knowledge. Like like like someone like you, there's a lot of ways to win but you my gut based on what I'm hearing you're going to win on either you love the Canucks more than breathing or you really know something else.

Well I went with the well and passion right I went wine, business marketing. um you know I think I Think you have a pretty clear like what's also cool about the core real estate business is it's not like you have to retire the fact that you can start something around Pokemon Video Gam games, table tennis, pool, whiskey while still doing the real estate St and then integrating it the way I do cuz I'm all over the place. You might get a garage sale video for me or a Jets video or business or like you know, like I Don't think people realize the renaissance man and woman thing is very real. Everyone's like you got to stay consistent.

The bad advice: don't worry about it I'm not distracted. Um uh. the bad advice that people go and be like pick your Niche and go yes. But then once you have your steak, you can sell mashed potatoes.

You could sell green beans. that what do you think's going to happen brother. You think somebody in Vancouver is going to see a video about you talking about whiskey and being like oh, he also likes whiskey I Can't take him serious about real estate. People don't deploy common sense to this conversation.

they talk. Academia So where I'm seeing that crossover just for an example is our Loona show is now like it's like the finance show in Canada Like that's awesome. Come into that full Canada like full Canada That's awesome. so it's doing well.

The nice thing about that, right? Vancouver You're you're set to that geographical limit of constraints, right? Your client tell only to be people that like yeah, of course, buy and sell in Vancouver Like Now we're opening up to Canada Um, like we're literally interviewing like former Prime Ministers and stuff like that and it's Leen for all of you, right? Leen But for them too. They're very broad where you're narrow. Yes, I'm narrow I'm getting a lot of clients that they like. Hey I listen.

I've been listening to L for last 12 months. Have you have you thought about building a a nation brokerage? There's I Don't think there's a lot of good M maybe it's cu the CES it's a little bit different I think it's I think the brokerage model is I think it's actually dying. Okay, where I do I think this is kind of leading and some of my question is so my co-host who's the money manager uh, he wants to actually sort sort of help. He wants me to help him scale his business and take you know Equity stake.

Because basically, what's through that podcast? Yep, unintentionally, he's pulling in like he's signing out two to three new clients a week. Not unintentionally, which yeah in that industry is. You know most people will generate their business by all. All of this conversation for everyone is just brand.

is the bestselling? Yeah. I Always make fun of people who like, don't believe in marketing and branding who are great sales people. I'm a great salesman too. I'm like cool.

that's like. that's like when you're not good at marketing and sale and brand you like you guys are. It's not unintentional. It's called you built you built brand which is why he has.

Wouldn't worry necessar about a crossover of like Oh Real Estate and then sort of on the portfolio management side, he's like oh, now he's kind of doing that thing well. let's play it out. I think when you hear it played out in conversation, you realize how silly it is. What do you think like what do you think's going to happen? People are like what what happened like maybe last like oh I think he's not.

you know. Do I want to hire this guy cuz he's not fully dedicated to would you take my wine recommendation? That's the answer to the question. Yeah, right? Well, you've proven your worth in that other space. and the only reason why I look at that is because like so his competition which like the whole industry in portfolio management is regulated by investment advisers that work for big Bank big Bank says you cannot do social media at all You want to send a tweet like we need to get compliance.

Oh I'm very aware there's plenty of versions of that all over the world. so I'm just looking at that and saying I feel this this huge white space opportunity of course it is have zero competition the banks are unwilling to correct. Yeah, yeah, I don't think you'll lose your whole real estate Empire in Vancouver cuz you've also started to play in the money management space and that's assuming you go front-facing Yeah, well, that's the thing I think Realistically, I' actually end up probably more behind the scenes exactly like I'm not going to be the one that's physically managing someone's money corre the guy that's building that business. Correct.

So notice what? I notice the clarity I just gave you on that sounds like you're worrying about something that won't even manifest. Yeah, no that's fair. I think it's like I think it's but this goes back to like what we yeah yeah like I think this is what we do Yeah like I I If you just listen like well they are not running real business. Consumer doesn't care, these are philosophical things we think stay on brand.

people don't care what what do we not willing to take Mark Walberg seriously as an actor because he was once Marky Mark You know what I mean like we do this thing and I'm telling you it's all grounded in Academia It's not grounded in real market dynamics. The consumer has spoken on this issue will change our mind and if you show me enough of you're this, you're this. Mike Bloomberg used to be a sass entrepreneur to me then he became a mayor like I don't know like you become what you are at a consistent Pace both good, bad and different. So I don't fear that especially it sounds like you have like yours is really fun because doesn't sound like you're even going to confuse the market.

