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If I Wanted To Grow An Audience In 2026, I'd Do This — Transcript

by Alex Hormozi · 33,711 words · 5,160 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00In the last 12 months, my social media
0:01had a grand total of 3 billion
0:03impressions and brought in 4 and 1/2
0:04million new subscribers. And with that,
0:06I managed to break the world record for
0:07the fastest-selling non-fiction book of
0:09all time, generating just over 105
0:11million dollars in sales in a weekend.
0:12And here are my top lessons that I've
0:14learned when it comes to building a
0:15personal brand. Enjoy.
0:17You guys want to hear something
0:18absolutely insane? I was able to take
0:20home more in a year than the CEOs of
0:22McDonald's, IKEA, Ford, Motorola,
0:26and Yahoo
0:28combined
0:30as a kid in his 20s.
0:32And I have continued to for over half a
0:34decade.
0:36Which resulted in a 200 million-dollar
0:37per year portfolio and a 100
0:39million-dollar net worth by age 32.
0:41And no one is more surprised than me.
0:44Me expressing that fact will create envy
0:47in some,
0:48anger in others, skepticism in most,
0:51confusion in old people,
0:53and inspire a select few.
0:55You are who I made this presentation
0:57for.
0:58But before I dive in,
1:00raise your hand if you'd like any of the
1:01following things to happen.
1:03To be able to charge two times, five
1:06times, 10 times more than your
1:07competition for the exact same thing,
1:10like Yeti. We have basically identical
1:12cups, and somehow they're able to charge
1:13$40 versus $10 simply because of what's
1:16on the cup.
1:18If you'd like to be able to have
1:19customers buy from you over and over and
1:22over again without considering
1:23competition, like Harley. Once you're a
1:25Harley guy, you stay a Harley guy for
1:29life.
1:30And if you'd like to virtually guarantee
1:32sales in any new business or product
1:35that you launch, like Apple. A lot of
1:36people just wait in line. They say,
1:38"Just leave my credit card. Just bill me
1:40and send whatever you're going to come
1:41out with." And that's more or less how a
1:42lot of Apple buyers are. Once they
1:44become an Apple person, they become an
1:45Apple person for life.
1:48So, if you like that stuff,
1:50great, cuz that's what this talk is
1:52about.
1:53And so, I couldn't figure out how these
1:55brands, these companies were able to do
1:57this, demand these prices, get people to
1:59stay loyal for a really long time.
2:03And
2:04I felt like for me, I always had to like
2:06beg, borrow, and steal, and I just
2:07squeeze and push so hard just to get
2:09people to buy.
2:10Whereas these companies made it look
2:12effortless.
2:15And it's because I didn't understand
2:16this one thing, and that's the subject
2:17of the talk today.
2:18Brand.
2:20And the thing is, even people who claim
2:22to understand it often don't.
2:25And the few who do understand it do a
2:27terrible job teaching it.
2:29So, this definitely isn't going to be
2:30marketing 101 class on branding
2:32presentation colors and logos.
2:34And this definitely isn't going to be
2:35about feelings, presence, intuition, or
2:38whatever.
2:40This is about making money.
2:43And this concept that I'm going to
2:44explain to you is how I built a 7.8
2:45million person audience across all these
2:48platforms
2:49in the past 40 months or so. I sold over
2:51a million copies of my last two books.
2:53And your deals worth hundreds of million
2:54dollars in our holding company
2:55acquisition.com.
2:57That is why you build a brand. At least,
3:00that's why I built mine.
3:02And so today I'm going to cover three
3:02things.
3:04Number one, what branding is.
3:06You don't know what it is, you certainly
3:08can't build one. Number two, why it
3:10makes money. Cuz once you have it built,
3:11you're like, okay, well, how do I trade
3:12this thing for doll hairs, which is what
3:14we want.
3:16And then third, how to start and grow
3:17yours.
3:19So, let's start with the first one. What
3:20branding is.
3:22So, when I decided to build a brand, I
3:24looked at what many popular marketers
3:26said about it.
3:28Here are some popular definitions that I
3:29have removed the marketers from them.
3:32This is not throwing shade. So, I'm just
3:34saying them.
3:35A brand is a person's gut feeling about
3:36a product, service, or organization. A
3:38brand is not what you say it is, it's
3:39what they say it is. A brand is a set of
3:41expectations, memories, stories, and
3:43relations to that taken together account
3:44for a customer's decision to choose one
3:46product or service over another.
3:48A brand is emotional shorthand for
3:50accumulated and assumed information. A
3:52brand is present when the value of what
3:53the product, service, or personality
3:55means to its audience is greater than
3:56what it does for the audience.
3:58A brand is a product, service, or
3:59concept that is publicly distinguished
4:00from other products, services, or
4:01concepts so they can be easily
4:03communicated and usually marketed.
4:05Branding is the process of creating and
4:07disseminating the brand name, its
4:08qualities, and personality.
4:10The promotion of a particular product or
4:11company by means of advertising and
4:13distinctive design.
4:14If these sound vague and confusing, it's
4:18because
4:19they are.
4:21And I was just as confused as you when I
4:22was trying to figure this out.
4:24Because none of them told me what to do.
4:27And so after looking at all these
4:28marketers' words, I think I pieced it
4:30together.
4:32At least enough that once I started
4:34thinking about this way, in a different
4:35way that I'm going to share with you, my
4:37brand grew and it grew fast.
4:40And the reason this is so important is
4:41that if you don't know what to do,
4:42nothing's going to change.
4:43Fundamentally, if you don't change your
4:44behavior, obviously nothing's going to
4:46change as a result. And so I wanted to
4:47define this one term before we get
4:48going.
4:50Learn it.
4:51Who here came to learn?
4:53Raise your hands. Fantastic. All right,
4:54the other ones just be talking to the
4:55wall.
4:56So, learning means same condition, new
4:59behavior.
5:01And so if I wanted to teach someone a
5:02phone script,
5:04then after teaching you, the phone rings
5:06again,
5:08and you say the new script,
5:10you learned. Learning occurred.
5:12On the other hand,
5:13if I tried to teach you the script, and
5:16then the phone rings again,
5:17and then you change nothing,
5:20no learning occurred. You learned
5:21nothing.
5:23And that's why none of this stuff that
5:25these guys said helped me, because I
5:27didn't know what I could do. I didn't
5:28know what behavior I had to change as a
5:30result of this.
5:33So I didn't know how to do that.
5:34And so here's how branding happens.
5:37Branding is a deliberate pairing of
5:39things
5:41through an outcome. So I'll say that
5:43again. Branding is a deliberate pairing
5:45of things through an outcome.
5:48So, let's use Coca-Cola, drinking it,
5:51and liking it as our example.
5:53The yum, aka the outcome, that's what
5:55people get.
5:57They pair that with drinking, the action
6:00that they do to get it,
6:02with Coca-Cola, the product.
6:05So, the next time you want some yum,
6:07you're probably going to reach for
6:10a Coca-Cola, if that was paired for you
6:12successfully.
6:14And so, branding is delivering pairing
6:15of things through an outcome. That's it.
6:18But, sometimes businesses pair stuff,
6:21pair their stuff with things that people
6:22don't like.
6:24That's bad branding.
6:27This leads to losses for the business.
6:30Now, some of you guys may have seen
6:32this. This is Dylan Mulvaney doing a
6:34collaboration with Bud Light.
6:36There's a lot of press around this
6:37advertisement.
6:39This advertisement was actually a great
6:41advertisement. And you might might think
6:43I'm crazy, but it was. Let me explain.
6:46It's just not the way you might think it
6:47was.
6:48This is a great advertisement because it
6:49let a lot of people know about their
6:51stuff.
6:52It let a lot of people know about the
6:53product, about Bud Light.
6:55By the way, if you're curious, that is
6:57the definition of advertising, not
6:59branding. Advertising is letting people
7:01know about your stuff. Branding is the
7:03pairing that occurs as a result.
7:05So, it was good advertising, but bad
7:08branding.
7:09Many customers hated this pairing. Lots
7:12of people found out, but a lot of people
7:13hated it. Good advertising, bad
7:15branding.
7:17And so, as a result of this bad
7:18branding, people not liking the pairing,
7:21fewer people bought the product,
7:23which netted a loss for the business.
7:25And so, to fix this,
7:27Bud Light paired their product with
7:28stuff the audience liked,
7:31like Shane Gillis, who is a man's man
7:33comedian, and the UFC, a man's man of
7:37sports, if you will.
7:39And sales began to recover.
7:42So, that's the 101 explanation of
7:45branding.
7:46Let's go into 201.
7:48So, we're going a little deeper because
7:50the better you get at this, the more
7:51money you will make. Like the more
7:52nuance you can understand how to brand
7:54and build a brand for yourself, the more
7:55money you will make. I promise you that.
7:57And so, to some people, the Dylan
7:59Mulvaney pairing was actually good. In
8:02general, both good advertising and good
8:04branding.
8:05Hear me out.
8:07For others, it was bad, obviously.
8:10All pairings have positive and negative
8:13results, and that's because everyone's
8:15different. Everyone has different
8:16preferences.
8:18But for a business, you can objectively
8:20see if a pairing was good or bad whether
8:22it netted you more money.
8:25So,
8:26more people disliked the Dylan Mulvaney
8:28Mulch
8:29tough day Dylan Mulvaney pairing, so the
8:31sales suffered, making it a bad pairing.
8:34So, this isn't opinion. They objectively
8:37made less money, and so this pairing was
8:39a bad one
8:40for their ideal audience. Now, the 301
8:43version of this is is there a company or
8:45a product where the Dylan Mulvaney
8:47pairing could have been both good
8:48advertising and good branding so that
8:51the majority of people would have bought
8:52it. I think the answer is yes.
8:54It just doesn't necessarily mean it's
8:55Bud Light for conservative males as the
8:57primary audience.
8:59And on the other hand, some people love
9:01the new Gillis and UFC pairings,
9:03and some hated it.
9:06But more of the audience that is their
9:09ideal customer liked it, saw it as good,
9:11and so the business netted sales a
9:13result, and they made more money.
9:15Good branding.
9:17And so, for Budweiser, and I just want
9:19to call this out, this is specifically
9:21for Budweiser and their customer base.
9:22It's not that Shin Gillis and the UFC is
9:24magic in some way, or Dylan Mulvaney is
9:27unmagic in some way, but for that
9:28specific audience, yes, the pairing
9:31mattered and how much of the base liked
9:33it or disliked it.
9:35So, if you're anything like me,
9:37making money is the point.
9:39So, let's drive this home.
9:41If you made a pairing of your thing and
9:43your customer,
9:45and you got to choose which outcome you
9:47had happen, so you have your product and
9:50they drink it.
9:51There's an outcome that happens
9:52afterwards, right? That pairs with it.
9:55On one hand, 75% like it and 25 hate it.
9:59Or on the other hand, 25% like it and
10:0175% hate it, which would be the bottom
10:02example.
10:04Which would you choose?
10:07More money good, the big the big green
10:08one. Yes, of course.
10:10The top one.
10:12Because it would make you the most
10:13money.
10:15And so, to be clear for the 201 level of
10:17understanding,
10:18branding always happens.
10:21Branding always occurs.
10:24But our goal is good branding.
10:27And good branding is a deliberate
10:29pairing of our business with good
10:30outcomes for our ideal customers.
10:35And so, what you pair your business with
10:37determines two key things. One, who pays
10:40attention to your business,
10:41and two, whether they go towards your
10:43business, like the UFC example,
10:46or away from your business, like the
10:48Dylan Mulvaney example.
10:50And so, at the beginning of this I said
10:51I was going to cover three things. The
10:53first thing I said is what is branding.
10:55But now that we have gone through that,
10:58I want to re-say what I
11:00walked us through, which is what good
11:02branding is.
11:03Ideally, what we're shooting for.
11:06So, now that we covered that, let's talk
11:07about why it makes you money. Why good
11:09branding makes you money.
11:11Branding as I define it happens
11:12everywhere all the time.
11:13But businesses use it for profit. So,
11:15let's look at some of the earliest uses
11:17of branding to figure out how we can use
11:19it. So, these are the first
11:20entrepreneurs who used branding to make
11:23money. Real quick, I'm going to show you
11:24the exact 10-stage roadmap from zero to
11:27100 million plus that less than 1% of
11:30companies finish I've now done multiple
11:31times, and so I can say with a lot of
11:33confidence that these are the stages, as
11:35head count increases, that you need to
11:36get through. And I broke each of these
11:38down by eight different functions of the
11:40business, what the constraint feels
11:42like, like what are the symptoms of it
11:43when you're going through it, and then
11:45what steps we actually took to graduate.
11:46And we've done this across software,
11:48physical products, service businesses,
11:51brick and mortar, all of this, and it
11:53works. And it's my gift to you, it's
11:54absolutely free. And so the link's in
11:56the description, but you just go
11:57acquisition.com/roadmap,
11:59just enter your info and it'll spit it
12:00right back to you, all free.
12:04The earliest version of branding that we
12:05can think of, or at least that I can
12:06think of,
12:07happened on livestock. It was literally
12:10a brand. They'd heat up metal, they'd
12:12sear it into the side of a cattle, and
12:13they would get a lovely little logo.
12:15Maybe we'll have a Nike swoosh cow
12:17someday.
12:18And so they literally burned these
12:19symbols into animals.
12:20And those symbols had a magical effect.
12:24So let's say you're walking around and
12:25you see a cow with no brand. You say,
12:27"Hello cow." The cow says moo back, and
12:29it has nothing on it. This is just a
12:31cow.
12:32You might leave it alone,
12:36and that might be it.
12:37On the other hand, let's say the cow has
12:39a brand you recognize. Say it's your
12:40neighbor's. You might be like, "Hey,
12:42that's Bill's cow."
12:44Now,
12:45if you like Bill,
12:46you might grab the cow and pull him by
12:49the whatever you pull cows by,
12:51and probably return it to Bill.
12:54If you hate Bill, then the cow may stay
12:56lost in the wilderness forever and
12:58become lunch for your family for the
13:00next month or two in the form of
13:02delicious burgers.
13:04Moo.
13:05But either way,
13:07for better
13:08or for worse,
13:09the brand affected what you did. It
13:12affected your behavior.
13:14And so to take this to the 201 level,
13:18what if you see a branded cow, but you
13:19don't recognize the brand? You might be
13:21like, "Who this? I see a logo,
13:24but I don't know anything about it."
13:26Well, then you would treat it how you
13:27treat branded animals in general in that
13:30you just know that it belongs to
13:31someone. And so you would treat it the
13:33way that you would treat it as though it
13:35belonged to anybody else.
13:38And even if only a tiny bit, you would
13:40treat a wild cow different from a
13:42branded cow in general.
13:43So if you had one that was wild and you
13:45had one that you didn't recognize but
13:46was branded, you would still probably
13:48treat them differently. So that just
13:49shows you the power of brand as a
13:51concept because it dictates a tie
13:53between that cow and a human being.
13:56Or some complex animal that can brand
13:58cows.
13:59And so these are all effects of brand in
14:01general.
14:03So that's how it affects what people do.
14:05And so now I want to get tactical on how
14:06to get how we translate that concept
14:08into getting them to buy.
14:10So let's say we pair our brand. So this
14:11is where we get really tactical and this
14:12is like, okay, if you don't have a
14:13brand, this is the step-by-step right
14:16now.
14:17So you have a weak brand and we say it's
14:19a weak brand cuz it's starting out. You
14:20don't have really a lot of associations.
14:21Fantastic.
14:23So now you want to pair it with people,
14:24experiences, other
14:26other stuff that your ideal customer
14:27likes. So in this instance, I'm using
14:29little Nike pairing with LeBron and
14:31Tiger who are champions, world-class,
14:34goats, etc. And so people who like
14:36sports and competition would see that
14:37probably as a positive pairing.
14:40AKA good stuff.
14:42And so if we do that pairing or we make
14:43that pairing
14:45for the majority of people, branding
14:46will occur and so the brand grows.
14:50And so the question then follows, what's
14:52the benefit of a strong brand versus a
14:54weak brand?
14:56And so the the the weak brand is before
14:58the pairing, the stronger brand is after
15:00the pairing.
15:01So a strong brand turns commoditized
15:03products like a $5 white t-shirt
15:05plus the strong brand
15:07into a premium product, a higher value
15:10brand name product.
15:12And premium products with a strong brand
15:16then get customers to want to pair
15:17themselves with the product
15:20so that they can associate the outcome
15:24themselves with the outcome the brand
15:25delivers.
15:27Which they do with their money. So, how
15:29do they make that association? They give
15:31money, they get the shirt, the
15:33association happens based on what
15:34they've seen where that logo has been
15:36elsewhere.
15:37And so then they go from I want to be a
15:39winner to exchanging money and saying
15:41now I am a winner or I feel like a
15:42winner.
15:44That's how this works.
15:46And so this means that if the ideal
15:47customer likes sports, winning, and
15:48competition, etc. then they're more
15:51likely to buy stuff from a brand paired
15:52with those things.
15:54So, let's lay it all out.
15:56Weak brand
15:58paired with stuff customers like
16:01creates a strong brand. Strong brand
16:04gets put onto a winning product,
16:05transforms a generic to winning product.
16:08Then the customers want
16:10to associate with that winning product,
16:11so they buy the product, and they put
16:13money into your bank account in order to
16:15do it. And so as long as you net a
16:18positive between what it cost you to
16:19associate with Tiger and LeBron
16:22and how many t-shirts you can sell as a
16:24result, you make money.
16:28And so here are some steps in words for
16:29those of you who are more word people.
16:32You start with a brand that means
16:33nothing. You have a logo, just like the
16:36cow that the other person didn't
16:37recognize. People know that it is a
16:38brand, they just don't know what that
16:39brand means yet. So, it means nothing
16:41right now.
16:43Then you pair that brand with something
16:44or someone that your customer is ideally
16:46like.
16:48Third, your brand starts to mean the
16:50thing customer likes to them.
16:53Then they want to associate themselves
16:55with that thing they like or get more of
16:57it.
16:58But they can't buy that thing.
17:00But they can buy a tiny sliver of that
17:02association.
17:04So, they buy the shirt with the logo
17:06that means that thing to them.
17:08And so they get the shirt, you get the
17:10money, and it all happened because you
17:11deliberately paired it with something
17:13they like.
17:15And this happens everywhere. So, Dolce &
17:17Gabbana, classic example. They paired
17:19with Kim Kardashian. They made a line
17:21specifically for her.
17:22And so, for a lady who wants to
17:25associate with fame,
17:27beauty,
17:28wealth,
17:30that would be a pairing that makes
17:31sense. And so, that lady who wants other
17:34people to associate her with fame, high
17:37class, money, luxury, wealth, will then
17:39buy Dolce & Gabbana and be like, "I'm
17:41just like Kim." Now, she might not say
17:42that directly because she might just
17:44associate with the values, but the
17:45transference still happens.
17:49And so, when someone looks at two
17:50products that on the surface are
17:52generically the same. You've got two
17:54t-shirts. One that has a weak brand or
17:56no brand, and the other that has the
17:59strong brand,
18:00the person that has the strong brand,
18:03they're going to be more likely to buy
18:05and pay more for.
18:08And this happens because they actually
18:09buy the elements that we've deliberately
18:11paired with the brand which they
18:12identify with.
18:15And at this point of building a brand,
18:17you do this to change customer behavior.
18:20And that excuse me, that is the point of
18:21building a brand, to change customer
18:22behavior in your favor
18:25when they see it with a product.
18:28And so, this is a quote from Warren
18:29Buffett that I like a lot, kind of
18:30signifying some of the elements of the
18:32benefits of brand. He said, "The single
18:34most important decision in evaluating
18:36business is pricing power. If you've got
18:38the power to raise prices without losing
18:39business to a competitor, you've got a
18:41very good business.
18:42And if you have to have a prayer session
18:44before raising the price by 10%, then
18:46you've got a terrible business." And so,
18:48if we have an unbranded t-shirt for $5,
18:50and we say, "You know what? We think we
18:52have a strong enough brand that we can
18:53raise the price." And then, boom, we can
18:55raise the price and still not lose that
18:57many sales, but we
18:59in this case, 12x the price, good
19:01branding drives that premium pricing.
19:06Good branding also
19:08improves advertising. So, with the
19:10generic brand, if you're marketing this
19:11white t-shirt, you might get half a
19:13percent of people. There are many white
19:14t-shirts.
19:15There are many like it. This one is
19:17mine. Just kidding. So, the point of
19:19those of you got the reference. Um so,
19:21if you have a 0.5% click-through rate on
19:23something that's generic, there's
19:24nothing special about it. On the flip
19:26side, if you have a Nike brand t-shirt,
19:29same identical t-shirt, and it has the
19:31swoosh, then you might get six times as
19:33many people click
19:34and buy at a higher price. See how these
19:36things stack together? That is why these
19:38brands exist for such a long period of
19:40time and make so much money.
19:43So, they get cheaper customers, they get
19:45higher returns, and they have better
19:47response rates in advertising.
19:50And on top of that, if if as if that
19:51weren't enough, good branding also
19:53drives customer loyalty. AKA, they buy
19:56more stuff more times. And so, like the
19:59Apple example I gave earlier, once you
20:01buy one Apple product, you tend to buy
20:02more, and you tend to keep buying them.
20:04And so, this also, a good brand, also
20:07protects your business from competitors
20:09stealing that customer for in the
20:10future.
20:11And so, as I promised at the beginning,
20:13we're seeing how this all this stuff
20:15allows you to one, be able to charge 10
20:17times or more than your competition,
20:20two, get higher returns in advertising,
20:22so you can scale that much more, that
20:23much faster, and then three, get people
20:25to keep buying for life, compounding
20:26your money-making skills for good.
20:30Okay.
20:32Which is why I'm building a brand will
20:33make you lots of money.
20:35It's also why brands outperform
20:36commodities in every single industry.
20:40And give a lasting competitive edge
20:42that to be fair is theirs to lose. So,
20:45here's another quote from Uncle Warren.
20:47It takes 20 years to build a reputation
20:48and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think
20:50about that, you'll do things
20:51differently.
20:53And so, I said that I was going to cover
20:54three things. One, what branding is,
20:56which we read into what good branding
20:58is. Second, why it makes you money, and
21:00we got that. So, now, let's go to how to
21:03start or grow your own brand.
21:05So, if is the deliberate pairing of
21:07things, your thing plus what your ideal
21:09customer has, through an outcome,
21:11and good branding is the deliberate
21:12pairing of your thing with something
21:13good,
21:15to start a brand,
21:17we have to know what we want to pair it
21:19with to attract ideal customers.
21:23So, here we've got Bud Light, UFC, good
21:25outcome for the majority of the
21:26audience.
21:27And we want to understand that just as
21:29much as we should also understand what
21:32to avoid pairing our brand with to lose
21:34customers, like the Del Monte example.
21:37And so, here's how I like to think about
21:39assembling the pairings for a brand. So,
21:41if you're at ground zero, you have you
21:43have no brand. You've got these elements
21:45that haven't been put together yet.
21:47So, I think about it like
21:50a tableful of flowers.
21:52So, if you want to put a bouquet
21:53together, you start by having lots of
21:55different flowers all over the place.
21:57On their own, those flowers are not a
22:00bouquet.
22:01Just as products, values, experiences,
22:03people, etc. on their own are not a
22:05brand.
22:06The flowers are like the brand elements
22:08that we pair with stuff our audiences
22:09like.
22:12With enough pairing, over and over and
22:14over again, they form a bouquet.
22:18Now, replace the word bouquet with
22:20brand.
22:21And so, that assembly is the connection,
22:23it's the association between those
22:25things. Cuz a brand, fundamentally,
22:27doesn't actually exist. If I take the
22:29flowers out of the vase and scatter them
22:31across, was there ever a brand to begin
22:33with? It's simply the association we
22:35make between those things that creates
22:38the one-of-one brand.
22:42And if we unravel it, the brand
22:43disappears.
22:45And so, the deliberate pairing of those
22:46things makes the brand.
22:48And if we want to get narrower on our
22:50brand, so let's say I talk about tacos,
22:53lifting, and philosophy,
22:55if I want to narrow my brand, I'll just
22:57talk a bunch about tacos, and then all
23:00of my flowers are just taco-related.
23:03If I'm only talking about tacos, but I
23:04want to expand the stuff I'm talking
23:07about to my audience and maybe capture a
23:08wider audience, then I might talk about
23:11tacos, quesadillas, burritos, things
23:13that are tangential. And then if I
23:14wanted to expand even broader, I might
23:16just talk about food in general. And
23:17then I might talk in alcohol, then I
23:19might talk in restaurants, and then
23:21things that go
23:23wider and wider from there. And so we
23:25get narrower as we niche down and we go
23:27double down on one type of topic and we
23:30go broader when we branch out.
