172. How to Build a Profitable Personal Brand Before It’s Too Late ft. Chris Do

25:44Chris Do:Yeah. Well, if you believe in a lot of the business management consultants, they'll tell you this, which is all businesses exist to make a profit. You have to have profit so you can continue doing what it is that you're doing. When you run out of money, you run out of runway and you can't do this anymore. You have to lay off people. You have to like pull back your offer and then someone who does it better than you will eat your lunch and then ultimately absorb your customers or your community. And so businesses exist to make profit. And they look at every endeavor as a measure against investment of time and money and people and resources.

26:19Chris Do:So it's very transactional that way. And so a lot of times, and one of the other reasons why Clubhouse was ruined is because all great ideas are ruined by marketers, right? When it was just real people connecting, talking, trying to figure out this social audio thing, And marketers come in like, wait, we could just sell a lot of our coaching programs. We could get you to buy a book, buy my course or do something. And it just became like, oh, it's just spam all over the place. So this is where I want to separate business branding and personal branding because there's a reason why there's two different words here.

26:55Chris Do:But what people don't understand is they borrow the playbook from corporate branding and they bring it right over to personal branding. They do the same things. They create a fake persona. They build an identity that isn't real, optimize for conversions. And they're looking at everything they do as, well, I'm only writing this to get customers. I'm only doing this to get people to sign up for my book so I can become a bestseller. And so, again, they're turning it transactional. I was talking to a friend of mine, a new friend. His name is Ryan Dice. And Ryan was saying that there are three types of people.

27:26Chris Do:We'll focus on the top two. And there are relational people, people who care about each other and will go out of their way to help you without any expectation of return. And that's why some of the content that people will go out there and help homeless people or to help people get on their feet does so well, because we want to see goodness in the world as much as we want to see ugliness too. Then there's the other type of person, which is a transactional person. A transactional person says, I only do this when I can see the ROI and what I do. And believe it or not, there are quite a few people like that too.

28:00Chris Do:So what we don't want to do is mix up those two in our mind. And if you're a transactional person, I'm not saying you're a bad person, that's just who you are. So I don't think of you as a friend. I think of you as a reliable business partner or a vendor or a client. And when the business is done, the relationship is done. Okay? Am I here to say judgment or you should be one or the other? Ryan says the third type of person is the Machiavellian kind of person, which pretends to be the relational person, but is doing something else. He says, those are the people you have to really look out for because it's like deception and fraud.

28:34Chris Do:They tend to be the scammers and the fake gurus. So when you create a piece of content as a personal brand, your highest order should be to be able to express yourself in the truest way, to be vulnerable and transparent. Because in doing so, you're giving yourself permission to be okay with yourself, to be comfortable in your own skin. And we're trying to figure this whole thing out from birth to death. Who am I? What makes me me? And what's the meaning of my life? So I'm just trying to help people do that inner work publicly while they're doing it. And so yeah, some level of self-development, self-awareness needs to happen because otherwise you say things aren't even true because you're totally unaware not that you're a bad or malicious actor but you just don't know talk to me a little bit about impact within your content and how that in turn has made people run to pay you like i think about the people that put out great content even with like with my ad agency for example feel like we don't have to do tons and tons and tons of selling because we put out a lot of great content on how brands can win on social.

29:47So then someone at a brand sees it and goes, Hey, this was super helpful. I implemented it. It worked. I would love to pay you for it. And even with our pod at the very beginning of the whole entire thing, how can we impact people with what we know or what the friends that we have in our network know? And now I think to the people that we're able to have on and they are able to one, deliver tremendous impact of the stories that have helped their businesses and then people go and implement it into their stuff and they're willing to buy something from us or share our stories, share the pod, it's like become it's just kind of like the snowball has rolled down the mountain all because of the tip top of the mountain.

30:23There's just this thing of impact and value. I'm curious how impact and value goes into the stuff that you're making, because I remember you said something a long time ago. You're like, when I finally started doing value based content, my brand skyrocketed. A lot of it was me, me, me, me, me for so long. I'm just curious of that shift. Yeah.

30:42Chris Do:So if we, we'll zoom out a little bit and kind of look at how societies, communities, and villages develop, tribes, if you will. There is an kind of an implied social contract that we have with each other. If we're going to be friends and neighbors, and we work together cooperatively, like if you think about it, if you're in a house or an apartment, like there's some general guidelines like don't take my stuff. I won't take your stuff. Mind my space. and don't run over me in your car. There's like basic things that societies need to survive and thrive. We live in a large society. It's called the United States of America.

31:21Chris Do:And there are certain tenets that we hold to be true. Depending on where you go, it changes a little bit. But some things are necessary as the glue to hold us together. And one of those things is written by Dr. Caldini and his book, Influence the Psychology of Persuasion. and one of the principles is called reciprocity right so when you do something for someone most good-natured non-sociopath people will say like wow that was really kind let me help you out and in the book he talks about this he says like they do these experiments when there's two people and they're one part one person's an actor and the other person's a real person they're studying them they were volunteering to take some kind of quiz or test and one guy says to the other guy the actor says you know um i'm gonna go get a coke or soda from the machine do you want anything and they're like no i'm good he goes and gets the soda and comes back he's like you know i got you on anyways and the person doesn't even want it but oh cool he goes you know um my my daughter's trying to like sell girl scott cookies and things like that and we're trying to get her to go to camp or whatever would you be interested in buying some cookies and they're like yeah even though they didn't want the coke they're going to buy the cookies because reciprocity has been activated because we don't want to feel like we owe anybody anything and so they do this test of course the people where they don't offer coke and they just ask to buy the cookies they're less likely to buy on orders of magnitude less and they said if you study what the harry christians used to do they would follow people around their entire organization is built around donations and people feeling like they need to give something.

33:05Chris Do:So they would give you this book, a gift to you, you know, a gift to you. And they'd give you a book. And I don't want a book. I'm shopping with my family here. And you hold the book and I'm like, can you get a donation? And you're like, sure. Here's five bucks. Right? And you would throw away the book. And then what they did was someone else, another Hare Krishna, would go in and pull it out of the trash and give it to the next person. What they realized is books are heavy. Books are expensive. so they would just give people a flower. The same thing through activating reciprocity. So we understand that we need this.

33:36Chris Do:Even though we know about the concept because we live in a society, we can't resist this. This is why people are like, free sample, you want a taste of this? Oh, let me put this lotion on you right now. Can I clean the window of your car? And you're like, oh no, I don't want that. But then you still feel like I need to buy something. I have personal stories I can share. They're like, even though I know the concepts, even though I teach it, I can't help but to feel this way. It's why when you go into a high-end luxury goods department store or a boutique, what do they do? You're like, oh, hey, can we get you something?

34:13Chris Do:Would you like some sparkling water? And they don't do it out of the tap. They give you a nice little bottle. You're like, damn it. I know I'm going to spend a couple thousand dollars on something I don't want today. Because they've activated reciprocity. So when you create content, think about this guys, that helps me, that transforms me, that gives me clarity on my relationship and my business or my creativity or something like that, and you keep doing it over and over again, at some point I start to feel bad about myself. I need to buy something from Brady and Acostas. I need to do something with the boys.

34:50Chris Do:I need to recommend them for something or give them a review or something like that. Now, it's not a one-to-one relationship. So when you start to count one-to-one, you've just moved from the relational type of person to a transactional type of person. And so we look at there's lots of content creators. I don't know how many millions of channels and YouTubers and creators there are. But some have high view count, but low reciprocity because they've not done anything for you. And sometimes when you entertain us, where you don't feel like, yeah, you did that for you. You're an entertaining person.

