Episode 250: Fireside Chat - Develop and Monetize Your Content with Micah Cannon and David Munson

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation. Check them out at club.capital.

I know someone that I follow, it's also, you know, really— I think he's the largest Instagram— has the largest Instagram following in the world, is, uh, is The Rock. Yep, right.

So that's a good example.

Yep. I mean, he's, you know, obviously he's a personality for, for, you know, a number of different things that he's done, you know, in his career, from wrestling to, you know, to acting. Um, but he's amassed just an unbelievable following, uh, that he has then— like, it's really interesting to see the other business side of what he's done.

Yep.

Of, you know, starting to tack on products to that. Yeah.

Uh, his tequila brand became like the fastest tequila brand to a certain amount of sales, like faster than Casamigos, right?

Yeah, yeah. George Clooney set some records with Casamigos that I think was at 100,000 cases in the first year. And it was like, holy cow, look at the success he's had launching his own brand. And now you're seeing a lot, a lot of celebrities attaching their names to, you know, to liquor brands. But The Rock did it and blew it out of the water. Did they did a million cases. In the first year. It just like literally set like all sorts of crazy records for the amount of growth of a brand new liquor company.

I think it just goes to show that attention is the new oil, right? The oil from years ago that you became a, you know, multi-multi-millionaire, you know, what's the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, you know, from making from, from oil. And now attention like The Rock has, that's the new equivalent to oil, and he's been able to monetize that attention. You know, another guy, and this is a little closer to the business space, is like Grant Cardone. You know, I'm not, I'm not really a huge Grant Cardone 10X fan. That's not really my style per se. But, you know, he started out talking around just really car sales initially. And then he branched out into broader, like a broader, a bigger mass market around just sales. And then it was real estate and then it's just kind of become this bigger thing. But he started out initially just a lot smaller and then has just expanded. I think there's, there's a lot of examples, you know, with that. I'm going to ask you guys, Mikey, you may not. David, you might, given the age of your kids. So another, uh, group on YouTube— you guys know Dude Perfect? You guys know Dude Perfect?

No.

Oh my goodness, what in the world?

This is great.

I, I right now, I'm a Blippi guy.

Oh my goodness, like Dude Perfect is—

what's the other one?

They're number 25. They have 59 million YouTube subscribers, at least by this thing. They probably have more if we looked it up on YouTube. I'm actually going to pull it up. Okay, so for people listening to podcast.

Like Miss Rachel, huh? You may know this one too. I just heard about this one, Miss Rachel.

Oh yeah, Miss Rachel and Blippi are what like happen in my household right now. Okay. Yeah, I, I was very— I was a naysayer on Blippi. I was like, who is this? Just like a guy, it pretty much— it seems like he's a guy with an iPhone, you know, that like somebody's, you know, filming him and I'm like, oh, come on, what are you doing? Like, you're just— you're acting a fool. Like, come on, put— you know, stop talking like that, stop dancing around. And then I saw, you know, the revenue. I looked him up and I saw the revenue he was pulling in, and he's making like $2 million a month off of these videos.

What's he got? Okay, those are huge, but let me go to one a little bit smaller, but although It's not small, but comparatively. So for those of you that didn't— when we first jumped on, we were having another conversation talking about, you know, things that we're doing, and I happened to throw out, have you guys heard of MrBeast? And they, they didn't know. They didn't know MrBeast, like 160 million subscribers, and they'd never heard about him, which blew my mind on that. I'm totally going to do a solo episode about— it's gonna be called MrBeast.

Okay, I just Googled him. I saw like Tom Brady's throwing a football to drone on a $300 million yacht.

Yes, exactly, exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, what in the world?

Anyway, his name is Jimmy, actually, but, uh, the way to do it is to automate it.

Yeah, he's got a crazy story. So, okay, so, uh, here's another one. Look this one up while I'm talking to you about this one. So much smaller but similar, somewhat impact. And this one's more personal for my son Cooper, and it's MLW Wiffleball. MLW Wiffleball. So they got 416,000 subscribers and my son's 12, about to be 13. They have modeled their wiffleball leagues off of this league. Okay, so it is absolute cannot miss TV for Cooper and all of his buddies to watch when MLW drops one of their wiffleball games. They're in the middle of the season right now. And so at 6:45 tonight, Cooper has a wiffle ball game that I'm going to be going to. And they have got— listen, they've got jerseys, they've got a website. Okay, I won't put it on the podcast, but they've got a website for their Little League in Jones Valley and they're just doing it based off of this right here. Well, guess what? What have these guys done a really good job of? They have branded merchandise. So if you have an MLW, you know, Strike Zone or you have MLW swag or gear, like that's the end stuff. And then they're even doing in-person experiences. So these guys are taking their leagues that they've had for 15 years. And that actually is the last point I wanted to make. And I'll get your feedback on this. It's easy to look at this and go, What in the world? Like 3 days ago, they just dropped a game, the Cobras versus the Gators. Yeah, that has 104,000 views in 3 days on a wiffle ball. But here's what's key. I think they've been doing this for like 10 years.

