179. How to Tell Stories so Good Your Brand Sells Itself ft. Brendan Kane

20:43Brendan Kane:This home has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, an acre of land. So if I were to take this communication model and sell the same content of the house, well, I would still start with that fact base. This house has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and an acre of land. But did you check out that pool in the backyard? You are going to have the craziest and funnest parties and all your neighbors are going to be super jealous. And this fireplace, how is it going to feel when you and your family are opening up presents on Christmas Eve? And I really believe that this is a great house for you because it's in the best school district.

21:17Brendan Kane:But you should move fast now because this is by far the best house and it's going to move quickly. So I took this same content of the house and just represented it in six different ways. Now, they don't talk about it often, but Pixar does this in all of their movies. All of their characters and movies are based upon this. So they have a character that hits each way that people perceive the world. And that's one of the reasons that Pixar is one of the most successful startup movie studios of all time is because they know how to effectively communicate and bring different audiences in. So it really blows people's mind when they see that they could be disconnecting from over 75 % of their audience, not by what they're saying, but how they're saying it.

22:02Brendan Kane:And like you guys know from all the production and content you do, like it's really about the context of how you deliver the message that causes it to connect or fall flat. That is so interesting because, I mean, you see it every day. You see someone maybe delivering a great message and you're like, this just isn't hitting, man. Or maybe they're like reading off a script. They've never done it before and it just feels awkward. But the information might be amazing there. Or just some guy capping, but he's just speaking with such enthusiasm. You're like, I don't know what he's saying or if it's right, but I'm bought in.

22:35Brendan Kane:or you see the brands that try and get into kind of political conversations that have never gotten into that before and it just completely backfires on them because again values is only 10 percent like this is one of the reasons the environmental movement fails and has failed is because of the way they communicate it they're like if you don't do x y and z you are a bad person you are destroying the planet. Well, how was that fun? So true. Yeah, I'll tell you what was fun. I'll tell you what was fun. Last night I saw Mr. B saving some animals, thousand animals, and he's just darting them. And that was like how they were showing it.

23:12Oh, that's cool. It was crazy. And he's like, we're going to save a thousand animals. And then it's, it's just him and his buddies shooting them with vaccines, like these giraffes and stuff. And I'm like, this is pretty awesome. And then in the bottom, it had a donation link. And I bet his way of communicating that story is so much better than what you're saying when the ASPCA girl pops on, she's like, do you want to save this animal? Or you're going to hell, man, if you don't put 25 bucks in this card. It's so true. It's so interesting. Just a different way of communication, how it can make someone move or not want to move.

23:40What would be another one that you think that people really need to focus on? Actually scratch that question. What about your pre-production process for these different partners? How do you sit down with them and then go through like, do you go through a hook and then we go through the meet and then a call to action. What does that process look like?

23:57Brendan Kane:So that's a great question because before you ever sit down to create any content, number one, you need to know what your format is. And that question before is what's another big mistake that I see? 99 % of people creating content, even for the big brands, because we were joking about what is it like to work with big brands, they don't even know what a format is. So their idea is I'm going to chase a trend or I'm just going to throw ideas and they start with ideas without a structure to it. So it's starting with the format, understanding how the format works, like analyzing it. And then typically what we do is we create like a script template, which is kind of like the beats to it.

24:33So yes, it's like the hook, you know, how are we layering

24:36Brendan Kane:in the tension? We layer in kind of like the performance drivers into that. And then we kind of just go, we basically just like break it down block by block by block. So if it's again, like School of Hard Knocks, since we're just kind of just talking about that format, is like we would break down each block in that script template almost as if we were writing a screenplay of hitting in like, okay, this is the inciting incident, this is plot point one, plot point two, plot point three, things of that nature. Now, I will say that as you're telling stories, like I think a big mistake people make, even if they understand tension, they think they only create tension once, but there's ebbs and flows to telling a story.

25:17Brendan Kane:So you think about like a superhero movie, like the superhero doesn't win in the first five minutes. They go through trials and tribulations, ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs. So in terms of that pre-production process, as we understand the format, we break it down, we look at kind of the beats in that. And when I say script template, it doesn't mean it has to be scripted, but at least you know the specific beats that you're trying to kind of hit within that. And the reason that we do all that ahead of time is that if the video doesn't perform, now you haven't lost the opportunity to learn because you've actually followed a process.

25:52So you can just go back and look, well, what did I miss?

25:55Brendan Kane:Did I miss a key element? Or maybe I just didn't execute it properly. Like one of the exercises that we do, we have a hook point mirror test where we'll take your video, the underperformer against a high performer and play them side by side. And if you're really honest about yourself, you can learn a tremendous amount about benchmarking yourself, not from a content perspective, but kind of from a delivery and execution on what you missed. I'd love to get, you brought up real estate and I'd love to maybe talk to a real estate agent that's listening to this right now, or maybe even like a lawyer or a dentist.

26:31Man on the street might work for a real estate agent or dentist or lawyer might not. What are some other formats that you think could perform well for a real estate agent, a dentist, a lawyer, or somebody else that maybe doesn't want to do man on the street?

26:47Brendan Kane:So, okay, let's start with real estate. And just, I know you didn't say man on the street, but Caleb Simpson does man on the street that could be leveraged for real estate. So he approaches random strangers in the street, says, how much do you pay for rent in New York? Yes. Or how much, you know, if they don't rent, then how much do you pay for it? And then he takes them on like a property tour, which leads me to one format that works really well for real estate agents is property tours. So you guys probably know Ryan Serhant. Of course. So, and he's not even the most successful one. There's a guy named Ennis and I can't remember his last name, but he's more successful than Ryan.

27:19Brendan Kane:But what does Ryan do? He's like, let me take you on a tour of a$7 million closet. Like, let me take you on a tour of a$250 million house. Now, do you know who used that format well before them? Do you guys remember, you may be too young for this, The Lifestyles of Rich and Famous by Robin Leach. Or even MTV Cribs. MTV Cribs. And he had the guy who did the Lifestyle of Rich and Famous had an accent. So it's not what he was showing, but also how he said it because he sounded. It was amazing. Yeah, sounded extravagant. But again, I like to say that because it just shows like history repeats itself.

27:55Brendan Kane:But that's an amazing one for real estate agents. So one of the big performance drivers that we talk about is called the generalist principle. So one mistake that people make is they go off the old paradigm of create a niche message for a niche audience. That doesn't work in organic social media. Why? Because what the algorithms are looking for is what content can I see to as many people as possible that can grab and hold attention? There's literally a billion pieces of content uploaded to social media every single day. So they have so much content to choose from. They're not going to do the heavy lifting for you.

28:32Brendan Kane:So, and this generalist principle, this is one thing that business owners struggle to wrap their head around. They push back on this super hard because they're operating off this, I only want to sell and speak to my core customer. Well, everything that we're talking about here is to grow your business. I'm here to make you more money. This isn't about going viral for the sake of going viral. But let's take Ryan Serhan, for example, okay? So he masters the generalist principle. So I'm going to take you on a tour of a$7 million closet. Who doesn't want to see a$7 million closet? But Ryan Serhan's customers, his starting property in Manhattan that he represents is like$15 million.

29:10Brendan Kane:It goes up to$200 million. So he'll generate millions of views on that video or videos like that every month. month, but he knows that if less than 1 % of that audience is his core customer base, he's going to beat out his competition every single time because the economy of scale is so huge. And that is what has made him one of the most successful real estate agents in the world, is he's applying that generalist principle to his content to play the numbers game. Or somebody watching his content might not be the person who actually purchases the home from him, but maybe it's the kid of the parent.

29:47A thousand percent. We interviewed Colin, who owns Amalfi Jets.

29:52Brendan Kane:We've done research on that. And it's kind of the same thing. He was telling us he's like, a lot of the business that comes in is the kid who likes our videos and tells the parents, oh, we need to fly private with Amalfi because I like their content. Do you think we need to go more broad? Like if you were advising us as creators, and let's say a lot of my interest is in business, We produce for some big brands. We do a podcast. Would you advise that my plant collection should also be on my Instagram? Or is that going so far left field that it has nothing to do with what we're doing in business?

30:24Or could it maybe make someone interested in me that's like, I also am very interested in plants. Oh, he does X, Y, and Z. Yeah, it's the whole like, you are the niche versus should you niche down? Exactly.

30:32Brendan Kane:So it's a great question. First and foremost, I will never tell anybody to do something for the sake of going viral or getting views. It has to be tied into who you are, what your business is, what you represent. Like the examples we just gave with Ryan Serhant, it is specifically tied to his expertise. Even when he's giving a$2 over$7 million closet, he is intertwining his expertise, breaking down the value of things and talking through it. Or with Colin and the Amalfi Jet. Even though there's exaggerated kind of skits around these clients and stuff, it's still tied specifically to what he does.

31:11Brendan Kane:Now, if you want to intertwine other parts of your life because you enjoy it and it represents who you are, you can. However, I would recommend holding off until you've really mastered the art of like telling a story and knowing how to break through. Because if you're just starting out trying to scale and you're talking about real estate here and plants here and volleyball here and surfing here, it makes it a little bit difficult for the audience to kind of understand like who you are and should i be following this should i be connecting with this person i want to go back to this ryan sir hand example i think in theory amazing getting to show off a seven million dollar closet but not everybody has access to that as a real estate agent but okay he's not representing most of those properties i see he's making connections with these people yes and these real estate agents will, who doesn't, like if you're representing a$10 million property, let's say, and somebody comes, even if they're a real estate agent and say, hey, I know you're representing this property.

32:14Brendan Kane:I have this YouTube channel. I want to come and do a 15 minute walkthrough video. Here's what it looks like. What real estate agent is going to pass that up? So that's where, it's a great question. But again, it's one of the big mistakes that people make with social media as it pertains to organic social media is they think that my social media profile is my website and my organic posts are my ads. If you do that, you're going to fail every time. The purpose of social media is to build a relationship, is to get people to know, like, and trust you. And if people know, like, and trust you, they automatically want to take that next step with you.

