#87 17 Years Of Brutally Honest Business Advice In 25 Minutes

0:00This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Every single day, you're getting lapped by people dumber than you that just work harder than you and take more shots than you do.

0:35This episode today, we're going inside a room with thousands of entrepreneurs who don't have brands they love quite yet. And we're going to help them create a brand that matters both personally and for their business. Everybody will say, what's the North Star of your business? I totally don't believe in that. It's not about you being famous, me being famous. I'd rather be rich than famous. The key to success is really...

0:59Hello and welcome back to the Big Deal Podcast. I'm Cody Sanchez. And this week, if you want to make a ton of money in your business, you're going to want to tune in. Jeff Bezos famously said, your brand is what other people say about your business when you're not in the room. The smartest entrepreneurs out there know one thing, that your brand is not just your reputation, it's your revenue. So if you want to make more money, you got to obsess on brand. And if you guys ever want to understand how I think about brand and how I've built 10 million followers online, hundreds of millions of views a month, and a couple businesses on the back of my favorite five-letter word, brand, this episode is going to be for you.

1:35How would you define personal brand is what I would like to say. I think we're in the age of AI, right? We all know this. You guys are seeing more content being created than ever. You're seeing more jobs being outsourced to technology than ever. We invest in it every single day. And I think when I started doing content, let's, what was that, four years ago online and caring about a personal brand, I was nowhere before four years ago. Never had filmed a video, never had done a podcast. I was a nerd in a spreadsheet in Excel. That's my happy place as an investor. I actually don't really love doing videos all the time.

2:08But I started to realize something, and that was that the ultimate differentiator that nobody sophisticated wants to acknowledge is not going to be capital, how much money that you have. And I know this because my friends at Sequoia, who are big, huge investors, they only allow nonprofits to invest now. They will not take actively many people's money. And simultaneously, the people who are building businesses now, who built these big, huge SaaS companies and these big tech companies, what are they starting to realize? because it's not product that's king, it's distribution that's king. And so it used to be, like, do you guys remember back in the day, like your first video, the first thing that you put out, do you remember telling somebody that you were going to do it or showing somebody and you got kind of like a little cringe?

2:50Did that happen to anybody in here? Like, why are you doing that? You're too old for that. You look silly. You know, why don't you just do the normal thing? Well, I think you guys were becoming the normal. And what is actually not so normal is to have a great product that nobody fucking talks about because you have no attention. And that is the power of personal brand. It's not an ego thing. It's not about you being famous, me being famous. I'd rather be rich than famous. But what it is about is it's about like, so 40 cents of every dollar of venture capital funding goes to where? Does anybody know?

3:25It goes to the big four. That's ads, right? It goes to Google. It goes to Amazon. All of the venture dollars go to getting distribution. Well, what if you guys have the products and then you are the distribution, AKA you are the big four. Well, then you don't have to spend as much on ad dollars and then you have an unfair advantage. And so I think personal brand is an okay way to say it, but I would say instead I'm becoming my own walking ad platform. And so that's the difference. When you were starting out as a content creator, did you feel like you faced some adversity as a woman? And is that just in our head or is it a true barrier?

4:08Well, there's two sides to the coin. One, as a woman, there is some real truth. When I was growing up and when I was first progressing in my career, I really never saw the difference between men and women. We were all Excel junkies. We were just in spreadsheets. My best mentors ever were men. And I didn't really see what my vagina had to do with it. You know, I'm like buying businesses. Seems unrelated. But also it's a fun word to throw around because people just go, ooh, you know. Yeah, you caught me on that one.

4:46It really just spices up the conversation. So I really never saw that it had much to do with anything. And I do think that is the mindset that you have to have if you're going to be on the internet. Like, it doesn't matter. Who cares? We're all human. It doesn't matter. That said, you know, I did sort of have a chuckle once I got on the internet a little bit more because it's not people in this room. You know, you just have a very high hater ratio that is, you know, hell hath no fury like a middle-aged man that has not accomplished what he wants still living in his mom's basement. You know? And we all know this because men, you guys do have a harder burden in some ways, which is like provide for us, become something, be an alpha, don't cry.

5:32All those things are real. And so if you don't recognize that, then I think that it is very easy for the trolls to often be men. That is just like real. That's not me virtual signaling as a woman. There is just like a nine to one ratio of men that talk shit on the internet to women talking shit on the internet. And that makes sense. Because you guys hear how you talk to each other. Could you imagine women? Imagine your girlfriends were like, you're so fat, you can't fit through that door. We'd be like, oh, my God. I don't know what happened. Why are you? And men are like, that's a Tuesday. So it's just different communication styles.

