2026 Selling & Social Media Marketing Strategy

26:21It's not like a decentralized social network or streaming service is going to put out a business Twitch or Facebook of the day in five years, but both will exist. And the best, which is the game you're playing in, the best will all gravitate to decentralization once they extract attention from centralization. you know this all the creators are like yo fuck Vine I remember when the Vine guys and girls went to Vine to go yell at them and I was like tell me how that works out and I also tried to remind them that they were fucking babysitters and working at Starbucks until the attention that sat on Vine came to them so that's how I think they'll work out are you streaming it all on Twitter?

27:01I'm gonna go around because I don't want James to get mad at me the quick answer is I'm not because I don't think people understand that I work 24 hours a day. I'm one of the most prolific content creators, but I allocate zero minutes a day to content creation. I wish I could. I want to tell you, the only reason I ask that is because what we've noticed in our space. I get it, trust me. The problem is I'm inclined, if it was old Wine Library days, all of it. Because I'm sitting with sensitive information that I just have, you'd be stunned how little I could. People who are crushing it, all they really have versus the people who aren't is good spatial awareness with them and their...

27:38I couldn't agree more. They're just doing a waltz. Man, I so see it. I get it. Trust me, I've been thinking about it a lot. You stream ended up being a huge factor for me back in those days. Not just Twitter and Facebook. The early streaming stuff. All right, let me keep going. See you guys. What's going on, Vancouver? Yeah, you first book was Crush It. You actually talked about a realtor that started on YouTube, started filming himself in his car. That realtor was Ian Watt. Yeah, but I remember. Who I actually consider somewhat of a friend. That's awesome. And so I kind of ended up just following that blueprint.

28:11Yeah. And I ended up building a very good personal brand. That's awesome. Real estate space. You know, like, you know, World Beyond Bloomberg interviewing, you know, CBC News. But I guess the issue that I'm having, or I'm here as a personal brand trying to figure out sort of where my next move or where do I pivot. But the residential real estate space, I find, is very hard to scale. and so I'm like, it's a shit business to scale. So I'm like. Most are. Yeah, and so I think I'm just looking ahead as, you know, I've been doing it now for 10 years. I mean, he's still a young guy and I'm like, now started this podcast, it's called Looney Hour.

28:49And what's that about? So it's myself, I look at it from the real estate space. Cause you know. Yep, of course, expertise. Yeah, yep. And I've partnered up with the guy that runs portfolios. He's like a macro investor basically. He runs client portfolios. He's a money manager. He's a money manager. Yep, understood. And then the other guy worked for a hedge fund. Love it. So you guys shoot it. Yeah. Love it. How old are you? 32. Yeah, I mean this is perfect for me to answer. So from 30 to 34, when I was Gary Vaynerchuk, I was the wine guy. just like you're the real estate guy in Vancouver. I decided to start making content about other things.

29:34As a personal brand who's built something, you gotta understand back to what he was just talking about. It's not just your pretty eyes. You have other communication capabilities, charismas. So you could actually deploy that to anything else that you can speak to. I decided to go very macro and go into overall communication and then that led me to the insights of how humans, I went through a really weird period where I was like, I'm literally telling everybody what to do. I'm like, do this on Facebook. And I'm like, no one's doing it. And that led me to like, oh, people are insecure. People are like, people do things, like all the shit I talk about.

30:08But I could have went into like, I thought about it, sports. Like I'd be McAfee. That's why Pat and I are friends. Like whatever I was gonna do, it was gonna work. I just chose a certain lane. You know, I think what you need to do is decide what if it's what's next or I don't wanna scale this. That blueprint continues to be true. the platforms change the best practices within them change but back to what these gentlemen were just talking about whether it's streaming and spatial recognition storytelling to the mundane whether it's the next I mean the next TikTok is always one day away it will happen you know it could be seven years it could be four years but even back to like the nerd of all this like the amount of money creators can be making on Snapchat because of the supply and demand of how much ad revenue is in there versus how many people create for it because everyone's fixated on TikTok and Instagram is enormous.

30:59And then OF goes from thirst traps to a broader market. Patreon. There's just like a million things going on. I think your biggest debate at this young of an age is what is your favorite stuff? You can only win on passion or knowledge. Like someone like you, there's a lot of ways to win, but you, my gut, based on what I'm hearing, you're gonna win on either you love the fucking Canucks more than breathing or you really know something else well. I went with the well and passion, right? I went wine, business marketing. You know, I think you have a pretty clear, like what's also cool about the core real estate business is it's not like you have to retire.

31:42The fact that you can start something around Pokemon, video games, table tennis, pool, whiskey, while still doing the real estate and then integrating it the way I do, because I'm all over the fucking place. you might get a fucking garage sale video for me or a Jets video or business. I don't think people realize the renaissance man and woman thing is very real. Everyone's like, you gotta stay consistent. The bad advice, don't worry about it. I'm not distracted. The bad advice that people go and be like, pick your niche and go, yes, but then once you have your steak, you can sell mashed potatoes.

