How a Creator can Build a Personal Brand around Live Shopping in 2026

26:34I'm on like Instagram, LK, YouTube and everything. And then I've been able to naturally integrate monetizing into my own like personal brand. I don't have like a separate shop account. I've been using the same account since 2018 and then for my shop stuff too. What do you think is like most important for turning that audience into like a long-term personal brand business instead of just like being seen as like a creator online? Well, how do you think about what, how do you define a long-term personal brand business and how do you prefer to monetize it since you're using the word business? So you're saying how, like, what exactly you mean?

27:09Let me say it a different way. Heard, what would you like, when you ask that question, what would be a dream outcome in five years? Something along the lines of, like, my recipes. I really know what's in my recipes. I want to make my own personal brand something with cooking or, like, whether it's, like, a seasoning or, like, something like that to, like, really continue my brand. Got it. so let me decode that. You want to continue to build notoriety and fame and awareness to such a scale that when you do put out your spice rack, it will sell very well. Yeah. More recipe content. Okay. Like, you know, like, there's a very funny thing, and I think you all know this, like, there's almost this weird, like, conscious if not subconscious belief, that volume is at the expense of quality.

28:08Yeah. Right? Yeah, definitely. And I see it the reverse. If you're good enough, like, I don't know, I think I said this last time, I'm gonna say it again. Actually, is Norea out there? I'll get her. Get her, please. For a fact, what I'm doing right now, but I'll say something else. Angel, back to the other thing that I'm gonna say, which is huge for all of you. How many people here have followed me enough that they've heard from me, because I say it probably 13 times a year, watch what I'm doing, not what I'm saying. Some of you have heard that through my content? Yeah. Everyone, this is Norea.

28:48Norea, how many pieces of content will my personal brand post today? Today around 300. Thank you. Thank you, Narae. Thank you so much. I am posting 300 pieces of social media content today.

29:16So a couple things. One, I need everyone here to make a fuckload more content. every question that was asked of me so far the answer actually was more content now to the bigger point I'm making or the equal point I'm making or I talk a lot about more content so you know I believe that but let me give you a nuanced thing that you've heard from me and it's grounded in watch what I'm doing not what I'm saying does anyone here have a guess of what one hour of my time is worth in my business life right now?

29:58Why don't you all leave a comment of a guess of what you think my hourly value is to me and my business world these days, right?

30:15Cool, so seeing all these different numbers are all over the place. Let me give you some context. When I math it out between VFriends and Vayner, it's always multiple six figures. What am I doing in this hour? I'm giving back to my community. All of you are not giving enough access to your audience. Access creates love. A lot of you like me. We've been doing this, like you know me, I brought value from afar. For the people that have now been in both sessions, do you feel closer to me an hour and a half in or do you feel less close to me? Say close or less close. I need you all to replicate what I'm doing.

30:59You need to give more access to your community. More Zooms, more one-on-ones. Like you want a post that will dominate? Make a post that says everybody DM me. This post is for my community. Everybody DM me the message you want me to send to you or a friend or family member and like the old cameo, I'm gonna randomly pick 15 DMs and DM you back a video. Watch what happens. So that's the answer, Andrew. You wanna sell spice racks? Make a fuckload more content and get even closer with your community and do it forever, forever, forever. Just like working out and eating well will make you look better and feel better.

31:39What I'm telling you will make it better and then when you do ask for them to buy your spices, they will buy. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Curve Fit Academy. Hello. How are you doing, Gary? I'm well. What's your name? My name is Kaylee. You DM'd me on Instagram a couple months back, and I'm so glad that you weren't a scammer. I'm so glad. But real quick, back to what Kaylee's saying, and some of you I've done that with on this call as well. I'm probably going to do it today. I'm flying to San Francisco in a couple of hours. If I get all my work done, I will literally search and explore through social media and if I see a youngster doing something well I will literally DM them and say keep it going, keep pushing.

