- The reason I'm a good businessman is because
I play outside the framework.
You've got your perspective.
I just wanna be happy, don't you wanna be happy?
What can I answer for you my man?
- Do we have, is there a limit of time right?
- I mean I'm gonna try to get to everybody, but
- I mean everybody's gonna kinda hear my
business issues, but art and furniture
has been sold through galleries.
- Yes
- Most of the time, well I'm starting to change
that trend, but not just art in the sense
that it's like a thousand dollar art,
no we're talking about things that
are escalating to the hundreds of thousands.
- Okay.
- And so now I'm trying to create,
okay so I've been successful in doing that.
We've built a business from zero to now
just a little over two million this year,
which is awesome.
- That's amazing.
- But through traditional PR I'm finding
I've been in Architectural Digest, Fast Company,
all the magazines, but that's starting
to reach its limit, so how do I increase sales
for the studio to keep growing with
- Without PR?
- Yeah without PR, through social media.
- I mean.
- So we, so once I got into Gary V. I started
we started to really go heavy to social,
started creating more content, now actually have
a full-time video team that's in-house that's doing,
so we're creating a show and also doing a podcast,
basically doing everything that you've been saying
to do, the tricky part is to get these consumers,
these people that are buying high end, you know,
spending 60, 70, 80, 100 thousand dollars to buy
directly from us and to grow that because
a lot of the people are using interior designers
or architects so I'm reaching out to them,
they know us really well, but how do I go even further?
Like how do I take two million to 10 million?
And so that's where, and I feel like it's a personal
brand really, I mean it's my name.
- 100%
- So I just have to build that part,
and then see the sales.
- I've been producing content every day for 13 years.
- Right.
- Like only in the last 18 months has it gotten
to the critical enough scale where it feels
like it's something different than what you're
up to right now, meaning like I had a base,
you've known me for a while, I had a base,
but it's nowhere close to what it is now.
I mean when you're building a brand,
guys Nike almost went out of business.
- Yeah back way when.
- Like really close.
- And they went to court.
- So I think the, Fernando it's super simple
man, like you haven't even started.
Like the answer is what you're doing.
- Right.
- Content, acting like a media company,
and running ads and creating content,
and it's all the same shit, like when TV
is a good deal, like Proctor and Gamble,
you buy Tide and Crest toothpaste because
television was a good deal, and the companies
that figured it out and could afford it,
and dadadada, like Schlitz beer and Schaeffer
beer and Valentine's Ale, like your great
grandfather drank that shit because radio
was a good deal in 1937, the good deal right
now in my opinion is the seven platforms that
live on this, when you take it to
the step two of actually becoming the media
company and not just the advertiser,
and that's where like a CPG ice cream
can do both, whereas hemp and cannabis can't,
and we're all stretched thin think about your
family business with the catering,
when I was 28 years old, like all these kids
are like it hasn't happened yet,
I'm like I was packing boxes of wine
and shipping it in styrofoam in the basement
of a liquor store in Springfield, NJ
when I was 29 years old.
So you're gonna struggle to get tears
out of me that you're four months into
your T-shirt brand and you're not supreme yet.
I think you just have to put in the work
for a significant amount of time because you're
absolutely right, my entire thesis is that
Architectural Digest the best company in 1996,
those two articles would have changed your
whole career, that just doesn't..
- Well in 2014 it did.
- Great.
- So now it's not anymore so I've plateaued
with the PR so I'm sort of, I came here actually
to try to hire Venture Media to help us in the next
stage.
- Well good news, like Nick knows this,
we're I mean I'm spending all my time trying
to figure out how to create a business
to service SMB, we don't know how to take money
here from Bahner unless you're paying us like
two million bucks, we have things, but we're not
good at taking it which is bad for business,
so I'm spending a lot of time on it.
But the reason we haven't done it yet,
and the reason I'm hesitant and why this took
five years in my head before I did it is,
I'm not gonna take somebody's money unless
we can deliver, and at a small base it's just
better to do a lot of things internally.
The more I realize I'm like, oh it's gonna be
consultant, or this really works, like you pay
10 thousand bucks, I'm watching all the people
that email Nick and he tells me or I see
in the Facebook group, there's been some crazy shit.
- Crazy.
- What's your, you're keeping closer to it.
- The guy Joe Mullins coming in November
he was in the first group.
- Okay and?
- And you confirmed the personal brand
and he invested hundreds of thousands
of dollars in his personal brand in year one.
And he's the number one player in the space,
and he couldn't be happier with the time he spent here.
- Yeah, so I think the biggest thing I can tell you
is that you have to make as much content as possible.
And you have to spend as much, this is where
people get creative, this is a very interesting
and subtle insight, people take pride in organic
reach because they think there's something
special about getting good organic reach in social
when the ads are underpriced, so I literally would,
like if you didn't have an Instagram, I know you do,
because I know some are limited interactions,
but if you didn't have an Instagram account,
something as great as tacos, and food,
and Jersey Shore, I'd be like you don't even
need to build one, just run ads on Instagram.
You probably, you know it's funny let me rephrase,
I do think having a nice little base for,
I now think people's Instagram account is PR,
I feel like people search google to find your
Instagram account to get a read on what you're
about, so I think organic content's value now
is almost more like brand and PR, at the cost.
You should spend money on it just to have
a foundation, but that should be 20% of your
energy and money, and 80% should be figuring
out the ads that drive your business.
Suthabies and Christy's sell million dollar
items on Instagram.
- That's why people pay first dibs for it.
- So selling 60 and 80 thousand dollar items
on Instagram's a cakewalk, it's about running ads
against people that live in Malibu.