32:16You can sell green beans. What do you think's gonna happen, brother? You think somebody in Vancouver's gonna see a video about you talking about whiskey and being like, oh, he also likes whiskey. I can't take him serious about real estate. People don't deploy common sense to this conversation. They talk academia. So where I'm seeing that crossover, just for an example, is our Looney Hour show is now like, it's like the finance show in Canada. That's awesome. Full Canada. Yeah, full Canada. That's awesome. So it's doing well. The nice thing about that, right? Yeah. Vancouver, you're set to that geographical limit of constraints.

32:51Yeah. It's like your clientele is only going to be people that buy and sell in Vancouver. Now we're opening up to Canada. We're literally interviewing former prime minister and stuff like that. And it's lead gen for all of you, right? It's lead gen, yeah. But for them, too, they're very broad where you're narrow. Yeah, so I'm narrow. I'm getting a lot of clients that are like, hey, I've been listening to the last 12 months. Have you thought about building a national brokerage? I don't think there's a lot of good money. Maybe it's because the games are a little bit different. I think the brokerage model is shit.

33:23I think it's actually dying. Where I do, I think this is kind of leading is some of my questions. So my co-host, who's a money manager, he wants to actually sort of help me. He wants me to help him scale his business and take equity stake. Because basically what's happening is through that podcast, unintentionally, is he's pulling in, he's signing up two to three new clients a week. Not unintentionally. Intentionally. In that industry is, you know, most people will generate their business by the company. All of this conversation for everyone is just brand is the best selling. I always make fun of people who like don't believe in marketing and branding who are great sales people.

34:03I'm a great salesman too. I'm like, cool, that's like, that's like when you're not good at marketing and sale and brand. You guys are, it's not unintentional. It's called, you built brand, which is why he has sales. You wouldn't worry necessarily about a crossover of like a real estate and then sort of on the portfolio management side. He's like, oh, now he's kind of doing that thing. Well, let's play it out. I think when you hear it played out in conversation, you realize how silly it is. What do you think's gonna happen? People are like, what happened? Just like maybe less than it's like, oh, I think he's not, you know, do I wanna hire this guy because I'm not fully dedicated to...

34:37Would you take my wine recommendation? 100%. That's the answer to the question. Yeah. Right? You've proven your worth in that other space. The only reason why I look at that is because his competition, the whole industry in portfolio management is regulated by investment advisors that work for Big Bang. Big Bang says you cannot do social media at all. You want to send a tweet? We need to get compliant. Oh, I'm very aware. There's plenty of versions of that all over the world. So I'm just looking at that and saying I feel like it's this huge white space opportunity. Of course it is. We have zero competition.

35:13The banks are unwilling to. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you'll lose your whole real estate empire in Vancouver because you've also started to play in the money management space. And that's assuming you go front facing. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I think realistically, I'd actually end up probably more behind the scenes. Exactly. I'm not going to be the one that's physically managing someone. Correct. The guy that's building that business. Correct. So notice the clarity I just gave you on that. Sounds like you're worrying about something that won't even manifest. Yeah. No, that's fair.

35:45I think it's like, I think it's... But this goes back to like what we, yeah, yeah, like I think this is what we do. Like, if you just listen, like, well, they are not running real business. The consumer doesn't care. These are philosophical things. Stay on brand. People don't care. What, are we not willing to take Mark Wahlberg seriously as an actor because he was once Marky Mark? You know what I mean? Like, we do this thing, and I'm telling you, it's all grounded in academia. It's not grounded in real market dynamics. The consumer has spoken on this issue. We will change our mind. And if you show me enough of you're this, you're this.

36:20Mike Bloomberg used to be a SaaS entrepreneur to me. Then he became a mayor. Like, I don't know. Like, you become what you are at a consistent pace. Both good, bad, and different. So, don't fear that. Especially, it sounds like you have, like, yours is really fun because it doesn't sound like you're even gonna confuse the market. Yeah, well, I mean, it's just nice to already have, like, the platforms and the brand is already built, so it's obviously just kind of leverage that into a more scalable business that I feel like, okay, where do I see myself? Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think where you took it to a little bit of an interesting place, it sounds like you're fearing something that can't happen.

36:56Yeah, yeah, I think ultimately. Right? You're gonna be behind the scenes. It kind of feels like I'm asking for permission. No, by the way, by the way, the good news is that's a really good observation. I think we all do that. I think we all like, this is why I believe in therapy the most. Sometimes you already know the answer, you just need to talk it through. Yeah, yeah. It's just a human trait for all of us. I guess my last question was, so now again, I know you've got your podcast, but if you had one recommendation for scaling my podcast, is there anything that you see as a huge opportunity where it's like, oh, people have an audio video podcast, they should totally be doing this.

37:31Yeah, I mean, I think I'm incredibly consistent about this. I believe that we all have to day trade attention to maximize our upside. What that means is you need to pay attention to everything that is going on. So, let's just use streaming, because I fully agree with these guys, what's going on there. I was one of the people early on that was like, hey, if you have a podcast, film it. And then post-produce it and put it everywhere. Now that's incredibly common practice. But I would also argue that you should stream it as well. Have four Twitch followers at first. While you're doing the podcast.