Yeah well I mean it's just nice to already have like the platforms and the brand is already built so it's obviously just kinding to leverage that into like a more scalable business that I feel like okay where do I see myself I think that makes sense I think where you took it to a little bit of an interesting place, it sounds like you're fearing something that can't happen. Yeah yeah I think Ultimately, like, right, you're going to be behind the scenes. Kind of feels like I'm asking for permission, but like, no. by the way, by the way, the good news is that's a really good observation I Think we all do that? Yeah I think we all like.

This is why I believe in therapy the most. Sometimes you already know the answer. You just need to talk it through. Yeah, it's just a human trait for all of us.

I Guess my last question quickly was uh, so now again, if you had I know you got your podcast. But if you had one recommendation, uh, for scaling like my podcast is there anything that you see as like a huge opportunity? It's like oh, people, like people that have an audio video podcast, they should totally be doing this. Yeah I mean I think I think I'm incredibly consistent about this I I believe that if everyone here. so I'm writing a new book called Day Trading Attention right? I Believe that we all have to day trade attention to maximize our upside.

What that means is you need to pay attention to everything that is going on. So B let's just use scaming because I fully agree with these guys. what's going on there like I Was one of the people early on. that was like Hey if you have a podcast, film it and then post- produce it and put it everywhere.

Now that's incredibly common practice, but I would also argue that you should stream it as well. Have four twitch followers at first. like while you're doing the now again, everybody has a different process. For me, everything's always worked cuz I'm happy to just like put it out there.

Obviously, when you film something, you have the ability to post- produce it. If you're live, you're live. So like if you're just if you go live and you're waiting for your guest, you might not want to do that live. You know, like you got to think about what live means.

But look, I think Linkedin's organic reach is something everyone under leverages on this day as we all sit here today. I Think people understand you can go viral on Tik Tock though that's much harder than 3 years ago I Don't think people understand how consistently you could can get organic reach that you didn't have the day before on LinkedIn and I'm very bullish on it I and I think everybody here, whether you sell a protein ball or you're actually in the B2B business LinkedIn is more Facebook 2015 than it is the LinkedIn that I think everyone defaults into thinking it is so would say anybody who's not Distributing any of their content everybody should be Distributing content in LinkedIn It's a really good psychology audience too. The human that's on LinkedIn when they're consuming LinkedIn is a different version of themselves often very business transactional minded versus Tik Tok where you're just looking for escapism or or you know, entertainment I'm very I would say that one really stands out for me, but then also just taking no assumptions. you need to film them and you need to post- produce them.

but you also have to be great at the post- production I know we'll touch on that I don't know how much have we touched on that yet? or is that in back half? Have we done sock stuff a little bit? you know. So like this stuff like the world works on storytelling. First of all, thanks We uh, we kind of built uh Studio on the heels of like thank you and so thank you. That's good.

So so since then, over nine years we've grown to be, uh, kind of a collection of businesses that are like over100 million. uh and we only about 200 people on our team. Um, we primarily grew with Instagram So we like we started. um, because we got on there and kind of pulling back the curtain on like highend design.

kind of make it more um, kind of like approachable and be able to answer a bunch of questions. So we've basically grown primarily most of our business off organic content and it was just like telling the growing the brand brand above everything, telling that whole story. um was really successful, drove a lot of business and I think now we're at a stage where um we are adding in p and we're trying to really measure the attribution and within within an Instagram envirment. Yeah Instagram we're on Tik Tok um we we had a Netflix show for like four seasons.

oh wow that ended last season so when we first launched Netflix we saw an incredible like lift and like kind of like what was the show about called Dream Home Makeover would just they took kind of what we did to F it down we go in and like put over like a room y yeah I mean obviously in the beginning that must have been huge awareness so you're just feeling a maturation standpoint right now. yeah which is why paid has entered. yeah makes sense you kind of like just seen this mean reversion in the home industry over the last like I say like year like there was a big bom like a big big bomp during Co and then when people were kind of all their house like of course of course of course bup in my services businesses and now it's kind of like okay where we at who's Who's left this is my father calling me every day he's like why are we not selling as much wine as we did during Co I'm like Dad people are not at their home 24 like I'm sorry Like Somebody Went to a restaurant tonight and ordered a glass of wine that came out of your pocket. He's like you have to fix it I'm like geez like thank you for the confidence but I'm like I can't change the world yeah so I think that's kind of where we're left is like okay we can either right size business a little bit more which we have we like like we really like looked at business operations like hard core went really efficient but after having this kind of run, it's in your tummy to just want to continue to grow instead of be more efficient right? Yeah, doubled every year for the last of course four five years.

