WEBVTT

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And so a lot of people will do anything for the algorithm, but like if it's not on brand for me,

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if it's not something I'm an expert in, I'm not going to talk about it.

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That's my one piece of advice for anybody who's like,

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get starting to get into the game of content is like just talk about stuff you know about.

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Just don't pretend to be someone you're not.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers,

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how to make more customers, how to keep them longer,

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and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way.

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I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

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What happened with the Crocs?

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Yeah, so you introduced us to whatever some guy at Crocs.

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Yes, Dan.

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You know, then sent us all these cool designs for some acquisition knock on Crocs,

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which would have been dope, and I would totally wrap them.

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And it was like, yeah, we'll do some sort of collab thing.

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Like right when we were ready to move forward, I was like, cool.

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Like send me whatever link I can promote and like let's do this.

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Like I don't even really care about like some money splits or anything.

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I just like thought it'd be dope if everybody had some.

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And then he was like, well, just tell us how many you want.

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And here's the bill.

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And I was like, huh?

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And it wasn't even that they were priced at normal Crocs.

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They were priced at twice with the normal, it was like 80 bucks to us.

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To have the Crocs.

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And I was like, there's some massive misunderstood.

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I was like so many people, if there was like an acquisition knock on Crocs,

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would would rep these.

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Like for sure, I like tens of thousands of people who like did the thing.

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Like I'd get this one or whatever.

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And so because I was a premodana, I was like, no, I'm not worth Crocs again.

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And so after that, that's not worth Crocs.

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We're not done here.

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I'm going to help sort this out.

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So the story here is my thing last year, my event, you were in Crocs.

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And you were just like, dude, I'm ready to take it to the next level.

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I'm super motivated to promote.

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I was like, dude, I happen to know their VP of digital there.

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Yeah.

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And no, we are going to rectify this.

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And I just want to see it happen.

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It's not like he's going to pay me or anything.

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So that's a good place to start.

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And you know what's interesting enough,

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Dan, he actually has a holding company.

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And what I wanted to bring up was this, I was at an investor conference,

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a couple months ago called a capital conference.

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And every year, there's like rage.

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I think the year before, it's like all about the hedge funds.

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This year, it's about hold codes, right?

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Everyone's hold code.

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Interesting.

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As if it's really easy to start a holding company, right?

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And then it's like, no, there's a lot that goes into it.

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I mean, you have a portfolio of businesses, right?

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And maybe we can spend some time talking about how difficult it actually is

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to not only be creating content, which we'll talk about in a second,

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but running a holding company.

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It's not just, oh, I'm going to hire operator and that's it, right?

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It's like much easier said than done.

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Yeah.

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Well, to dial in on the hold code side,

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I mean, we have, it's tough if we try to pull apart media from the actual people.

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I think we have like just under 30 people who work at hold code,

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which is like a lot of people for a holding company.

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But we're really hands on in terms of how we like add value to companies.

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So I think there's kind of two models, at least that I'm aware of,

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at least that we considered.

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One is the completely decentralized model, the Berkshire Hathaway model,

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which is delegation to the point of abdication.

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Just like, don't call me unless everything's burning and then still don't call me.

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And that's one model.

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But part of the reason that we have basically the complete opposite model

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is that the deal flow that we have usually wants our help to grow.

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So we're definitely growth partners more than we are.

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Let's buy at a good price and hold it and just try and arbitrage the value that we can get

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from the business and then reallocate capital at the holding company.

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And so for us, we're looking at, is this company in our deal box?

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Do we really like the founders?

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Because a lot of times if you're buying company, you kick the founders out.

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And then you put it in the operator that you trust, etc.

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So like we have a lot of, which actually makes it harder for us to do deals,

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because there's so many reasons that we won't do a deal.

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Like we don't like the founders.

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They don't have a big enough vision.

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We don't think the product's good enough long-term,

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which means we won't redo product market fit.

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That's one of our big, like that's why 3 million if anyone's curious,

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like why 3 million in top line is kind of the minimum.

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And for a 3 million ish, but at least a million in EBITDA.

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Because unless you're there, like usually it's, you're still figuring stuff out.

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Like we want to have at least a basic product market.

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Like you've done something.

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Yeah, there's something that's here, right?

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And so we won't redo that.

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And then we want it to be in a couple areas.

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For us, it's usually consumer services or business services,

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which is either brick and mortar chains or national services,

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like mortgage sales or something, right?

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And those are places where if we can see like an easy like 5X or something like that,

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that's usually what we will want to pick up.

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So if there's like a bunch of, like it's kind of funny,

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like the double-edged sort of, you want a good business,

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but my head of biz dev said, he's like, we want you to be very specifically incompetent.

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As in like incompetent in all the ways that we are excellent.

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Okay?

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And so it's like if someone's like, oh yeah, our sales process is horrible.

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Or like, man, we can't get enough demand gen,

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but we have like a huge LTV and we're really sticky on the back.

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And like those are companies that come in and just murder.

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Yeah, I mean, we just, we just bought a 32 location teeth whitening chain.

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And I was so excited about this.

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And then we went to the facility and the experience was fine in terms of the product,

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but the sales process that I went through was like, I was like giddy.

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I was like, oh my god, there's so many things that we can do to improve this.

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And so we just rolled out our first level and we 5Xed LTV in one rollout.

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And so this is 32 locations.

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And I was like, great, like we just created $50 million in enterprise value.

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Like let's just roll that this out over the next 12 months to all 32.

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And I was like, and that will be a W for the year.

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You know what I mean?

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Like one of the hardest parts about what we have is that you have this desire to have activity,

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right?

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It's like we have, because right now we get 3000 companies a month that apply.

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So it's, it's continued to grow.

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But we don't, we don't necessarily make more money by doing more deals.

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And so it's way more about fine.

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And like the hard part is sticking with the plan and not getting like

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eyes bigger than your stomach.

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And so anyways, that's, that's been the biggest challenge for us is like

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just being very selective about the deals that we know are the best deals for us.

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Not necessarily just good deals.

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And you talk about the deal box, which is warm buff.

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It's like you wait to swing, right?

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So what do you think it is for your deal box?

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You kind of mentioned a couple of things.

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Yeah, so right now, and I think that over time,

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we'll probably expand it as we bring in other like,

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like X operators.

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So so many, you know, if someone's scaled and exited business for like a

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hundred million plus in like software or something,

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then I'd be like, we'll do just come into my deal flow.

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And we'll make a deal that makes sense for both of us.

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You don't have to spend three years building out this massive deal machine.

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I'll just partner with you on it.

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And then we'll, you know, kick off a different pod.

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But for right now, our stuff has been focused on services.

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Just because like, that's the world we just know really well.

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Got it. And that kind of starts to go into content a little bit because you've

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been very prolific in the last two years with leveling up your content.

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Did that teeth whitening company, did that come through your content or where did it come from?

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Content, yep.

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So walk me through how that work.

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Because actually I was having lunch and my friend has a pet holding company.

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He's like, I want to ask like, how, because he's just produced content.

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He's like, how much does that content actually help with deal flow?

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So what happened with that story?

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All of our deal flow comes from content.

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So yes, it does help.

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Yeah, I mean, it's pretty like someone will watch a number of pieces.

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They'll listen to a bunch of podcasts.

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They'll buy the book, they read the book, they go through the course.

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And, you know, they'll have spent a hundred hours with me virtually

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before they take side to take the first action.

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Which I like because then a lot of sums will fix a lot of the low hanging for it,

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which is kind of nice because then, you know,

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have to like have a thing that has all these issues.

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And so they'll apply our, you know,

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had a business that well, well, there's multiple screenings.

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We have an automated screening that we'd

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out like probably like 90% just because they're not big enough

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or they're in a space or they're international, etc.

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And then once that we have somebody who immediately reaches out

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to just qualify that this data is accurate,

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which again, that's like another wave.

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And then from the qualifying stage, we have somebody who then does

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a way more in-depth business case and basically writes up a full like one page right up

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per business.

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And then the ones that that person thinks are big enough

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and in our deal box, they get passed on to

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a managing director of business development.

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And so then he takes the deal from that point until close,

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which is usually like several more conversations,

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which usually we doubt most of them.

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We usually do about two L.O.I.s a month,

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is what that results in for us.

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I think just for those people listening, it's hard

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once you're in it, like you understand how hard it is, right?

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But when you look at your team,

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it actually is a team of bad asses.

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It's like a SWAT team, right?

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And so you have people that have actually been there done that.

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You've talked about your CFO before.

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You said it's 30 people.

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Who else are kind of the key players on that hold code team?

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Because I don't want people to think this is easy.

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Oh, yeah.

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Everything's easy if you don't do a good job.

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So for us, we will get it by function.

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So it's like we have somebody who's in IT,

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so we call them SME, so subject matter experts.

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So subject matter expert for IT, for finance, for HR and recruiting,

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for we have two different marketing SMEs,

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one that's more like the tech site, like MarTech,

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and media buying and funnel optimization stuff,

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CRO, and then the other one is more like truly like the art side

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of the words, the copy,

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via video sales letters, adds that kind of side.

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And then we have a director of sales,

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and we have a director of customer success.

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And so each of those people has years of experience,

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building and scaling multiple teams

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to bigger than most of the companies that are coming to us.

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And now have experience doing their function

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and scaling it within each of our portfolio companies.

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And we've just, it's just a very long process

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of step-by-step codifying every play in the playbook.

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And I think that it's kind of like the Bruce Lee

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of like in the beginning, everything simple.

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And then you have like a zillion punches and kicks,

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and then it comes back to just like, don't get hit.

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And I think that right now we're getting better and better at like,

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okay, we crush this playbook really well.

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We crush this playbook really well.

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So right now we've got like a three playbook

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that it's like we can 10X like services companies.

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And so I'm just trying to see like, okay,

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there's 20 other things that we do really well.

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But like where there's like easy,

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just massive levers that we can crank on.

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And then I think that's where I want to just like,

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I might even say, let's get even more efficient

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at just doing pulling these four levers,

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immediately 10Xing the business.

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And then saying like, okay, so do we want to exit

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or do we want to like double down again

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or do a dividend recap or something like that

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and then reinvest for another time?

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I think when we're hanging out like a year ago,

240
00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:25.440
it was service plus other businesses.

241
00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:27.200
And I think now you guys are honing it even more.

242
00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:28.640
And like that's what business is,

243
00:10:28.640 --> 00:10:30.640
right? You just honed more and more and more.

244
00:10:30.640 --> 00:10:33.040
You get it because then you get even more efficiencies

245
00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:34.720
at hold co and then you can get more.

246
00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:36.800
And then it's even easier at the holding company

247
00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:39.440
to create value within the portfolio companies

248
00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:40.160
because they're doing the same.

249
00:10:40.160 --> 00:10:44.400
Like if you're switching from like, let's say an e-commerce,

250
00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:45.200
like the pet thing, right?

251
00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:46.800
So like, let's say I had one of his companies

252
00:10:46.800 --> 00:10:48.160
which would not be my mailbox.

253
00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:51.040
And I'm, we're optimizing a Shopify page

254
00:10:51.040 --> 00:10:53.760
for chewing toys for dogs.

255
00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:56.400
And then like the next call is about

256
00:10:56.400 --> 00:10:57.760
the brick and mortar teeth-winding chain.

257
00:10:57.760 --> 00:11:01.840
It's like, it's such a jarring switch of like perspectives

258
00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:04.400
that you don't get a lot of like a creative benefit

259
00:11:04.400 --> 00:11:05.680
between both of those calls.

260
00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:08.480
Whereas if you have brick and mortar teeth-winding

261
00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:10.400
and the next one I've brick and mortar photography

262
00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:12.720
and then the next call is brick and mortar gym chain

263
00:11:13.520 --> 00:11:15.520
and all of them are selling sessions and appointments.

264
00:11:15.680 --> 00:11:18.480
It's like, okay, like run this play.

265
00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:20.800
Yeah, so you had to talk recently

266
00:11:20.800 --> 00:11:22.560
and I want to go into this a little more

267
00:11:22.560 --> 00:11:24.880
because back in the day, at least for me,

268
00:11:24.880 --> 00:11:26.960
it was like, I had this senior living business.

269
00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:27.920
There's this education thing.

270
00:11:27.920 --> 00:11:30.320
There's this, there's this, there's this, there's this, right?

271
00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:32.640
And for you, you had like nine different businesses

272
00:11:32.640 --> 00:11:33.760
or whatever, right?

273
00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:36.080
I mean, just how bad was it

274
00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:38.480
when that was, when I was actually happy?

275
00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:40.960
Because I don't think people really understand

276
00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:43.600
how important focus is until they get punched in the gut.

277
00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:45.200
But it's like, how do you prevent that?

278
00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:46.640
So I think the big difference is,

279
00:11:46.640 --> 00:11:48.560
because people are like, Alex, you talk about focus now,

280
00:11:48.560 --> 00:11:50.400
but you have 13 portfolio companies.

281
00:11:50.400 --> 00:11:52.800
But like, I have one holding company.

282
00:11:52.800 --> 00:11:55.040
And if you were to reframe it as like,

283
00:11:55.040 --> 00:11:57.840
I own a marketing agency and I have 13 clients,

284
00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:00.400
it feels that way except I own them, you know what I mean?

285
00:12:00.400 --> 00:12:03.280
But there's a full CEO and leadership team

286
00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:05.520
that run each of the companies.

287
00:12:05.520 --> 00:12:07.600
And we have our leadership team that runs that.

288
00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:09.360
And so like, I own the holding company

289
00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:12.160
and that's my work, you know what I mean?

290
00:12:12.160 --> 00:12:13.600
But where I've made the huge mistake

291
00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:15.360
when I was earlier on is like, I have one company

292
00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:17.360
that makes money, I'll start another.

293
00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.320
And so then you end up becoming CEO of three companies

294
00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:21.200
and it's a nightmare.