38:05Now again, everybody has a different process. For me, everything's always worked, because I'm happy to just put it out there. Obviously, when you film something, that you have the ability to post-produce it. If you're live, you're live. So if you go live and you're waiting for your guest, you might not want to do that live. You've got to think about what live means. But look, I think LinkedIn's organic reach is something everyone under leverages on this day as we all sit here today. I think people understand you can go viral on TikTok, though that's much harder than three years ago. I don't think people understand how consistently you can get organic reach that you didn't have the day before on LinkedIn and I'm very bullish on it.

38:46And I think everybody here, whether you sell a protein ball or you're actually in the B2B business, LinkedIn is more Facebook 2015 than it is the LinkedIn that I think everyone defaults into thinking it is. So I would say anybody who's not distributing any of their content, everybody should be distributing content on LinkedIn. It's a really good psychology audience too. The human that's on LinkedIn when they're consuming LinkedIn is a different version of themselves often very business transactional minded versus TikTok where you're just looking for escapism or entertainment. I would say that one really stands out for me but then also just taking no assumptions.

39:26You need to film them and you need to post-produce them but you also have to be great at the post-production. I know we'll touch on that. I don't know how much, have we touched on that yet? Is that a backup? Have we done sock stuff a little bit? We've done great performance before. Good. You know, so like this stuff, like the world works on storytelling. First of all, thanks. We kind of built a studio on the heels of like Thank You, Connie, and Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. Thank you, bud. That's good. So since then, over nine years, we've grown to be kind of a collection of businesses that are like over$100 million.

39:58And we only have about 200 people on our team. We primarily grew with Instagram. So we like we started because we got on there and kind of Pulling back the curtain on like high-end design kind of make it more Kind of like approachable and be able to answer those questions. So we've basically grown Primarily most of our business off organic content and it was just like telling growing the brand brand above everything Telling that whole story Was really successful with a lot of business and I think now we're at a stage where we are adding in pay and we're trying to really measure the attribution.

40:37And within an Instagram environment? Yeah, Instagram, we're on TikTok. We had a Netflix show for like four seasons. Oh, wow. That ended last season. So when we first launched Netflix, we saw an incredible lift and kind of like... What was the show about? Called Dream Home Makeover. Yeah. We just, they took kind of what we did and distilled it down. We'd go in and flip over like a room. Yep. Yeah. I mean, obviously in the beginning that must have been huge awareness. So you're just feeling a maturation standpoint right now? Yeah. Which is why paid has entered? Yeah. Makes sense. You kind of like just seen this mean reversion in the home industry over the last like, I'd say like year.

41:13Like there was a big, like a big, big bump during COVID and then when people were kind of let out their house, they're like, hey, let's get out. Of course, of course, of course. Huge bump in like services businesses and now it's kind of like, okay, where are we at? Who's left? This is my father calling me every day. He's like, why are we not selling as much wine as we did during COVID? I'm like, dad, people are not at their home 24, like I'm sorry, like somebody went to a restaurant tonight and ordered a glass of wine. That came out of your pocket. He's like, you have to fix it. I'm like, gee.

41:41Like thank you for the confidence, but I'm like, I can't change the world. So I think that's kind of where we left, is like, okay, if we can either right size business a little bit more, which we have, we've like, we've trimmed down some. Like we've really looked at business operations, like hardcore, like really efficient. But after having this kind of run, it's in your tummy to just want to continue to grow instead of be more efficient, right? Of course. Yeah, of course. It's really funny because Thank You Economy and Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook Day Trading Attention six months ago was called Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook.

42:15I'm literally rewriting the book because it's changed so much and I'm ready for a 301 course instead of the 201 that that book was at the time. The cool part is organic is here. It's just that you're not good at TikTok. Organic is here. It's just that you haven't even committed to LinkedIn and then thus can't be good at it. So a couple things. One, you've won between Netflix and Instagram and that run on awareness leading to sales. That is still on a table for all of us. It's just a lot harder right now. Right? That's all that's happened, but it's actually never been greater. It's like this weird thing.

42:54It's like there's always ebbs and flows. It's why I was so and I know it sounds like a lot of you have had contacts on me for a long enough time. It's why I was so loud. Pandemic was March 2020. It was why I was so loud late 18 all of 19 about TikTok. The land grab of organic was better than anything Instagram ever had. But nobody moved because everyone was pot committed Instagram. So a couple things. One let that little thing because you'll always clearly what you have resonates, you just need to arb attention versus value. Right? Just make sure that every time there's another new thing, especially if I'm loud about it, because that means it already happened, I'm not guessing, to go triple hard.

43:34I remember I promised myself before TikTok, if I ever saw another YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, that I was, that was it. I was going to go into a cocoon. I wasn't even going to run Vayner. I was going to be, because I knew it. and sure enough, Musically came, TikTok came, I saw it, I did great, but I fucking went like 20 % hard because I had other responsibilities and boy do I wish I went 100 % hard because it may be a long time before we have as big of a moat of opportunity as TikTok 18, 19 was. Anyway, that's all to be said that when they get into brand form and Slater, there's definitely a play, media's great.