- Yeah but you G you know that converting a customer
at a 60 or 100 thousand dollar price point
is a tough thing to do in a Facebook or Instagram
environment.
- It's tough to do, yes, but not as tough
as people think, meaning I think, so I'll explain
give me one second because I want to get this
off because I don't want to forget it,
I think what we're about to roll out with volume
method is really going to be a big factor,
here's what I mean by that, I think it's
easier to close a 60 thousand dollar person
if you make 497 pieces of content,
and run micro media because the reason
it's hard to close somebody for 60k
is people go broad because they want to lower
their CPM or reach as many people.
The reality is to sit somebody 60k
you almost have to do a one minute rant
specifically the 15 type people in theory
that are likely to buy it, and overpay
for five thousand people to see it
that don't have any interest to get to the 15.
- I do it, I've targeted upper east side
where I know most of the pieces go or Tribeca.
- And then it's upper east side African American
male who works in tech, then it's upper east side
3rd generation trust fund baby, and you're making
a reference to Abeza.
- And add a layer with...
- A partner?
- A fleet cline, a watch company that's valuable,
add that contextual relevance.
- The place where I've seen that, you know
what's funny Nick, that one's brought me a lot
of non-results because so many people are following
things from an aspirational standpoint,
but buying first party data of purchase
in terms of that nature, or creating look
alike audiences on data you already have,
it's been interesting, I often say that,
but I'm starting to peel back a little bit.
- You get what he's saying there.
- Yeah because if you're a fan of Philipe
you think you're hype, but so many people
are aspirational and they're following high
net worth brands, but they're not in consideration
set, so you're wasting media dollars because
you're not really getting to something.
This is where really knowing your craft though,
like I know a lot about wine, so somebody may say
"Oh do Opus One." but I know I can do
like Romanee-Conti La Tache, like you know enough
about comp artists or, so there's, if you can get
nerdy about what you do, that's always a very
important insight, but I think it's content too,
I think one of the...
- That's what I think.
- But what's interesting about content,
I think a lot of people who try to replicate
my model, aren't able to get away from
the business goal, so if you're doing content,
you need to act as if you're Architectural Digest,
not Pablo Picasso, and people struggle with that.
It's the intent behind the content, are you
actually trying to replace the B2B magazine,
or B2BC magazine, or program, or are you subtly
doing some version of a commercial wrapped
up in content, and I think that's, for example
we're about to start a wine project so my lovely
partner in crime is here, I would want us to act
more like wine spectator than QVC, it's why
Wine Library TV worked, I was a store owner,
but I really took, and I thought I was
gonna do QVC, I tell people a lot, like the origin
stories I'm about to do QVC and as soon as the camera
went on I'm like, "Oh fuck I could do Lifestyles
of the Rich and Famous." I just knew that
I couldn't do QVC, it wasn't a work if I was
just selling, I just knew my team would pick
four wines a show, I knew inevitably I would
like some of them, but it was really interesting,
it got so clean by episode 50 all the way
to a thousand I never had a wine on the show
that we had more than five cases of.
I completely went content because I didn't
want, it was a lose-lose situation, I buy 200
cases of it, first of all I was so committed
to the show I would pan it and then it would
be very difficult to sell, or I would say
it's awesome, some kid on the wine team quits
and tells everybody oh he's just peddling
wine we have 200 cases of the Zinfendel,
I didn't wanna create the exposure.
So as you get into content, where ever you are on it,
I think the part that people struggle with
is the intent, when I make content I am literally
in Wikipedia non-profit mode, you guys know.
I'm very comfortable making a piece of content
like buy my sneaker, I'm very comfortable to sell
what I want to sell, but I'm not disguising
selling when I'm putting out content, I saw your
sneakers.
(laughter)
You know? Super important, you reviewing
another artists gallery in a video,
and giving them love because you genuinely
like their work, is probably the most
significant thing you can do for your business.
That's a brainfuck, but then what you're doing
is you're becoming the artist whipserer
to a community not selling your shit.
- Yeah I don't wanna sell, you can't sell
100 thousand dollars.
- So you need to build trust, you know?
- I also would like to create less friction
in the purchase because everything's custom,
somebody sees a work of art and they're like
okay I want that but it's in some other
iteration.
- Well, well...
- So they have to email they have to set up
with our team, if they want this sale.
- Yeah and, like what are you gonna replace that
with, augmented reality, there's inherent friction
in one off, I actually think you lean into
your friction, so I would go the other way.
Inherently if I was making...
- So anything online you just have to reach out to us?
- Yeah I would have break- like if it's 100 thousand
you should have a coffee with everybody, that should be.
- And I do apart from just the
- But all the digital stuff should be leading
to the coffee.
- Yeah totally.
- See where I'm going?
- Yeah
- Instead of making a feel where everybody goes
with their shit, oh well fuckin do it online.
Fuck that shit, nobody wants, first of all
nobody's buying a 10 dollar item.
- Then how are First Dibs, how are some of these
websites doing very well, like First Dibs is doing
very well, they're selling a lot of shit online
at a significant price.
- How much?
- How much are the prices? All the way up into the millions.
- Are they a platform?
- Yeah.
- So they're taking consignment?
- Yeah based on solely their products on there,
people come from all over the globe,
they buy and then
- Because they have the attention, same reason
eBay, like they spent the money, I don't know
the platform, whatever they did to build their
brand or customer acquisition or whatever,
they became a marketplace and everybody goes there
so they're doing really well because first of all,
they're doing really well because market places
when they hit, they hit really
- We're talking about going into the future
trying to sell stuff nobody's really gonna
wanna come to a retail store.