32:26You know, you're getting there. I see you. Because I know, and I can't even believe this. I'm actually getting goosebumps. I don't know if you guys can see it. I know that me taking a fucking second to be like, yo Lee, keep fucking going that there's a high percentage chance that that might mean something to Lee. I can't believe I lived that life. Now at McDonald's, a McDouble is$2.50. So you can get your gym gains on or just get lunch for only$2.50. Get more value on the under$3 menu. Limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery.

33:08And the crazy thing is a lot of us in this room we live that life for other affiliates. Exactly. I'm actually shocked at that. I've been doing the personal brand for longer than what I even knew or understood a personal brand was. I mean I met somebody out of LA and that's a TikTok a couple days ago that said my videos were literally the reason she kept going when she was in a slump. And now she's up at the top seller for one of the biggest brands on TikTok again. and other than for our client, I was like, thank you so much for sharing that with me. So we are all in a great position to kind of like, kind of like Nick described the affiliate influencers in a way, right?

33:42So we're - I'm very aware, which is why I hope I can influence all of you through my actions to do the same for others because what we're really talking about is scaling positivity and love. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Also, I'm too young to have been following you for 15 years, but I love it. Respect. Me and Kristen here, it sounds like some of the youngest in this room, but we're hungry, we're ready. So anyway, back to my question. Hold on, hold on. I'm just enjoying the fact that when you mentioned Kristen, like back to being young, he needed to go double horns and tongue out, which just really hit my soul in a positive way.

34:22Go ahead. He's an ex-Wall Street guy. He's just... Right, so you're just, Now I understand. All that shit was so fucking pent up because he couldn't fucking do that on Wall Street that he now does it at scale anytime he can. Exactly, exactly. I love that man. So the way that I got into this industry was literally by writing Bryce's coattails. He answered Bryce's question earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found him on TikTok. He's the reason I started. I was like, this guy knows what he's doing. I'm just going to follow whatever he does I can hopefully make something out of this. I was able to really take off on TikTok, paid off all my debts on a beautiful journey, but now I'm kind of at this spot where, you know, everyone's going to the next thing.

35:05Yeah, how to scale, let's make my own brand, all this stuff, and I never really thought that far. So I was like, what do I want out of this? And I, what I used to say is like, I just want to do whatever I need to, to work, to be in this industry forever, because I love making content. But I feel like now that's naive. So I, I don't even know what I want. I went to China at the beginning of the year. I went to different, maybe factors to see, maybe I do want to make my own product, but different people understand it. I'm going to say one thing, and then I'm going to let you keep going. I just want everyone to hear this.

35:36You all making your own product is an inevitable outcome. Like, whether, when I said it last time or this time, whether you were like, yeah, or whether you were like, nah, I'm just telling you all to your beautiful faces, it's an inevitable outcome. But it's an and thing. you're gonna have a digital product and a physical product and still be an affiliate and potentially build a studio and an agency and I mean I'm fucking acting now who saw Tron 2? I was in that shit like I'm getting like sent all this shit from like it's just fucking who saw Tron Aries? did anyone see Tron Aries? I'm fucking in the opening scene with a speaking line.

36:23Do you know how fucking crazy that is? So like some of you are gonna fucking have music careers. I don't fucking know. Christian might be a fucking rock band guy with his fucking tongue and horn. Like I don't know. So I just need all of you to understand I'm not joking. Now, if you want all that, the other thing is some of your inevitable outcomes is you're gonna milk the fuck out of this affiliate thing for four years, take all that money, and go to fucking Montana on a 90 fucking acre farm and fucking milk goats for the rest of your fucking life. I'm already halfway there. I'm in Wyoming, so I'm very close.

37:00Respect, but what I'm saying is if you guys are really listening to me, you've won something you don't maybe even understand, which is you've won this era of the internet. And you're gonna be having unlimited opportunity. The biggest thing I'm worried about, we talked about it last time is, I'm just worried about your mentalities, not your capabilities. Because you'll have unlimited optionality. Like, I just answered everyone's question in some way. Like, you'll be able to do everything if you want to. It depends on do you know yourself, who do you surround yourselves with, how do you roll as a human being, but go ahead.