23:33But
23:34distant and random pairings hurt a brand
23:37because they're so hard to make the
23:38associations with.
23:41And this is what most brands are and do.
23:45Most people's brands happen by accident.
23:48It's just whatever they appear next to,
23:50whatever the people associate their
23:52stuff with.
23:53Good branding happens on purpose.
23:56Cuz like what are we looking at with a a
23:57bike, a single flower, some socks, and a
23:59burger?
24:00Not a lot. Not a lot to hold together
24:02there.
24:03And so think about it like curating a
24:05garden. You want some flowers to grow
24:07and you want to pull out the weeds. You
24:09have to do both. You have to add the
24:10good and take away the bad in order to
24:13assemble the ideal brand for you.
24:16And in the beginning, our brand won't be
24:17strong, just like yours won't. If you're
24:19building it, then you might only have a
24:21couple flowers there. It's because you
24:23haven't had that many instances to pair
24:26your brand for that customer.
24:30But the more good stuff we pair with our
24:33brand for the customer, the stronger it
24:35gets. You go from one flower to many red
24:37flowers or many red roses that become a
24:39bouquet of red roses. That's what you're
24:41about, and the more you're about it, the
24:43more the brand strengthens.
24:46Now, what if we make a branding mistake
24:49and pair with the wrong thing? Cuz it's
24:50going to happen.
24:52One bad pairing can absolutely hurt a
24:54brand. So if I now give my this lovely
24:57red rose a bouquet to my wife and I say,
24:59"Hey,
25:00don't you love this bouquet?" And she
25:02sees this rotten flower sitting out in
25:03the front. She might be like, "Ew, this
25:06bouquet sucks." Or, "This brand sucks."
25:08Or, "Hey, that guy got a DUI and I
25:11thought he was this paragon of good
25:12ethics."
25:14Well, that would hurt the brand.
25:16And so, just like one ugly flower messes
25:18up the whole bouquet,
25:19it changes how everyone sees the brand.
25:22This bouquet sucks.
25:24Now, to recover from something like
25:25that,
25:26you just have to overwhelm customers
25:28with the stuff they like until
25:29eventually the bad pairing shrinks into
25:30irrelevance. So, we don't try to
25:32eliminate the DUI, we don't try to
25:34eliminate the dead rose. It happened,
25:35there's nothing we can do about it.
25:37But, what we try to do is just overwhelm
25:39it with way more of the stuff that the
25:41majority of our people actually like.
25:43And so, Kanye, for example, has said
25:45some things that people don't like.
25:48But, he also comes out with products
25:49that people love. He made a Super Bowl
25:51ad.
25:52He sold shoes. He just came out with an
25:54album that came out after having some
25:56cancel culture stuff around him, things
25:58he had said.
25:59And so, over time, people forgot the bad
26:01stuff and associated the good stuff back
26:03with him and purchased.
26:05They still bought.
26:08And so, you need to decide what values
26:10people experience, etc., that you want
26:11to use to connect the audience to your
26:14product.
26:17And equally importantly, what things you
26:19want to avoid, remove, or ignore from
26:22the stuff they hate.
26:24And so, it goes without saying that even
26:26if you say you're premium, but people
26:28think your thing sucks, that suck will
26:30stick. And so, up to this point,
26:32everything I've talked about has been
26:34the things external to the product.
26:35They've been the people you associate
26:37the product with. You know, almost all
26:38of that occurs prior to purchase. So,
26:41you can absolutely get someone to buy
26:43the thing.
26:45But, how many experiences are people
26:47going to have with the thing once
26:49they've purchased it? Probably far more
26:51than they have with your advertisement.
26:53And so the advertisement can let people
26:55know about it. The branding makes a good
26:57association with the person. They make
26:58the purchase. And then afterwards, the
27:00product does a lot of the branding after
27:02that. Cuz if I buy that amazing Nike
27:05t-shirt, and there's a hole in the
27:07armpit when it comes in, I might say, if
27:09this is the first time I've ever bought
27:10a Nike product, this product sucks.
27:13Therefore, Nike sucks. And then I think
27:15the whole thing is a sham. And then I
27:17also start to hate LeBron for even
27:18recommending it. Right? So it starts to
27:20transfer backwards.
27:22Now, on the flip side,
27:24brand can influence how people see the
27:26product. So if the product is what I
27:28would call good enough, so it's it
27:30doesn't have any holes in it. Now, is it
27:32the highest quality it possibly could
27:33be? Maybe not, but it's good enough that
27:36no one's going to find an immediate
27:37problem with the product.
27:39That's where brand can carry you the
27:40extra distance to still make it a
27:42positive experience for the person. And
27:44so brand, in a very real way, can affect
27:46how people perceive value through
27:49products.
27:51Now, me personally, it's a pro tip here.
27:54If I'm going to charge a premium price,
27:56I absolutely want to make sure that the
27:57product is dialed, so that I only
27:59further reinforce how much they like my
28:00brand, rather than
28:03let my brand carry me, or at worst, have
28:06it conflict with the impression that I
28:07gave them of the thing they were going
28:09to buy prior to them buying it. This is
28:11a quote from Warren. Your premium brand
28:12had better be delivering something
28:14special, or it's not going to get the
28:15business. And the only tweak I'd have on
28:17this is that it's not going to keep the
28:19business.
28:20You'll get the first purchase, you just
28:21won't get the ones after that.
28:25And so all these things you're like,
28:26okay, got it. So brand is pairing. I get
28:29how the pairing makes me money. I have
28:30these big margins. I got more CTRs. More
28:33people buy. And as long as my thing
28:35doesn't suck, you know, ideally that
28:36it's good, people will keep buying.
28:37Awesome.
28:38But how do I measure that?
28:41So brand has three main metrics.
28:43One, which is influence, which is how
28:45likely it is to change someone's
28:46behavior.
28:48So, if I show someone a brand and they
28:49react in any way, they recognize it and
28:52they they they do something about it,
28:54then we have influence.
28:56Second is direction.
28:58Are they changing the way we want it?
29:00Were they running away?
29:02And third, how many people it changes
29:04for.
29:06That's it. So, if I show it to 100
29:07people and 100 people react versus two
29:10people react, the 100 person reacting at
29:12least recognition, that is the reach.
29:14How many people it changes it for.
29:16So, taking to the hypothetical extreme,
29:19a small, weak, and neutral brand, very
29:21few people recognize, and the people
29:23that do don't care that much about it
29:25either way.
29:27And on the other polar extreme, you have
29:28a large, large, strong, positive brand.
29:31So, that would be lots of people
29:33recognize the brand, it changes the
29:34behavior when they see the brand, and
29:35the behavior is generally towards. So,
29:38they try to do in accordance with what
29:39that brand is asking someone to do.
29:43And I want to make this point.
29:45A lot of people have this misnomer that
29:47any strong brand is polar. That because
29:50lots of people love it, lots of people
29:52also have to hate it. Now, I say this by
29:54percentage, not necessarily by absolute.
29:56If you have If the whole United States
29:57knows who you are, you're going to have
29:59a percentage of people that hate you
30:00just cuz there's crazy people. And
30:02that's not what we're talking about. I'm
30:03saying, is there a brand that can't have
30:05that kind of status that isn't polar?
30:07So, I'll give a polar example first. So,
30:10I have the silhouette of Donald Trump
30:11here, and he has a very strong brand.
30:15He has a big reach, lots of people
30:16recognize him, even just a silhouette
30:18alone people recognize.
30:20He has strong influence as in
30:22the percentage of people that when they
30:23see this have a reaction in either
30:25direction, positive or negative, but
30:27just that they react shows that he has
30:29strong influence.
30:31And the third is the direction. Now, for
30:32him, he is polar, meaning many people
30:35move towards him very strongly, and many
30:37people move away from him very strongly.
30:41And so, many assume that all brands are
30:42that way. And that's just because there
30:44are many examples of that, but it
30:46doesn't mean it has to be that way.
30:48And so, I'll give you a different
30:49example.
30:51So, some brands manage to change many
30:53people's behavior towards them all at
30:56once. And so, like Taylor Swift, sure,
30:58I'm sure she's got some crazies, don't
31:00get me wrong. But the vast majority of
31:02people who see Taylor Swift recognize
31:04her,
31:05she changed their behavior and most of
31:07the time it's towards her. So, she is a
31:09large, positive, strong brand.
31:12This is also personally why I think the
31:13idea of like seeking out controversy
31:15absolutely gets you recognized,
31:17but you don't have to make that trade.
31:20You can absolutely just build a strong
31:22positive brand. Mother Teresa has a
31:23strong positive brand. A lot of people
31:25know her, influence a lot of behavior,
31:27did a lot of good stuff. Most people
31:28aren't like, "I hate Mother Teresa."
31:30Some people do,
31:31but most people don't. And the same
31:33thing goes with Apple.
31:35A lot of people like their products. I'm
31:36sure there are some tech geeks that are
31:38like, "Android's way better." Or they're
31:40like, "PCs are awesome." And that's
31:41great, that's good for them. But the
31:43vast majority of people who encounter
31:44the product like it, which is why
31:45they're one of the largest companies in
31:46the world.
31:50So, all those examples that I gave to
31:51you up to this point have assumed a
31:53large audience. And I do that because
31:54this is a presentation and it makes more
31:55sense for me to work with you on stuff
31:57that you already know.
31:58But this concept carries independent of
32:01whether you have large reach, and this
32:02is why it applies to you.
32:03So, if you had a small audience with
32:05high influence, what would you have?
32:09Your mom and dad.
32:10They are high influence, as in most
32:14people when they see their parents,
32:15their behavior changes.
32:17They have low reach
32:19cuz for you, they're only your parents.
32:21They might not be any other people's
32:23They might be some other people's
32:24parents, but not many very many people's
32:25parents.
32:26Also, you have low reach.
32:28Um and it will be your behavior will
32:30towards for some and away for others.
32:33Meaning, some people hate their parents
32:34and don't want to do anything they say,
32:36and some people like their parents to do
32:37whatever they say. And there's a lot of
32:38people in between.
32:40And so that's how we measure if what
32:42we're doing to grow our brand is
32:43actually working. Are more people
32:45finding out about it?
32:47Are more people changing their behavior
32:48when they do it? And ideally, are they
32:50doing that towards the direction that we
32:51want them to go? So if I say, "Hey
32:53everybody, go click here, go download
32:55this thing, go attend this event, go buy
32:57this product, whatever it is."
32:59If a lot of people do that,
33:01then we know that the brand is growing.
33:04And so we want when we want to build our
33:06brand, we want to pair ourselves with
33:07the things the highest percentage of our
33:09ideal audience like.
33:11And so whenever we pair anything with a
33:12brand,
33:13because especially if you're starting
33:15out, everything is new.
33:16And so every new pairing has risk.
33:19And so you risk losing a certain
33:21percentage of your audience who has a
33:22bad experience with the thing you pair.
33:24There's always that risk. There's always
33:25going to be some people who don't like
33:27something you do.
33:28If anyone's seen a small town band go
33:30hit it big,
33:31some of the old towners are like, "Oh,
33:32they sold out. They did whatever." But
33:34what they did was they gambled the
33:36short-term loss of that local audience,
33:38potentially, for a much broader, bigger
33:40audience. So they made a bet. They did
33:42lose people. They did gain people. They
33:43just gained more than they lost.
33:45And so to the same degree, when you make
33:47that bet as the local band, you risk
33:49gaining other people who have had a
33:51positive experience with this new thing.
33:52And ideally, we have more green than
33:54red.
33:55And so those new pairings, the new
33:57pairings you make with a brand, always
33:58lose audience, right? He sold out. I
34:00like the old stuff better. This also
34:02happens with content, by the way.
34:03And so this person is the red bucket.
34:06Fantastic.
34:07And the new stuff might also cause
34:09people to say, "No, this new stuff
34:10rocks." And that person is in the green
34:12bucket.
34:14And so whenever you try to grow and you
34:17make any new pairing, meaning you make
34:18new content, you make a new genre, you
34:20don't make a new song, you make a new
34:23anything,
34:24you make a bet
34:26that more people from your ideal
34:27audience will like the pairing than
34:28people who don't.
34:29TLDR,
34:31that you'll net an increase in reach,
34:33influence, and positive direction.
34:36And so, my ask for everyone here is
34:38don't let the five mean comments stop
34:40you from gaining the 500 new people who
34:42like the new thing.
34:45So, let me finish the real-life example
34:46to make this whole thing real for you.
34:48I want to associate myself with business
34:50value.
34:51So, I associate myself with making
34:53people money and growing their
34:55businesses. So, there's me, there's me
34:57making content, and then ideally money.
35:00And so, the best way I can do this is
35:01make content for the small business
35:03owner kids to consume and books for them
35:06to read and use, so that they then
35:08profit.
35:11The good thing.
35:12And then they associate that growth
35:15and profit with me.
35:18And so, then they consume more of my
35:19stuff.
35:20They drink the next soda.
35:22They buy the next shirt.
35:25And so, the next time they wanted to
35:26happen again, they take the action or
35:28they have a higher likelihood of taking
35:29the desired action.
35:31And equally important, people who don't
35:33like business stuff won't like my stuff
35:35or they'll just prefer to watch other
35:37things. So, you've got this married
35:38couple, they say, "We hate people who
35:39talk about money." They're probably not
35:41going to like my stuff.
35:42And that's okay.
35:45But,
35:47people who
35:49like business,
35:50have a business, or are trying to start
35:52one, might want more.
35:54And this grows the bread because people
35:56consume the stuff and they say, "Hey,
35:57you got to check out Herazi's stuff."
35:58And then that person they tell to who
36:00says, "Right on." They check it out.
36:01They get that positive outcome. They
36:03make the pairing as well and the brand
36:05grows. And ideally, with my ideal
36:06audience.
36:08And so, to see this in action, if you
36:10use this information from today to make
36:12money,
36:14good branding has occurred.
36:17And so, I said I was going to cover
36:18three things: what branding is, ideally
36:20what good branding is, why it makes you
36:21money, and how to start and grow yours.
36:24So, hopefully you feel like I've
36:24fulfilled those three things.
36:26And so, now we can test if the pairing,
36:28good breeding, actually occurred.
36:31So, if you are my ideal customer, so
36:33here's a business owner.
36:35Okay, awesome. Lottie, pay attention.
36:38We can see objectively if this provided
36:40value. Did we get a good positive
36:42outcome, a neutral outcome, or a
36:44negative one? You might be like, I hate
36:45this guy talking about money, or you
36:46know what, I think this could make me a
36:47ton of money. Well, we'll see.
36:50So, I want you further to associate
36:52myself with value in making you money
36:54and growing your business. So, I'm going
36:56to give you guys two gifts for free.
36:58The first is for existing business
37:00owners who want to scale. So, most of
37:01you guys have raised your hands.
37:02I have two books, $100 Million Offers,
37:04$100 Million Leads.
37:06People say they made them money. There's
37:07a lot of five-star reviews on them.
37:10Fantastic.
37:11And I mean video versions of these books
37:13that you can get absolutely free on my
37:15site at acquisition.com/training.
37:17This is me further associating. If you
37:19If you like this, you're going to love
37:20that.
37:22And they'll make you more money for
37:23free.
37:24That's what it looks like on the inside.
37:25These are legit courses.
37:28And you can get those video versions on
37:29my site, again, absolutely free,
37:30acquisition.com/training.
37:32Now,
37:33if you're like, man, I don't like
37:34watching stuff, I like listening to
37:36stuff.
37:37I want to provide value for a different
37:39type of ideal audience, which is still
37:41business owners, but business owners who
37:42listen rather than business owners who
37:43watch, which is also fine. And so if you
37:45are somebody who's not a reader or not a
37:47watcher, I've got the books on my
37:49podcast
37:50absolutely free.
37:51It's called The Game. They started
37:52episode
37:54570 something. And so that's what I have
37:56for business owners.
37:57Who here is earlier on and they're like,
37:58I want to start a brand?
38:00Okay, cool.
38:02So, this is for you.
38:03So, I did become an owner school.com,
38:05really awesome platform, helps people
38:06get started in the business.
38:08Um and so anybody here who watches this
38:10or listening to this and wants the
38:11tools,
38:13the training, and a community of other
38:15people starting brands with a little
38:17friendly competition and some prizes,
38:19we made a step-by-step process on school
38:21to help you get started. And you can
38:23start for free.
38:25So hopefully I succeeded in providing
38:26value and a good pairing occurred,
38:29ideally good branding happened,
38:30otherwise I'm sorry. For everybody else,
38:33I hope good branding occurred. Um and
38:35for those of you who either start the
38:36school games for free or use my stuff to
38:38grow your business, I will see you guys
38:40soon. So go to school games,
38:42school.com/games,
38:43acquisitions.com/training and I'll see
38:45you guys all there. Thank you guys so
38:46much for your time. So next I want to
38:48talk about how I got 7.8 million
38:49followers in just 3 months and the six
38:51key lessons you can use today. Let's
38:53rock. So you guys want to hear something
38:54absolutely insane? Well, in the last 40
38:57months
38:58my YouTube grew from zero to 2.23
39:02million subscribers. My Instagram grew
39:04from 7,000 to 2 and 1/2 million sub-
39:07subscribers, followers, you get the
39:09idea. My LinkedIn went from zero to
39:11324,000 followers. My TikTok went from
39:14zero to 856,000
39:16followers. My Twitter/X
39:19the artist formerly known as Twitter, uh
39:21went from zero to 617,000.
39:25My Facebook, which we just started, went
39:26from zero to 25,000. There we go. Going
39:28in big, Facebook. Um my podcast went
39:31from 3,000 downloads to 25 million
39:33downloads. And my email subscribers went
39:36from zero to 700,000
39:38for a grand total of
39:402 billion impressions over that time
39:42period and 7.8 million new subscribers.
39:48And for a grand total of 8 million
39:50copies sold of my book. For those of you
39:53who are like, well, what does that mean?
39:54And I'll get to that in a second.
39:56So in 40-ish months, all of that
39:58happened.
39:59And I show all of this as proof to start
40:02this
40:03to show one thing is that this
40:07actually works.
40:10And you can build a brand
40:12without babes, without stunts, or
40:15kittens.
40:17And I start this proof because lots of
40:19people talk about stuff that they
40:20haven't done
40:22and teach a lot of sucky fluff as a
40:24result. You can see the man there. He's
40:26saying the truth. This This fluff sucks.
40:29And I refuse to do that.
40:31And so, before we got the 2 billion
40:33impressions and the 7.8 million
40:34subscribers, it wasn't like this.
40:38Because 40 months ago, I started with
40:40zero subscribers and a big quote fancy
40:43plan.
40:44And my fancy plan had three steps.
40:47Step one, make as much good stuff as I
40:49could. Step two, post it everywhere I
40:52could. And step three, learn as much as
40:55I could.
40:57And after
40:5840-ish months,
41:00$4 million in team, equipment, vendors,
41:04studios, and software,
41:07a thousand hours of me on camera
41:09recording,
41:10and 35,000 pieces of content. Let me say
41:13that again. 35,000,
41:16as in count to a thousand and then do
41:18that 35 times in a row.
41:21I learned a lot of what not to do.
41:24But I did learn six things that made
41:26money and grew my brand that you can use
41:29today.
41:31Now, what I'd like to do is for the
41:34remainder of the presentation, save you
41:36the three and a half years and $4
41:38million,
41:39so you can just get the lessons without
41:41the scars. So, that little box is our
41:43box of six lessons. Cool?
41:47All right. Let's rock.
41:49So, here are the six changes that we
41:51observed over the last four 40-ish
41:53months that actually worked.
41:56Number one,
41:57going from edutainment to education.
42:00Number two, for us to for you.
42:03Number three, wide to narrow. Number
42:06four, views to revenue. Number five,
42:09shorts to longs. Number six, assume more
42:13to assume nothing. Now, most of those I
42:15promise you
42:17I will explain. And if it looks like I
42:19think I know what that means, believe
42:21me, there's a lot more underneath of it.
42:23So, let's start with the first one.
42:24Edutainment to education.
42:27So, I see content in three buckets.
42:30On one extreme, you've got
42:31entertainment,
42:33which is
42:34the entire point of entertainment, just
42:36to define the term, is to get people to
42:38watch. The only point of the
42:40entertainment is to just get people to
42:42consume it. That's it. If it
42:43accomplishes that, it has succeeded.
42:46On the other side, you have education.
42:49Where the point of education is to get
42:51someone to change what they do. Right?
42:52If you try and teach someone how to
42:54answer a phone, and then in the same
42:56situation, the phone rings and they
42:57don't do something, and then after they
42:59watch you do something, they then change
43:01what they do in the phone rings the
43:02second time, they have learned. So, the
43:04point is to change their behavior. If If
43:06the video or the content does that, then
43:08you've succeeded at educating them.
43:11And lastly, you have edutainment, which
43:14has the point of both trying to teach
43:16and entertaining at the same time.
43:19And to be clear, it's less that you make
43:21entertaining content, or that you make
43:23educational content. It's more that you
43:25make content and people are either
43:28entertained
43:29or educated as a result.
43:32And so, you can make one thing that
43:35entertains some people,
43:38and then that same thing educates other
43:40people.
43:41And so, I just want to make this very
43:43clear that you don't control the
43:44audience. You make something and then
43:46education or entertainment occurs.
43:49But for our purposes, I'll define the
43:51content category as the most common
43:53outcome of your content. And so, if a
43:55lot of people are entertained, then
43:57you've made entertaining content for the
43:59purpose of this presentation, even if
44:01one or two people learn something.
44:02So, for example, some creators might
44:04learn stuff from Mr. Beast's videos.
44:06Wow, I learned how to make videos. But,
44:08the vast majority of people are
44:09entertained. They watch just to watch.
44:12On the other hand, Walla, who's one of
44:13the number one educators on YouTube, you
44:15can even see the different look and
44:16feels, and don't worry, I'm going to get
44:17into that.
44:19He may entertain some enthusiasts around
44:21that subject.
44:23But, mostly, he educates students.
44:27And until recently, I've been trying to
44:28figure this out. I've spent a lot of
44:30time really working through this.
44:32And so, I actually have videos in all
44:34three buckets. I have entertainment
44:36videos where the point is to get people
44:37to watch. I have edutainment videos
44:39where we try and teach and entertain at
44:41the same time. And then we have
44:42education videos where we just want to
44:44change people's behavior. We just want
44:45to teach them something.
44:47And so, the first change, number one,
44:49that we see, or lots of the data I'll
44:50support in a second, is that I'm going
44:52all in on education.
44:54For three reasons.
44:56Number one is that when we looked at all
44:58of our data, all views are not created
44:59equal. I'll dive into that in a second.
45:01Number two is I like educational videos.
45:04And number three is I like people who
45:06like educational videos, too. And or
45:09people who educate themselves, people
45:10who want to learn.
45:12And so, let me explain these.
45:14So, all views are not created equal. So,
45:16there's this theory, and this is going
45:17to This will be one that's going to
45:19rattle some cages.
45:21There's a theory that media works like a
45:23funnel. In fact, the vast majority of
45:25marketing
45:26infographics and things like that,
45:27almost all are funnels.
45:30And the theory goes like this.
45:32You make entertaining content,
45:35and then
45:37the theory states that people who watch
45:38that content then will go to more
45:40educational content. Okay? Sounds simple
45:43enough. We've got something wide, we've
45:44got something narrow. Fantastic.
45:46But, in our experience, in my
45:48experience,
45:49and based on our book sales, based on
45:52our email opt-ins, and based on the
45:54applications we receive at
45:55acquisition.com to become portfolio
45:56companies, it works much more like this.
46:00Which is that entertainment people
46:02want more entertainment content.
46:05And education people want more, say it
46:07with me, education content.
46:11And so in other words, these people
46:14do not become these people.
46:16Not in any appreciable rate that we
46:18would build a business around.
46:20And they certainly don't read the books,
46:22join the email list, or apply to become
46:24portfolio businesses.
46:27So if I want more of these people
46:30then they deserve the stuff that they
46:32value.
46:34And so that's the first reason that I'm
46:36doubling down on education. All views
46:38are not created equal. Number two.
46:40The next is that I simply like doing it.
46:42All right, so you know, I do believe
46:44that you should try and do stuff that
46:45you like doing and if it happens to also
46:47be in line with your goals, awesome.