295
00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:23.200
And so that's the part like, it's weird

296
00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:25.120
because I feel like I only, I mean,

297
00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:26.400
I don't want to speak this over myself.

298
00:12:26.400 --> 00:12:28.800
But like, I was only really able to understand

299
00:12:28.800 --> 00:12:33.120
how to do multiple things once I sold Jim Launch.

300
00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:34.480
Because then I think it was the first time

301
00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:36.160
I was really above the business.

302
00:12:37.040 --> 00:12:38.480
And then at that point, I was like, okay,

303
00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:41.600
so the above the business is the one thing.

304
00:12:41.760 --> 00:12:43.680
The portfolio is the one thing.

305
00:12:43.680 --> 00:12:46.160
And then that's when you're like your value prop

306
00:12:46.160 --> 00:12:48.960
as a hold co, it is a bit like,

307
00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:51.120
the holding company is a business in and of itself.

308
00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:53.680
And I think that's the big like epiphany that I had is like,

309
00:12:53.680 --> 00:12:54.800
it is a business.

310
00:12:54.800 --> 00:12:56.640
And then you get really specific, you niche down

311
00:12:56.640 --> 00:12:58.640
just like you do in any other business

312
00:12:58.640 --> 00:13:00.320
on what specific type of customers,

313
00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:02.400
even though they're not customers, you serve.

314
00:13:02.400 --> 00:13:03.680
And you talk about working.

315
00:13:03.680 --> 00:13:06.240
So there's above the business in the business,

316
00:13:06.240 --> 00:13:07.280
you know, on the business, right?

317
00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:09.600
What's the difference with above?

318
00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:12.160
In the businesses like I'm taking sales calls,

319
00:13:12.160 --> 00:13:14.680
I think on the businesses, like I'm in leadership positions,

320
00:13:14.680 --> 00:13:16.800
I'm managing, I'm leading, I'm casting the vision,

321
00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:18.640
I'm inspiring the team.

322
00:13:18.640 --> 00:13:23.640
And then above the businesses, you look at many businesses

323
00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.120
and they are all almost like product lines

324
00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:29.720
or clients as I was saying earlier,

325
00:13:29.720 --> 00:13:32.800
that you don't sit anywhere on the work chart

326
00:13:32.800 --> 00:13:33.640
for these businesses.

327
00:13:33.640 --> 00:13:35.880
And that's probably the easiest litmus test is like,

328
00:13:35.880 --> 00:13:38.000
do you have a direct report from the company?

329
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:39.160
And I have zero.

330
00:13:39.640 --> 00:13:40.880
For any of the companies.

331
00:13:40.880 --> 00:13:42.680
Yeah, it's funny.

332
00:13:42.680 --> 00:13:45.760
So Neil sometimes will call me in the middle of the day

333
00:13:45.760 --> 00:13:47.520
and he'll be like, what are you doing?

334
00:13:47.520 --> 00:13:49.120
I'm like, I'm working on stuff.

335
00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:50.440
He's like, I'm bored.

336
00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:52.400
Yeah, it's just like, right?

337
00:13:52.400 --> 00:13:55.480
But it's not like that, but he works really hard.

338
00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:59.720
But I think the other good comparison here

339
00:13:59.720 --> 00:14:02.360
is the difference between like a parallel entrepreneur

340
00:14:02.360 --> 00:14:03.320
and a serial entrepreneur,

341
00:14:03.320 --> 00:14:04.760
because a serial entrepreneur actually waits

342
00:14:04.760 --> 00:14:05.920
to the next level.

343
00:14:05.920 --> 00:14:07.720
A parallel starts multiple things.

344
00:14:07.880 --> 00:14:09.800
But at your point, how are you supposed to compete?

345
00:14:09.800 --> 00:14:10.600
Yeah.

346
00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:13.320
I mean, the focus, the one person is going all in on one thing

347
00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:16.160
is always in my opinion, going to make the most money.

348
00:14:16.160 --> 00:14:19.120
And if you look at the wealthiest 50 people in the world,

349
00:14:19.120 --> 00:14:20.560
they all went all in on one thing.

350
00:14:20.560 --> 00:14:21.320
Yeah.

351
00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:24.200
And there's a couple private equity investors

352
00:14:24.200 --> 00:14:26.000
who are at that top now.

353
00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:28.640
But I would make the argument that they got into

354
00:14:28.640 --> 00:14:31.880
the business of private equity and that was their one thing.

355
00:14:31.880 --> 00:14:34.200
Even though they bought and sold companies,

356
00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:36.720
it function the same way as having a marketing agency

357
00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:39.480
except the unit size was bigger with more zeros.

358
00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:40.160
Yeah.

359
00:14:40.160 --> 00:14:42.080
Do you think when you had the nine different companies?

360
00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:42.680
Was it nine?

361
00:14:42.680 --> 00:14:43.200
Yeah.

362
00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:46.880
OK, when you had the nine A, it felt frantic, right?

363
00:14:46.880 --> 00:14:50.000
But did you feel like you were really close to losing at all?

364
00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:50.600
Every day.

365
00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:51.040
Yeah.

366
00:14:51.040 --> 00:14:51.840
It was horrible.

367
00:14:51.840 --> 00:14:53.400
It was like, it was so stressful.

368
00:14:53.400 --> 00:14:55.240
Because I mean, I had nine companies

369
00:14:55.240 --> 00:14:56.000
worth of employees.

370
00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:57.760
I just didn't understand how to operate.

371
00:14:57.760 --> 00:14:59.920
I didn't understand how leadership worked.

372
00:14:59.920 --> 00:15:01.440
I didn't understand management.

373
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:02.400
I didn't have one on one.

374
00:15:02.400 --> 00:15:03.760
So I didn't have a communication cadence.

375
00:15:03.760 --> 00:15:05.680
And I was the rainmaker for all the businesses.

376
00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:07.720
It was so ridiculous when I think about it now.

377
00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:09.240
It was so obviously stupid.

378
00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:11.840
But you just don't know when you're ignorant.

379
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:15.320
Before we move on from here, what do you say to all the people

380
00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:17.360
now that want to start a whole good?

381
00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:18.880
They're just like, I'm going to go buy businesses

382
00:15:18.880 --> 00:15:20.320
because that's what cool people do.

383
00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:21.840
And I'm going to go hire an operator.

384
00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:23.320
You have any words for those people?

385
00:15:23.320 --> 00:15:25.800
Right now, buying businesses is like invogue.

386
00:15:25.800 --> 00:15:27.280
I don't really know why it got invoked.

387
00:15:27.280 --> 00:15:30.280
But my best guess is that we have so many people retiring

388
00:15:30.280 --> 00:15:33.800
right now that there's just a huge supply spike.

389
00:15:33.880 --> 00:15:35.880
And then a lot of people who've never

390
00:15:35.880 --> 00:15:38.000
made their money buying businesses selling courses

391
00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:41.720
on how to buy businesses, because the thing is,

392
00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:43.080
this is kind of for the audits, is like,

393
00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:44.840
if you make your money buying businesses

394
00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:47.640
and you're really good at it, you don't need to sell a course.

395
00:15:47.640 --> 00:15:50.440
Like the best people at buying businesses buy businesses

396
00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:51.680
and hold them in and best.

397
00:15:51.680 --> 00:15:53.520
Like, I think Neval said, like,

398
00:15:53.520 --> 00:15:55.360
the best investors don't sell courses on investing.

399
00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:56.200
You know what I mean?

400
00:15:56.200 --> 00:15:58.640
Because like, if you're really good at it, you don't need to.

401
00:15:58.640 --> 00:16:02.280
And I just, like, I kind of stick by that.

402
00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:04.440
And so it is kind of shitty.

403
00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:05.520
And there's a lot of marketing dollars

404
00:16:05.520 --> 00:16:07.400
that are going behind that and a lot of content being made

405
00:16:07.400 --> 00:16:11.720
because it's like sexy and the idea of buying a business

406
00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:14.280
for no money down that makes 500,000 year,

407
00:16:14.280 --> 00:16:15.600
which is absolutely possible.

408
00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:16.520
You totally can't do that.

409
00:16:16.520 --> 00:16:18.880
But the thing that they miss is that I can buy a business

410
00:16:18.880 --> 00:16:22.240
for zero dollars down that makes 500 or a million dollars a year

411
00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:23.800
and know how to run it.

412
00:16:23.800 --> 00:16:25.680
If you've never run a business,

413
00:16:25.680 --> 00:16:28.840
and even if you do somehow magically pull off that deal,

414
00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:30.840
you're still screwed because you have no idea

415
00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:31.960
how to run a business.

416
00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:33.640
And so it's like, you still lack the skills

417
00:16:33.640 --> 00:16:34.840
even though you can close the sale.

418
00:16:34.840 --> 00:16:38.000
Like I could sell, I could sell that I could build a skyscraper.

419
00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:41.160
And if I somehow manage to BS my way through the negotiations

420
00:16:41.160 --> 00:16:43.840
and close the contract, I still have to build a skyscraper.

421
00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:46.640
And if you've never built a building before or even a house,

422
00:16:46.640 --> 00:16:47.840
very tough.

423
00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:50.520
And the likelihood that you then lose your ass

424
00:16:50.520 --> 00:16:51.640
on because like, you're not,

425
00:16:51.640 --> 00:16:53.640
you'll get the business that does a million dollars

426
00:16:53.640 --> 00:16:55.560
in profit per year for zero dollars down,

427
00:16:55.560 --> 00:16:57.240
but not for zero dollars.

428
00:16:57.240 --> 00:16:58.760
And that's the piece that I think a lot of people miss.

429
00:16:58.760 --> 00:17:00.320
It's like, it's not free.

430
00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:02.000
Like, you have a liability or you have a debt

431
00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:03.680
if you some sort of seller financing,

432
00:17:03.680 --> 00:17:05.320
creative financing, whatever.

433
00:17:05.320 --> 00:17:06.800
It's like, but now you owe this person.

434
00:17:06.800 --> 00:17:07.800
Yeah.

435
00:17:07.800 --> 00:17:09.160
And that's the marketing piece, right?

436
00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:12.240
I think we get the headlines at the end of the day.

437
00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:13.800
I want to talk about the content piece.

438
00:17:13.800 --> 00:17:15.800
So I was hanging out, I was at a,

439
00:17:15.800 --> 00:17:17.960
speaking of real estate mastermind a couple weeks ago.

440
00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:19.920
Basically, this guy owns 1.5 billion in real estate

441
00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:20.760
in Arizona.

442
00:17:20.760 --> 00:17:22.000
And then in the middle of the pandemic,

443
00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:23.440
he's like, I'm just gonna do YouTube for fun, right?

444
00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:24.280
Cause you couldn't go anywhere.

445
00:17:24.280 --> 00:17:25.680
So he grew to like 400 K or so.

446
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:26.520
Oh, sorry.

447
00:17:26.520 --> 00:17:29.880
And then, but his content is like top notch, right?

448
00:17:29.880 --> 00:17:31.160
It's like, he understands it.

449
00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:32.800
Yeah, it's like, this guy's deep.

450
00:17:32.800 --> 00:17:33.680
You can tell, right?

451
00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:35.080
Taxi manages, whatever.

452
00:17:35.080 --> 00:17:38.320
And, but then you can it, Ken McElroy.

453
00:17:38.320 --> 00:17:39.160
Okay.

454
00:17:39.160 --> 00:17:40.000
Yeah.

455
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:41.880
You should definitely talk super smart.

456
00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:43.080
And, but then you look at other people

457
00:17:43.080 --> 00:17:44.680
who are getting millions and millions of views a month

458
00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:46.600
on YouTube and are talking about all these different businesses.

459
00:17:46.600 --> 00:17:49.560
But then they know the YouTube game,

460
00:17:49.560 --> 00:17:51.720
but they don't have depth when it comes to business, right?

461
00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:54.080
So I see it as a trade off at the end of the day.

462
00:17:55.120 --> 00:17:57.400
But you're actually playing, you're actually able

463
00:17:57.400 --> 00:17:58.240
to play both, right?

464
00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:01.240
And so they were talking to me, they're just like,

465
00:18:01.240 --> 00:18:02.720
okay, what's the point of even creating content?

466
00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:03.840
I'll just go buy more business.

467
00:18:03.840 --> 00:18:05.080
Actually, this was last week.

468
00:18:05.080 --> 00:18:07.200
One of my friends was, was, went to be like, Eric,

469
00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:08.080
I don't need to create content.

470
00:18:08.080 --> 00:18:09.720
I'll just go buy their businesses.

471
00:18:09.720 --> 00:18:12.920
And then I posted that to Twitter X the next day.

472
00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:13.760
Yeah.

473
00:18:13.760 --> 00:18:17.400
And Layla was like, so Layla was like, oh no,

474
00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:19.480
but you create leverages where we get our deal flow from.

475
00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:21.280
And you said all your deal flow comes from that, right?

476
00:18:21.280 --> 00:18:24.160
So I guess we have the same as, you know,

477
00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:25.720
we have a network and things like that come through,

478
00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:28.200
but I don't, I can't, I don't think we've done a deal.

479
00:18:28.840 --> 00:18:30.440
That's not come through our deal flow.

480
00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:31.280
Kind of.

481
00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:32.880
And of the 3000 that come through each month,

482
00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:34.640
what percent actually make it?

483
00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:35.760
I'm tiny, right?

484
00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:36.920
We do two L.O.I.s a month.

485
00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:38.120
And that's not to dissuade people.

486
00:18:38.120 --> 00:18:39.520
It's mostly because we just have a lot of people

487
00:18:39.520 --> 00:18:40.800
who don't have qualified businesses.

488
00:18:40.800 --> 00:18:42.720
Just to be clear, like, if you have a qualified business,

489
00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:45.240
hit me up, but we just have a tremendous amount

490
00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:46.920
that are doing less than a million in profit.