- I don't believe that, I really don't
I think that nobody's gonna wanna come there
if there isn't added value to go there
versus what they they think they can do online.
So I think people wanna do more shit than ever
because they wanna show people they're
doing shit, people go to wineries and hike
and yoga retreat and why do you think all these
weird museums are popping up?
People just wanna take a photo
in the blue fucking balls or the sprinkles,
we are in full PR mode of ourselves and we are now
living our lives for the Instagram photo.
People are literally planning their Saturdays
predicated on the picture they can put on..
So I actually think if you made your gallery,
if I had a gallery I would just make one humongous
thing that everybody just wanted to come
and take a picture of.
- We were gonna buy a tiny house and have it.
- That's it
- Like put it in the gallery.
- Like put people in jail for 24 hours,
like they come into your gallery and they
get locked up, that would work.
You see where I'm going?
People will use online because it's lack of friction,
for something they don't value doing physically.
But if you can give them something of value
physically they'll do that.
We'll keep bouncing, go ahead.
- So essentially
- Real quick I apologize, I think your website
should literally be a complete and utter
gateway drug to have a meal with you.
You'll sell a lot of 100 thousand dollar things,
it's just a better use of your time.
- We got so good at the music production time
especially my partner that when we start
putting out our sounds and free stuff,
free drum kits and stuff all the, literally
it's a sound that sounds like this
(hitting table)
and then they put it together with something that
sounds like a
(knocking)
so essentially we sold all the different sound
kits and stuff and we took advantage of Facebook
groups because everybody in Facebook groups
is spamming check out my Soundcloud it's like
the weirdest
- Yeah I know it is
- So but for us we're like hey how about you come
get some free resources, so we grew really fast,
collecting emails, nobody even knew what
marketing was in our space, but what happened
was we got to that kind of like two million year
point and we're profiting 75k a month now
at this point because we really fixed our
profits too, now what I'm trying to figure out
what are some levers, and I have some ideas,
but what are some levers to get to like
the eight figure point or at least to go past
this point because we've been here for a bit.
- So what are you selling kits still?
- Yeah sound kits, we've got added on courses
and stuff and we've tried to evolve the product
so the products gone from 47 to now we're
gonna try 497 that's the highest we've ever tried.
It seems like the spike in price has always been
something that's raised our revenue, just keep
raising prices, and making the product better.
We've had also this problem where Evergreen sales
will sit a little bit under 100k but then we'll
launch and we'll do like a quarter million
in four days, so and then we sell a certain amount
of packs and then we take it down.
- So I think you know the model that you're
running is kind of like that classic internet
marketing model, the kind of got into fame
in the years of like 2000-2015 and I think
the thing that you can layer is more more content,
more brand, that's how you grow.
You're in sales, and what you need to layer
it with is brand, so I've watched so many people
find the business model where they've got
a price, they've got launches, they've got
that whole model down, it's funneled,
it's layout page optimization, it's cack,
it's LTB, it's all that shit, it's amazing,
it's fine, it's really good, it gets people
to a certain level, but then they're in the sales
business, not in the brand business.
Like a lot of people that fall in love with
that model don't think about their logo,
don't think about their content, don't think about
reinvesting in swag, don't think about putting
out a podcast, you know, they don't do brand.
Like this is why I'm always like watch what I do,
and it's because so much of what I do
is predicate on brand because that's the ultimate
leverage so I think putting out content
like recording sessions, using your growth
in the space and building relationships,
you're in the best place on Earth, Atlanta's
the best place, so just tapping into younger
artists and doing collaborations and then running
ads against their fanbase, and there's a lot you
could be doing, but a lot of it needs to be less
about math, and more about art.
- Gotcha so what I was kind of thinking about
all of that because I have been hearing you talk
about that and trying to go into that space,
so I was thinking about letting the team
still do launches once every three months
once we have that revenue and then me and my partner
are good at building out the new team to go forward
with that, is it good to still keep that alive?
- I like that and honestly my biggest concern
is that you're making 75 thousand a month,
like you need to be pouring that back into
business, I'm desperately curious about what's
happening with that 75k because if it's going
into your pockets, into your lifestyle,
that's bad and that's what every kid does,
that's why people don't build businesses,
that's why people have moments.
- And so I'm having a moment that kind of reminds
me of what you talked about with adwords being
five cents a click and stuff like that,
right now Facebook Messenger for us is,
I mean it's getting 87% open rate and I have
a list of 30 thousand and I'm like okay
I've been doing marketing for four years
and I've never seen it.
- That's right.
- And it's one click in their email too.
- That's right, it's insanely good.
- Yeah and I'm trying to figure, is it something
that, so I'm a little worried about Facebook
building this huge list and then oh we don't
do that anymore.
- Well that's life.
- Is it still good to go ham at it and just..
- You always squeeze the fuck out of an orange that's full.
- Gotcha that's what I was thinking.
- And then when it's empty, you go find a pear.
- Gotcha.
- Which is harder to squeeze and then you hope
a grapefruit comes along, right?
Like email used to be 97% open rates for me,
it's not anymore, Google adwords were five cents
a click, it's not anymore.
Like I'm unemotional, it's amazing I'm really
glad you asked the question people do this
all the time, people get so emotional about it going
away they don't take advantage of it when it's there.
Crush Myspace when it's Myspace, then make sure
you're good on Twitter and Facebook when that's
happening, like Instagram, do you know how many
people are gonna be vanished when Instagram starts
to slide, everybody's pot committed, the whole
fucking world right now it pot committed, I'm like
sitting and laughing, I'm like aw man I want it to
secretly disappear because I think people would die.