32:53Brendan Kane:So that is where even for Ryan, like the$250 million ranch, he was, I know 100 % he wasn't representing that property. I'm pretty sure the$7 million closet wasn't. I know he does a lot of videos that way of representing properties. He knows, hey, I'm going to create value for this agent, but I'm creating value in myself of building my expertise and my dominance in the market by demonstrating I understand property, not just like any property, but I understand how to represent a$200 million property. And that's how it kind of works. And I know it's kind of like a bit of a mindset shift, but we have to kind of break through of like, I am just creating a piece of content because I want it to sell X, Y, and Z right now.

33:38Brendan Kane:Because if you do that, it just doesn't work that way. You need to create content that builds a relationship that will generate that sale, maybe five pieces of content from now, 10, 15, 20. And then once you start doing that, the compounding effect will grow so large that you can hit whatever revenue goal that you have. Yeah, I feel like a lot of people think that if I get a lot of views, it'll lead to sales and business. But you're saying that that's not really true. It has to be pretty strategic of like, sometimes maybe going viral isn't actually what you want because you might be going viral for the wrong thing that might not actually lead to growing your business and getting more sales.

34:14Brendan Kane:It's a great question. And I get asked this question all the time. you know, running an agency, working with brands. It's like, okay, Brendan, if I hire you, what's going to be my ROI? What's the ROI of a million views? What's the ROI of social media? The reality is, is it depends because the bigger your vision is dictates how big your success is. I literally know, like I have a friend of mine, Michelle Phan was the first woman on YouTube to hit a million subscribers, massive beauty influencers, but she was not just one. There was many that generated millions of subscribers. But she made a distinction in a decision is, I'm not going to just go after brand deals.

34:54Brendan Kane:My ceiling is capped. That's not interesting to me. I have nothing against people that are generating brand deals, but I'm not going to be stuck in like six figures. So she co-founded a company called Ipsy that grew to a half a billion dollar company. So somebody with millions of subscribers chose to create a company that was valued at a half a billion dollars versus other people with the same audience in the same niche, maybe making $100 ,000,$200 ,000,$300 ,000 a year. And there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want. But how much money can millions of views generate? Well, it depends on the business.

35:29Brendan Kane:Like you guys said, Colin, Amalfi Jets, I'm sure he is making a lot more money based upon the views that he's generating than kind of like a mom and pop e-commerce store that's generating the same amount of views. It depends on the business that you have, the structure behind it, and what happens when you get that attention. Because getting attention is only one part of the puzzle here. Just because you get attention doesn't mean it correlates into the end result that you want if you don't have the structure to harness and process that attention into tangible business growth and goals. What have you done for the structure of your business on the back end?

36:03Because obviously we see these videos on Instagram. You're breaking something down. You're saying, This one got a million. This one got 100 million. Here's why. Well, then they do want to take the next step with you. What have you done to ensure that these leads don't just fall into the abyss and that they do come in? You get traffic. You set them up with your team. What does that process look like for you guys?

36:22Brendan Kane:So on average, we generate about 3 ,000 leads a month. So we have different levels to it. We have just our email list where there will be like we literally have people that will be on our email list for a year and a half and then buy from us. And this is, again, a part of like you try and nurture the relationship. So number one is, you know, we push people to subscribe to the email list. A lot of our lead gen is I give away, you know, some of my books for free so that they can, you know, dive in even deeper. And then we have a sales team. So we have people that will reach out to these people. We have the ability to schedule a call.

37:00Brendan Kane:And then we have events like I'll do like a workshop or I'll jump on a live for an hour and walk through a presentation, talk a little bit more in depth about how our process works, how they can apply it. And then if they want to take that next step, then they can go through that. On the flip side is that audience and that exposure leads to opportunities like this, being on podcasts, being on stages, being asked to speak at organizations. So there's kind of, it's not like one kind of approach or one funnel into everything. There's kind of multiple touch points that you try and hit them in as many places as possible and provide as much value in each of those touch points until they're ready to ultimately make that decision to move forward.

37:45Now, if someone has their format down, they're getting good traction for their business, what are some of those structures that they need to apply to their back end to make sure that they're squeezing the most juice out of all that attention that's coming their way?

37:58Brendan Kane:So there's a lot of different variables to it. like simplest macro level, like the link in your bio, is it going to a place that's optimized for conversion? And conversion could mean filling out a lead form. It could be booking a call, or maybe it's an e-commerce business and it's literally just booking or buying the product right there. Or is it, you know, you're using the many chat automation on Instagram where you're saying comment below to get something so that again, it's adding to your list there. Then once people are on your landing page or in your email list, like what does your retargeting look like?

38:36Brendan Kane:Do you have an email cadence when somebody first signs up for your list where you're nurturing them across 30, 60, 90, 120 days? Are you building retargeting pixels, like just having a meta pixel or YouTube AdSense pixel in your website so that if you choose to run paid ads, it's not required, is you can retarget the people that's engaged with you. And when you retarget people, it's far less expensive than just reaching a cold audience. And then it's just like, how good are you at fulfilling on your promise? How good is your product? Like that's one of the most simplest things that people forget.

39:12Brendan Kane:Like if your product is good, people are going to share it. People are going to talk about it. And for every product that you sell, you're going to have a compounding impact of word of mouth taking over. So those are just a few of the things that you have to have in place. But it is a critically important thing to have set up. I want to go back to something that Brayden brought up, the posting every day versus not. How good production quality do we actually need and how much of that is a factor in getting more views? Because for us, for example, the podcast clips. We've been seeing a ton of podcast clips that are like, holy shit these are so fucking good and high quality it makes sense that they're doing well then you also see another group of like this just kind of has subtitles and it doesn't have any crazy like motion graphics or b-roll really and it's still doing well and with like Sora and these AI platforms that are coming out how important is the production quality to be able to see success on social.

40:22We're having the discussion. We were having it on the way here. Do we need to hire a motion graphics person for our clips? Is that really going to move the needle or is it just you need to provide a ton of value with the clip and that's enough? Nine times out of 10, production quality is not a performance driver.

40:41Brendan Kane:Again, it's like you have to go to the references. I'm not saying like people need to understand what you're saying. They need to be able to clearly hear you and see you. But I'm sure you guys could point to 100 podcasts that looks amazing, but doesn't break through. That is always the litmus test, is if it's you or somebody else, and you say, oh my God, this clip is exploding, and it looks amazing. Well, go look at the other clips that haven't performed. Do they look just as amazing. And if you're seeing that that same production quality was there in the low performer that was in the high performer, you know that's not driving the performance.

41:22Again, it's all about

41:24Brendan Kane:the connection to the story. Like you guys have chosen a format podcast, which is very difficult to pull off because it's long form. But you guys are doing a great job because you're creating an experience. Now you asked about like graphics. Okay, let's go look at Joe Rogan. Let's go look at Lex Friedman. Let's go. Let's go look at Stephen Bartlett. Like the answers. That's the amazing thing is the answers are out there. Like there are billions of data points available to us for free. We just go and look for the answer. So that's when you ever have a question is like, did this drive success or will this drive success?

42:00Brendan Kane:Either if you have enough content that's performed, just look at the high performers versus the low performers. And if that variable shows up in both, you know it's not there. If you don't have enough performance, then you go to a reference of it and see if it shows up there in both the high performers and the low performers. Do you think though someone needs to be cautious of comparing for us, for example, does somebody need to be careful of comparing where they are to somebody who's maybe already made it and has blown up? For example, like, should we be comparing ourselves to how Diary of a CEO, Joe Rogan, lex freeman run their podcast or should we look at someone who's maybe in a similar ish point as us subscriber wise follower wise and compared to that compared to people who are fucking crushing because like joe for example right every million people are going to watch joe every time joe's thumbnails no one gives a shit about joe's thumbnails they are just the damn number yeah he's not really worried no he's not you know he's not playing the game necessarily right whereas Stephen, if I compare ourselves to Stephen, I look at Stephen Bartlett and I'm like, I want this.

43:04I want this bad. And I look at the thumbnail and I look at how he does the intro to his show. And we have literally changed the intro because there's a gold standard of what Dyer of a CEO is doing and it's working. So we're emulating what the intro of that looks like. We're emulating what the thumbnail of that looks like. And you've seen it trickle down all the way down into every damn podcast is now doing a trailer. Whereas people used to just do what Joe does and they I used to just show up and sit down and there would be 10 minutes of bullshit in the beginning of an episode and nothing would really happen.

43:33Whereas now our show is much different. We start with a very interesting question that hopefully someone pops on if they don't know us and they go, these guys actually know what they're talking about. The first five questions went with the thumbnail. We're going to hang out and stay with them. And then, wow, they went on a bunch of different rabbit holes during this conversation. I really enjoyed it. Maybe I'll come to a next one. What's also interesting about that, before you answer the question, you talk about storytelling and social media and it not being reinvented because it's been happening for the past however many years.

44:01The girl who helped Stephen Bartlett blow up Diary of a CEO, she just quit. But I was listening to a podcast of her and she said the whole reason why we started doing trailers is because we were looking at stuff outside of social media. We were looking at movies. Okay, the movies have a trailer. So why don't we also make a trailer to have people get hyped about the episode that's coming out? So that's an example of what you're saying.

44:22Brendan Kane:Yeah. So to your, we did a research project for Stephen Bartlett. We can kind of dive into that. But I want to kind of, you asked a great question. And I want to kind of just do a mindset shift for you in the audience. Because you said, should I compare? Should we compare ourselves to these people? I don't think you should compare yourself to anybody. I think you should learn from them. because comparing gets really dangerous because if you're like comparing yourself to steven bartlett or joe rogan then you're getting so caught up in the success that they're having versus the success that you're having and that can kind of be demotivating versus like again i go to film school we learn from steven spielberg we learn from quentin tarantino we're not comparing ourselves to that.