6:06So I will say, one, just get used to the fact that you're going to get more hate online as a woman. And we're not used to it. We didn't get rejected as many times as you guys did going up to women. We're not used to this negative feedback loop that you all have become accustomed to. Now, on the flip side, I always think, you know, you become the thing that you project out into the universe. So if you're like, it's hard being a woman. Nobody wants to give me respect as much as they do men. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You make yourself a victim, then you get treated like one. If you act like prey, you get preyed upon.

6:35So I don't really like that. And so then I try to, thanks. So I try to flip it the opposite direction and look at who the biggest creators in the world are. Who are they? Who are the most followed people on the internet? Women. Mel Robbins, Oprah, not even fucking close. It's the Kardashians. Dang. I wish. Sometimes I wish. I actually respect the hustle of the Kardashians a lot. We have different ethical and moral compass slightly, but I respect their hustle. So I think as a woman, you actually have the best opportunity ever. So don't ever tell somebody that it is harder to be a woman online because you are projecting that out into the universe, even if it might be true, except the fact that people are going to tell you, yeah, what did you sleep with him?

7:22Yeah, was it your daddy's money? Yeah, must be not. Okay, what the fuck ever, bank account comparison, motherfucker, right? So like that's kind of where I go. You let results speak. Yeah, scoreboard, you know, scoreboard. Love that. I follow you on Twitter. I love the stuff you tweet. And I've noticed a lot of founders in the tech space, that's their preferred platform. or I guess X, not Twitter, but I noticed you're on all of them and you have a team and you're doing all these things. So what are your preferred platforms? And then for someone in here who's like a little bit overwhelmed, like, do you have a favorite?

7:59Because somebody might be like, well, shit, it's just me. My tornado is kind of like a breeze, you know? How can I get this rolling? Yeah. Listen, I like diversification. I'm an investor that has a lot of portfolios in my company for a reason. That's my preferred preference. I know that at any given time, something will be up, something will be down, and I can have like the law of average. That makes me feel better. So my content strategy is the exact same. Some people say, go really deep on one thing. You know, focus on one thing until you make your millions. I'm math-based. So I go, nobody does that in investing.

8:34If that was a real strategy, you would see that mathematically where people put their money. And so I think anybody that's telling you that actually doesn't realize that they have survivorship bias. They went on one thing and it worked, which is actually an anomaly, not normal. And simultaneously, they don't actually understand portfolio theory and the rule of diversification. So the fancy response aside, I would say have a few platforms because one day you will get, I mean, there was a period, you guys, this is so ludicrous, but I'll say it in a room full of fellow creators. Like there was a period where a guy on Twitter by the name of like, I can't make this up, by the name of horny Adolf Hitler.

9:13That was his handle. Who was tagging me in things and saying that I'm a man and that also I have a trust fund and that my husband made all my money. He's a Navy SEAL. You guys know how much the government pays those guys. So I'm like, I'm not really sure how to refute all of these things. And so there was a period where I was kind of annoyed at Twitter. There's this gnarly guy yelling at me all the time there that didn't really feel that good, honestly. And my Instagram was like very happy. And everybody was like, rainbows, go girl, yes queen. So like, all right, I like Instagram this week. And so I sort of think at some point, if you're on the internet often, whether you're getting trolled or you're just not performing, it's kind of nice to have a few, which is not what people usually say.

9:57They say, go ham on one, dominate one, and then progress. And I play to the law of, I don't want to burn out. and I want to have an endurance sport, not a sprint. Like I had a guy come to my office the other day. He's a co-investor in one of our companies and he like, he never smiles. You got, like I can never tell if he's pissed or not. He's a really soft talker. He's very smart. He has no emotion though. Is he going to be really good on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube? And that's where he's pouring a ton of money. And I was like, guy, I'm not a rocket scientist, but this doesn't seem like a great idea.

10:34Like go to LinkedIn, go to Twitter. And so I think a lot of the time with content creators, you need a buddy and maybe it's somebody in this room to say, you're not good at that and that's not gonna probably work for you unless you do it totally differently. And that's perfectly okay. And so in the beginning, I did a newsletter because I like writing. I did Twitter because I like writing, now X. And I did Instagram because I'm just on it a lot. And those were the only three. And then I layered YouTube and I only recently layered a podcast. And so I think you can also go like three inputs. One, what are you uniquely skilled at?

11:12Two, what are you obsessed with? Three, what has the best opportunity for attention today? And so LinkedIn may be underutilized by many creators today. Many of the live streaming platforms are underutilized by creators today. And so you can steal some attention even when you can't exactly earn it just because it's a new platform. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business.

