BEST Moments of StickTalk Podcast

I remember in one of his videos, he said, if you want to do something, don't wait till tomorrow. Like, go right after this video is over and, like, start it.

You always need someone in your corner to challenge you. Yeah, you're doing good, but you can do better.

I built a model so hard to compete with, I was dropping 30 to 50 GS a day. On branding? No, CTA.

We have never done any business together. I wouldn't do any business with Grant. I don't want to do business with Grant.

The point, like, when you're doing E comm, it's like, it's all design. As long as the email goes out, you're gonna make money. It doesn't matter what the fuck you say. That's why ecommerce email is such an easy thing to do because it's like all it is is, like, someone to just sit there and send emails.

It's really given a lot more license to folks like you guys and folks across the media landscape, no matter what business you're in.

This is my personal philosophy. I'm a really good videographer, but I've made it because I'm really good at Sal.

What was it like running away from the police in Vietnam? That was the most adrenaline packed, like, hour of my entire life.

Did you know the stakes going into it, or did you look it up after and realize what?

No, obviously, like, I knew the stakes. Should I paint a little picture for the people that don't know?

Yeah, tell us how you got into this predicament.

So, yeah, let me paint the picture, because, so me, my brother, we're Vietnamese, even though our channel on YouTube is called Ireland Boys Productions, makes absolutely no sense, but it's because Ireland is my last name. So my mom's from Vietnam. We decided it does make sense, but, like, if you look at me, it doesn't.

You know, Is that a Vietnamese last name or where'd that come from?

My dad's white.

Oh, gotcha.

So that's where it comes from. But so my mom's Vietnamese. She flew. She came over after, like, the war. She never been back. So we wanted to take her back. We took her back to Vietnam. And while we're there, we decided, hey, we want to film a prank. Because that's what I do. Pranks, challenges, whatever. So when we're there, I have the idea. I'm like, yo, I want to dress as a cop in Vietnam and then mess around with tourists. Like, mess around with white dudes and tell them, like, oh, what to do.

Hilarious.

Like, I would mess around with you if you were there. Yeah. You know what I mean?

I would have been very confused.

So we get there, I buy a uniform. You can just buy a police uniform on the side of the road for like, it was like 40 bucks. I buy it and I just start going off. I get. Start telling people what to do. I'm like, yo, you, sir. Yeah, yeah. I was telling people, no picture here, no picture here. I was like, I'd be like, you, sir, you have to get down and give me 10 push up right now or else I give you 50. Fine. And I would just tell them to do, like, everything. And we're filming the whole day. And the last scene that I wanted to film was to go to the beach and scream, shark. And get everyone running out of the water. So right before I'm about to do that, the SD card gets full on our camera. So my brother pops it out. And while that happens, five cops come running at us in Vietnamese, like, they're screaming at us. They're like, I don't even know what they're saying. I'm Vietnamese, but I don't even know what they're saying. And they're screaming at us. They're like, you're going to jail. Like, they knew broken English. All I heard was jail. They put her hands behind her back. Me and my brother, and I'm like looking at my brother and I'm like, yo, if we go to jail in Vietnam, bro, it's over. You know, at the time, I was like 19. So in your brother, he was like 17. But in Vietnam, it don't matter, bro. It's not like America. You can't. If you go to jail here, you can, like, talk your way out of it. You can get a good lawyer there. It's like, you're done. You're done. You might die in jail. So we both look at each other, don't even say anything, and we just run, like, across, like, a highway. We run, like, through the back alleyways all the way back to our hotel. And we escaped. Long story short.

And you, your brother did a little sleight of hand, right, with the SD card he did.

So the SD card he popped, he had it out because it was full. And we popped another SD card in the camera and gave them a different SD card.

Oh, you gave him the empty one?

Yeah, cuz they were asking for the SD card. They were like, yo, we need. We need the camera. And we're like, yo, here's the footage. But we didn't Give him the footage.

So you had your hands behind your back. Did you just say, like, look at your shoes? They're untied or.

No, bro. So in Vietnam, bro, the people are, like, small over there. Like, even the cops, they're like, the biggest dude was like, five, three.

So you're looking down at the cop.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm not, like, big by any means, but I'm like, to some, that's five, three. I'm definitely big. So we just, like, ran. Yeah, bro, but we should. I should still be in jail because we talked to a local Vietnamese person. Someone else was trying to do the same exact thing that we were doing. But they weren't filming a prank. They were just trying to finesse tourists. So they'd stop in the middle of the road, and they'd be like, if you want to pass by, you have to pay a fine or, like, a fee. Yeah. And you being, like, an American tourist, you just do it like, oh, this is a cop. Yeah. So they got in trouble, and that person did five years, or they were doing five years. Wow.

Five years.

Yeah.

60 months.

Yeah. So you.

So I was getting out.

I'd be getting out next year if I was alive. Yeah. Yeah.

That's crazy. But you decided to go march on lynch instead and just broke free and started running.

You just got to take it into your own hands. Because, like, sometimes. I'm not saying run from the cops, but, like, sometimes. Sometimes, yeah, run from the cops, bro. Yeah.

So real quick, paint the picture for the audience on what you actually do, because I feel like that was just a crazy story.

Yeah, that was like, Right.

What does this guy do? Like, you're an entrepreneur. You go to school. Like, what's the deal?

Yeah. So how in depth do you want me to go? Like, give a little backstory of, like, how I started what I'm doing. Yeah. So, like, growing up, I. I always liked filming stuff. I always just enjoyed filming on my ipod touch, like, on my iPad. And one day, I was watching this YouTuber named Roman Atwood. Do you guys know Roman Atwood? Yep. He's like an og, like, vlogger, prankster.

He's the one that made, like, pranking mainstream.