491
00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:50.320
And they're like, I'll give you five percent, Alex.

492
00:18:50.320 --> 00:18:53.040
Oh man, so tempting.

493
00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:56.680
So okay, if, for example, the, I mean,

494
00:18:56.680 --> 00:18:58.840
let's just use a fake example.

495
00:18:58.840 --> 00:19:00.600
Someone has a bunch of locations.

496
00:19:00.600 --> 00:19:03.040
They're doing one million in EBITDA.

497
00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:04.200
Let me just read one first.

498
00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:05.680
And minimum is a million just to be clear.

499
00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:09.440
So like, ideally for me, like, I love that like,

500
00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:11.680
three-ish, four-ish, you know what I mean?

501
00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:14.280
Like, that's where, like, you're right about to hit that

502
00:19:14.280 --> 00:19:15.720
so we can just like, boom, 20.

503
00:19:15.720 --> 00:19:17.880
And then it's like, you're aligning with them.

504
00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:19.240
It's like, hey, if we want to hold forever,

505
00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:21.720
you're like, hey, like, if I like you, maybe, right?

506
00:19:21.720 --> 00:19:22.640
Yeah, I'm good on either way,

507
00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:24.640
because like, we don't need the liquidity.

508
00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:26.040
I'm happy to let it compound tax rate.

509
00:19:26.040 --> 00:19:27.720
So like, I'm good either side either way.

510
00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:29.040
And I'll just rephrase over here,

511
00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:31.280
because I think when we hung out a year ago,

512
00:19:31.280 --> 00:19:35.200
it's, you talked about how you're maybe moving more

513
00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:38.400
towards instead of minority investments into majority.

514
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:39.400
How are you thinking about it now?

515
00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:42.040
Yeah, we're 100% in that camp are.

516
00:19:43.280 --> 00:19:45.000
And it's, you know, it's almost like,

517
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:47.960
it's almost like finding your price

518
00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:49.640
when you're selling a service,

519
00:19:49.640 --> 00:19:50.920
except in the deal world.

520
00:19:50.920 --> 00:19:52.400
And this is one thing that like,

521
00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:54.120
if you really want to get into this world,

522
00:19:54.120 --> 00:19:57.080
like, it is such a long game.

523
00:19:57.080 --> 00:19:59.680
Because if you think about like product market fit,

524
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:01.040
you have the same concept that happens

525
00:20:01.040 --> 00:20:02.480
at like a holding company when you're investing.

526
00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:04.000
You have like, deal fit.

527
00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:05.880
And so it's like, what's my offer?

528
00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:07.800
But not to a customer, but to a,

529
00:20:07.800 --> 00:20:09.040
to an entrepreneur, to a founder,

530
00:20:09.040 --> 00:20:10.400
to somebody's trying to go their business.

531
00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:15.480
And so it takes way longer to have enough qualified candidates

532
00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:16.720
to even make the offer.

533
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:18.320
And then it takes 90 days to even see

534
00:20:18.320 --> 00:20:19.680
if you can close the offer.

535
00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:21.040
And then from closing the offer,

536
00:20:21.040 --> 00:20:22.960
it takes another year or two to see

537
00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:24.240
if it was actually like worked out.

538
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:27.520
So like your feedback cycles are so long

539
00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:30.480
that it's very painful as somebody who is an ex

540
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:32.440
on whatever you want to call me,

541
00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:33.640
who's used to being able to like,

542
00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:34.560
hey, let's try this out.

543
00:20:34.560 --> 00:20:37.320
And in 30 days, having both spun up tested and have data.

544
00:20:37.320 --> 00:20:39.960
Like in 30 days, we might be able to like,

545
00:20:39.960 --> 00:20:41.480
talk to a couple of entrepreneurs

546
00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:43.600
that we think are interesting.

547
00:20:43.600 --> 00:20:46.520
And so any of you, we have moved towards

548
00:20:47.880 --> 00:20:50.200
bigger and bigger chunks of companies.

549
00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:54.200
Right now we target 49% with most of the deals.

550
00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:56.280
We just did a majority deal two months ago.

551
00:20:57.280 --> 00:20:59.560
And so we're now doing both minority and majority

552
00:20:59.560 --> 00:21:01.520
and our minority slugs are bigger.

553
00:21:01.520 --> 00:21:02.920
Because it's the same thing where it's like,

554
00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:06.240
it's the same work for us at 20% as it is at 51.

555
00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:08.280
And in some cases, weirdly enough,

556
00:21:08.280 --> 00:21:10.400
it's almost less work at majority

557
00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:14.320
because I have fewer emotions to manage

558
00:21:14.320 --> 00:21:15.400
on the founder side.

559
00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:16.320
Because it's like, listen,

560
00:21:16.320 --> 00:21:19.040
I'm the one who's taking all the risk on now.

561
00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:20.760
And so this is what we're going to do.

562
00:21:20.760 --> 00:21:22.520
Rather than saying, hey, man,

563
00:21:22.520 --> 00:21:24.440
I think this is what we should do.

564
00:21:24.440 --> 00:21:25.440
What do you think?

565
00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:28.160
And so I have way, my speed of implementation

566
00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:30.280
on majority companies is so much faster.

567
00:21:30.280 --> 00:21:32.480
And like what I would like to do in the next,

568
00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:33.880
and this is why it takes years to do this.

569
00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:35.760
But like over the next two or three years,

570
00:21:35.760 --> 00:21:37.560
I'd love to show the difference

571
00:21:37.560 --> 00:21:39.840
between our minority holdings and our majority holdings

572
00:21:39.840 --> 00:21:40.760
of how much more profitable

573
00:21:40.760 --> 00:21:42.480
and how much faster we grew them.

574
00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:44.480
To then make an even more compelling case of,

575
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:46.320
like I don't necessarily want to fully exit founders.

576
00:21:46.320 --> 00:21:47.200
That's not my intention.

577
00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:49.440
It's more like, we have done this before.

578
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:51.000
Like please, like let me love you.

579
00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:53.200
Like let me, let me just do what we already know

580
00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:54.760
how to do many times.

581
00:21:54.760 --> 00:21:56.160
And that like I remember how to conversation

582
00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:57.280
with one of our founders.

583
00:21:57.280 --> 00:21:58.320
This is one of the companies we actually

584
00:21:58.320 --> 00:21:59.760
ended up buying with majority of.

585
00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:03.800
We like six phone calls to talk about a price change

586
00:22:03.800 --> 00:22:05.320
that I want to implement.

587
00:22:05.320 --> 00:22:07.400
And we implemented the price change

588
00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:09.480
and we doubled profit.

589
00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:11.200
And it was big company already.

590
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:12.760
We doubled profit in 30 days.

591
00:22:12.760 --> 00:22:16.560
And like we increase the price and increase close rates.

592
00:22:16.560 --> 00:22:19.880
Like we call that a wonderful, a wonderful thing.

593
00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:20.920
Because they were mispriced.

594
00:22:20.920 --> 00:22:22.000
Like we did a bunch of research.

595
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:23.160
We saw the competitors in the marketplace.

596
00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:24.960
We were like, we're not even going high.

597
00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:26.640
I was like, we're just going up to market.

598
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:28.640
Which is, I mean, I love those opportunities.

599
00:22:28.640 --> 00:22:29.760
They're not always there.

600
00:22:29.760 --> 00:22:33.160
But like, but if it had been a majority holding,

601
00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:34.680
it would have just been an email.

602
00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:36.120
I mean, like this is what it needs to change to.

603
00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:36.920
Let the team know.

604
00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:38.680
Here's here the bullet points to talk

605
00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:39.440
to the sales director.

606
00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:41.080
And he would just let him go.

607
00:22:41.080 --> 00:22:44.480
Do you think before, so when you had the 20% or so,

608
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:46.080
like I think we were talking about this already,

609
00:22:46.080 --> 00:22:48.680
it's like, they weren't, not that they weren't taking it seriously.

610
00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:51.080
I mean, maybe you just didn't have email.

611
00:22:51.080 --> 00:22:53.040
It was more of a consultative relationship.

612
00:22:53.040 --> 00:22:57.240
And to be fair, like, it's not like we wheeled authority.

613
00:22:57.240 --> 00:22:59.600
Like I'm not really an authoritative person

614
00:22:59.600 --> 00:23:00.640
from that perspective.

615
00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:02.200
Like it's always soft influence.

616
00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:05.400
We've never taken a vote in any company ever.

617
00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.520
Like what, because it's funny, because during the deal process,

618
00:23:07.520 --> 00:23:08.840
we're like, well, how many who gets, I'm like, dude,

619
00:23:08.840 --> 00:23:10.680
we will literally never look at this contract again.

620
00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:12.120
Like I pride myself in the fact we've never

621
00:23:12.120 --> 00:23:15.280
taken a contract out after a deal.

622
00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:17.760
But it still feels a little different.

623
00:23:17.760 --> 00:23:21.640
Like no matter what anyone says, like if you buy majority,

624
00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:22.480
it just feels different.

625
00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:23.800
It's like, here's the plan.

626
00:23:23.800 --> 00:23:25.160
Let me know if you have questions about it.

627
00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:26.680
Or like, what do you think?

628
00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:27.800
And I want feedback.

629
00:23:27.800 --> 00:23:29.360
More, I want feedback.

630
00:23:29.360 --> 00:23:31.000
I don't want to sell someone on it.

631
00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:31.840
You know what I mean?

632
00:23:31.840 --> 00:23:33.440
And I think that's the, that's the...

633
00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:34.480
You're gonna collaborate.

634
00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:35.560
Yeah, exactly.

635
00:23:35.560 --> 00:23:36.400
Yeah.

636
00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:38.720
And so now we rewind back to the content again.

637
00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:42.880
So how do you think your content strategy has changed

638
00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:43.880
in the last 12 months?

639
00:23:43.880 --> 00:23:47.360
Because I can, from afar, I can see some of the adjustments.

640
00:23:47.360 --> 00:23:48.200
Yeah.

641
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:49.080
Caleb's out here today, right?

642
00:23:49.080 --> 00:23:50.080
Yeah.

643
00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:51.240
Yeah, I know the team's bigger now.

644
00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:53.480
I mean, how big is the media team now?

645
00:23:53.480 --> 00:23:54.400
Nine, maybe.

646
00:23:54.400 --> 00:23:55.240
Nine people?

647
00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:56.080
Yeah, it's nine.

648
00:23:56.080 --> 00:23:57.320
And then we have some vendors.

649
00:23:57.320 --> 00:23:58.960
So probably, if you included their teams,

650
00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:00.720
probably like 15 or 16 somewhere in there.

651
00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:01.560
Okay.

652
00:24:01.560 --> 00:24:03.200
I mean, I think the big thing is just like,

653
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.000
we try and focus on content that Oli we can make.

654
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:09.400
That's the, that's the big, single throughput line.

655
00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:11.040
If someone else can make this piece of content,

656
00:24:11.040 --> 00:24:12.120
I don't want to make it.

657
00:24:12.120 --> 00:24:13.680
And so that's why we try and, you know,

658
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:17.120
we call them, you know, one of zero stories,

659
00:24:17.120 --> 00:24:19.080
which is like something no one else can do.

660
00:24:19.080 --> 00:24:20.800
And so like, no one can talk about like,

661
00:24:20.800 --> 00:24:22.480
how they bought a teeth wedding chain

662
00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:24.360
and then like implemented a new sales process

663
00:24:24.360 --> 00:24:25.200
and then five extra.

664
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:27.640
No one can say that because that's such, like,

665
00:24:27.640 --> 00:24:28.640
no one did that.

666
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:29.480
I did that.

667
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:30.600
And so someone might be like,

668
00:24:30.600 --> 00:24:32.040
here's how Coca-Cola,

669
00:24:32.040 --> 00:24:34.000
here's a breakdown of Coca-Cola's business model.

670
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.080
But like, I'm not going to do that

671
00:24:36.080 --> 00:24:37.040
because someone else can do that.

672
00:24:37.040 --> 00:24:38.680
But this is the stuff that I can do.

673
00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:41.000
So it's more, it's going to be more capturing

674
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.720
out what we're literally doing,

675
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:45.040
because I think the more people saw what we actually do

676
00:24:45.040 --> 00:24:45.880
in companies one,

677
00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:48.560
it would get even better deal flow for us.

678
00:24:48.560 --> 00:24:51.720
But also it's more unique than I think what most people do.

679
00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:53.120
So that's kind of like us trying to play more

680
00:24:53.120 --> 00:24:54.320
to our strengths, which is like,

681
00:24:54.320 --> 00:24:56.080
our day to day is our strength.

682
00:24:56.080 --> 00:24:58.520
And we almost diverted from our strength

683
00:24:58.520 --> 00:25:01.000
to create content to just like learn this game.

684
00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:03.280
But as our infrastructure gets bigger and better,

685
00:25:03.280 --> 00:25:04.280
we're leaning more and more.

686
00:25:04.280 --> 00:25:08.280
So we just bought a big headquarters here in Vegas.

687
00:25:08.280 --> 00:25:10.520
And so we're going to be centralizing the whole media team.

688
00:25:10.520 --> 00:25:12.200
That'll be our big media headquarters.

689
00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:14.000
And so we've got the gym in there too, right?

690
00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:15.120
Yeah, we have a whole floor.

691
00:25:15.120 --> 00:25:16.120
Nice.

692
00:25:16.120 --> 00:25:18.560
And so there's going to be a ton of new content

693
00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:19.400
we're going to be pushing out,

694
00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:21.280
because it's funny because right now people will probably be like,

695
00:25:21.280 --> 00:25:23.000
you've made it, you're at like the pinnacle of content.

696
00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:24.520
I'm like, do we literally haven't even started?

697
00:25:24.520 --> 00:25:26.240
Like the amount of stuff that we're planning on doing

698
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:30.160
for like 2024 is bananas.