So here's the cool. It's really funny because thank you economy and Jab jab jab right hook day trading attention 6 months ago was called jab Jab Jab left hook. It's I'm literally rewriting the book because it's changed so much and I'm ready for a 301 course instead of the 2011 that that book was at the time. The cool part is Organic is here.

It's just that you're not good at Tik Tok Organic is here. It's just that you haven't even committed to LinkedIn and then thus can't be good at it. So couple things: one you've won between Netflix and Instagram and that run on awareness leading to to sales that is still on a table for all of us. It's just a lot harder right now, right that that's all that's happened.

but it's actually never been greater. It's like this weird thing. it's like there's always ab and flows. It's why I was so and I know it sounds like a lot of you have had contacts on me for a long enough time.

It's why I was so loud. Pandemic was March 2020. it was why I was so loud late 18 all of 19 about Tik Tok The land grab of organic was better than anything Instagram ever had but nobody moved because everyone was pot committed Instagram So couple things One let that little thing because you'll always clearly what you have resonates. You just need to ARB attention versus value Like to, right? Just make sure that every time there's another new thing, especially if I'm loud about it because that means it already happened I'm not guessing to go triple hard I remember I promised myself before Tik Tok if I ever saw another YouTube YouTube Twitter Facebook Instagram Vine that I was that was it I was going to go into a cocoon I wasn't even going to run Viner I was going to be one cuz I knew it and sure enough musically came Tik Tok came I saw it I did great but I went like 20% hard cuz I had other responsibilities and boy do I wish I went 100% hard cuz it may be a long time before we have as big of a moat of opportunity as Tik Tok 1819 was.

Anyway, that's all to be said that when they get into Brand forance later like there's definitely a play. Media is great. like I think people get religious especially when they're great at organic like I'm I grew all this without media I'm like that's not a badge of honor I'm like if you're a media right and I get why I get why. it goes back to a lot of what we're talking about here, like the subconscious.

but when you really break it down, but if you could spend media perfectly and it would grow your business, why wouldn't you like? You know you get caught in these like ideologies. so I think a don't demonize paid paid scary because like it feels really hurtful when you like spend $100,000 and nothing happens. External agency like they try to take credit for a lot right? So they're like hey, like contributing like 25% of your Revenue you're like bro. you just got here like two like six weeks ago 100% I I Always make fun of our team I'm like we we every time a business is doing well you all say we did it and every time it's not doing well.

it's their fault I'm like you hypocrite, you know? Um yeah no. I think you should build this internally I think most I I Say it all the time to clients all the time. This is why I think Sasha group and Vayner do well I'm like why would you hire us It goes back to what I was saying earlier. the price.

I'm always like, why would someone hire us this what we're doing we like I really think about 4ds a lot I'm like why? like we put this video out like I'm like I think about this constantly. Like why? Why? Why? So anyway, couple things for your business. couple really interesting things I don't have the full answer on this but I'm spending a lot of time on Pinterest Personally right now for your business. Pinterest is bananas.

It's just that Pinterest has never found its moment of like what we're all looking for. like that true organic monster. but I would a flirt with that a little bit? YouTube Shorts is very important for all of us because YouTube's the second biggest search engine in the world and your business is very search oriented. like when people go their journey and obviously they're doing that more and more on social.

but I think YouTube Shorts is a very big deal. These are the platforms that I think you have to get as good you have to understand, you have to give yourself more credit for getting good at Instagram back in that era. I think a lot of times when people have organic Pay Dirt They give the platform credit not themselves. Now some things come more natural to people than others.

One of the biggest reasons people didn't jump into Tik Tok is it didn't feel natural to them. It's by the way, it's a challenge for me because I Don't create Tik Tok You have to really create like my post- production does not work on Tik Tok The same way I just have no options I'm doing too many other things so I'm going to have to take that L and be like a C minus at it. My wife hates it. CU She's become like the face of our business, right? Yes.

and she's like, damn it like all the Tik toks that do really was, It's like me talking want they want to see me just talking I want to get on every day I'm old, 39, be 40, you're so young, you're fine, you know, but she's like those just do really resonate yeah I think I mean look I think I think that the game for you is to get paid and organic to work well on every platform to the best of your ability. and to back to the different ideas that I was talking about. Over here for for Ideas for business I think the thing I'm most proud of and I hope you've all felt this is like when you go to my grid it's like a popery of Randomness Everyone's so obsessed with their grid being on brand. it's just not how people consume.

They're consuming content to content content. So the thing that's definitely happening in your world if your wife's like this: I don't want to do this every day. You're not challenging yourselves to figure out other ways to do content. People get into ruts, they have something that works and they do it for the next seven years.