People would be like what, and I'd be like cool
thank God we have all these other things.
- So what we try to do, I wanted to get your opinion
on this, we try to move it around.
- Yeah.
- Is that good to do?
- It is, but when you have something like Facebook
Messenger and kudos to you for going in on that,
squeeze the shit out of it, but you can also
extract those people's sales and emails and yeah.
- It's one click, I've never seen anything like it.
- It's really good.
- Yeah and for us you can send an audio,
so like a me talking real quick or
- You need to invest in your business.
You need to invest in your business, the profit
margin you're making needs to go back into
the business on things that don't bring you
short term ROI, that's how you build something
from two to 10.
- Gotcha.
- That, that, right I took Wine Library
from three to 60 and I was paying myself 76 thousand
dollars a year, 67, 82, you know?
Discipline.
Let me keep bouncing, do you have a question?
- No I have a present.
- Well that's very sweet.
(laughter)
I like it already.
Can I open it in front of you?
- Sure.
- How was your trip?
- It was good.
- Yeah?
Why don't we keep going, what can I answer for you?
- So in our health rambling
(laughter)
- I love that, oh this is good I will
absolutely wear this, thank you my friend
I will wear this this Sunday, thank you so much.
- Yeah he saw you at the Brown's game.
- Yes, yes.
- He said he doesn't have his hat
- That's awesome.
- There's a note in there too for you.
- Oh in here, thank you, go ahead.
- So since my wife started the company we've
gotten 12 over the year.
- Yes.
- So uh
- Give me one second,
- 2017 we ended up around just under five million
- Thank you brother
- All direct consumer
- Yep
- And this year we started off on a solid track
to hit eight figures, and then it just
kind of died off.
- Why?
- That's what we're trying to figure out like
all of our website conversions cut cut in half.
- The conversions got cut in half?
- Yeah we were averaging 10 add to cart,
and six point two five at checkout or
- And did you change the media you were spending,
were you getting less qualified leads?
- See we were spending a lot on Facebook at the time,
and we were spending 150, 200k a month on Facebook,
plus a lot less on Google and everything,
but we cut a lot of that Facebook back.
- Why?
- Well because the direct ROI was under like
one to one point four.
- You cut it back before the six point two five or
that's what made you cut it back?
- No we cut it back after that, so we're getting
good conversions on the website,
but the row ad that we're spending from our
Facebook ads
- Yep how many different pieces of content
were you running?
- We were running, well see that was the thing
too, is we were running probably 20 different
ad sets to multiple, we had 60 skews as I mentioned,
and so we're, our ads are
- Just to get everybody on the same page,
for this white sneaker, for his sneaker,
we add certain ads that were costing us
62 dollars that would get somebody to buy,
and some that were 12, the thing that nobody
has really talked enough about, and this is really
where I'm going, is the sheer amount of content one
like here's what everybody does, it works,
so I'm yelling five fucking years because it's so
good that you can be a dope and it works, right?
Like you didn't know what the fuck you were doing
day one and Facebook was returning and you're like
oh shit Gary's probably right, right?
Like that's what was happening, then it gets
more competitive, shit changes, what everybody
does then is they take their 20 pieces
of content against 20, and they've got 400
cohorts or what have you, and they're
like oh fuck Facebook's not as good anymore,
let's stop, instead of making 800 more pieces
of content, Facebook's unbelievable,
Facebook can be better today than three years ago,
if you're better at content and copy, and matching
it against your targeting.
- Gotcha.
- Got it?
- Right.
- That's it, that's the answer to your question.
And then there's Instagram swipe ups, and then
there's messenger.
- Right and we've been working on Messenger
like doing stuff through it and we've mostly
been using it to send people to when my wife
does a live with education content and everything else,
and all the sudden I happened to click on something
it was like we had like I don't know 300 one star
things like why are you sending me messages
through messenger and we had a warning from
Facebook and all that stuff and we have not as
many as you but probably like 17 thousand messenger
ones and we'd send out like a messenger push,
and we're getting 87 to 90% opens and look throughs.
- Well just real quick, I've actually never sold
anything on messenger
- We weren't we were sending them to a free
live training and stuff on whatever how to eat
healthy or something.
- There were so many ways that people got into
messenger that they didn't know, that's what they
were upset about, I don't know the details, but.
- Yeah I known but I mean is there a way to kind of...
- Clean it up? You could send one message to
get them to unsubscribe if they don't want it.
- Gotcha.
- Yeah.
- Kind of like hey.
- You're better off having four thousand
people who give a fuck.
- Sure yeah no that makes sense then okay.
And then the other one more around culture.
- Yes.
- So as we're going, we're right around 35
to 40 people on our team.
- Yes.
- Since we make everything
- Yep, yep of course.
- What I mean we, I see some people who
I guess what's the best way to create
a good culture where people are like watching
your team and when I came up before, just seeing
how your team interacts and stuff.
- I think that as small as 35 people you should
have dinner with every single employee,
and ask them what makes them happy in life.
- Okay.
- Because you have employees, of those 35 you have
some people that wanna make two bucks more an hour,
you want somebody who wants more Saturdays off,
you want somebody who wants to be a manager now,
you want somebody, you have somebody who was
happy yesterday, but they fell in love,
and now they need more time at home,
more money, title, work life balance, Rick,
you'll find out if you interview 35 people
that there's something going on with Rick,
and you may have to fire Rick, you know?
And so when I hear about companies that
have under 50 employees, I can't push them
enough to do you know the one on one
hand to hand combat
- Yeah okay.