35:27Chris Do:So what I do is I pay you with a view and a like and a subscribe. But I don't owe you any more. This is where personality and showing up with beliefs, values, and telling people more of your story really can make a big difference. That is so interesting because we were talking about that the other day, how there's so many TikTok creators, YouTubers that are getting millions of views and they're entertainers, but you don't see it come through with anything business-wise that they do because you don't know much about them. It's kind of surface level, right? It's like the entertainment, but you're like, I don't even know where they live.

36:00I don't know anything about their relationship, their family, whatever. And it is like a wild thing I want you to kind of analyze for us. Like why does someone who gives maybe educational value or something in that realm, why is someone willing to transact with them over someone who is more just on the entertaining side of things?

36:21Chris Do:Well, let's break down. We won't name names to protect the innocent, but let me tell a couple of genres, okay? There are people who do like top 10 lists. Top 10 things I learned from this person. Top 10 things that this person said. That's cool. You've organized the information for me. You're not even in the videos. It's not even your ideas. You've done the work. So I feel like the payment for you is to watch this video. I don't even know who you are. I don't see you. I don't hear your voice, okay? And then there are other kinds of creators who might like cook. There's some amazing people who are like, oh, you're making me hungry by watching this content.

36:55Chris Do:That's cool. If you had a restaurant, I'd go there, but most of these people don't have restaurants. They've actually quit that industry just to be a full-time creator. So again, I like it. I'll tell my friends to check it out. It's really great, but I don't feel like I owe you anything. So once we break beyond the entertainment, like when we watch things like Netflix or Amazon or Hulu or Apple Plus, we don't feel like we owe them anything. And that's some high production. With great writing, great acting, visual effects and all that stuff. Because it's entertaining. We already gave you the money.

37:28Okay?

37:28Chris Do:This is really important right now. So many years ago, I saw Alex Hormozy speak on stage. He goes, you know what? If you give people for long enough, you don't ask them for anything. When you ask them for something, you could ask for something really big. The problem is, and this is tying into a much bigger idea. this idea that there's a bank of karmic equity okay every time you do something good that you give value to people you make a deposit and it compounds in interest over time so think about every time you're like hey buy my book uh go subscribe to this thing you've emptied out the account it's not a one-to-one relationship you can give like five times the value and you ask for something it kind of empties out so his game and i believe in this myself is just to make as many deposits in the bank of karmic equity so that you become a millionaire or billionaire in in karma so that when you ask for something you can have a gigantic ask and everyone will feel great to give to you it also like i think of gary v as well like the jab jab jab right hook theory of just give away as much value as possible.

38:40And like you said, you deposit those into people feeling like they owe you something because you've given them so much. I think that's a great just like basic level of like how you should approach creating content. You also said something. I was watching one of your talks recently and you said the riches are in the reaches and not in the niches. And I thought that was really interesting and I'd love to go into that. we kind of touched on a little bit earlier where you're like you first have to figure out like if creating content is for you or if it's not and if it's not it's all good but if it is great so if someone is in that like this is for me i want to create content i want to grow a personal brand why are the riches in the reaches versus the niches okay i i just do want to say something like sometimes I write just because it rhymes.

39:36Sounds pretty good to me.

39:36Chris Do:And then you're like trying to like pull it apart. It played well. Like, uh, bruh, that's all I got. No, I'm just kidding. So in this one, uh, the model has drastically changed, right? If we just look back 10, 20 years ago, here's how it all works. Uh, TV was made to sell advertising. And so how do we do this? Well, we got to create something that's interesting for people to watch some program, a talk show or something like that, or a scripted drama. And then during the commercial breaks, we're going to pitch like crazy to you. And the people who advertise during that time block, they're basically funding the production of this program.

40:11Chris Do:So there's a model here. There's a network, and you tune into networks to consume unique and locked content. And you deal with the commercials so they can continue to watch the content. This is the model. okay the way that the world works now is we've collapsed the network the the production studio and the advertising agency into like one person you are the network you have specific types of content that's locked to you so when you create that kind of content people will watch it and they'll feel a personal connection to you some people have been able to do that at a massive scale. Some for being famous, some for being really good looking, but some for like really giving tons of value and doing it in an entertaining kind of way.

41:03Chris Do:So that when they're able to flip that and make it into like a billion dollar exit, that's pretty wild. So we now understand that all brands, all products and services want that same reach. They just don't go through traditional networks anymore. So they're looking at your level of engagement, who's engaging with you, and the strength of the relationship, and are your values aligned. So this is really important. So some companies come to me, and I think I'm attracted to a different kind of company, a more business-oriented company, or maybe an AI or something else. And they give me different opportunities to work with them.

41:44Chris Do:As an advisor, as an equity stakeholder, as an affiliate partner or something like that because they're like, you speak to the audience that we want to get. And your level of personality, professionalism or production is exactly what we want. And for that, we'll pay you. And the problem with it being in the niche is this, is that when your content is so niche or niche down, is that your audience is so, so small. And you have to learn how to grab larger audiences to bring them into your niche. And there are some people who do this really, really well. And so if you can't figure out how to reach people and you don't know how to teach people, you're not going to be wealthy in this new 21st century model.

42:27Can you explain to me with your own content how much of it is, I've done this before, I know this works versus I'm testing something new here. Is it 90-10? And what are your thoughts when you do post something new? Are you very tied to it? Are you like, I'm just gonna see what happens here?

42:48Chris Do:Are you trying to expose me? No. I feel like, no. No, I'm just kidding. It depends on what I'm doing. If it's more business oriented around a creative industry, 99 % is I've done this. I know it works and I've done it many times. Will it work for you? I don't know because you're not me and you won't do it the way I did it. And you don't have the same pedigree, passion, and maybe talent. Who knows? But I know it works for me. Blair Ann said this thing. He says, all strategy is autobiographical. Of course, I'm going to tell you what's worked for me. Now, when it gets into this newer space of marketing, of branding, or writing, I know what works for me, but I'm not a person who spent 20 years in the marketing industry, direct marketing, performance marketing.

43:37Chris Do:I don't know how to do that kind of stuff. So sometimes when you ask me a question, it's the first time I've actually thought about it, but I'm pulling on a lifetime of experience, either in design, in practical experience, or things I've heard or learned from other people. and so I have high degree of confidence when I tell you what the answer is but I'm not saying it's backed by all the receipts because it's not but I'm almost certain it's a better solution than the one that you're going to do or the one that you're doing now more so with content creation specifically not like a framework that you're getting asked on the spot I'm more so talking about you know if we looked at a hundred percent of the content that you put out on YouTube how much of that is 80 i know this this idea i've talked about this this works and i'm trying maybe a new format here and i'm not married to how this thing does oh i see that's more so what i was asking i see i'm not married to the format at all i'm only interested in what works when when you talk about communication or teaching there's a transmission of an idea and then how is it received on the other end and sometimes the signal is or the message is good but the signal is bad so we just changed the signal and i try to find every single way that might cut through that will work for for anybody so we're trying a new format it's called man on the street it's a tried and true method it's been great you need to keep doing them they're awesome well thank you yeah i've done it twice so we got to go into the third one no i i saw someone comment like i'm glad you did it i don't know if it was one of your friends that told you to do it but it is a you're great at it you should really do it i think they're awesome well thank you for saying that but that allows me to talk about something else.