Like you have to try different like again The thing I'm most proud of and I want you all to go look at my last 100 posts on Instagram we're trying all sorts of pouring milk into coffee to say be you like I'm saying the same for 20 years but like but if you find different creative ways and you understand you can find that pay dirt. So like maybe it's just audio, maybe the two of you should have dinner where you know you're recording the dinner and you like know you're recording it and it's all audio and you just literally like talk about that you want like to get out there and that's your podcast and maybe that's your creative Pay Dirt cuz that would be like some that I would listen to if I gave a about a couple just them having dinner like literally two post carousels. What's Yep, still working but like again I'm already feeling the you know it's just date that's why I'm calling it day trading attention I'm trying to get people out of the rud of like oh this works. They think it works for like the next nine years you got to be in it.

you've just you've hit that place. We all have hit fatigue of the style of the creative or the distribution of the creative. you got to challenge yourself. Does that make sense Introducing new people? You know when a sitcom has a great run and it's getting a little tired, they bring in like the kid like that weird kid for you know the Brady Bunch and even Leo DiCaprio I think was like the kid for growing pains like they're you know like to spice it up Cosby Show I think out a like every great sitcom when it gets tired introduces that new character with the hope you know like you may want to introduce a new character to your ecosystem.

I think that's what we're just thinking about like as we introduce new things, trying to measure that to like that that is work. You know you know what's funny like you got to make sure you have patience in that it's funny like always. think about your purest self when you were winning and then realize after levels of success how you're no longer that person. Me holding on to 2005 Gary is probably my best business move because you weren't Roi measuring in 2014.

Instagram The way you are now, you've become mature. you've become corporate. You're looking for Raz and CAC and LTV acronyms. You didn't even know what the they meant eight years ago when it started popping off 2005 Gary still runs this as a matter of fact.

You know this. You guys know this 2005 Gary or 2011 Gary if we're talking bner terms came back a couple years ago and right and it's been way better, right? because I I wanted to learn what I I didn't know what I didn't know So I started bringing in more of corporate agency DNA over like a 5year period and then I knew what it was and I was like all right I'll keep the 3% of this garbage that I like and we're going to go back to 97% Me and boy right you right? It's like and across. Forget about feelings like the P&l shows it and it's just real life. This whole content is is you now? Y we done y So themes that work right? Yeah that thanks I'll end here.

Um, just external like generating like uh, let's see taking advantage of like external media opportunities right? We have a bunch com our way now versus just deciding to go in house with Gener. Is there a way that you like kind of evaluate that to make that call like he like do your own show on YouTube just press that because I think it's an I think it's and now if you're saying show like obviously an external production company like I think right now if you're off the air which it sounds like you are I do my own show immediately. So when the next production company comes and wants you to do something, you're like yeah but I'm keeping my show I'm like yeah, you can do that. We're going to do a different version here so that would be on my mind on strategy.

Hey Hi! Started my consulting firm back in 2005 as an insourced um with an insource B embedded model for General Market ad agencies and so we would Place Consultants onsite at a ad agencies throughout New York And that worked and we grew for about seven to maybe 10 years. And what would agencies hire you to come in? They hired us to do to manage to develop and manage their Supplier Diversity initiative. Love so that's great. Keep going.

it's awesome and I was hired as the first Supplier Diversity director makes so much love it. Unfortunately we we're having the conversation in 2023 that we had back in 2025 2015. You mean I mean that we had back that we had in 20 I mean 205 Got it? Yeah, Yeah, no worries. I'm just trying to make sure I'm hearing it right? No, keep going and so the the challenges we're having are are few developed.

Um a platform in 16 in order to scale because hiring Consultants placing them on site. That's really an expensive business? Yes, right. And so a lot of what we do are the analytics, the database management. you know, just the is it a SAS based business? Yes.

SAS based business. Fully funded, amazing and so and we built it. We get feedback that it's an amazing platform since holding companies have now come in and centralized resources and are having A And since they own almost every single agency. Bingo Bango! There you go! Makes sense and our relationships were at the agency level right? Can you create? And yeah, the this is what sucks.

The business needs to go into smaller right? because the place you can get independence is 10 million in revenue and lower right before the holding Co buys it right? The problem is those companies are so small that they're just trying to keep the lights on. They're not even thinking de Andi You know it's not that they're bad people right? It's just like they're like I'm not sure I'm going to be in business next year and we're on the compli side right? You got to have a C that really is requiring this in order for you to bring us in to do it. And so my my business manager is suggesting that we break up the from the company. Well we did that initially but he he's talking about breaking it out up into smaller modules so that we can sell it at a lower price point.