46:49It's much tougher when the thing you
46:50like doing isn't in line with your
46:51goals, but in this instance, when I got
46:52that first piece of data, I was like,
46:53thank god cuz this is stuff I like
46:55making most. All right? And so when I
46:57talk to ideal customers in my mind,
47:00they're business owners and business
47:01interested people. Because if you know
47:03me and anybody who is who's close to me
47:05would probably attest to this is that
47:06like
47:07if you hang out with me for any amount
47:09of time, we will probably talk about
47:10business because it's what I love
47:12talking about. I I eat it, I sleep it, I
47:13drink it, I work 7 days on it and like I
47:16skip holidays for it because for me it
47:18is the holiday.
47:19So, this is what I like doing and this
47:21is what the people that I like serving
47:23also like.
47:26And so they like it better, too.
47:29And this is where it got confusing for
47:31me leading up to this and why this is so
47:33important is that it got very confusing
47:36when you have so many people saying,
47:37"Man, I really like the entertaining
47:39content." And this is where it gets
47:40difficult. This is where you have to
47:42read between the lines of the comments
47:44rather than just reading the comments
47:45themselves. All right? Because the thing
47:48is is for us, or at least for me,
47:50they weren't necessarily who I was
47:52trying to attract. Again, there's
47:53nothing wrong with that. I I hey, if I
47:55could serve the whole world, I will.
47:56But, I know that I tend to do better
47:59serving people who want to educate
48:01themselves than people who just want to
48:02watch or consume just for the sake of
48:04it.
48:06And so, that's why I'm doubling down on
48:07going from edutainment some enter-
48:10edutainment some entertainment to
48:12education.
48:13So, that's number one.
48:15So, let's talk about change number two
48:16that we saw.
48:18Going from for us to for you. You're
48:20like, "Well, what does that mean?" Let
48:21me explain.
48:22So, recently a mutual friend came to the
48:24headquarters, and he said, "Hey, I've
48:26been consuming your stuff for years.
48:27But, recently I just haven't been
48:28watching as much." And he said it
48:29offhandedly. He wasn't like trying to
48:32smash my ego into bits. Um and he failed
48:35at that. Uh
48:36>> [laughter]
48:37>> But, when he said it, I really took it
48:39to heart, right? It was very
48:40gut-wrenching. He said, "It just doesn't
48:41resonate as much." I was like, "Okay,
48:43got it." It felt like a gut punch since
48:45he's literally the person I could help
48:47most. He's a business owner doing 10
48:48million plus a year. I was like, "Man,
48:50well, that sucks."
48:52And that's when I realized that reading
48:54the comments actually led me a little
48:55bit astray.
48:56And for you, it might be leading you
48:58astray. And I'll give you some data to
48:59support that.
49:01And so, some people loved our different
49:02styles, but not the people that I
49:04ultimately wanted to help or am best
49:06suited to serve.
49:07And so, we realized that we were serving
49:09the wrong who.
49:10And that had some very significant
49:12downstream impacts on what we made and
49:15how we made it.
49:16So, what is making for them or for
49:20business owners content really mean? Let
49:22me break this down into tactics. All
49:24right, so tactically I made five things.
49:27Number one, different packaging.
49:30Number two, different introductions.
49:33Number three, different meat.
49:35Number four, different visuals. And
49:38number five, different what I'll call
49:39pre-work.
49:41All right, so let's start with number
49:41one.
49:43So, the difference between these two
49:45thumbnails is going from vague to clear.
49:48All right, so if I looked at all the
49:48stuff that we did in the past, if I
49:50said, "What is the video on the left
49:51about?" you probably be like, "I a rule
49:55of some sort that might have to do with
49:56money. Not sure."
49:58If I said, "What's the What's the video
50:00on the right, the yellow background
50:01video?" If I were to describe it, I'd
50:03probably say a map or a blueprint or
50:07schematics of some sort that go from
50:09zero to a million. Okay.
50:11Well, guess what?
50:13The one on the right is is exactly that.
50:16The one on the left actually has nothing
50:18to do with what that thumbnail looks
50:19like. And what do you know? When people
50:21click on something that they don't know
50:22what it's about, they have a smaller
50:24percentage of getting something they
50:25actually want than if you say, "This is
50:27what this is about." and then they get
50:28exactly what they think it's about.
50:31So, we're going from vague to clear in
50:33both what it looks like, the thumbnails,
50:36and what we say about it, the headlines.
50:39And so, that's number one from a
50:41packaging perspective that we'll be
50:42changing and/or going more all in on.
50:45And I want to take a pause here for a
50:47second about this.
50:48There was also kind of a pervasive
50:50narrative in in the kind of marketing
50:52world is like, "You got to have
50:52curiosity. You got to like You don't
50:54want to tell them everything. You want
50:55them to to be able to get No. Like
50:58if they want that thing, they will click
51:00on that thing, and then you just give
51:01them that thing.
51:02And that has been a very hard lesson for
51:04me to learn. And so, I share it with you
51:05now.
51:07So, the second is different
51:08introductions. You guys feel on this?
51:10Okay. Good.
51:12Okay. Different introductions. Now, this
51:14one is really big.
51:16So, going from confirming the thumbnail
51:19or confirming the headline to proof. And
51:22this is super important. I'll explain
51:23the difference. So, a lot of the things
51:25that I learned, like many of you, if you
51:27are trying to get into content creation
51:29of any sort or media, is that you look
51:31at the people who are who are the
51:32biggest, right? And so, often times the
51:35biggest people in media are
51:36entertainers. Now, why is that? Because
51:39everyone gets value from entertainment.
51:42But there is no one thing from an
51:44education perspective that can provide
51:45value to everyone. Why? Because everyone
51:48already knows different stuff. So, if I
51:50educate a wide slice of people, there's
51:52still already people who know that thing
51:54and then do not get value. So,
51:56entertainment by definition will always
51:57be greater or larger the followings for
52:00those people than people who educate.
52:02There is no no bones about it. Like it
52:04is that way.
52:05And so, a lot of the lessons that
52:07entertainment teaches,
52:09everyone listens to because they have
52:11the biggest followings. But, I don't
52:13think the actual tactics they subscribe
52:15or espouse
52:17are correct at a tactical level. At a
52:19principle level, yes. And so, let me
52:22just say a second about what that
52:23principle is.
52:25Is that
52:26the person who's going to consume the
52:27content,
52:28we want to increase their perceived
52:30likelihood that they will get what they
52:32clicked. So, just like the headline and
52:34just like the thumbnails, now when they
52:36said in entertainment, you want to
52:37confirm it. Well, that's because most of
52:39the sensational entertainment is
52:42something crazy. And so, the likelihood
52:44that someone just got the click so that
52:46they could not do that crazy thing is
52:48pretty high. And so, if you want people
52:49to watch, you smash a Lamborghini, then
52:52you better have the Lamborghini next to
52:53you or people aren't going to believe
52:54that you're actually going to smash it.
52:57Now,
52:58let's flip to entertainment for a
53:00second. Sorry, let's slip let's switch
53:02to education for a second.
53:04If I say I'm going to teach you a
53:06physics thing, I'm going to teach you
53:08about the law of I don't even know what
53:10the first law of physics is, but if you
53:12push it, it will move. Something like
53:13that. Anyways,
53:17if I want to have proof or increase the
53:20perceived likelihood that they're going
53:23to be well taught, then what I actually
53:25have to do is edify the person. Why
53:28should I listen to you? If I'm the
53:29viewer, there's a zillion people that
53:31could write something on a board. But,
53:33if you're a PhD physicist, then the
53:35likelihood that I will listen to you and
53:37that I will get what I want is much
53:38higher. And so, in both of these
53:40examples, we are actually doing the same
53:42thing, but we do it differently if you
53:45want to educate. And for me, when I
53:46looked at my videos, and I'll explain
53:47the data in a second, it became really
53:49clear.
53:51And so,
53:52in entertainment, it's say the title
53:54again, and then literally show them what
53:56was on the thumbnail.
53:57In education, it's show them that you
53:59can do what you promised them in the
54:01thumbnail, and that's the difference.
54:04And to figure out what made intros for
54:06our videos work, I actually rewatched my
54:09top 35 educational videos. This actually
54:12took some time, and so let me just save
54:14you like a lot of hours and just give
54:16you the nugget.
54:18And so, I actually developed a new
54:19moniker around how to think about
54:21introductions for ourselves that I'm
54:23spreading throughout my whole team, and
54:24you can just steal it.
54:27Proof, promise, plan.
54:30So, I'll break down all three of these.
54:32So,
54:33all of the introductions of the best
54:35education videos that we had had these
54:38three characteristics. And I want to
54:39make one point about the order of these
54:42is that
54:43you can have these three mixed in any
54:45order you want. I would emphasize the
54:47one that is the most important for that
54:49particular piece of content. So, if you
54:51have something that you're making that
54:52you think the proof is going to be
54:54really important, then lead with that.
54:56If you have a promise that's incredibly
54:57important for the audience, then lead
54:58with that. If you have a plan that for
55:00some reason is going to be more
55:02emphasized, then lead with that. But, I
55:04would say that for our content for the
55:05most, because I'm a business educator
55:07about making money in general,
55:09most people have this big glaring sign
55:11above their head before they can even
55:13turn on the volume of their brain, which
55:14is why should I listen to you? And so, I
55:16tend to lead with proof.
55:19And so, proof is that you prove that you
55:21know what you're talking about. You give
55:23people a reason to believe you.
55:25The promise is to tell them what they're
55:27going to get or learn from the video.
55:29And the plan sets the expectations of
55:31what will happen next.
55:33So, let me give you a real-world example
55:34of this.
55:35I started this presentation with data
55:37that shows that I've done what I'm
55:38talking about. If I went up here and
55:40just skipped this part,
55:42you might be like, "Okay, all of this up
55:43to this point, why should I listen to
55:45you?" And you'd be right in thinking
55:46that because you have no idea who I am.
55:48I could just be some random dude that
55:49looks like a Birkenstock, slightly
55:52lumberjacky-ish, weirdly dressed man.
55:54Like, why would you listen? And you'd be
55:56reasonable to believe that, right? But
55:58if you start with that, then you're
55:59like, "Okay, well, he knows something."
56:02The promise was what I said you would
56:04get at the beginning. I said I learned
56:05six things that made money and grew my
56:07brand that you can use today. And I'm
56:09going to save you $4 million in 3 and
56:101/2 years, and you'll just get all the
56:11lessons that I learned. That was the
56:13promise. Making sense? Okay.
56:16And then finally, we had the plan. I
56:18said, "How are we going to get there?
56:19How am I going to complete that
56:19promise?" I said, "Well, there are six
56:21changes, and I'm going to walk through
56:22them." That's the plan. And so, leading
56:24with those things, we found got business
56:27owners, or the people that I'm
56:28interested in, to actually
56:30better frame and perceive and get
56:32educated on the content that we're
56:33talking about.
56:35And so, that's what we're changing in
56:36our introductions.
56:38Third, now let's talk about how this
56:40strategy changes the meat of the
56:42content, what we're actually like the
56:43the real bones, the potatoes.
56:46All right? Is that going from be real
56:48{slash} vlog stuff, cuz we have made
56:50that,
56:51to list steps and stories.
56:53When we looked at the educational
56:54content that did the best, they had more
56:56of the right and less of the left.
56:59From razzle, I would I would love to say
57:01to dazzle, but it really is it's just
57:02razzle on the left. And so, I actually
57:04wanted to show you different type of
57:05content. So, I don't want to make this
57:06seem like this is all YouTube-y. I just
57:07have like long-form video there has all
57:10of the elements, and some platforms
57:11don't have all of them. So, this You
57:13YouTube is a very easy platform to to
57:14base this off of, but this is from
57:17Instagram. And TikTok would function the
57:18same way, etc. So,
57:21if you look at the squares here, I just
57:23pulled the last 30 days of content that
57:24we made.
57:25And I looked at our bottom performing
57:27over the last 30 days that we posted
57:28that were reals,
57:30and then I looked at the top.
57:32Now, interestingly,
57:33it was a almost a a perfect reversal.
57:36So, the bottom
57:3812 videos that we made, eight out of 12,
57:42I would say had more razzle emphasized.
57:44It was more about effects, a little bit
57:46higher production.
57:47And on the flip side,
57:50and this is what was crazy, and this is
57:51why I'm sharing this stuff with you
57:52because like I would I would literally
57:53never have guessed it, and that's why we
57:55look.
57:56Nine out of 12, 75% of the best videos
58:00we had emphasized language.
58:02Emphasized the actual message more than
58:05the production.
58:06And so, it was about emphasizing the
58:07language rather than the razzle.
58:10I find this very fascinating. Now, to be
58:11really clear, you can have really bad
58:13language. You have like poor, vague,
58:15unclear language, and it won't do well.
58:17And you might have razzle that just
58:19absolutely crushes. I just look at the
58:21trends of 75% on this side were this
58:24style or this type, and 75% that weren't
58:27as good were this style. Well, then
58:29let's do more of this and less of that.
58:32And so, those are the main meat changes
58:34that we're doing in the videos. We're
58:35emphasizing language. This also was true
58:37with longs as well. So, if I go and show
58:39you this real quick, language, that's on
58:42the screen, and that's one of our best
58:43videos ever, and that takes up 70 80% of
58:46the video is actually just words.
58:48Interesting, for me at least. I mean, I
58:50was a little offended cuz I thought I
58:52had a, you know, good face, but
58:53apparently no one cares. Uh
58:56So, that's what we're changing about the
58:57meat.
58:59So, let's talk about visuals. This one's
59:00a big one. All right. So, going from
59:03overproduction, and I want to be clear,
59:05not overproduction
59:07overproduction for the objective. So,
59:09it's not like we did like my team did
59:11anything wrong or anything like that.
59:13It's just that if we want to educate,
59:15sometimes production distracts from the
59:17objective of education.
59:19If the point for entertainment is to get
59:21someone to watch, then adding lots of
59:22things can be a good thing. But if
59:25you're trying to learn physics, and
59:27there's wiz bangs and pop-ups and
59:29changing backgrounds, it's really hard
59:31to learn. And if that's the throughput
59:34or that's the point of the video, then
59:35it actually detracts rather than adds.
59:38And so, the difference that I put in
59:40this example here is we have a
59:41background that changes colors while I'm
59:43teaching something. It does not help
59:44someone understand the subject matter
59:46better.
59:46Fundamentally, changing background color
59:48will not help anyone learn more. On the
59:50flip side, clarifying what words on a
59:53screen are cuz maybe my handwriting's
59:54not that good, would help people
59:56understand.
59:57That's the difference. So,
59:59overproduction to effective production.
1:00:02From distracting to enhancing.
1:00:06From visual effects to visualizing data.
1:00:09So, instead of having flames behind me,
1:00:12it's What does this look like on a
1:00:13chart? So, we can give relative scale.
1:00:15So, we have scope, so we can show
1:00:16changes over time.
1:00:20And so, that's how the visuals
1:00:22that did the best looked like.
1:00:26And then number five,
1:00:27let's talk about pre-work for a second.
1:00:29So, going from post-production to
1:00:32pre-search. So, instead of saying, "Hey,
1:00:34let's just record something and then fix
1:00:36it in post." Anybody's in the media side
1:00:38knows what I'm talking about.
1:00:40Four weeks of editing after, you know,
1:00:42almost no prep to get a video out. Well,
1:00:45what if we did four weeks of research
1:00:47and then we have almost no editing
1:00:48because we thought of everything ahead
1:00:49of time.
1:00:50Well, guess what?
1:00:52The videos where we spent, I mean, we're
1:00:54like the the the hour-to-hour ratio is
1:00:56stupid and I'll get to that in a second.
1:00:58But, if we spent a quarter of the time
1:01:01that we used to spend on post in pre, we
1:01:04eliminate 90%
1:01:0790, maybe 95% of our post edit work and
1:01:12man hours. And for the business owners
1:01:13in the room, that's real cost.
1:01:16That's real savings. And for the also
1:01:18business owners in the room, that also
1:01:20means increased production. So, if I can
1:01:22take a in the quarter of the time and I
1:01:23can get almost zero time on the back
1:01:26end, that's four times the videos. But,
1:01:28not only is it four times the output,
1:01:30it's also higher quality for your goal
1:01:33and your audience. So, this is a big
1:01:35thing that we noticed. The videos that
1:01:37we spent the most time on the front end,
1:01:38we spent less time on the back and they
1:01:40did better.
1:01:42And so, we want to spend more time
1:01:43before than after.
1:01:44And so, this is my little quote on if
1:01:46you want to write something down. Uh an
1:01:48ounce of pre-work is worth a pound of
1:01:50post.
1:01:51So, that was my little my little take on
1:01:53this.
1:01:54And so, by focusing more on what
1:01:55educates and what it means, we do great
1:01:58and everything else distracts from that
1:02:00goal.
1:02:02And so, the those are the five things
1:02:04that we're changing tactically and that
1:02:05we're doubling down on to cater to
1:02:07business owners. This, at least for my
1:02:09audience, is what they cared about.
1:02:12And I happen to be in that audience and
1:02:14I feel that way, too. So, I'm happy
1:02:15about it.
1:02:16So, that's how we went from for us
1:02:19as media people to a degree cuz I've
1:02:21gotten into this now. Uh to for you or
1:02:23for your audience. And for me, that
1:02:25means for business owners.
1:02:27So, now let's talk about why dinero. All
1:02:29right, and this will also ruffle some
1:02:31feathers and rattle some cages.
1:02:33So, instead of talking about
1:02:35relationships and college and food and
1:02:39lifestyle
1:02:41I'm going to be narrowing down or
1:02:43doubling down on, if you will business
1:02:46business models
1:02:48business leverage
1:02:50and selling in a business. Notice
1:02:52business being in all of these videos.
1:02:55In all these topics.
1:02:57And so, that's how I'm going narrower.
1:02:58Very simple.
1:03:00Now
1:03:01that I'm going to go back a slide cuz I
1:03:03want to I went ahead on this for a
1:03:04second.
1:03:07Just like I said earlier that people who
1:03:09like entertainment also just want more
1:03:11entertainment, what we also found is
1:03:13that people who I'll go back real quick.
1:03:16People who watch relationship stuff want
1:03:18more relationship stuff. And
1:03:21as they should, that's what they clicked
1:03:22on. That's what they want. That makes
1:03:24sense. And people who want to learn
1:03:25about college are people trying to make
1:03:27a decision about college. Guess what
1:03:28those people probably aren't? Business
1:03:30owners.
1:03:32And people who want to learn about food,
1:03:34they watch other food videos. And people
1:03:36want about lifestyle probably watch
1:03:37other lifestyle videos.
1:03:38But for me, those are not necessarily
1:03:40the people that
1:03:42vibe the most with my stuff.
1:03:45And that makes sense because to be fair,
1:03:46this is a little bit more foreign to me.
1:03:48When I talk about business, I feel very
1:03:49comfortable. When I talk about these
1:03:50things,
1:03:51I just give what I would consider hot
1:03:52takes. This is my perspective.
1:03:55So, that is what we're doubling down on
1:03:57in terms of the topics that we're
1:03:59choosing
1:04:00for the content we make.
1:04:03So, that's number three.
1:04:04Let's go to number four in terms of the
1:04:06the things we're doubling down on.
1:04:08So, before this, we used to track views.
1:04:10This is another big one. Man, all six of
1:04:12these are big. Man, I'm glad I made a
1:04:13presentation about it.
1:04:15So, before this, we used to track views
1:04:17as our primary metric. So, I'll take a
1:04:19second here.
1:04:20Who uses Be honest. Be honest.
1:04:22Everybody's like likes don't You can't
1:04:24trade likes for for paying rent. You
1:04:26can't pay payroll with views. Sure.
1:04:27Okay, got it.
1:04:29Who here actually tracks something
1:04:30besides views?
1:04:32Let me say it again.
1:04:34Who makes views the most important
1:04:35metric you track?
1:04:37All right.
1:04:38Right. A lot of you. That's okay. Me,
1:04:41too. But I'm going to give you a good
1:04:42metric that you can track. And this is
1:04:44after pouring through Believe me, I'm
1:04:45I'm a big data guy. Um
1:04:47a metric that you might not expect.
1:04:50So, the main reason is that I had a
1:04:536-to-12-month deal cycle. So, I started
1:04:55by using views because I really had no
1:04:57other metric. Because for those of you
1:04:58don't know what I do, well, I'll explain
1:05:00in a second. But we had no idea what
1:05:02what it would do besides driving
1:05:03awareness. And I didn't really have any
1:05:04other objective. Right? But in that time
1:05:06period of doing a deal in every 6 to 12
1:05:08months, because we buy companies, that's
1:05:09more or less what we do, um we began
1:05:11seeing a much closer correlation with
1:05:13faster feedback metrics. And ideally in
1:05:15any business, you want as little latency
1:05:17between the metrics you track and the
1:05:19behavior you want to change. And so, if
1:05:21you want to get people to change
1:05:23something and you want to look at
1:05:24something that takes a year to get
1:05:25feedback, really tough to change
1:05:26behavior. But if you can have a metric
1:05:29that you can see daily changes or hourly
1:05:31changes, then those are things that are
1:05:33going to much more quickly change
1:05:34behavior so that you can have 100
1:05:35feedback loops in terms of changing and
1:05:37getting better than one
1:05:39every year.
1:05:41And so, besides book sales, opt-ins, and
1:05:44applications, there was a metric that
1:05:46stood out as fastest and most
1:05:47measurable.
1:05:49It was ad revenue.
1:05:50And this is really surprising to me.
1:05:53So, and I this is the point I want to
1:05:54make real quick is that to be clear for
1:05:55those of you don't know who I am, ad
1:05:57revenue is not how I make my money. All
1:05:58right, just very clearly. Um, for those
1:06:00of you don't know, my wife and I exited
1:06:02our first big company uh for $46.2
1:06:04million in December of 2021. You can
1:06:06Google it. American Pacific Group was
1:06:08the private equity firm. Jim Launch
1:06:09proceeds option to through those
1:06:10companies. Um, and since then we
1:06:12invested and bought a number of
1:06:13companies that have grown a lot and do
1:06:14over $200 million a year. So, I do media
1:06:16to feed a lot of different things, but I
1:06:19don't directly monetize the media and at
1:06:21like ad revenue is
1:06:23I'll explain why in a second is an
1:06:25important metric that we can use for
1:06:26everything else. Okay? So, these are
1:06:29companies that we own. Great. So, for
1:06:31me, I pretty much always ignored ad
1:06:32revenue and just saw it as something
1:06:34that could offset some of the cost of
1:06:35the immediate team. There was really
1:06:36nothing else.
1:06:37But I was wrong. It's actually so much
1:06:39more.
1:06:40So, let's let's dive into a little bit
1:06:41for a second like, how does ad revenue
1:06:43come to be? So, it comes from two
1:06:45things. It's number of views times
1:06:47revenue per views. Now, the actual term
1:06:48is RPMs, which is revenue per mill,
1:06:50which is French for 1,000, but it's
1:06:53number of views times the revenue that
1:06:54you get. Okay, per view. Fantastic. So,
1:06:57it takes into account, and this is why
1:06:58this is important because we thought
1:06:59views, and that was the only metric we
1:07:01had, but we had to have something to
1:07:02counter it cuz otherwise then you get
1:07:04views for views' sake, but we needed a
1:07:06quality metric with a quantity metric.
1:07:09Which by the way, paired metrics, if
1:07:10you're ever tracking something for a
1:07:11department, having like number of
1:07:13tickets resolved with rating against the
1:07:16the the resolution of how well those
1:07:18customer service reps resolved, paired
1:07:19metrics allow you to get to the best or
1:07:22most effective throughput for any
1:07:23department. And I just didn't know
1:07:25enough about media to find out what our
1:07:27paired metric was. And this happens to
1:07:30be a single metric that pairs both. And
1:07:32so it takes account the quality of the
1:07:34audience, which for me was business
1:07:35owners who have amongst the highest
1:07:37spending power. And so RPMs are the
1:07:39highest. Now for So for me, the RPMs go
1:07:41up, it means I'm getting more of the
1:07:42quality people that I want.
1:07:45And so this gave me and my team
1:07:46something that we could shoot for that
1:07:47balanced making videos for the right
1:07:49people who wanted to watch. So I mean,
1:07:50ideally, we absolutely want to crank
1:07:52views with the right people.
1:07:54And that's what that was able to track
1:07:56for us.
1:07:58And looking backwards, the month with
1:08:00the highest RPMs and ad revenue also
1:08:02created the most book sales, the most
1:08:05opt-ins, and the most business
1:08:06applications.