Yeah.

Okay. This has not been like 2 years and then they got all these subscribers. This is not like an Andrew Tate type thing where he goes on to a platform and like, oh gosh, we're not going to talk about Andrew Tate on here, but Like, my point is, is like wherever he goes, like, people follow, whether you hate the guy or like the guy. But they've been doing this for a long period of time. And I think that is one of the, like, the business lessons is because you look at this and go, well, heck, I want 416,000 subscribers on YouTube. Yeah, but how many videos and how many years have they been filming this stuff to get to that point? Does that make sense, Micah?

Mm-hmm.

Bradley, I always hear that and I totally get it, right?

Yeah.

But I guess, how do you determine at what point are you just going to be that guy that has like 10 people showing up to your YouTube show 15 years from now and it never catches, right? Or is it like, you know, which, which ones take off and which ones don't, right? And so I get the consistency part. It's always interesting to see like which ones actually do catch and which ones don't, right?

I think it's gotta, it's gotta be, you know, I was talking about our team this morning. It's Monday when we're recording this. But, you know, how do we make the content better for our listening audience? I mean, whether it's this episode or Monday interviews or Fridays, to me, that's what it ultimately comes down to, is that there's the aspect of consistency, although I wouldn't dismiss that. Well, number one, like just doing something over a long period of time. A lot of people— okay, here's the idea. Around that, David, is I think that if you take a salesperson that comes and works for you and they do 1,000 quotes, like 1,000 sales calls, they can't help but not be better on the 1,000th one than they were at the first one. Does that make sense? Is that fair? So I think that the person who shows up, unless they just are completely oblivious and don't want to at all try to get better, I hope that I'm better on these podcasts now than I was 3 and a half years ago. You know, I hope so. And I hope I, I should be better 3 years from now than I am today. So that's my thoughts around that.

Gotcha.

There's kind of, kind of some like consistent improvement that you get from— yeah, from showing up, right?

Just doing it. I mean, just doing it over, you know, 1,000 opens 1,000 sales calls, you know, well, you know, you're just going to be— it's hard. It becomes unreasonable for somebody not to get better. You know, I mean, I used to—

I think it's also about embracing like new processes, new ways of doing it. Like you can't be, you know, the exact same, you know, cold caller just doing the exact same cold calls and cold call script for 10 years, right? Yep. You know, like, yeah. You're probably going to have some results, but it's probably not going to like hockey stick at some point, right? Yeah. You know, can— are you adapting with the times, right? Are you coming up with new processes? Are you now embracing, you know, email or different CRM platforms that help you stay on task and sequences out so that you can do more with less, right? You can get actually more done in the same amount of time. Or, you know, I think with this, I'm just reading up on, on this literally, or the Wiffle Ball series now. I mean, you know, they're embracing all sorts of the new technology too, and they're, they're actually larger on TikTok than they are on YouTube, right? So, you know, interesting that, you know, they're starting to use some of the, you know, the what's in, right? The new, they're not just like, hey, we started this on YouTube and that's it, right? You know, they're starting to look at what's going on, where do I adapt, how can I grow our market over time.

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We can go down this, this rabbit hole, Bradley. I think you brought it up, like all the American presidents using all new media.

Oh yeah, yeah.

This is something else this weekend about, uh, all the new like CEOs are too. Like, you know, you got this whole NVIDIA thing where they hit a trillion dollar market cap. Apparently the CEO, he only wears a leather jacket. He's only been seen like once without a leather jacket on, you know, a whole little side, side conversation, right?

But he uses Reddit.

Reddit is his platform. Platform is like that. He's, you know, I think maybe Steve Jobs was something else, right? Uh, you got Meta with, you know, Zuckerberg was something else, but this guy's platform was Reddit. So he like has this whole community following on Reddit, and that's kind of how he's built this whole brand up.