45:19Chris Do:So it's easy to get on a screen like this, relatively speaking, and just talk to people that you know and like and everything's cool. But all of, I think, human existence is about personal development. How do I grow? How do I stretch? And I think, I don't know who said this, but it's like the human mind once stretched does not return to its original shape. And I like that. Like for me, my life isn't worth living anymore if I don't feel like there's anything left to learn or to grow into. It's like, I'm just a lifelong learner, a constant improver. And so I talked to my friend, Brendan Cain, during an interview, and he's like, just analyzing all of our content.

46:01Chris Do:And I say to him, you know, I've been thinking a lot about doing a man on the street thing. He goes, oh, I had the format for you. Just do this thing. He goes, it won't work. You'll hate it. But here's what you should do. And he told me, And I'm a really good student in that when boss says do, I just do. I don't question. He goes, just ask people, how much are you worth? So people watch that episode and they're thinking, Chris is all talk. You ain't going to do this. It's never going to happen. But what they don't know is I'm a person of my word. My word is my bond. I'm doing this and I'm excited about doing it.

46:34Chris Do:And what they don't also know is I'm holding a spatula, walk around the house. Whoever comes near me, mom, tell me how much you're worth an hour. What are you worth? How much do you get paid? And I asked my wife and I'm just, because you're getting all kinds of weird responses. I'm preparing for when this happens on the street. And so I do them and they're working really well. Like we've only done two sets of these and the data looks amazing because the highest benchmark for the previous set was 200 some odd thousand views. And the last time we were talking more has over half a million views now.

47:06Chris Do:So I'm like, oh, and I didn't even think that one was that great, but it's just like, I just need to do it enough times. so that I can be great. It's like the school of hard knocks. The young guy who's going up to people and he's like, oh, how'd you make your million? Like, how do you know I'm rich? He's like, I just have a good inference. And he is so good. And when they're like, I don't have a sec, he goes, no, no, real quick, one question. He gets them to turn around. Or like the valet guy's like, you got to get out of here, man. He goes, no, real quick. We go all around the world asking millionaires and billionaires what they do for their business.

47:34He's got his pitch down. Yeah, he's got it so down. He's good.

47:38Chris Do:Right, once you put in your reps, you can do that. and then you start to figure out ways you can make something out of nothing. So here's the thing that you can learn about this thing as it relates to personal branding. Why do I even want to do Man on the Street? There's a reason why. So I haven't shared this publicly with too many people, so I'll say it now. Brendan says to me, Chris, you're an introvert, man. You're going to hate this. I did this. It was just, oh, you have to shoot so many episodes and it doesn't work and it's just so wearing. it's because that's his personality. And on the surface, I have a similar personality.

48:14But what I love to do is I love to kind of push and pull.

48:19Chris Do:I want to turn up the heat. And no matter what you say, I'm going to do something with it and I have enough experience. And my mindset going in isn't to convince you to start a business or quit your job. My only interest is to learn more about what you're doing and asking the questions that I think the audience wants to know. because I'm the audience. I want to know. So when you give me kind of a loosey-goosey answer, I'm like, well, I don't buy that. Let's go a little deeper. Or you're not comfortable sharing. And we just do that. And eventually, these episodes will get really raw and they're getting really spicy because that's how we're going to get into the place of stop pretending.

48:56Chris Do:Let's just talk truth for a minute. That excites me. And in a different life, if I was a native-born American raised by American parents, I think I would have been like a stand-up comic I love watching stand-up comics do crowd work because you're like how do you know how to say that you're so witty you're so quick and how did you turn a piece of garbage into like a really great set you know how'd you do that that was so I just watch them do crowd work I'm like I want to do that not with the same amount of pressure but I want to practice that and so maybe someday I'll get really good at it so the man on the street it's a perfect format for my personality my passions my hobbies and what i think i'm strong at all right we'll do this okay we'll prep we'll all three prep a five minute stand-up routine open mic and we'll uh we'll see how we do i've totally fantasized about it too yeah i'm only doing crowd work though that's a problem about stand-up who are your favorites yeah who do you name andrew schultz schultz schultz is the best yeah he doesn't do much anymore because he's too he's too busy being rich and famous i think but back in the day you look at his old clips he's so good he's so witty with the comments and the phrasing and there's something that all comics who do really well have which is this biting tongue with with a little bit of vulnerability and sincerity if you look at joe coy he'll he'll he'll crack you and then he'll put in his like injured voice where his voice literally cracks as if he's speaking to his mom like you know like i matter you know you know that kind of voice yeah schultz does that too um and i think matt rife is pretty good but sometimes his his jokes are a little corny but he's quick-witted jimmy carr is amazing like probably one of the best just so good like whoa you just pulled out of nothing It's amazing to see people do this.

50:58You brought up how you don't want to feel in a way satisfied with what you've done. You always want to try to get better. And I saw, I believe it was Actors on Actors. It was Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. And Mark Ruffalo was giving Robert Downey Jr. a compliment saying, man, like it's been so cool to work with you for all these years. you're continuously trying to get better as someone who doesn't have to like you have all the money you have all the accolades like he asked him like what kind of keeps you going and robert downey jr goes well what the fuck's the point if you're just like sitting in in your past and thinking to yourself i've done it all like i'm good i feel like as as artists we're always trying to constantly get better and push the envelope and i just that made me think of what you were saying because you're always trying new stuff and you're always trying to get better so that just reminded me of that like whatever your art form is you know whether you're a teacher or an actor or a creator of such like we're always trying to get better it doesn't matter how long you've been doing it and you lean into that uncomfortable uncomfortable that's a good word you know uncomfortable there it is you lean into that and i think that's something that's always

52:19Chris Do:Wait, what did I lean into right in? Uncomfortability. Got it. Boom. Or discomfort. You lean into, that's an easier way to say it. You lean into discomfort and you can see that why I think you've kept growing. Many of the people that are in this educational space or started out as business owners, then pivoted into it later on, their brands just die after a certain period of time because what worked four or five years ago doesn't work anymore. And we're even seeing this now with some of the ads that we're running. You can see what worked six months ago and it was like, oh, the cost per click was this.

52:51Let me tell you, it's not the same today. Okay, it's completely different. Spending some money. And it's a totally different ballgame. It's always evolving and the best people will say, okay, you know, you don't seem married to formats. And I think that's really awesome. On the flip side of that, one of the ideologies that you preach is to not chase new when trying to build a successful personal brand. So can we kind of flip the script a little bit and touch on why someone shouldn't chase new when trying to build a successful personal brand?

53:20Chris Do:Yeah, I think there are a lot of ideas that get mixed up in popular culture and part of the conversation, right? Like, well, I want to do new, fresh, innovative things. And history has shown us that people who try to do new, fresh, innovative things don't wind up doing so well. And so you're like, well, Chris, what are you saying then? Just do what everyone else is doing? No, there's just a different thing. So when we say new, we're talking about chasing something external. What's next? And there's always something that's next. Next trend, next format, next platform. And this is what we see people doing.

53:54Chris Do:When something doesn't work, they just move to the next thing and the next thing. And chances are they never really get good at anything. What I'd rather say is rather than try to be so freaking innovative by trying to look outward, be innovative by looking inward. And it's a little bit different. So people are like, well, don't you like the idea of being original? Like, is it new being original? Well, it depends how you look at the word original, because they share the same word as origin, which means at the beginning or the source of. So when we're talking about personal branding, if you want to be original, all you have to do is return to the source code.

54:35Chris Do:like who you were supposed to be in this life before society obligations school work family change you to be somebody else and you can see this happen across cultures or us across countries in that when we go to school we start to learn how to behave so that we can get along with other people we learn really early on like if you have little kids they're like that person's ugly why they do this you smell bad they just say all kinds of things i'm like that's rude don't say that Don't point at people. You know, people are different. So after a while, you start to learn all these rules. Raise your hand before you speak.