1:08:08And this had nothing to do with how many
1:08:09views we got.
1:08:11In fact, we did it kind of an experiment
1:08:12lately where we did 90 days of almost no
1:08:15business stuff. We just did more more
1:08:17edutainment and entertainment-style
1:08:20content, and our views went through the
1:08:22roof, like way up. Two, three X what
1:08:24we're accustomed to.
1:08:26But even with the increase in views, our
1:08:29ad revenue dropped by half.
1:08:32So we're actually getting the wrong
1:08:33people.
1:08:34And I share this with you so you don't
1:08:35have to. Real quick, I'm going to show
1:08:36you the exact 10-stage roadmap from zero
1:08:39to 100 million plus that less than 1% of
1:08:42companies finish I've now done multiple
1:08:44times. And so I can say with a lot of
1:08:45confidence that these are the stages as
1:08:47headcount increases that you need to get
1:08:49through. And I broke each of these down
1:08:51by eight different functions of the
1:08:52business, what the constraint feels
1:08:54like, like what are the symptoms of it
1:08:56when you're going through it, and then
1:08:57what steps we actually took to graduate.
1:08:59And we've done this across software,
1:09:01physical products, service businesses,
1:09:03brick and mortar, all of this and it
1:09:05works. And it's my gift to you. It's
1:09:07absolutely free. And so the link's in
1:09:08the description, but you just go
1:09:10acquisition.com/roadmap.
1:09:11Just enter your info and it'll spit it
1:09:13right back to you all free.
1:09:15And so
1:09:16the nice thing about this from a team
1:09:17perspective for those of you do have
1:09:18larger teams and want to translate this
1:09:20over is that my team now has real-time
1:09:22access to this. So they can see every
1:09:24single piece of content and the ad
1:09:26revenue that it generates and they can
1:09:27quickly generate baselines in their mind
1:09:29of what's good and what's bad on an
1:09:30objective metric that really is good and
1:09:32bad rather than just like, "Hey, this
1:09:34video cranked." Yeah, but it didn't it
1:09:35didn't bring any of the right people. We
1:09:37got this thing that had 10 million
1:09:38views. Okay, but it drove nothing.
1:09:41Versus we had this video that had
1:09:43whatever, 100,000 views and it made more
1:09:45ad revenue than the one that had 10
1:09:46million.
1:09:48And we saw the corresponding increase in
1:09:50the metrics that matter to us.
1:09:53And so that's why we switched from views
1:09:55being the metric that we're optimizing
1:09:56for to ad revenue because it's a leading
1:09:59performance indicator. It happens almost
1:10:01in real time rather than something that
1:10:03happens in a big in arrears to give you
1:10:05a fancy word, later.
1:10:07So that's number four in terms of the
1:10:08things that we're doubling down on.
1:10:11So let's talk about the fifth one.
1:10:13Shorts to longs. All right, this is yet
1:10:15and then another big one that's going to
1:10:17ruffle some feathers.
1:10:18So for a long time the prevailing idea
1:10:20in content marketing was again a funnel.
1:10:23It's like everything's a funnel. All
1:10:24right.
1:10:25And it was believed that shorts viewers
1:10:27got more people to
1:10:29then watch longs and then those long
1:10:32viewers would then translate into
1:10:34becoming customers, right? So
1:10:35people watch shorts and then they watch
1:10:37longs and they give you money, right?
1:10:39That was kind of the prevailing thought.
1:10:41But again, when we looked at the data,
1:10:43it looked more like this.
1:10:45Shorts viewers
1:10:47watch more shorts.
1:10:49And long viewers watch more longs. And
1:10:52customers buy more customers.
1:10:54>> [laughter]
1:10:55>> And so the point is that that these are
1:10:57different audiences, and I will make a
1:10:58note here that
1:11:01this can change my platform.
1:11:03So,
1:11:04I might be a long viewer on one platform
1:11:06and a shorts viewer on another.
1:11:09And where I do think the magic happens
1:11:10is where you can have shorts in one
1:11:12thing, and so someone finds you on
1:11:15TikTok,
1:11:16but then they are a longs viewer on
1:11:18YouTube, and then they watch your longs
1:11:20there.
1:11:21So, I do think there's an element there,
1:11:23but not the way the narrative goes.
1:11:25And so for us, longs drive a lot more
1:11:27conversions than shorts. Conversions
1:11:29being book sales, opt-ins, and
1:11:31applications, all right? And
1:11:32business-related content,
1:11:33unsurprisingly, brings more business
1:11:35owners than not business-related
1:11:37content. And so we are going to double
1:11:39down on more longs about that stuff.
1:11:44And change our short strategy to keep
1:11:45the volume the same, but focus more on
1:11:47business overall.
1:11:49And again,
1:11:50people watch differently on different
1:11:51platforms.
1:11:53So, making shorts in order for people to
1:11:56on a different platform watch longs
1:11:57still carries as far as we know.
1:11:59So, despite the mega obsession with
1:12:01shorts that has kind of prevailed for
1:12:02the last few years because it was a new,
1:12:04you know, format of content, we're
1:12:06putting now more emphasis on longs
1:12:07overall. For now,
1:12:10as far as we have data.
1:12:12So, that's number five.
1:12:15Now, let's talk about the sixth one that
1:12:17I'm going all in on.
1:12:18Assume more to assume nothing.
1:12:21All right, so what does this mean?
1:12:23So, let's start with assume more and
1:12:24what what that what that really means
1:12:26broken down. So, assume more means I
1:12:28made content assuming people already
1:12:30knew me.
1:12:32Okay?
1:12:34So, here's an example.
1:12:36The Alex Hormozi guide to haters. I
1:12:38might be like, if I don't know who Alex
1:12:39Hormozi is or I've never seen that face
1:12:41before,
1:12:42why do I care?
1:12:44If I see the day in the life of Alex
1:12:45Hormozi, yet again, I assume everyone
1:12:48knows me in this. I'm I'm sharing these
1:12:50mistakes with you as far as I'm
1:12:51concerned for getting new people into my
1:12:53world. It wasn't made, I assumed, like
1:12:56everybody's going to know me.
1:12:57The Alex Hormozi diet.
1:13:00Everyone knows me. No, they're like, who
1:13:01is this guy?
1:13:02Right? And here's why this matters. If
1:13:04you want your content to bring people
1:13:04who don't know you, which is why many of
1:13:06you guys make content,
1:13:07then you can't assume they do.
1:13:10And so this is what this looks like
1:13:11tactically. From a headlines
1:13:13perspective, if I were to remake these
1:13:14today, I might try a first crack at
1:13:17business influencer crushes haters and
1:13:19shows how you can, too.
1:13:20Okay. So now, if I'm clicking, I would
1:13:22understand at least that this guy is a
1:13:25business influencer of some sort, and he
1:13:26crushes haters. Okay, why I might want
1:13:27to see haters get crushed.
1:13:29Uh day in the life of $200 million per
1:13:31year CEO. Okay. Now, the jet tells this
1:13:33me that this Alex Hormozi from the the
1:13:35first one before Alex Hormozi's maybe
1:13:36rich, or maybe he can afford a private
1:13:37jet, but now I know he's a CEO, cuz I
1:13:40could be a rapper. I could be, more
1:13:41realistically, when I walk around in the
1:13:43place that I live, all the people that
1:13:45in my community assume that I'm a
1:13:46football player.
1:13:48It's the number one thing they're like,
1:13:49"So you uh play football or you on the
1:13:50hockey team?" And uh I
1:13:52I say no. I can No, nothing wrong with
1:13:54that, but no, that's not what I do. Um
1:13:56and then, the third one there, Alex
1:13:58Hormozi diet, 16-hour work day, six-pack
1:13:59diet for business owners, whatever. The
1:14:01point is is that we actually make it
1:14:03welcoming to everyone.
1:14:07And so here's how we do this tactically
1:14:08within the content itself.
1:14:10So, we go from they know me to
1:14:13introducing yourself every time. So
1:14:15earlier, I was like, "I'm Alex Hormozi,
1:14:16this is what I do, this is the the the
1:14:18the subscribers I've gotten, whatever."
1:14:20We introduce ourselves.
1:14:22Two,
1:14:23they know why they should listen to me.
1:14:25Tell people why they should listen to
1:14:27you every time.
1:14:29Three, the inside jokes. You know how I
1:14:31get. No, I don't know how you get.
1:14:32Please fully explain the reference,
1:14:33because that references another piece of
1:14:35content that I haven't seen, cuz this is
1:14:36the first video I've seen from you. And
1:14:38if you tell an inside joke, and someone
1:14:41doesn't understand the inside joke,
1:14:42guess where they are? On the outside.
1:14:45And guess where people don't want to be?
1:14:46On the outside. And guess where people
1:14:48spend money? On the inside.
1:14:52And number four, going from acting like
1:14:54you're already friends to pretending
1:14:56everything goes to people who have no
1:14:58idea who you are.
1:15:00And when you make content so people who
1:15:02don't know you can enjoy it,
1:15:04more do.
1:15:07And for those of you who are worried,
1:15:08cuz I can already hear the thoughts that
1:15:09are coming up. So, let me just address
1:15:10those right now. I see you.
1:15:14I'm going to lose retention if I
1:15:15introduce myself. Okay, well, let's play
1:15:17the equal opposite. Would you rather
1:15:19fewer people know who you are or more
1:15:21people who have no clue?
1:15:24Because on one hand, we have some people
1:15:26who know you. And on the other hand, we
1:15:27have lots of people who also don't know
1:15:29you.
1:15:29So, you're in the exact same position
1:15:31you were before.
1:15:33Two.
1:15:34Well, aren't people going to get sick of
1:15:36this? You're going to keep saying your
1:15:37name every time or keep introducing
1:15:39yourself? Well, from what I can tell,
1:15:42warm people like the reminders and cold
1:15:44people need the introduction.
1:15:47And as a total side note,
1:15:49this is a fun little experiment for
1:15:51everyone here. You can run this when you
1:15:52leave here.
1:15:54If Who here actually Who here actually
1:15:56has posted content in the last year?
1:15:58Okay, good. Okay. Good. For a second, I
1:16:00was like, this would have been really
1:16:01bad if no one had raised their hand.
1:16:02Fantastic. Okay.
1:16:04I want you to look at last year,
1:16:06and I want you to look at your number
1:16:07one piece of content. And this is what I
1:16:09want you to do.
1:16:10Just post it again.
1:16:14And then let me know how it does. And I
1:16:16will bet you that it does
1:16:18just as well or better than the stuff
1:16:21that you're posting right now. And let
1:16:23me tell you one reason why I believe
1:16:24that to be true. Because if you have
1:16:26been posting consistently, guess what's
1:16:27also happened?
1:16:29More people have entered your audience.
1:16:31And guess what they haven't seen? That
1:16:33amazing piece of content that everyone
1:16:35from last year said was the number one
1:16:37best thing you ever made. And you know
1:16:38what you said? New people, you don't get
1:16:40that. That was only for my old folks. My
1:16:42OG's, they only get that. No, you got to
1:16:44reintroduce some of the stuff, your
1:16:45greatest hits. Got to bring that stuff
1:16:47in so that the new people also know what
1:16:49your greatest hits are. So that the lore
1:16:51continues to compound and grow.
1:16:53So,
1:16:54number three.
1:16:56And this one are sub point. And this is
1:16:58one for me personally. I follow a bunch
1:17:00of quote accounts. I you know, I I like
1:17:02comedy and philosophy and like fighting.
1:17:04Those are like kind of categories that I
1:17:05follow and gym equipment.
1:17:08And so I get quotes a lot on my
1:17:09newsfeed. But you know what happens when
1:17:12I see a quote from
1:17:14Sophocles or Epictetus yet again that
1:17:17reminds me that I should just toughen up
1:17:19and keep going?
1:17:20I like the reminder. I'm not like
1:17:22Epictetus God, you lived 4,000 years ago
1:17:25like get over yourself. No, he's not
1:17:27making new content but guess what people
1:17:28still post it and people still read it
1:17:31because we need to be reminded more than
1:17:33we need to be taught.
1:17:34At least I do.
1:17:38To give a little tactical one on this
1:17:39for mainstream cuz this is what might
1:17:40resonate for some of the older people in
1:17:41the crowd.
1:17:42There was this thing called television a
1:17:43while back used to be big. Anyways,
1:17:45instead of having it on your phone, it
1:17:46was like this big screen on a wall. You
1:17:48had a it's a whole thing. Anyways, I
1:17:49won't get into it.
1:17:51It's like floppy disk. Regardless,
1:17:52floppy disk was okay. Anyway, so
1:17:55so there used to be this thing where at
1:17:56the beginning of every show there was a
1:17:58theme song, right? So they'd be like
1:18:00Cheers where everybody knows your name
1:18:01and there's always a little
1:18:02introduction. It says produced by and
1:18:03all that stuff. And if those shows
1:18:06that's been gazillions of dollars on
1:18:08testing chose to think that despite
1:18:11selling more advertising space, it was
1:18:13worth having the same exact theme song
1:18:17and introduction for the show, don't you
1:18:19think it might be worth that for us too?
1:18:22And here's an interesting thing, the
1:18:23last thing. Positive associations and
1:18:24six. If you actually get sing-songy
1:18:27about how you introduce yourself or the
1:18:28things that you relate to you, it starts
1:18:30to become something that people expect
1:18:32and then they start associating it with
1:18:33all the positive other experiences they
1:18:35had with you. So if I always introduce
1:18:37something a certain way and then I
1:18:38deliver value afterwards, they associate
1:18:40the introduction with the value. And
1:18:42guess who else do they associate that
1:18:43with? You.
1:18:48And so,
1:18:50for those of you who are concerned, you
1:18:52can add variety to this. And I want to
1:18:53show you a cool little real-world
1:18:55example of this.
1:18:57So, The Simpsons has the
1:18:58longest-standing show to my knowledge
1:19:00that has existed on television.
1:19:03And the introduction is the same now.
1:19:05Bart would be like 70 by now or whatever
1:19:07his his actual age would be if it was
1:19:08actually humans. But it isn't, right?
1:19:11And every introduction has Bart at some
1:19:13point in detention writing something on
1:19:15the board.
1:19:16For those of you don't know The
1:19:17Simpsons, every one of the introductions
1:19:20actually changes.
1:19:23>> [snorts]
1:19:25>> Every one of them.
1:19:27And so, they still have the introduction
1:19:29that has all the positive associations
1:19:31with the funny times and the humor and
1:19:33the laughs that you've had with the
1:19:34show.
1:19:36But,
1:19:37they introduce a tiny bit of variety
1:19:39into them to keep it interesting. And
1:19:40then what happens is people look forward
1:19:43to these introductions cuz they want to
1:19:44find the Easter egg. The real fans now
1:19:47get catered to and the new fans don't
1:19:50know about it yet, but they will. And
1:19:52so, now you actually serve both sides of
1:19:54the audience, the people who know you
1:19:55and the people who first who are just
1:19:57coming cold.
1:20:00And so, that's it. Small variation, same
1:20:02introduction, you let the new people in,
1:20:05and you give something to the the people
1:20:06who already know you.
1:20:08So,
1:20:10title it like they don't know you,
1:20:11introduce yourself, say why they should
1:20:13listen, prioritize the content that
1:20:15makes sense for strangers,
1:20:16deprioritizing the vlogs, the hot takes,
1:20:18the opinions because
1:20:21if you can serve both audiences, serve
1:20:22both.
1:20:23Let the new people in rather than have a
1:20:25wall they have to jump over. Let them in
1:20:27on the joke. Fully explain the
1:20:29references that that make, make all
1:20:31jokes inside jokes for everyone.
1:20:35And then finally, mentally act as though
1:20:37you're always talking to a stranger
1:20:38because if the content does well,
1:20:41you are.
1:20:44At least, that's what I'm going to be
1:20:46doing.
1:20:47And so that's the six big changes that
1:20:48we're doubling down on.
1:20:50And so now that we covered those changes
1:20:51in my strategy, I just want to get real
1:20:52for a second.
1:20:54Everything has a cost.
1:20:56And it's not that other types of media
1:20:58or other topics or other formats don't
1:21:00work. Obviously, we had a smorgasbord.
1:21:02We had a huge variety, a cornucopia,
1:21:04myriad
1:21:05content types
1:21:07that we did over the last 40-ish months.
1:21:09And obviously, we had 7.8 million
1:21:11subscribers and 2 billion views during
1:21:13that time period in a niche audience of
1:21:15business owners. Pretty good.
1:21:17And so it's not to say that other things
1:21:18don't work.
1:21:21I'd even say that my mess-ups also
1:21:23worked to a certain a small degree. It's
1:21:25just that they didn't work as well as
1:21:26something else might have.
1:21:28And so the game, at least as I see it in
1:21:30entrepreneur entrepreneurship, is
1:21:32figuring out what's my biggest bang for
1:21:33buck.
1:21:34Right? What's the content that gets me
1:21:35the most of everything? Because you only
1:21:37have limited resources. You have time,
1:21:39money, energy, you put it into your
1:21:40team, and that goes onto the social
1:21:42media or the media that you that you
1:21:43market on, and then that has output. And
1:21:45so if you can become more efficient with
1:21:47the inputs you get, you get more output
1:21:49on the other side.
1:21:50And so the question becomes, with the
1:21:52resources I have, how can I maximize the
1:21:54number of the right people who find out
1:21:56about my stuff?
1:21:58And so this is something that I live by.
1:22:01Anything works better than nothing. So
1:22:02raise your hand right now if you haven't
1:22:04made a piece of content in 90 days.
1:22:06Okay. Just do something. Because if you
1:22:09do something, you will do better than
1:22:11what you're currently doing.
1:22:14Two.
1:22:15Some things work better than others.
1:22:18And three,
1:22:20nothing works forever.
1:22:24And so the requirement of the
1:22:25entrepreneur is to start doing
1:22:26something, see what works better, and
1:22:29then do as much of that as they possibly
1:22:31can for as long as they can until it
1:22:34slows down, and then figure out what the
1:22:36next thing to do is.
1:22:38And then do as much as they can of that.
1:22:41So, is that helpful in terms of
1:22:42understanding content and media? Yes.
1:22:45Awesome.
1:22:46Do you feel like you got at least one
1:22:47lesson without the scars saved at least
1:22:48a tiny percentage of the $4 million that
1:22:50I spent learning what didn't work so I
1:22:51could show you these six things that do?
1:22:53Okay, good.
1:22:55Would you like more stuff like this?
1:22:58Okay.
1:23:00Well, then I've got a bunch of free
1:23:01stuff that I can give you to help you
1:23:02grow your brand and make some money.
1:23:03That'd be all right?
1:23:04Okay.
1:23:06So, if you're just starting a business
1:23:07right now, raise your hand.
1:23:09Okay, this is for you.
1:23:11I'm the co-founder of the school games.
1:23:13Inside you'll find courses, full-day
1:23:14trainings, the easiest business model
1:23:15they know how to use this this media
1:23:17stuff cuz it's one thing to just say
1:23:19like, "Oh, great. I just watched this
1:23:21whole thing on media. Now do I do?"
1:23:23Well, this gives you somewhere to
1:23:24actually practice it like a sandbox. You
1:23:26can learn it, and you learn by doing.
1:23:28This is one of the lowest stakes way to
1:23:30make money, get your first dollar across
1:23:31the finish line. And so, fun fact,
1:23:33something I'm very proud of is that
1:23:34right now 30.44% of people who finish
1:23:36their first month make their first
1:23:37dollar online by starting an online
1:23:39community.
1:23:40I think that's pretty cool.
1:23:43And so, you can start that for free by
1:23:44going to school.com/games. All right?
1:23:47Tell them I sent you.
1:23:49So, that's for everybody. Raise your
1:23:50hand if you're
1:23:51starting a business right now. Okay,
1:23:53that's for you.
1:23:54Now, if you're a little further along in
1:23:56your business journey, I've got free
1:23:57stuff for you, too. All right? Trying to
1:23:58feel like Santa Claus today.
1:24:00I wrote these two books right now which
1:24:02have 25,000 five-star reviews and they
1:24:03sold a million plus copies.
1:24:05And I made courses for each of those
1:24:07books that are free.
1:24:09On my site, you go to
1:24:10acquisition.com/training. So, if you
1:24:12like this stuff, you want to learn about
1:24:13offers, learn more about advertising,
1:24:14learn about getting leads, paid ads,
1:24:16content, all of that stuff so that you
1:24:17can start making money within your
1:24:19business or scale it from wherever you
1:24:20are to where you want to go, I've made
1:24:21this stuff for you. These are real
1:24:23courses. It's not barred anywhere. You
1:24:24can click there, watch them all. All
1:24:26right?
1:24:29See, I put that for myself because this
1:24:30is how I roll. I get in the Get in the
1:24:31zone. So, otherwise, you guys are all
1:24:34amazing. You can go there for stuff that
1:24:37will help you practice the stuff,
1:24:39actually do it in the real world.
1:24:40Because if you just walk away from here
1:24:42today
1:24:43and you do not execute anything, you
1:24:45learned nothing.
1:24:47And so, for the love of God, just do one
1:24:49of the things so that you can get a tiny
1:24:50percent of that $4 million and the
1:24:5235,000 pieces of content and the 1,000
1:24:54hours that I spent recording, just do
1:24:55one of them so that you can take that
1:24:56lesson for you. Thank you, guys.
1:24:59>> [applause]
1:25:02>> Now, building your personal brand can
1:25:03sometimes be overwhelming. So, I want to
1:25:05help you cut through the noise and give
1:25:06you one more quick tactic that's helped
1:25:08me grow my audience. I'm about to teach
1:25:09you a rarely used method that I used to
1:25:12grow my audience by 5 million people
1:25:15[music] in under 24 months. And the
1:25:17crazy thing is is 24 months ago, I had
1:25:19less than 10,000 followers and I knew
1:25:20nothing about YouTube, TikTok,
1:25:22Instagram, Twitter, any of these other
1:25:24platforms. And the reason that I was
1:25:27able to catapult to, you know, a top 1%
1:25:29creator in that 24-month period is using
1:25:32this method that for some reason, no one
1:25:34really talks about. Whenever I enter a
1:25:36new space, whether it's trying to learn
1:25:38a new skill, a new platform, a new
1:25:40anything, I realize there's a massive
1:25:42amount of skill deficiency that I have
1:25:43to overcome as fast as humanly possible.
1:25:45And so, I can either deploy time or I
1:25:48can deploy money to save myself time.
1:25:51So, within the world of organic content,
1:25:52I was like, who can I pay to shortcut my
1:25:55path to getting to where they are? So,
1:25:57on one hand, I could go to like
1:25:58celebrities and I did go to some of them
1:25:59and they would give me their strategies,
1:26:01but it was like very personalized and
1:26:02tailored to them and I didn't think it
1:26:04would apply to like how I run
1:26:05acquisition.com in my daily life. On the
1:26:08other hand, there was like the coaches,
1:26:09gurus, etc. that I could go to and I
1:26:11didn't want to do that because they
1:26:12might be using something that worked
1:26:13like 5 years ago, which honestly, I I
1:26:15all the time. They're like, "Guys,
1:26:17you've got to do hashtags on YouTube
1:26:18videos." I'm like, "What are you talking
1:26:19about? Like this that's that's not
1:26:21true." And the third option, which I
1:26:22ultimately went with, are advertising
1:26:24agencies. [music] And what an agency is
1:26:26is just a business that sells services
1:26:29of advertising on your behalf. I can pay
1:26:32someone to run ads for me. I can pay
1:26:34someone to cut, edit, and distribute
1:26:36content on my behalf. So, what I want to
1:26:37do is help you decide whether or not you
1:26:39should use an agency and avoid what I
1:26:41call the agency trap. There's different
1:26:43tiers of agencies. There's the guys who
1:26:45just make [music] stuff, and then
1:26:46there's the people who are real pros.
1:26:47Contextually here, for one brand on one
1:26:50platform, a small one might cost
1:26:52three-ish, maybe 5,000 a month. The more
1:26:54advanced ones are usually in the 15 to
1:26:5630,000 or so a month. So, it's
1:26:58significantly more money. So, here's how
1:27:00I use agencies now and how you can, too.
1:27:02Phase one is I get what I would consider
1:27:05a basic agency. So, long before getting
1:27:07into YouTube, the first step I did was I
1:27:09hired a 3 to 5,000 or so a month agency,
1:27:10and they just got me to commit to doing
1:27:12three videos a week. They just trimmed
1:27:14it, which means you take out the oohs
1:27:15and ahs, put an intro, and a thumbnail.