Yeah, yeah. I think whether— I mean, the examples we've, we've talked about MrBeast, we've threw out Dude Perfect, MLW, somebody on Reddit. Different Facebook groups people have, The Rock, etc., I think at the end of the day, what you end up finding is basically communities. I think it's just people who then follow certain people. And, you know, hopefully people are following us because we want to be able to provide, you know, make business information accessible to, to, to people that follow us and Club Capital and be able to help serve. And, and build better business owners, you know, along the way. I mean, that's personally what I'm the most interested in. David, we were having a discussion before that, like, I just love all things business, you know. I could talk about business literally all day because pretty much I do, um, and that's what I really enjoy. And I think, Mikey, you're the, you're the exact same way. And so, like, you end up curating, um, what was the thing, uh, my neighbor said the other day? He was like, oh, 'What did you do today?' or something like that. It was just a kind of casual conversation. She's like, 'Oh, we did this pottery thing.' I was like, 'Oh, that's great. You know, I'd love to maybe take my daughter to do that because she loves arts and crafts stuff.' And he was like, 'Yeah, next week is National Pottery Week.' And I said, 'Oh really? Is that like a big thing?' And he was like, 'Oh, it's huge.' I'm thinking, 'What? No idea. What are you talking about?' And it's just like with people, who are listening to this around the wiffle ball, they have like no idea. Well, I didn't either until Cooper a couple of years ago really got into this wiffle ball thing. And it's like, oh, now it's kind of a no-brainer. Or, you know, MrBeast. Do you guys know who MrBeast was? It's like, no, I have no idea. It's like, oh, half the world does. But that's okay. You guys don't, you know, it's just like we live under a rock apparently. But yeah, exactly. No pun intended on the rock, you know. Well, Michael, what do you think are like the 2, 1 or 2 business lessons from this?

Well, I think community is strong, right? So, and it's something that we're trying to, to do, you know, I think a better and better job at, at Club Capital where, you know, I think some, some people have done a really good job kind of going along the path of community to monetization. right, of trying to figure out a way of like, I've got great content now, how do I actually make money with content that I have, right? Where, you know, for different reasons, right, we're trying to actually go the other way and actually put a little bit more community around all of the products and services that we have to make it even stronger. But community at you know, just in and of itself within, within a brand is just incredibly strong. And the businesses that have a really great community around them, you know, tend to be, you know, I think, able to, to grow at different paces, have more loyal customer bases that will just listen and grow with you as you continue to build out your products over time.

I totally agree with that. I think that I know that there are aspects to where— I mean, some people listen to this, like, I'm not super political, um, you know, one way or the other, and I just don't talk about it on the, on the podcast because I just don't— I'm not personally that into it. Um, I think that there are times where people kind of get in these, what I've heard people call echo chambers, and that's the negative way to kind of look at it, is like all you hear is like left-wing stuff, or all you hear is right-wing stuff, or all you hear is whatever. Does that make sense? But then there's the other side of that same coin that is very healthy. Oh, these are my people. They're really actually trying to get better as a business owner. Like they're talking about things, they're sharing templates, they're sharing best practices, they're sharing these kind of things. Like they love to geek out about this type of thing. Well, some people relate to that and some people don't, and that's totally fine. Like I love to play golf. Well, I'm not just a casual golfer that's going to go buy my golf clubs at, you know, a Dick's Sporting Goods. I would rather— I will go and geek out on a certain driver shaft. Well, somebody else that doesn't— that casually plays golf would have no understanding. Why would I spend $1,000 on this driver shaft? That makes no sense in the world, right? It's like, well, it's important to me. I know, like, you guys are big soccer fans. I just don't know soccer, like, you know, whatever. And so like the other day I saw this kid playing wiffle ball and he did like Ronaldo's celebration thing or something like that. And I didn't know what that was. And so this kid said, oh, he just did, you know, Ronaldo or something like that. And I was like, what is that? And so they were like, oh, you don't know what that is? And so they showed me. I was like, okay, I didn't know. Well, you know, to a soccer person who really knows that, You guys would know, right? And like, you just don't get it. You're right. I don't get it. That's exactly right. And that's okay. Does that make sense, David?

Yeah.

Did we talk about this last time? Like, you mentioned the political echo chamber. I feel like this is happening with all these groups. Like, you mentioned golf, so I started trying to get better at golf, right? And then also all the social media companies know I'm a golfer, right?

Exactly.

Right.

Man, this is like really escalating this hobby because all I see 24/7 now is stuff on this hobby, right?

So exactly, they do. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You know, they're listening right now. All of our, like, our whole algorithm is going to be all messed up on all of our social media because it's like, what do we target them? They're talking about so many different things.

Anyway, you almost have to like catch yourself. You're like, man, meant to get into this, but now I'm like really getting into this. Is it because of this?

I think there's—

I think there's huge value in community. I've said on the podcast a bunch, get in the— get in the— get in the rooms, get in the rooms, whether they're virtual or in person, and have a seat at the table of the people that are doing the things that you want to do. That's it for sure. All right, guys. Enjoyed it. Good podcast.

Awesome. Thanks, Bradley.

All right. Later, Bradley.

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world, yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation. Check them out at club.capital.