- That's the answer
- Yeah we started doing like six months ago
like a monthly vision of meeting with the team.
- That's good.
- We'd call out, hey you know.
- That's good, but the one on one is where
you can start building, on the third meeting
on the one on one Susan will actually tell you
about Rick because in the first one they won't.
- Right, yeah.
- You have to build a relationship.
- What's the cadence of those meetings?
- The smaller the company the more often
you can do it, you know, mine are like,
I text Theo at 11:30 at night when I'm flying
back from something like yo, and we're
like, I'm not kidding he'll tell you.
Whenever I can get to it I'm trying so hard.
- Cool.
- Genuinely don't know where to start
- Yep.
- But I'm in a different point than
- Yep.
- A lot of the people here, just taking over,
and in fact some of the content I was really
resonating with from you specifically was not
just stepping in and taking control of any one
thing so I'm in the moment of talking just
freezing everything to kind of
- Taste
- And taste yep
- Which I mean, how many employees are there?
- Well it ranges because we have a lot of front
of house people, but anywhere between 30 and 40.
- Which you can't imagine how much equity
that builds with the 30 to 40, and you've been
around the whole time just like I was,
but it's still gonna be amazing.
- Yeah so and to give you some context,
I pay myself as little as possible, I flip
on the weekends as I say
- Amazing, what do you flip?
- Everything and anything.
- Literally like the garage, that stuff?
- Yeah
- What's the, I'm sorry I'm so obsessed,
what's the best thing
- It's raining in Oregon right now.
- I know what's the best thing you've found
this last six months?
- I found an antique dining set and
- How much did you buy it for?
- I bought it for just under 200
- And what'd you sell it for?
- A little over 800
- I love that shit so much man, I like live on this shit.
Keep going.
- It's pretty cool, anyway, so something I deal with,
we were hit super hard because of the crash
in 2007 2008
- Okay
- We lost over 50% of our business
- Yep
- You know my mom was
- Freaking out yeah
- She was getting divorced at the time actually.
- So but how the business is now structured with you
taking over is everything, it's the entire
conversation, because the reality is you need
like do you have the full autonomy or don't you?
Do you to a point but blank, these were
the things that really help it get better
for me and my dad, at first it was gray as shit,
and then as things would spur up, especially when
I had momentum, you don't even understand how it
actually plays out yet because you'll taste it.
When you start doing a couple things and it starts
working and then she tries to stop it, it's even
worse than not starting at all.
Like once I started tasting momentum,
anything that my dad would try to bring
to defense felt completely inappropriate
because I'm like it's fucking working.
And look I don't wanna paint a false picture,
my dad gave me outrageous levels of autonomy
in hindsight, and really unfortunately the only
issues we really had were some just hot button
issues that he was like, there was four things he
was religious about, and I was religious
the other way, I mean the one I just keep
laughing, he just did not want to sell product
to our employees at cost, that was to him like,
I don't know he couldn't get over it.
And I was like so into it, like I wanted to sell
at a loss to our employees, it was a real battle.
The reason I probably bring it up, it's the one
battle that never really got settled in our careers.
So I think a couple things you need to think about,
one having empathy for the fact that your mom
spent so many years building this business
which I can even sense, I think you need to map,
so let me take a step back, this taking over phase,
is she looking for you to make all the decisions?
- Yeah that's her goal, she really enjoys working
with the couples, brides grooms.
- Yes
- Because she just likes that touchpoint
- Yes.
- But she
- Everything else
- Yeah and you talk about getting punched in the mouth,
I've been punched in the mouth so many times
it's not even funny, so it kind of weighs
heavy on her but coming from that it's hard
to spend money, especially on such a personally
heavy business for her because it's, there's
things that have to happen in her mind before
she is okay with something.
- And you're saying spending money as in
like investing in a business whether
in advertising or something like that?
- Or overhiring, I know you talked about this with
I think it was Al or some hospice, overhiring
we were overstaffed in some times of the business so.
- Does your mom have a sense of how much she wants
or you guys, like for me what would allow me
to overhire was me and my dad had a good sense
of what we both wanted to make in salary,
and then basically after that, I could make
no money at all so that's why I overhired.
It's similar to what I'm doing here, you know like,
I'm not looking for this to be the money
I need to take home, thus I'm pouring it in
so I think the key I'm trying to get into is
what's real and what's ideology and emotion.
What I was very good at, in hindsight, I didn't
even realize I was doing it as a kid, was I was
eliminating subjectiveness and emotion because my dad
truly lived on emotional reactions and I got us over
time to a lot of conversations that were,
you know after crying and yelling I got us into,
for a while I just remember these feelings,
even right now as I'm sitting here,
I'm like okay how much money, do not subject
me, do not opinion of the month,
flavor of the month, that ring yesterday,
or we had a snow out day and now you're
overreacting to the fact that we did zero yesterday
instead of 80 thousand and now you're not
letting me run a New York Times ad, take me to
the macro, how much money do you need to make
in salary, cool now get out of my way, I will
deliver on that and if I don't, then let's
have a convo, basically is the sentence
that we got to that really allowed us to explode.
- Yeah we just had that conversation.
- It's great, and did it go well.
- It went really well, we need to have it very regularly.
- Great yeah I talk to my dad every day.
- Yeah if I don't see her it's usually on the phone.
- Right we were in the store so I even talked
to him all the time, and that was really made
it difficult because again somebody would steal
a bottle of Jack Daniels and my dad would like
emotionally explode and it would tear up
the next like three days, you know like all
the energy and angst was like we have to stop
everything and figure out how to not get anybody
to steal and I'm like okay cool so we're gonna
focus on $28 I'm like okay cool I'll do you a favor,
we're probably getting $500 worth of stuff stolen
a month, and you want me to stop everything that's
generating four million dollars, that would literally
be the kind of things.