699
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:31.000
Can't wait.

700
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:32.160
It's going to be like,

701
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:34.600
we will be pushing out a lot of content

702
00:25:34.600 --> 00:25:36.680
and it will be really good.

703
00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:38.680
Because you said one thing early,

704
00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:39.800
but I love this statement,

705
00:25:39.800 --> 00:25:43.120
but it's like the second throughput would be like too good to fail.

706
00:25:43.120 --> 00:25:44.800
Because that buddy of yours can.

707
00:25:44.800 --> 00:25:47.960
It's like, you don't have to know the algorithm in my opinion.

708
00:25:47.960 --> 00:25:50.240
Like if the piece is good enough,

709
00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:51.720
you don't have to nail the thumb,

710
00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:53.680
you don't have to nail the headline.

711
00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:55.680
If people start watching it and they're like,

712
00:25:55.680 --> 00:25:57.960
this is so good, they will share it,

713
00:25:57.960 --> 00:25:58.800
they will keep watching it

714
00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:00.080
and they will come back and watch the next time.

715
00:26:00.080 --> 00:26:01.080
Because what happens is like,

716
00:26:01.080 --> 00:26:02.720
if you think about the human behavior side of it,

717
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:03.560
if you just watch,

718
00:26:03.560 --> 00:26:06.400
if you over-deliver like crazy on one video,

719
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:07.960
the next time you post a video,

720
00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:09.720
that person will click it.

721
00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:11.080
And they don't even look at the thumb,

722
00:26:11.080 --> 00:26:12.120
they don't look at the headline.

723
00:26:12.120 --> 00:26:15.680
They're just like, oh, Alex or Eric made another video.

724
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:18.000
It must be good because all the other videos are good.

725
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.120
And I think it's more important to have fewer good pieces

726
00:26:21.120 --> 00:26:23.000
than more mediocre pieces.

727
00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:24.880
Dude, so here's where I'm coming from.

728
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:26.160
Looking at Ken's,

729
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:27.000
during the pandemic,

730
00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:28.800
he had videos that would get a couple hundred thousand

731
00:26:28.800 --> 00:26:31.120
and that's when you know you're doing pretty well with each video.

732
00:26:31.120 --> 00:26:32.240
Neil, same deal.

733
00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:33.560
He had a couple hundred thousand.

734
00:26:33.560 --> 00:26:35.680
Some videos would get a million views or so.

735
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:37.080
And then same deal for me, couple hundred,

736
00:26:37.080 --> 00:26:38.760
this is like four or five years ago.

737
00:26:38.760 --> 00:26:41.520
And my thesis here is that you have to be

738
00:26:41.520 --> 00:26:42.920
in the good graces of YouTube

739
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:43.760
and you have to be consistent.

740
00:26:43.760 --> 00:26:45.240
You cannot stop, right?

741
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:46.520
And because those guys,

742
00:26:46.520 --> 00:26:49.000
Neil stopped, Ken stopped, I stopped.

743
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:50.000
We're in this box right now

744
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:51.000
where I look at Neil's YouTube.

745
00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:52.000
I'm like, dude,

746
00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:53.480
your views are the same shit

747
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:54.840
from the last couple of years ago,

748
00:26:54.840 --> 00:26:56.840
but you're only getting like five, 10 K views, right?

749
00:26:56.840 --> 00:26:59.560
So there's, I think there's this penalty box almost.

750
00:26:59.560 --> 00:27:00.560
I think it's,

751
00:27:00.560 --> 00:27:01.560
so in my opinion,

752
00:27:01.560 --> 00:27:04.520
all social media has switched to the tick tockification

753
00:27:04.520 --> 00:27:05.720
of social media.

754
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:09.280
You know, I actually think it's good

755
00:27:09.280 --> 00:27:13.720
because what it does is if like subscribers mean nothing,

756
00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:15.480
followers on Instagram mean nothing.

757
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:17.920
They're literally just a vanity metric now.

758
00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:22.920
And so the only thing that matters is click, retain, reward.

759
00:27:23.080 --> 00:27:23.920
That's it.

760
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:25.840
Like, and it doesn't matter what the platform is,

761
00:27:25.840 --> 00:27:27.320
they're all the same is like,

762
00:27:27.320 --> 00:27:29.560
did you get them to click, did you get them to watch

763
00:27:29.560 --> 00:27:30.640
and did you get them to come back?

764
00:27:30.640 --> 00:27:31.480
Yeah.

765
00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:32.320
That's it.

766
00:27:32.320 --> 00:27:33.920
And so the algorithm, like,

767
00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:35.720
it also, by doing that though,

768
00:27:35.720 --> 00:27:38.320
it makes it, there's never been a better time to start

769
00:27:38.320 --> 00:27:40.960
because in the earlier days when it was subscriber-based,

770
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:42.360
it was basically an email list.

771
00:27:42.360 --> 00:27:43.680
Like, you build a subscriber base

772
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:46.400
and then they push out your stuff subscribers,

773
00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:48.360
but they don't do that anymore at all.

774
00:27:48.360 --> 00:27:49.600
And now it's just like,

775
00:27:49.600 --> 00:27:50.840
they do look like audiences,

776
00:27:50.840 --> 00:27:52.120
based on what they predict,

777
00:27:52.120 --> 00:27:53.560
someone will like your thing or not.

778
00:27:53.560 --> 00:27:55.240
And so you could be a brand new account

779
00:27:55.240 --> 00:27:57.000
and have your first video do 10 million

780
00:27:57.000 --> 00:27:58.920
on the first upload ever,

781
00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:00.960
which I think in some ways is like a great equalizer

782
00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:02.360
and it makes the content king.

783
00:28:04.840 --> 00:28:06.840
Most of the nation real quick,

784
00:28:06.840 --> 00:28:09.880
if you are a business owner that has a big old business

785
00:28:09.880 --> 00:28:11.960
and wants to get to a much bigger business,

786
00:28:11.960 --> 00:28:13.800
going to $50, $100 million plus,

787
00:28:13.800 --> 00:28:15.440
we would love to talk to you.

788
00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:17.640
And if you like that and would like to hear more about it,

789
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.320
go to acquisition.com and you can plan anywhere on the page

790
00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:22.360
and talk to one of our team and see

791
00:28:22.360 --> 00:28:23.520
if we can help you get there.

792
00:28:25.520 --> 00:28:27.680
And so actually going to the shorts for a second,

793
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:29.320
your team of 16 people,

794
00:28:29.320 --> 00:28:32.920
what percent of your work with you and your team

795
00:28:32.920 --> 00:28:35.680
goes that you think into shorts versus the long form stuff?

796
00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:39.000
I mean, my shorts for me is like almost no work.

797
00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:40.800
That's all the team.

798
00:28:40.800 --> 00:28:41.640
That's all them.

799
00:28:41.640 --> 00:28:43.240
So they're cutting up your long form stuff.

800
00:28:43.240 --> 00:28:44.240
That's almost the majority.

801
00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:45.640
We did direct-to-camera stuff early

802
00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:46.680
to kind of like kickstart things,

803
00:28:46.680 --> 00:28:49.520
but I can't remember the last direct-to-camera shoot

804
00:28:49.520 --> 00:28:52.440
we did because direct-to-camera versus,

805
00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:54.680
it's a very, it's a different setup.

806
00:28:54.680 --> 00:28:57.800
That's so like, no more direct-to-camera.

807
00:28:57.800 --> 00:28:59.280
Because it's not that I'm against it,

808
00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:01.360
it's just that they've got enough other stuff

809
00:29:01.360 --> 00:29:02.600
and I prefer the other stuff

810
00:29:02.600 --> 00:29:04.240
because I think it's more organic.

811
00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:07.480
Usability per minute of footage is highest.

812
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:08.920
Whereas if we do a vlog day,

813
00:29:08.920 --> 00:29:11.680
they're gonna get three or four shorts from a full day,

814
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:13.280
but they gotta go through like eight hours of content.

815
00:29:13.280 --> 00:29:16.040
Whereas if I do like two hours of direct-to-camera,

816
00:29:16.040 --> 00:29:17.680
we have like a hundred shorts.

817
00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:18.840
Yeah.

818
00:29:18.840 --> 00:29:19.840
It's a lot.

819
00:29:19.840 --> 00:29:20.680
Yeah.

820
00:29:20.680 --> 00:29:22.280
And so what about from this?

821
00:29:22.280 --> 00:29:25.320
This you pull like what, like 2015 shorts?

822
00:29:25.320 --> 00:29:26.160
You would know.

823
00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:28.880
Yeah, I would think it's like 10, 10, 10, 20 shorts.

824
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:29.720
Yeah, really 10-ish.

825
00:29:29.720 --> 00:29:31.240
So you go for two hours or something like that.

826
00:29:31.600 --> 00:29:32.760
Got it.

827
00:29:32.760 --> 00:29:36.280
And you spend a year ago was like,

828
00:29:36.280 --> 00:29:37.840
I think like 120 grand a month,

829
00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:39.360
like anything that looks like now.

830
00:29:39.360 --> 00:29:40.320
It's probably double.

831
00:29:40.320 --> 00:29:41.160
Okay.

832
00:29:41.160 --> 00:29:42.160
So 240.

833
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:44.520
And are you getting paid on AdSense?

834
00:29:44.520 --> 00:29:45.360
Any of this?

835
00:29:45.360 --> 00:29:46.200
Yeah.

836
00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:47.040
Okay.

837
00:29:47.040 --> 00:29:47.880
I mean, not enough to make it back.

838
00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:48.720
It doesn't equal it out.

839
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:49.560
Okay.

840
00:29:49.560 --> 00:29:50.400
It doesn't equal it out.

841
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:51.400
Let's look at a deal flow, it's good.

842
00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:52.240
Yeah.

843
00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:54.040
Me just is like a lost leader if you want to consider

844
00:29:54.040 --> 00:29:54.880
from my perspective.

845
00:29:54.880 --> 00:29:55.880
We lose money on media.

846
00:29:55.880 --> 00:29:57.440
Which is funny because people were like,

847
00:29:57.440 --> 00:29:59.080
he makes money on his $2 book,

848
00:29:59.080 --> 00:30:00.480
which by the way, Amazon takes,

849
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:02.680
you get paid like $0.30 on a book, that's $2.

850
00:30:02.680 --> 00:30:05.480
But anyways, that just goes to fund the

851
00:30:05.480 --> 00:30:07.640
the money losing media team.

852
00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:09.400
And I'd say that with absolute love.

853
00:30:09.400 --> 00:30:10.920
You know what I mean?

854
00:30:10.920 --> 00:30:13.880
But that's, I mean, all marketing loses money

855
00:30:13.880 --> 00:30:14.800
until it makes you money.

856
00:30:14.800 --> 00:30:15.640
Like this.

857
00:30:15.640 --> 00:30:16.480
Yeah.

858
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:17.320
It's a long game.

859
00:30:17.320 --> 00:30:19.200
And rewinding back to the deal stuff for a second.

860
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:20.920
So of the 24 L.O.I.'s that you do,

861
00:30:20.920 --> 00:30:22.160
that comes from content, by the way.

862
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:23.920
So it does make money.

863
00:30:23.920 --> 00:30:25.960
How many of those that actually go through?

864
00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:26.800
About half.

865
00:30:26.800 --> 00:30:27.640
Okay.

866
00:30:27.640 --> 00:30:28.480
Kind of 12 go through.

867
00:30:28.480 --> 00:30:29.480
Pretty high conversion rate.

868
00:30:29.480 --> 00:30:30.840
It's also a good qualification.

869
00:30:30.840 --> 00:30:31.840
Yeah.

870
00:30:31.840 --> 00:30:33.440
But I think we've just continued to get narrow and narrow.

871
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:35.240
Like I wouldn't be surprised.

872
00:30:35.240 --> 00:30:36.520
Well, our deal flow keeps going up.

873
00:30:36.520 --> 00:30:40.120
So if we might actually have the same number of deals done

874
00:30:40.120 --> 00:30:42.840
on five times the amount of deal flow.

875
00:30:42.840 --> 00:30:43.680
Yeah.

876
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:45.440
Because we're just getting better and better at picking.

877
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:46.280
Yeah.

878
00:30:46.280 --> 00:30:48.200
Well, one more thing before we go back to content.

879
00:30:48.200 --> 00:30:50.440
What is the craziest thing someone has offered you?

880
00:30:50.440 --> 00:30:51.280
Because here's the thing, right?

881
00:30:51.280 --> 00:30:54.560
Like I do believe there is the brand equity

882
00:30:54.560 --> 00:30:56.320
that you have gets you good deal in terms.

883
00:30:56.320 --> 00:30:57.920
Like the agencies that come to me.

884
00:30:57.920 --> 00:30:58.760
Yeah.

885
00:30:58.760 --> 00:30:59.760
We're 5 million a year.

886
00:30:59.760 --> 00:31:00.760
We'll give you 20%.

887
00:31:00.760 --> 00:31:01.760
It's like, what?

888
00:31:01.760 --> 00:31:02.760
Great.

889
00:31:02.760 --> 00:31:03.760
So like, what is the craziest thing someone's offered?

890
00:31:03.760 --> 00:31:05.280
Like their newborn, like anything like that?

891
00:31:05.280 --> 00:31:06.280
Honestly.

892
00:31:06.280 --> 00:31:09.280
The people who make the craziest offers usually don't have anything

893
00:31:09.280 --> 00:31:10.280
of value to offer.

894
00:31:10.280 --> 00:31:11.280
You know what I mean?

895
00:31:11.280 --> 00:31:15.800
But I would say almost all the deals that we do have favorable terms.

896
00:31:15.800 --> 00:31:16.800
You know what I mean?