45:09Brendan Kane:But to your question of like, should we, from a learning perspective, I always say, look at the gold standard and the high performers. Now, a few considerations. Yes, like Joe Rogan has reached critical mass. However, you know, which you have to kind of understand, like you can't follow his thumbnail strategy because he has that relationship. But I think that there's so much still that you can learn from watching that podcast like what is the experience it's called the joe rogan experience but he is literally creating experience steven bartlett is creating a different experience even lex friedman is creating an experience in it like think through like what are the elements that's actually driving the success and like an easier exercise that you guys can do is look at the clips and i'm not talking like the 60 second clips but like especially like lex friedman joe rogan steven bartlett like look at the 10 to 15 minute clips of like there's a variance in performance there.

46:06Brendan Kane:And so I worked in journalism for about two years with a journalist, Katie Couric, when she went to Yahoo and was like she was on the Today Show for 25 years and went to Yahoo and was like completely struggling because Yahoo didn't understand social media at all. And I did 220 interviews with her ranging from like Joe Biden to DJ Khalid to Jessica Chastain to Jay Leno all across the board. And the big shift that I made with Katie and that I recommend when I talk to people that are doing podcasts or any type of interview is don't start with a question. Don't start with a question you want to ask.

46:41Brendan Kane:Figure out what is the end result that you want from each clip. So again, look at Lex Friedman, look at Joe Rogan. I don't, I think Stephen Bartlett, I know he does short form, but I don't know if he does the longer clips, but look at the clips and think about it in that perspective. Like what would be like 10 thumbnail and headlines for clips I want to pull out of this episode that can stand on its own. And when you think about the end outcome first, what you're thinking about is, remember the performance driver said earlier, the effect on the viewer. What is the effect on the viewer that I want this person to have from this episode, from this interaction?

47:19Brendan Kane:And when you start with the thumbnail, the title, the headline, the hook for each one of those 10 clips first, and you start the interview and you don't get quite what you want because i'm sure you guys have interviewed bad people before well you ask a question they'll just say yes or no yeah and it just falls flat that's awesome but that's it gives you room to work around that because you know what the effect that you're having on and if you're not getting the effect with the initial way that you ask the question you can follow up with others but that's just where i've kind of found it. Now, Joe Rogan's done it intuitively because he's been doing it for 14 years.

47:58Brendan Kane:There's some people that are naturally doing it. Stephen Bartlett, it's completely manufactured from the first shot all the way through. They're manufacturing every moment. I'm not sure if you've seen and heard the amount of research they do about people beforehand where they'll find a song that has an emotional connection to the person. They'll play it as the person's coming in. So they're more emotionally vulnerable going into it. Why? Because they want that deeper connection, that relationship with the audience. So that's kind of how I look at it. I know it's kind of a long-winded answer to kind of like where you guys are at.

48:32Brendan Kane:And it can be applied to anything of like how you actually learn from others instead of like comparing yourself. No, I love that. I would love to dive into the examples that you brought for us today. I think people would find a ton of value in that. So I'd love if we could bring out the laptop. Bring it out. Bring out the laptop. And let's check out a few examples today. I think the I think the rocks are gonna love this. Can you guys see it? Oh, yeah, I can see it perfectly. Okay. So as I mentioned, we have this process called gold, silver, bronze of dissecting a format. So we talked about a format is a repeatable structure that drives success again, again, again.

49:09Brendan Kane:Now there's thousands of these out there. So what most people will do is they won't even know a format and they'll just go in a different direction. Or what they'll do is be like, oh, I see what that person's doing. Man on the street, School of Hard Knocks. Oh, that's simple. I'm just going to go interview people on the street. If you just stop there, 99 % of people are going to fail because people fail to recognize the tip of the iceberg syndrome. It's like the tip of the iceberg is the high performers that you see in social media. You don't see the other 99 % of people trying to do the same thing failing.

49:37Brendan Kane:So we're going to do an exercise together with a format called How Do You Know? And I like this format because this is like a beginner format that people can use. So it's pretty simple. It takes like a timeless idea and it makes it feel really urgent and relevant. And basically it's shot on an iPhone. It's low production on purpose. It's meant to kind of feel like a FaceTime call. And it can cover a wide variety of topics. It could be like about anxiety, success, business, relationships, whatever it is. So we're going to look at an example of this digital philosopher, Julian de Medeiros, using this format, How Do You Know?

50:22Brendan Kane:So he generated 17.6 million views with this video. Here's how you know it's true love, like potentially the love of your life. And this is a simple rule from the philosopher Nietzsche, who basically argued that love is the highest form of friendship. Or, in his words, what makes most relationships fail is not a lack of love, it is a lack of friendship. And to cultivate friendship in love means finding somebody who makes you smile, who makes you laugh, but above all, who makes you feel safe. It's like George Eliot who wrote that it is, quote, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person.

51:00And when you feel safe, you can be your most authentic, childlike, joyful self. You bring out the best in each other. It's like Dr. Seuss who wrote that life is weird. Everyone is a little weird. And when two people meet whose weirdness is compatible and they join forces, they call it love. That's what love is. It is the highest form of friendship. It is finding someone who is your friend for life.

51:29Brendan Kane:so again this generates 17.6 million views so most people are going to look at this and be like i see what he's doing he's just talking into the camera and giving advice i'm going to do that you're going to fail but this is why we take this next step i would fail doing that because i'm like this guy hasn't said like um he's quoting dr seuss i can't do that you you could you could script it though it's like i got like 56 tries quotes dude he had like 64 quotes okay can i take a little baby stab yeah okay here's how you know it's true love interesting hook you're gonna be like you have the naysayers who think i don't believe in this bullshit i don't believe in true love okay so we have people that are in the negative side and then we have people who are pro-love who are like i want to see if my if this person's thoughts agree with what i'm thinking right off the top of my head that's what i'm thinking right off the bat okay so let's do a little bit of exercise together okay so now we're gonna do we're gonna watch two more videos same creator same format and you guys are gonna guess which one broke through in generating millions of views and I want the audience to participate too so okay after we watch after we play both clips I see audiences put pause okay write it down on a piece of paper put it in the comments below which one you think okay okay yeah all right let's watch the first okay okay okay okay here's a simple sign that you have a true friend and this is a simple rule about friendship that goes back to the author, Isabel Allende, in which she writes, true friendship withstands time, distance, and silence.

52:59And what she meant is that a true friend has three things. One, you're friends for life. Like, not just for a moment, for life. Two, you don't have to be in the same place. You may have grown up together, but gone your separate ways. That matters nothing. And finally, number three, you don't have to speak all the time. This one is crucial. True friends don't have to speak all the time. But when you do speak, it feels like no time has passed at all. And this is very similar to the quote about friendship from Elizabeth Foley in which she says, the most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.

53:38That is a true friend, a friend for life. True friendship withstands time, distance, and silence. Okay.

53:47Brendan Kane:Okay. So that's video one. Now we're going to watch video two. Simple sign you have a true friend. Okay, that's your number one. Okay, number two. Here's how you know that you have a bad friend, like a fake friend or a fair weather friend. And this goes back to a simple observation by the author Christian Nestle Bovee, who once wrote, A bad friend is like a shadow with you when the sun shines, but disappears when it gets dark. And what he meant is that a fake friend is somebody who likes to hang out when things are great, but they disappear when things get hard. A fake friend walks out of your life when you need them the most.

54:29And vice versa, a true friend is somebody who is with you at your darkest hour. Somebody who comes precisely when you need them. And so a true friend is somebody who is there for you no matter what. They are loyal to a fault. But a bad friend, a fake friend, a fair weather friend is like a shadow. With you in the sun, but they disappear when it gets dark.

54:55Brendan Kane:Okay, so for people watching this, click pause and put down in the comments below video one or video two. So let's give them a few seconds to click pause. I got my answer. I got my answer too. Okay, what is it? I think it's the fake friend one. I think it's the fake friend one too. Because I think with the fake friend one, one negativity usually on social does better. Okay. And number two, my thoughts would be if I have a true friend, I already know my true friends. I don't need you to tell me about like what makes a true friend because I know who my true friends are. But I would be very interested if I had an inclination that one of these fuckers was a little bit fake.

55:29I'd be like, let me hear what this guy has to say as to what makes a, I'm going to laugh if it's come with all this data. Like it's for sure. Number one, I think it's number two. What do you think is number two? I think it's number two because you start to analyze who you have around you a little bit more than the true friend. I think if you have a true friend, you kind of just know gut instinct. This guy's a ride or die for me. Fake friend, you're like, John's only coming around when I got fucking tickets to the Dodgers. Okay? Fucking fake ass. So I'm going to go fake friend. Okay, what is it?

56:06Tell me. All right.

56:10Brendan Kane:So video one did 54 million views. Holy shit. Video two did 276 ,000 views. That is so interesting. So again, like, cause your comments were interesting about the first video we watched. It was just about the format in general, but this is why we do this exercise. We look at the same creator, the same format, and we're talking about 53 million views. Wait, did I say, did I say video? I meant video one. Yeah. We were saying video one. Okay, so now we're going to break it down. Let's see it. So remember before with the gold silver bronze, we have performance drivers. The things that drive performance up and the things that drive performance down.

56:48Brendan Kane:So we're going to go through each one individually. So the first one is the perspective shift. So video one, the high performer, it offers a surprising take. True friends are maintained through silence. So it challenges the viewer's assumptions with that line. You've got to be talking all the time as a true friend. So then the underperformer video too, it has kind of a predictable message. Fake friends aren't there for you when you need them. So we kind of know that. So there's no perspective shift with it. The next one is the delivery and credibility. So this is more kind of like the way that he articulates it.

57:25Brendan Kane:And you mentioned after the first one, he is very articulate. He's very clear. He's very concise. He introduces the quote directly, calls it simple, and it makes it accessible at all. but his delivery is there versus the video two, he's kind of repetitive and insecure in a little bit. Because you did pick up on it in the video one. You're like, I could never do this because he's not saying ah, um, things of that nature. So on the underperformer, he's using filler words. He repeats the quote and over-explains to seem intelligent. And then we have the hook. So video one, it's short and punchy. He gets to the point super quick without lingering.

