Building Personal Brands like Ryan Serhant and Gary V: Calvin Hamilton | S2 Ep. 72

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder's Story. We're going to dive into all things personal branding, social media, from one of the incredible experts that I've followed for a while, and that's Calvin Hamilton, who is the CEO of Engine.fm. I was reading about some of your recent posts, Calvin. I'm like, I have to get this guy on because you've helped people like Gary Vee. Everyone knows him. Also, Ryan Serhant, which has been exploding now with his Netflix shows and everything that they're doing. and we've had both of them on the show before. So I feel like a lot of the things that they said may have been from you and the things that you have done for them.

0:44So I really wanted to dive into all of that. But I love your gaming name. Is it Rezi? Yeah, Rezi, R-E-Z-Y. Okay, you got to tell me about your gaming name because I had a gaming name, which was Max Powers. But how do you come up with this name? Oh, okay. So the origin of it is probably less interesting than you may think it is. back in the day on Xbox Live, which is the internet version where you can play video games with people online. It was very common on games like Call of Duty to have a gamer tag that was something unique and interesting sounding. And I wanted to have one myself. So I quite literally sat at my computer, opened the notes app, and then just put a bunch of letters in that I liked until I found something that I thought sounded good.

1:34And that's how I came up with the name when I was 12 or 13 years old. I love it, man. I just had to laugh because when I saw that, I'm like, I remembered my name and everything that I did around that. There's really a story. Let's dive in. So how did you get to work with people like Ryan Serhant and Gary V? I can't say that there was any kind of significant underlying master plan here at play. It really was, I think, extremely serendipitous in many ways. I got my start in marketing through creating content online, which really stemmed from this passion for video games. When I was a kid, I loved playing games, primarily Call of Duty.

2:17And it was through playing Call of Duty that I found out about what was at the time this niche, quirky site called YouTube. YouTube wasn't the behemoth that it is today. It was really only famous for videos like Charlie bit me. And so when you fast forward to seeing what it is today, a lot of this stuff makes a lot more sense. But at the time, there was a small community of people across the internet that were uploading their video game footage to YouTube to show how good they were or to provide commentary on certain strategies or whatever the case was. And I thought this was really cool. So I wanted to do the same thing.

2:52I thought I was good at playing the game. I saved up my allowance money and I bought this small device. It was a little box called a HOPOG HD PVR and you could basically plug it into your TV to record whatever was on your TV to your laptop. So I use that to start recording Call of Duty and making videos and publishing them on YouTube. And as I was going through this process, I wanted to make my videos even better. So I decided that I would learn how to edit the videos. And I pirated a version of Adobe After Effects. Mind you, I was 14 years old and I didn't want to pay the$1 ,000 or whatever the cost was for the software at the time.

3:28So I pirated the software, taught myself how to edit in Adobe After Effects, watching YouTube tutorials. I also decided to do the same thing with Photoshop so that I could make better thumbnails so that more people would click on my videos and channel art so that it would look more professional. And it was through doing this that I ended up getting introduced to an industry called the multi-channel network industry, which was effectively talent management for YouTubers, where you would help other creators grow their channels by helping them with their content strategies, with their thumbnails, with the editing of their videos, and all of these other things.

4:02Once I got into the MCN industry, which I really got into through a free internship remotely for a company in the UK, I say a company, but it was really just a one-man startup. I really began to learn what the business of content looked like and how content was being monetized and what brand deals were and how you actually got brand deals and these integration opportunities. And it was through that that, you know, throughout my high school career, if you will, I spent four years working part-time remotely for various companies online. And by the time I was a senior in high school, I was working as the director of channel operations and optimization for what was the seventh largest MCN on YouTube called ScaleLab.

4:46When I graduated high school, I had this weird, very niche portfolio of work experience on this platform, helping creators with their content. And it was by some extreme lucky situation or, you know, the stars happened to align for me where Gary Vaynerchuk tweeted on Twitter shortly after I graduated high school saying, Hey, I'm looking for somebody to help me on the YouTube platform. Yeah, please email me. And after kind of mulling over my options and thinking about it, I sent him a cold email. I was 18, just graduated high school. I had again, this niche portfolio of experience. And I said, Hey, if you'd be willing to give me a shot, I will work harder than anyone else.

5:31And he emailed me back the next day, connecting me with his team that led to a few phone interviews. And after those interviews, I got the job, I then moved to New York City, decided not to go to university and worked for Gary for about two years before starting my own agency. And when I started my own agency, Ryan Serhant was one of my first clients because I met his videographer at a dinner party in the East Village. I feel like the most successful people would say timing might be the most important part of business, right? Like if this was fast forward 10 years, you know, if it was behind three years, do you feel like timing?