897
00:31:16.800 --> 00:31:21.640
In terms of both price and just like, just terms in general, like, we keep, we try

898
00:31:21.640 --> 00:31:23.640
to keep our contracts as simply as humanly possible.

899
00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:27.120
I put this big emphasis on the legal team to make it plain English contracts.

900
00:31:27.120 --> 00:31:31.240
And like my lawyer had a heart attack when I was like, I want a fifth grader to be able

901
00:31:31.240 --> 00:31:32.240
to read this contract.

902
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:36.280
Because the biggest issue that happens in the deal process for anyone as I've ever done

903
00:31:36.280 --> 00:31:40.440
a deal is that their lawyer starts talking to your lawyer and then they just keep having

904
00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:42.840
these conversations and translating back and forth.

905
00:31:42.840 --> 00:31:46.800
And then you have all these miscommunications and then it's like, yeah, yeah, and the only

906
00:31:46.800 --> 00:31:48.040
person who wins there is the lawyer.

907
00:31:48.040 --> 00:31:52.200
And so we've taken a little bit of a different approach of like, let's keep our conversation

908
00:31:52.200 --> 00:31:57.080
as primary and then we together tell the attorneys what we want them to do.

909
00:31:57.080 --> 00:32:00.600
And that way, like any negotiating happens between us.

910
00:32:00.600 --> 00:32:04.440
And that way, because like, I'm a, there was a deal we were working on.

911
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:08.760
And they're, you know, attorney who it wasn't even an M&A attorney, by the way, if you

912
00:32:08.760 --> 00:32:13.000
are going to sell your company or have somebody invest, like, have an M&A attorney, anyways.

913
00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:16.960
It's like, no, he's a family friend, I'm like, doesn't mean he doesn't work.

914
00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:21.920
So he was like, we need this non-compete to be, you know, 24 months and a 50 mile radius

915
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:23.920
around the brick and mortar locations.

916
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:24.920
They asked for this.

917
00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:25.920
Yeah.

918
00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:29.160
So the lawyers are talking for like two weeks about this.

919
00:32:29.160 --> 00:32:30.720
And I finally, I call the founder up.

920
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:33.040
And I was like, are you planning on starting another chain?

921
00:32:33.040 --> 00:32:34.840
I was like, you still own majority of this business.

922
00:32:34.840 --> 00:32:37.000
Do you plan on competing with your own business?

923
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:37.840
And he was like, no.

924
00:32:37.840 --> 00:32:39.040
And I was like, cool.

925
00:32:39.040 --> 00:32:41.680
Then as long as you own majority of the business, you don't compete with your business.

926
00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:42.840
And he was like, yeah, that's fine.

927
00:32:42.840 --> 00:32:44.160
It's like, great.

928
00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:45.200
Glad we had this talk.

929
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:49.440
You know, I mean, like, that was probably like $10,000 in, in lawyer fees that went back

930
00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:52.120
and forth that was settled by two entrepreneurs in two minutes.

931
00:32:52.120 --> 00:32:52.920
Yeah.

932
00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:53.720
Just obvious stuff.

933
00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:54.720
You know what I mean?

934
00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:57.240
But like that kind of thing is the stuff that like, hang nails.

935
00:32:57.240 --> 00:32:58.240
You know what I mean?

936
00:32:58.240 --> 00:32:59.240
Like, on deals.

937
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:00.240
Yeah.

938
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:01.600
So now we rewind back to content.

939
00:33:01.600 --> 00:33:03.000
Sorry for jumping all over the place.

940
00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:04.000
Yeah.

941
00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:05.000
Yeah.

942
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:10.840
So when you're thinking about the ideation piece, right?

943
00:33:10.840 --> 00:33:14.560
So is that like, are you separating that into another day?

944
00:33:14.560 --> 00:33:15.880
Is that like on the same day?

945
00:33:15.880 --> 00:33:19.480
And then how are you thinking about like the hooks, the stories, all that type of stuff?

946
00:33:19.480 --> 00:33:20.480
The team brings everything.

947
00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:21.480
Okay.

948
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:23.680
So the team brings everything from like, because they'll watch this podcast.

949
00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:26.880
And then they'll be like, dude, that story was interesting.

950
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:28.320
Can we do a thing on that?

951
00:33:28.320 --> 00:33:33.600
And that because like basically the team is inherently curious people who like my content.

952
00:33:33.600 --> 00:33:38.440
And so like to use some Gary terms, like they fuck with my content.

953
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:43.320
And so the stuff that they want to know more about, we go into more depth on.

954
00:33:43.320 --> 00:33:48.440
And so I haven't been asked to come up with topics in a really long time.

955
00:33:48.440 --> 00:33:51.240
But I'll tell you how I would come up with topics because this is how I was doing it when

956
00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:52.800
it was just me starting out.

957
00:33:52.800 --> 00:33:56.880
Things that I just like to use time as my anchor for this.

958
00:33:56.880 --> 00:34:01.160
So I go far past, which is like, what are the life changing experiences or conversations

959
00:34:01.160 --> 00:34:03.360
that I've had that have shaped the way my world view?

960
00:34:03.360 --> 00:34:05.840
And so those are stories that I will tell because I think they're impactful and people

961
00:34:05.840 --> 00:34:07.880
get value from them.

962
00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:14.120
Then I have recent past, which is like, let me look at my calendar over the last week

963
00:34:14.120 --> 00:34:15.840
and just look at all the meetings I had.

964
00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:20.320
And I just like, I would have my phone up and be like, okay, so I was talking to one

965
00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:22.680
of our public companies who's trying to make a change on pricing.

966
00:34:22.680 --> 00:34:23.680
And so this is what we were considered.

967
00:34:23.680 --> 00:34:24.680
You know what I mean?

968
00:34:24.680 --> 00:34:26.920
I just literally go through what my life was.

969
00:34:26.920 --> 00:34:31.000
I have present, which is whenever something comes up in the moment, I always have a way

970
00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:32.480
to like, brain dump it.

971
00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:38.360
And so for me, Twitter or X is kind of my brain dump whenever I, yeah, all right, they

972
00:34:38.360 --> 00:34:39.360
repost stuff.

973
00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:43.360
But Twitter is my home base for that.

974
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:47.120
And so they'll also come with the tweets that they thought were like, interesting to make

975
00:34:47.120 --> 00:34:48.960
more content about.

976
00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:54.240
And then you've got like manufactured, which is stuff that doesn't exist at all.

977
00:34:54.240 --> 00:34:56.120
What's an example?

978
00:34:56.120 --> 00:35:02.640
Like I lived on $100 in 30 days, like here's what happened, I'm just like as an example.

979
00:35:02.640 --> 00:35:05.920
That wouldn't be one that I would make, but like because somebody else could make that.

980
00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:08.840
But stuff like that.

981
00:35:08.840 --> 00:35:12.040
And then like case studies and vlogs.

982
00:35:12.040 --> 00:35:15.680
So those are kind of like the buckets that we think through.

983
00:35:15.680 --> 00:35:19.040
But most of you'll notice it's just like real stuff.

984
00:35:19.040 --> 00:35:23.000
So we don't have to come up with like what would people find interesting like, well, this

985
00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:24.000
is what I did.

986
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:25.000
And they find it interesting also.

987
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:28.440
And what's like the micro there is it like one day at a time, they just dump a bunch

988
00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:30.000
of topics on you.

989
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:35.200
Well, when we do recording, because we record like twice a month, and this is what, how

990
00:35:35.200 --> 00:35:36.200
much in a day.

991
00:35:36.200 --> 00:35:37.200
How much?

992
00:35:37.200 --> 00:35:39.880
So it's two full days a month is when we do the recording.

993
00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:43.120
Once we get the headquarters, it'll probably be smaller chunks more frequently.

994
00:35:43.120 --> 00:35:47.360
So for right now, it's just like one eight hour day, twice a month, but they'll have

995
00:35:47.360 --> 00:35:56.000
like full like six page pre-productions for every video of like these are these are the

996
00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:57.000
themes.

997
00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:00.320
These are the four or five stories that we think are that we've pulled from your other

998
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:03.840
pieces that we think would tie well together around this topic.

999
00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:07.840
I talked to the team to get stats on some of these companies for this case study.

1000
00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:12.960
So like the media team now will talk to our subject matter experts at Holtco to get like

1001
00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:14.280
hey, what was new this week?

1002
00:36:14.280 --> 00:36:16.160
Did you guys do any implementations or whatever?

1003
00:36:16.160 --> 00:36:19.320
And then they'll take that and then repackage it, and then that'll become a lot of.

1004
00:36:19.320 --> 00:36:24.160
Dude, I mean, this is a sidebar here, but like I know even with Caleb, and my just sense

1005
00:36:24.160 --> 00:36:27.320
in general, like you like to be friends with your staff, right?

1006
00:36:27.320 --> 00:36:28.640
And which I think is good.

1007
00:36:28.640 --> 00:36:32.320
And that's how they really understand what you want and how you think as a person.

1008
00:36:32.320 --> 00:36:34.800
How do you indoctrinate them into your way of thinking?

1009
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:37.600
Like a chief of staff would just be sitting and watching you and shouting you for a couple

1010
00:36:37.600 --> 00:36:38.600
months, right?

1011
00:36:38.600 --> 00:36:39.600
Yeah, I think it's osmosis.

1012
00:36:39.600 --> 00:36:40.600
Okay.

1013
00:36:40.600 --> 00:36:43.120
So proximity and exposure.

1014
00:36:43.120 --> 00:36:45.240
And that's why that's why I'm so excited for the headquarters.

1015
00:36:45.240 --> 00:36:50.960
It's funny because as a previously remote before it was cool, you know, that's how we

1016
00:36:50.960 --> 00:36:51.960
scale gym watch.

1017
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:52.960
Everything we had was remote.

1018
00:36:52.960 --> 00:36:56.720
And this will be since my brick and mortar chain, this will be the first in person stuff

1019
00:36:56.720 --> 00:36:58.120
I've done.

1020
00:36:58.120 --> 00:37:02.080
But it's weird because I feel incredibly confident how much of a game changer I think

1021
00:37:02.080 --> 00:37:03.080
it's going to be.

1022
00:37:03.080 --> 00:37:04.400
Dude, I mean, here's where I'm at, right?

1023
00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:07.520
And maybe my staff might crucify me for saying this if they find it.

1024
00:37:07.520 --> 00:37:12.640
But I'm an introvert and I did, I've been working remote tech companies for the longest

1025
00:37:12.640 --> 00:37:13.640
time.

1026
00:37:13.640 --> 00:37:16.760
And like we were doing hybrid even before the pandemic hit like a couple of years, three

1027
00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:20.440
two, but I'm just like, dude, you cannot replace like this, right?

1028
00:37:20.440 --> 00:37:24.560
Like this is a relationship and it goes much further.

1029
00:37:24.560 --> 00:37:28.960
And I just think commercial, I think commercial real estate is going to come back in the next

1030
00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:30.200
five, 10 years.

1031
00:37:30.200 --> 00:37:34.560
So it just seems to be moving that way because how are you supposed to, if there's this,

1032
00:37:34.560 --> 00:37:35.560
how can you compete?

1033
00:37:35.560 --> 00:37:36.560
Yeah.

1034
00:37:36.560 --> 00:37:41.880
You know, one of the, this is kind of interesting is like, if I, if we had like an SOP on how to

1035
00:37:41.880 --> 00:37:46.640
handle difficult conversations, right, or bad news, whatever.

1036
00:37:46.640 --> 00:37:51.400
If I teach an SOP around that, people will be like, okay, God, these are the steps.

1037
00:37:51.400 --> 00:37:56.360
But it's incredibly different to see me get bad news and then watch what happens.

1038
00:37:56.360 --> 00:37:58.320
Like it's a completely different experience.

1039
00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:01.400
And I think that is something that becomes memorable and that's what can change someone's

1040
00:38:01.400 --> 00:38:02.400
behavior way faster.

1041
00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:03.400
Yeah.

1042
00:38:03.800 --> 00:38:06.880
Like that in itself is a story and people remember stories.

1043
00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:12.960
And so when it comes to your videos, because you're pretty good at just your memory, I

1044
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:13.960
think it's really good.

1045
00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:14.960
I just forget stuff, right?

1046
00:38:14.960 --> 00:38:19.840
But it's like you seem to weave into stories pretty well, like how much is it just second

1047
00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:20.840
nature to you now?

1048
00:38:20.840 --> 00:38:24.480
How much are you thinking about your stories when you're creating content?

1049
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:25.800
Yeah.

1050
00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:30.080
So the storytelling component was something that I really worked hard on and I have continued

1051
00:38:30.080 --> 00:38:33.440
to work hard on for almost probably six years.

1052
00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:37.400
So when I started gym lunch and I had to start teaching, basically when I had to start

1053
00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:42.680
teaching, I realized that teaching was making connections between things that people understand

1054
00:38:42.680 --> 00:38:44.040
and things that they don't.

1055
00:38:44.040 --> 00:38:47.240
And so that's why metaphors and analogies are so strong because they're like, okay, so

1056
00:38:47.240 --> 00:38:48.240
energy.

1057
00:38:48.240 --> 00:38:49.240
So you're kind of like a car.

1058
00:38:49.240 --> 00:38:52.120
And if you put your gas in, it's kind of like your body and the food, you know what I

1059
00:38:52.120 --> 00:38:53.120
mean?

1060
00:38:53.120 --> 00:38:55.320
So it's like, I understand this, but I don't understand this, but I can apply the same

1061
00:38:55.320 --> 00:38:56.320
principles.

1062
00:38:56.640 --> 00:39:03.160
So when I realized that I used to just kind of like lecture people on like jargon, right?

1063
00:39:03.160 --> 00:39:05.640
The eyes would roll over and I just didn't get the desired result.

1064
00:39:05.640 --> 00:39:09.840
So I had to start learning, like so then I started reading books on how to tell stories.