44:13I think people get religious, especially when they're great at organic. I grew all this without media. I'm like, that's not a badge of honor. I'm like, if you're a media writer. I'm free, I haven't said that anymore. And I get why. I get why. It goes back to a lot of what we're talking about here. Like the subconscious, but when you really break it down, but if you could spend media perfectly and it would grow your business, why wouldn't you? You know, you get caught in these ideologies. So I think A, don't demonize paid. Paid's scary because it feels really hurtful when you spend$100 ,000 and nothing happens.

44:47I'm an external agency. They try to take credit for a lot. So they're like, hey, I'm not using my website. Contributing like 25 % of your revenue. You're like, bro, you just got here like six weeks ago. A hundred percent. I always make fun of our team. I'm like, every time a business is doing well, you all say we did it. And every time it's not doing well, it's their fault. I'm like, you hypocrites. Yeah, no, I think you should build this internally. I think most, I say it all the time to clients all the time. This is why I think Sasha Group and Vayner do well. I'm like, why would you hire us?

45:20It goes back to what I was saying earlier, the price. I'm always like, why would someone hire us? This, what we're doing, I really think about 4Ds a lot. I'm like, why? We put this video out. I think about this shit constantly. Like, why? Why? Why? So anyway, a couple things. For your business, a couple really interesting things. I don't have the full answer on this, but I'm spending a lot of time on Pinterest personally right now. for your business, Pinterest is bananas. It's just that Pinterest has never found its moment of like what we're all looking for, like that true organic monster. But I would A, flirt with that a little bit.

45:57YouTube Shorts is very important for all of us because YouTube's the second biggest search engine in the world. And your business is very search oriented. Like when people go their journey, and obviously they're doing that more and more on social, but I think YouTube Shorts is a very big deal. These are the platforms that I think you have to get as good. you have to understand you have to give yourself more credit for getting good at Instagram back in that era. I think a lot of times when people have organic pay dirt they give the platform credit not themselves. Now some things come more natural to people than others.

46:28One of the biggest reasons people didn't jump into TikTok is it didn't feel natural to them. By the way it's a challenge for me because I don't create. TikTok you have to really create. Like my post production shit does not work on TikTok the same way. I just have no options. because I'm doing too many other things. So I'm gonna have to take that L and be like a C minus at it. My wife hates it, because she's become like the face of our business, right? Yes. And she's like, damn it, all the TikToks I do really well, it's like me talking. You wanna see me just talking. Can I have more, get on every day?

46:59I'm old, we're 39, we're gonna be 40. You're so young. Oh, you're fine, you know? But she's like, those just do really, those resumes. Yeah, I think, I mean, look, I think that the game for you is to get paid and organic to work well on every platform to the best of your ability. And back to the different ideas that I was talking about over here for ideas for business, I think the thing I'm most proud of, and I hope you've all felt this, is like when you go to my grid, it's like a potpourri of randomness. Everyone's so obsessed with their grid being on brand. It's just not how people consume. They're consuming content to content.

47:38So the thing that's definitely happening in your world, if your wife's like, fuck this shit, that I don't want to do this every day, you're not challenging yourselves to figure out other ways to do content. People get into ruts. They have something that works and they do it for the next seven years. Like you have to try different shit. Like again, the thing I'm most proud of, and I want you all to go look at my last 100 posts on Instagram, we're trying all sorts of shit. Pouring fucking milk into coffee to say be you. Like I'm saying the same shit for 20 years. But if you find different creative ways and you understand, you can find that pay dirt.

48:12So like maybe it's just audio. Maybe the two of you should have dinner where you know you're recording the dinner and you like know you're recording it and it's all audio. And you just literally like talk about shit that you want to get out there and that's your podcast. And maybe that's your creative pay dirt. Cause that would be like some shit that I would listen to if I gave a fuck about a couple. Just them having dinner. And like literally. Two post carousels? Yep, still working but like again I'm already feeling the, you know it's just, that's why I'm calling it day trading attention. I'm trying to get people out of the rut of like, oh, this works.

48:45They think it works for like the next nine years. You gotta be in it. You've just, you've hit that place we all have hit. Fatigue of the style of the creative or the distribution of the creative. You gotta challenge yourself. Does that make sense? Introducing new people. You know when a sitcom has a great run and it's getting a little tired, they bring in like the kid, like that fucking weird kid for, you know, the Brady Bunch. And even Leo DiCaprio, I think, was like The Kid for Growing Pains. Like, you know, like, to spice it up. Like, Cosby Show, I think, had a kid. Like, every great sitcom, when he gets tired, introduces that new character with the hope.

49:19You know, like, you may want to introduce a new character to your ecosystem. I think that's what we were just thinking about with, like, as we produce new things, trying to measure that to, like, that is where, you know? You know what's funny? Like, you gotta make sure you have patience in that. It's funny, like, always think about your purest self when you are winning, and then realize after levels of success, how you're no longer that person. Me holding on to 2005 Gary is probably my best business move because you weren't fucking ROI measuring in 2014 Instagram the way you are now. You've become mature.