- Yeah no I see that.
- There's many many businesses that are
completely predicate on emotion ideology,
every fashion brand loses because they care
too much about subjective emotion.
- Well something I'm doing more and more is
actually hearing deals for vineyards in the area,
they're a huge tracker of business for us.
- Of course, B2B sure.
- And it's working, but then when I try
to go into kind of the jabbing type of content,
that's a little harder to understand,
however we've had this conversation so yeah.
- Over communication which it sounds like
you're leaning into, and then when something
is either ideology or emotion, grounding it in
something so practical, and then gives you
the framework and then having the, the one thing
I did, you know, there's something I'm very
passionate about right now, which is that fake
environments, that kids are taking money from
parents and building businesses and nobody's
acknowledging it and it got me down this interesting
path where I realized oh shit, the kids of this
generation are taking money from parents,
and don't think they need to pay them back,
and the kids from our generation,
and definitely older than us,
the game was your parents would help you,
but you had to pay them back, and something
in that is sticking with me that I haven't
fully got to something, but it's kind of where
I'm going right now, which is I said to my dad,
I said look, I'm willing to listen to everything
that you say if I'm unable to deliver on what
I'm telling you I can deliver on if you give me
this rue, like to me there should be
consequences if you're not good enough.
And I think I'm seeing a lot of people want
certain things from their parents in the family
business, but aren't willing to deal with
the ramifications because there's so much
audacity coming from the kids going into businesses.
- Sure.
- It sounds like you're not that, which
psyches the shit out of me, which makes me
want you to lean in, but don't get too crazy
so you you know, like I get in hindsight
don't realize I was like fuck, you know like,
I was delusional, but I was so driven that I
made it happen, but I think that matters.
- Cool.
- Dudes?
- Yeah so I kind of already know the answer to our problem.
- I know you do so maybe what subtlty underneath that
- Yeah exactly.
- Like let me give you a good example, you should
have an intern who DM's influencers until the account
gets blocked on 40 different accounts, all day
long every day for life.
- Completely agree and do that, we do do that,
as much as
- But like you heard the last part, you're gonna
regret it, do it, does that make sense?
- Agreed.
- Like if you don't have at least one person
at minimum wage, who's just a scrappy kid,
who, this kid fuckin had a board on his head,
no but I mean, this is super important,
this is what people don't understand, three years
ago, you got paid how much by that fuckin
mattress or subway or whatever?
- It was 15 an hour and I was in outfits,
literally goofy outfits outside.
- Right but literally had it within him to go from
zero to build a two million dollar revenue business,
you're in Boulder, there's unlimited fuckers
up there who like can work for 13 hours a day,
or whatever's appropriate and legal,
because fucking Boulder, might be two hours
a day, I don't know how you guys fucking do it,
but you just have three people.
- Absolutely and then another
- You know because we all say we do it.
- Yeah no and generally we do have you know..
- Tell me the truth, very serious though,
do you have one person who fully spends 10 hours
a day Dming until he's blocked or she's blocked
on 13 accounts?
- There's probably one person who does that
like four hours a day everyday.
- Great I really, how big is your business
in revenue?
- Couple million.
- You should have three full time people
at minimum wage doing it.
- Yeah.
- It's the influencer version of you're going
to be upset that Facebook went away.
What if they change the DM rules?
Let me rephrase, what happens when they change
the DM rules?
- Oh I know I've been thinking about that
every day, I love the DM, I basically every
time somebody follows us do the bot thing, send
them coupons, and people give a positive response
because I'll go back in the gate so it doesn't
just seem like, you know I haven't gauged
that conversation.
- How do they see it if it goes to other,
how do they see those?
- People check their other.
- But not everyone
- Cool not everybody fucking does anything,
it's just math.
- Yeah you're right.
- Like this is what
- But then you have to send out more
- The whole game is scaling the unscalable,
everybody's looking at this tech world to find
the scalable thing, the magic's in the unscalable
part, we're building, like our wine business,
like if you buy the club there's a SMS Somelie
service that you get, which is like, literally
you go to a nice restaurant in Cleveland,
and take a picture and be like what wine
should I drink, and we're, me included at first,
me, what do I tell you?
I'm gonna look at the fuckin picture and be like,
really have a Zinfandel with your dessert
would be great, me, I scale the, guys every single
piece of written word on Instagram and Twitter is me.
If I have ever DM'd you, if I've ever replied,
if I've ever hearted your, that's me, I scale
the unscalable, I'm as busy as they get,
so I'm definitely not crying tears for anybody else.
- Definitely, and then from a B2B side,
our main business has been selling to food
and grocery stores, but now we're in this position
where we have a semi-established brand name,
semi-trusted name in our space.
- Right
- And so CBD is now becoming a really big thing
- Uh huh
- And could become a billion dollar industry
very rapidly, and so now everybody's trying
to figure out like hey how do I incorporate CBD's
in my you know popcorn, or lemonade, and so
we've gotten in that position where everybody's
asking us, and we've kind of reversed it
because what we do is we source from big
American farmers, which uses very good practices,
the genetics are very good so we've kind of built
this little niche, now we're leveraging that niche
on other brands, so we have some
of the largest CBD companies in the world,
in Southeast Mass in ready to drink beverages
saying hey we wanna buy your CBD because it's
a semi-trusted known name in the category,
but you're low on the back of the packaging,
you try to build intel of the hemp space.