1065
00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:15.760
And the TLDR on like how to tell story is just you have a character, you have an unmet

1066
00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:20.800
desire, you have an obstacle, you have a guy who comes in with some sort of solution.

1067
00:39:20.800 --> 00:39:22.800
The person tries the new way.

1068
00:39:22.800 --> 00:39:23.800
It works.

1069
00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:26.840
The internal achievement and an external achievement, meaning like, who did they become

1070
00:39:26.840 --> 00:39:28.960
in the process and what happened on the outside?

1071
00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:33.040
And so like, I just pretty much just try and think through that process of like desire,

1072
00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:37.880
unmet desire, obstacle, guide, plan, execution, result.

1073
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:42.480
The fact that you could just roll that off your tongue means like it is burned into you.

1074
00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:43.480
Right?

1075
00:39:43.480 --> 00:39:46.320
Because I mean, I just, oh, it sounds like the harmin circle.

1076
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:47.320
Oh, is it?

1077
00:39:47.320 --> 00:39:48.320
Yeah.

1078
00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:49.320
Like the stories are the same.

1079
00:39:49.320 --> 00:39:50.320
Yeah.

1080
00:39:51.320 --> 00:39:53.320
For me, I just riff on it.

1081
00:39:53.320 --> 00:39:56.440
I was kind of making fun of Neil and myself when I look at both of our YouTube channels.

1082
00:39:56.440 --> 00:39:59.960
I was like, you know, we suck at YouTube because we just lecture people, right?

1083
00:39:59.960 --> 00:40:03.120
It's like, but then we do like, we do like live recording.

1084
00:40:03.120 --> 00:40:07.280
And then I'm just sharing a story about Mr. Beast, two million views on TikTok, right?

1085
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:10.760
Or anyway, point is, so the story is huge.

1086
00:40:10.760 --> 00:40:12.600
Do you think about your hooks a lot?

1087
00:40:12.600 --> 00:40:13.600
Yeah.

1088
00:40:13.600 --> 00:40:15.120
That looks everything.

1089
00:40:15.120 --> 00:40:18.240
And let me just rewind to the stories real quick, which books did you read to get better

1090
00:40:18.240 --> 00:40:19.240
at storytelling?

1091
00:40:19.560 --> 00:40:24.440
Um, honestly, I think reading fiction and then I'm a big article sky.

1092
00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:27.680
Like I don't, I don't actually, people would be amazed to have a few books I read.

1093
00:40:27.680 --> 00:40:34.120
Um, I'm like, really narrow, I'll like binge consume a field of study.

1094
00:40:34.120 --> 00:40:38.120
And so I might read like nine books on, so like when we, when we started doing deals

1095
00:40:38.120 --> 00:40:43.920
at acquisition.com, I read nine books in one month on deal making.

1096
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:48.040
And I was like, okay, I feel like I have a better understanding of just the leverage,

1097
00:40:48.040 --> 00:40:50.720
the tools that I have available in my tool belt that I didn't know existed.

1098
00:40:50.720 --> 00:40:52.080
But then I haven't read one since.

1099
00:40:52.080 --> 00:40:53.080
Yeah.

1100
00:40:53.080 --> 00:40:57.280
And then same thing with like, you know, storytelling in general was more reading all the

1101
00:40:57.280 --> 00:41:02.080
different articles and stuff that were out there about storytelling so that I could

1102
00:41:02.080 --> 00:41:03.080
understand.

1103
00:41:03.080 --> 00:41:06.080
And there's a million different like story, you know, unmet desire care, you know, whatever.

1104
00:41:06.080 --> 00:41:08.960
But they all more or less fall that same trajectory.

1105
00:41:08.960 --> 00:41:14.720
And so to answer the first thing you said, like, how much do we work on the hook a lot?

1106
00:41:14.720 --> 00:41:18.440
And if that sounds like it's in contrast to what I was saying earlier, it's not because

1107
00:41:18.440 --> 00:41:21.480
if you have something that's amazing, it'll get shared no matter what.

1108
00:41:21.480 --> 00:41:25.000
But if you have something that's mediocre, if you have an amazing hook, it'll also get

1109
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:26.000
shared.

1110
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:31.000
And so if you can create an unbelievable hook, you can still have content that just murders.

1111
00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:32.000
Yeah.

1112
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:36.240
And the, I'll tell you a story that isn't mine and how it related to one.

1113
00:41:36.240 --> 00:41:39.160
So a buddy of mine was a big, infomercial guy.

1114
00:41:39.160 --> 00:41:42.080
He's a little older and he did this book.

1115
00:41:42.080 --> 00:41:43.320
He had a book that he was selling.

1116
00:41:43.320 --> 00:41:48.840
And so he had Larry King fly out and record like a one hour book, infomercial promo.

1117
00:41:48.840 --> 00:41:51.960
And so it was like a big deal for him, you know, getting interviewed by Larry King.

1118
00:41:51.960 --> 00:41:56.480
And so he had Larry King be like, in your life with Larry, like the same intro he does

1119
00:41:56.480 --> 00:41:57.640
for all the shows.

1120
00:41:57.640 --> 00:41:59.200
And this guy was a very good marketer.

1121
00:41:59.200 --> 00:42:01.800
And so he ran the ad and he was like, this thing's going to murder.

1122
00:42:01.800 --> 00:42:06.040
I'm going to make so much money and it tanked and he was like, what is going on?

1123
00:42:06.040 --> 00:42:08.720
And so then he was like, so he started studying game footage.

1124
00:42:08.720 --> 00:42:10.000
He looked at his all time best ads.

1125
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:11.440
He was like, all right, I'm watching this one.

1126
00:42:11.440 --> 00:42:12.440
He watched this one.

1127
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:14.880
And he was like, I messed up the hook.

1128
00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:16.480
He's like, the hook's wrong.

1129
00:42:16.480 --> 00:42:23.440
And so he flew Larry King back out, reset up the entire fake setup of Larry King live

1130
00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:28.280
and re-recorded the first 30 seconds and then pushed out the new one with the new hook,

1131
00:42:28.280 --> 00:42:30.040
$100 million in the next 12 months.

1132
00:42:30.040 --> 00:42:31.040
That's crazy.

1133
00:42:31.040 --> 00:42:33.960
And so we had like my story is not nearly as significant as that.

1134
00:42:33.960 --> 00:42:37.360
But we had a video recently that was like, we all were like, this is a good video.

1135
00:42:37.520 --> 00:42:40.520
And he got like 5,000 views or something, which is pretty small for our account.

1136
00:42:40.520 --> 00:42:46.360
And so the guys just cut out the first three seconds and then it was, it was basically

1137
00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:50.440
saying like, so I had this time when and then they just cut that out and just went to the

1138
00:42:50.440 --> 00:42:51.680
when the thing happened.

1139
00:42:51.680 --> 00:42:52.680
Yeah.

1140
00:42:52.680 --> 00:42:54.680
And it went from 5,000 to 900,000.

1141
00:42:54.680 --> 00:42:59.040
Is it because in analytics you just saw a big tank like drop off like the, they hear

1142
00:42:59.040 --> 00:43:03.520
the first three words or five words or phrase and they're like, not interested.

1143
00:43:03.520 --> 00:43:04.520
Yeah.

1144
00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.960
You have five seconds, but it's more like two or like two milliseconds in a short.

1145
00:43:09.960 --> 00:43:10.960
Yeah.

1146
00:43:10.960 --> 00:43:11.960
Tiny.

1147
00:43:11.960 --> 00:43:13.440
But it makes all the difference in the world.

1148
00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:17.640
So going back to your team then like is most of your content team based here?

1149
00:43:17.640 --> 00:43:20.040
I'm going to give a really good go for sexy tactic.

1150
00:43:20.040 --> 00:43:21.040
Yes.

1151
00:43:21.040 --> 00:43:24.480
So this is something that I haven't even checked with you guys, but I just had this realization.

1152
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:27.440
So, so I had a tweet that just crushed this morning and I was thinking about this when

1153
00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:32.560
I made it was I wanted to give a business example and then I used a the same principle

1154
00:43:32.560 --> 00:43:37.280
in a marriage and then and then I did the generality of the principle, but then I was

1155
00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:41.440
like, I should put the marriage one first because it's the way wider hook and then I did

1156
00:43:41.440 --> 00:43:46.800
the business one and then it had the philosophical principle and then it way outperformed.

1157
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:53.840
And so we would like when we're thinking about our hooks will probably go wide business

1158
00:43:53.840 --> 00:43:58.800
principle rather than like any of the other versions of that so that we can get a you

1159
00:43:58.800 --> 00:43:59.800
know wider demo.

1160
00:43:59.800 --> 00:44:03.440
Anyways, this is just like I've kind of tried to yeah, I just enjoy the game like I think

1161
00:44:03.440 --> 00:44:04.880
I think it's fun to learn the stuff.

1162
00:44:04.880 --> 00:44:09.440
You fell in business love with Layla first before you found love love.

1163
00:44:09.440 --> 00:44:10.440
Yeah.

1164
00:44:10.440 --> 00:44:11.440
What do you mean by that?

1165
00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:12.960
Well, I liked her mind first.

1166
00:44:12.960 --> 00:44:13.960
Yeah.

1167
00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:16.680
I mean, I pitched on working for me the first time we met and I was like, Hey, this might

1168
00:44:16.680 --> 00:44:17.680
not work out.

1169
00:44:17.680 --> 00:44:18.680
Yeah.

1170
00:44:18.680 --> 00:44:21.320
But like you should totally work for me and we can make a bunch of money together.

1171
00:44:21.320 --> 00:44:25.080
And I just said like playing black and white, I'll pay you twice as much as you're currently

1172
00:44:25.080 --> 00:44:26.080
making.

1173
00:44:26.160 --> 00:44:31.000
But still look at the offer independent of me like it should make sense for you.

1174
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:35.120
And so obviously she said no for the first 30 days because I asked her every day and she

1175
00:44:35.120 --> 00:44:38.520
said no, but then when I did the turnaround business launch three gyms came back with big

1176
00:44:38.520 --> 00:44:39.520
stack of money.

1177
00:44:39.520 --> 00:44:41.400
She was like, Oh, so this works.

1178
00:44:41.400 --> 00:44:42.400
So I was like, Yeah.

1179
00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:45.280
And the first question actually asked me after we process all the money because I did it

1180
00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:46.280
together.

1181
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:47.280
Yeah.

1182
00:44:47.280 --> 00:44:48.280
A little bit of flex.

1183
00:44:48.280 --> 00:44:52.640
We process like 120 grand in like 45 minutes and she was like, I mean, I'm 27.

1184
00:44:52.640 --> 00:44:53.640
She's 23.

1185
00:44:53.640 --> 00:44:54.640
Yeah.

1186
00:44:54.640 --> 00:44:55.640
Whoa.

1187
00:44:55.640 --> 00:44:56.640
Yeah.

1188
00:44:56.640 --> 00:45:00.200
I mean, you're your first couple of dates where you guys just like working at Starbucks

1189
00:45:00.200 --> 00:45:01.200
or something?

1190
00:45:01.200 --> 00:45:02.200
Yeah.

1191
00:45:02.200 --> 00:45:03.200
Just working together.

1192
00:45:03.200 --> 00:45:04.200
Yeah.

1193
00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:05.200
Yeah.

1194
00:45:05.200 --> 00:45:06.200
I mean, I didn't.

1195
00:45:06.200 --> 00:45:07.600
It was weird because like, I just, I just liked hanging with her.

1196
00:45:07.600 --> 00:45:12.720
Like I just liked her around and that was like whenever I had the choice of like me being

1197
00:45:12.720 --> 00:45:16.400
alone and me being with Layla, I just like always wanted to be with her and she kind

1198
00:45:16.400 --> 00:45:17.400
of had the same thing.

1199
00:45:17.400 --> 00:45:22.160
And so, but we didn't have like romance chemically love until much later.

1200
00:45:22.160 --> 00:45:23.160
Yeah.

1201
00:45:23.160 --> 00:45:26.240
We got her to quit her job and fly out with me within like six weeks.

1202
00:45:26.240 --> 00:45:30.760
And even when you guys got married, you, I think you like, you weren't in love love yet,

1203
00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:31.760
right?

1204
00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:32.760
Really?

1205
00:45:32.760 --> 00:45:35.640
Like, at what point did you say she's going to be a one, but we're not in love yet?

1206
00:45:35.640 --> 00:45:39.760
Um, I'd say that we like really got into like love love in December of 19.

1207
00:45:39.760 --> 00:45:40.760
Okay.

1208
00:45:40.760 --> 00:45:43.360
So that was two years, two and a half years after we got married.

1209
00:45:43.360 --> 00:45:44.360
Okay.

1210
00:45:44.360 --> 00:45:46.360
And that was because we made a conscious decision.

1211
00:45:46.360 --> 00:45:48.560
We were actually both pretty miserable.

1212
00:45:48.560 --> 00:45:53.040
Um, mostly because we were, and I was really upfront about this and we both agreed.

1213
00:45:53.080 --> 00:45:55.200
I said, listen, here's what here are the priorities.

1214
00:45:55.200 --> 00:45:59.000
I was like, business and then us, we got to feed the business and the business feeds

1215
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
us.

1216
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:01.000
That's how this works.

1217
00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:05.920
And in December of 19, um, we were both like, we had this like deep conversation where

1218
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:09.280
she's like, I'm just like, not happy with this and I was like, me neither.

1219
00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:12.600
And so we're like, I think we, I think our premise was wrong.

1220
00:46:12.600 --> 00:46:15.960
And so we said, well, what if we just like made marriage the priority and then the business

1221
00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:16.960
would flow from that?

1222
00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:17.960
Yeah.

1223
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:21.080
And so that's when we flipped everything and, um, it's actually been great since then.

1224
00:46:21.080 --> 00:46:22.640
Um, and again, it was fine.