Yeah, he made it mainstream. Like the og, like, vlogging, too, Honestly, like, daily vlogging. But I remember in one of his videos, he said, if you want to do something, don't wait till tomorrow. Like, go right after this video is over and, like, start it. And I looked at my brother because every time we got home from school, Me and my brother would watch him, like, together. We like, eat cheez its and then watch him, like, the ritual of the day. And he said that. And I looked at him, I'm like, yo, we gotta start. So that day we like, took our ipods. I didn't even have a phone at the time. And we filmed our first ever YouTube video, which was Invisible Rope Prank, which, if you don't know, it's like you wait for a car to like be driving by, then you run up past the car, across the street, pretend like you're grabbing a rope. And then me and my brother would be like holding it back and forth, and the car would stop and he'd be like, what are you doing, bro? And then we'd be like, there's no rope, bro.

Just pass through.

Yeah.

Okay, so, so tell us how you get from the invisible rope prank to where you're at now. Because I know there's a lot of different crazy stories we could go into, but this guest, Ricky, has by far the biggest following of anybody that we've interviewed. You guys have over four million.

Four million on our main YouTube channel. Then we have a vlog channel with like two and a half million, and then like TikTok, Instagram, all that stuff.

Okay, so how does YouTube. Yeah. How does it go from you and your brothers just messing around to wow, like, this is actually happening? This can be our full time thing.

Yeah. So that was the first video we ever did posted. It got like, dude, probably got like 10 views. Five of them are me, four of them are my brother, and one of them was probably our mom and Roman. I would, would always say, like, roman, I was probably my biggest inspiration, bro. He always say, like, if you want to do it, like, you got to be consistent. So I told my brother, he's like 12 at the time. I'm like 15. He's like, barely in middle school. I'm like freshman in high school. And I'm like, yo, bro, we got to grind, bro. We got to be consistent. He's like, dude, I'm a kid, bro. Chill out. But I was like, yo, we can do this, bro. So every week we made a promise that we would post. Every Friday we would post a video. So every week we'd come up with an idea, even if it was dumb. Like, I don't know, we would order like 300 chicken nuggets and see who could eat them the fastest. Like, dumb stuff, you know?

Pretty entertaining, actually.

Yeah, just like stuff that you think of doing as a kid and then you Just like, you actually do it. And we just did it and then we filmed it. We were probably filming for like two years. Nothing popped off. And my brother, like, had to sit me down. He was like, yo, bro, you're being. You're being really annoying about this. Because I was kind of anal. I was like, yo, bro, we need to grind. This needs to be, like, structured. And he's like, I'm trying to be a kid. So he took a little break. We took like a couple month break. And I still wanted to do YouTube. So one day I was like, yo, bro, I'm not gonna be. I'm not gonna be an asshole anymore. I'm gonna be like, cool about it. So then we start grinding again. And at the time, this is probably about three years of making YouTube videos consistently. We do a challenge or like a trend. I don't know if you guys remember when, like, spending the night in stores was like a big Trend, like a 24 hour challenge. You guys remember that? Yeah. So I was watching the videos and I could see everyone was faking them. I could just tell. I was like, oh, this is all fake. They're getting millions of views. Watch. What if we actually did it for real? And everyone in my school was like, bro, you're an idiot. This is dumb. You're gonna get arrested. I'm like, yeah, but I wanna do it. And it was right before my 18th birthday. I was like, 17. We scouted out a target for weeks. We were looking at it. We were like, all right, this is when the employees leave. This is when security comes in. So we have like a window. And one night we just went in there, hid behind the baby strollers, spent the night, filmed the whole entire thing, posted it. Next day, got like a thousand views. That was your biggest crazy, bro. Next day, going to school, 5,000 views.

And this is after, like two and a half years.

Two and a half years of, like, consistently posting Nothing.

Thousand views, 5,000 views.

Not even big numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Two and a half years into it.

Two and a half years. So like, first day, we post the video, 1,000 views. Second day, 5,000. Third day, hit it. Hit the trending page or algorithm or whatever. Million views. It was crazy, bro.

Were you and your brother just, like, freaking out, bro?

Yeah, we were like, dude, we looked on. So there's this web website called Social Blade where you can see the top growing YouTube channels in the past 30 days. It was PewDiePie, dude, perfect. And then us, because we gained like, bro, I don't know. We gained like 100,000 subs in a matter of, like, I don't even know how fast it was. It was crazy. Yeah. And then ever since then, we kind of just started spending the night at more places.

I ran into PBD, who I'd known since 2012. We met working out in a gym at a financial conference, of all places. Didn't know anything about valuetainment. He knew nothing about me. Valtamin even started yet. Found out his business idea. I'm like, I like that.

Cool.

Because I. I would call on hundreds of PBD's every day. That was my specialty financial wholesaler. I would call the big insurance company guys, financial type guys, and just create the relationship. And I ran. I would see him every year. Every year, Every year. We just kept in touch. In 2016, I was like, why don't you tell me about this whole value attainment thing? What's this? You know, at this point, it was just him doing sort of whiteboard or blackboard material. You know, 20 keys to success. 10 tips for an Entrepreneur. I was like, yeah, what's up with all this stuff? He's like, yeah, just start doing shit. He's like, here's my advice for you. Get a camera. Get a camera guy. Start doing stuff. At this point, I was still in that niche phase where I was doing just money content. Here's a. Here's advice from a former brokey, became a millionaire party boy in south beach that actually knows something and what he's done with his money. And for years and years and years, about three, four years, I would just do money content, save that money, how to budget your money, how to invest. Just, you know, the. The advice that the boring financial advisors a can't give you because they have fiduciary responsibility to maybe not the public sector or they just don't resonate with you and just sort of turn them out. And I started doing that, and it started doing well. And then lastly, the kind of the bottom piece to the. To the hourglass figure. Someone's probably out there. It's like, is Adam, you know?

It's like, yeah, I'm not talking about girls.

Hourglass figure.

You want it everywhere you go.