11:53The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

12:29Millions of you watching this every single month, but I just found out that 87 % of you are not subscribed. So make sure you subscribe to the channel so we can get better guests and help you even more. How are you optimizing content, I guess, like in terms of are you really focusing on the ideation and the writing and all the prep? You know, because I recently interviewed Alex Ramosi and he said, you know, I don't remember what he said, but something like a pound of prep is worth this much in post or something. And he was saying they do a lot of work before they even sit down to record versus just like, hey, let's go shoot content.

13:02Yeah. Well, that is a saying in starting the movie business, which is that a pound of pre-production is worth 10 of post-production. Okay. And so in the movie business, I think you can learn a lot. Like right now I'm listening to, it's a great book, probably worth you guys listening to, George Lucas's biography. And I listened to it because he talks so much about the pain of production. And that production could be pre, like the bleeding on the page, writing the ideas. It could be post, like the sitting in the dark editing room, trying to get it to all come together. There's like pain in the production, right?

13:39And so I really think it's actually, what do you want? And so George Lucas was famous, actually, for just run and gun. So he has a documentary film style where he just runs with a camera, kind of sees what happens. He doesn't even really direct his actors. The actors just go. And every time he says, I will fix this in the editing bay. And guess what? He's pretty fucking successful, I think. Made a billion dollars from content. And so I'm always really careful saying, here's the rule. Here's how you have to do it. Now that goes more viral when I say that, but it's a lie. And so there's no right or wrong way.

14:14You can choose what is your unfair advantage, which is what I try to do everywhere in life. George Lucas, not a very charismatic guy, pretty quiet. He likes the editing room. They say that the editor is the last storyteller. Something to think about, I think, in content, where a lot of people go, well, I'm going to write the idea, I'm going to shoot it, and then I'll just ship it off to, I don't know, whatever, some outsourced VA. The last storyteller is your editor, I believe. And so that is his preference. And then you have a Casey Neistat who thinks about every single shot that he's going to shoot, not only what he's going to say, but what the angle looks like, but the camera, but the lighting, but the time of day.

14:53Both of them are very successful. So you get to choose. What I would say the greats have is the greats have a system that works for them continuously over time. And so I want you guys to optimize for what makes this game something you can continue to play. Because the key to success is really consistency plus duration and ideation. So if you can do things for a long time, if you can do them the same way for a long time. And then if you can iterate on them or ideate on them to get a little bit better, you'll win. That's the same thing in investing as it is in business, as it is in content. So optimize for you as opposed to for a rule.

15:31What type of system would you recommend for someone who's like a solopreneur wearing multiple hats? We're trying to run our business, not just two. I think I got like six oars sometimes, you know, and I'm trying to hire people. I'm trying to train them and then they mess it up. and you get a VA and they post the shit backwards, you know, and it's like, I should have just done it myself, you know? So what's that system look like? Yeah, well, so in the SMB boardroom, which is where we teach people to build businesses and to build their content and operating systems, I talk about the stair-step model.

16:07So here's how I did it and how I've seen it work best in our portfolio companies. And then you guys can layer your own preferences on top of it. at first when you hire, you hire, at first when you start a business, content or otherwise, you are everything, right? You are the generalist. You're the janitor, you're the CEO, you're the poster, you're the editor, you're all of it. Then the second level, you hire generalists. So the VA is responding to emails, posting stuff, editing things, et cetera. Then you hire specialists. Those specialists end up being like your TikTok expert, your YouTube expert, you know, your salesperson.

16:47And then eventually specialists take over everything and you no longer really have generalists in your company. You have hyper-targeted snipers. So I call this the generalist to specialist cycle. And in your business, you probably feel where you are right now. You're either where you are everything, you are the all-encompassing generalist, or by listening to what you've explained to some of the audience, it sounds like most people are in a stage where you still have generalists. We're not yet at the specialist stage. What I will tell you is if you think that pros are expensive, try hiring an amateur.

17:20So one of the best things you can do in your business is hire people who are better, smarter, faster, and more specialized than you. So if it's easier to execute than ever, if we have more options at our fingertips than ever, then what really matters? In-person experiences, because we're human, we're tribal, we like to engage with people and the ability to get attention of the masses who do not want to have the in-person experiences. And so our entire, all of our businesses are built around community from the window washing painting companies having community all the way to our actual, you know, business buying or business building communities.

17:57I don't believe really in straight courses because I don't think that that is a great way to learn. I think you need to be around a group of other people all the time that are keeping you accountable one way or the other. And even better if it's not just accountability, but accountability with collaboration. That's a higher level of execution. A VA can keep you accountable. An idea man can help you execute at a higher level. How do you feel about the future of content right now as we sit halfway through 2025? Where is content heading? What trends do you see working? And what trends do you see like maybe we shouldn't be going that way anymore?