37:46I think that kind of leads into where I'm going. So whatever we turn this into, whether it's investments or starting a business or whatever, that comes with more responsibility. And half the reason why I got into this is because I can make money. And in the affiliate game, there's no ties to anything. I can make 10 pieces of content or zero. I can post for 100 brands or none, and I can put it any time. And there's no responsibility. So I've lived this life for two years making amazing money with zero responsibility. And I'm literally scared to add on the next thing and to scale. I would say, no, no, no, that makes sense.

38:21Couple things. It's been with extreme responsibility. It's been with the responsibility of being disciplined enough to make the creative. It's just a responsibility that comes easy to you and you enjoy so it's working. You don't know if you're gonna like managing people. You don't know if you like to deal with the adversity of your, ready, my comic book, right? You see this? This is a pack and you don't know what's in it. Look carefully. You could see the outline of the cover in his head right there. You see that? This got fucked up. I had to deal with this the last 48 hours to my vendors, to my collectors, to my supplier.

39:04I'm not crippled by the heat and by the responsibility of fixing it. Many of you would be. But I would be crippled if you guys asked me to read this comic book because I can't read and I hate reading. I would be crippled by reading this for a living. This is all one big game of self-awareness, but listen to me. You can't say no. You have to say maybe, and then if you don't like it, then you say no. I'm not fucking Yoda. I don't know if you're gonna like it or not. But I am who I am, and I know that I can push you to try everything and give you the confidence and the emotional intelligence to know if you don't like it, it's okay to stop doing it.

39:57Love it. But you've had a huge responsibility. I've been telling people to make this fucking content forever. And most of them don't have the ability to have the discipline and the creativity and the consistency work ethic to get it done. Yeah.

40:15Love it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You're more than welcome. Christian. All right, Christian. What do you got, brother? Gary. Yes, sir. How are you, man? I'm well. How are you? How are you? Hi. So I'm Christian. This is Hillary over here. Hi, Hillary. Hi, Gary. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Hillary. Thank you for your glory to us so much. Of course. Thank you. So much. So I had a really good question that I wanted to get over to you. Actually, I just got off yesterday. I'm in Vegas with Alex Ramosi. I spoke with Ed Turney. He said he's like your boy. You guys shared an editor or something like that.

40:46So super cool. Yeah. He told me a lot about you. He was jealous. He must hop on the call. I'm like, ah, next time, man. We'll see you. Bye. Thank you so much. I'm very grateful for giving everybody time. Lee, Garrett, everybody, Chico are like super killers here. You're going to like have like a blast talking with these guys. I wanted to ask you about one question. After I got in with Alex and like the whole game plan, it sounds cool. I'm going to like, it's going to be like the best, the best. I wanted to ask you as what many of us are going to be doing, transitioning into that personal brand, which is what I love the most, we talked about last call.

41:17There's a way that you're able to pump out 300, 400 videos a day. When you're first transitioning, okay, we got the editor, we got Claude Co. What was the first things you're able to do to go bump from what I'm doing 10, 20 pieces a day to 80, 100, and then grow from there? Because I know it's like a big team now, but like, it's like, ah, where do we talk at first? if I wanted to get to a place like you where you have a big personal brand like you love? Well, I mean, first, you know, the thing that I think you need to think about with personal brand is, first you have to think about value. Okay.

41:52Right? Like, what value are you gonna bring to the audience and understand that you can't fake it. Meaning, but you also not, you don't need to be an expert and this is what fucks up everyone. Everyone thinks that they have to be an expert. It's not about being an expert, it's about being authentic and telling the truth of where you are on the shit you're talking about in fact let me throw a crazy fucking curveball at everyone my favorite content pillar right now is documenting the journey of learning something net new Christian there's a chance that you would be dramatically more successful as a personal brand about documenting how to learn how to surf than you being an expert on TikTok affiliate.

42:42And now I'm gonna go into the fact that I think it should be and, not or.

42:51Right? And then it's about creating a pillar that you can have replicatable that can produce a lot of, why can I produce a lot of content? It's because I film a lot.

