- Everybody loses.
And I thought this would be a very public loss.
If, it could've been, I mean, now it's post-game,
it won.
It won so much more than maybe I even could've imagined,
it's completely changed my brand in culture,
in a way that has opened up in the last 48 hours,
financially, the things that have opened up for me
are ridiculous.
- Really? ...'cause sneakers? - Yeah, because, here's why,
because sneakers are so part of culture right now,
and you may be privy to it, you may not,
that's fine.
All this trades on is brand, and that
has everybody confused.
(rock music)
(gentle guitar music)
(voices in background)
Because voice is gonna be the next thing you'll see,
you'll look back at this, so I'm very good at anticipating
what consumers are gonna do, before they do it.
- And that has been my calling card,
and I've built a very large wine business, uh, curren-
- As far as 2005, when you decided to go massive
on Youtube, - Yes.
- where nobody was expecting that
- February 2006, I started a Youtube show
that was longer than ten minute video,
and I was one of a handful of videos
on Youtube, - Really?
- that even made a video longer than ten minutes.
It was all pirated content.
- It was all, you know, yeah, I've just
done a lot of things early.
Having somebody follow me around on film.
This is now two, - Tyler!
- Tyler Babin in the house. - Babin, Babin French.
- Babin is in the house. (laughs)
Uh, you know, we're two years, we're over two years in.
- I'm, I'm, um, I've gotta, you know, I'm not a
first vlogger, like Casey and others,
um, but I'm the first of us
like uh, of uh vlogging in a different way,
and so, just always doing things,
and, and because of that, having a lot of things not work.
Social cam, or, or, you know, um,
audio, video email is something I tried to do
a long time ago, every, y'know...
- I never heard about that one.
- And then nobody ever did, you know,
like there's, and and Yobongo
and a lot of investments that didn't work out.
Alpha Booze didn't, and so, you know,
you make a lot of mistakes, the thing is though,
when you're uh, when you're a risk taker,
by other people's point of view,
I don't think I'm a risk taker,
I'm an immigrant.
- Really? - Yeah.
I take risks I can afford to lose.
- So I'm, you know, I'll never be out of business,
because I'll never waste my last million dollars.
You know, if I lose everything, I'll take that
and be like, okay, gotta change my lifestyle a little bit,
gotta slow down, which is fine, most people will never have,
a million, earn a million dollars, let alone have it.
- That's true - So, I keep things
in perspective, I came from nothing,
I lived in a studio apartment, probably
about the size of this small room we're in right now,
with eight family members.
What's weird is I'm not scared to go back.
I love when people debate the ROI of this stuff.
If you don't know how to use it,
the ROI is zero.
So, first thing's first, if you believe anything I'm saying,
there's an incredible website, I'll spell it out for you.
It goes by the tune of G-O-O-G-L-E.
It will answer anything that you're thinking right now
that isn't detailed.
'Cause I'm giving you the framework.
How do I place a Facebook ad to sell a car?
Enter.
(laughter)
You can spend two hours, and by the way,
if you own your own business, and you do not spend
the thirty hours to educate yourself that,
on what I'm talking about, you deserve to deal
with the ramifications of what I'm talking about.
This is not, I'm gonna outsource this.
I don't want somebody sitting at table four right there
and saying, "You know what, he might be right,
I'm gonna finally listen to my niece
and I'm gonna let her, she's 22, she gets this shit."
She doesn't get shit!
She uses it to live her life.
She doesn't use Instagram to sell fuckin' cars.
You need to be the person that understands this.
What's funny, I uh, I do a vlog, and when I got offstage,
Tyler and I were talking, I'm like,
you need to email the team, I felt like that
was one of the strongest talks I've ever given
to the car industry, and we need to make sure
we put out pieces of this on Facebook,
and all the stuff I was talking about,
I'm about to do to build awareness and brand.
Um, I'm just desperate that somebody in that room,
or, somebody behind that camera, uh,
does something about what I'm talking about.
I will be historically correct on these issues.
I have no dog in the race, if anybody does do anything.
I just want them to 'cause it's gonna happen.
- One of the things I, uh, part of my job,
I talk with dealers and things like that
all the time, - Yes.
- one of the things that really resonated
with you're, with what you're saying was,
you know, there's kind of this hesitation,
this uh, kind of naivete a little bit,
about where things are headed, um,
I guess, where do you think that comes from,
generally speaking, uh...
I guess, why are we conditioned that -
- I, I, I think humans, get complacive.
- I think a lot of people, you know,
so a lot of, so you've got people,
some people are just, uh, have losing business DNA.
It's a tough word to use, but like,
they're pessimists, they're complaining,
they're, they're looking for the negative.
And in general that's just one of the reasons,
so that's a group.
The more interesting group, and the one that I'm always,
'cause I don't think I can turn that person,
I've tried for 30 years.