58:04Brendan Kane:and then the video two, it starts strong. But again, the delivery, it drags on. And that dragging on kills the retention of it. I kind of felt that. Now that we're going. But you said something interesting because you're like, oh, because of the negativity angle. And that's what a lot of people think. And I'm not here to say that negativity never goes viral. But positivity goes viral just as many times as negativity. Really? So interesting. Yeah. I also liked, I thought there was a moment in video one where I was like, I'm getting a little bored. and then he gave me a list of three. I was like, that kind of popped me back into it.

58:37I want to hear what these three things are. So he's going to go, maybe if I was interested in that video, I might stay until the very end. It's number one for me. You're going to want to stay until the number three because this fact can really blow your mind. This is the one, dude. Let's go back and record your answers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Watch one, one, one.

58:53Brendan Kane:God, we're going to look terrible on our own. We don't know shit? Well, this one's actually more of a difficult one. Most people get this one wrong. Wow. So the last one is viewer self-reflection and tension building, which we talked about tension building. But you mentioned like the three-part checklist. So video one, he creates this checklist of time, distance, and silence. So it encourages deep reflection and it keeps the viewers engaged throughout. Versus video two, it states one trait early on with no buildup. It really kills momentum and limits reflections. so you can kind of see like yeah yeah instead of just looking at something surface level and making judgments and be like oh i'm going to do this you actually kind of sit there and you break it down i think it's so important to compare two videos from the same creator as opposed to just saying or looking at oh this video worked for them i'm going to copy that like that's such an extra step that really makes a difference yeah and again like when we do this one so we have a team of researchers on staff that are dedicated just to doing this.

59:59Brendan Kane:So when we do this format, we don't just do one and one. We look at 20 of the high performers against 20 of the low performers. It takes like 15 to 20 hours to do a full breakdown of looking at this. And then the performance drivers, there's a different DNA to each format. So like in our library, there's the different combinations. It's in the thousands of like the different ones that it looks like. I also want to point out how you said production 99 % of the time isn't a performance driver. He's filming with shitty light on selfie mode on his camera. There's crystals circling around the head.

1:00:35Brendan Kane:Because it's a part of the effect of the viewer. It feels like it's – so this is – so I worked with Taylor Swift very early on in her career. And one of the things that has made her so successful that makes her so brilliant is she realized very early on that social media is not a one-to-many platform. It's a one-to-one platform. Because if we think about when we consume content, we're by ourself on the couch, on the train, in an Uber, wherever. We're not sitting in a movie theater or a stadium. That's why low production value in this instance can work. It's such an interesting point. And we've actually talked about this.

1:01:12I forgot who we talked about this with. Maybe it was Kane. The viewing experience of social media, even though a video might have been seen 54 million times, it wasn't like all 54 million people were watching it in a stadium all at once. It was a person by themselves. Like you don't consume social media with other people. You're in your bedroom or on your couch or whatever and you're scrolling and it's a one-to-one interaction. I noticed that with the YouTubers that I really like. Yeah. They're talking to me. They're not talking to, hey, guys. They're like, you. Who's guys? Who's guys? Hey, everybody.

1:01:48I'm not watching this with a bunch of people, dude. I'm watching this on my laptop. Which goes back to what you were saying of it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Yes. They have that deep connection. They're saying you. They're like, I'm literally just talking to you, and I feel like those people have the deepest parasocial relationships with their community because you feel like you're growing up with them. Those people that we've talked about that you've watched their videos for a decade and they've still stayed relevant. Like, dude, tell me when we watched Casey Neistat's videos when we were in college, it felt like it was just you and him.

1:02:18And he's taking you, you're like riding the boosted board around New York City with this guy. And you're going and finding the drone on top of thing. You're like, we both got the drone. Like you didn't get the fuck. It's just Casey getting the damn drone, you know? What would you tell someone who doesn't feel comfortable speaking to camera and hasn't worked on that skill of like, maybe they look at that video and maybe this format isn't for them. But someone who wants to start making content or has just started on their content journey and is like, I know I should be talking to camera. I know I should be showing my face.

1:02:49But I just like, it's just, it feels awkward when I see that red light come on and I'm having to, you know, say what I want to say, deliver value of sorts. But it's just hard for me to speak in front of a camera.

1:03:01Brendan Kane:I mean, that's normal. I mean, first, just know that's normal. There's nothing wrong with you. It is an awkward experience to stare into a camera and speak. Like it took me a long time to do it. Or when I'm testing a new format, like I tested this format once and the first time I tested it, I had to do 10 takes of the first one to get my, the cadence going and the delivery and things of that going. So the first thing I say to that is you're not alone. Like I feel your pain. I've been there. Like it's normal. Number two is like, if it's really holding your back, like ask yourself, what is it really about?

1:03:38Brendan Kane:because it's probably not about the camera. It's probably about something that happened to you in the past as a young kid or a fear of judgment for something else. And see if you can work through that. And number three is nobody's here to force you to do anything. Ultimately, this is your choice. Now, there are other formats. There's a creator, Hunter Prosper, amazing content creator. He does stories from strangers. It's Man on the Street, but you never see him on camera. He asked people on the street, like, emotionally charged questions about their life. Like, who was your first love? You know, what was your first heartbreak?

1:04:13Brendan Kane:Dosa Society is doing it now, too. Like, there's ways around it. But the first place, you know, I like to start is, like, just, like, it's going to take some time to get through that. But you will get through it. And then, again, just remember, you're speaking to one person. You're not speaking to a lot of people. That's where I would start with that. I think that helps a lot, the one person. Or you could do voiceover. You could voice over a clip and you never have to be seen for the first little bit. Okay, I want a round two, man. I really want redemption. I'm also just laughing because I'll sometimes scroll back in my camera roll and we'll record.

1:04:48We've made some ads before. We'll record content. And if I'm trying to do this selfie stuff, I literally will have like 30 or 40 takes. This one day, Brayden was like, yo, I need you to just send me this really quick talking head video. You talking to the camera? For an ad. and it's like hour half later he's like can you send me the video I'm like still trying to get it down I'm on take 57 but we're going to get it alright

1:05:11Brendan Kane:let me just save this this one real quick and then we'll do another one oh that was fun this is great yeah that's a really fun exercise I thought we were so right but I was like there's a chance that it was number one man there was a chance and he did repeat the damn thing I'm pissed at myself you're like is he trying to Mr. Miyagi we said it with so much conviction I got it number two yeah video number two But I like doing that one because a lot of people get it wrong. And it just shows you kind of like the nuance to this. Okay. So this one, this is another, we're going to do a completely different format.

1:05:42Brendan Kane:Okay. So this one's, this one's, it's called visual metaphors. Okay. So the format has three key elements to it. There, it takes an abstract or complex topic, a visual representation of that topic with physical objects and a verbal explanation of the topic. So this one is a little bit more challenging from an execution level than what we just saw. As you'll see from even just like a production level, the framing, you know, the setup, things of that nature. So we'll watch an example of Dr. Julie Smith that leverages the visual metaphor format. This video did 9.3 million views. And then we'll do the same exercise.

1:06:20Brendan Kane:We'll watch two of her videos and break down which one performed better and why. Don't make this mistake when you're working on your own happiness. Imagine this is you and this is your life. But like most people's lives, there are problems that can make it toxic. If a fish is living in a toxic environment, eventually it gets sick. So you take her out of the dirty water and put her in a new tank for a while. Kind of like how you take a break, you go on holiday for a few weeks into a new environment and it helps, everything gets better and feels great for a while. until you return and go right back to that toxic situation again.

1:07:01And it doesn't matter how clean the water was on your break or how refreshed you feel. Eventually, you will get sick again. If you want to thrive in the long term, you have to focus on cleaning up the environment that is affecting you every day. I'm a psychologist to follow for more.

1:07:19Brendan Kane:Okay. So again, 9.3 million views, amazing format. And again, when we talk about formats, this can be used for any subject matter. It's just using visual metaphors. That's textbook. Yeah. Yeah. Textbook. She did some masking. Okay. This is a good video. Okay. Okay. Two different ones. Two videos. Video one, video two. Lock the fuck in. Lock in. Stop messing around. Okay. Wait, let's tell me the hook right there. Now imagine this is you. Okay. And imagine for a moment that you're stood. That's just the caption, but you guys will get this. Okay. Okay. Now imagine this is you and these are all the bad things that happen to you.

1:07:54So each one represents a memory of traumatic experiences that you've been through. And as you go about your life, the things seem like it's overflowing. Memories just keep falling out when you don't want them to, emotionally overwhelming you, and you can't seem to focus on the rest of your life. So what can we do about it? Well, I'm a psychologist, and this is what happens in trauma therapy. First of all, a therapist would gear you up with all the skills that you need to manage just how painful those memories can be. And then you take one memory at a time, carefully open it up at your own pace, and allow you to process that memory.

1:08:31And then you can neatly fold it up. You do the same with the next one and the next one until what you're left with is a neat little pile of memories that fit neatly at the bottom, leaving you more capacity to focus on the life that you want to have today.

1:08:50Brendan Kane:Okay, video one. Now let's watch video two.

1:09:20traffic just keeps on coming. Now, if I asked you to just step back from the curb and watch the traffic instead of trying to control it, just allowing it to pass and watching as it goes, that would be the process of mindfulness. When you notice that you're trying to hold on to certain thoughts and push others away, see if you can step back from the traffic and let it pass.

1:09:46Brendan Kane:okay push pause for if you're watching this so you can put your guess below put your guess below i don't want to say i'm stumped okay guys you do you know the answer are you locked in yeah i know what i got i don't want you got to go first this time i went first last time it's not fair it was this is the easiest one i want to say probably one did better okay because but i don't know why do you think one did better i think it was one too i think it was one because she like completed an action and it kind of reminds me of the get ready with me of like you kind of want to see what she's going to be doing with the crumpled up paper so there's like an action that she's taking in like a completed action versus maybe if the cars were moving a little bit more and she had a visual representation for the person standing in the traffic versus not standing in the traffic maybe that would have performed better.