6:11Obviously, you worked hard. The letter, I mean, that is bold. Most people obviously didn't do that. otherwise they would have chose someone else. But how do you feel timing plays into the success for you? Timing, which I think is another way of saying luck in many ways, played an extraordinarily large role in my career. If Gary looked for a YouTube manager a year earlier, I wouldn't have been able to do it because I would have been in high school. If he looked for it a year later, I would have been enrolled in university and I probably would have had the sunk cost fallacy of, oh my God, I already paid so much in tuition.

6:46There's no way that I'm going to back out now. So yeah, no, it's played such a significant role. And I think about that frequently because as much work as I did throughout high school and as many things as I did to be prepared for that opportunity, the opportunity itself being presented when it was, was completely out of my control. Getting Ryan Serhant as a client only happened because I went to a dinner party that I was not really that inclined to go to, which is where I met Ryan's videographer or the guy that became Ryan's videographer. Rather, he wasn't even the videographer at the time. And then multiple months later, when I was running ads for Gary, I was still at VaynerMedia and they needed somebody to help Ryan run ads for his new online course.

7:29You know, I got a text from Adrian and he said, is there any way you would be able to help with this? Like luck plays such a huge part in it. However, you do have to do a significant amount of work to make those opportunities worth anything. And so it's a combination of both where hard work with great timing and luck is what creates the opportunity. But you cannot discount the amount of impact or the impact that luck and timing have on that equation. yeah so i guess you have to be ready you have to be prepared for when that time comes which is maybe where people fall short as they're not prepared so i remember a few years ago when tiktok was like everyone gary were like get on the tiktok the virality was insane which i think they were like the smartest when it came to create this ability for everyone to basically go viral and then everyone is hooked to that and they're going to continue on the platform but how is it nowadays, I feel like things are not as easy as they once were.

8:35Maybe I'm totally wrong. So I'd love to hear your opinions on if somebody was like, I want to start today. And I just feel like there's just so much competition. And there's so many people doing the same thing that I'm doing. What would you say to that person? I think that TikTok today behaves very similarly, if not exactly the same as it did in 2020, when it was really blowing up and that these creators were hopping on it and saying, hey, this is such a huge opportunity and that the distribution on this platform is insane. The only difference between today, September in 2024 and September 2020, is that there's significantly more competition now on TikTok because more people have recognized what the opportunity is.

9:20But the algorithm, which I'll put in quotation marks, behaves the same because ultimately the only thing that algorithm is optimizing for is we want to show you the content that you are most interested in and that you are most likely to engage with so that then you'll stay on the platform for longer so that we can show you more ads so that we as a platform, TikTok, Instagram, whatever, can make more money. And that hasn't changed. That philosophy and the way that that algorithm operates, which is show the best content to the people that are most likely to enjoy it, is still exactly as it once was.

9:55The only difference is that there are more people that have recognized the opportunity that's in front of them. And thus, there are more people creating content, which means that in order to stand out, in order to create good content, you just have to try a little harder. Because what was considered good back in 2020 is probably just considered decent today. Whereas, you know, back then, a simple video that was a talking head where you didn't really put a whole lot of time and energy into the strategy of the video or your presentation or the editing as far as post-production is concerned, that's not going to fly just because there are other people that will create a video that is just as good, if not better, because they put more thought into the strategy, they put more thought into the script, and they're willing to go through all of the hoops and hurdles of going through the post-production process.

10:44So it's just that the bar has been raised for what's considered good, but it's not that the algorithms have changed or that the platforms have changed or that the opportunity is not there anymore. Just means you have to try a little bit harder. No, thank you for clarifying that. I was just reading a really interesting article around some YouTube creators, how they're testing really long form content. Like one was saying he went from one hour to two to three hours to four hours, and they thought they would lose people. But turns out they were getting more people watching longer. I think even Lex Friedman just did like nine hours of content or something insane.

11:20So how do you see what are you because I know you work with a lot of people and different creators. So what are you seeing in terms of like what are perfect lengths when it comes to YouTube? And is it because people are also like putting YouTube on and just listening to it all day long, almost as if it's like a podcast? Yeah. OK, great question. This is something that I get asked somewhat frequently, I would say. And I think that the answer to a lot of these questions as it pertains to social media best practices and what's the best strategy are significantly simpler than people think that they are.