1225
00:46:22.640 --> 00:46:25.880
It wasn't like, you know, combative, it was just, it's just much better.

1226
00:46:25.880 --> 00:46:26.880
Yeah.

1227
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:31.160
And I think you said this before, it's love is something that you decide to work on.

1228
00:46:31.160 --> 00:46:33.000
It's not, it's like an active thing.

1229
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:34.000
It's not passive.

1230
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:36.520
I also think there's a lot of different versions of relationships.

1231
00:46:36.520 --> 00:46:39.400
Like if you think about your friendships, like, like your friendships with like seven

1232
00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:43.240
different dudes that you know, you probably have, like the relationship is different with

1233
00:46:43.240 --> 00:46:44.240
all of them.

1234
00:46:44.240 --> 00:46:45.240
Totally.

1235
00:46:45.240 --> 00:46:47.280
And so I think like love is a really general word and we're just more limited by like

1236
00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:49.400
our vocabulary than anything else.

1237
00:46:49.400 --> 00:46:52.960
Like I think Laila and I have a very different love than most people who are married and

1238
00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:53.960
together.

1239
00:46:53.960 --> 00:46:58.600
But I would say that it is absolutely founded and respect and, um, that to me was probably

1240
00:46:58.600 --> 00:47:03.280
the most unique aspect of my relationship with her was that I, I just respected her, um,

1241
00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:05.040
and she respects me.

1242
00:47:05.040 --> 00:47:08.320
And I would say until that point, I probably had the more traditional relationships that

1243
00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:12.360
were just like more lovey-dovey, more chemically, more romance, et cetera.

1244
00:47:12.360 --> 00:47:15.440
Um, but the thing is like, I'm a really extreme person.

1245
00:47:15.440 --> 00:47:19.120
And so if someone doesn't like what I like, like they're not going to see me very much.

1246
00:47:19.120 --> 00:47:25.000
And if they do, and if they are that way, anytime I do something, it's going to feel like

1247
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:27.600
I'm doing them a favor.

1248
00:47:27.600 --> 00:47:33.560
And that, that tally board of like who's doing a favor is, it would get way out of whack

1249
00:47:33.560 --> 00:47:34.560
really fast.

1250
00:47:34.560 --> 00:47:37.120
And then I start resenting them because I'm like, I want to do this other thing and it's

1251
00:47:37.120 --> 00:47:38.120
not that.

1252
00:47:38.120 --> 00:47:39.120
I don't love you.

1253
00:47:39.120 --> 00:47:40.120
I just want to work.

1254
00:47:40.120 --> 00:47:41.600
And that's what I want to do.

1255
00:47:41.600 --> 00:47:45.360
And so the fact that she just like, the biggest thing that made me really love Layla was

1256
00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:47.880
just that she has never tried to change me.

1257
00:47:47.880 --> 00:47:48.880
Yeah.

1258
00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:52.840
Like she just, it was pure acceptance on, this is Alex, like, I'm not going to get an

1259
00:47:52.840 --> 00:47:53.840
address certain way.

1260
00:47:53.840 --> 00:47:58.000
I'm not going to get him to behave a certain way, talk is like, I'm not going to ask him

1261
00:47:58.000 --> 00:47:59.000
nothing.

1262
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:03.840
She just is like, you do you and I will do me next to you.

1263
00:48:03.840 --> 00:48:07.880
And as long as we grow and where we're going, we'll get there and have a good time.

1264
00:48:07.880 --> 00:48:10.800
And that's been, um, Neil told me this, um, Neil told me this actually.

1265
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:12.720
It's like, I was like, so why did you decide that?

1266
00:48:12.720 --> 00:48:13.720
His wife is the one, right?

1267
00:48:13.720 --> 00:48:14.720
Michelle.

1268
00:48:14.720 --> 00:48:17.360
And, um, he's like, she just let me be me.

1269
00:48:17.360 --> 00:48:18.360
Yeah.

1270
00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:22.920
And like, you know, we've dated, right, I've seen, you know, people come and go, but, um,

1271
00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:26.040
and then now, you know, he's, he's hounding me about kids all the time, right?

1272
00:48:26.040 --> 00:48:27.560
He's like, you got to get married to have kids, right?

1273
00:48:27.560 --> 00:48:28.560
He's lecturing everyone.

1274
00:48:28.560 --> 00:48:32.960
Um, last week at my thing, he was lecturing Syed, um, the WordPress, um, King.

1275
00:48:32.960 --> 00:48:35.560
And he's like, you need to have more kids, blah, blah, blah.

1276
00:48:35.560 --> 00:48:40.640
So where I'm going with this is, do you think kids will be on the horizon for you?

1277
00:48:40.640 --> 00:48:41.640
I mean, I think it's possible.

1278
00:48:41.640 --> 00:48:42.640
Change things.

1279
00:48:42.640 --> 00:48:43.640
I think it's possible.

1280
00:48:43.640 --> 00:48:44.640
Yeah.

1281
00:48:44.640 --> 00:48:45.640
It was still young.

1282
00:48:45.640 --> 00:48:46.640
Like, I mean, we have time.

1283
00:48:46.640 --> 00:48:47.640
Um, I mean, you're still young.

1284
00:48:47.640 --> 00:48:48.640
Yeah.

1285
00:48:48.640 --> 00:48:49.640
I mean, right.

1286
00:48:49.640 --> 00:48:50.640
I'm still, but like, I'm not the limiter.

1287
00:48:50.640 --> 00:48:51.640
You know what I mean?

1288
00:48:51.640 --> 00:48:52.640
For, for youth in terms of procuration.

1289
00:48:52.640 --> 00:48:53.640
Yeah.

1290
00:48:53.640 --> 00:48:54.640
Um, but yeah.

1291
00:48:54.640 --> 00:48:55.640
I mean, she's still young.

1292
00:48:55.640 --> 00:49:00.920
And if we work cool either way, so if it happened, like, if she got pregnant tomorrow,

1293
00:49:00.920 --> 00:49:01.920
like, we have the kid.

1294
00:49:01.920 --> 00:49:02.920
Yeah.

1295
00:49:02.920 --> 00:49:05.440
I mean, this is like, this is all like conjecture at the end of the day because like,

1296
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:08.360
you guys adapted your marriage a little and then it might adapt to the next level.

1297
00:49:08.360 --> 00:49:09.360
It's all levels, right?

1298
00:49:09.360 --> 00:49:10.360
Yeah.

1299
00:49:10.360 --> 00:49:11.360
I'm not worried about it.

1300
00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:12.360
Yeah.

1301
00:49:12.360 --> 00:49:15.760
I think I would, I would like to have kids at some point kind of like when people who don't,

1302
00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:18.160
who are employed and are like, I'd like to start a business someday.

1303
00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:19.160
Yeah.

1304
00:49:19.160 --> 00:49:22.160
It's, it's an easy thing to say, you know, like, sounds great, but I'm sure it would be

1305
00:49:22.160 --> 00:49:23.160
very different.

1306
00:49:23.160 --> 00:49:24.160
All right.

1307
00:49:24.160 --> 00:49:26.680
We're going to go back to content and then I got a bunch of bunch of stuff to, to double

1308
00:49:26.680 --> 00:49:27.680
down on here.

1309
00:49:27.680 --> 00:49:33.320
Um, so the going back to the structure of your content team, like a, where are they

1310
00:49:33.320 --> 00:49:35.000
based mostly?

1311
00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:37.000
And then who are kind of the key players there?

1312
00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:38.000
We're all US based.

1313
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:39.000
Okay.

1314
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:40.640
And most of them are West Coast, because we're on the West Coast.

1315
00:49:40.640 --> 00:49:45.640
So, um, I think right now 100%, no, we have one person in these coast.

1316
00:49:45.640 --> 00:49:50.240
Everybody else is either, uh, Southern California or Vegas.

1317
00:49:50.240 --> 00:49:51.240
Yeah.

1318
00:49:51.240 --> 00:49:55.760
So what, what I found is a, the reason I'm asking that is because what I, what I've

1319
00:49:55.760 --> 00:49:57.720
see it does fail on content.

1320
00:49:57.720 --> 00:50:02.040
It's because we've gone cheap and relied too much on offshore and it's like, dude, where's

1321
00:50:02.040 --> 00:50:05.360
the strategy, like grammatical mistakes, they're picking the wrong areas for the hooks,

1322
00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:06.360
right?

1323
00:50:06.360 --> 00:50:09.600
So you nodding your head over there, like wrong, wrong areas for the hooks, just bad part,

1324
00:50:09.600 --> 00:50:13.160
like, there is no story and it's like no wonder everything's falling flat and you look

1325
00:50:13.160 --> 00:50:14.160
at the metrics, right?

1326
00:50:14.160 --> 00:50:15.160
And you're nodding your head.

1327
00:50:15.160 --> 00:50:16.160
Seems like it's happened to you.

1328
00:50:16.160 --> 00:50:21.120
Oh, I mean, early, um, but I think the big thing that everyone messes up with the content

1329
00:50:21.120 --> 00:50:25.600
and even, even the quote going cheap is that like, they have to understand brand.

1330
00:50:25.600 --> 00:50:30.080
And that was, I mean, that's been my big epiphany after post gym launch was I didn't understand

1331
00:50:30.080 --> 00:50:31.360
brand when I had gym launch.

1332
00:50:31.360 --> 00:50:36.200
Like, I don't want to say I understand brand, but I have a much better idea of it now.

1333
00:50:36.200 --> 00:50:41.800
And like, like my team right now has so much footage and they could clip a bunch of

1334
00:50:41.800 --> 00:50:48.640
moments during the vlog days and make me look bad and get a zillion views.

1335
00:50:48.640 --> 00:50:50.240
Like we could do that.

1336
00:50:50.240 --> 00:50:52.400
But that doesn't help me.

1337
00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:55.480
And so a lot of people will do anything for the algorithm.

1338
00:50:55.480 --> 00:50:59.640
They become algal horse is what we call it, which is just like, this is really hot right

1339
00:50:59.640 --> 00:51:00.640
now.

1340
00:51:00.640 --> 00:51:01.640
We should make that stuff.

1341
00:51:01.640 --> 00:51:05.920
But like, I'm not going to like, if it's not, if it's not on brand for me, if it's not

1342
00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:08.160
something I'm an expert in, I'm not going to talk about it.

1343
00:51:08.160 --> 00:51:09.160
Right.

1344
00:51:09.160 --> 00:51:11.880
And that's, I think that's, that's my one piece of advice for anybody who's like, get

1345
00:51:11.880 --> 00:51:15.280
starting to get into the game of content is like, just talk about stuff you know about.

1346
00:51:15.280 --> 00:51:16.280
Like, don't worry.

1347
00:51:16.280 --> 00:51:18.920
Like, just don't pretend to be someone you're not.

1348
00:51:18.920 --> 00:51:22.200
Like if you, if you're only good at sewing, then just talk about sewing.

1349
00:51:22.200 --> 00:51:24.440
Don't start making content about how people should invest their money.

1350
00:51:24.440 --> 00:51:25.960
Like just talk about sewing.

1351
00:51:25.960 --> 00:51:28.400
Let me ask you this.

1352
00:51:28.400 --> 00:51:31.680
When you produce content now, those full days now, are you very much looking forward

1353
00:51:31.680 --> 00:51:32.680
to any?

1354
00:51:32.680 --> 00:51:34.120
Are you enjoying it when you're creating your content?

1355
00:51:34.120 --> 00:51:36.640
It really all depends on how much I've slept the night before.

1356
00:51:36.640 --> 00:51:40.080
Like, it's actually like the biggest factor is just like, how much have I slept the night

1357
00:51:40.080 --> 00:51:41.080
before?

1358
00:51:41.080 --> 00:51:44.520
Like, we just had a reporting day recently and I, I basically didn't sleep at all the

1359
00:51:44.520 --> 00:51:46.760
two nights before.

1360
00:51:46.760 --> 00:51:50.640
And so like, that was like, I had to use willpower, but most times, I don't have to use

1361
00:51:50.640 --> 00:51:51.640
willpower.

1362
00:51:51.640 --> 00:51:53.080
I can just, I can just rock and roll.

1363
00:51:53.080 --> 00:51:54.080
Yeah.

1364
00:51:54.080 --> 00:51:56.280
And so you feel like for the most part, when you, let's assume you had a good night of

1365
00:51:56.280 --> 00:51:59.320
sleep, you feel like you're creating the content that you want to create?

1366
00:51:59.320 --> 00:52:00.760
I think it's always an evolving process.

1367
00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:02.040
I mean, I think it's more like a pendulum.

1368
00:52:02.040 --> 00:52:06.640
I mean, I think like, it's more a dichotomy to be managed than a problem to be solved.

1369
00:52:06.640 --> 00:52:10.560
And so there's like stuff that I super, super fuck with exclusively.

1370
00:52:10.560 --> 00:52:13.920
And then there's stuff that the audience absolutely loves and the algorithm loves.

1371
00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:17.280
And so we just try and find that middle ground.

1372
00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:20.160
And if anything, we're probably right of center of like, if Alex doesn't like it, he's

1373
00:52:20.160 --> 00:52:21.560
not going to keep doing it.

1374
00:52:21.560 --> 00:52:22.560
Yeah.

1375
00:52:22.560 --> 00:52:24.720
But like, I'm looking at this on like a 20 year time horizon.

1376
00:52:24.720 --> 00:52:29.280
And so, you know, we had a video that, that we, that was ready for this week that we're

1377
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:30.280
supposed to post.

1378
00:52:30.280 --> 00:52:32.800
And then we, I saw it and I was like, I don't want to post it.

1379
00:52:32.800 --> 00:52:33.800
Yeah.

1380
00:52:33.800 --> 00:52:36.440
And so we didn't have a YouTube video about this week.

1381
00:52:36.440 --> 00:52:38.640
And I will survive.