1:27:17The main objective of that first phase
1:27:19was just to get the basics down, forcing
1:27:21me to create content on a regular
1:27:22cadence. Once I have more context,
1:27:24because I've spent 3 6 months working
1:27:26with them, seeing what the audience
1:27:27likes, then I'm like, [music] "Okay, now
1:27:29I want to learn everything." So, I go
1:27:31from beginner of learning the basics and
1:27:33doing the fundamentals to how do the top
1:27:35creators create on this platform? No
1:27:37business owner should change their
1:27:38business for one client. And so, it
1:27:40makes sense for both me and the small
1:27:43agency, or for you and a small agency,
1:27:45to part ways at some point when your
1:27:47demands for what you want exceed their
1:27:49capacity. So, then I work with the much
1:27:51better, more advanced agency who works
1:27:53with the top creators to learn all of
1:27:55the more nuanced pieces of the platform.
1:27:58So, rather than agree to their initial
1:27:59terms, which is basically pay us as long
1:28:01as humanly possible, and we hope you pay
1:28:03until you die. This is exactly what I
1:28:05say. Gather around.
1:28:07I want to do what you do in my business,
1:28:09but I don't know how. I'd like to work
1:28:11with you for 6 months so I can learn how
1:28:13you do it. Plus, I'll pay extra for you
1:28:15to break down why you make the decisions
1:28:17you do and the steps you take to make
1:28:18them. Then, after I get a good idea of
1:28:20how it all works, I'll start training my
1:28:22team on it. And once they can do it well
1:28:23enough, I'd like to change to a lower
1:28:25cost consulting agreement. This way, you
1:28:27can still help us if we run into
1:28:28problems. Are you opposed to this? When
1:28:30you start that way, I like it because
1:28:31you're starting with very clear
1:28:32intentions. And you're saying, "Hey, I'm
1:28:34going to commit to 6 months. This is
1:28:35what I want from you. And I'm also
1:28:36saying I'm going to continue to pay you
1:28:38after the engagement's over for a much
1:28:39higher leverage, much more profitable
1:28:41consulting engagement." So, that's what
1:28:43a lot of agencies would ultimately want.
1:28:45And if I need to pay a little bit more
1:28:46than the agency fee upfront, then I'm
1:28:48willing to do that. I also understand
1:28:50that as I start to train my team on it
1:28:51internally, there will be a period of
1:28:52time where I'm paying both them and my
1:28:55team. So, you're paying twice. The thing
1:28:56is is that when you do that, you're
1:28:58actually building the enterprise value
1:28:59of your business and you're building the
1:29:01asset that you own rather than being
1:29:03reliant on somebody else who eventually
1:29:05could, if you wanted to,
1:29:07cut you off and then you'd be dead in
1:29:09the water. Or, what more realistically
1:29:11happens is they gouge you and they
1:29:13continue to raise their price cuz they
1:29:14can see how much money you're making
1:29:15from the thing. With that new agency, we
1:29:16ran the same play. "Hey, we want to
1:29:18learn from you. We want to understand
1:29:20why you're picking these things. We want
1:29:21to understand the decision-making
1:29:22process, etc." I start documenting what
1:29:25they're doing into our processes
1:29:27internally. We want to start
1:29:28co-creating. So, they're making stuff
1:29:30for us and we're making stuff for us.
1:29:32And eventually, our stuff for us starts
1:29:34to be as good and eventually better than
1:29:36the stuff that they make for us. And it
1:29:37should be because I'm only one client of
1:29:40many to them and I'm basically renting
1:29:42them as fractional labor with expertise
1:29:45at a premium. Once your team has the
1:29:47same amount of expertise or more, they
1:29:49should be better because one, they have
1:29:50more time because they're going to fully
1:29:52allocate their time to you. And
1:29:53secondly, because they will always have
1:29:55more context on your brand than an agent
1:29:57will. By having more time and more
1:29:59context, all we have to fill is the gap
1:30:01of expertise. And so, once we have the
1:30:03expertise gap, then the in-house team
1:30:05should be better than the advanced team.
1:30:08And then at that point, you decouple and
1:30:10you let them go. You want to make sure
1:30:12that you have a clear deadline for when
1:30:14you want to make that transition. And
1:30:15this is good for a couple reasons. One
1:30:16is cuz it sets expectations with them.
1:30:18They can also see the LTV and you can
1:30:19talk in terms of that. Let's say it's
1:30:21$6,000 a month. I'm committing to
1:30:22$36,000. All right, so like you're going
1:30:24to get that from me as long as you're
1:30:25not an idiot. But the real real is that
1:30:27your team also knows that you're like,
1:30:28"Hey, we're one month down. We got to
1:30:30understand this stuff in five months.
1:30:31Hey, we're two months down. We got to
1:30:33understand this stuff in four months."
1:30:34And so it drives you towards the outcome
1:30:36of getting your team up to speed faster.
1:30:38Now, you have that deadline, but what if
1:30:39your team's not as good as theirs by the
1:30:41time the deadline comes? Well, in my
1:30:43opinion, you either need to change the
1:30:44people or they're not teaching
1:30:45everything that needs to happen. Because
1:30:46if their low-skilled people are doing
1:30:48better than your team, someone who is a
1:30:50problem. Either them or you. Let's
1:30:52assume that the people are right and
1:30:53maybe it's just a more complex platform,
1:30:54whatever. I keep going until our team
1:30:56matches theirs. Once our team matches
1:30:58theirs, then I drop it off. We downgrade
1:30:59it to a consulting agreement just for
1:31:01insurance. One or two months later, if
1:31:02we feel like we're not learning anything
1:31:03on the calls that we have from a
1:31:05consulting perspective, we cut it. And
1:31:06we do so amicably because we set that as
1:31:08the expectation. That's how I grew my
1:31:10YouTube. So now let's approach the same
1:31:12concept but on different platform. I
1:31:13didn't understand Tik Tok at all. I
1:31:15didn't use it. I wasn't on it. I
1:31:17actually had an agency reach out to me.
1:31:19How about which is not common for me to
1:31:20accept that, but they said, "Listen, you
1:31:22do no work." So from a value
1:31:24perspective, the offer was we You
1:31:25already have enough content out there. I
1:31:27can repurpose it and make shorts out of
1:31:28it. And I was like, "Okay, sure. If you
1:31:29want to do all the work and involve me
1:31:31at nothing and just make content for me,
1:31:33sounds good." And so that's what they
1:31:34did. And they started getting traction
1:31:36with the short videos and we're like,
1:31:38"Okay, this stuff works." And then for
1:31:40me, my director of brand actually had a
1:31:42super deep history on short form
1:31:45content. And so normally I would have
1:31:47had that second phase where I would go
1:31:48for that premium agency, but that
1:31:51individual worked at a premium agency.
1:31:54And so I actually bought the SOPs
1:31:55automatically and we were able to
1:31:57massively scale our output on short
1:31:59content within six or so months of
1:32:02working with that original agency. And
1:32:04again, we're on good terms with the
1:32:05person in the agency. If you set the
1:32:06expectation up front, which is I want to
1:32:08learn from you, and I want to be
1:32:09transparent about my intentions, and I
1:32:11want to eventually bring this in house
1:32:12because it's my belief that my team will
1:32:14be able to allocate more time to my
1:32:15thing and understand my brand better.
1:32:16And if they had your skills, they will
1:32:18be able to do more output at higher
1:32:20quality than you could ever do. You have
1:32:21to make a margin, I don't. I'm going to
1:32:23cover costs and get five times more
1:32:24output. This is what I believe has
1:32:26married the best parts of agency and the
1:32:29best part of building an enterprise and
1:32:30making a valuable business and avoided
1:32:33the agency trap that so many people fall
1:32:35into, myself included. So, the first
1:32:37agency experience I ever had was
1:32:38actually really good. I then worked with
1:32:40like 10 more agencies, and all of them
1:32:43were terrible. And this is the exact
1:32:44process of what happened. So, reading
1:32:46directly from 100 million dollar leads,
1:32:48step one, they got me excited about all
1:32:49the new leads they would bring. Step
1:32:51two, I'd go through an onboarding
1:32:53process that felt valuable and sometimes
1:32:54was. Step three, they assigned their
1:32:57best senior rep to my account. Step
1:32:59four, I saw some results. Step five,
1:33:01they moved my senior rep to the newest
1:33:02customer. Step six, a junior rep starts
1:33:05managing my account. My results suffer.
1:33:07Step seven, I complain. Step eight, the
1:33:09senior rep would come back once in a
1:33:10while to make me feel better. Step nine,
1:33:12the results still never got back to
1:33:14where they were before, and I'd
1:33:15eventually cancel. Step 10, I'd search
1:33:17for another agency and repeat the cycle
1:33:18of insanity. Step 11, for the zillionth
1:33:20time, start wondering why I wasn't
1:33:22getting results like the first time.
1:33:24So, how do you decide if using an agency
1:33:26is right for you? First off, do you have
1:33:27more money or more time? If you don't
1:33:29have any money, then you got to learn
1:33:30it, and it's going to take time. And you
1:33:31know what? That's part of life. Usually,
1:33:33you master one platform, you get some
1:33:35success, you get a little bit cash flow,
1:33:36and then you can more quickly pay to
1:33:38learn the other ones. You pay down your
1:33:39ignorance assets faster. If you have the
1:33:41money, then for me, it's always worth
1:33:42paying down that debt. And that process
1:33:45is how we approached LinkedIn, how we
1:33:47approached podcasts, how we approached
1:33:48paid ads, all of them. I run the same
1:33:51playbook. But when it comes to building
1:33:52a strong personal brand, you need to
1:33:53build influence, not just have views.
1:33:56So, here's how to do that. We got 32.7
1:33:58million views on YouTube this month.
1:34:00Here's how. So, I posted 35,000 pieces
1:34:03of content this year. We did a $100
1:34:04million book launch for $100 million
1:34:06money models in 72 hours or 3 days. We
1:34:08did over $100 million in sales. The
1:34:09issue that most people struggle with is
1:34:11that you're making not enough content,
1:34:12number one, and the types of content
1:34:13that you're making are not attracting
1:34:15the types of customers you want. The
1:34:16promise that I have for you today is
1:34:17that I will show you a framework that I
1:34:19have called SPCL, like special if you
1:34:21want, but it's how to build influence
1:34:23rather than how to get as many views as
1:34:25possible or anything like that. All
1:34:26right? But it's a four-part framework,
1:34:28and I want to break down each of the
1:34:29four components for you so that you can
1:34:30think about how you want to approach
1:34:32making content, all right, and building
1:34:34a brand in general. SPCL, these are
1:34:36letters, and hopefully overhead cam
1:34:37works all right. So, S P C L. So, what
1:34:42do these actually stand for? All right?
1:34:44So, number one is status.
1:34:46And this is why you hear me talk about
1:34:48proof so much. But how do you define
1:34:49status from an operational perspective?
1:34:51For those of you who are new to the
1:34:52channel, I like to operationalize
1:34:53things, meaning that like I like to look
1:34:54at objective reality and describe how
1:34:56you would see with your eyes rather than
1:34:58try and put a whole bunch of like
1:34:59emotional words around stuff because
1:35:01these are the like that type of language
1:35:03is what confused me for a very long time
1:35:04when I was coming up, and it was only
1:35:06after I started defining things by what
1:35:07I could see, what I could observe, did
1:35:10reality feel like sharper, more crisp to
1:35:12me, and my ability to predict what was
1:35:13going to happen next increase by a lot.
1:35:15And so, this is why I I talk in this
1:35:17way. So, how do I find status? So,
1:35:19status is someone who controls
1:35:21reinforcers in a given environment. So,
1:35:23that's a little bit fancy word, but
1:35:24fundamentally, if you control the good
1:35:26stuff that people want, then you will
1:35:28have status no matter what it is, right?
1:35:30And so, the simplest example I have is
1:35:31like if you go to a bar, and it's a busy
1:35:34bar, and there's a bartender, and you
1:35:36have to get the bartender's attention in
1:35:37order to get a drink or booze, that guy
1:35:39in that moment has status. He controls a
1:35:41scarce resource, right? But if that guy
1:35:44walks out of the bar, no longer
1:35:45controlling that scarce resource, he
1:35:46does not have the same status or even
1:35:48close to it, right? Like outside of the
1:35:50bar, he's not getting tips every every
1:35:51single 5 seconds when he like moves his
1:35:53hands a little bit and like says
1:35:54something nice. People aren't waving
1:35:55money at him as he walks in the street.
1:35:56Of course not. It's because he has
1:35:58status in one condition and he doesn't
1:35:59have another. Now, what's interesting
1:36:00about all four of these elements I'm
1:36:02going to break down, they all can work
1:36:04independently, but the idea is that you
1:36:06want all four to be stacked together.
1:36:07And this is what gives you the most
1:36:09influence, right? So, like any of these
1:36:10four on their own would give you
1:36:11influence. Like that bartender, if he
1:36:12just has that, he would have some level
1:36:14of influence. And I'll give you a
1:36:15different example of this. If a kid
1:36:16inherits money, right? They're going to
1:36:19have uh status, right? Like if you just
1:36:21if you have money, even if you didn't
1:36:22earn it, even if you didn't anything, if
1:36:24you have money, you will have some
1:36:26degree of status because you control
1:36:27something other people want, period.
1:36:29That's how it works, all right? But,
1:36:31would that kid who has money have the
1:36:33same status as a kid who has money who
1:36:37also gave you, you know, 10 different
1:36:40crypto coin picks that all popped off,
1:36:43right? Well, if he gave you 10 different
1:36:44picks and you followed them and they all
1:36:46popped off, how much more influence
1:36:48would that person have over them saying,
1:36:50"Hey, you should put money in this." or
1:36:51"Hey, you should, you know, give me
1:36:52money for XYZ." or whatever it is.
1:36:53Obviously, I'm talking money cuz I'm I'm
1:36:54a business person first, but like think
1:36:56about how much more influence version
1:36:58two would have with just two of those
1:36:59things versus version one. That's the
1:37:01difference. But, if you have all four,
1:37:02that's when you get you become super
1:37:03sad. So, status is number one, so you
1:37:05control scarce resources. Power is
1:37:07number two. I would say if I had to only
1:37:09pick one, I would pick power and I'll
1:37:11explain why.
1:37:13Power comes from something in the
1:37:15behavioral dynamics world called say-do
1:37:17correspondence. What that means is if I
1:37:20say something and then you do it and
1:37:22then a good thing occurs, a reinforcing
1:37:24event happens afterwards, you are more
1:37:26likely to comply with a following
1:37:28request, right? So, said differently,
1:37:31I give you the example of the guy who
1:37:33says, "Hey, here's 10 stock picks, you
1:37:34buy them." and then a good thing
1:37:35happens. The thing goes up. Great. So,
1:37:37that person has status and power, which
1:37:39is why they are more influential than
1:37:40the trust fund kid who just has money.
1:37:42And so, to the same degree, for many of
1:37:44you who are trying to make content, one
1:37:46is like, okay, status, I want to
1:37:48demonstrate that I control a scarce
1:37:50resource that some people might want,
1:37:51right?
1:37:52And so, what makes this a little bit
1:37:54more muddy is that sometimes one event
1:37:57can check multiple boxes. And so, I'll
1:37:59give you a simple example. When we
1:38:01launched the book, we did 100 million
1:38:02plus in sales. That in and of itself, me
1:38:04having money from the event gives me
1:38:06status. Me saying, "Hey, you can launch
1:38:10stuff in this way." gives me
1:38:11credibility, right? Because I show that
1:38:13I have an event I've something that has
1:38:15happened as a result of me doing it that
1:38:17gives me third-party credibility.
1:38:18There's something that you can observe
1:38:19with your eyes, right? The reason that
1:38:20my ads do well when I have my, you know,
1:38:22$10 million building behind me is like,
1:38:24"Oh, well, that's hard to fake, right?"
1:38:26And so, you have credibility there. And
1:38:27so, one event like selling a company can
1:38:30give you money, it can give you
1:38:31credibility, and then if I give people
1:38:33directions on how they can do things
1:38:34that are similar, and then good things
1:38:36happen, then all of a sudden you get
1:38:37power. And then the last is likeness. I
1:38:39know I'm skipping around, but hey, we're
1:38:41live. We're having a good time. All
1:38:42right? And so, credibility is number
1:38:44three.
1:38:46And I'm going to go into more detail on
1:38:47all of these. All right? And then
1:38:48likeness.
1:38:50So, what's likeness? So, likeness is
1:38:52that you see some This is some people
1:38:55say relatability. This can be both
1:38:57psychological in terms of you share
1:38:58similar values with this person. You
1:39:00like you like their vibe, whatever you
1:39:01want to say, right? You like their
1:39:02behavior set and it and that behavior
1:39:04set matches to people who have been
1:39:05positive in your life in the past or
1:39:06they literally just look like you,
1:39:08right? So, like Leila and I could talk
1:39:09about the exact same stuff, but she's a
1:39:12girl and so, she's going to have more
1:39:13chicks who follow her than me. And for
1:39:15the few ladies who do follow me, I
1:39:16appreciate you. I really do.
1:39:18But I have like an 89% male audience.
1:39:21And so, maybe it's it's because of the
1:39:22topic, but I would think, you know, at
1:39:24my onset I think, "Oh, it's because I
1:39:25talk about money and I talk about
1:39:26business, that's why I have a more male
1:39:27audience." But Leila I think is like 54%
1:39:29female. And she talks about almost
1:39:30exclusively money and business.
1:39:32Obviously, she talks about some mindset
1:39:32stuff, too. But I I say this to say,
1:39:35"Okay, if we have these four things and
1:39:37these are the things that create
1:39:39influence." And I I define influence as
1:39:41high likelihood of compliance with
1:39:43requests. So, what does that mean? So,
1:39:45if I say, "Hey, you know, grab my new
1:39:47book." Or I say, "Hey, come to this
1:39:49webinar." Or "Hey, I'm going live. Like,
1:39:50come check it out." Or "Hey, you should
1:39:51come to workshop." Whatever it is,
1:39:53right? You make some sort of
1:39:54solicitation. It could be like or
1:39:55subscribe. It doesn't matter. Like,
1:39:56there's levels of how cool big of an ask
1:39:58something is. If anybody's played like a
1:39:59video game, it's like you have like a
1:40:01roll for like Dungeons and Dragons. And
1:40:03it like depends on how how charismatic,
1:40:05how much influence you have, how high of
1:40:07a roll or how low of a roll, rather,
1:40:08you'd need in order to be successful
1:40:10with the request, right? And so, if you
1:40:13want to stack that stat for you, then if
1:40:15you want to min-max your influence, if
1:40:17you will, then you want to stack all
1:40:18four of these things. Okay, you're like,
1:40:20"Okay, I think I'm I'm following with
1:40:21this." So, how does this relate to
1:40:22content? So, first off, starting from
1:40:24the back, likeness,
1:40:25I think so much more of it is just like
1:40:27just be you. There's zero ROI in trying
1:40:31to be or act in a way that is different
1:40:34than who you are. It's It's a relatively
1:40:35trite message, but like most people are
1:40:38NPCs. Most people say pre-recorded
1:40:40scripts. They look at like the four
1:40:42different outfit, you know, combinations
1:40:43that exist for different kind of mental
1:40:46stereotypes. It's like, "Oh, yeah, guy
1:40:48who loves barbecue and craft beers. Oh,
1:40:51yeah, that's that That's that archetype.
1:40:53I'm just going to be that archetype." Or
1:40:54you've got like hipster bro who likes
1:40:56hipster right? Or you've got
1:40:59you know, like just bro, right? You've
1:41:01got who just like stir bro. And people
1:41:03Some will put me in that status, but I
1:41:04also like for a few years was wearing
1:41:06like sandals that looked like really
1:41:08weird. And I wore those, and that was
1:41:10not bro-y at all, but I like I wore them
1:41:12because they were super comfortable, and
1:41:13I didn't have to like wear socks, which
1:41:14is a big thing for me. Anyways. But
1:41:15point is just like I think what makes
1:41:17you unique if is if you actually lean
1:41:19into the the nuances that make you you
1:41:21and actually have a way to defend why
1:41:23you do what you do. Because most people
1:41:24don't even think about why they do what
1:41:25they do. And if you do things and you
1:41:27don't know why, it's not It's because
1:41:29you're following someone else's
1:41:30directions for your life, rather than
1:41:31your own.
1:41:32Real. Like, real. And so, so much of us
1:41:35have been programmed by people earlier
1:41:37in our lives. And I say programmed as
1:41:38though we were like machines, but what
1:41:40person do you think in your life has
1:41:42super high max status, power,
1:41:44credibility, and likeness? Maxed out
1:41:46earlier on in your life. It's your
1:41:48parents.
1:41:49Right? It's your parents. So, think
1:41:50about all four of these elements.
1:41:51Status. Do your parents control scarce
1:41:54resources, things you want? They've got
1:41:55money, and they've got toys that they
1:41:57can buy you, they've got food, they act
1:42:00like they control your shelter. Like
1:42:02they have huge amounts of status in your
1:42:04life cuz they control all the scarcest
1:42:06resources, all the things you want.
1:42:07These are not binaries. So, don't think
1:42:09like, oh, I have status, I don't have
1:42:10status. It's to what degree do you have
1:42:12status? Right? Like if somebody's got
1:42:14more money than you, they might have
1:42:15some status. If you've got $1, and
1:42:17someone's got 10 grand, they got more
1:42:18status than you, right? But if someone's
1:42:19a billionaire, they have way more status
1:42:21than the guy who's 10,000, right? So,
1:42:23again, think not in binaries, yes or no,
1:42:25but think in continuums. So, the next
1:42:27one is, think about your parents. Power.
1:42:29How many reinforcement cycles do you
1:42:31assume that your parents had from the
1:42:34time you were born? When I say
1:42:35reinforcement cycles, it means like they
1:42:36said, do this, you did that thing, and
1:42:39then a good thing happened. Now, you
1:42:40might be like, ah, I hate my dad, I hate
1:42:41my mom, or whatever your thing is. I
1:42:43don't really care. That doesn't matter
1:42:44for this purpose. The idea is that they
1:42:46probably said, don't go in the street,
1:42:47or don't do that, and you avoided a bad
1:42:49thing, or do this, and then a good thing
1:42:51happened, right? You tied your shoes the
1:42:53first time, you put the two bunny ears
1:42:54together, you tied your shoes, a good
1:42:55thing happened, they you followed their
1:42:56directions. Think about how many times a
1:42:58parent has given you directions, you
1:43:00followed them, and a bad thing was
1:43:01avoided, or a good thing happened. Many.
1:43:03And so, it makes sense that not only do
1:43:04they have a lot of status, they have a
1:43:06lot of power. What else do they have?
1:43:07Credibility. Now, this is one where I
1:43:09think parents sometimes might lack
1:43:11compared to the other things. If you
1:43:13have a parent who also has credibility
1:43:14in that specific, you know, realm of
1:43:16whatever it is that they're talking
1:43:17about, then you would have even more
1:43:18influence on you. And then finally, for
1:43:20parent,
1:43:21are they like you?
1:43:23Yeah, they literally look like you,
1:43:25right? And oftentimes, they share
1:43:27similar values to you, to a degree.
1:43:29Obviously, some people just go polar
1:43:30opposite from their parents. That's
1:43:32fine, but I'm talking in sweeping
1:43:33generalities for most people. This
1:43:35should at least explain or break down
1:43:37like why do parents have so much power
1:43:41over us? How much How do they have so
1:43:43much influence over our behaviors? You
1:43:45might not even want to listen to your
1:43:46parents. You might not even like your
1:43:47parents, but you can still feel that
1:43:50they you have to like resist their
1:43:53requests because you are so programmed
1:43:56based on these elements of behavior to
1:43:58comply with their requests, right? And
1:44:00so then the idea is how do we take these
1:44:03four elements, and then how do we
1:44:05reverse engineer these into the content
1:44:07that we have so that we can build up
1:44:09true influence? Like and again, we're
1:44:11defining influence as the likelihood of
1:44:13a compliance with the request, right?
1:44:15And that likelihood will depend on the
1:44:17nature of the request and how much your
1:44:19SPCL is in relation to that thing,
1:44:22right? If I was giving out fashion tips,
1:44:24I probably don't have a lot of
1:44:25credibility
1:44:26>> [laughter]
1:44:26>> for fashion tips, right? I don't know if
1:44:28I control any scarce resources around
1:44:30fashion. I have no I have no fashion
1:44:31hookups. Um I probably haven't given
1:44:34anyone specific fashion tips. I have no
1:44:36third-party anything for credibility for
1:44:38it, and you probably don't look like me.