55:10Chris Do:Wait your turn. Never cut. Do this. So you're learning more and more rules, right? And you also learn that the people who are different are ostracized by the community. And when that happens and we can see that, we start to learn that it's very unsafe to be different. So the class clown usually is put in the penalty box. We're going to have a parent-teacher conversation about this. Or the person who's too smart starts to act up because the class is moving too slow. They're bored. Like your child lacks focus. Or perhaps your child is just too smart and you're not smart enough to teach them at the pace in which they're going.

55:52Chris Do:So I'm really all about this. But if we can see these effects happen over and over again across our most formative years from birth to like 20-something when we were graduating from school, you see now why we all show up in the uniform of life. We dress the same way. We talk the same way. We celebrate the same way. It's kind of wild. And it's almost scary to say something that's contrarian to the popular culture and what people believe. This is what's happened. And so we've stamped out all individuality. Somebody said, I'm going to butcher the quote a little bit, artists are adults who had survived childhood and didn't get this stamped out of them.

56:35Chris Do:That's all they were. They're just not good at following rules. Not good at all. And I was spending some time with a friend of mine. And he would ask me certain questions, almost kind of like a social experiment. Have you ever tried asking somebody for these things? Have you tried like cutting a line or doing any one of these weird things? Because we learned that's not right. You can't do that. Don't do this. Don't ask for a better price. Don't ask for a better seat. All these kinds of things, right? And then we just grow accustomed to like seeing things the way, I mean, it's very much akin to like the matrix.

57:10Chris Do:Do you think that's air that you're breathing? so i believe an entire matrix film is an allegory for us to understand that what we believe is concrete and rigid is not at all it's all very malleable and when you can learn that that's not air that you're breathing you'll be able to fly brayden you want to say something no i just love i love what you're saying and i think that you do have to you have to question everything otherwise you end up just following in line with the system yeah and i mean we both went to college right I understand how it was we were being trained to be employees and it wasn't until I feel like I graduated and I was like trying to be an entrepreneur and I'm like I don't know how to do taxes I don't know how to sell my business like sell my services to people I learned about advertising more so in theory not actually how we could go sell advertising and I think like I don't understand why we didn't have a whole degree that was sales because that's what damn near the whole world is and how how this whole thing kind of functions is on sales and as i got out i don't know i felt like you're almost like indoctrinated into into just following in line right behind everybody else it's super interesting yeah you bring up that like safe is risky which is interesting because you would initially think your mindset goes to this is safe this has worked in the past if it works for them it'll work for me but that's actually a risk correct yeah it's a line borrowed from paul arden's book whatever you think think the opposite he's a legendary ad man and his his chapter is safe is risky risky is safe when you do what everyone else is doing you get what everyone else is getting and if you're not already in position one two or three you're pretty much dead there's a general rule of thumb that the person in the first place in any industry or market is three times bigger than number two number two is three times bigger than number three.

59:04Chris Do:So basically, if you can't be first, second, or third, you're screwed. I almost feel like if you can't be first, you're screwed. And so if you just do all what everyone else is doing, it's not going to work out unless you're number one. And then now, why is risky safe? It's because, well, if you're doomed to do something, at least do something on your own terms to try an idea that might break through the noise, that might be an innovative business model it's just better that you pursue that so this is why taking some risk is the safest thing that you can do when do you think you developed the calluses to be okay with being disliked and being you know someone seeing something you say and saying this guy is not right this is terrible i still remember when you were when you were on the pod last time you're like i want all the smoke give it to me i'm not afraid of being unlike yeah but is that something that came as you got as you got older or do you think you know when you were at the future you were totally okay with that back in the day okay a good question do you guys know what an iconoclast is i don't okay an iconoclast often has religious connotations but it's really anybody who challenges conventional wisdom so when we're talking about the csa and all the noise and the ai fog that's coming in if you can't have a different point of view on something, you're just part of the noise.

1:00:27Chris Do:But so many people are afraid of having an opinion or stating their opinion publicly that they wind up contributing to the noise. They don't mean to, but they are. So I found my voice, my identity when I was going to school at Art Center. Art Center is a college that is a specialized visual arts school, one of the best in the country. And when I went there, it's not like a normal college. You don't have fraternities, you don't have sports you basically don't do anything but do work and the kind of work you do is pretty intense and when i learned how to design by enrolling in simon johnson's typography one course i was like wow this is it somebody gave me the key to like understanding design in all levels not just type on a page but furniture design architecture fashion you understand rules about proportion, scale, contrast.

1:01:19Chris Do:And so I started to build my identity around somebody who knew their way around design. So what was fascinating to me is when we have a skill that we practice and we know we're better at than most people, that we're better at than most people, that helps us to find ourselves. Like you think about the professional athletes or the musicians who make a lot of money doing what they do, I'm pretty sure they have their identity figured out pretty quick. Because the world is constantly showering them with opportunities, with validation, with everything that they want. So like, okay. So for me, design, graphic design, was my LeBron moment or whatever it is you want to say.

1:02:04Chris Do:That was my Pharrell moment. It's like, I know who I am now. I have something to contribute to the world. I'm not just a person occupying and taking up space and oxygen. And so from that point forward, I started to lean into this. And I was like, I can build my identity now. So sooner than later, while in school, I started to like, that's it. I'm not to prove myself to nobody anymore. I'll say what I want. And sometimes I would rub people the wrong way. And it's quite interesting. I didn't know it at the time. But after the fact, people are like, God, you're such a douchebag, cocky bastard. They wouldn't tell me that in person.

1:02:41Chris Do:But because at this point, I'm like, I was kind of mirroring what my instructors have taught me at that point. Like, I can look at your design. I can tell you what's wrong. So when the instructor would open up for discussion, I might say like, yeah, I don't think the type is working because of these things, et cetera, et cetera. They're not used to their classmates saying this. They can accept it from someone who's in a position to do that. But in my mind, I was like, I was trying to help you. in their mind is like, who do you think you are? So later on, like until they get to know me better, like I remember one person came up to me and apologized.

1:03:12A guy's like, you know, Chris, I got you all wrong.

1:03:16Chris Do:I didn't even know he had any animosity towards me at all. I'm like, oh, okay. He goes, you're actually a really good guy. So he inferred that he thought I was not such a good person, but I didn't care. Your opinion has nothing to do with me. I'm like, well, I appreciate that. And so to this day, decades later, I still have the exact same response. Meaning people come up to me and they're like, I got a bone to pick with you. We talk for a little bit and they're like, you're making this really difficult because you're actually really likable. I didn't expect you to give me time. I'm like, well, what in my life would make you presume that?

1:03:54Chris Do:So what happens is we're all really not interacting with a person in front of us. we're all responding to ghosts from our past because the behaviors and the words that you say remind someone of something else they heard from someone else who wasn't as nice, kind, or generous or didn't have good intentions. You see? So sometimes if you're in a relationship and you do something your partner might get really upset at you over this little thing because it reminds them of something when they were powerless probably with their mom or dad and you're doing the exact same thing. so all that unresolved childhood trauma comes up in this one moment because they're not really present they're living in the past and that's the problem so now i know who i am i don't i mean i care about people i really do genuinely i care but i don't really care about people's opinions about me and there's a big difference there because the same word cares and in both sentences so You brought up something interesting about having a contrarian point of view.