So it was like, all right, cool. Let me, let me. Because Pat will always challenge you. You always need someone in your corner to challenge you. Yeah, you're doing good, but you can do better. Hey, like, you've made some money. You can make more. Like, you've helped people. You can always help more. And then I started to go wide into Stuff we talk about here at valuetainment, not only is it business and entrepreneurship and. And money and capitalism, free enterprise, but it's also politics and culture wars and pop culture. And so now I think I found myself where I went wide. I developed this base of things I was interested in.

Right.

People, nightlife, culture, comedy.

All right.

I refine that into a specific skill set, which was financial sales made my money. And now on the back end, sort of, right now, I'm going wide. And, you know, you ask, hey, is there anything you want to talk about? We can go wherever you want to go. So I think that. That for most young men, just to give them advice, it's okay to not know what the hell you want to do when you're 23.

Yeah.

Or you're 19 or even 25, but by 30, you should have a specialty.

Yeah.

And then make your money. And that's where you can kind of go wider and do more things that you were interested in when you were 21. I'm doing things now when I'm 42 that I wanted to do when I was 21, but I couldn't do because I was fucking broke. But I made my money now. Now I can just do podcasts and talk shit all day, so I think that's important to identify as.

Yeah. So you mentioned you met PBD in.

The gym, like, eight years before you guys actually started working together.

Yeah.

What was it like to build that relationship? Like, how did you build enough trust to be. I think you mentioned, like, the first signee of Valuetainment.

Yeah. You know, good things take time. When I met Pat, I didn't go in for the kill of a sale. There was nothing really selling at that time. I was just creating a relationship. He didn't necessarily do what I was doing, but we got along. You know, people like doing business with people they like.

Right.

Why'd you pick that guy? I just like the guy. I don't know. All right. That's why I bought from him. So I just, you know, watered the seed, watered the plant. Hey, Pat. What's going on? Are you gonna be at this meeting? Hey, don't forget about your buddy. If you're ever in Miami, like, whatever. But I didn't just do that with Pat, though.

Yeah.

I didn't know Pat in 2012 would be Pat, who he is now, gangster. He was just kind of starting out, but I did that with everyone. Hey, if you're ever in town, if you ever need anything. But I identified what Pat was doing, and I Said, all right, that guy's on to something. And I made a list of the 10 people I thought were just, just crushing it in their sector. And I was like, all right, well, if I write my name on this list, what do I want to crush it at? I don't know yet. Let me find that out. So I wrote like, Dave Ramsey crushes it in personal finance.

Right?

Tai Lopez, who I know you guys interviewed. And I did interviews with him years ago. Social media, arguably, you know, Grant Cardone, real estate, social media. And the list goes on. Tony Robbins, public speaking, motivation, pbd, entrepreneurship. So I was like, all right, what's Adam Sosnick want to be? So I, I think your question was like, how that relationship blossomed in 20, 20, 19. I was sort of in a inflection point in my life. The girl that I was dating with, she got cancer, she got sick. It was, got me all up. My dad died that a few months later. Sometimes you're, you know, in your, in your moment of, of weakness and darkness, you're gonna go through those depressing type phases. And I met with Pat. I was in Dallas. I came to his office, I was like, I don't know why, I just, I feel like I gotta see, you know, I'm like, are you going to be at this meeting in Dallas? I won't be there. I'm like, still need to see him. So we met, we spoke, and I think he just identified some sort of talent in me. Now there might be people out there. This guy's talented. All right, I can do this too.

You can't.

And we got to talking, but that took another nine months. Even though he knew me eight years prior, that took another nine months to say, if I bring you on to valuetainment, to be my running mate, to be my sidekick, to be around me, I need to know you're not going to fuck me over and like, screw me. Like, however way. I need to know what skeletons are in your closet. I need to know where you stand on this, this, this and this. But I've always been going back to my football and basketball days. Part of a team. And I like how you guys have a team. You're not a solopreneur. There's the three of you, the three amigos. Some might say the three stooges. I don't know, you guys are crushing it.

Three headed monster.

Three headed monster. I said, I've always wanted to be a part of a team. And you know what, Pat? I'm cool with being the Steve Curd. You're Michael Jordan or the Scotty Pippen. Your Michael Jordan.

I'm cool with yourself, Scott.

Yeah, I'm just at that point.

Wait, wait, you said Jordan. Jordan's a goat, right?

Jordan's the goat.

Yes.

Not even a question. Even though I was an Isaiah Thomas fan, my dad was from Detroit. That's random, right? I said, look, and sometimes, you know, they say that your ego is not your amigo. Dude, I will gladly be your number two and you're the number one. And I'm totally cool with that. And there's never going to be a day where I'm like, I'm bigger and better than PBD because that guy is a beast.

If you don't understand a trade formula and you go old school, which is what a lot of people, the current business model is, get a lot of attention. These dudes ain't going to win because you don't have the back end to support the front end. Dude, when I was humming with Tai Lopez.com, i built a model so hard to compete with, I was dropping 30 to 50 GS a day on brandy. No CTA, because you always. I divide business into 14 divisions. There's 14 divisions of business, okay? 12 are operational and there's three in marketing. So you need push marketing, pull marketing and outbound marketing, which is phone sales. So push marketing is when you're paid ads. Poll marketing is no call to action. Branding like Coca Cola just used to have, you know, Michael Jackson dance or Pepsi and his drinking. There was no clear call to action. So you couldn't compete with me because I could spend, you know, how many views I can get with 30 GS, a million a month on branding. So what I'm saying is if somebody uses my trade formula, goes hardcore, you have so much more free cash flow, AKA net margins that you can blow out. People whose only business model is getting a lot of attention. Everybody's going to get a lot of attention now. And TikTok, dude, the greatest hack on entrepreneurs named brains was the Chinese. They figured something out. Let somebody be a celebrity from a day and they're hooked like a crack addict. So everybody's on Instagram, they got their 8,000 followers. They're posting a video. It gets, you know, 147 likes. Then TikTok came out. They'd post the same video over there. And TikTok, the Chinese, I could just imagine. Chinese are cunning as a culture, right? As a cunning culture. The art of war, you know the art of war. Sun Tzu So the cunning is like Sun Tzu says, the greatest general wins without fighting. So how do you win against Instagram without fighting? Become a drug dealer. It's a great business model. What's your drug? Dopamine. How do people experience dopamine recognition? So you post that 147, like video, and they're like, every dog gets his day. It's his day. That post let it have 60,000 views. Dudes are like, TikTok fucking rules now. And then they destroy your engagement from then on. But they also know they're smart, they're cunning, they're like, if we okay the crack addict, we give him his rush, but then nothing goes Viral for like three months. Then he's going to leave TikTok, go back to Instagram. So let's set the algorithm. Every dog gets his day about every 42 posts.