43:06right? It's because I create things to set me up for filling. In fact, all of you are gonna hear this summer, I'm launching a podcast network of four shows, all of which I'm the host of. I'm going into my Ryan Seacrest era. But why am I doing that? I'm doing that because I need more content. I might not even give a fuck if all four podcasts do well. I just need the fucking fresh content

43:39why do I love Q &A I'm filming right now right I'm filming right now from this angle because you someone here is going to ask a question that's going to take me down a different path that I would never go down by myself

43:58so so it's not about like now with AI by the way I couldn't do 300 pieces of content without AI I had 30 fucking people and we were making 30 pieces of content 18 months ago all of you can make a billion pieces of content the question is is it going to be good the question is where's it coming from the question is what's your intent you two know this all of you know this you know I'm a little different than a lot of people that replicate me. Right? You know. It's because of where I come from. Not where I come from, from immigrant or rags to riches. More, what is my intent? I've got more soul in me.

44:49I've got more love in me. I've got more want for you to win. I'm good enough to win without you. I don't need your money. and you guys can feel it whether you've been able to put words to it or not.

45:08You know? And so I would say the system, Alex's system, everyone's system, I fucking gave it away for free before anyone started.

45:23Thank you, Tim. Like, everyone knows. Everyone knows. Everyone knows. the system's been out there for free. It's not a system game. It's a brain, heart, and soul game. Why are you doing it? And for everyone, it's what they need for them. And once you can twist that a little bit and make it about them, not just you, then everything starts to fucking change. Sauce. plus giving the value, man. That's it. That's the clip. Got it? And then when you can widen, right? And then when you can widen what you talk about, right? So many of you have so much more you can bring to the table content-wise. And then you have a real brand.

46:16That's it. That's great. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Got you, my brother. This is like eye-opening. Yeah, because the system, it's like school. The system is easy. When Alex hired Caleb for my team and Caleb emailed me every day that Alex and Layla desperately wanted to meet me and I sat with them and had dinner across the street and told them the system, the system I put out for free on decks and my content every day. What do you want to know? You need people on your team to help you chop up content? What the fuck are we talking about? It's not the system, it's the intent. It's the why. And then it's how do you get into such a good place emotionally that you're willing to be vulnerable.

46:56Why did Alex have that weird moment with the Tony Robbins thing? He hasn't been willing to go vulnerable prior to that point. It put him in a weird spot. Make sense? That makes total, I didn't even frame it that way. And that really, I think, ultimately is what I think I do well and why I think I bring value to all of you. I think what I do well is frame, I don't value the school part. And I don't mean his school, I mean school. Here's the system. All of you know the fucking system. You do. This is why I fucking hate college. What are you paying$100 ,000 for? For shit you don't even need to know.

47:31At least what Alex is doing and others doing is something you need to know. But it's free. It's out there. I put out the system a long time ago. It was the deck I put out fucking 10 years ago for free. Some of you know it. The content pyramid. I put that shit out for free. Everybody's been reselling it since. Right? We're talking facts now. I know Nick Fowler. I know, I see Chico's reaction, Bright. Like, I put it for free. It was called the fucking content pyramid. People have been reselling it since. This is not that. This is about the soul of this whole game. And how real are you all willing to be?

48:07And then nuances, right? I saw somebody, I think Christian, you got some love from maybe Jamie about Christian got my retention game up. Then it's like little subtle things, right? Then it's little add-ons. But at the top of this whole game, everyone, it's way more content. who here likes to write? Real talk, who here likes to write? Just say I like to write if you're that person. Who likes to write? You, Christian? Good. Anybody else? I like to write? Good. Nice, Amber. Good. Angel? Good. Yeah, Carly, me neither. I can't write for shit even though I'm a six-time New York Times best-selling author.

48:41So for the people that like to write, if you're not on Substack, I'm gonna punch you in the face. You need to be on many more platforms. Facebook's crazy, y 'all. If you're not posting three, four times a day on Facebook, the blue one. Like, you're out of your mind. It's one of the biggest opportunities. I don't care that you didn't grow up with it. Figure it out. All right, Chico, what's up? What's up, Gary? Tim, first of all, always gotta shout you out, bro. Everybody, just go shout out Tim on Insta. Give him some love. I love you, bro. I love you. Yeah, Tim is the greatest. I'm glad you and him are connected, Gary.