1:04:55Yeah. We had somebody on the pod recently named Seth Godin. Okay. And he has a contrarian point of view when it comes to the word authenticity. And we asked him about it. And he said, I think people should focus more so on being consistent than being authentic because he says that authenticity is kind of bullshit, which is a crazy thing to say. And it's not a crazy thing to say. It's a contrarian point of view. And then when we were talking to you, you're like, yeah, he kind of Jedi mind tricked you guys. He's actually doing something a little bit one step further. You stormtroopers, there's a Jedi in front of you.

1:05:36Chris Do:So can you talk about that and the strategy behind having a contrarian point of view and actually how it can work in your favor when building a brand? Seth Godin is a thought leader. He's a prolific writer. He's a consistent person who's super authentic to who he is too. Like his persona, personality, true self is just telling you the way he sees it. He doesn't have a lot of room for nonsense. And I find that the older you get, the less room you have for that kind of stuff. People are older like, you know what? I'm closer to death than I am to life. So whatever many years I have left to do what I do, I'm just going to tell you, you're stupid.

1:06:15Chris Do:Or I like this. Or whatever it is. what a dumb question. They'll just say it at this point. And you're like, well, you're not allowed to say that. I'm like, watch me. So what I think he's responding to is a couple of different things. Clearly, I can't debate him or do this, but I understand what he's saying. If you look underneath the layers. Today, it's so popular to talk about authenticity, authenticity, that the meaning of the word is just gone. And we joked about this the other day. And like the people who espouse being authentic are usually the least authentic people. they're the most disingenuous because it's almost like smokescreen like oh i'm really honest i'm a really good person oh i'm i'm a faithful person like you know this is why the um the left will oftentimes make fun of people on the right these evangel evangelical christians are like that's so gay i'm like yeah you're the one sleeping with the boy in the bathroom right because you're covering up for something so this whole authenticity thing is a smokescreen right it's like you're the most opaque person.

1:07:14Chris Do:You're just, yeah, that's how you live. That's where you vacation. Come on. Let's just be real here. Maybe one day out of 365, that's what it looks like and that's what you're doing. And so there's just a problem with that. You don't talk about authenticity. You are authentic or you're not. Most of us can see right through it. So probably there's a reaction to that. But the other thing that he's saying beneath this is like, before you start thinking about your true voice. Why don't you just get good at something? He's talking about skill. And I think it's really important because you asked me, how did I get to that place where I felt like I knew myself and was comfortable being disliked?

1:07:55Chris Do:Well, when I found a skill. So you see, he might have just been telling you the life plan, which is work on this skill. Authenticity will take care of itself. But you know what? That doesn't grab headlines. That doesn't get clicks and views. So I think he knows what he's doing on that front. So interesting. Gosh, you got to listen to that pod if you're listening right now. That was a good one. You talked to us. Link in the description below. Yeah, we'll leave in the description below. Talk to us a little bit about world building. It's something that we've had long debates about on the show, about building a world here for our viewers to hang out and people can do that in real brands like we've seen it in you know movies like marvel and these different massive you know giant movie industry or we've seen this in other movies tell me about how it can relate to a personal brand in the form of world building if we roll the tape back to like five years ago marvel's on top of the world every studio every channel or brand wanted to figure out how they're able to do this.

1:08:59Chris Do:Basically, they were at a point in which they're just printing money. They're pulling characters that were obscure, like Guardians of the Galaxy that no one even knew about, and they're just printing money. Hand over fist is what they were doing. And when they plan their stories, you need to know this because I'm a, first of all, I'm a comic geek dork, okay? What I don't know is that when you read a story arc in Marvel, in the, not the cinematic universe, just in the traditional comic books, they get together, and they bring all the editors-in-chief together who are managing multiple books in IP.

1:09:33Chris Do:They map out what the next 10, 15, 20 years is going to look like. It's a massive amount of planning. And then they go away, and they do their own books, and they know all the crossover points because they're building this thing together. And this is world building on a scale that most of us cannot comprehend. So what I didn't know about was Civil War was preceded by Secret Invasion. And Secret Invasion was an amazing arc. And they'd finish that arc. And then they kind of like something happens in a frame and you don't know what happens. And then they tell this whole other story. And then they tell you later, that one scene, that's where we swap the heroes with the Skrull.

1:10:15Now people are like, what the heck is he talking about?

1:10:17Chris Do:okay whereas a their competitor dc every character lives in a different world there's not that continuity there isn't canon to say like this is one massive timeline and you can just watch all of it in sequence and see how it all plays out this is beautiful okay now how does this relate to people let's first look at brands companies okay one of the hottest things that have happen are what you would call brand collabs or collabs or crossovers. When two very strong brands do something together, it becomes really cool. I'll talk about the one that is really cool as a concept, but not a high-end brand.

1:10:56Chris Do:So there's a person I interviewed many years ago, and what they do is they do brand licensing. They figure out IP that could work for something else. So I think it was Forever 21. They did a thing with the United States Post Office. So they borrowed their IP, which is the eagle, the blue, the typefaces, and all the different kinds of things that's associated with the post office. And they actually turned it into fashionable things. They said that collab flew off the store shelves. And he showed me some pieces. I'm like, wow, what a good idea. So cool. Now, the cooler version of this is when Louis Vuitton does a collab with Supreme.

1:11:37Chris Do:Both houses were on fire in that collab because they brought something new and different to the table. Louis Vuitton brings in the history and heritage of trunks, high-end fashion, bespoke tailoring, the monogram, all their brand assets. If you look at the Damier pattern, the floral pattern, all that they brought. And the Supreme brought in street cred, skateboarding, Futura bold italic, and red. And when they did the collab, they had assets. So their two worlds was like Superman and Batman got together, and they teamed up for something. And that was this beautiful thing. I think that was peak collab for some brands, and that's really cool.

1:12:21Now, when we talk about you and me in the regular world, let's say there's an event that's going on

1:12:29Chris Do:and they're bringing some of the top people in the industry for thousands of people to come and be a part of. What are they building? Well, they're borrowing whatever brand you've built and trying to bring together like the Justice League. But you are pre-James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy. Nobody ever heard of you. They don't even know the characters. They don't know your story. There's no brand assets. Can you draw the Guardians of the Galaxy logo? I can't. I can't name all the characters. So a person like these fictitious characters we're talking about has certain things they bring to the table if you know how to build your brand assets.

1:13:08Chris Do:So if you look at Superman, there's the S icon. There's the suit. There's the cape. There's that little curly coif of hair. Even how he wears his hair becomes a signature. There's his powers like super hearing, cold breath, laser vision, x-ray vision. There's his weakness, kryptonite. And then there's all the characters that support him and his nemesis, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Doomsday, all these kind of characters. So it's a rich world with a lot of mythology, his origin story. So we know that. So we just pull that to you. We can say like, okay, you have a physique. If you were to get naked, stand in front of a bright light source, we just look at your silhouette.

1:13:45Chris Do:Some of us are tall. Some of us are short. Some of us long arms, short arms, whatever. That's what you're born with. But that's part of how we identify it's you. And in fact, when they design animated characters, they designed a silhouette before they even know what the character is. They just draw blobs and shapes. Kung Fu Panda is an excellent example of that. There's a snake, there's mantis, there's like the panda, and they all have very different shapes. So you can study that. Next is like your personal style. There's all the stuff that you do to you, your hair, your clothes, your earring, glasses, Everything that you do, that changes the silhouette.

1:14:20Chris Do:And it communicates your energy, your preferences, your taste level to lots of people. Then there's your tribe, the people you associate with. The Jim Rohn saying, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Back when you were younger, your mom's like, I don't like Jimmy. You got bad vibes. It's criminal. It's thrown off bad energy. If you hang around with him, you're going to become like Jimmy. And a lot of times, that is what happens. Parents do have some wisdom once in a while. There's next, your mannerisms or your quirks. You know how you listen to Matthew McConaughey?