1:44:41>> [laughter]
1:44:42>> And so like I probably would have very
1:44:43low influence. To some degree they can
1:44:45generalize as you go up and up and up,
1:44:46but um you have more influence in domain
1:44:50specificity. If we know these are the
1:44:52four things, status, power, credibility,
1:44:53likeness,
1:44:54then for each of these things in our
1:44:56videos, right? We want to demonstrate
1:44:58that we control scarce resources. And so
1:45:00for me, like at the very beginning, if
1:45:01you think about what the intro was,
1:45:03right? So I said, "We did, you know,
1:45:0532.7 million views,
1:45:08and we did over 100, you know,
1:45:105.something million dollars in sales for
1:45:12the book launch in 72 hours." And so
1:45:14that's me demonstrating status. I have
1:45:17these things, right? Then
1:45:19power. So what I'm going to do in this
1:45:21video is I'm going to break down four
1:45:22things you can follow, and if you follow
1:45:24these things, you're going to be more
1:45:26likely to get people who are going to
1:45:27comply with your future requests. And so
1:45:28that means that they're not just going
1:45:30to watch your video, but they're going
1:45:31to be more likely to one, watch your
1:45:33next video, and if you have any kind of
1:45:35call to action in the video, whatever
1:45:37level of call to action that is for you,
1:45:39whether it's subscribe or like or share
1:45:40or or, you know, buy something that's
1:45:42small or, you know, set up a call or
1:45:44whatever it is that you sell, then this
1:45:46is going to be second, right? Like
1:45:49that you'll have included that in your
1:45:50content. So then, credibility is going
1:45:52to be the third-party stuff. So the
1:45:54reason that I had at my launch, for
1:45:55example, I had Guinness, I had to pay
1:45:57those judges to be on site was because I
1:46:00wanted to validate that the the the
1:46:03books that we did and the revenue that
1:46:04we generated was legit, right? So I had
1:46:05a a third party that most people
1:46:08respect as like a legitimate corporation
1:46:10that their entire business is based on
1:46:12trust that they validate and verify
1:46:15proof that these records were broken.
1:46:17And so that gives credibility. The
1:46:19likeness piece, like I said earlier, is
1:46:20just you being you, right? And so that's
1:46:22why I'm actually super pumped to do
1:46:23these live streams cuz this is like I
1:46:24honestly hate making YouTube videos.
1:46:26What I mean that is like staring at a
1:46:28camera and having like, you know,
1:46:30prompts to, you know, solicit me to say
1:46:32stuff. Like I will do it because I have
1:46:34a relatively high pain tolerance and
1:46:35I'll do what is required to get what I
1:46:37want, but like I'm I'm going all in on
1:46:39this. So if you guys are like, "What's
1:46:40Alex's kind of like media strategy for
1:46:42the future?"
1:46:43I'm I'm I'm focusing on two words. You
1:46:45can write this down. Live
1:46:47interactive. [music]
1:46:48Those are the two things that's that is
1:46:50describing the ACQ 3.0 or Mosey Media
1:46:543.0 vision for what's going forward.
1:46:55Like that is what I'm focusing on. And
1:46:57I'll tell you a story of why why I think
1:46:59this is so interesting. So I had a
1:47:01conversation with a a mega influencer. I
1:47:02don't think he would mind
1:47:04with Mr. Beast a few weeks ago, and we
1:47:07were talking about kind of like the
1:47:08future of media and content. One of the
1:47:09things that he was talking about was
1:47:11the soccer game that came up that they
1:47:14do like UK versus US. What ends up
1:47:16happening is that they have all these
1:47:18different celebrities or influencers
1:47:19from different platforms, right? And so
1:47:22starting from the lowest, the lowest
1:47:24people on this little totem pole, they
1:47:25would walk out in the stadium and this
1:47:27became the kind of the de de facto like
1:47:29measuring stick for who had who had the
1:47:30most cool points, right? These are the
1:47:32A-listers. And so, this is your typical
1:47:34kind of celebs from like movies and like
1:47:36'90s and the 2000s or whatever, right?
1:47:37People like they recognize cuz they're
1:47:39celebs, but like they don't have like
1:47:40huge I guess they have some media
1:47:42presence, but it's more like traditional
1:47:43media. The level of applause for these
1:47:44guys was almost nothing. Barely anyone
1:47:47cared.
1:47:48>> [music]
1:47:48>> So, then the next level that came up was
1:47:51the shorts, the shorts creators. So,
1:47:54this is your like only TikTokers or
1:47:56people who only make Reels, but like
1:47:57only short videos. And so, they had a
1:47:59little bit more applause on the
1:48:01applause-o-meter
1:48:02compared to the A-listers.
1:48:05>> [music]
1:48:05>> Then the long-form guys came out. And
1:48:07this is when the audience got way
1:48:09rowdier. All right, so this is your
1:48:11podcasters, your YouTubers, the people
1:48:14who make long-form pieces of content.
1:48:16And I'm going to pause here for a second
1:48:17to kind of like highlight why I think
1:48:18this is. I don't think there's anything
1:48:19wrong with shorts. We make tons of
1:48:20shorts. But, I see the purpose of shorts
1:48:23as many times a way to get someone to
1:48:25watch a long, right? They watch a couple
1:48:28a couple shorts and then think, "Okay,
1:48:29this guy seems legit or this gal seems
1:48:31legit. I'm going to risk my time." cuz
1:48:33that's the risk, they're making an
1:48:33investment, right? You're making an
1:48:34investment today. "I will risk that we
1:48:35get a good return on this, right?" And
1:48:37so, shorts then lead to longs. But, let
1:48:40me show you the difference from an
1:48:41influence perspective. How many
1:48:42reinforcing cycles do you think you can
1:48:44have in 30 seconds compared to 2 hours?
1:48:48It's like not even close. And so, if
1:48:49someone watched two 1-hour pieces of
1:48:51content for me, period, okay? Two 1-hour
1:48:53pieces, that's 120 minutes. For me to
1:48:54get that same level of exposure and kind
1:48:57of cycles of reinforcement with a
1:48:58prospect, and they were only consuming
1:49:00shorts, right? Let's say my average
1:49:01short, let's say it's 15 seconds. So,
1:49:04that means it's four shorts per minute.
1:49:06So, if I have 120 minutes for longs, I
1:49:08have to do Someone would have to watch
1:49:10480
1:49:12shorts to have the same level of
1:49:13exposure as watching 2 hours with me.
1:49:16And think about how how important this
1:49:18is. What were the things that people
1:49:19said, like this was the quote podcast
1:49:21election. Trump went on and I don't care
1:49:23about the politics behind it, but I do
1:49:24care about influence and persuasion. And
1:49:26so like why is it that the two podcasts
1:49:29that I think really nudged this
1:49:31election, my opinion, is the Trump
1:49:33three-hour plus podcast that he did with
1:49:35Rogan like a week or whatever it was. I
1:49:37think that was a huge influential event.
1:49:39I think Elon getting on uh Tucker Tucker
1:49:42Carlson and doing that interview. I
1:49:44think those two interviews were some of
1:49:45the interviews that really nudged the
1:49:47election. And again, I don't care who
1:49:48you voted for, it doesn't matter to me.
1:49:49I think about this from marketing
1:49:50persuasion, okay? And so because of that
1:49:53audiences who were not sure got to spend
1:49:55three hours with a presidential
1:49:56candidate and as a result, it just
1:49:58nudged some of them in the direction to
1:49:59ultimately vote, okay? Now, back to our
1:50:01little story. A-listers have almost no
1:50:04applause, shorts have slight applause,
1:50:06longs have legit applause. Then
1:50:16>> [music]
1:50:16>> the live streamers.
1:50:18When the live streamers came out, it was
1:50:20like the entire auditorium or stadium or
1:50:22arena erupted.
1:50:24And when I heard that, it was such a
1:50:27visual example of I mean we have this
1:50:30saying which is like butts and seats. If
1:50:32you just make a bunch of like meme
1:50:33content, right? You demonstrate almost
1:50:35none of these things. Some of you guys
1:50:36are chasing views when what I think you
1:50:38want is you want to have prospects who
1:50:42are more likely to comply with a future
1:50:43request. And so we need to change our
1:50:45behavior to maximize the likelihood that
1:50:47occurs. And so in in looking at this
1:50:49thing, this is why I'm I'm telling you
1:50:51like showing my cards, I'm going to be
1:50:53doing more live streams. And I think
1:50:54it's also and this is me like outside of
1:50:56SPCL, but I think like meta themes
1:50:58overall, I think that the internet will
1:51:00always move towards truth. And so I
1:51:02think the A-listers everything's super
1:51:04curated, everything's super polished,
1:51:06it's photoshopped, it's scripted. And as
1:51:08you move closer this way, it's raw-er.
1:51:11Like you have a three-hour podcast, like
1:51:13if they're not scripted, right? Or most
1:51:14of them aren't, right?
1:51:16Um streaming it's like, yeah, we're
1:51:17live, right? I can't do anything, like
1:51:18we're live. This idea of of how can we
1:51:22approximate the rawest reality of you us
1:51:26hanging out, right? And actually going
1:51:28through this stuff, I think that is what
1:51:30will unlock the most influence as long
1:51:31as you are still including these SPCL
1:51:34elements into it. And I think that's the
1:51:36marriage. Do SPCL and do it as many
1:51:39times as I possibly can. That's the
1:51:41idea. And so live streaming provides
1:51:43that that opportunity. Let's also think
1:51:45about this from a context of volume.
1:51:46Whether you like him or not, Rogan,
1:51:47tremendous influence, right? To the same
1:51:49degree, PBD, tremendous influence. Uh
1:51:51Dave Ramsey, tremendous influence. What
1:51:54is it that these guys have in common?
1:51:55They're putting out hours of content
1:51:58every single day. So, I said it earlier
1:52:01that we 35,000 pieces of content, right?
1:52:03I hear plenty of times there's tons of,
1:52:05you know, $1 million businesses, $2
1:52:06million businesses, things like that.
1:52:08They put out one piece of content a day,
1:52:10right? And there's nothing wrong with
1:52:11that. That's 360 uh 65 pieces of content
1:52:13a year.
1:52:14And if you think about the size of
1:52:15acquisition.com in terms of our revenue,
1:52:17right? Compared to somebody who's doing
1:52:18one or two million dollars a year and
1:52:20they're doing 365 pieces of content,
1:52:22we're just quite literally doing a
1:52:24hundred times more. And as a result of
1:52:26that hundred times the volume, what do
1:52:27you think's happening?
1:52:28We get a hundred times the prospects.
1:52:30And so people want to try and like
1:52:32outsmart themselves in thinking that
1:52:33they can like not do the work that's
1:52:36required, but it's actually far more
1:52:38linear than you would expect. So, like
1:52:40we just know that like one out of ten,
1:52:41you know, shorts is going to go, you
1:52:42know, is going to be a two or three X
1:52:44outlier. We just know what that math
1:52:45looks like. Same thing for longs. How do
1:52:47I just jam as much into that
1:52:49input-output machine as I possibly can?
1:52:51And as long as I'm checking these boxes,
1:52:53like I'm making the right kind of
1:52:54content, then you're going to get the
1:52:57right kind of prospects. So, I'll give
1:52:58you one more nugget, like I said,
1:53:00which is that some of you guys may have
1:53:01heard this, and it's a concept of
1:53:05social media
1:53:08is now turning into interest media.
1:53:09[music] Okay? So, what does this mean?
1:53:11Let's unpack this for a second. If you
1:53:12make content and you judge it by views,
1:53:16I think that's dumb and I'll explain
1:53:17why. If I have a grandma public come and
1:53:19just do a running slap and just slaps me
1:53:22across the face, that video will
1:53:24probably get views. But, does it get the
1:53:26grandma views? No. Does it get me any
1:53:29any more people who now believe more in
1:53:30my stuff? No.
1:53:32But, what it will do is it will show it
1:53:34to people who are interested in humor,
1:53:35which is a lot of people, right? But,
1:53:37those might not be your customers and
1:53:39they probably aren't. So, assuming
1:53:41you're not an entertainer and you are
1:53:43somebody who's a business person. If you
1:53:44sell services to anyone, you're likely
1:53:47going to be an educator, not an
1:53:48entertainer. Meaning you're you're
1:53:49you're trying to provide value to people
1:53:51to change their behavior in some way and
1:53:52ideally change their behavior that gets
1:53:53them to walk closer to you and buy
1:53:55stuff. Okay? So, what do I mean by
1:53:57social versus interest? If you want to
1:53:59attract the right avatar, make content
1:54:02for that avatar. That sounds so obvious
1:54:04and simple and the thing is that no one
1:54:06does it because here's the writer
1:54:07downer. The content is the targeting.
1:54:10The algorithm is so good now, it knows
1:54:12what you're talking about it. It knows
1:54:13it can it can literally judge your your
1:54:15background. It judges what you're
1:54:16wearing. It judges who you are and will
1:54:18display it to the people that they know
1:54:19have a history of watching content that
1:54:22is similar to that, that people find
1:54:23valuable. And so, if you are making
1:54:25stuff about how to fix pianos because
1:54:27you're a piano repair guy, then you will
1:54:28find people who are trying to fix their
1:54:30pianos. But, if you're making that type
1:54:32of content, you might be like, "Man, I'm
1:54:33only getting, you know, a thousand views
1:54:34a video." It's like, "Yeah, but the
1:54:36market of people who are buying pianos
1:54:37might be significantly smaller than the
1:54:39market of people who just want to be
1:54:40entertained or distracted." So, you it's
1:54:41not fair to to compare your views
1:54:44against Mr. Beast. It doesn't make any
1:54:45sense. If I were to think to myself
1:54:47like, "I have a room of a thousand
1:54:48people that are going to watch this and
1:54:50all of them are only interested in
1:54:51fixing pianos, that's a hell of an
1:54:53opportunity." I care so much more about
1:54:55IRL responses. So, what I mean by that?
1:54:57If I make a video and then I get texts
1:55:00from business owners that I like and
1:55:02that I respect being like, "Yo, that was
1:55:03fire." Then, I'm like, "Okay, I'm on the
1:55:06right track." And so, some of you guys,
1:55:07let me know in the comments you guys
1:55:08have seen
1:55:10um a format that we talked about. We
1:55:11call it cash cows. But basically, it's
1:55:13me, there's a business owner that
1:55:14presents a little bit about their
1:55:15business, and they come to this side,
1:55:16and we talk about how to like how to
1:55:17improve their business, right? So, let
1:55:19me know in the comments if you like that
1:55:20style. And if you do, let me know if
1:55:23you're a business owner or not. Okay?
1:55:25So, uh like I like that style, and I'm
1:55:27not a business owner. I like that style,
1:55:28and I am a business owner. Or I don't
1:55:30like that style and I'm a business
1:55:31owner. Or I don't like that style and
1:55:33I'm not a business owner. If you are a
1:55:34business owner, when I have people who
1:55:35are here in person, IRL, in real life,
1:55:37in Vegas, right? Business owners who fly
1:55:39out. I ask, I say, "What is your
1:55:41favorite type of content?" Dollars to
1:55:43donuts, that's their favorite type of
1:55:45content. And so, I make more of that.
1:55:46Even though, and it would make sense.
1:55:48Like, it would make sense that there's
1:55:49fewer of those people. Right? Just think
1:55:52about math. If you've got uh
1:55:54if you've got the whole population here,
1:55:56let me I'll I'll I'll I'll show you a
1:55:56little graph on this. So, let's say that
1:55:58100% of people, like this represents
1:56:00100% uh let's just use USA cuz I already
1:56:03know all the numbers for USA. Okay? So,
1:56:05let's say this is 100%. All right? You
1:56:07get 100% of people who are interested.
1:56:08Okay. Well, right now, only 9% of people
1:56:11even own a business.
1:56:13Like, 9%. So, right off the bat, I'm
1:56:16going to have a huge percentage of
1:56:17people that aren't my ideal audience.
1:56:19Now, of course, I do have people who are
1:56:20business interested, and that's why I'm
1:56:22a co-founder of School, and we give
1:56:24people, you know, a way to go uh start a
1:56:26business online in a in in a low-cost
1:56:28way, right? Which you can do. It's nine
1:56:30bucks a month after a 14-day trial. You
1:56:31guys can check it out. And there's a
1:56:32bunch of like training and community and
1:56:34all that good stuff. All right? But, you
1:56:35can go school.com, I think {forward
1:56:37slash} Hormozi. I think it's below this
1:56:38video. Doesn't matter. Point being, 9%
1:56:40is what I'm competing for. Okay? Now,
1:56:43that means there's there's about 32 to
1:56:4533 million uh business owners in the US.
1:56:47Okay? 32 million. That's that's 100% of
1:56:50all business owners. Now, within that,
1:56:5395% of that 9%
1:56:56is below $1 million
1:56:58in revenue.
1:56:5995%.
1:57:01Then I've got 5% of that 9%
1:57:04that are over a million.
1:57:07Now, if you want to get If you want to
1:57:08get weird with it, what percent do you
1:57:10think is over 10 million?
1:57:12.4%
1:57:141 in 250. And then a hundred million,
1:57:17nine figures, is I think one in roughly
1:57:203,000, depending on like your data
1:57:22source. One in 3,000 businesses gets to
1:57:24100 million a year.
1:57:27This big.
1:57:28And so it would make sense then that
1:57:30we're given these numbers, right? 9% is
1:57:33is 32 million. So I know 5% of that is
1:57:35going to be a million and a half people.
1:57:37There's only a million and a half people
1:57:38who are business owners doing over a
1:57:39million, based on the math that they
1:57:40that that This is Census Bureau data.
1:57:42Maybe theirs isn't correct, but that's
1:57:43the math, right? And so if we're looking
1:57:46at that's the market, then it would make
1:57:48sense that I'm not going to get all 100%
1:57:50of them to watch my video, right? If I
1:57:52got 1 and 1/2 million views and 100% of
1:57:54them were business owners, I'd be
1:57:55insane, right? And so it would make
1:57:56sense that like if I get 100,000 views
1:57:58on a video that has that's really made
1:58:01for that level business owner, then I'm
1:58:03crushing it, right? And it doesn't make
1:58:04sense to look at, you know, Mr. Beast's
1:58:06video with 100 million views and be
1:58:08like, "Oh man, I suck." It's like,
1:58:09"Dude, we're we're going after We have
1:58:11different We have different games,
1:58:12right?" And so I'd encourage you to
1:58:14create accurate expectations of the size
1:58:17of the market that you're going after
1:58:18and also think about the translation of
1:58:20these numbers into IRL. I have two
1:58:22businesses that I looked at in the last
1:58:23year that were doing over a million
1:58:24dollars a year with less than 5,000
1:58:26followers. You absolutely can make
1:58:28plenty of money with a very small
1:58:29following as long as you make content
1:58:31that's directly valuable for that
1:58:33following. All right. With that being
1:58:34said, uh we just went over
1:58:38SPCAL, status, power, credibility, and
1:58:40likeness, what you want to include in
1:58:40videos, why I'm going all in on live
1:58:43streaming, and why the whole point is
1:58:44you want to get as much time with your
1:58:46uh prospects as humanly possible. You
1:58:47want to make the topics of your content
1:58:50based on the things that those people
1:58:51find interesting, not uh based on like
1:58:53being social, but being interesting. If
1:58:55you get If you make it interesting for
1:58:56them, they will keep watching it. And
1:58:58then, being realistic about your
1:58:59expectations on how many views you can
1:59:03get based on your size of market. So,
1:59:05let's say you've built a personal brand,
1:59:06here's how I would monetize an audience
1:59:08to make more money. In my second
1:59:09company, Prestige Labs, I built up to
1:59:12over 5,000 affiliates that generated 20
1:59:14plus million dollars a year in revenue,
1:59:15and that business continues to this day.
1:59:18In Allen, my software company, which is
1:59:19my third big company, we built up to
1:59:22over 1,000 affiliates that were agencies
1:59:24white labeling that software. For my
1:59:26book launch for 100 million dollar
1:59:28leads, we got 30,000 affiliates who
1:59:30promoted the actual book launch. I've
1:59:33also invested in companies that I've
1:59:34personally endorsed, and so I bring all
1:59:36these things up because most people
1:59:38don't know how to quote monetize an
1:59:39audience.
1:59:40And after talking to a lot of creators
1:59:44or celebrities and influencers, and also
1:59:46business owners who want to do deals
1:59:48with those people,
1:59:50a lot of people don't share a construct
1:59:51in terms of thinking through how to make
1:59:53those deals happen. And so, I wanted to
1:59:55make this video to outline the four ways
1:59:57that I see those deals happening and the
1:59:59combinations between them and what
2:00:01considerations you might have, whether
2:00:02you're on the doing the deal side of
2:00:04having an audience or
2:00:06being the person who wants to quote buy,
2:00:08license, rent the audience from an
2:00:10influencer or somebody who has those
2:00:12eyeballs. All right? So,
2:00:14four ways to monetize an audience.
2:00:16Let's use a good marker
2:00:18that doesn't suck.
2:00:21Step one,
2:00:22have good markers. Four ways
2:00:26to
2:00:27monetize
2:00:32an
2:00:33audience.
2:00:35All right?
2:00:36Now,
2:00:37right off the bat,
2:00:39number one, we've got affiliates, which
2:00:42is what I was saying earlier.
2:00:44The second way that you can monetize an
2:00:46audience is through sponsorships. Some
2:00:48people call these endorsements.
2:00:53The third way that you can do this is
2:00:55through partnerships,
2:00:59which usually involve equity.
2:01:03And the fourth way that we can do this
2:01:05is through starting your own, if you're
2:01:07the influencer in this instance.
2:01:10All right. So,
2:01:12we have affiliates, which is where you
2:01:17are getting paid after you make sales
2:01:19for a business, sponsorships where they
2:01:21pay you first to advertise on behalf of
2:01:23the business, and typically endorse it
2:01:25via your brand,
2:01:26partnerships where you go into a
2:01:29business that already has a product,
2:01:30already has an infrastructure, and you
2:01:33do one of these two things or a
2:01:34combination of these two things
2:01:37for equity. And so, the behaviors
2:01:39between affiliates, sponsorships, and
2:01:40partnerships are more or less the same.
2:01:42The difference is simply how you get
2:01:44compensated. And then the fourth is
2:01:46where you just start your entirely own
2:01:47brand to then promote to your audience.
2:01:50All right? So, let's break down which of
2:01:52these and kind of where they sit on the
2:01:53continuum. And the reason I want to
2:01:54bring this up is because I'm having so
2:01:56many conversations with people who are
2:01:58like, "I have this audience. I've built
2:01:59it for 4 years. I just don't know what
2:02:01to do." And so, I think of these four on
2:02:04a continuum.
2:02:05All right?
2:02:06And I can think of this continuum in
2:02:08terms of difficulty and risk and value.
2:02:11All right? And so, on this side,
2:02:14you've got the affiliates. This is the
2:02:16fastest way that you could immediately
2:02:18make money. Most businesses that have
2:02:21affiliate programs, you can sign up
2:02:23automatically. They have predetermined
2:02:25terms that are associated with this
2:02:27agreement. And as unless you do
2:02:30something that's really, you know,
2:02:31nefarious or weird, they're happy to
2:02:32have you sell their stuff.
2:02:35So, one is this one's fastest. This is
2:02:37low risk for kind of both parties
2:02:42because
2:02:43if you're an affiliate and you're
2:02:44promoting it like they don't have to pay
2:02:46you until after you make a sale. Now for
2:02:48you, you also don't get capped. And so
2:02:51if you can make a ton of sales and you
2:02:52feel like you're being under valued,
2:02:53then you just get to prove that you are
2:02:55actually good at promoting and that your
2:02:56audience is actually a good fit for
2:02:58whatever that product is.
2:03:00But from a value perspective, so I'll
2:03:02call it exit value
2:03:05affiliate revenue streams are not
2:03:07typically that valuable. So they will
2:03:09contribute to the sellability of a
2:03:11company, but the majority of that value
2:03:14would come in the terms of a multiple of
2:03:17the cash flow that you're receiving as
2:03:18an affiliate
2:03:19multiplied or discounted by how reliable
2:03:22the business that you're doing business
2:03:23with is. And so if I'm an affiliate of
2:03:25the US government you know what I mean?
2:03:27And I recruit people for the military,
2:03:29then I probably can say that my business
2:03:31model is sound and the US government's
2:03:32not going to go away.
2:03:34I'm not getting not not withstanding,
2:03:36you know, theories and whatnot. All
2:03:37right, but by and large it's going to be
2:03:38a trustworthy third party.