18:31Yeah. Well, the attention in this economy, where you find the most underpriced attention to me, is where you have something that is old, stayed, and sort of traditional, and you can take that and make it sexy. That's what I've seen continuously. So for instance, we have an old window washing company that was never something sexy. We turned it into a brand called Pinks. We got these hot young guys wearing these nice uniforms out there cleaning people's windows. They're doing cool kickflip tricks on skateboards, et cetera. They wear pink shirts, like you said? Yeah, and the company's called Pinks.

19:06And they're getting millions of views as a window cleaning company that now they have like 100 locations across the U.S. and we turned this old boring business into a sexy business. And why I like that is because it's much easier to stand out when you are in an area of people who don't even have Yelp pages, right? This is the difference. Whereas if you go and you try to become a beauty influencer right now, really tough, lots of competition there. You go and you try to talk about content online, lots of people talking about content online. Where can you find a niche where you can have expertise but nobody is trying to make that area sexy yet?

19:45I do not believe the underpriced attention is on a platform. I believe the underpriced attention is in your niche. And choosing your niche intelligently will catapult you. And if you think about it, most of us who are big did that. So I started talking about laundromats, and I started talking about the roofing companies we own and our window cleaning companies. I had no idea people would find that interesting, but I made it sexy, and we blew up. You see the same thing again and again with these underserved sectors. So that, I think, is where the future is headed. I also think in the future, like more and more people who are players, who like make a ton of money, who are really successful in what they do are coming into content.

20:25We're seeing it right now, for instance, with Silicon Valley. I used to get made a lot of fun of because why, if I'm an investor and I'm so good at doing all of this stuff, would you make content online? That's a common thought, right? If you actually have all this money and you've made all these investments, why are you making TikTok videos? And I think they're missing the game entirely, but they're not missing it anymore. And you're starting to see the biggest companies in the world, like Andreessen Horowitz, has a media arm now. They have a podcast. They're acquiring multiple media arms. And that's because they're starting to see what you guys see.

20:56But the last thing I see as a trend here is, you know, we have something called the contrarian operating system in our business. That's how we teach all of our business owners how to run their businesses with two thoughts. I want an enduring business. I want a profitable business. I don't really play the burn money at all costs and burnout game. I want enduring businesses that last for a long time and I want profitable businesses. So we teach people to use what's called the contrarian operating system. And a segment of that is our contrarian content system. And I think no matter what happens with trends, as long as you have a feedback loop for how you learn and how you implement what is happening in the world, you will win.

21:40And the reason why I know this is because that's how private equity works. Private equity guys are the richest people in the world for a reason. Why? Because they take in a system and they use that system continuously and that system is applied to whatever's happening externally out in the world. And so I would highly recommend if you guys don't already have an operating system your business runs on, you really should. If you don't already have a content system so that you do not become a job, an employee in a job as opposed to an owner in a business. If you feel like, hey, if I don't show up, the money doesn't show up.

22:14Hey, if I don't execute on this, nobody else can do it as good as I do. If any of those thoughts are coming around you right now, that probably means you have more of a job than you have a business. And that is also revenue agnostic. I've seen it with people who have$50 million businesses, and I've seen it with people who have a$100 ,000 business. And so the second that you get a system in place, your business completely changes and so does your content. And I think of content as a business. Yeah, it's like a second division within your company. At Contrarian Thinking, we believe in something called two oars.

22:46Have you guys heard of like North Stars before? Like everybody will say, what's the North Star of your business? I totally don't believe in that, in your content or your business. I think that is a giant fallacy in business building. Could you imagine if all I cared about in my content business was revenue. So if that's like a North Star, many people have, what's my annual revenue going to be for the year? Okay, let's play that all the way down. So if all I care about is revenue, what are you going to see on my content? Buy, buy, buy, next, upsell, downsell, discount, et cetera. Because I am going to try to extract as much revenue value as I can from my followers.

23:21What's going to happen to my followers if I only have a North Star of revenue? My followers are going to go down, right? So what you actually want is what we call the two oars. You have one or that is a quantitative revenue-driven or something that is like profit, revenue, etc. Then you have a second or and that or should be qualitative. That is like followers, for instance. So if all you cared about was followers and you were just optimizing for followers and you followed that all the way down, what would you do? Porn. Because that's where the most people follow on the internet. That's OnlyFans.

23:57That's, you know, that's the biggest creators in the world. show their butts. That's what happens. And so you don't want to follow that because then you're really not going to make as much revenue. And also you're going to have, you know, maybe some ethical issues. And so you want to have two oars. And I think about it like rowing a boat. You guys ever have your team go, ah, I have a little whiplash. Like last week you said followers. This week we need revenue. Last week it was views. This week it's conversion. Does that happen to you guys? Okay. And the team goes, can't we just pick like one direction?