That doesn't turn.
Here's who turns: the one that worked really hard
for 20 years, got there, maybe had a divorce
because of it, lost his family,
like a million real things.
Or, even better, has a good family,
uh, my dad has this, has a family that loves him,
but has real regret that he didn't
go to a single one of my Little League games, right?
And he's just, and now he's like, wants to reconcile,
and like take more vacations,
or get more conservative.
The problem is, if you're still running a business,
you're on the playing field.
You know, sports.
Nobody cares if you're washed up.
I always use hockey references when I can,
I just need it, nobody cried for Wayne Gretzky
that last season.
That wasn't the job of the other players, right?
- Right.
- That's the bigger one.
They've worked hard, they've won,
they can't, they haven't won at a level that allows them
to totally retire and da da da,
they're probably better off to
sell their business right now,
because it's still at its peak value,
um, compared to where it will be in three years,
if they have now chosen to completely disregard,
um, the end.
It's really that simple, man.
You know, it's people that are not on the offense,
either because they've never been
and they got some level of micro success
through sheer will, luck, serendipity,
and a million other things, or,
or, and it's not luck, you know, they they they,
it was there, or, um, they're the second one,
which is super interesting, man.
They really did it, they just don't wanna do it anymore.
But they think, they think in business
it's not like sports, and I think it's like sports.
- Yeah, yeah and -
- If you're on the field, somebody's gonna
knock you the hell out.
It's like, you know what, I'm gonna start using boxing.
Mike Tyson, Joe Lewis, right?
Larry Holmes, Muhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali lost to Trevor Berbick in his last fight.
It wasn't Trevor Berbick's job to let Muhammad Ali win.
Business is sports.
If you have a business, somebody's tryin' to put you out.
And they don't care that you've worked hard for 30 years
and that you're a legend.
You're still on the playing, sell your fuckin' business.
Retire, if you wanna be out.
But if you're, that's why, man.
They're like, I don't wanna learn Facebook.
Like, I don't, like I don't understand this,
I'm not gonna spend ten thousand dollars
on something I don't know.
I'll just keep spending it on radio,
I know that.
Or if I stop doing radio, the business
will decline even more.
And they don't realize it's the, it's like a,
you know, it's like being an alcoholic.
You don't realize it's stop drinking that fixes it.
When you're in the alcoholic mindset,
it's you can't stop drinking, or it will get worse.
No no no no, no no no.
And they're stuck on a drug that doesn't exist anymore,
which is bad marketing and operating and business behavior
that doesn't exist in the 2018 world.
I'm gonna say it, I wanna make sure you understand it:
Nintendo was a playing card company.
Nintendo started as a playing card company.
I started off as a wine merchant.
Like, I get it.
But I actually usually think the number one move
when shit is interesting, is to leverage
while you've got it, the building of the other thing,
with the assumption that the first thing
might not even be there at all,
and then taking it all as upside.
And then you can get smart, right?
Like, so the way to get smart, the orange is kind of silly.
Lawnmower is a little bit closer.
But what about, why can't you guys start
the coolest air refreshment thing in a car company,
out of your little one stop?
Like why couldn't somebody here create
the ten dollar premium air refresher,
you know, I just think of it as like, like,
I don't know if people, you know, like,
why not?
You could.
And you'd have pretty much as much permission to do it
as anybody else.
I'll go, I'll go a different place with you.
I think that BMW and Porsche and Mercedes
should be going into other sectors.
I'll go the reverse.
I think if I'm at Mercedes and I'm the CEO,
I would be creating an Alexa, Google Home,
Apple Homepod competitor, because I have permission,
because of my brand, to be behind engineering
and high-quality product.
I would, why should Braun be the biggest razor in the world?
Like, I would buy BMW's razor.
So, you know, you gotta think about
where you have permission to hedge.
Thanks for havin' me, it was really nice meeting you guys.
Yeah, have a good day.
Take care, buh bye.
Alright, big night for D-Rock,
Babin fucked up and uh, and so,
you know, we don't have that much footage.
(piano music)
Hey guys, taking this off right now,
Tyler screwed up, D-Rock you're da best,
uh, he didn't put me out in time,
we're probably gonna miss this flight,
let's see what happens.
Babin didn't make it.
Tyler Babin messed up.
He didn't make the flight.
I'll see you in Chicago later.
D-Rock 'em.
- Alright, I fucked up.
I didn't have my boarding pass going into the airport,
and something happened with my check-in.
It looks like Gary's gonna make this flight.
But now, I have about an hour and a half
until the next flight to Chicago.
Fu-
(gentle music)
We're here in Chicago, Toronto was good,
some really good interviews,
hopefully you'll be able to chop that up,
but Babin missed the flight,
and that's the key to the episode.
(rock music)