1:10:40I'm going to go with one. I think I also think one. I think that the text on the screen at the very beginning, imagine you're stood. I think you could lose someone right there. I think it's like, but it might be two because it's like the feeling of like, imagine this is you versus more like, this is what happens. What was the copy on one on the very first part? Let's see if we can go back.

1:11:07Brendan Kane:Now imagine this is you. Imagine for a moment that you're stood. I'm thinking one. I'm really going with one. I think the paper on the screen was interesting. It had like an auditory situation going on. It was like crumpling paper. She's putting it in. I'm like, imagine this is me. What am I imagining? Okay, I'm putting all these feelings in a basket. She also has a - She did struggle to put the paper in the basket. She did struggle a little bit, but she said that she was a therapist. Okay. And then I'm like, okay, she has a little bit. She's building authority here. She's telling me she's a therapist.

1:11:39She doesn't tell me anything in the second one. So if I just popped onto it, I'm like, maybe why should I listen to this gal? I don't know that she's a therapist. So then she tells me she's a therapist. The only reason I might think it might be number two is because it felt like she did take a little bit long to get into the solution. The solution on one. But I'm going to go with one. I'm going one. I'm putting my foot on the table. You guys sure? Do you want to change it?

1:12:02Brendan Kane:No, I'm not changing it. Show it to me. Imagine. that's two isn't it you guys got it video one 12 million views video two 130 ,000 again same creator same format 11 million views in performance let's go 130k ain't bad what I would do for us but again this is why people will say that 130k but we need to do this exercise to see what drives performance even if you want to get to 130k so that you got to understand what makes it work so you know you you were getting it right so there's in video one there's an active metaphor there's a clear visual story that involves the manipulation of the object you guys were debating that in your heads is like with the papers she's actually manipulating it with the cars she's just asking us to imagine a scenario she's not touching them she's not moving any of those things uh then there's the tension again as as we talked about earlier a lot of these things are happening on a subconscious level in video one just having the waste paper basket overflowed is creating an initial tension on a subconscious level in those first few seconds i was like really trying to pay attention to what she was saying but can you get the fucking crumpled paper all in the basket oh man um and then the video two there's no clear visual problem there's just the cars in front of her and then we have the potential energy so in that first video, again, there's this potential interaction that's going to happen.

1:13:32Brendan Kane:We think that, and you were saying this, there's potentially something going to happen with the papers in that versus the cars. She doesn't reach for it or anything like that. And then the last one is just the cleverness. Like video one, she's using everyday household items to explain this topic of dealing with trauma and trauma therapy versus the cars. It's not, there's no real cleverness to kind of what she's doing and how she's manipulating the, or she's lack of manipulating the objects that we would see on an everyday basis. Thank God we got that one, man. I was really starting to doubt myself.

1:14:09Should we switch career paths?

1:14:12Brendan Kane:No, I mean, because you guys are getting it. I mean. It's super interesting, though, to talk it out loud because do you, Brendan, do you have any, do you, okay, what's this? So these are just more kind of like, as I mentioned, like each format has their own performance drivers and own kind of DNA. So these are just kind of like other types of performance drivers that we would look at. So there's obviously visual cues. And again, it's less about, as you guys know, it's less about the production value, but more of the effect that the production has, like the lighting, the tonality of things of it.

1:14:45Brendan Kane:And then there's obviously the storytelling elements. elements. A lot of the top YouTubers talk about Jenga theory, which if you ever played the blocks of Jenga, each one goes around pulling one out. And that's like tension building. Each one builds tension as you do it. And then obviously the delivery mechanisms, the cadence, the tonality, all of those elements. So those are just more examples of kind of just overall performance drivers. Gosh, it's so, so interesting. What is the goal in Triangle? Could you tell us a little about that yeah jay jay shetty used that a lot it's about how you structure your information in terms of the three different three different elements and it can be uh it can be different elements that all work together but having three core pillars of a story that work together to progress it because typically creators will just focus on one thing and have a through line through one interesting wow that was such a fun exercise do we have any more slides or is that it those are great uh that's it i can pull up another example if you guys want to keep going or you want to do one more yeah let's do one more one more would be fun okay if you want to pull up maybe a clip that went crazy for us oh maybe we can do that instead maybe you can kind of show us that'd be kind of fun i'd be i'd love to hear your take on that here let me go to reels let me find something that really went but i think what we need to do is we need to take one that's similar yes yes i'm like same person almost doesn't have to be the same person okay just kind of like the same set up the same structure okay let me see i think one of the gary ones did crazy you want to look at gary yeah one of the gary ones hit a quarter million but i kind of want it to not be gary because gary's brand is so big okay that it's like i kind of like yeah no shit gary this one has 191 000 views and the next one has 7 000 views videographer number one might safe.

1:16:35I shoot everything, real estate, weddings, music videos, and fitness content. This leads the brand to think they don't specialize in fitness, so why should I hire them? You're a little rock. Versus I create high converting fitness content for brands looking to grow their online presence and increase sales. I'm bought in. I'm handing my credit card over as you're saying it because you're like, this is the person for me.

1:16:55Brendan Kane:Okay. And this is the second one. The higher that you can get that ROI for them, the more likely they're going to be wanting to pay you more money every single month consistently. If they pay me 5 ,000, are they going to make back eight? Are they going to make back seven? You're not just selling videos. You're selling an actual outcome that the business will then in turn make more money from. They don't really care about how pretty your photos or videos are. They care about making money. So shift your mindset to that and you'll make a lot more money. So read what the captions that... Caption for the second one that has 254 likes is, clients don't care about how pretty your work is.

1:17:27They care about whether it drives sales and delivers return on investment. The moment you shift your mindset from creating no no you're saying the text on screen yeah text on screen text on screen was clients only care about one thing roi and then for the other one it was

1:17:39Brendan Kane:amateur videographer versus premium videographer yeah okay so can you guys guess i'll tell you what my perspective you guys guess first i think comparing two things you want to hear both so you're kind of sticking around longer and then i also think that people got people were pissed that you said to specialize. They were super upset. They're like, I should do everything is what they're saying in the comments. They were super upset, I remember. For the second one, clients only care about one thing, ROI. Maybe somebody's like, no shit. Yeah, it's not a perspective shift at all. So it's just right there.

1:18:18What are your thoughts? Tell me.

1:18:20Brendan Kane:Starting with the last one, how many people know what ROI means? Are you saying it's a lot or a little? No, it's a little. We're not speaking to a fifth grader. We're assuming that someone knows what ROI is. And how many people have clients? Talking from a percentage standpoint. Yeah, a lot less than the people who don't. Yeah. And then I think you were spot on on the other one. It's one versus another. But also you're talking about videographers. Like how many people hire a videographer for a birthday party, a wedding, an anniversary? Oh, so it's not just people with the damn camera. It's people that hire them too.

1:18:54They're like, oh, I want to know what the difference is. I'm going to hire someone.

1:18:57Brendan Kane:But it also creates that immediate tension on the screen. One thing versus another thing. And you want to see how that unfolds. Interesting. That is so interesting. I remember I had my first video ever went viral when I would just graduate college. I was living in Bali and there was a guy on a motorbike and he had all these tropical fish taped to the bike, right? And I got my phone out. I was, my girlfriend had my phone on the back of the motorbike and she took a video of the fish and i was like she's like should we stop and get one oh yeah and so we stop we save this one named it roger we bring it all the way home there's like a video of us like carrying this fish on the motorbike we set it up in the tank and it goes i wake up the next morning it has like six million views and i was like holy shit why did this go off and then like basically a three-part structure we saw these fish on the back we decided to save one and then i'm like reading the comments and i'm like oh my god they wanted us to save every fucking fish so you had everyone that was like why didn't you save more of the fish and then other people were like that's way too small of a bull so it had i mean thousands of comments that were just going back and forth and then you guys are dumb for saving them what if the fish dies like everyone was upset and it's very interesting because i had multiple videos that went viral with a similar situation where people were upset about something that i said they're like and then the other group in the comments was battling back so then you had another group that was like it's so good of them to save one of the fish what are you talking about?

1:20:23And then the arguments were a thousand comments deep from people being like, you're stupid. The other group was like, you're stupid. And it was just going nuts. It was like a 30 second video with Roger, the little fish that we saved. And we also had named the little fish. So controversy is good.

1:20:36Brendan Kane:Tension. Tension. I mean, controversy works, but it's a form of tension. Yeah. Now, okay. Because like what story, even like fairy tellers stories, it's like, if it doesn't have some type of tension to it, it struggles to hold. You have an antagonist. You have someone who's battling against. Now, what about someone who says, Brendan, I'm doing everything. You fucking tell me I'm shadow banned. I'm not getting nice. 99 % of the time, it's not the case. Unless you're covering some very like political-based content, controversial-based content. And I know some people are going to put in the comments, oh, well, Zuckerberg admitted that they were suppressing, yeah, they were suppressing, you know, political-based stuff.

1:21:18Brendan Kane:I'm not going to say it because I don't want this to get pushed down. But yeah, it's 99 % of the time you're not getting shadow banned. I literally had a friend of mine reach out with a friend of his that had like 850 ,000 followers on Instagram. So they were relatively successful. And he was like, hey, she's looking for help because she can't figure out. She keeps going viral, but she keeps losing followers. So I took literally 90 seconds to look at the account. and it was like all like hardcore political views all across the board. So even if you were like left or right, I'm not going to say which one it was, even if you were one of those, you are going to get alienated by one of the videos that she was posting.

1:22:01Brendan Kane:So there is always 99.9 % of the time, there is always a reason that you're not growing and it comes down to storytelling. Now, I am not saying it has anything to do with you as a person. It's nothing personal with you. And it's usually not your message. Again, as you said, it's not about what you say, it's about how you say it. It's the context of it. That is what's causing your lack of success on social media. But people love to blame shadow betting or they say, oh, you know what? The algorithms are suppressing my reach to get me to pay a$50 boost. All the social media platforms combined make a billion dollars a day.