11:54So the short answer is that the key metric that YouTube measures is watch time, right? They want people to watch videos for as long as humanly possible. Why do they care about watch time? because the greater the watch time, the more time you are spending on the platform watching content, right? Those are equivalent. That's what watch time means. And the more time you spend on the platform, the more ads they can show you. And the more ads that they can show you, the more money they make. So that's the equation. So watch time when increased, YouTube is going to promote that video like crazy. If your video gets significant amounts of watch time and people watch hours of it, that means that YouTube is going to promote it like crazy because they can show more ads and they can make more money.

12:40So what does that mean for you as far as what is the best length for content? There is no real best length. The longer, the better, but only to a degree. I would much rather see you create a fantastic 10-minute video than a decent one-hour long video because the real thing that you're trying to do is captivate your audience and actually get them to watch the video. And so if somebody watches your full 10 minutes of content, that's significantly better than somebody watching five minutes of your hour long video because you tried to stretch it out so much. So when it comes to a podcast like Lex Friedman's podcast, which I think the one you were referring to was with Elon Musk, like that's inherently going to be very interesting content because you have a really good interviewer talking to one of the richest men in the world who's very eclectic, right?

13:33Just like a unique human being. And that makes the content interesting. So people are willing to sit around for five, six hours, however long it is. And then YouTube, when they see that, oh my God, people are watching this thing for five hours. Now let's push it like crazy because this is a cash cow for us. So that's really what you're looking at. Length itself is more or less irrelevant. It has relevancy because the longer the video, the greater the opportunity for increased watch time is. But it's really important that people want to watch the video to begin with. And so you should focus on the quality before you focus on the length.

14:09I would like to see how much revenue Lex made from that video. Like how much earned, how much did he earn from that video? I would like to see that. I'm sure it was quite a bit. I don't know how many millions of views it's gotten, but I can imagine whatever the CPM is, it's probably pretty high. So when it comes to what you all do, I know you work with different social media platforms, podcasts. I know you do editing, short form, long form, like all the things that you've been doing. What do you find is mostly when it comes to like when clients come in, what do they need? And then what services are you like most excited to be able to offer?

14:50Got it. So the way that we've positioned the company and our service is really we focused on personal branding first. That's the priority for us. I think that having a personal brand or an online presence as an individual, especially if you're an executive or an entrepreneur, is imperative. You kind of can't operate without one in many ways. It's not to say that it's absolutely mandatory, but the benefits that you receive from having an impactful personal brand online far outweigh the cost of investment in terms of not having one. And so the reason why I mentioned this is that the approach that we've taken to building personal branding is we actually focus on podcasts specifically.

15:41The reason why we focus on podcasts is that I fundamentally believe that it is the best strategy for growing an audience really quickly online. And I think that's for a few reasons. First and foremost, you get cross-pollination of audiences. Everybody that you have on your podcast is likely going to want to promote the fact that they were on your podcast because it's really humbling. I'm really excited to be on the show right now. And when this show is finished and it goes live, you know that I'm going to post this on my LinkedIn and I have my 10 ,000 followers and they're going to want to go check out this article and the video that comes with it and so on and so forth.

16:13So it's great for you as far as the natural distribution of this content is concerned to bring other people on. We're leveraging that same strategy with our clients by putting them in the position of the host of the podcast, asking their client or their guests interesting questions. Second to this is that the guests that our clients are inviting onto their show fit their ICP. So in other words, what that means is everybody that our client invites onto their podcast would otherwise be a really good prospect for our client to put into their business or into their sales pipeline. And so the net result of that is twofold.

16:50Not only is our client building rapport with the person that they're on a call with, right? Because after this call, if you sent me a message and you said, Hey, Calvin, can we hop on the phone for 15 minutes? I'd love to ask you a couple of questions. And it's a sales pitch. My inclination to say yes to that is significantly greater now that we've had this conversation compared to before, if we hadn't had this conversation and you led with that question. If you tried to get me on the phone for a sales pitch first, it's going to be much harder than if you do it after we've spent, you know, whether it's 15, 20, 30 minutes building some rapport through an interview.

17:25Secondly, if you're inviting what would otherwise be defined as a prospect to be the guest on your podcast, the main people that are going to tune in to listen to that content are probably similar to your guest. If I have a podcast where I'm focused on interviewing B2B SaaS executives, because most of the clients that I have for my company are B2B SaaS companies, the people that that content is going to be most relevant for are other B2B SaaS executives. So that's the audience that I'm going to build up. And that's the listenership that I'm going to receive is from people that work in the B2B SaaS industry.

18:01And so subsequently, I'm building a great target audience through my content of exactly who I otherwise want to sell on my service. So the question of how should people approach brand building and what's the most efficient way to build an audience? For me, I genuinely believe from the bottom of my heart that podcasting is the best way because you get the cross-colonation of audiences and because you get very specific people to interview on that show. And it's also, I would have to say, it's much easier to create content when you get to ask new people questions, as opposed to when you have to think of new content ideas, just yourself.