49:52You've become corporate. You're looking for ROAS and CAC and LTV. Acronyms, you didn't even know what the fuck they meant eight years ago when it started popping off. 2005 Gary still runs this. As a matter of fact, you know this. You guys know this. 2005 Gary or 2011 Gary, if we're talking Vayner X terms, came back a couple years ago. Right? And it's been way better. Right? Because I wanted to learn what, I didn't know what I didn't know. So I started bringing in more of corporate agency DNA over like a five year period. And then I knew what it was and I was like, all right, I'll keep the 3 % of this garbage that I like and we're gonna go back to 97 % me and boy, right?

50:35It's like, And across, forget about feelings, like the P &L shows it, and it's just real life. This whole content is you now. Yep, so themes that work, right? Yeah. That. Thanks, I'll end here. Just external, like, generating, like, let's see, taking advantage of external media opportunities. Yep. We have a bunch on our way now, versus just deciding to go in-house with generating that. Is there a way that you, like, kind of evaluate that to make that call, of like, hey, like do your own show on YouTube and just press that? I think it's and. I think it's and. Now, if you're saying show, like obviously an external production company, like I think right now if you're off the air, which it sounds like you are, I do my own show immediately.

51:21So when the next production company comes and wants you to do something, you're like, yeah, but I'm keeping my show. And I'm like, yeah, you can do that. We're gonna do a different version here. So that would be on my mind on strategy. Hey, Gary. Hi. Started my consulting firm back in 2000. as an in-source, with an in-source embedded model for general market ad agencies. And so we would place consultants on-site at agencies throughout New York. And that worked and we grew for about seven to maybe 10 years. And what would agencies hire you to come in? Yeah, please. They hired us to do, to manage, to develop and manage their supplier diversity initiatives.

52:03Love. Great, keep going. It's awesome. And I was hired as the first supplier diversity director. Makes so much, love it. Unfortunately, we're having the conversation in 2023 that we had back in 2025. 2015, you mean? That we had back. Oh, five. Got it. Yeah. No worries. I'm just trying to make sure I'm hearing you right. No, keep going. And so the challenges we're having are few. Developed a platform in 2016 in order to scale. Because hiring consultants, placing them on site, that's really inexpensive. Yes. Right? And so a lot of what we do are the analytics, the database management, you know, just the business.

52:51Is it a SaaS-based business? Yes. Okay. SaaS-based business. Fully funded. Amazing. And so, and we built it, we get feedback that it's an amazing platform. Since holding companies have now come in and centralized resources and are having a... And since they own almost every single agency, bingo, bango. There you go. Makes sense. And our relationships were at the agency level, right? Can you create, and yeah, this is what sucks. the business needs to go into smaller, right? Because the place you can get independence is 10 million in revenue and lower, right? Before the holding co-buys it. The problem is those companies are so small that they're just trying to keep the lights on.

53:38They're not even thinking DE &I. You know, it's not that they're bad people. It's just like, they're like, fuck, I'm not sure I'm gonna be in business next year. And we're on the corporate side. Uh-huh, uh-huh. We've gotta have a client that really is requiring this in order for you to bring us in to do it. And so my business manager is suggesting that we break up the software. To serve from the company. Well, we did that initially, but he's talking about breaking it up into smaller modules so that we can sell it at a lower price point. But I think to your point, because what I've experienced in this industry is that it's just as difficult to sell$5 ,000 as it is to sell$50 ,000, right?

54:23Yep, yep. Both pieces are right. You know, I could tell you, back to more Gary, consulting items as gateways to AORs, since I know I can talk to you in these terms, has worked for us. You know, because we had a very hardcore get-out-of-bed fee to do what we do best. And so, I do think cost of entry is a variable. I equally agree with you that sometimes it's just as hard, same effort, to sell something for$5 ,000 as$5 million, let alone$50 ,000. That's real too. You know, I'm not against modularizing down if you're asking one man's subjective point of view. What I like about it is it will give you more clarity.

55:01I always like eliminating things that you're debating for everyone. Like what I like about the modularity of like how much is it now per month, per year? It's 180 ,000. Right. And he's saying or she's saying instead of 15K a month let's have some sort of product that's 3K and you can Voltron it up and discount it. Here's why I like it. My biggest concern is that there's six holding companies, they're full of shit, and there is no business to be had. What I like about dropping it from a 180 commitment to a 36K commitment, if you've got some modular 3K, is you'll find out in a year if I'm right.

55:37Because that's a real low cost, and that should be easy. And if you go 0 for 90 with a 3K thing, then you could say, wait a minute, I gotta really think about this shit. And do I need to become like the Nintendo company? and that analogy for everyone is they used to be a trading card, not a trading card, like a playing card company. Nintendo started as like blackjack cards and at some point they pivoted into technology. What I love is your expertise and your career and what you've got going. This goes into like really interesting debate that everyone should be thinking about. Always think about things that you have permission to do that you can't see.

56:13Like if you emailed me in nine months, which you're more than welcome to, and on a long flight, I get to that level of email priority. And you're like, hey, thank you. This is not fun to write because I did break it down. I did go to market. And for the last nine months, 15 months, we're not selling anything even at three. You're right, it is. My reply would be like, listen, now you need to think about should you be an author? Should you change it into a experiential company? Because maybe you shouldn't be selling it to tech or CIOs. maybe you should be selling to HR as a one day retreat to rethink things.