Yeah.

So the dude is hooked like crack. It's like, I need. I gotta post again. So they get insane amount of post people posting. And remember, there's only so many eyeballs in this world. There's only 2 billion people online. So you can't give everybody a million views per post. But they're like new accounts. We're going to give them a drug dope. And they probably mathematically charted it off. Talk about a decay function. How long do you stay loyal to something without a dopamine drug rush? So they probably. I could see Chinese PhDs sitting there, 600 of them working for the machine. And it's like we've calculated the golden number. It's 47.3 days.

I just got like a viral TikTok. So I'm like, yeah.

And there was, there was somebody that we were with. I'm not going to name names because I don't know if the Chinese are going to somehow find this and like go back this person and fire him. But they would literally say his girlfriend worked at TikTok. Her job would be like, hey, find somebody this week and make them a celebrity.

Yes.

So that's exactly what the game plan.

Escobar1 1, the only drug dealer in this game. But to be clear, TikTok also spent $18 billion in one year on push marketing. So you both need the push and the pull. They pulled you and they pushed it on you. And so if you don't follow the trade business model and you're going after first, see first wave. When I was there, you did not have to do as much. Like when I started 67 steps, I can make 100 GS a day I didn't have a phone center. I didn't need to maximize my LTV because my CPA was low. I was getting people, I was getting my CPA. Let's say my CPA was, you know, 50 bucks to acquire a person online, a credit card. And my EPA immediately was 100 earnings per acquisition with no rebuild, with no phone center. So now second wave came in, they saturated the market. So CPAs, you, you're not gonna be able to acquire it at 50 bucks because all these dope fiends on social media are chasing their fix, taking up eyeballs that would have been that were mine in 2015.

One of the most fascinating things when I was doing my research on you was just how like your career and grants like just entirely separate the whole way, even though you guys are both massively successful in your own right. I work with family. I mean, he's my cousin. We don't look much alike at all. But we're first cousins. I don't work with any like direct siblings or anything like that. But have you, have you ever worked with Grant in any capacity or just absolutely off limits?

No, we have never done any business together. I wouldn't do any business with Grant. I don't want to do business with Grant. And mostly the reason is I don't want to explain anything to you him. I never ask him. I invest with him. Grant could not ask me questions that are relevant to what I do. And it's not his like, he different skill sets well. And he doesn't do my like, he hates my business model. He'll tell you, man, the way he invests is extremely boring. It does not require a lot of intelligence. It doesn't. Real estate does not require a lot of intelligence at all. So a lot of capital, very boring exercise for me. It's extremely boring. I, I don't. But he's doing something different. Yeah. So I'm not making. He's done extremely well.

I.

If I'm going to go invest in real estate, I will do it through him and not because my fees are lower than yours or I get the same deal. I don't ask for a special deal. I hate people that ask for special deal. It's so irritating. But he picks these properties like his picker is awesome. He knows what he's looking for. I've never asked him a question about one investment. Never said, hey, what's my distributions like? And that's the kind of. He couldn't do that with me. And he likes cash flowing businesses. He doesn't understand these 50x trades. So like didn't node 40. I look at node 40 and go, okay, I got 4 million in it. I'm probably going to do another 4. And that 8 million is probably going to turn into 400, 300 million. And I'm willing to wait. I think it's a great trade. Requires a little time and energy for me to make sure the execution is correct. But I can't do that on an apartment building. And if I did do it on an apartment building, I'm going to have to wait 10 years.

And you can't do anything for it?

Well, not really. I mean, no, I'll add. No, there's no intellectual value I can add now. All the stuff he's going into, like every one of them are cash flowing business. The medical stuff, that is. I would hate that business. I have no interest in any consumers. Do not want a consumer anywhere near me because I like dealing with professionals. Yeah, it's so much easier to deal with Goldman than anybody else. Like the pros, they don't get upset. Oh, you got me. Okay, cool. Let's do another trade next week. You'll get me. No, not really.

That sounds like me and my bookie.

Yeah.

When was the last time you won from your bookie?

Last week.

But it feels like he's been waiting to get back.

It feels like you win, but it's just you're making back what you lost.

Yes, exactly.

When did you realize like you were that guy when it came to copywriting? Like how long did it take you to get to that level of confidence with that skill?

It took me a while, I think. Like when I felt like I was really good, I was probably about a year in when I felt like I kind of do anything like for a while. Like you're going to feel like a little bit. I mean what about you? Because you're, you're copywriter.

I feel like I'm a very different breed than you.

You?

Yeah, you're B2B.

I do like very logical. You do Very emotional.

Yeah, I mean, well, I kind of like I didn't really get a chance to like flex the muscle too much because I was doing ecom and like I can write an E comm email in like legit 90 seconds. But because it, you, you, yours is, yours is more like you test a lot. So it's like one script that you run forever and you test it, but.

The things that you write are very outside the box. Like how do you Write that in 90 seconds?