1:14:53Chris Do:All right, all right, all right. You know, the little Texas whistle? He does that, you know? That's just, that's his quirks. That's what makes him him. If you're talking about Trump, you know, letter words, little things with his hands and his mannerisms, people are saying. And it's very easy to pull on those things because they're so exaggerated with him. But you have to look at your own quirks and mannerisms. And then we say there are certain rituals that you participate in that make you you. There's your story, your backstory, your inciting incident story, your defining moment story. There's your beliefs, your values.

1:15:30Chris Do:There's your language and your messaging. Even your tone of voice becomes a part of your brand assets. The last one is the actions that you take based on your beliefs and values. so if you look at all that i think that's like 10 different things i just mentioned many of us don't even understand one of these things let alone have 10 so this is what we try to work on i feel like you doing those impressions is the the stand-up comic wanted to come out of you those are pretty good and so when somebody's thinking about their personal brands like those nine or ten things it can almost feel a little bit overwhelming to hear you talk about it and be like damn i got to think about all those different things.

1:16:14Is there one that you maybe advise somebody to start with and then start thinking about the other nine? Or is there one of those that's more important than the other? Or do you think it's just like the strongest brands and personal brands are thinking about every little nuanced detail between how they dress, how they speak, what they're saying, what their set looks like when they're setting up a podcast or a talking head, like those sort of

1:16:40Chris Do:things yeah we start with the inside i would consider it's the foundation your beliefs your values your story your rituals that matters a lot i would say the more external ones are the dressing like the finishes like uh marble carpeting drapes what style of exterior what paint are we doing so those are important because you can walk into a house that's been framed it's really solid if it's not worth a lot. When you finish it the right way, it can be worth 10 times as much. You finish the wrong way, you would lose a lot of value. So those two things are kind of interlocked. Oftentimes though, you have to kind of look at the foundation.

1:17:18Chris Do:Does it line up with the external? And this is where people get this all messed up. So there's a sequence to this. If you start with the outside first, like I want to be perceived this way. I want to look like this. I want to talk like this. And I want to associate myself with these people. But inside, you're not the same. that's where we get into lands of being inauthentic. And people are like, there's some kind of conflict going on because not all of it adds up. You know what's remarkable about people? It doesn't matter how old or young you are. Your spider sense, your gut, your intuition is actually way smarter than you think.

1:17:51Chris Do:You know how you meet people and you're like, that's a good person. Yeah, you just met them. You don't know nothing about their story. They can be a serial killer. You do not know. Or you can say, you know what? Let's lock the cupboards. put your stuff away because, I don't know, I got a bad feeling about this. More often than not, that gut is right. So what I start thinking about, and there's a line from Sherlock Holmes, because this is the Benedict Cumberbatch version of the British series. He goes, I thought you were all about logic. How are you talking about gut and instinct? He goes, well, your instinct is your logic working faster than your brain can process.

1:18:31Chris Do:so over your lifetime you've noticed certain behaviors and associated with certain characteristics and traits and people so you and i were signaling to each other all the time non-stop right somebody has a deeper voice you just like authority not really but just because you're on a lower register authority. It's little things like that. Or someone who twitches a little bit. You're like, oh, anxious. We don't know that, but that's what it communicates to us because when we're anxious, our knees are shaking and bouncing up and down. When we're telling a lie, we're nervous, our hands are shaky. So we're signaling to people all the time, and we need to start to get in tune with that.

1:19:16Chris Do:So I would say start with what you were born with and the things that you're out of control. Who were your parents? What did they do? Where were you raised? That's called cultural currency. If you grew up in the South, we know some things about you. When you grew up on the East, we know something. Oh, you're a California person? Oh, yeah, we know. Did you ever get trapped in a perfection mindset when you were starting? And what would you say to someone who might be waiting for that perfect moment to hit before they start sharing their stuff? I think when I was in design space, we tried to catch this thing called perfection.

1:19:58Chris Do:Every little piece of type, color, imagery is perfect. And we noodle on things forever. And we celebrate that within design culture. The more obsessed you are, the better you are as a designer. So we tell ourselves. When it comes to content, I think we need to realize something. And people, by the way. Perfection is an illusion. It's a lie. We tell ourselves to not do the work. almost always or a high percentage of people are like well it's not good enough it's a strategy on how to delay doing something that's all it is is like it's not good enough it's like because you don't want to release it to the world i don't have the right lighting the right camera the right script i i need three more people and 10 10 more million dollars to like do the set the right way for it to just work.

1:20:47Chris Do:All we're doing is, it's an avoidance strategy to not do it. To test our own ideas if we're good enough. Because inside, we're not comfortable or confident enough that we can't have that idea shatter our world. It's so fragile. So you're like, you know, how many friends do you know who have said something like, oh, I would be the ex if only I had that. I'd be rich if my dad gave me money. I'd be rich if I wasn't, or I'd be perfect if this and this. Really? So let's go get you that. Let's see what happens. Well, I'm not ready to start today. I'm like, well, that's really what it is. So perfectionism is an avoidance strategy to not, to have to test what we think of ourselves as true.

1:21:34Chris Do:How do we get over this? How do I do this? Okay? There's a book. It's called Rework. written by Jason Fried and David Hansen Heinmeier. It's an amazing book. They're the founders of a company called 37 Signals who make Basecamp. In it, they said, do not make a big gamble. Make small bets. So instead of saying we have a new idea, a new product or feature that we want to introduce, instead of spending$100 ,000 and taking six months, they say make 10 experiments for$10 ,000 in two weeks. So each time you do it, you'll fail. You'll learn something. Apply it to the next thing and do it. And oftentimes, what you come up with at the end of the six months for the same amount of money is way more innovative.

1:22:21Chris Do:And you're learning so much as you're doing it. Or you'll find out really early, not a good product market fit. The idea is not as good as we think. Almost all wannabe entrepreneurs fail because they make the idea so big that it's too hard to get started. So they wind up doing nothing. Therefore, cementing the idea that they would have been a great entrepreneur had they had the resources. Whenever we make a piece of content, there's typos. There's a weird glitch frame in there. Did they color grade that the right way? Did I say it the right way? No, I don't care. You do the work. You ask yourself two questions.

1:23:01Chris Do:What could be better? What did I do well? And then you can be a constant improver. What you were saying about perfectionism resonates a lot because I remember when we were first starting the podcast or even really when I was first starting to like make content and make videos for brands, two things happened. One, I remember being like, oh, I just need a gimbal. And then once I get the gimbal, it's game over. And then I got the gimbal and then I said, fuck, I only have a 24 to 70 lens. I need the 16 to 35. then i got the 16 to 35 and i was like i don't have a 70 to 200 that's very niche to photography and video but you always feel like you you know there's i always felt like oh if i just had this other piece of gear like it's game over but that's not the that's not how it works and then also perfection of perfectionism is a trap because your taste changes you get better at your skill And so what you think is perfect in this time currently, looking back in probably five years time, what your level of perfectionism was or what your idea of perfectionism was, you're going to look back and think, oh, that's actually not as good as I can make it now.

1:24:20And so perfectionism is almost a lie because the goalpost keeps moving as you continue to get better at your skill.

1:24:28Chris Do:Yeah, see, so you're chasing new. Yeah. new and next it's always going to be like oh i need that new thing or the version two of that gimbal came out yeah that's what my team was doing to me like i have four camels guys what are we doing yeah we made anything good with this gimbal yet we need the new drone chris i'm like okay yeah it's so true okay question for you algorithms are always changing there's always going to be new apps coming where we post content and how we share our message it's going to change I'm assuming things are going to pop up in five, 10 years down the line that we can't even fathom right now.