1:22:39Brendan Kane:Like I've managed over$300 million worth of marketing spend. They don't make their billions off of people spending$50 on a boost. They make it off of Apple and McDonald's and Nike and things of that nature. In addition, if that were the case, Mr. Beast wouldn't be the most subscribed person on YouTube. It would be Apple or Nike or Pepsi or something like that. One of those brands. Why do you think those bigger brands or brands that maybe aren't consumers just kind of miss the mark? Is it just they're not storytelling in a way that's connecting with the consumer. Like, why is a Mr. Beast able to create a video that gets hundreds of millions of views and then somebody like a McDonald's or a Pepsi or something might have a YouTube channel and their stuff's not really cracking?

1:23:28Brendan Kane:Because Mr. Beast, for example, every story is designed specifically for the platform. Like he said, he spent 1 ,000 days straight, 10 hours a day, analyzing every aspect of how to tell a story on that platform. Brands, and you guys know this, you work with brands, they're still operating off of old creative paradigms and models that were designed pre-social media. And they think just because it worked for television or print or something like that before, that it's going to automatically translate to social media. And again, it's not the content and the story they're trying to tell that's failing them.

1:24:00Brendan Kane:It's the way that they're going about telling the story. They can't get out of their own way. No, and the cut down of the minute spot is in a social video just because you move the lines in. That's the craziest thing to me, dude. You're making a cut down and I'm like, this just isn't going to do well. It's for broadcast. And we're just grabbing the lines and we're just putting them 916 and being like, this is our TikTok video for today. It just doesn't make any sense. You also bring up an interesting point. You were telling us that you don't actually think bat shooting content is a great strategy.

1:24:32Can you go into that and why a founder maybe shouldn't be bat shooting early on in their content creation journey?

1:24:38Brendan Kane:because you struggle to learn. So let's just take an example. Let's just say that you sit down and you create 15 pieces of content. Now let's take a drastic example. Let's just say your audio crapped out and you can hear them, but you can barely hear them. Well, you're going to go ahead and post it, but then the first video fails. And then you're like, oh, well, it's because the audio. And then you just go and post the other ones because you already shot them. Now that's an extreme example, but it's the same kind of aspect of it is like, most people, like you batch produce 15 pieces of content and then the first one fails, you can't really take the learnings from that and apply it to the next one because you've got all these others that you're posting out.

1:25:22Brendan Kane:Now, if you have a very regimented process where you're gonna produce 15 with all a single hypothesis, a single format, you know the performance drivers, and then you're gonna learn with each post all 15 and accumulate all of those notes and make sure that the next batch is going to perform, you can do it. But human behavior says we just, we typically don't operate that way. So that's why I just like in the beginning, and I'm not saying it has to be forever. And I'm not saying it's like a single rule that if you batch produce, you're gonna fail, but you typically are gonna burn yourself out and bang your head against the wall, just continuing to reproduce the same results over and over and over again.

1:26:03Brendan Kane:So to me, it's like set yourself up for success Yes, crawl before you run, learn with each element as you go along so that you can really master storytelling of that specific format. What's been one of the most surprising things from one of your research studies on a creator? Oh, that's a good question. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, it's a great question. I think I mean, this isn't and I'm going to try and think through the most surprising one. But just like I'd like the one example we did, the how do you know, like just kind of like emulating that kind of like FaceTime conversation just reinforces, again, what these platforms are truly about.

1:26:47Brendan Kane:It's about connecting with the audience. It's not about like how fancy I can be, how I can represent myself in a certain way. It really comes down to that effect on the viewer that you have. and I think the other thing that I don't know that it's necessarily surprising because we've seen it so many times but I think that the interesting thing is you can literally have somebody with zero social media experience come in and just completely blow it out of the water because they master storytelling like we had a hand doctor starting from zero and she's just creating you know content format a format with her iPhone and you know she blew up like 150 million views, you know, 850 ,000 followers, not because she went to film school or something like that.

1:27:35Brendan Kane:It's just because she tapped into, you know, a type of connection with the audience, you know, creating a powerful effect with each video that allowed her to explode. So, you know, one of the things that I talk about that I think people undervalue is if we go back 25 years ago before social media, how did you reach the masses? You had to go through a television station, a radio station. You had to have a big PR team, budgets to put ads in magazines or on billboards. And literally today, with this thing in our pocket, these mobile devices, anybody can reach millions of people if they tell the right story.

1:28:18Brendan Kane:And to me, that I think is so underestimated and undervalued in today's world. I think we take it for granted that we have this power at our fingertips. And it has really democratized and decentralized communication to the masses and it made it available to everyone. So it's so interesting to think what these next six to 12 months are going to look like. Are you worried at all with the the integration of all the AI content onto the platforms? Or is the principle still going to be the exact same? Focus on storytelling, focus on creating a great message, and focus on your pre-production to break through that noise.

1:29:00Brendan Kane:I am not worried from our sake and our perspective because the AI content is still going to have to be driven by content creators and they're still going to need to tell effective stories and understand the difference between a good and bad story. I think the larger concern I have, and I don't, it may happen in six to 12 months and maybe longer is like, what does this all mean for human civilization? You know, the power of deep fakes, the power of creating completely artificial content. I mean, we see the sore examples happening now and they're like, good, they're not great. But what is that going to look like a year from now, two years from now, five years from now?

1:29:38Brendan Kane:Like is, and this is like a crazy thing to say, but there is some truth behind it. Is social media the next weapon of mass destruction? Yeah, because you have all these people that are saying crazy stuff and people aren't going to know. People already don't know. Yeah. Yeah, the deepfake stuff is terrifying. Oh, yeah, to like do a headpiece on somebody and have them say something absolutely absurd. It's wild to think about. And the other big question that the social media platforms are going to have to answer and really dictate the future of all of this is how are they going to treat 100 % AI-driven content?

1:30:18Brendan Kane:Now, the CEO of YouTube just came out and said, well, why should I penalize content just because it's 100 % AI-generated? Now, I'm not trying to answer that question for them, but that answer is going to dictate how we experience what we engage with in the future. Because these platforms could just say, nope, it's 100 % is out, or there needs to be some type of blockchain evidence that it's created by a real person, especially with deep fakes and things of that nature. but I mean it's nobody really knows but it can really transform the world in both a positive and negative way in terms of how it's leveraged now I think to your larger question is do us as independent content creators have to worry about getting beat out by fully AI driven content I don't think we do I think that there's going to be a demand for that level of content but I there's also going to be a demand for kind of the real thing.

1:31:14Brendan Kane:It's kind of like animation movies versus live action movies. You know, there's still that demand for live action and there's still that demand for animation. In addition to kind of the real world applications of like, hey, you get to go see Taylor Swift in a concert. She's a real person. There's that real world kind of experience and connection. Now that's in the next five years. What it looks like in 25 years 50 years when you look at like robots and things of that nature that's harder to kind of project out did you see the amazon doc that was leaked of all the employees oh yes like there i think it was like 600 000 employees they're saying that are going to be laid off like i don't remember the time frame but i mean that's just like so much work for us i mean dude we have you seen all the cars out here that are driving by themselves yet have you driven by them i haven't but i've been in a Waymo before.

1:32:04Brendan Kane:It's crazy. It's wild. It's insane. I mean, even coming down where we live in West Hollywood, there are so many of them. It's actually absurd. Like I remember I pulled up a few nights ago to a four-way stop. It was three Waymos and it was myself. And I'm like, how weird is this, man? If you're not from like a, and they don't have them really in New York, but if you're not from SF, I believe they're in Miami too, or LA, you're from a Midwest town. You came out here, you'd be like, what in the heck is going on? And we've just accepted it. You just accept it as like a thing here. It's weird. Yeah, but there's like, if you look at the course of human history, technology and innovation has always knocked out jobs but created new jobs.

1:32:43Yeah. The Industrial Revolution. Yeah.

1:32:45Brendan Kane:So I'm – Printing press. I'm less worried about kind of that application. I'm more worried about the communication element of like, especially the deep fake stuff. Because we live in a world that's full of fake news or just a lot of information that's disseminated that maybe isn't even put out on purpose as fake, but they're collecting information from other places and then reinterpreting that. Now, what happens when it's not just a person telling a story that is misrepresenting facts or misrepresenting a completely story and it's like actually visually showing that this thing happened when it actually didn't happen?

1:33:27Brendan Kane:Like that's the scary part of like what are the implications of that? And it looks perfect. Yeah. But I think it's easy to go down the doom state of like holy shit. I really like what you said, though. There's a time and a place. People can enjoy a real movie. People can enjoy an animated stuff. It doesn't have to be either or. And I think just we crave that in-person connection. And so I think that like moving forward to really cultivate an audience and and, you know, really break through like that in-person stuff is going to be so crucial, especially to like separate yourself from other people because everyone's going to you know have the ability to create content online but i think that those who create those in-person events and bring their audience together i think that's going to be a definitely a way to win and separate yourself um i you you brought up hook point and i want to talk about hooks what do people need to be paying attention to and incorporating into those first three seconds on short form and maybe first 15 to 30 seconds on long form that's going to help them produce you know longer retention and have someone like get someone's attention right off the bat and then like watch the full video yeah i've a lot i wrote an entire book on hooks um but like let's cover the things that we've already talked about and then we'll add on to it.

1:35:01Brendan Kane:Number one is, you know, the generalist principle. Like, how are you setting something up that anybody can enjoy, anybody connect with without losing the core essence of what you're trying to achieve with your message or water down kind of who you are and still plays to your business goals and objectives? Like we just did the two examples of those two videos of like the generalist principle completely killed the reach of the other one. Now you could have re-engineered that hook in a way that still conveyed the same point that could connect with more people and bring them in. So that's number one.