18:39So that's our approach. We take a, you know, it's, it's personal branding first, but the, the medium that we use to get there is podcasting because I think that it's the most efficient, not to mention once you have that long form asset, right? You can cut it up into a bunch of different other pieces of content. I can go on Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. You can transcribe it and make it into a great LinkedIn an article and so on and so forth. So that's the thought process behind the company and kind of how we positioned ourselves. I'm glad you bring that up because we started the show about four and a half, almost five years ago.

19:11And I've been telling people so many times, like, look, it's not just about the viewers. And yeah, maybe not everyone's going to have a show with millions of viewers or maybe even not thousands. But the fact that you can bring people in and generate leads with like your most incredible person that normally would have a hard time even getting them on the phone because everybody wants to be interviewed. Everybody wants exposure. I'm so glad you're bringing that up. And I want to dive a little bit into that. I think podcasting or podcast invites are Trojan horse sales calls in many ways. And people don't fully recognize that yet, which is exactly why it deserves that reputation.

19:53I know. Maybe that's why I got you here. But no, so it could be, I don't know yet. We'll find out afterwards. So I'm curious though. And I think this is where I think a lot of people might fail is, okay, they do the interview and I'm curious on what's worked for you. So you finish the interview and then what? Okay. So let's say that I fit your ICP. I am your target audience and you otherwise have a product service that you want to sell me on. After we finish this interview, the best thing that you could do would be to say, hey, you mentioned something in the podcast that got me really interested.

20:33I actually think there might be an interesting opportunity for us to work together on X, Y, and Z. Any chance we can book, you know, five, 10, 15, 30 minutes on a call to, you know, figure out if there's some synergy there. I'm going to feel pretty inclined to say yes to that. I just spent 20, 30 minutes on the phone with you recording a podcast. We had a great conversation. I enjoyed myself. It's a cool experience for me because I got invited onto a show and it's positioning me as a thought leader, right? It's much easier for me to say yes after that rapport has been built than it would have been before.

21:06And so if you just, you know, make it natural, right? Don't force it. Don't follow up with me and say, hey, I want to sell you on my service or hey, you know, I want to pitch you or, you know, there's this, I guess, a hundred ways in which you could mess that up. But if you make it part of a natural conversation, I think that's when sales is done best, right? Is when it feels natural. Then, you know, I think that the conversion rate that you'll see on getting those same prospects to agree to a follow-up meeting to then be pitched is significantly greater. And when I say significantly, I mean multiples, you know, greater than if you had just tried to send me a sales message from the get-go.

21:45Well, good thing, because I almost pitched you before we finish. So I'll wait till the end. I'm only kidding. But Calvin, no, this has been great. It's something I have been preaching for a very long time, a very, very long time about the power of podcasts and audio and content in the form of lead generation, but not just from the content, right? Which is for me, like LinkedIn, I don't think I've ever made money from LinkedIn from my content, even though I used to get millions of views. And now I get very little views from the algorithmic changes of LinkedIn. But LinkedIn as a platform has been amazing.

22:25And a lot of that is, like you're saying, getting people on, sharing the content, putting them in newsletters, spreading them out to a lot of different places where they might not be getting a lot of calls for podcasts because maybe they don't have a big following. So people are not going after them as a guest. And it's like getting these people on. But I love the fact that you guys are helping the person with all the content creation and all the things that really take up way too much of our time. And many of us don't do because of our time or we're nervous or whatever the reason. Right. So thank you so much for sharing today.

22:59But if people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more because I'm I am really a proponent that most people need to be doing this, but maybe not too many people, because then people might find out, but enough people, maybe like a hundred more clients your way or something like that. A hundred would be way more than what it is that we're looking to take on. So if that happens, I guess we'd be in a good position. So if people want to get in touch with you, how can they do so? You can email me. Email is calvin, C-A-L-V-I-N at engine.sm. I'm always available there or you can send me a message on any social media platform.

23:38My LinkedIn is just Calvin Hamilton and then most of my other social media platforms are resi.io Amazing Calvin you have a voice for radio I can tell I can tell you a face too you got the face and the voice for radio so that's why you do the video and audio side but I really appreciate you being here. We always have fun with guests like yourself out there. We're serious, but we're not too serious on everything. We're seriously fun here at Founder Story, but really appreciate your time and congratulations on the success. And I love the fact that timing and luck and hard work all played into the things that you've done in your life.

24:17And I can't wait to see where this goes, but thanks again for being here today. Awesome. Daniel, thank you so much for having me on.