1:25:07Right. What philosophies about building a strong brand, building a strong personal brand will hold true five, 10 years down the line, regardless of the mediums or the platforms and how we share our message changes?

1:25:21Chris Do:I'm going to tell you from a very personal point of view, I've been making content a little over 10 years now. like the the beginning of my journey into content creation began in january 2014 so we're on our 11th year i suppose and i'm saying this not as false humility or to be self-deprecating i don't find myself to be self-deprecating but i don't know what any of these platforms do i barely know how to use any of the apps it's always some young person on my team or someone who's in our community is like chris did you know you could hit that button and do this i'm like what button and then you do that thing and you're like, how long has this button existed?

1:25:59Chris Do:Bruh, it's been there since the beginning. Like, oh my God, right? I'll tell people, I can't change that. Yeah, you can just click on those three dots and do this thing. I tell you this because I've been making content based on just knowing that I want to teach people to give generously, to learn how to say things in ways that people can remember that are simple and that are actionable. And then it doesn't really matter what platform that we do this on. I think I'm not one, but one of a few creators who can do multi-platform content and grow a decent-sized audience across multiple platforms, right?

1:26:37Chris Do:So we start on YouTube. We have 2.7 million subs on YouTube. I'm on Instagram, just cracked a million followers. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm about to crack 600 ,000. TikTok, I struggle with. And Twitter is just like, I'm just a couple hundred thousand on each. And people are like, what next? I'm like, I don't know. Oh, let me do podcasting, sure. In some markets, we're top 10. And it's just what I know about this is to be true. If you know who you are, you accept yourself for who you are, and you're willing, and you have the courage to be disliked, to present that true self out into the world, and your intentions are to help people, and that you're more relational than you are transactional.

1:27:17Chris Do:Some transaction has to happen, but you're more relational. You're going to do just fine. So we're in VR now or we're in some kind of weird other thing, some fourth dimensional thing that somebody's invented. It'll still come down to that. Now, this is not a game of quick returns. It's a game of just slow and steady. So sure, there are people who are bigger than us, who will rocket right past us. But I say just give it time, you'll see. They all eventually just burn out, crash out, or cash out. They're done. It happens all the time. There was something that we just saw last week, one of the craziest events on the internet that I've seen since I've been making content.

1:28:01I want to talk about Alex Ramosi's$100 million, what was it called? What the heck was it? $100 million models. $100 million money models launch. What are your thoughts on what we saw occur on Saturday? day?

1:28:16Chris Do:Well, from a variety of different sources, Alex and his team were able to generate over $100 million in revenue in 24 hours. Kind of unfathomable if you think about it. So there are lots of people who are going to hate and they come out, but then they're missing the point. They're not learning everything they can. You can learn without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Okay. So we want to acknowledge both things, things that are done really well and things like, huh, that bothers me a little bit. So let's have an honest conversation about this. So for those who don't know, Alex has been making content at a very high clip for the last couple of years.

1:28:57Chris Do:And he basically came out of obscurity to being one of the most talked about reference people in the business space. And he has a unique approach. His unique approach is, I've done it. I'm going to talk about it. And that was not any different in Saturday's launch of his book,$100 million money models. So the entirety of, it seems like the entirety of the webinar was focused around showing you all the receipts over and over and over again. And I think that builds a lot of credibility. So what we learned here is that if you haven't done what it is that you purport to be an expert at, lots of people should be suspicious.

1:29:40Chris Do:That's not to say that teachers who know how to teach should get shade thrown on them because they haven't done it themselves. Some teachers are brilliant. That's their gift in this life, and that's amazing. I'm not discounting them. Please don't get me wrong. But in the kind of self-proclaimed guru-coach space, I think you need to do what it is that you say you're going to help people do because it's always like a red flag when someone is selling you a program to make money and that's how they made their money. Almost always. And there's lots of people that we know that are doing literally that.

1:30:16But you know, the world is gullible.

1:30:19Chris Do:They fall for these things time and time again. That's why they continue to exist. What Alex did, what people don't understand is he said, come buy my book. It's 30 bucks. For a price of a book, that's very reasonable. So, okay, I'm going to buy the book. You'll get shipping first. Cool. You can attend a VIP thing. Cool. I wasn't part of some VIP thing. There's 100 or 80 ,000 other people in the same VIP quote unquote link. But he did say that in the pre-launch, he sold more books than the previous two launches combined. Pretty remarkable. And then he gave some pieces of information that we kind of have to pull apart here.

1:31:00Chris Do:Number one, I think he said he spent four and a half million dollars in paid advertising to get y 'all to come in. Four and a half million dollars that he can account for to generate about six million dollars of book sales. So if you look at it like that, that's not a good ROI. That's like 75 % cost to acquire a customer or something like that. My math ain't great on this, guys. Don't quote me there. But then if that's all you saw, you didn't see the bigger play. Because what was riding underneath all this stuff was he's now going to do what he tells you to do, which is the value stack. He starts talking about all these things that you can buy.

1:31:34Chris Do:And then he does the same thing again, which is, oh, it's all free. Everybody bought the book, you already get this. No worries. And then he tells you, I have a big dream. I want to make this kind of business education available to all the entrepreneurs. And he says in America, he's anchoring it really high here. There's like 39 million entrepreneurs in America. Let's make this dream possible. So he enrolls you in his dream. Very kind of Steve Jobs thing to do. And the entire like Russell Brunson webinar funnel thing is just like played to the T here. So, okay, he goes, I have another problem.

1:32:10Chris Do:The top 10 nonfiction books have all been authored by politicians. So now he's saying something, which I want to peel back here. Are we in a fight against politicians? Do you dislike them as much as I do? Of course, that's a hot button thing. Not a lot of people I know love politicians. So he goes, help me dethrone them. Help me break a world record. So he's attacking every psychological, emotional trigger that we have. A couple of problems here. Oh, then the offer comes in. Buy 200 books so I can give them to people to make sure that this is possible. So he has a tangible thing,$30 a book, that's$6 ,000.

1:32:58Chris Do:And he says, I'm going to give you this other thing too, this binder with more stuff. And he makes sure that everything that he's telling you has a visual representation. They're props mostly to show you the volume of stuff. And then what we don't realize is he's tapping into how old-fashioned we still are. Digital things, it's just a download. It's just ones and zeros in the cloud. But oh my God, pieces of paper bound together with glue? That's valuable. It's the craziest thing ever. And just genius in how it's all done. And you look at it, right? And he goes, oh, and you'll have access to my AI robot that's been trained on all these things.

1:33:40Chris Do:He's just thanking out of control. So let's just pull apart some of the things that I'm a little critical of. I don't believe everything that was said was 100 % above board. And I'd like for my coaches and teachers to be more bound to the truth. The fact that he said he has 25 ,000 of these packages and they sold way more than that. False scarcity. The fact that he's like, you get some VIP access. No, we didn't. There's a lot of like kind of funny things. And there's a part to the story that I find to be problematic. But you know what? It just goes to show you how emotional we are as decision makers, as emotional creatures, than logic, which is, help me get this educational material in the hands of 39 million entrepreneurs.