- Couldn't believe in it more.
- Perfect, and so yeah we're trying to get
them to put a little excerpt like hey we trust
in the hemp people and we
- I would literally pay for those brands
to put my logo on it, let alone get paid.
- Right that's what we've been saying, I mean
some of our investors are like, are they gonna
pay you, are you kidding me?
Like no we wanna pay them
- Couldn't agree more.
- All we have to do is give them 10% discounts too,
it's like the easiest.
- It's absurd, you should spend all your time
and energy on it.
- Yep
- Yeah we're trying to hire one to two full time
people that literally just focus on that side.
- Who owns the business?
- Us.
- You need to make as little money as possible
for the next 36 months.
- We do. We didn't start taking, we've been
doing this for six years, we didn't start
taking a salary til last year.
- Give it back, moments in time.
- Yeah, agree.
- Like obviously I don't know your life, you may,
I don't know, but fucking as little, by the way,
everybody, that's the advice that's how you
build a business, you gotta feed your
business not buy a new pair of Supreme's.
That's just what everybody does, and you know
Supreme or house or the great mistake of my career
was buying an apartment six months before I could
have invested in Uber and doubled down on Facebook,
like it made me less liquid, I lost a lot of money.
You know I was growing, I was like a child,
like it's not terrible, but I'm starting to wonder
if I'm gonna recommend one day somebody,
I'm actually starting to get weirder about ever
owning a house, I think nobody should own a home
until they're over 40.
- What about a car?
- Nope, I don't think anybody should spend money,
if they have actual business ambition, if they
wanna build a business, for real, not I wanna create
a business give me money to, then you should extract
your money, like there's a lot of people that
build businesses to get a wave runner,
to buy an RV, to stay at the Ritz Carlton,
and that's fine, you're not building a business,
you're trying to create a machine to get you cash.
The problem with that is it always becomes
vulnerable at the end, and then dies,
and then that's why people go backwards,
so funny this kid grabbed me at the airport,
were you with me?
- (inaudible)
- Yeah second time telling it I'm really
fascinated by it, this kid runs up to me like
Gary V, I'm like okay let's take a selfie,
he's like I gotta really talk to you though,
he goes, I'm so, this was really sweet, it was
a nice, I just loved his vibe, he was like,
this is so meant to be that we met, I'm from
Ontario, I just came down here I'm flying
back home, I just got super ripped off,
I'm like what do you mean, he goes,
I literally had all my Bar Mitzvah money
and what my grandma left me and I lost it all,
somebody just scammed all of it from me,
I'm like how much, he's like 60 thousand bucks.
(group exclaims)
So it's really interesting what happened in that
moment, I looked him dead in the face and I said,
that's what happens when you try to make a quick
dollar, and he goes how'd you know, and I'm like,
you can't get scammed of 60 thousand dollars
unless you're trying to make a quick buck.
You just can't, you bought into some bullshit,
because you thought 60 was gonna be 600 thousand
in a week, and that always loses, that's the most
extreme version, but when I get worried about
kids making some money on is the less extreme
version is you're taking money off of the table,
and you're just living that lifestyle,
when for 50% of those kids if they poured it back
in they could really live that lifestyle forever.
If they just ate shit for six more years and built
something for real, you know, yes?
- Sorry I just had one more question, so I know you've
said focus on the Instagram DM's, and as you know
we can't do the traditional advertising marketing,
is that really the main way
- I think podcast prerolls really good, I would
hit up email every single podcast that you think
maps in any shape, be creative, I'm obsessed with
influencers for you guys, and fully having
your own podcast and your own vlog, being a media
company yeah that's where you're at now.
- Cool just wanted to make sure.
- Yep.
- For us making video content has been a game changer.
- That's awesome.
- Yeah specifically the audience is grocery buyers.
- And look you can, I think there's a way for you
to build a brand about being an entrepreneur about
what you have learned and just letting that halo
effect your business, there's plenty of people
that want to I mean what are you guys doing here
right you can halo your actual business.
- Absolutely
- You know you've gotta be very clever,
but if you make it more about you and not
the business, like no reference to even
the business, people will Google, you put out
a good video of like how you ate shit before,
like six years and it does well people will
find out who you are, they'll go to Google,
they'll find out what kind of company you work
for, so there's ways to run media, you know as a,
you see where I'm going?
- Yeah I know and that's kind of what we're trying to
- Do, yeah.
- Focusing more on the social media stories,
and working for free and then we're slowly
starting to get paid for it.
- I've heard of the concept.
- So just to piggy back on building a business,
I've been at it for 18 years now so one
taco at a time, opened up in like 2000
and then just kind of grew it from there,
13 shops in New Jersey, just took it on the road,
went down to Florida, opened up down there,
we've got one down there.
- So please shape Jersey
(laughter)
- Yeah right
- Jersey Florida, fucking makes me so happy.
- So dipped my toes into franchising like 12 years ago.
- Okay.
- I got one franchisee and then I was just kind of
pulled back on that, I wanna just build
the company that way, but now I'm looking at
like the next 18 years, and how do I stay
relevant, how do I scale growth.
- What do you want to happen?
- I just want to take the brand to its potential.
- The game of it.
- The game of it, I love the game of it,
I mean my life's pretty good, you know.
- Yeah so then I think franchisee at this point
you being this grounded and mature, is a good
debate, it's a good debate, if you want the game
of it, and when I hear the game of it, after
somebody, anybody whose been in business for 18 years
is a successful entrepreneur, you know like the amount
of people who make a lot and then lose it,
and being an entrepreneur, saying you're an
entrepreneur and being a successful one is completely
predicated on life cycle to me in one man's point
of view, the game of it gets into the vanity
of it, I've watched my dad get into it, you know
with my fame or local fame or internet fame,
it's been interesting to see my dad go from caring
less about money and caring more about the game.