1:35:36Brendan Kane:Number two, understand that everything has already been said. Point blank. Everything has already been said. So you need to make sure that you're constructing your hook that demonstrates you're going to provide some type of perspective that is different than what they've already heard or seen before. because if you already feel like you've heard or seen it before, you're just be like, oh, I know what this person is going to say. I don't need to hear it. Another kind of tool that you can use, I don't recommend using it every time, but like subverting expectations, you know, like flipping it on your head, something on your head.

1:36:10Brendan Kane:Like for example, I think we did a video a long time ago of like, you know, the saying of don't sweat the small stuff, like the subvert expectation is sweat the small stuff. So it kind of flips something on their head. So people like, like, oh, I haven't heard that before, so let me see what it's about. The other thing is setting up a very clear expectation of what the person can expect from it and actually deliver on it. Because clickbait, it doesn't really work like it did in the past. You actually have to deliver on what you're promising up front. Other things we talked about in the example is you can set some type of conflict up front in that hook that drives that interest.

1:36:52Brendan Kane:And yeah, those I think are a few. I mean, there's a lot more kind of a nuance to it of like how you set up the hook. Like man on the street, for example, is like how you frame it to build more tension. Like, for example, like you just holding the camera, approaching somebody versus somebody seeing you approach somebody and the angle that you approach them, making sure that you can see their facial expression clearly. There's a lot of kind of nuances like that happen on the subconscious level with it. Oh, another big thing that people get wrong is they try and do too much. in the first three seconds.

1:37:23Brendan Kane:So they'll have like a title card. They'll have captions. They'll have movement. They'll have somebody speaking. You need to have a very, very clear visual hierarchy of where you want people to focus, like first focus, second focus, third focus, so they can track. Because the subconscious, if it feels like it's being left behind, like it can't process fast enough, it'll scroll past and move on. So should you have a little title card situation or do you think you lead with text right off the bat? For most of the... It depends on the format. and again like that's just because you have text or title card that's not a performance driver like it's the way that you leverage it like because we just looked at dr julie smith and those two examples they both had had that there and that other guy had it too they had they had like a thing up top and then the actual copy yeah the the the text on screen is is always something that fascinated me like how much time do you think someone needs if they are going to have a title card or something that kind of summarizes the video, like how much time do they need to put into what that says?

1:38:22Because like, for example, the example that we showed you was like amateur versus professional. And then the other one was talking about ROI. So like, does someone need to pay as close of attention to like the copy that's actually on the title card?

1:38:37Brendan Kane:You need to pay attention to everything that's in there. Again, the visual hierarchy, if it's number one, you have to pay more attention if it's like second or third you don't but yes you you need to pay as much attention as possible to it i mean there's i mean with chat gbt you can do like a lot of like variations with it to kind of simplify it uh make it punchier but yeah like they need to be able to read and understand and grasp what this video represents in less than three seconds oftentimes in one to two seconds. And the longer and wordier, or if like ROI, even if somebody maybe kind of understands ROI in that video example, if they have to sit there and think like for five or 10 seconds, what is ROI?

1:39:21They're going to move on.

1:39:24Brendan Kane:But again, it doesn't mean you have to sit there and spend an hour on it. Spend five minutes with ChatTBT and just create as many variations with it and see which one kind of really sticks out. This has been such a fun conversation. if you could talk to someone and give them like unsolicited advice if you could talk to and we usually say if you could go back and talk to your 18 year old self like what advice would you give but if you could give some unsolicited advice to somebody 18 or fucking 45 regardless of their profession or their niche and they want to see success over the next six to 12 months on social, what are like the key pieces of advice you would say to send them on and have them see success?

1:40:10Brendan Kane:Number one is become the best storyteller possible. And that is broad advice for anything in life. If you want to be successful in anything that you do in life, you've got to become a good storyteller. Even if you're working within a corporate environment, how do you rise up the ranks? Well, you tell compelling stories to demonstrate your value. So number one is understand this is all about storytelling. Do whatever you can to become the best storyteller. Number two, recognize and realize there's this thing called formats or can represent series. There's repeatable patterns out there for success.

1:40:44Brendan Kane:Study those patterns. Find the one that resonates with you. Make it a personal choice for you, not because somebody else tells you to do it or because you see somebody have success with it. It has to connect with you. And then number three, do the exercise we just did. Like you can do is you put a high performer on one side of the screen and a low performer on the other side of the screen and try and diagnose like what is the difference between these. But if you really want to get good at social media and leverage the power of it, it really comes down to that. It's not about how much content you put out.

1:41:17Brendan Kane:It's not about what time of day you post. It's not about the hashtags. It's not about how fancy your camera is. It's not how big your ad budget is. It's purely how effectively can you have an effect on the viewer on the other side of the screen through the story that you tell. And if someone wants to see that database of stuff that you guys have, how can they access that? Yeah, so they can go to hookpoint.com and they can schedule a call with our team. We can walk them through that. In addition, for your listeners, if they go to hookpoint.com forward slash 505, they can get a free copy of my latest book that breaks all of this down in detail.

1:41:54Brendan Kane:This is a real book. It's not an ebook. If you want to go, it's called The Guide to Going Viral. You can go buy it on Amazon if you want, but I'm giving it away for free for listeners to that. And that will break down every step of the process that I walked through today. Oh, this is amazing. I'm going to be downloading it. Yeah, I'm downloading it. Go into the description. We'll link it down below. This has been episode 179 with Brendan Cade. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button. Drop us a comment. We'll see you guys all next week. Peace. First pod in the new stew. Listen, guys, it's coming together.

1:42:21Okay. Do we have two panels that are miscolored? Yeah. And it's all good. Could you believe that? I feel like I don't even know if they would have noticed, though, if we didn't say anything. Yeah. So this is the whole problem here. On this company's website, if you hold up the laptop, let me tell you, that one looks more like this one. Oak and walnut, too close to each other. Too close to each other. It should be, there should be like a sticker that they send. Is this the yellow sticker or is this the orange sticker? So we're going to have to get two new wood panels. We also did our best to cover the windows.

1:42:53and we really thought we did something with the long curtains and a curtain rod. We just need even longer floor-to-ceiling curtains. And we're going to put them on both sides. Then we're going to put up the neon sign. We got living spaces. Yep, got some chairs. Tell them what we got first. First of all, I really think you need to be able to take shit home right then and there from living spaces. It's a lot easier. The fact that they were like, well, also, we just need the biggest truck ever to get the stuff on. Yeah. So I have a Tesla, you have a Jeep, not great for moving stuff. We also realized we got, we thought a couch and a chair would be good.

1:43:33Too difficult to get a couch through that door. So we're going three chairs. Three chairs. Which I think is going to be better. We wanted to give you guys the couch that everyone was asking about. Yes. For cozy vibes. These are three cozy chairs. They're going to work great. It's going to be a good vibe. But the studio is coming together. The lights are going to be kind of set up into the ceiling. Yeah, we're trying to figure out if we can mount three lights into the ceiling. And we're tired of you guys bitching about us hitting the table. So now, no matter what, we have these mic stands. So hopefully you guys don't cry anymore.

1:44:05I hope you guys like our$12 Ross Dress for Less tablecloth. That was perfect for us. Perfect for the—did the job today. And then we stole this table from Costa's dad that was in the room. So it's great. So I'll tell you what. Give us two to three months. We're going to have a bookshelf behind me with that 100K subscriber plaque on it. Yeah, it's going to feel good. What feels good, even though it's not nearly finished, it just feels amazing that it's just a room dedicated to the pod. Four years later, we fucking have made it. Come on. We made it. We made it. Type of shit. Come on. We did it. So what did you think of the first pod in the new stew?

1:44:40That was such a fun episode. Brendan is just a ball of knowledge. I mean, he is so fun to talk to. I feel like The Rock's got a lot of limiting beliefs broken today. I did. A lot of things they were thinking. I really thought, though, that we had that first one. And then when we replayed it, I was like, he did say the same shit twice. I just immediately, though, I had a bias. I had a bias for the negativity angle. Me too. Well, that says a lot about how we like to operate our lives. Our cup is half empty. Yeah, we're just negative people. So, okay, the reason why I said that was because one of my friends who's a YouTuber and he has like 150K subs, he did his own little study.

1:45:21And in his thumbnails, it was like, let's say he reviews some tech sometimes. Let's use the GoPro. He'd be like, is the GoPro 10 bad? Pretend, right? It would be a negative word. And all of the ones that he did of tech that was positive, like, positive, bad. Didn't perform as well as the negative angle. So immediately as I saw a negative angle, I was like, that one's got to be it. I didn't even think about the rest of what he said. I just saw a negative, and I was like, that's the one. Dude, it's all good. Now that we talked about it, I would have picked one. What I think is so great about what he does and a big takeaway from the episode is doing research.

1:45:59Not just finding a format that works for you, but really dissecting why a certain format works for a certain creator and how you can bring that into your own content. But I think that just because it worked for somebody else doesn't mean it's the right format for you. We got to study the game. Got to. Got to study the game. Got to get in the lab, check out why this is working. It's interesting, too, to go back. When I look at the clips that have done well, it's very easy and apparent to be like, this is why this did well. And we're not editing the clips. So it's like I can't just clone myself and like cut the clips.

1:46:40But when you watch them back and after you see how the data does, you're like, oh, this is not a great clip. This is why this didn't do very well. Especially as you scroll all the way down on the page and you're like seeing what the situation was. Me and Fig have also been really debating like how crazy do the clips need to be. Shout out to Yuli, new clips editor. Yeah, and we're like, do we bring on a motion graphics person too to like really ramp it up. And I love what he said that like 99 % of the time, production value isn't the reason why a clip does well or a piece of content does well or not.

1:47:18I think it can definitely, you know, benefit. Yeah, I think the whole thing though, like you were saying is the piece of content. Totally. It's like what is said and like why it was chosen. So it's almost like having someone that is so trained not to just like editing a clip, trained to think about like why this piece would provoke an emotion from somebody does it provide a ton of value is it really humorous the gary v one about winning the lottery no one knows that gary's won the lottery that was a piece of information that was one of one and then people are debating in the comments well oh gary shouldn't have won the lottery gary's already doing well blah blah you just have all these different opinions that kind of cycle through because this makes someone feel a certain type of way and it's just interesting to go back and see like what made someone comment or what made someone like a particular video.