2:03:40On the flip side, if I have some you
2:03:42know, info thing that is going to
2:03:44disappear tomorrow because of some
2:03:46arbitrage opportunity that's your
2:03:47business opportunity, then this is going
2:03:50to be
2:03:51basically have no value because that
2:03:52business that underlines that cash flow
2:03:54has no value. All right, and so we're
2:03:56moving along here. So this is the lowest
2:03:58value, probably middle work, lowish risk
2:04:02for you. All right, the next is you've
2:04:05got sponsorships.
2:04:10So sponsorships is where someone pays
2:04:12you first. All right, so you receive
2:04:14cash and then you make the endorsement.
2:04:16And so usually this is in two forms. You
2:04:19advertise to your audience
2:04:21and the reason I say advertise rather
2:04:23than here it sell, here you only get
2:04:25paid after people buy. With
2:04:26sponsorships, you get paid first. And so
2:04:29that means that you are advertising. You
2:04:30are a traffic source for the business.
2:04:33And so you will get paid as a traffic
2:04:35source, typically based on CPMs, meaning
2:04:37cost per thousand impressions that you
2:04:39can have in terms of views to an
2:04:41audience. Now, these sponsorships come
2:04:44in the form of you posting stuff to your
2:04:46audience, which for them they see this
2:04:48as free traffic. They're technically
2:04:50paying for it, but you're monetizing the
2:04:52traffic that you have. The other way,
2:04:54which is the more scalable way, is
2:04:56something called white-listing.
2:04:58Which is basically them taking whatever
2:05:01your posts are and then running them as
2:05:03ads. And so, let's say I have a million
2:05:05person audience, I make a post and only,
2:05:07you know, 200,000 people see it. And as
2:05:10most content creators would do, you
2:05:12wouldn't want to post over and over
2:05:14again about that thing cuz it would kind
2:05:15of be like, "Oh, this guy's just
2:05:16promoting this thing over and over
2:05:17again." It wouldn't feel good, right?
2:05:18And so, you might make a post or two
2:05:21every so often to not interrupt the
2:05:23value that you're providing to your
2:05:24audience too much. And so, the way to
2:05:27solve this really for both parties is
2:05:29you make an advertisement saying, "Hey,
2:05:31I just partnered with so-and-so. Their
2:05:33thing is awesome. I've actually been
2:05:35using it for years. Finally came to an
2:05:36agreement. I think you guys might like
2:05:38it. Check it out, right?" And so, that
2:05:40white-listing then allows them to blast
2:05:42it to people way outside of your
2:05:44audience. I like this a lot as a win-win
2:05:47because the business
2:05:49pays money to advertise your brand. So,
2:05:51they make you bigger and they're
2:05:52spending money to advertise you. But at
2:05:54the same time, they get higher
2:05:55conversion rate because you're probably
2:05:57better on camera, you're better spoken,
2:05:58and you already have a certain amount of
2:05:59warm audience that recognize you, at
2:06:01least your face or your mannerisms. So,
2:06:03you convert at a higher percentage. So,
2:06:05the business makes money, you grow your
2:06:06brand. This is a really nice
2:06:08partnership. Now, these deals,
2:06:10sponsorships, are harder to come by than
2:06:12affiliate deals because most affiliate
2:06:14companies just have a program, an
2:06:16influencer program, an affiliate
2:06:17program, and you just sign up on the
2:06:19standard terms. Sponsorships tend to be
2:06:21more a la carte depending on the size of
2:06:23the influencer relative to the size of
2:06:25the company. And so, for extreme
2:06:27examples, if you're a huge influencer
2:06:29and there's a tiny company, you'll be
2:06:30able to get an amazing sponsorship deal.
2:06:32If it's a huge company like Nike and
2:06:35you're a small influencer, you might not
2:06:36get any deal and you still wear their
2:06:37stuff. And so, it's really the balance
2:06:39between who has
2:06:40how much leverage in the negotiation.
2:06:43Which brings us to the fourth one. Or
2:06:45sorry, the third one, which is
2:06:46partnerships. All right? Now, as we move
2:06:49along here,
2:06:51sponsorships
2:06:53also don't have kind of like affiliates
2:06:56huge exit value. The only place that
2:06:58sponsorships really become exitable
2:07:01valuable exitable value for a business
2:07:03is if you have a true media company.
2:07:05Now, if you're a personal brand, it's
2:07:06really tough to exit your personal
2:07:08brand. But if I have an army of
2:07:11influencers and I negotiate deals
2:07:13through my network and say, "Hey, uh you
2:07:15know, Pabst Blue Ribbon or, you know,
2:07:18Budweiser, whatever, I have a thousand
2:07:20influencers that fit your ideal profile
2:07:22for customers and I'll negotiate an
2:07:24umbrella deal and then all of them are
2:07:26forced because they have with them to
2:07:28promote your stuff. Now, you have a
2:07:29media company, which is very similar to
2:07:31a talent agency, slightly different, but
2:07:34has a lot of similarities. And so, then
2:07:36then that sponsorship revenue is really
2:07:37the main revenue of your business, which
2:07:39is that you sell traffic at a discount,
2:07:40right?
2:07:43But for the
2:07:44uh for the influencer individually,
2:07:46these two things very hard to sell.
2:07:50Not really sellable. Not much.
2:07:52Now, once we get into this side, these
2:07:54deals get harder and harder to do and
2:07:56you do fewer and fewer of them as you go
2:07:58down this line.
2:07:59So, a partnership can either be a
2:08:01minority deal
2:08:02or a majority deal. Again, if you're
2:08:05going to go partner with a company and
2:08:06you're huge and they're tiny, then it
2:08:08might be a majority deal. If they're
2:08:09huge and you're tiny relative to them,
2:08:11then it might be a minority deal,
2:08:13meaning you're not going to get all of
2:08:14the company. And that
2:08:16can range from, you know, 0.01%
2:08:19of the business all the way to you
2:08:21getting, you know, 99% of the business
2:08:24in terms of the range. And so, anything
2:08:25that you can imagine in terms of
2:08:26economics here is going to be
2:08:27negotiable. But, one of the thing or
2:08:29some of the things that I would consider
2:08:30here is performance, which is
2:08:34This is again for both parties.
2:08:37You can have equity as the form of
2:08:38compensation rather than necessarily
2:08:40cash. And you say, "Hey, if I bring you
2:08:42an extra thousand customers, I get, you
2:08:44know, 1% per thousand customers that I
2:08:48bring you to the platform or whatever."
2:08:50And then you put a cap on that at some
2:08:53point where you say up to
2:08:55to, you know, 10%.
2:08:57Great. And so that way it's a little bit
2:08:59balanced for you and for the business.
2:09:01Now, one of the considerations that you
2:09:03have to have if you were the uh content
2:09:04creator or the influencer is that the
2:09:07the
2:09:08the association that you make with their
2:09:10brand is permanent. As soon as you make
2:09:12that public declaration, you transfer
2:09:13all of that goodwill, you transfer that
2:09:15association to them. And so if you are
2:09:17going to do a deal like this, my
2:09:18recommendation is that you want to have
2:09:20at least something up front.
2:09:23So no matter what for doing this deal,
2:09:26you get some amount of this equity up
2:09:27front and then some percentage that's
2:09:29based on performance. Now, the
2:09:32one of the last components that I'll
2:09:33say, and there's obviously a lot of ways
2:09:35that you can do deals, but these are
2:09:36just the things that I think through,
2:09:38is time. And so somebody who's on the
2:09:40business owner side is like, "Well, I
2:09:41don't want you to just make one
2:09:42association. I want you to keep doing
2:09:43this for a long period of time." And so
2:09:45they can take some of this equity that
2:09:46they want to give you and say, "All
2:09:47right, I'm going to give you, you know,
2:09:4925% of your equity up front. I'm going
2:09:52to give you
2:09:54uh 25% based on performance and I'm
2:09:56going to give you 50% over time. And so
2:09:58I want you to promote for the next four
2:10:00years. And if for some reason something
2:10:01happens, then you're not going to get
2:10:02that vesting
2:10:04because we had some sort of breakup,
2:10:06right? And so whenever I think through
2:10:08these terms, I just like to think of
2:10:09through all the W's, which is who, what,
2:10:11where, when, why, how, right? Which is,
2:10:13"Okay, I want you to post." And if
2:10:15you're the content creator, you should
2:10:16be asking that same thing, which is
2:10:18"How much do you want me to post?"
2:10:19Right? And about what? And you have to
2:10:20take into consideration that you have to
2:10:22keep building your brand, right? And so,
2:10:23you don't want to just be like all of a
2:10:24sudden some shill. Like, that's not
2:10:26good. You want to tastefully be able to
2:10:28integrate that promotion into the
2:10:31content that you have. And so, you'd
2:10:32have to say, "Okay, well, I think the
2:10:34best way for us to do this is for me to,
2:10:36you know, put uh your links in my bio,
2:10:39and I'll put it up for 1 week of the
2:10:40month, and I will make one long-form
2:10:43thing that it mentions it, and you know,
2:10:46five short-form things via posts or
2:10:48stories." And then when you define that
2:10:50reason this is so important is that you
2:10:51define that stuff up front so that it's
2:10:53just very clear. Don't just say like, "I
2:10:55will promote the business and whatnot."
2:10:57cuz it just doesn't work as well. And
2:10:58you might say, "I will also, you know,
2:11:00record ads once a month that you can
2:11:02then use for whitelisting." And so, all
2:11:04of these things, and this is where this
2:11:06gets more nuanced in deal making,
2:11:08is you can be a partner and still have
2:11:10affiliate revenue. You can be a partner
2:11:12and still get paid from a sponsorship
2:11:13perspective. And so, these things are
2:11:14not mutually exclusive. But, like, you
2:11:17might have a primarily sponsorship deal
2:11:19with some element of equity. But, I will
2:11:21say on a personal level, the more money
2:11:23you have right now, the more you want to
2:11:26lean this way because
2:11:28the equity
2:11:30the sponsorship cash that you choose to
2:11:32take, you do it at the expense of
2:11:33equity. And if you believe in the
2:11:35product and you believe that the company
2:11:36is exitable in the future, then it in my
2:11:38opinion, it makes sense to delay it for
2:11:40the little bit longer run. But, this
2:11:42takes on more risk because here you get
2:11:43paid today no matter what. Here, you
2:11:45might not ever get paid if the company
2:11:47doesn't sell. And so, by taking on more
2:11:49risk, you want to make sure that you're
2:11:50getting a disproportionate reward in the
2:11:52in the form of stock shares, options,
2:11:54equity, and things like that. All right?
2:11:56And so, as we're walking through this
2:11:57and you're thinking, "Okay, how can I
2:11:58monetize my brand?" It's like, "Okay,
2:12:00the first level, I can do affiliates and
2:12:01just promote other people's stuff and
2:12:03get paid for it."
2:12:04The next level, I can be a media source
2:12:06for them. I can be traffic for them via
2:12:07sponsorship, right? These are a little
2:12:09bit more nuanced deals.
2:12:11Taking another step, I can actually
2:12:12partner with the brand and say, "Hey, I
2:12:14want to own 1%, 5%, 10%, 50% depending
2:12:17on how big you are and how big your
2:12:19audience is. And then finally,
2:12:23you can start your
2:12:25own
2:12:27brand.
2:12:29And when I say brand, I say that
2:12:30all-inclusive in terms of products and
2:12:32brand. And when you do this, you can
2:12:35either
2:12:36white label,
2:12:38which means you go to somebody who
2:12:39manufactures stuff already and say, "Can
2:12:40you slap my logo on it?" which is an
2:12:42option. And the other option is that you
2:12:44do custom formulations.
2:12:46Custom I'll just say custom stuff. All
2:12:48right. And so, if I were selling
2:12:50supplements, for example, I might go to
2:12:52a a company that already has a product
2:12:53that's done and I just say, "Hey, I want
2:12:55to slap my label on it." On the custom
2:12:57version of this, it's like, "Hey, I want
2:12:58this gram of this. We're going to test
2:12:59out flavors together and then we're
2:13:00going to put it together and make a
2:13:01custom product that no one else has."
2:13:03Same things works with merchandise. So,
2:13:05if you said, "Hey, I want to get a white
2:13:07t-shirt." and you just try six different
2:13:09white t-shirts that people have off the
2:13:10shelf that are manufacturers, they say,
2:13:12"Okay, just slap my logo on it and let's
2:13:14go." or you say, "Hey, what are the
2:13:16different fabrics? What are the
2:13:17different materials that I can put
2:13:18together? These are the cuts that I want
2:13:19to look at. This is how I want it to
2:13:20fit." right? That becomes more custom.
2:13:23And so, white label is faster and
2:13:27easier from a speed perspective, but
2:13:29usually, me personally, I prefer to do
2:13:31custom stuff because I don't like anyone
2:13:33else being able to sell something that's
2:13:34identical to me and be able to have any
2:13:36kind of pricing power over what I have
2:13:38cuz it the moment that people find out
2:13:40that you just have a generic product
2:13:42that you slapped a label on, it just
2:13:44does It's not a good look. Right? And
2:13:45so, again, I don't think there's
2:13:47anything to Like, I want to be clear. I
2:13:48don't think there's anything wrong with
2:13:49doing white label. I just think that if
2:13:51we were to put this on this sphere, like
2:13:52white label would be here and custom
2:13:53would be here. But, if you're going to
2:13:55take the risk on of starting your own
2:13:57brand, I might as well get all the
2:13:58benefits of doing it. But,
2:14:01this costs more money. White label tends
2:14:03to cost less because you don't have to
2:14:05get custom templates, custom forms, and
2:14:07pay and incur all those costs cuz
2:14:08someone else their whole business is
2:14:10based around doing this for other
2:14:12people. All right? Now, the difference
2:14:14here is that for all of these
2:14:15situations, you're going to promote
2:14:17stuff that already exists. Here, you're
2:14:20starting the thing from ground zero,
2:14:22which means that you're on the other
2:14:24side of the table now. You start with
2:14:26100% equity,
2:14:27and then you start paying people this
2:14:29way down the line. And so, if you are an
2:14:34influencer, you have an audience, or
2:14:35you're a business owner and you're
2:14:36trying to make deals with influencers,
2:14:39this is how I think through this, and I
2:14:41try and see there are elements that you
2:14:43can borrow from each of these kind of
2:14:45verticals to
2:14:47tweak the deal to make it right for
2:14:49everyone. And so, I think about it in
2:14:51terms of what's the exit value,
2:14:53what cash is going to be going in or out
2:14:56of the business, how much work is the
2:14:58person going to do, and then how much
2:14:59risk am I or are they exposed to. And by
2:15:02balancing those four things, you can
2:15:04usually navigate along this continuum to
2:15:06find the right part the right deal
2:15:09that's right for you and the product. As
2:15:11a bonus, I want to take you behind
2:15:13scenes to what I just learned with my
2:15:14personal brand so you can make more
2:15:15money and grow your business. I made
2:15:1735,000 posts over 40 months and grew a
2:15:197.8 million person audience, and 3 weeks
2:15:22ago, I made six big shifts in my
2:15:24content, and I want to show you behind
2:15:27the scenes what we found from those six
2:15:29big shifts with screenshots of the data
2:15:33so that you can use this to make more
2:15:34money in your business and whatever you
2:15:35promote. And so, the first was we went
2:15:37from edutainment to education. So,
2:15:40instead of being kind of halfway through
2:15:42to all the way all in on education. Now,
2:15:44that had downstream impacts in terms of
2:15:45how we package, how we title things,
2:15:47even the number of special effects we
2:15:48have, and the purpose of education as I
2:15:50see it is to change behavior. And so, my
2:15:51point is with this video, once I show
2:15:53you the data of what's happened since
2:15:54that change, since the we made these six
2:15:56shifts, that hopefully or hopefully not,
2:15:59we'll see what you decide to do, but it
2:16:00will change how you make content to make
2:16:02more money. So, number one is we educate
2:16:04edutainment to education. Number two is
2:16:06we went from for us to for you. Now,
2:16:08when I say for us, what ended up
2:16:10happening with the mistakes I made was
2:16:11that I mean, unknowingly, was that I'd
2:16:13be like, "Team, what do you guys think
2:16:14about content?" And so, they'd be like,
2:16:15"Hey, we should make a video on this.
2:16:17Hey, we should make a video on this."
2:16:18And so, what ended up happening is I
2:16:19started making videos for my team, not
2:16:21my ideal customer, a business owner. And
2:16:23so, I actually had a friend come into
2:16:24town and say, "Hey, you know, it's
2:16:26weird. I actually haven't been paying
2:16:27attention to your content." He does
2:16:28about 10 million bucks a year. And uh I
2:16:30was like, he's like, "Well, I guess I'm
2:16:31not really your avatar." And I was like,
2:16:32"Whoa, whoa, whoa." I was like, "You are
2:16:33100% my avatar. What's going on?" And
2:16:37so, as soon as I realized that, I was
2:16:38like, "Oh, man." He's like, "It just
2:16:39didn't feel as relevant to me." And so,
2:16:41I was making stuff for my team rather
2:16:42than my avatar. And so, if you are
2:16:44somebody who makes content, something to
2:16:45be mindful of is
2:16:47your team might not be the type of
2:16:48people you're trying to make content
2:16:49for. So, just something interesting for
2:16:50me. So, we went from for us, our team,
2:16:53to for you, viewer, for business owners.
2:16:55Number three was went from wide to
2:16:56narrow. So, fitness, relationships, etc.
2:16:59These are wider topics. More people are
2:17:00in relationships, more people eat food,
2:17:01more people trying to lose weight,
2:17:02compared to only 9% of people are
2:17:04business owners. And so, we went much
2:17:06narrower on the topic of like, "I'm just
2:17:07talking about business cuz that's what I
2:17:08love talking about too." As a side note.
2:17:10And so, it turns out business owners
2:17:11like it more when I talk about business,
2:17:13and I like it more as a business owner.
2:17:14So, everybody wins, at least for me.
2:17:16Number four is we went from views to
2:17:17revenue. Now, this is key. So, when you
2:17:20just have views as a metric, then you
2:17:21kind of do chase wider because it was
2:17:23the only real metric we were tracking.
2:17:24And we didn't really have anything
2:17:26better at the time and since we focused
2:17:27on. Since then, we transitioned to ad
2:17:29revenue, and here's why. Ad revenue
2:17:31takes into account views, but it has a
2:17:33second metric that's paired with it,
2:17:34which is RPMs, which is revenue per uh
2:17:37thousand eyeballs. So,
2:17:39if you if YouTube pays lots of money for
2:17:41the eyeball, then it means they're more
2:17:42valuable. And if they're more valuable
2:17:43to advertiser, they're more valuable to
2:17:44me. And so, my idea here is that I want
2:17:48to make sure that we're showing our
2:17:49videos to the right people, or rather
2:17:50that the right people are watching. Now,
2:17:52once we can control for that and we stay
2:17:54or keep our RPMs, or the amount that
2:17:56advertisers are willing to pay for these
2:17:56eyeballs, high, then we get as many
2:17:59views as we can. And as a total pro tip
2:18:01for business stuff in general, paired
2:18:03KPIs works exceptionally well. So, if
2:18:05you're in customer success, you want the
2:18:06speed of resolution, but you also want a
2:18:08quality metric. If you had a a company
2:18:10that did cleaning, it'd be the same
2:18:11thing is you'd pair reviews from
2:18:13customers with the number of cleans per
2:18:14day. And so, you like to have both edges
2:18:17so that you can control for both sides.
2:18:18And you should do that with any
2:18:19department you can. Now, so I said
2:18:21number four was views to ad revenue as
2:18:23our primary metric that we were
2:18:25optimizing for. So, we no longer care to
2:18:26oh, this one had a lot of views. We
2:18:27don't care about that. It's just do we
2:18:29have as many views with the right
2:18:30people?
2:18:31Number five is we went from emphasizing
2:18:33shorts to emphasizing longs. We saw that
2:18:35longs got the best people, and short the
2:18:39whole thesis around shorts creates longs
2:18:41viewers, we actually haven't seen any
2:18:42evidence that supports that. People
2:18:44watch shorts want more shorts, people
2:18:45want longs want to watch longs, which
2:18:47doesn't necessarily mean that people
2:18:48from a different platform
2:18:50don't watch you on shorts on TikTok, and
2:18:53then they're a long-form YouTube
2:18:55watcher, and then watch your stuff on
2:18:56YouTube that long. But usually, people
2:18:58who watch long-form stuff on YouTube
2:19:00watch long-form stuff on YouTube. People
2:19:01who watch them on YouTube watch
2:19:03short-form. Some people watch both, but
2:19:05most of the time people are kind of have
2:19:06consumption preferences, and they're not
2:19:08going to change the preferences for you.
2:19:09They just might watch you in a different
2:19:10place where that consumption preference
2:19:11is what you make. And so, we found that,
2:19:14and we found that the longs are the
2:19:15things that actually drove the most
2:19:16applications for acquisition.com, and
2:19:18the most book sales, and the most
2:19:20opt-ins. So, that's what we're making
2:19:21more of. And number six was assuming
2:19:23more versus assuming nothing. Meaning, I
2:19:26made videos like the Alex Hormozi diet,
2:19:28I made
2:19:30uh the the Alex Hormozi vlog, the
2:19:31Hormozis, things like that. Those assume
2:19:34that somebody who doesn't know me
2:19:36will want to care what whoever the hell
2:19:38Alex Hormozi is, which I don't think is
2:19:40that reasonable. Like, I don't think
2:19:42they would want that, cuz who cares
2:19:43about this random dude? And so, it's
2:19:46assuming nothing. Now, that has
2:19:48um changes in terms of what we're
2:19:49making, so there's no assumptions. So,
2:19:51for example, like we're on
2:19:53acquisition.com, we have portfolio
2:19:54businesses, I introduce myself because
2:19:57if you don't know who I am, this might
2:19:58be the first video you see of me. And
2:19:59so,
2:20:00if I stopped doing that for a while cuz
2:20:02I kind of wondered this mindset that
2:20:04every everyone knew. Now, obviously
2:20:05that's dumb. Way more people don't know
2:20:07me than know me. But, you kind of fall
2:20:08into this trap of assuming you're
2:20:09talking to your warm audience rather
2:20:11than what you're making the content for,
2:20:12which is people who've never met you
2:20:13before. And so, keeping that top of
2:20:15mind, which is that we want to make sure
2:20:16that we welcome everyone and that we
2:20:18don't have inside jokes that only people
2:20:20who are on the inside feel it because
2:20:21then all it does is it excludes people
2:20:23that are new. And like what you want to
2:20:25do is bring more people into your world
2:20:26anyways, especially if they're business
2:20:27owners for me. And so, there are these
2:20:29six changes that we made in our content.
2:20:33And so, we've gone all in on that
2:20:34concept. And so, we've done a lot of
2:20:36rapid iteration. But, let me tell you
2:20:37the data that's happened since. So,
2:20:40right off the bat, RPMs, meaning the
2:20:43revenue per thousand viewers, went up by
2:20:4568%.
2:20:46So, like when you think, man, I don't
2:20:48feel like I can like what my content is
2:20:50about, like it doesn't change anything.
2:20:51Well, it sure as hell did for us. When I
2:20:54talk about deep business stuff, when I
2:20:55talk about reducing churn, when I talk
2:20:57about increasing number of time like
2:20:58ways to get someone to buy more times,
2:21:00when I talk about how we scale a
2:21:0140-person sales team and the all the
2:21:03steps that we did in order to do that in
2:21:05a real case study in a real business,
2:21:06when I talk about how you can
2:21:06deconstruct and reconstruct a brand,
2:21:09these are deeper business concepts. And
2:21:11guess what? Business owners watch them.
2:21:13And guess what? Those eyeballs are more
2:21:15valuable. 68% and we're only going to
2:21:18get better at it. And so, for us, boom,
2:21:20that meant that us changing our topics
2:21:22got the right people to watch the
2:21:24videos. Check box one. And so, you can
2:21:26see by the video title when we had
2:21:28educational versus kind of wide or
2:21:29business education versus wider topics,
2:21:32the wider topics in general had way
2:21:34lower RPMs. You can see that with the
2:21:36the light blue. Whereas, the purple
2:21:38is more money making, more business,
2:21:40more sales, more more, you know,
2:21:42retention, real business tactics that
2:21:44grow companies. And those,
2:21:46unsurprisingly,
2:21:47were way higher in average RPM. Some of
2:21:49them even higher than that. So, the next
2:21:51big change, and I see this as anecdotal,
2:21:52is that 25% more comments per view. And
2:21:56so, I see that as an engagement metric
2:21:57that we had way more people saying,
2:21:59"Wow, this is good." or "This is great."