Like this is gonna hit so an E commerce. E commerce email. And I only know this because I, I worked at Structured with Chase and Nick Chase diamond. And so like I had to Write legit like 20 emails a day and I had to figure out. It's so it's, it's subject line, preview text, header, subheader, call to action, subhead body, call to action. And you. It's. It's. We talked about this last time where it's like Mad libs. You just fill in the blanks. Where it's like the subject line is like basically just something catchy that you think of. I would literally have like notes on my phone of like just all the funny that I would think of where. And I think about like brands I could use it with because I was on like probably 10 brands at the agency and and so I'd be like, oh, that's a funny thing. I can give that to Disco or I can give that to Balls or I can give that to a system. And so I would just like, that would be one of my lines. And the preview text is sort of like just hypes up the subject line and the header is like literally just like what the email's about. Subheaders, a one liner where it's like, what can you say to support the idea? So like let's say it's like Memorial Day, right? So like subject line, 30% off for memorial Day. Preview text, get in for duh duh duh. Header, third off just for you. Subheader, you know, whatever Memorial Day means to the brand. Call action. And then subheader. It's like here's what other people are saying. Body reviews, Call to action is just a call. It's like super fucking easy. It's like barely copy. Ecom is like really fucking easy. I, I actually started to get good when I started to do more like personal brand stuff when I was like writing for like real offers. And like my, my words actually mattered because like before, like when you're doing E Comm, it's like it's all design. As long as the email goes out, you're going to make money. It doesn't matter what the fuck you say. Like that's why E commerce email is such an easy thing to do because it's like all it is is like someone to just sit there and send emails. It doesn't matter what you say. That's why like I have a lot of respect for you guys. Know Zaraq?

Yeah. Yeah.

Mailer Profit.

Yep.

He actually does it Right. Because he actually can get, like, legitimate results with emails. Because, like, the stuff he says in the emails actually matters.

Yeah.

Like, people are actually reading it, and it's like, more direct response. But, like, the old strategy is literally just fill all the holes. So it's not about, like, what the emails actually say. It's just like, what part of the customer journey do you put emails in?

What.

What was the original question?

I thought you guys were talking about the difference in.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Emotional, versatile.

So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so the original question was, like.

Question was like, when did you feel like you were that guy when it came to copy?

It's about a year in. I. I remember, like, I remember I started to get a bit of an ego where it's just. I was getting so much inbound. People just want to work with me where I was like, I just felt like I could kind of charge whatever I wanted. And, like, I was kind of just doing whatever I wanted. And I was like. It was the first time where people were listening to me instead of the other way around. Like, your first client, they're like, we need you to do this. Do it. And I'm like, okay, it's like a job, right? But it's like a year in, you have a client, and they're like, hey, man, I really need these kinds of emails. And it's like, are you sure you want them?

You're like, no, you don't.

You need this.

Yeah. It's like, I. I would recommend this. And they're like, well, why? It's like, because this worked for this name drop, that you know, kind of thing. And then they're like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

How'd you come up with the disco email?

Which one?

The American Psycho.

Oh. Because bronze, guys. Remember bronze from Twitter?

Yeah.

Bron not around anymore.

No, Twitter.

He's banned. Yeah. You're not really on Twitter. No, I. Yeah, American Psycho is becoming, like, a trend on Twitter. And I think I just watched the movie and I was like, that'd be funny if we just sort of, like, did, like, an American Psycho kind of spin on. It's like, it's meant it's male skincare. And, yeah, I just kind of spun it up. It went out, and everyone loved it. Like, my metric for, like, when I was doing ecom email, like, my metric for, like, a good email was not, like, how many, how much sales? Like, what's the number? Like, what's the revenue? Didn't really matter. It was more like, what does their inbox say? Like, cuz, like, I would ask one of the girls on the team, the disco team, I'd be like, yo, what's, what's the. What's the inbox looking like? And she was like, oh, my God, everyone loves this one. This is hilarious. Like, you killed it.

And so like that with, like, their responses to it.

Yeah, yeah. So that was.

People respond to ecom emails.

Yeah, bro.

People respond to you like, dude, if you say. If you tell people to respond, they will. Yeah, it's actually a good thing to do. I don't know. If you guys do that, you guys start doing that.

For list kit, I have like our email list.

Yeah, we do.

I might just drop a reply with feature requests or questions or just to say what's up?

When I started my email list, I knew that responses like, boost the deliverability. So I'm like, reply to this email and I'll send you a swipe file.

It was like, yeah, it's like the original auto dm.

It's a psychology, dude. I said, like, not to get nerdy, but did loom. Video strategy. With cold email, if you just send a video up front, it will get open far less than if you ask people if they want to see a video.

Then you get the intent.

Yeah, yeah.

Like what goes on behind the scenes of running a presidential campaign?

Yeah, it's. It's tough because you basically have to learn how to delegate to people across the country, Countless people across the country. In a lot of ways, it is like running, you know, a Fortune 500 company and that you've got people all over the place. They all need to be, you know, on the same page as far as objectives and messaging are concerned. And then you've got to run, you know, in the various different verticals. You know, you've got to massage members of Congress, you know, get them involved and out there endorsing and going on the road and really getting them to go out there and spread your message for you. Or you got to do voter context, like I said. Or you got to go out there and buy TV and media, you know, on all channels. It gets more diverse and more, you know, interesting every cycle. And so it really is. It's like running a Fortune 500 company. It's crazy.

Yeah.

So cool. And that's why I think Trump was such a qualified fit, is because he had the business experience and that's how he ran the country. Like a business.

Yeah. And I think, you know, where we really. You brought up, like, Fauci getting a medal and stuff. I mean, I think like in 2020 he heard that. Yeah, I remember, I remember.

But I'm doing sign language over here. We're having a conversation.

Right.

Well, I contend to this day I don't think he lost the election of Joe Biden. I think at the end we lost the election of COVID Right. When you think about it, you guys are media guys. Like every time someone put on a mask or someone had to like disinfect their fruit at a Whole Foods or whatever.

Yeah.

Like your everyday life has fundamentally changed.

Yeah, it's like a, it's like a $20 in kind donation to Joe Biden and he didn't have to do anything. And the media and social media, they were all in the tank from. So much so that I remember we cut an ad and I don't know this is reported anywhere, so you guys can talk about it. We cut an ad and it was all about like the Hunter Biden laptop, which I've, like, I've held the hard drive in my hands before. Like, it's real, It's a real thing. It's a tangible thing.