49:18He's such a visionary with this space, and I know he'll get to it. You probably already know what he's doing anyway. I know. I know all about it. Yeah, so first of all, my first part of this is I don't know shit about collectibles. Okay. I would love to promote your shit, even if it's just one video. I know a lot of us in here want to give that back to you. Well, good news. Good news. First of all, that's incredibly kind of you. Yes, Tim. Listen, no bullshit. I'm literally building the next Marvel and Disney and Pokemon. Real talk. Just to your faces so you can make a video in 20 years saying I fucked up and didn't buy all the VFriends stuff.

49:57Gary literally told me. There's this guy, Tim. He was really handsome. He had this group. We fucking had this talk back in fucking May of 2026. By the way, this is your video in 2046, everyone. I was in this group. He fucking told me right to my face I was fucking up for not collecting and buying it. He was right. The fucking comic books that I could have bought for 20 bucks are now$4 ,000. So first of all, she'd go, I'm like really doing it. That being said, I know a lot of you would do it. It's back to my part of like giving. When you give, you get, right? But good news, I don't need anyone running too hard into it.

50:30Obviously, in general, I think all of you should learn about what's going on in collectible because collectibles are starting to join music and sports as a lifestyle genre. And there's a lot of money for a lot of you that, I mean, if anyone here did collect things as a kid, comics, cards, Pokemon, marbles, pogs, fucking I don't know. You should definitely get educated on what's going on with collectibles. There's a lot of money to be made and it's just starting. As far as be friends, we will do it. But good news, we are also coming, we're building a real business. So for example, for Angel who likes health and wellness and cooking, my wife and I this winter are putting out the cleanest kids fruit snack in the world.

51:18Literally the cleanest. The single cleanest, not one wrong ingredient. No natural flavors, everything organic. Like the cleanest, right? Like that's, like I'm gonna go, like that, my whole play on that is gonna be affiliate. Because I know a lot of, Let me promote that with you. Thank you, Angel. Like I know moms are gonna want, the whole Air One crew, the whole fucking like people that really care about true health and wellness. the food babes the whole Maha crew we're gonna have apparel that matters Chico like real meaningfully cool fucking swag bracelets fucking like so that's very kind of you and in the macro you should all learn collecting because there's a lot of money to be made because with products people pay the price but with collecting they'll pay$10 ,000 for$4 of cardboard right so that's that so I'll definitely listen I won't be bashful to make sure you guys are all aware of what we're up to.

52:16And you're gonna see me show up because the other thing is I'm gonna fucking make offers that blow, I'm gonna change the game. I view it as marketing, not as revenue for me. So you guys are just gonna go into the fucking ecosystem and be like, what the fuck, 60 %? Like you're gonna be like, think it's wrong. So I have a whole plan when I come. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I know we would all be game because of what you're giving us here. And the second part to my thing, I get what you're saying about brand. I actually have my own brand, made pretty good money with it. But wouldn't it be like a higher ROI to go deeper on the distribution and just partner and take equity?

52:57Like first, you know, some of these top killers in here, like Jordan's great with comfort, Lush is great with like Rhino straps and - Chico, the answer is yes, maybe. And again, Chico, the answer is and. like if you're saying to me like everyone here is gonna get 15 % of a product because they're so baller and that's better and they have like less to do sure but like you could own think about life Chico you could be an affiliate you could get paid to publicly speak right about this topic you could also have 8 % to 15 % of three brands and you could have fucking 100 % of your own brand yeah this is the concept of falling in love with and and patience I'm not saying Jason, Garrett, some of the people I'm talking about, I'm not saying tomorrow, but I'm saying do not limit your fucking head.

53:50If you think, like, here's a good one. This is some real fucking talk right now. I'm 50, okay? I literally, on my children's health, do not feel, and not on some motivational Gary V. rah-rah shit. I'm telling you guys vulnerably what's in my soul. I do not feel like I've even fucking started yet. Damn. It's real talk, Chico. How old are you? 31. So think about how I'm thinking about you. At 31 years old, I worked in a liquor store making$47 ,000 a year.