56:51Like what's amazing is the talent you had as a kid in the SMS thing, that became the seeds of the same thing. We have our things and sometimes you just got to repackage it into a different item and remark, you know, containers and merchandising. Containers and merchandising, that's what we're all in. And so that's something worth debating. You know what's great about when he said we're getting old 39, 40, I was laughing. And I saw you snicker like, I saw, I saw. I saw. And I think, you know what's really cool? One big issue I have with the world that I'm excited to like, I finally am going to eat my own dog food and do something I've been wanting to do, which is I'm going to go and donate my time to retirement homes, but I'm also going to capture content.

57:36Because I realized as a young kid, even at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, I spent an ungodly amount of time with people that were 80 and 90 that weren't my grandparents. And for a long time, I thought it was because I only had one grandma and one great grandma in my whole life because unfortunately, everybody died in Russia pretty early. But now I've come to realize, no, I've always just been attracted to macro thinking and wisdom and things of that nature. And right now, I think we can all agree. By the way, 50 years ago in America, our grandparents were on a pedestal. Wisdom and experience was on a pedestal.

58:09Today, we are all living where youth and technology is on a pedestal. 24 year olds are running around my company thinking they should be running this place. That's the era we're in. Which means we're gonna go back. This is how the world works. So I'm excited about wisdom and experience gaining momentum in the next two decades. And I think your timing I just think it's important for you to hear that because I think when I hear that narrative and like first of this and this and that and it's a really important issue. Like it actually matters. I really do think this is a young person's game. Yes, but I think we're, yes, but I really do think that trading on wisdom and experience is about to gain momentum.

58:51I'm actually telling you that I think we're in the pre-dawn of it being your game. And I want to get that into your head. I really believe it. I'm not saying it to be nice. I like to watch, and I think we're about to get there. And I think it's early. I think I'll probably clip this in like 11 years and be like, told you. It's going to take a little bit of time, but I think it's good for everyone to hear that, but for you specifically, where you are in your business life cycle, because I think you, I hope not, but I'm gonna be very black and white on this, I think you should module, and I think you should sell aggressively against the modularization, because I think you need the answer, because I think you're in a precarious spot, because I think they're full of shit, and there's none of them, there's six of them.

59:32We don't need you, we got it, internally. We have a chief diversity officer, we're good. Yeah, you know. but the modulization my hope is that it will work out and that you now do have a 3K a month, a 7K a month, a 9K a month and a 20K a month item and oh by the way if you buy them all it's only 15K a month. I think that's a worthwhile thing. I think it also will give you a year of that data to then go back to this back half of this conversation and say okay I might need to take what I am and repackage it into some other business and merchandise that. That's what I was thinking. Remember when you said to me what was the time management system, it just happens to be applied to logistics.

1:00:11Yeah. Maybe everything is... Correct. Yeah. And you might actually even like the business you find yourself in more too. That's what's fun about entrepreneurship. Like sometimes you don't realize a tweak makes it more fun and more fruitful. And I love this when I got into it. It's been a long time. It's been a long journey. And markets change. And it has. I love when everyone's like AI. I feel so bad for all the people that are going to lose their job. I'm like, what about all the people that sold Yellow Pages? we didn't feel bad for them when search engines came. You know how many people were in the business of selling yellow pages?

1:00:41Tens and tens and tens of thousands of people were salesmen and women just of yellow pages in America when Yahoo and Ask Jeeves decided to come along. Like shit changes. Some poor dope bought 5 ,000 horses the day before the car decided to cause trouble. Those horses became less valuable. so I think that it's unfortunate because you should be shining and what we found is when people are woke if you will our business doesn't do as well as we do when they're not I know, I know, yeah I get it the modularization, awesome Scott? So before I turn it over to my wife I just want to say 20 year digital veteran CFO at iVillage, do you remember that name?

1:01:30Of course One of the members of the founding team at 360i. Amazing. But all on the finance side. So it's great to be sitting at a meeting where I'm hearing operational activities. We're trying to figure out how to digitize market to our customer. Yes. So I just want to appreciate your time. That's really cool. That's awesome. Of course. I do love that. So hi, I'm Laurie. I'm the other half. Yes. Scott created these for me after I had breast cancer six years ago. So we donate back to research. Love. We have a product. We've proven our model. People rebuy it. Stores buy it. We're in the airports in 100 brick and mortar stores.

1:02:08We're here to really, how do we expand our D2C business? Got it. So we think that part of our issue is our content, our UGC. We don't think it's what it should be. We came in today talking about that we don't really know who our target market is. We listened to a great section about cohorts earlier, which was a hugely helpful for us. And remember, we touched on the accordion nature of it. Did we touch on that? Okay, cool. Back to cohorts. And I almost noticed how I knew that we probably didn't talk enough about it. The best part about cohorts is that it's accordion. The number one thing that you have to understand about cohorts is that it's a living and breathing vessel.

1:02:48Back to day trading. So cool. Like, of course, an immediate cohort for this group is 18 to 22 year old coastal workout bros because it's fucking protein balls. Like fuck, right? But after we do 16, 29 pieces of creative that we think we've done well enough, if we're seeing absolutely zero traction, it is okay for that cohort to go away. If we PCS properly and read everything, the most wild work I see is when we pick a cohort, we make for them, but the algo takes us in a different direction. We're like, wait a minute. This is actually for offensive linemen who fish and they pop them while they fish.