2:22:00or "I miss this style of content." And
2:22:01that's actually a really common thing.
2:22:03And I will say this, this is to my this
2:22:05is to my detriment. I should have seen
2:22:07that more business owners were telling
2:22:09us in the comments what they wanted. And
2:22:11honestly, I just wasn't listening. Um
2:22:15and that's on me. I I was like, "Well,
2:22:17you're going to lose some people as you
2:22:18make more, you know, high-production
2:22:20stuff. That's okay." But with the return
2:22:22to hardcore business education in terms
2:22:25of the content that we're making, the
2:22:27response has been overwhelming. That so
2:22:29many people were like, "I'm coming back
2:22:31to all your content. This has been
2:22:32great. This is what I came here for."
2:22:33And so, I'm stoked about that. And so,
2:22:35we got 25% more people who are uh doing
2:22:37that. We have more shares, negligible,
2:22:39and slightly fewer likes, which again
2:22:42whatever. But for me, I would say
2:22:44comment I would rate comments and shares
2:22:45as higher. And so, overall, we had
2:22:47higher engagement from these videos,
2:22:49even though they were narrower topics.
2:22:51Which to me is
2:22:52more good for fewer people than a little
2:22:54bit of good for a lot of people, which
2:22:55is where I want to be in terms of what I
2:22:57want to serve or who I want to serve.
2:22:58So, the next big change is that despite,
2:23:01and this is a key point, despite having
2:23:03fewer absolute views per long-form
2:23:05video, we're actually getting more
2:23:07long-form views overall across the
2:23:10channel. So, we're up 30 almost 30%
2:23:1229.56%
2:23:13um than our our 6-weeks average before
2:23:15that
2:23:17from these deeper educational videos.
2:23:19Now, realistically, that's a function of
2:23:21one main thing in my opinion.
2:23:23That's because
2:23:25the education stuff actually requires
2:23:26far less post-editing. And I can make
2:23:29more education stuff cuz this is what I
2:23:30do every day. And so, we can actually
2:23:33create more content, which I'm stoked
2:23:34about, and I think I think I mean,
2:23:36hopefully business owners are too. Um
2:23:38and so, we actually get more overall
2:23:40views with the right people because we
2:23:42don't have nearly as much high-fi
2:23:45post-production wiz-bangs, which is what
2:23:47most of my audience who is trying to
2:23:48learn stuff rather than be entertained
2:23:50was happy about. All right, this next
2:23:52one is very surprising to me at least.
2:23:55So, our subscriber conversion increased
2:23:58by 24.6%.
2:24:01And so, that means that we've actually
2:24:03like even though again we had slightly
2:24:05lower lower absolute views, more
2:24:07long-form views, that we actually
2:24:09increased the absolute number of
2:24:11subscribers per week since doing this.
2:24:14So, like I mean, I was very comfortable
2:24:16with all of these metrics tanking. Like
2:24:18that was I honestly expected that
2:24:19because I was like, all right, we're
2:24:20going to have way fewer views, but it's
2:24:22going to be the right people. But,
2:24:24because 25% more people who watch
2:24:27subscribe even though we get fewer
2:24:29views, our actual subscriber growth has
2:24:31grown.
2:24:33Which is crazy in an absolute metric
2:24:34way. So, this was this was an unexpected
2:24:37outcome for me and has just reinforced
2:24:39that this was the right decision for the
2:24:41audience that I want, which is business
2:24:42owners. The next thing is like, okay,
2:24:43well, if you're getting fewer views,
2:24:45how's that going to translate to opt-ins
2:24:48cuz I'm a business owner. Like that's
2:24:49what I care about. I care about people
2:24:50who are trying to
2:24:51to become portfolio companies, come to a
2:24:53workshop, whatever. And so, it turns out
2:24:57that we have 26%
2:24:59more opt-ins per week since making this
2:25:03change. And so, this is like both
2:25:05incredibly surprising and also
2:25:06incredibly duh. And I say this because
2:25:08like saying, "Hey, I'm going to make
2:25:10business owner stuff to get more
2:25:11business owners." Duh. But at the same
2:25:14time, I'll say this, just me kind of
2:25:16commenting on a lot of the educators
2:25:18that are in the space, they tend to
2:25:19start moving more and more broad, more
2:25:21and more wide, more and more
2:25:22entertainment-y, more and more topics
2:25:24that they don't necessarily have
2:25:25expertise on because they seek the
2:25:27views. Whether they say it or not, they
2:25:28don't want to sit there like like saying
2:25:29cash, cuz they still kind of count their
2:25:30likes. And so,
2:25:32I think if you can just absolutely get
2:25:34your logic head on, which is tough
2:25:35because sometimes you it's it's tough to
2:25:37to go away from those vanity metrics.
2:25:39But, I care about the bottom line and
2:25:41so, the right people were seeing it and
2:25:43the right people were taking action. And
2:25:45so we, in the in the business sense, saw
2:25:48growth from this in a big way, and this
2:25:49is just like 3 weeks in, 4 weeks into
2:25:52this kind of execution all in on the
2:25:54strategy, and this will compound. And so
2:25:56for those who don't know, I have two
2:25:57best-selling books on Amazon. They're
2:25:58still like number one and number two on
2:25:59marketing and sales, and they've been
2:26:00there for like number one and number two
2:26:02for 2 years or 3 years or whatever how
2:26:03they've been out, so they're pretty
2:26:05strong. And so we sell books every month
2:26:07no matter what. But what was crazy to me
2:26:10was to see this jump in book sales that
2:26:13happened as like think about this, we're
2:26:15getting fewer views,
2:26:18but
2:26:19more sales by a lot, like 2x the sales,
2:26:23twice, not like 20%, twice the sales of
2:26:26books that I have. And mind you, by the
2:26:29way, if you're like, "Hey, I'm poor." I
2:26:31get it. My books are free, too. They're
2:26:32by like you can go to akuz.com and you
2:26:34get the video course, all my stuff for
2:26:35free. You don't have to opt in. And you
2:26:37can go on my podcast, and you can listen
2:26:40to the audiobook for free, all right?
2:26:41Like the stuff's free. This isn't how I
2:26:42make my money. But it's a really good
2:26:44leading indicator for me of the quality
2:26:46of traffic. Now, if you want to get a
2:26:48physical copy, yes, there's printing
2:26:49costs and there's shipping costs, so
2:26:50yeah, you pay some bucks. But if you're
2:26:52dead broke poor, you can use the free
2:26:53stuff. The point is is that this
2:26:55attracted the right people, people who
2:26:58want cuz if I make a fitness meals
2:27:00video, guess what those people don't
2:27:02care about? Getting leads and making
2:27:03offers. Kind of sounds obvious when you
2:27:05think about it. When I make a, "Hey,
2:27:06this is how I work with Layla, my wife,"
2:27:08maybe you get somebody who's like, "What
2:27:10about the married entrepreneurs?" It's
2:27:11like, "Well, only 9% of people are
2:27:13business owners, and then of that 9%,
2:27:15how many of them are married to their
2:27:16partner?" Percentage of percentage.
2:27:18Versus just talking about business
2:27:20stuff,
2:27:22business people want to get more leads,
2:27:24make more offers, make more money. And
2:27:25so that's what my books are about. And
2:27:27so lo and behold, more of those people
2:27:29bought.
2:27:30Now, I want to be super clear. I want to
2:27:31show these two these two keynotes here.
2:27:33So
2:27:34there There some keynotes that will be
2:27:36both deep and wide. And as a content
2:27:39creator / business owner
2:27:41/ investor /
2:27:43husband / human being
2:27:46boy big um sometimes you hit it out of
2:27:48the park and you actually get both. So,
2:27:50my highest revenue revenue per view
2:27:53video also happens to be
2:27:55my most viewed video.
2:27:58And so, it doesn't necessarily mean that
2:28:00if you have a lot of views, the RPMs are
2:28:02low. No, not at all.
2:28:04You can get a video that applies to all
2:28:07business owners and it will get a lot of
2:28:09views.
2:28:10And the CPMs or the RPMs will be high.
2:28:13The branding video is the same thing.
2:28:14That one's that's very recent. It's new
2:28:15and it continues to climb up. Um and
2:28:17they're both of these are very
2:28:19conceptual business concepts that all
2:28:22business owners can benefit from. And
2:28:24so, if I talk about leverage, almost all
2:28:26businesses need to understand strategy
2:28:28and leverage. It applies It's a huge
2:28:29amount of value to business owners.
2:28:31Understanding brand, tremendous value to
2:28:33any business.
2:28:35Now, on the other hand, you can also
2:28:37make and we have we call these keynotes,
2:28:38but like longer form either whiteboard
2:28:40presentations or like a presentation
2:28:41that I put a lot of time into. Um some
2:28:44of them are going to be deeper and less
2:28:45wide and that's okay. Like, if I talk
2:28:46about scaling a 40-person sales team, if
2:28:48you have an e-commerce store, doesn't
2:28:50affect you. But, leverage and brand
2:28:52would affect you whether you had the
2:28:5340-person sales team or the e-commerce
2:28:55company or a software company or an app
2:28:58or whatever. And so, again, the scaling
2:29:0140-person sales team still super
2:29:03valuable, but it's just going to be only
2:29:05you know, valuable to 1/3 of the
2:29:06business owner audience that I might be
2:29:08able to you know, who might want to
2:29:09watch this. Same thing with um
2:29:12same thing with the video I made about
2:29:1310Xing your business overnight by using
2:29:16mega influencers. Basically, showing how
2:29:18to get a Mr. Beast, a Logan Paul, a Rock
2:29:20to partner with a Conor McGregor, a Huda
2:29:23Beauty, a Taylor Swift to partner with
2:29:26to 10X your business. Now, if your
2:29:28business like a local business, the
2:29:30likelihood that they're going to partner
2:29:31with you is really low, right? And so,
2:29:32it doesn't really make sense for that
2:29:33particular business. Now, you could use
2:29:35that on a micro scale, but it might just
2:29:37not have as much transference. If you
2:29:39have an e-commerce brand that's
2:29:40national, might make a ton of sense. But
2:29:42again, it's going to have a sub-segment
2:29:44of already a 9% slice of the population
2:29:47that it would be deeply valuable to
2:29:48though. And so, that's the thing is is
2:29:50that I have to think about like I'm okay
2:29:53with a video that gets 10,000 views
2:29:55instead of 400,000 views. If 10,000 of
2:29:58those people are $10 million plus
2:30:00business owners, it's like here, here's
2:30:02how I packaged my company in order to
2:30:03sell it. I have a video on my channel
2:30:04that walks through 46 minutes of the
2:30:06decision-making process I used to
2:30:08determine to sell my business. Guess who
2:30:09that applies to? Basically no one,
2:30:11unless you're actually have a lot of
2:30:13money and you already have a business
2:30:15asset that is $5 million profit or more.
2:30:17And so, let's see, 9% of businesses it's
2:30:20like
2:30:210.1% do $10 million a year
2:30:24of businesses. So, there's like no one
2:30:27who that actually applies to except for
2:30:29those people or like this thing was
2:30:31amazing and this changed my life. And I
2:30:32had a bunch of people after I posted
2:30:34that that I know that were big 20, 30,
2:30:3640 million dollar a year business owners
2:30:37who watched it be like this is insane. I
2:30:38can't believe you gave this out. I'm
2:30:39like, believe it because guess what? No
2:30:41one else is going to watch it. And so, I
2:30:43will say this, this is me giving you
2:30:45like a little hat tip for consuming. If
2:30:48you're a business owner
2:30:49I would not gauge views as whether the
2:30:52whether the video is good or not. It
2:30:54just shows how relevant it is to how
2:30:55many people.
2:30:57And so, if you're an e-commerce person,
2:31:00I have some videos in here about how to
2:31:01use offers for e-commerce.
2:31:03That's just already going to be a slice
2:31:05of a slice, but it'd be super applicable
2:31:07for you. And so, I'm okay with very
2:31:10small views as long as the quality gives
2:31:14value and provides a result in a clear
2:31:16way for the viewer.
2:31:19And so, I define education as change of
2:31:20behavior. So, if I can help them change
2:31:22the behavior in a way that makes them
2:31:22more money, ideally they'll associate
2:31:24that money they made, that value they
2:31:26made with us at acquisition.com.
2:31:29And so, that's the whole goal of this
2:31:30stuff. And for the creators out there,
2:31:34or those of you guys who are making
2:31:35content in order to promote your
2:31:36business, I'll give you this frame that
2:31:38I started out with that helped me a lot,
2:31:39which is
2:31:40you know, when I first posted my first
2:31:42like I started at zero on every
2:31:43platform, to be very clear here. Like it
2:31:44wasn't like I was Taylor Swift and I
2:31:46came on TikTok. Yay, right? It wasn't
2:31:48like that.
2:31:49When I started on YouTube, I had no
2:31:50subscribers. And the first videos I
2:31:52posted got like 100 views, right? But I
2:31:55thought to myself, I was like, man, if I
2:31:57like I would probably go across town to
2:31:58speak to a 100-person audience for
2:32:00lunch, and I'd have no problem with
2:32:01that. And so, the idea that I had 100
2:32:03people, I was like, that's not bad. Or
2:32:06even if there's 10 people, I'm like,
2:32:07well, I would talk to a 10-person I
2:32:08mean, I used to do this for years. I
2:32:09would do a lunch and learn and uh see if
2:32:11I could sell some weight loss. You know
2:32:12what I mean? Like I was willing to do
2:32:13that anyways. And so, there's this it's
2:32:16it's literally just because of
2:32:17comparison that people feel bad about
2:32:19their social media content, not because
2:32:21inherently the numbers don't make sense.
2:32:23And the crazy thing about this, and I'm
2:32:24going to re-emphasize, is it's free.
2:32:27It's free. The platforms distribute your
2:32:30content for free. These are people that
2:32:32would never found out about you and they
2:32:33find out about you for free.
2:32:35Like take that in for a second. So, the
2:32:37leverage on free distribution is
2:32:39infinite. And so, if you get 1,000
2:32:41people over a month who see your thing,
2:32:43it's 1,000 people. It's not nothing.
2:32:46And so, I try to make sure that I focus
2:32:48on that concept of like, oh man, my
2:32:50average for the channel is 400,000 and
2:32:51we got a 50,000 view video. 50,000? My
2:32:55god, I speak at conferences with 1,000
2:32:57people. It's 50 times that.
2:32:59Not bad. And those people I got to have
2:33:02a really, really curated experience,
2:33:04increase the value per second,
2:33:05absolutely crush as much value as I
2:33:07possibly could in that in time period.
2:33:09And so, I'll make one last note on uh on
2:33:11the deep versus wide content, is that I
2:33:15get so many DMs and like Slack messages
2:33:19even from our portfolio company founders
2:33:21who are like, dude, that last video was
2:33:23so sick." And I hadn't had that in a
2:33:25minute for probably the the 6 months we
2:33:27went a little bit wider with our
2:33:28content.
2:33:29And it became so reinforcing for me.
2:33:32Even though like what's the what's the
2:33:33number of people? I don't know. 50
2:33:35people maybe messaged me being like,
2:33:36"Dude, that new like your new content
2:33:38style or going back like the new old
2:33:40content of more whiteboard, more deep
2:33:42business tactics, like it's so great. My
2:33:44team's watching again." That like fills
2:33:46me up cuz that's why I made the stuff to
2:33:47begin with was the stuff that I didn't
2:33:48have when I was coming up that I wish
2:33:49someone would have taught me. And then I
2:33:51had to just find out through trial and
2:33:52error. And so that's why we make this
2:33:54stuff.
2:33:55But
2:33:57the views weren't high. But for me like
2:34:00I'm here for business owners. And I
2:34:02already know there's only 9% of people
2:34:03are business owners.
2:34:05And that's okay.
2:34:06I'm for you I'm here for you guys. All
2:34:08right. So here's what we're doing next
2:34:09with this data. All right. So we had our
2:34:11hypothesis. We looked at the 35,000
2:34:13posts. We made the six big shifts. And
2:34:15by and large we have crushed the
2:34:17hypothesis. So I'm actually like I was
2:34:19telling my team yesterday I was like
2:34:21we're kind of lucky that this worked out
2:34:23the first time cuz like I'm not really
2:34:24used to things working out the first
2:34:25time. I'm more more like realistically
2:34:27be like, "Hey, we made this change and
2:34:28then like four of the six stats are bad
2:34:30and two of them are good." And so we're
2:34:31like, "All right. Well, these ones are
2:34:32good. So let's try and keep this stuff
2:34:34the same and then we got to tweak all
2:34:35these other things."
2:34:37Our view to subscriber ratio is higher.
2:34:38Our absolute subscribers are higher. Our
2:34:39options are higher. Book sales are
2:34:40higher. Applications are higher.
2:34:43And it's about stuff I like making. So
2:34:44I'm like I'm thrilled to tears. I'm
2:34:46stoked. And I get to make this stuff
2:34:47about like we can do more content
2:34:49because I don't have to put as much post
2:34:50into it for you guys. So like you guys
2:34:52said it's more distracting to have the
2:34:53whiz bangs and the effects. And we're
2:34:54like, "Cool.
2:34:56I'm happy to just talk business." So
2:34:58this is what we're doing now.
2:34:59So one big belief we have is volume
2:35:02negates luck. That's in the sales team
2:35:03locker room. Same thing in the media
2:35:05team. They said, "We will we will create
2:35:08more. And we will just basically have
2:35:10constraints on where like the direction
2:35:12of what we're creating, but we will keep
2:35:14we will keep making as much as we can in
2:35:16different ways to find out what works
2:35:18even better than our first whack at it.
2:35:21The second thing is don't get the same
2:35:22scar twice. We're super happy to make
2:35:24mistakes. I mean
2:35:26I I It's funny. I even I I I almost mean
2:35:28that. Like it's totally fine making
2:35:31mistakes cuz like they're not mistakes.
2:35:33They're just lessons. What we don't want
2:35:34is get the same scar twice.
2:35:37And so if we find out or we know that I
2:35:40have to introduce myself
2:35:41then I better keep introducing myself.
2:35:43If we know that high high five
2:35:46production doesn't do as well with
2:35:47business owners
2:35:49then I better not do that. Right? Unless
2:35:52there's a conclusion that we find that's
2:35:53wrong about that. But for now
2:35:55like that's what we're not going to make
2:35:56the same mistake twice. And so I'm happy
2:35:58to make all the mistakes there are in a
2:35:59very narrow field. That's what makes an
2:36:00expert.
2:36:01Um but I just don't want to make it
2:36:03twice. A third one, this is super
2:36:04tactical, is that uh
2:36:06slides versus just me heavily prepping
2:36:08for a presentation hasn't made as much
2:36:10of a difference. So I tried to
2:36:11approximate this by like my best videos
2:36:14that were most views and most business
2:36:16centric in terms of CPMs was me
2:36:18presenting at a conference. So I have a
2:36:20stage in my headquarters. And so I was
2:36:22like, "All right, I'm going to present
2:36:23on my stage." But it was to it was not
2:36:25to an empty room. It was to my to my
2:36:26team. But like a lot of comments were
2:36:28like, "Is this guy pretending to be on
2:36:30stage?" And so if you did see that,
2:36:32that's why it was uh that's why the the
2:36:34the room was kind of empty. Um but I was
2:36:36like I was trying to approximate as much
2:36:37of that style of video. So that gives
2:36:40you maybe a little bit insight. I was
2:36:40like, "Okay, well what can I control? I
2:36:42can do a stage. We can do the lighting.
2:36:43We can have the seats. I can have
2:36:44slides." These are all things that I'm
2:36:45used to doing. Now it worked to a
2:36:46degree, but we got the same performance
2:36:48from me just talking to a camera like
2:36:49this and going over the slides without
2:36:52the stage or me just doing whiteboard of
2:36:54walking through the concepts or the
2:36:56tactics to grow or solve a problem.
2:36:58Number four.
2:37:00Show what only you can show and say what
2:37:02only you can say. And so I have I have a
2:37:06few marketingisms that I have never
2:37:08heard anywhere else that are like very
2:37:09real for me. One is state the facts and
2:37:11tell the truth. It's always that way cuz
2:37:13then you never get in trouble, you don't
2:37:14have to worry about anything, you don't
2:37:15have to worry about claims, you just
2:37:16state the facts and tell the truth.
2:37:17Which also means that you have to go
2:37:18collect data so you can state the truth.
2:37:20Um and so a second one underneath of
2:37:22that is say what only we can say and
2:37:24show what only we can show. It's
2:37:25demonstration, right? And so
2:37:28if obviously I have accomplishments that
2:37:30I can say, "Hey, I know what I'm talking
2:37:32about." But there's also labor. And so I
2:37:35can say, "Hey, I built uh 8 million
2:37:38person audience."
2:37:39Listen to this stuff for content, which
2:37:41by the way, you don't have to listen to
2:37:42any of it. This just worked for me.
2:37:43Um or I can say I made 35,000 posts
2:37:46independent of the outcome. And so what
2:37:49I want to do is do more work than anyone
2:37:51else will do so that I can show what no
2:37:54one else can show and say what no one
2:37:55else can say. And so if you're starting
2:37:56out or you're you're you're a different
2:37:58part in your journey, considering like,
2:37:59"Okay, well, I can't out-outcome anyone
2:38:01yet cuz I'm early, but you can outwork
2:38:03people."
2:38:04And so I can't just say like, "I made
2:38:0635,000 posts. What I learned."
2:38:08I'm going to compress a lot of time for
2:38:09you. That's valuable, no matter who you
2:38:11are. And number five is still doing wide
2:38:14shorts. So this is interesting. So
2:38:17we thought about this and we decided
2:38:20that for shorts we're willing to go a
2:38:22little bit wider. And I'll tell you why.
2:38:24So I run ads
2:38:27and Leila runs ads using our face. And I
2:38:30actually see the main ROI from shorts as
2:38:33top of funnel brand awareness. And when
2:38:35I say brand awareness, I really just
2:38:36mean like facial recognition. People
2:38:37will see my face and remember that they
2:38:39got some sort of value from it.
2:38:41And in a short it's more difficult to
2:38:45get into really deep business concepts,
2:38:46which is what I'm
2:38:47um not saying it's impossible and maybe
2:38:49I just need to up my skills, which is
2:38:50totally totally fine. Um but we're still
2:38:53maintaining a certain percentage of
2:38:55shorts that I would consider to be more
2:38:56like um a little bit wider. Because I
2:38:59tend to like business philosophy, too,
2:39:00and I don't want to stop. Like, what are
2:39:01the things I like talking about? Like
2:39:03philosophy. I like wide business
2:39:05concepts. I like personal development
2:39:07and sort of in terms of like
2:39:09productivity, which is kind of kind of a
2:39:10wider topic. But I'm not going to stop
2:39:13doing that cuz I do like making that
2:39:14stuff. And so,
2:39:16I'll probably keep having shorts around
2:39:17that because the ROI is actually not
2:39:19from shorts turning into book sales or
2:39:21shorts turning into opt-ins. It's
2:39:23actually the shorts
2:39:24getting retargeted later with an ad that
2:39:27does go to something, but they're going
2:39:28to be more likely to recognize me and
2:39:31then take the next step in whatever it
2:39:33whatever the funnel is. Whether we're
2:39:34saying, "Hey, if you're starting a
2:39:35business, go check out School." Which by
2:39:36the way, again, wide.
2:39:38If someone's trying to start a business,
2:39:40then it makes sense for it to be a
2:39:41little bit wider for people who are
2:39:42trying to get into it. And so then the
2:39:44School ads can hit those people and it
2:39:46makes sense for them to use School,
2:39:47right?
2:39:48Uh if it's
2:39:50a business owner, I still think that
2:39:52from a business perspective, we have a
2:39:53lot of business content in terms of our
2:39:55shorts. But I want to just address this
2:39:57in case you see it, so you're not
2:39:58confused about it. I still will have
2:39:59some wide content in short form
2:40:02um
2:40:02because of the reason I just said. And
2:40:04so, those are the kind of like the next
2:40:06steps. And if you guys find these kind
2:40:08of updates valuable with the metrics
2:40:10behind it, um the TLDR of this whole
2:40:13video is that
2:40:15what we said worked.
2:40:19And if you're an educator,
2:40:21toss out the views, focus on your
2:40:23customer, make stuff for them because
2:40:25likes ain't cash, views ain't cash, cash
2:40:28is cash. And so if you're trying to grow
2:40:29your business, make sure you're making
2:40:31the stuff for the people you actually
2:40:32want to make, not your ego.

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