1382
00:52:38.640 --> 00:52:39.880
I like it.

1383
00:52:39.880 --> 00:52:43.920
And so the, now I'm just trying to think for the team's perspective, like all the hard work

1384
00:52:43.920 --> 00:52:48.960
on like the edits, the jump cuts, the thumbnails and all that.

1385
00:52:48.960 --> 00:52:51.080
How much effort are you putting into that now?

1386
00:52:51.080 --> 00:52:58.080
Because like, actually, that one talk that you did recently, I saw the, I saw the headline

1387
00:52:58.080 --> 00:53:00.160
change like three times in a span of a couple hours.

1388
00:53:00.160 --> 00:53:01.920
So what's going into all the testing right now?

1389
00:53:01.920 --> 00:53:03.000
Yeah, it's right off the bat.

1390
00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:07.480
So our, our head of YouTube, I mean, we'll still do a good job.

1391
00:53:07.480 --> 00:53:10.600
We'll still split tests like we would for an ad, you know, we'll try different headlines

1392
00:53:10.600 --> 00:53:11.600
for our different thumbnails.

1393
00:53:11.600 --> 00:53:14.400
Because at the end of the day, like the mission is to get real business education accessible

1394
00:53:14.400 --> 00:53:15.400
to everyone.

1395
00:53:15.400 --> 00:53:17.360
And that means that we have to meet people where they're at, which is why I have to tie

1396
00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:18.360
in more stories.

1397
00:53:18.360 --> 00:53:22.760
And I don't just like review Excel sheets on YouTube screen shares, you know, I mean,

1398
00:53:22.760 --> 00:53:24.480
because like, that's not going to help anyone.

1399
00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:25.480
Yeah.

1400
00:53:25.480 --> 00:53:27.480
In fact, it'll help basically no one.

1401
00:53:27.480 --> 00:53:31.040
And so we have to make it accessible, which is part of the reason of log is, it's like,

1402
00:53:31.040 --> 00:53:34.280
that is, it's a form of consumption that a lot of people can do.

1403
00:53:34.280 --> 00:53:40.240
And so we're going to be doing more of that because more people can consume it and benefit

1404
00:53:40.240 --> 00:53:41.240
from it.

1405
00:53:41.240 --> 00:53:43.080
We will play the game just like anyone else does.

1406
00:53:43.080 --> 00:53:47.200
But the thing is, it's like, they will send me thumbnails and headlines, and I'd be like,

1407
00:53:47.200 --> 00:53:48.200
that's not true.

1408
00:53:48.200 --> 00:53:49.200
Yeah.

1409
00:53:49.200 --> 00:53:55.200
Or I don't like how this makes the person that we're talking about in the video sound.

1410
00:53:55.200 --> 00:53:56.200
Yeah.

1411
00:53:56.200 --> 00:53:58.680
I think it was like, I'll give you an example.

1412
00:53:58.680 --> 00:54:01.760
We had a, we had an affiliate video that went out basically explaining how you can use

1413
00:54:01.760 --> 00:54:03.400
to affiliate to promote a business.

1414
00:54:03.400 --> 00:54:06.520
And I was talking about it within the context of the book that's, like my next book that's

1415
00:54:06.520 --> 00:54:07.520
coming out.

1416
00:54:07.520 --> 00:54:08.520
Yeah.

1417
00:54:08.520 --> 00:54:10.840
And I think one of the headlines of a test that was sent to me was something like how

1418
00:54:10.840 --> 00:54:16.480
I got or how I convinced, yeah, I think it was how I convinced 12,000 people to promote

1419
00:54:16.480 --> 00:54:17.480
my book.

1420
00:54:17.480 --> 00:54:21.360
And I was like, if I'm an affiliate and I see that headline, I was like, that doesn't make

1421
00:54:21.360 --> 00:54:22.760
me feel good.

1422
00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:23.760
And so I was talking to you.

1423
00:54:23.760 --> 00:54:26.640
I was like, we have to think about, we have to think about it from every angle.

1424
00:54:26.640 --> 00:54:29.560
So there's, there's the Alex Brandangle.

1425
00:54:29.560 --> 00:54:34.880
Does this reinforce or dilute the values that we have in the position that we want to associate

1426
00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:36.280
ourselves with?

1427
00:54:36.280 --> 00:54:40.120
Then we have the, the audience of like, who's actually watching this?

1428
00:54:40.120 --> 00:54:43.800
Does this make them feel more aligned with that, that ultimate mission?

1429
00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:46.280
Does this leave them better than they were in the, than they started?

1430
00:54:46.280 --> 00:54:50.240
And then it's also who's the subject of the content, right?

1431
00:54:50.240 --> 00:54:53.640
Like I could make content that makes me look fine and the audience would enjoy, but it's

1432
00:54:53.640 --> 00:54:55.160
me bashing somebody.

1433
00:54:55.160 --> 00:54:58.680
That's not going to be, that's, I'm never going to do that because I would never, I would

1434
00:54:58.680 --> 00:54:59.840
never do that.

1435
00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:02.160
If we don't have a win-win win, then it's not right.

1436
00:55:02.160 --> 00:55:03.160
Right.

1437
00:55:03.160 --> 00:55:04.160
And we will keep doing it until we have a win-win win.

1438
00:55:04.160 --> 00:55:05.160
Got it.

1439
00:55:05.160 --> 00:55:06.160
I love that.

1440
00:55:06.160 --> 00:55:07.160
And that, that aligns with your values.

1441
00:55:07.160 --> 00:55:08.160
Yeah.

1442
00:55:08.160 --> 00:55:09.160
The unimpeachable character.

1443
00:55:09.160 --> 00:55:10.160
Yeah.

1444
00:55:10.160 --> 00:55:11.160
I'm never going to, I'm never going to throw shit.

1445
00:55:11.160 --> 00:55:13.400
I'll criticize generally and I will praise specifically.

1446
00:55:13.400 --> 00:55:14.400
Warren Buffett.

1447
00:55:14.400 --> 00:55:15.400
Yeah.

1448
00:55:15.480 --> 00:55:18.040
All this, so you have Mozy Media right now.

1449
00:55:18.040 --> 00:55:19.600
You've got the vlog.

1450
00:55:19.600 --> 00:55:21.240
You've got the new studio coming.

1451
00:55:21.240 --> 00:55:26.480
And then this, this podcast, I mean, you've got two full days that you record already.

1452
00:55:26.480 --> 00:55:30.400
I imagine this has to start getting annoying at some point before you're doing a ton

1453
00:55:30.400 --> 00:55:32.840
of pods, but it makes sense because you're on the book tour right now.

1454
00:55:32.840 --> 00:55:33.840
So.

1455
00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:35.520
I only do podcasts with people that I feel like doing podcasts.

1456
00:55:35.520 --> 00:55:40.200
So if I, like, so this is actually, this might be kind of interesting.

1457
00:55:40.200 --> 00:55:43.720
I will only do, so this is for anybody who's trying to get me on a podcast.

1458
00:55:43.720 --> 00:55:48.920
I will do podcasts if I think the person who's doing the interviewing has good questions.

1459
00:55:48.920 --> 00:55:53.600
So I did one recently with somebody who had no, like, a very small audience.

1460
00:55:53.600 --> 00:55:58.400
But I saw or the team had seen that he like did a ton of research on every person would

1461
00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:02.640
watch like 50 hours of content to ask, like, really good, in-depth questions.

1462
00:56:02.640 --> 00:56:03.640
Not like so.

1463
00:56:03.640 --> 00:56:05.200
Tell me your origin story.

1464
00:56:05.200 --> 00:56:06.200
It's Danny, right?

1465
00:56:06.200 --> 00:56:07.200
Yeah.

1466
00:56:07.200 --> 00:56:08.200
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1467
00:56:08.200 --> 00:56:09.800
And so yeah, Danny did a great job.

1468
00:56:09.800 --> 00:56:14.920
And so I'm like, and he's doing it absolutely the right way, which is like, do the work.

1469
00:56:14.920 --> 00:56:19.440
And you can, and you can bat outside of your, outside of your league if you do the work.

1470
00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:22.520
But the flip side is like, I've, if somebody's got like, they've been doing a podcast.

1471
00:56:22.520 --> 00:56:24.920
They've got 500 episodes.

1472
00:56:24.920 --> 00:56:26.760
They've never taken off.

1473
00:56:26.760 --> 00:56:31.680
And the first question that they ask in every video is like, so, tell me about yourself.

1474
00:56:31.680 --> 00:56:32.680
No, thank you.

1475
00:56:32.680 --> 00:56:33.680
I'm just not interested.

1476
00:56:33.680 --> 00:56:38.320
Like my audience already has 50 podcasts they can watch of me saying the exact same story.

1477
00:56:38.320 --> 00:56:42.280
And so I would like to, there's an element of, of theirs, their audience.

1478
00:56:42.280 --> 00:56:46.080
And I can do the TLDR on that, like in two minutes, which I can understand.

1479
00:56:46.080 --> 00:56:49.000
But I'd prefer them just provide the context for me so we can actually, like, rip and

1480
00:56:49.000 --> 00:56:50.000
roar.

1481
00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:53.080
But that's the, I don't, like, I enjoy the good conversations.

1482
00:56:53.080 --> 00:56:54.920
The hard part is just how many do you have?

1483
00:56:54.920 --> 00:56:55.920
Yeah.

1484
00:56:55.920 --> 00:56:56.920
And which ones do you pick?

1485
00:56:56.920 --> 00:57:00.160
Because like right now, I think we get like 10 requests a day for podcasts.

1486
00:57:00.160 --> 00:57:01.160
A lot.

1487
00:57:01.160 --> 00:57:02.160
Yeah, it's a lot.

1488
00:57:02.160 --> 00:57:07.720
And I feel bad because I want it, I want to say yes, but mathematically, it can't.

1489
00:57:07.720 --> 00:57:08.720
It's not even like a reschedule.

1490
00:57:08.720 --> 00:57:10.160
It's just like, it's just a no.

1491
00:57:10.160 --> 00:57:11.160
Yeah.

1492
00:57:11.160 --> 00:57:15.080
And so it really comes down to the quality, the interview.

1493
00:57:15.080 --> 00:57:22.560
And if we can do it in person, I feel like the in-person podcasts outperform the Zoom

1494
00:57:22.560 --> 00:57:23.560
podcasts.

1495
00:57:23.560 --> 00:57:27.400
It's literally just like all of the in-person's and then like all of the zooms.

1496
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:31.680
So like the best Zoom podcast is probably like about as good as like the worst in-person

1497
00:57:31.680 --> 00:57:32.680
podcasts.

1498
00:57:32.680 --> 00:57:34.960
Dude, I mean, I enjoy these, right?

1499
00:57:34.960 --> 00:57:37.040
Because these are much longer, I think if we did this on the Zoom, it would probably

1500
00:57:37.040 --> 00:57:38.040
be like an hour or so.

1501
00:57:38.040 --> 00:57:39.040
And you get tired.

1502
00:57:39.040 --> 00:57:40.040
I don't know why.

1503
00:57:40.040 --> 00:57:42.960
I feel like I'm way more, I'm like, I feel like I tire off faster, right?

1504
00:57:42.960 --> 00:57:43.960
Like less interested.

1505
00:57:43.960 --> 00:57:44.960
I don't know.

1506
00:57:44.960 --> 00:57:45.960
Just staring on a screen.

1507
00:57:45.960 --> 00:57:46.960
Yeah, maybe.

1508
00:57:46.960 --> 00:57:47.960
Yeah.

1509
00:57:47.960 --> 00:57:51.880
Um, I wanted to start to dovetail this into the book, but just, I'm curious, you started

1510
00:57:51.880 --> 00:57:56.320
to compound on all the channels, right, Twitter, LinkedIn, everything.

1511
00:57:56.320 --> 00:57:57.320
How are you compounding?

1512
00:57:57.320 --> 00:58:00.600
Are you like, you're a numbers guy too, like you're tracking the month over month growth?

1513
00:58:00.600 --> 00:58:02.000
Like, how are you looking on those?

1514
00:58:02.080 --> 00:58:06.200
I see the compounding as a consequence of what we're doing rather than the goal.

1515
00:58:06.200 --> 00:58:07.840
Um, what do you mean by that?

1516
00:58:07.840 --> 00:58:08.840
Yeah.

1517
00:58:08.840 --> 00:58:11.480
So like we're human and we love having things that we can measure and the more ways you

1518
00:58:11.480 --> 00:58:12.640
measure, the more we can win.

1519
00:58:12.640 --> 00:58:13.640
So I can appreciate that.

1520
00:58:13.640 --> 00:58:17.960
But like, we're big on, if we have a piece of content that we're like, this is going

1521
00:58:17.960 --> 00:58:19.120
to really help someone.

1522
00:58:19.120 --> 00:58:22.360
And even if it's not super wide and we know it's not going to get, it's not going to

1523
00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:25.840
perform, we'll, we'll push it for sure.

1524
00:58:25.840 --> 00:58:30.640
And so it's, I think it's really been all about the too good to fail is like, as long

1525
00:58:31.040 --> 00:58:35.640
we make sure that what we were putting out is high quality and that I am proud to have

1526
00:58:35.640 --> 00:58:36.640
it out there.

1527
00:58:36.640 --> 00:58:39.040
Um, it's kind of like the rest will take care of itself.

1528
00:58:39.040 --> 00:58:40.360
Like, we will do our jobs.

1529
00:58:40.360 --> 00:58:41.840
We will do a good job.

1530
00:58:41.840 --> 00:58:43.960
We will do all of the basics and we will do it every time.

1531
00:58:43.960 --> 00:58:47.240
And if we do that on a long enough time horizon, we will get the result we want.

1532
00:58:47.240 --> 00:58:48.240
Yeah.

1533
00:58:48.240 --> 00:58:49.240
Makes sense.