1:03:27So let's stand up, you know, 18 to 30 year old, 300 pound white boys who love country music and work out and like, as you can imagine, it's gonna be different content. So remember with cohorts, if you go down heavy, it's an accordion. Some expand, some contract based on the quant and the qual. The math and the feedback that you read from the PCS. The reason I'm onto stuff always is because I'm reading the qual. My wisdom thing is, again, not kindness for us, for, get in here, brother. You know, it's for I'm smelling it. Like there's the tipping point. You can smell it. I had said earlier exactly that.

1:04:09Our customers are age two to 92. Your customers are anyone with a fucking mouth. Right? 100%. That's what you're saying. Okay, keep going. So we do email marketing successfully. Okay. We have a good conversion rate. Nice. So all they keep saying is, get us more traffic. get more people to the site. So we have not done any paid ads yet. That's part of why we're here. We want to learn more about that. We haven't done paid ads or paid search. What we have done is paid a PR firm too much money to do brand building. Everyone does that. And now we're taking that money and we want to repurpose it into building our brand more.

1:04:46We were told that you should have one face and that I should be making the content like we were just talking about, which does sound like a big job, but we will test it because if that's what people want then I'll do it. People, they taste the product, they like the product. Then they hear the story. Then they're more connected. Yeah, I mean the stories. Then they hear that we give back to research and then we're done. Yeah, I mean the story is so off the charts. But we're not reaching enough people. 100%. It might be our content. I'm not reaching enough people and it's my content. So what do you suggest?

1:05:18Make more content. To me, content, Like, one day, we will all wake up and actually live in mixed reality. Just, I'll give you the preview. We will. We will live in mixed reality. The data's incredibly compelling. The technology's very clear. The new fucking Facebook Ray-Bans glasses, you've done it with the audio? The new one that just came out, right? It's, like, ear pods are in trouble. Like, you know, and that just, like, seems like, yes. Like, so, and when everyone wakes up, every one of you is gonna regret not making more content for social media because it won't be where the attention is and just like I regret not sending more emails in 98, not buying more Google AdWords in 2002, not like, so while we're in the era where this is the predominant engine of information, back to advertising, this is what happened when the radio and the television were switching.

1:06:16Literally, Budweiser is the biggest beer because Schlitz and Schaefer and Pabst Blue Ribbon blew it. They kept holding onto the radio and not realizing what the television was doing. It's insane if you look from 1950 to 1970, the switch of the biggest brands in every category from cigarettes to diapers. That's why Procter & Gamble is Procter & Gamble. They were the biggest spender on television. Do you know who the biggest spender on Google AdWords was in the first five years of AdWords? Amazon. There are moments where there is this thing, I spoke about it in the micro with him. TikTok versus like that.

1:06:51For you, it's just a macro. Back to why you considered hiring some people to get you a mention in a magazine. Got it? Or having you show up on the Today Show. You can be on the Today Show every day and you have no chance against somebody who knows how to make content for TikTok. That's the refocus. We've been on the show. That's the issue. And we have an edge. We're fresh from the fridge. That's what happened after I went through surgery and treatment, the nutritionist said no more protein bars. She said they sit on the shelf for a year. They have sugar, soy, preservatives. I got it. We have an angle.

1:07:25We have an edge. But we haven't been successful enough yet. How old is the brand? Our website's only been there for a year and a half. And before that you were selling in stores? Really, we're really pretty new. We were dipping our toe in it. Yep, but now you're ready to go all in. And I have a friend and she said get rid of everybody. Get rid of your whole payroll and just do AI. You know, put your content out on AI, do your blogs on AI. Did you ask her how? She sent me an email. She said, I just made this email for you in under two minutes. Yes. I think there's a lot to that. I'm gonna go with like, that's not the exact, I think her intents in the right place.

1:08:02What's that? Yeah, I think you gotta go all in on things that actually work. You need a person. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm about AI. I think the bigger issue is everyone here is at the mercy of the creative they put into the world. So, a couple things. I think first of all, now I'm gonna just kind of go like, not off script of the energy, but let me make pretend that Harwood invited me to dinner to have dinner with you. And we're like full dinner mode. The number one thing I would say for sure is that if I could convince the two of you over this dinner to do a daily or minimally a weekly podcast so it can be filmed for content, I do believe the story is off the charts.

1:08:40It's gonna pull in everyone. He's gonna be like the most loved man on earth. Like, you know what I mean? He's a good man. He looks like a good man. He's got a good face. Like I feel the energy. Like all of us need to do is find sustained ways to produce as much content as possible. And I think what I figured out years ago was I'm just gonna film everything. Obviously then it's about can you introduce new people or different ideas? Like your spidey senses based on your words are right. The variable of your success will be based on your advertising. Seems, makes sense. What's crazy about the world we live in now versus the proctor world or even when 360i was invented and Vayner was invented is now the Walmarts, right?