It's like the slideshow at the end of the hangover.

Yeah, pretty much. It's just. Yeah. Flow Rider starts playing whenever you open up the top. But like we, we cut stuff about that. We put in an ad and we're like, cnn, we want to spend a couple million dollars advertising on your network. Like, like, no, here's our money. They're like, well, this isn't, this can't be possibly be substantiated. Like, we want a copy of the laptop. Like, you know, I got a buddy who's got like three. You want one? Like, no. Like, that's not how this works. It's not credible. Like, we didn't report on it. That's not how any of this doesn't.

Make it credible just because you reported on it.

And I think, like, we see the rise. I think it's really given a lot more license to folks like you guys and folks across the media landscape to go out there and do their own thing independent of traditional legacy media. I think that them censoring the Hunter Biden stuff, the way they cover that election, has had such a wide impact not only on politics, but people outside of it are looking at what goes on when you trust a big established brand with what you're saying and they've made the decision. I think it's, it's so much more powerful. There's so many more content creators out there doing their own thing. Now as opposed to four years ago. And we'll be talking about this for forever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That along with the laws with absentee ballots because of COVID being expanded so far. I mean, he was up against a lot, but at the end of the day, Joe Biden, man, how do you lose that guy?

Yo, my favorite was the dead people that voted. That was my personal favorite. Yeah, there were people who were born 150 years ago who voted.

I like that.

That was cool.

They voted a dead person into office. I mean, he is like the cadaver in chief, bro. Like, he doesn't do anything like, okay, we're taping this today, this morning. Yeah, there's all this action going on in, in Israel and I think you mentioned you want to get into it. Yeah, homie didn't wake up to put out a statement. Like, he didn't put out a statement until like 10:30, 11:00am Gotta get those eight hours, man. Like, bro, that happened at like 2:00am like, you're not waking up like early enough to put out a statement before then. That's crazy. And like, you have something like that level and that scope happening and you've got some like, junior staffer in the NSC giving out statements to reporters at 4 in the morning.

It's crazy.

It's despicable. Like, no wonder bad stuff happens. Like there's, there's a literal dead body occupying the Oval Office. It's, it's awful.

Yeah, yeah.

Before we transition, what was, what's the dynamic like working on that 30 man team? Like, is Trump in a boardroom with you guys talking to you or do you even report to him at all? Or how does that work?

I'm not transitioning anywhere. I just wanted to be clear that we're not transitioning live on this podcast unless, unless something's going to happen off camera. I wasn't aware of. No, I mean, he, he. Basically what I like about Trump is that a lot of people view it as like chaos, but he likes like pit folks against each other. So, like, if you've got an idea and you've got an idea, he's basically going to encourage you both to fight to the death and then the best idea wins. And I think it's very toxic in non political setting, but in politics where there are so many different issues and everything, you have to approach from six or seven different angles, it's very helpful. Now when you get into office, it then becomes about, okay, who has the most access to them, who can, you know, because if you don't have access to the guy. You can't pitch him your ideas, and bad guys get in there and crap in, crap out. I mean, that's how it works.

So I guess my question was, have you ever sat with him and been like, we should do this, or do you report to somebody who reports to somebody who goes all the way up?

I've been in the room as we make decisions, so I can confidently say I've been in the room where you're pitching ideas back and forth. And he's literally stopped and been like, how many jobs does it make? Okay, go do it. Like, at the end of the day, that's what I love about him, is all about, like, tangible quality of life improvements. Like, when I was at the White House, I hit the mic. One of the projects I worked on was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And never, like, there's, like, studies out there about how long it takes for something to happen in Washington, D.C. for people in, like, local communities actually feel it.

Yeah.

And it's like, it's ages sometimes. You never feel or really even understand people up there doing stuff. But with that, it was special. It was. It was special because we. We did that. And then in, like, two weeks, everyone saw a rebate. Two weeks, like, your taxes went down. You weren't paying as much money, you know, to. To the federal government. And that is where I think, like, he doesn't get enough credit because, like, those are the criteria. Right. Okay, well, someone going to talk about it like, you. You can criticize them for being.

No one reported it.

Yeah, well, you can criticize him for being, like, narcissistic. He was always talking about. No one talks about the. I do, but, like, that was kind of like the criteria. Right. Like, if you're doing the right thing, people are going to be talking about it.

Sure.

Right.

Yeah.

No, and the economy was absolutely booming.

Right.

It was the strongest economy we've ever seen since, like, Clinton, when we had the surplus, like, way back. So he really only got, like two and a half years, three years to do stuff. And then Covid. Yeah, basically, shit hit the fan. So I guess for you guys, how do you even, like, begin to tackle the. The huge fucking task of saying, like, hey, this guy should still be president, even though the world just, like, shut down. Like, was that, like, your biggest hurdle, just trying to say, like, despite Covid, he should still win?

Yeah, it was. It was tough. And I think a lot of people criticize him for the way he handled it. But then those same people also Criticize him for. It's just like no one has made up their mind still. That's like how we as a nation will collectively address this. Like when they write textbooks for, you know, our kids whenever. If we ever have them, when they write those text back textbooks, no one really knows how that's going to shake out. Yeah, I mean we could probably guess. And so I think like what we're seeing is everyone. Everything's constantly evolving and people's true feelings about what happened aren't necessarily what was being communicated to the masses. Because Facebook, tick tock, Twitter, you know, legacy media, they were all censoring it.

Yeah.

Which is all proven like with the Twitter files and.

Oh yeah.

And everything. So that was shadow a doubt. Cuz like if there's a time of mass uncertainty, an outside person would say, okay, you want continuity. Like you don't want to change things. But every single media outlet was like, this guy's doing a terrible job. We need somebody in new. And they're like, why? Like just listen.

We.

Because we say so.