And actually that's actually not fair, my dad always
cared more about the power and influence in his
industry than, like being bigger than other stores,
it was like being the king of like big fish
in a small pond was his passion, the ultimate
game of it is becoming fucking McDonald's you know?
- I struggle with just the customer though
you know, like I'm only as good as the last
taco and if I have a franchisee that's serving
a bad product, that's one me.
- Here's the good news you're an operator,
you don't have fucking 14 stores and not being
an operator, you just change your agenda of
operation to making sure that Nick Dio when he
opens up his shop in Little Egg Delaware
or wherever the fuck stays on point,
your operations change, it's like becoming
a manager, right, you know this, you were the guy
fucking serving the tacos in store one,
you don't do that as much, you managed over time,
right, well now you're just managing something else.
- Right.
- Like you could have a six month fucking
course to get through, you could spend
a year picking franchisees, franchisees fail
because they want the money, if it's your baby
and the way you built it I already know you,
I think franchisees are the right conversation for you,
I'll tell you why, you might just think you'll
be outrageously thoughtful with your first 10,
another thing, how many employees do you have that
have worked for you for longer than five years?
- 50
- Can I give you a huge pice of advice?
Any way that you can put some of them on,
you can't imagine what that can do for you.
And I don't know what you spend your money on,
how successful you've been, even if you can afford
to put one guy or gal up or you can go to characters
like me like successful Jersey business men, and be
like yo I've making shit up this is just being
creative, I'm staring a sponsorship for my
franchisee, if you actually came and we had some
lightweight interact in social like that, if you came
to me and said yo weird but you just seem like
I mean I heard you're this kind of guy,
would you go into business 50/50 with an employee
of mine who has no money but has been with me
for six years, and you could own 50% but you'd
have to put up all the money I gotta tell you,
I'd probably do one, it's a version of
business charity, only to have new things.
Like why do I just have business,
and then sometimes I just write big checks
on things that I'm emotional about?
Like you can get me real fast too, you give me a
real video on Susan or Hector or Johnny or Rick,
and their parents died and fuckin they work for you
for seven bucks an hour and I'm like agh I'm in.
I mean when you have 50 people in a, I mean how
many people do you think that work for you
right now could elevate and actually own
their own version of a store, for real?
- Probably like 20.
- You need to do it brother, that's what you should do.
- I can't wait til it's ours
- Plus that shit will work and you know it,
it's why I love all these little fuckers,
it's context, you can show me somebody that's
better on paper but we know each other, right?
- Right.
- You can show you somebody's who's
run 16 successful Burger Kings,
but you know exactly who Susan is, and then you
don't have to worry about the taco not being good.
- Right.
- You both win.
- Right, that's good.
- I know
(laughter)
It'll work, the best thing that, the reason I'm a good
business man, is because I play outside
the framework, that's what being the bad student
is so comping to being good entrepreneurs.
It was easy for me to come out, I never thought
of that concept, it was so easy for me after I even
just listened to six seconds because I got
enough context to ideate on an idea, that is
specific and that's why this stuff has been so fun
for me because I can put out content that's
you know Evergreen all day long, but it's in
the nuance like it's so, you know I'm so wanting to
dig into the thing that's not scalable,
because you're not gonna be able to change
the inherent nature of a one off project,
there's no scalability in a one off.
What's scalable is you can meet seven people in a day
for a coffee if your content web does that
you're gonna close to dinner.
- If they come close.
- Well guess what, you take them to dinner you'll close
even more
- Is it relevant, like 20 years out, fast, casual?
- Food is always gonna be okay, you know
QSR and fast casual and whatever the trend
of the moment is, make a good fucking taco
for the right price, you'll be alright.
- Forever.
- You know yeah I think that's right, and by the way,
last time in May, a lot of people have said that
about things that did stick, and other things didn't,
but if you just look at the basic Latino influence
on America, your grandkids are gonna be fine
on that specific food you're gonna be just fine.
And you may become the new taco thing or may not,
but you're exactly right.
- I've got a question about so building a brand
with content and stuff, what do you think about
using, so I've been doing this thing where
I've been hitting up hundreds of YouTubers,
getting them to use my stuff, I'm like just do
what you do just use our stuff while you're doing
it and we'll give it away for free
- Of course, product placement
- Yeah so what do you think about using all of them to
run ads from their Facebook
- Yes
- To all to our course
- But you should probably be upfront with them.
Because you're one blog post away from you
used me, like somebody did that with me that
came to one of these, and that was not a good
situation, for that person, you know, remember
intent, yo what's great about why that worked,
yo dog I'll give you something and you just use it,
I want that exposure, you want the shit for free,
bet, I then run ads against fans and fans are
hitting me up and saying yo did you endorse,
then the person feels like you got them
- I actually think they like it though
because they get thousands of dollars pumped
into their content
- So now going, I don't disagree with you, but
50% of them will like it, so you say it upfront
then you're in a much better place.
- And do you think it's a vulnerability to rely on
like a mass content strategy of other people
doing it not yourself?
- No, no I do not, it worked out for Nike.
- Okay gotcha, because me and my partner we're
not in the music doing it every single day now,
we're at the point where
- I got you, I got it, of course, I think
you're fine with that, yep.
- Gotcha.
- I think you're fine with that, I think
you're siphoning attention, and then you become
the thing