1:09:18The Wegmans, the dream places of distribution for you. What's that fucking place in LA? Airwan. You know, like they now will come to you if you're good at content, right? It didn't work like that back in the day. So I think the biggest thing that you have to, your product comes very natural to me in my mind. I think in these terms, I even said to these guys, like take your skills and bring them to this show. The prime, the beast chocolate, that's the future. Human based, you're the future. If you don't succeed in this, you will see someone that looks exactly like you two with the similar stories in 11 years and you're gonna look at each other and be like, these motherfuckers.

1:09:58It's very, very clear that you have to have a very compelling organic social media presence. What you have to figure out, that's easy. That's like, you could have read that in a million places. is how do you two, even if you two are not in it, though that would be my preference, but listen, as someone who's a public figure, a lot of shit comes with that. And it's not for everyone, right? It's not for everyone, and by the way, here's another thing real quick, good for you to hear as well. You can also come in and out. People think it's an all or nothing thing. Sometimes you're a public figure, sometimes you're not.

1:10:32It's okay, and you control your narrative. I keep my personal life very private. So it's not like you have to tell them your pillow talk. You're in control. But I think what you have to do is put yourself in a position to make as much, like if I was your third partner, and this is what I did full time, we'd probably put out 55, 60 pieces of creative a day across seven platforms. We're doing that with some of our clients for sure. And we can talk about it later on when I hijacked this, but there's very cheap, simple software tools. That's what I was going to say. How do we incorporate, like, besides us making the content, how do we find you guys?

1:11:08The actual content library. Like you said, you can't skip that part. You've got to create all the content. But then getting it everywhere else, now that's where we're dipping our toes in. Okay. And now with AI, it's even better than that. I built a team of people who had an eye for what to clip and when. AI's going to do all that. Like, you're going to upload the raw videos and it's going to spit it out and distribute it for you. I can do software right now. clap, K-L-A-P.app. There's another one called GetMunch. Yeah, and by the way, I think all of you will, he can give you plenty that work for them.

1:11:42Here's even, and both are good. I like both those platforms. Let me give you something even more fun. There's a website called Google. And you type in AI software that helps you clip videos into good social media content. Enter. What will happen? You'll get two paid ads probably for weaker, sometimes weak, sometimes not. All you have to do is actually just spend 10 hours, which you would like this business to be successful. I have a funny feeling that you can allocate 10 hours to reading and watching video. How do you think we found them? You're just searching. It's just, you gotta put in the work to find that.

1:12:18But again, yes, that is efficiency. And efficiency matters. It's helpful for us to go from zero to one. Like if you haven't created content yet, like get the library going. Well, I want to talk about what he's touching on and where I'm really worried. I'm worried, what always happens with software is people think it does it for you. When he says the video library, like he said it quick, and he's right because for him, it's just sick and nature of like, without that, you have nothing. You on the receiving end is like, ooh, let me write down this site and I'm gonna use, that's gonna save me. That's gonna do it.

1:12:49It's not. The part that I'm saying is the well. That's the, the software is the sink. the well is do you all understand how to put yourself in a position to produce as much content as possible the reason I like podcasts is because it puts you in a position to produce a lot of content also when you have guests now you can fucking prep for a podcast so tell me about your childhood what was your first house you're an hour in if you just ask normal human questions but then you have the clips so I think look I think there's a lot of ways to think about it. There's other things. I don't know you two.

1:13:28Maybe you have a great 20, 30 person social crew and with a bunch of extroverts. You just might. I don't know you. But if you do, all of a sudden I see this. I'm like, okay, you need to throw at, I always think about two for ones. Like I think for a lot of us, there's probably, I assume all of us are kind of like similar in this. It's very universal. I don't think anyone spends as much time with friends as they actually wish they could. Like if you're right, it's just a universal thing. like everyone's busy like to me let's say you two are just like just we're talking about that that you just aren't spending enough time with these four couples you love my brain goes to if we're lucky enough that you're thinking that and we're lucky enough that those couples are extroverted or willing to be filmed now you can get together once a month right and have a protein balls and pairing with beverages literally actually have one human who's filming friend, neighbor youngest kid or just set up a tripod Pat, have dinner with eight of your friends, literally, and this week, everyone bring a bottle of whiskey and we're gonna do whiskey with protein balls.

1:14:32We're gonna film and then you're gonna post-produce at the end, be like, all right, 80 % of it we can't share because the Johnsons were talking about how their daughter's a piece of shit. And so that's, but 20 % you can and now you're one TikTok away of people falling in love that like Bullet Bourbon and this go great together. And then the next month, again, don't forget what you're doing you're actually spending time with friends but you're getting double you're getting doubles next time you're doing it with bottled waters and next time with sodas and the next time with clean beverages and the next time with protein shakes and the next time with fucking juice that's super pressed from organic fucking leaves from the amazon like i think for all of us the big elephant in the room is do you understand yourself do you not bullshit yourself are you self-aware enough to know what puts me in the best position to film as much shit as possible so I can post produce it because having a shoot day is already like a different version of content anyway and I'm not against it.

1:15:31You can supplement that with like one day when you do like 37 call to actions. You can have a shoot day. I think people are accustomed to that but I think the big one is can you put yourself in a position to create content? Content is your answer. Hey everybody if you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.