Yeah. I think like you ask about making the case for a second, a second run at things. There's two ways we can take this convo. This is where I wanted to go earlier. We were off camera, was just think about it, right? This guy is either gonna come in there and destroy Washington D.C. be like more unhinged than anyone because he's motivated to do so. He can only serve one term. Who fucking cares? Like he could come in here and just torch the place to the ground. Right. Or he could come in here and set up the future and you know, find some flag bearers and lay the foundation for future victories. There's really like no way we are going to know which way he's going to go. I think he's going to go in the former because the whole theme of this is unfinished business. Right? Like he's got to get back in there and get revenge. It's like a. It's like an action movie. You know, you got Arnold Schwarzenegger just blowing people's heads off. That's him. To like everyone in the primary. He doesn't have to show up to debates. I mean, that's crazy. He's out there like speaking. He was at a McDonald's or where was he the other day? He did an off the record stop while they were debating and Chris Christie had the balls to look in the camera like, I know you're watching Donald Duck.

That was the worst of all.

So crazy.

He's like, he's on camera somewhere actually, like campaigning. Like, it's, it's so funny. So I think he'll be unhinged and I think that's what people want. At the end of the day, I think in my most narcissist or my most, like, removed times and my most removed thoughts. Because when you look at what happened in like Pennsylvania where like Fetterman won or that guy in Georgia, like Warnock, like all those guys in Georgia that won that they probably shouldn't have, you think, like, people just kind of want a guy. It's like sports betting. Like they're gonna bet on the guy they think is gonna cause the most noise.

Yeah.

And, you know, they want the underdog and the anti establishment guy. And that's going to be him until he dies.

Everyone's always reaching out to like the Andrew Tate or the Ryan Serhant. And so it's so hard to get in front of them because that's where all the volume is going. But the, the son of the personal driver that's got 400 followers, he probably gets a DM. Like, it's like fan mail to him. He's getting excited over one DM and he's. Of course he's going to do something with it. So that's such a cool strategy.

Yeah.

And you got to do it tastefully, like.

Yeah.

Whenever you're making the pitch. Video.

Well, I was gonna say your videos, dude.

I will. Thank you. Like, the video quality is good, but the message is most important. Like, you gotta be good at sales.

Yeah.

No matter what business you're in. This is just my personal philosophy. Like, I'm a really good videographer, but I've made it because I'm really good at sales because I know how to talk to people. And so if anyone's watching and they're like, okay, like, I want to start, you know, making money, I kind of want to go out on my own and start a business. You can learn sales. Just my personal philosophy. You're gonna have a step up. You're going to be ahead of most.

Other sales is like, required.

What do you think? Yes. No, maybe.

Sales, everything 100%.

Yep.

So. Couldn't agree more.

Southern charm.

Basically, like, you know, if you don't have a great salesman in the company, it's just going to fall flat in its face.

Okay.

By far the most important person in the organization.

I'm super interested to go into, like, the, the actual video.

Right.

Because like you were saying, like, the video is important. The messaging is so important. So, like when you're sitting in front of the camera speaking to Ryan Sirhant or Andrew Tate, like, what's the pitch?

So I try to keep my pitches under 60 seconds. And one subtle thing that I do that maybe no one has ever picked up on, but I do it on purpose. I film with clocks behind me so they can see I do it in one take. Because when I'm editing it, like, if I don't do it in one take, you'll see that the hand go back, go back and forth. I always nail my pitches in one take. One take, I sit down and I just deliver it to the camera.

Are you a one hit wonder?

I always, at one take, I sit.

In my apartment, I'll hear him fire off loom, like, hey, Andre.

So just check.

Hey. Nope.

Like, hey, Andre, I'm just checking in on the set.

Nope.

It's the weirdest thing, but I'll do like seven, eight minute looms. If I need to explain something to a team, like, say there's a couple partners I didn't talk to on the sales calls. And it's always the first, like 30 seconds that I can't nail. Once I break past the 30 seconds, I could go for 45 minutes and it'd be perfect. But it's just like that beginning. I'm like, nope, that sounds stupid.

Nope.

What I was going to say off the cuff.

This sounds like it's more. It's all pre, you know, plan.

It is more. Now even Andrew's off the cuff. So just to kind of give the Andrew origin story. So I'd been following him on Twitter before he made his, you know, stratospheric rise to where he is now.

Yeah.

And he had maybe 40,000 followers. A decent amount.

Yeah.

Nothing crazy like what he has now. I saw that he made this podcast called the Emergency Meeting. And I remember I saw his podcast studio. I kid you not. I'm a big. And Andrew is a big proponent of this, and I'm a big proponent of this. Acting with speed. Like, get it done now. If you, if you think something needs to be done, do it as fast as possible. I'm sitting there, I've got a work list of like 100 edits that I have to get through that day. Like, my workload is just maxed out. And I'm like going on YouTube to, like, search up a song or something. And I see emergency meeting. I'm like, what is this? And I see that he has a podcast studio. And in that moment, I was like, he's Trying to make it big. Screw everything I'm doing right now. I'm making a pitch video and I'm sending it to him.

That's cool.

So I literally dropped everything. And I don't know why, but I think really good in the shower. And so I just started to shower and I hopped in. I'm like, what's my pitch gonna be?

What's my pitch gonna be?

What's my pitch gonna be? It's gotta be 60 seconds. I have to cater to his self interest, as most people do. He has an ego. It's not a bad thing. But how do I cater to his ego without just being a complete suck up? I was like, I got it. Set up the camera, press record. And if you watch the pitch video, I'm not even in frame. I walk into frame and I sit down in the chair. What's up, Tate? I have a. I almost remember it word for it. What's up, Tate? I have a proposal for you. 60 seconds, let's go. So I saw the emergency. I can almost repeat the whole thing verbatim. I just remember it. But anyway, what was the pitch? And I recommend anyone who's pitching, you have to cater to their self interest. So I told Andrew, I said, look, Andrew, you and I can both agree, you got the best cars, you got the best houses, you've got the money. You were four time world kickboxing champion. If you're the best in all of these things, and if you have the best in all of these things, why are you settling for a videographer who's decent? It's like, you need the best videographer, and I am the best. So here's what I'm gonna do for you. I will fly out to wherever you are. I don't care where you're at. All expense is on me. And I will make you a video for free. No risk to you. I incur the risk, and I want to show you what I'm capable of. And he said, meet me in Colombia. That's literally all he said. He said no. His first message, he said, G pitch.