1:48:04And I also think it, um, the transformation thing that he said was super interesting. Is it a contrarian thought? And when we're thinking about our YouTube titles, like that's something we're trying to dive into. It's like, if we say this, Seth Godin is a perfect example. That podcast, what was the, let me go back and look at what the title was. Don't be authentic or something. No, I don't think it was Don't be authentic. Stop chasing attention. And Seth has a bright pair of glasses on. And so you have all these crybabies in the comments.

1:48:35Brendan Kane:They're like, stop chasing attention from a guy that wears blue light. Yeah, thank you. We appreciate your comment, you nimwit. Thanks for the view. Thanks for the view, brother. Make sure you subscribe. I do think, though, that hearing him say that production value isn't what's going to help you win necessarily is something that's going to allow someone to take a deep breath. because, man, if you want to create content, I think, like he said, you just got to focus on the story that you're telling, the angle that you want to take, and trying to appeal to the masses and taking a more generalist approach.

1:49:09I think it's great, and I also think that, yeah, you can get caught up in I don't have the nicest camera, I don't have the lights, I don't have a filmer, and that's a big reason why people almost take the victim mentality and point the fingers as to, like, oh, well, I don't have this, which is why I'm not seeing success. And he said a lot of his clients are literally just using an iPhone. Yeah. Which is really cool for all of us. Yeah. I mean, dude, also the new selfie camera on the iPhone. Pretty damn good. Yeah. Pretty damn good. I also, I tried to be a really good fiance and I bought Sarah Catherine because she's been making some videos.

1:49:45I bought her a little thing that you plug into the phone and you put it to the back so you can see it's like a... Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like a front camera for the back. Front camera for the back. It's display. But it's flipped. That's just the dumbest thing. Did you get on TikTok shop? No, I got it on Amazon. Okay. So I supported a small business. Shout out Jeff Bezos. And yeah, it's just not it. She hasn't used it. We used it once and she hasn't used it. That's good. That's good. But it's the thought that counts. Figuring out a format as well. Yes. So The Rock's got to go back home tonight.

1:50:18Or right now. They're at home probably, right? Yeah. Go back home and figure out what format is going to work for you. And the strengths that you have. So some of you might have the gift of gab. You might be great talkers. Some of you might be insanely attractive, man. Maybe that's your thing. You're like, I'm great on camera. I'm looking good. I'm feeling good. I'm talking. The words are flowing. There's no way to, like YouTube studio doesn't show you this. But I feel like we have a really good looking group of people that listen to this podcast. I completely agree. If there was a stat, I feel like we would be off the charts.

1:50:53You know, it's hard. There's a beautiful group of people listening to this show. Fucking like models. It's tough. It's tough to have the group that's learning all this stuff and super beautiful. Yeah. And I know they're listening to this show. So you guys got to lean into that. You got to lean into that. Look, we're like, you guys are all hot. So you got to show the face on camera. Yes. And you can talk well. Uh-huh. Lean into it. Uh-huh. You know? I agree. I agree. That's something. Like the Oran episodes. Dude, you got to just be hotter. He's like, got a looks max. Yeah. He's like, got to get a haircut.

1:51:25What else did Oren say? He's like, you got to brush your teeth, man. Get your hair looking good. Wear a nice fit. He goes, look at this fit. Look at this fit I'm in. That was so funny. You got to look smacks, but utilize it, man. If you got the looks, dude, don't waste them. Don't waste your God-given talent. The thing that I thought was also super interesting is we were talking about how social is evolving. And I do think that social is evolving. I think it'd be crazy to say that it's not changing pretty consistently. It's a completely different game than it was five years ago. And you can see that, I think, with the ads that we've ran and the other people have ran that we've talked to.

1:52:01Ads that worked six months ago, that same format doesn't work anymore. And I think what Brendan was explaining to us, though, is at the core of it, it's still a great story. A great story needs to be told, whether it's a carousel story, whether it's the one example of the gal who's using a metaphor of a thing on the table. yeah like regardless a great story needs to be told and i think that most of us ourselves included you got to spend more time writing than you probably do filming i thought that was a key thing that he said writing is the whole damn thing and we've realized that like with stuff yeah i can tell when i'm rushing something and i feel kind of lost when with my script and i like kind of half-assed it and i'm trying to say the words i'm like that just doesn't sound very good right i don't think this is going to connect with people yeah i need to spend far more time writing because we can talk on camera.

1:52:48It's not very hard. We've done it for a long time. But I think the hardest thing for sure for us is sitting down and writing for extensive hours of time. Yeah, but I want to reiterate, I feel comfortable, pretty fucking comfortable talking to a camera now. I did not start off that way. And I also am not like genuinely, when I was joking around about it, me trying, I can't, I'm not a one-take wonder. You're a lot better at talking to the fucking camera than I am. I really appreciate that. You really are. Like you do got the gift of gab. It takes me so fucking long to like record a talking head video, whether it's on my phone or the camera.

1:53:26But I do notice that like when I'm in practice and in recording videos more consistently versus not, it becomes a lot easier. Like it is a muscle. And so if you are just starting out or you're not as comfortable as you would like to be on camera like i love his uh his thesis of talk to one person not a ton because it's so true like when somebody is when you're looking at instagram or tiktok or watching youtube you're alone it's rare that you're with a group of people and maybe youtube connected tv is kind of bringing that to be more of a thing when you're at parties and stuff and you're in the corner and you're like yeah dude yeah man i don't you know i'm socially awkward so i'm i'm over here fucking you know ripping youtube shorts fucking somebody's trying to talk to me um but it's all about we're talking about practice you just gotta practice you just gotta practice yeah you gotta get in the lab you gotta get in the lab we're in the lab um we're in the lab right now and we're gonna stay here in this lab it's gonna be ours it's great because It's$3.99.

1:54:32It's$3.99. I really hope that you guys are liking the direction that it's going. Do you remember the first 505 set ever? Yeah. If you're an OG rock, you'll remember this. The first 505 neon sign. So ghetto. Yeah, but I believe it was me or Chase with our chair one day when we were working at the table, slid backwards. It just ripped the cables apart. Oh, yeah. So we didn't have the neon sign literally couldn't work. Oh, no. the best news though with the current neon sign that we have we don't have the we were in a rush to move costas wasn't there to help sharif and i move so costas left us a lot of work to do when we're moving and so it was like a last minute thing and we were literally moving to the till literally 11 p.m we're supposed to be out at like 9 a.m that day and we're like we're working on it it's noon they're like checking in on how the move's going we're almost done it's like three i think we got out of there like 11 30 at night anyways no idea where the mounting bracket stuff is for the neon sign.

1:55:29So we have to email the custom neon sign place to send us those and we don't have the remote for it. So we plugged in yesterday to see what color it is. We're like, oh, it's got to be like that orange color. It's freaking neon pink. So we're like, we're just not going to put it up. We'll wait for them to send us the remote with the bragging material. Neon pink could have been a vibe. It just wasn't the color that we normally have up. So we got to get that remote back. Listen, at least not for the first. Not for the first one in the studio. We had to christen it and now we can put it up. You're about to go hunt some elk.

1:55:57I'm literally going hunting for a week. Can you guys believe that? I've only shot a real gun once before in my life. I'm going to bring you guys home elk steaks and it's going to be really fun. It's my dad's 70th birthday. It's like his lifelong dream to go hunt an elk. That's awesome. So we're going to, I'm not going to have my phone for a week. This is going to be good for me though, because I have a phone addiction. So I'm not going to be able to be on my phone at all. And I'm going to, I got to get my fix, dude. Can you guys drive to the, we're driving two hours away from the nearest town and they're like there's literally no service we will be sleeping in tents camping you should see my hunting apparel so wait wait where where is this you're going where's flying into salt lake and then you take a little tiny hopper plane utah yeah no we're going to idaho and then you take a little hopper plane i think it's like an hour and a half to lewiston idaho okay it's tip tip top idaho in the wilderness a lot of pod listeners there you i think we're gonna do a meetup you can you imagine like a bunch of hunters you might get recognized We have a huge hunting community.

1:56:54Dude, not now. I'm really locked in on this elk. It's going to be pretty wild. So you got the whole camo fit? You should see my fit. It's actually insane. It's hilarious. Amazon just got everything. I look comedic. I might wear face paint. So I can really blend in. I have a camo. I have a pretty much looks like a ghillie suit, man. But it's all camo. It's pretty hilarious. But I'm going to be gone for a week. Dude, you guys think we wouldn't have episodes for you guys? Come on. Almost didn't. We're recording tomorrow morning at the butt crack of dawn for you guys. Okay? 8 a.m. So if we sound a little tired on the Dan Churchill episode, you're going to know why.

1:57:33But that episode is going to be sick. Also, man, this is probably like plus two hours into this episode. I'd love to know if you guys are ripping the post-pod debriefs. Yeah, if you guys don't like the post-pod debrief, let us know because it's more work. But we like you guys a lot. and everyone was saying everyone what were they saying they loved it oh yeah yeah yeah they were really liking the ppd i don't yeah it's ppd ppd uh yeah we're ripping some ppds um and that's that that's that that's a great episode i did uh what were you gonna say i don't i don't know i was crying about this iphone kit it's what's wrong with the case for another day i just it's the texture is weird you really set me up to fail i got the same thing as you you held it i don't know well just you know what you literally held my phone you held it and said i like it and i said oh you should get it yeah well because you know what was the problem the one that i got that was clear hadn't i'm not saying i love this texture okay i'm not like dying on the hill that i love this but the other one was smooth and then when you'd grab yeah i was just dropping my phone all the time i kind of wish it was just the texture of what was on the outs.

1:58:44I don't know. Anyways, this is enough. That's it. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks, guys. Bye, Rox.