But I think to your point because what I've what I've experience in this industry is that it's It's just as difficult to sell $5,000 as it is to sell 50,000 right? Yep, there both Theses are right. You know I could tell you back to more Gary Consulting items as gateways to A Since I know I can talk to you in these terms has worked for us. you know cuz we had a very hardcore get out of bed fee to do what we do best and we think you know and so I do think cost aventry is a variable I Equally agree with you that sometimes it's just as hard. Same effort to sell something for 5,000 is 5 million, let alone 50,000 That's real too, You know I'm not against modularizing down if you're asking one man's subjective point of view I what I like about it is it will give you more clarity I Always like eliminating things that you're debating for everyone.

Like what I like about the modularity of like how much is it now per month per year it's 180,000 right? And he's saying or she's saying instead of 15K a month let's have some sort of product that's 3K and you can Voltron it up and discount it. Here's why I like it. My biggest concern is that there's six holding companies they're full of and there is no business to be had. What I like about dropping It! from a 180 commitment to a 36k commitment if you've got some modula 3K is you'll find out in a year if I'm right because that's a real low cost and that should be easy.

And if you go 0 for 90 with a 3K thing right then you could say wait a minute I Gotta really think about this and do I need to become like the Nintendo company And that analogy for everyone is they used to be a trading card, not a trading card like a playing card company. Nintendo started as like black jack cards and at some point they pivoted into technology. What? I Love is your expertise and your career and what you've got going. This goes into like really interesting debate that everyone should be thinking about.

Always think about things that you have permission to do that you can't see. like if if you emailed me in 9 months which you're more than welcome too and on a long flight I get to that level of email priority and you're like hey, thank you This is not fun to write because I did break it down I did go to market and for the last seven, nine months, 15 months we're not selling anything even at three. You're right, it is full. My reply would be like listen, now you need to think about should you be an author, should you change it into a experiential company Because maybe you shouldn't be selling it to Tech or Cios.

Maybe you should be selling to HR as a one- day Retreat to rethink things like you could like. What's amazing is the talent you had as a kid in the SMS thing that became the that became the seeds of the thing that you. We have our things and sometimes you just got to repackage it into a different item and remark, you know, containers and Merchandising right container and Merchandising that's what we're all in and so that's something worth debating. No thank you cuz the cuz the you know what's great about you know when when he said we're getting old 3940 I was laughing right and I saw you Snicker like I saw I saw I saw and I think you know what's really cool like one big issue I have with the world that I'm excited to like I finally going to eat my own dog food and do something I've been wanting to do which is I'm going to go and um, donate my time to retirement homes but I'm also going to capture content because I realized as a young kid even at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 I spent an ungodly amount of time with people that were 80 and 90 that weren't my grandparents and for a long time I thought it was because I only had one grandma and one great- grandma in my whole life.

CU Unfortunately, everybody died in Russia pretty early. Um, but now I've come to realize no I've always just been attracted to macro thinking and wisdom and things that nature. and right now I think we can all agree. By the way, 50 years ago in America our grandparents were on a pedestal.

Wisdom and Experience was on a pedestal. Today we are all living where Youth and technology is on a pedestal. 24 year olds are running around my company thinking they should be running this place right? That's the era we're in, which means we're going to go back. This How the World works.

So I'm excited about wisdom and experience gaining momentum in the next two decades. and I think your timing like I just think it's important for you to hear that cuz I think when I hear that narrative and like first of this and this that and it's a really important issue like it actually matters and I really do think this is a Young Person's game and so yes but I I think we're yes but I really do think that trading on wisdom and experience is about to gain moment. I'm actually telling you that I think we're in the pre-dawn of it being your game. okay and I want to get that into your head I really believe it I'm not saying it to be nice.

it's I like to watch and I think we're about to get there and I think it's early I think like I think I'll probably clip this in 11 years and be like told you like it's going to take a little bit of time. but I think it's good for everyone to hear that. but for you specifically where you are in your business life cycle because I think you I hope not. but I'm going to be like very black and white on this I think you should module and I think you should Sell aggressively against the modularization cuz I think you need the answer because I think you're in a pecuri spot because I think they're full of and there's none of them.

There's six of them. we don't need you. We got it internally. we have a cheap diversity officer.

We're good. Yeah, you know, so so. but the modularization. My hope is that it will work out and that you now do have a 3K a month, a 7K a month, a 9k a month and a 20K a month item.

and oh by the way, if you buy them all, it's only 15K a month I think that's a worthwhile thing I think it also will give you a year of that data to then go back to this back half of this conversation say okay I might need to take what I am and repackage it into some other business and merchandise That that'