He said, g pitch.

Meet me in Colomb, bro.

That's so on brand. And so anyway, yeah, dude, there's a lot to break down there before we get in the rest of the story, because the rest of the story is pretty crazy too. But, like, oh, man, the video pitched Andrew Tate. You're sitting in front of the camera.

Do you.

Do you just blast that one just off to Andrew Tate, or do you also send it to all of his team.

So it was one video directed to Andrew, so I didn't make multiple versions, but I blasted it out to as many accounts as I could find. So I did what Daniel teaches in his course. I scraped his email address and then I got on Twitter and there was a Cobra Tate. Cobra Tate fan. Cobra Tate. I mean, there's like, you know how it is. There's just tons of accounts, most of which aren't his. But I didn't know, like, maybe he does actually run.

Doesn't take much to send a DM.

Anyways, so I just sent it to everybody that I could find and then, yeah, I literally sent it to. I couldn't tell you how many did.

He answer over email or Twitter.

He answered through Instagram, through his verified account. That's when he had it. I guess that way he was basically showing like, hey, I saw it, so I'm reaching out to you. But no, I sent it to everybody that I could find and it worked, dude.

So, yeah, it's so cool. I think the biggest thing to take away from that is like, if you're trying to get someone to do something, show them, like why they shouldn't. Why is it in their interest to want to do something like that? You made it a no brainer pitch is what she did show video, right? Because like you were saying, like, the video is important. The messaging is so important. And so like when you're sitting in front of the camera speaking to Ryan Sirhan or Andrew Tate, like, what's the pitch?

So I try to keep my pitches under 60 seconds. And one subtle thing that I do that maybe no one has ever picked up on, but I do it on purpose. I film with clocks behind me so they can see. I do it in one take because when I'm editing it, like, if I don't do it in one take, you'll see that the hand go back, go back and forth. I always nail my pitches in one take. One take, I sit down and I just deliver it to the camera.

Are you a one hit wonder?

I always, at one take, I sit.

In my apartment, I'll hear him fire off loom, like, hey, Andre.

So just check.

Hey.

Nope, just like, hey, Andre, I'm just checking in on the set.

Nope, it's the weirdest thing. But I'll do like seven, eight minute looms if I need to explain something to a team, like, say there's a couple of partners I didn't talk to on the sales calls. And it's always the first, like 30 seconds that I Can't nail. Once I break past the 30 seconds, I could go for 45 minutes and it'd be perfect. But it's just like that beginning. I'm like, nope, that sounds stupid.

Nope.

What I was going to say off the cuff.

This sounds like it's more. It's all pre, you know, plan.

It is more. Now even Andrew's off the cuff. So just to kind of give the Andrew origin story. So I'd been following him on Twitter before he made his, you know, stratospheric rise to where he is now.

Yeah.

And he had maybe 40,000 followers. A decent amount.

Yeah.

Nothing crazy like what he has now. I saw that he made this podcast called the Emergency Meeting, and I remember I saw his podcast studio. I kid you not, I'm a big. And Andrew is a big proponent of this. And I'm a big proponent of this. Acting with speed. Like, get it done now.

If you.

If you think something needs to be done, do it as fast as possible. I'm sitting there, I've got a work list of like a hundred edits that I have to get through that day. Like, my workload is just maxed out. And I'm like, going on YouTube to, like, search up a song or something. And I see emergency meeting. I'm like, what is this? And I see that he has a podcast studio. And in that moment, I was like, he's trying to make it big. Screw everything I'm doing right now. I'm making a pitch video and I'm.

Sending it to him.

That's cool.

So I literally dropped everything. And I don't know why, but I think really good in the shower. And so I just started a shower and I hopped in. I'm like, what's my pitch gonna be?

What's my pitch gonna be?

What's my pitch gonna be? It's gotta be 60 seconds. I have to cater to his self interest, as most people do. He has an ego. It's not a bad thing. But how do I cater to his ego without just being a complete suck up? I was like, I got it. Set up the camera, press record. And if you watch the pitch video, I'm not even in frame. I walk into frame and I sit down in the chair. What's up, Tate? I have a. I almost remember it. Word forward. What's up, Tate? I have a proposal for you. 60 seconds, let's go. So I saw the emergency. I can almost repeat the whole thing verbatim. I just remember it. But anyway, what was the pitch? And I Recommend anyone who's pitching, you have to cater to their self interest. So I told Andrew, I said, look, Andrew, you and I can both agree you got the best cars, you got the best houses, you've got the money. You're a four time world kickboxing champion. If you're the best in all of these things, and if you have the best in all of these things, why are you settling for a videographer who's decent? It's like you need the best videographer and I am the best. So here's what I'm gonna do for you. I will fly out to wherever you are. I don't care where you're at. All expense is on me. And I will make you a video for free. No risk to you. I incur the risk, and I want to show you what I'm capable of. And he said, meet me in Colombia. That's literally all he said. He said no. His first message, he said, G pitch. Meet me in Columbia.

That's so on brand. And so anyway, yeah, dude, there's a lot to break down there before we get in the rest of the story, because the rest of the story is pretty crazy too. But like, oh, man, the video pitched Andrew Tate. You're sitting in front of the camera. Do you just blast that one just off to Andrew Tate, or do you also send it to all of his team?

So it was one video directed to Andrew, so I didn't make multiple versions, but I blasted it out to as many accounts as I could find. So I did what Daniel teaches in his course. I scraped his email address, and then I got on Twitter and there was a Cobra Tate. Cobra Tate fan. Cobra Tate. I mean, there was like, you know how it is. There's just tons of accounts, most of which aren't his. But I didn't know, like.