1:34:29Chris Do:What entrepreneur cannot buy a$30 book? You've already failed the entrepreneurial test because that's like five cups of coffee at Starbucks. So even that hook was a little bit funny. And we know the retail price of the book is 30. Charge whatever you want. But the actual cost of making that book and the volume in which he's pushing out these books, and I think he did 2.8 million books in a day, it's got to be like a buck fifty. So I find the hook to be disingenuous and I have a small problem with that. But you know what? I got mad respect for everything he's been able to do. And it's an internal conflict that I have.

1:35:09Chris Do:Like, just be honest with me. Just say like, hey, buy these books, give them to somebody who's not smart enough to be an entrepreneur yet. and maybe one day they'll change the world. He also said something, I thought, and don't quote me on this, by the book, it's tax deductible, which made it sound like it's a charity, which it's not. I know there's some fine language, you know, I'm sure they ran it past legal, but it's like, what? It's tax deductible as a business expense, but not as like a 401c, like you're giving it to the church or a school. So there's some funny things there, right? And then what you don't get to see is, you know what?

1:35:47Chris Do:From the general audience, if you're willing to pay$30, you've separated yourself. You've raised your hand and said, I have intent. I have capacity to buy and I have intent. From that group, he called it down even more. From the 110 ,000 peak views, he called it down to, which one of you guys can afford six grand? And people were just diving in there. It was just out of control. and he had this great little thing, a book counter, which just made it so exciting to be part of. We're part of history. We're helping entrepreneurs. We're breaking records. We're giving a big F you finger to the politicians of the world.

1:36:24Chris Do:You can't have us. It's kind of brilliant. And then what you don't know is after the$6 ,000 thing, he asked you to buy, I think, 600 books. It was like 25 grand. I think it was 18 grand. 18 grand okay yeah it was 18 grand so he's it's always done in denominations of a book so i i reverse engineered 600 books that you can pay over the next year or you can pay it all at once and for that you get access to this like exclusive circle community some zoom calls with alex and his team and so now we're like just we're just drunk at this point people are plastered like on an emotional high, and people are just ecstatic about what they were doing.

1:37:13Do you know 600 people that are entrepreneurs?

1:37:17Chris Do:I don't know that many myself, so it's like, wow. And then once you got into that program, apparently there was a message that went out that said, oh, until the end of day today, if you want to have even more access to us, whatever the offer was, it's going to be 100 grand. comment all in, but you need to pay that today. And the response to that by some people on the inside was like 40 people-ish, give or take, said, I'm all in. So just that last part of the funnel, that was a$40 million grab. If my math is right. So what we can do is this. If we were to do this, and this is, Russell Brunson writes about this in his book, dot com secrets the full value ladder or what you have low price and then you just keep ratcheting it up and in i i know at one point russell was coaching or teaching him things so he pulled it off to a t and there's a lot of lessons for me to learn now the i don't want to argue the model i have some questions about the ethics and the level of transparency and quote unquote truth and this whole thing like, oh, we're only going to do this webinar, this offer is only available today and the next thing you know, it's like there's a replay on Sunday and there's another replay on Monday.

1:38:38I'm like, come on.

1:38:42Chris Do:But I do understand if you tell people you have three days to act, you won't act. And so here's the big thing that gets all of this a pass from me. If the product is really good, the book is great, the coaching sessions are great, The AI robot's great. The one-on-one time that you may or may not be able to buy is all great. Then I give it a pass mostly for the psychological triggers that were used. The problem I usually have is people do this exact same thing and their product's junk, which is most of the time. So only time will tell from the 2.8 million books that were sold, the record that's broken.

1:39:23Chris Do:And I love that an entrepreneur is able to do this. then you'll know if the product's good because you'll start to hear a lot of complaints. Like this community is garbage. The AI is stupid. You know, didn't do anything. Here's what it said, you know, when I asked it this question. That would not look good. But I think the last part I want to make, the last point I want to make on this is what Alex has done is he's built a community of entrepreneurs who actually can spend money and he's demonstrated, at least in the samples he shared time and time again how he's able to get results for some people.

1:40:01Chris Do:And they felt joyful to give him their money. We should all aspire to achieve that level of impact and relationship with people because at the end of the day as much as you want to talk about brand brand is really can be reduced down to one thing the strength of the relationship you have with your people. how they feel not how you feel it don't matter if you feel like our relationship is really strong if they don't feel that way it's not worth anything so whatever he's done in the last couple years he's built a really strong bond relationship with people who have money by the way that's another important point there and they're ready to give it to him i mean he he did rise so fast it felt like i feel like i saw the clip of him explaining i paid grant cardone 150 ,000 or whatever the heck the thing was and grant just for about five minutes said hey you need to make more content and from that moment it was like great they went and hired the humongous team to be able to divvy it up and you could not see his face on the internet during this launch I mean granted I think all the entrepreneurial people we are in a vacuum with who he was targeting because I had asked someone I was like do you see these ads and he's interested in the space but right now he's so much more on ai and he's like i have literally not been hit with one of the ads and i was like that is so interesting because i couldn't not look somewhere and see his face or his ad which is so crazy it's weird because i i bought the book because my buddy neil told me to buy it and then i get 37 000 emails from him but i don't see any of his ads either and the weird thing is i was talking to a small group of like 12 entrepreneurs they didn't know who Alex Ramosi is.

1:41:43Chris Do:Wow. I think it's deep penetration within a very specific vertical and not a lot wide. Because once you watched one, you were being hammered with it. You, I don't think you could not, you could not, you could not see it. I was going to Facebook ads library and writing down the hooks. I was literally going and I think at one point there was a hundred and 145 or 160 different pieces of creative that were in his Facebook ads library. I got a question for you, Chris. When it comes to your own business, are you running ads for certain stuff or is most of like, uh, uh, either like the digital products that you're selling or, uh, you know, like the mastermind speaking stuff, is that all just off of organic, um, like organic content or are you running ads and stuff?

1:42:36Chris Do:Some ads people ask me what we're spending a month and they throw out some wild numbers. I'm like we don't even spend that a year you're saying people spend this a month the vast majority of what we do is organic we do need to get better at the paid game because it goes back to this thing that i said like if you believe what you're doing is good and it's it's a quality tool coaching thing that you do a program then you kind of owe it to the community that you serve to do whatever you can to get them that help and sometimes people have a lot of resistance there's inertia so when they don't move you have to nudge them to move so we've done ads um for our recent cam workshop which which is client acquisition machine where the workshop is it's a virtual workshop it's 100 bucks so we try to spend not a lot of money but then all of a sudden as y 'all have said in the six months in which we were running ads it's costing us too much money now it's costing us 60 to buy you to come into the to webinar but this is where entrepreneurs really understand something, right?

1:43:38Chris Do:Which sometimes I get stuck myself, which is if you're cashflow positive, you just keep running it again and again and again. So what that means is, as long as there's still some money left over to do it, I'm good, right? So if I sell, and I'll tell you the math very transparently, 300 seats, because that's the maximum we can hold, and everyone pays us 100 bucks, I theoretically have a$30 ,000 budget every single month, as long as there's a little left over for me to do a little bit more. But the way that it works is if I have an ability to do more workshops and I can sell 600 of them, then I would do that.

1:44:16Chris Do:And then now I'll bring in$60 ,000 of revenue and I just do it. Then I try and push up to$120 ,000. I just keep spending more money on ads and I just keep growing the webinar. You have to spend a lot of time, money, and effort into running those ads because the ad sets don't work after a while. yeah you know they die actually pretty quick oh yeah that is a whole that's a whole thing in a whole conversation we could spend years going into this has been this has been amazing chris i just want to thank you for coming on for round two this is going to be episode like 172 of the 505 podcast if you're still here please hit the subscribe button drop us a comment go check out chris's content down below and we'll see you guys all next week peace