How Levi Nichs Gained 100k Followers in 3 Years…

Howdy, podcast!

There's no such thing that makes my heart beat so fast, making all of the people smile and laugh on the Howdy Podcast.

Put a nice pitch on it. Good one.

Howdy, podcast!

Okay, that's much better. But the hardest thing I learned about my content creation in general is just doing it. It's kind of like going to the gym. What's the hardest part about going to the gym? Yeah, just going to the gym. Yeah, just going to the gym, waking up every day and wanting to go to the gym. Because once you build that habit and you start flexing that muscle, it's like you feel weird when you don't do it. Yeah, that's one thing I had to learn with like posting is like, if it doesn't become something that's a habit, I'm never going to do it.

Yeah.

It has to be something that I'm doing consistently. And when you show up every day, people can't deny you, dude. And that's what I've noticed.

Heck yeah. So today, spontaneous episode. We got Levi here.

Let's make it happen, Captain.

Yeah, good to have you. Good to have you on the podcast. I guess this is the next episode, dude.

This is the next episode. Might as well do it, man. You might as well do it. Howdy, dude.

Howdy.

Um, howdy.

So, so kind of explain what you do. I know we've been talking, but we've been talking for like 2 hours.

Um, I do content creation and sales. Uh, I like it, man. I've been here for a year and a half, love it so far, and I'm glad I met you. So this is, uh, yeah, it's nice, man, because nobody else was really doing that.

Yeah, so Levi, he messaged me and was like, hey, my barber told me to follow you. So that's kind of how he found me.

That's exactly how I found you.

Yeah, thanks to that. What's his name?

Uh, Sonny. Sonny. Thanks, Benitez at Kingdom Cuts.

Thanks, Sonny.

Now Sonny's real. He was like, because I'm helping him out with like TikTok and IG and like, here's what you should post. Because dude, I think barbers have it made. Yeah, because like you have a before and after every day and you do it like 4 or 5 times. I'm like, just do it before and after, come up with a cool transition, boom, you have 5 videos a day.

Yeah, it's cool because we do— so we do digital marketing and so me and Levi kind of have a lot to talk about and figure out. And Levi, uh, what do you do? Consulting?

Yeah, yeah, I do like social media consulting. So I work with brands, I'll do brand deals for people selling products and like content creation and everything, I guess, in between. Yeah, in a weird way of saying it. No, it's hard for maybe most people to be like, what do you do exactly? I post on Instagram a lot, people pay me to promote their products, and I do YouTube.

That's how I feel, man. They're like, what do you do? I'm like, well, to someone that we're a media company.

That's a good way to put it.

But we do drones, we have cameras, we have lights, we have microphones, we do video production, we do commercials, we do content creation, we do social media management. Like, yeah, well, yeah, and they're like, what?

Yeah, well, it's a lot. Well, it's like, well, I guess you would be like a multimedia agency. Yeah, yeah, like a— that sounds about right, cuz multimedia.

Yeah, yeah. And I've had I've had, um, a hard time figuring out how to market my business.

Yeah.

So like 2023, I, I was kind of growing Flights and Sights and, uh, I was focusing on promoting other people's businesses cuz that was my service.

Yeah.

And so I neglected my own brand because I was building other people's brands. And, um, 2024 I was like, okay, Making the switch. I was like, in January, I was like, okay, Lord, what do you want? Like, what's the next thing?

Yeah.

And then February begins, and then this idea popped into my head, and I was seeing some other people do it, and I was like, okay, is this what I'm supposed to do? So prayed on it. The next day, Nathan, the landlord here, texted me. He's like, hey, I have some spots. This sounds like a cool idea, like you should come check it out. And so came and checked it out. Everything aligned perfectly. I was like, okay, now I'm here for 2 years. Now I have an empty box and I got to fill it up with cameras and microphones. And so it's like, let's do it. And so I didn't know whether to market myself as like a podcast production company at this point, as a digital marketing company at this point. Like, so I have everything in my bio.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's good. I think that's good. I would do— I would probably do multimedia. And then let's just get into it because we're talking about things we're interested in anyways.

Let's get into it.

So on, on IG, for me, what I've learned is, is when you're like putting like a bio, you want to have your name, of course, because people associate with the name. You want to have a face if you can, but Flights and Sights, I get it. But like have like emojis and then one word. So it's like a microphone that says podcast and a camera that says photography, another one that says drone, and like that be it. So people are like, okay, if I need this, this, or this, cool. The power of 3. They do that in comedy. I don't know if you ever noticed it. Like they'll never reiterate a joke more than 3 times because the 4th time it's not funny and 2 is not enough.

Yeah.

So do that on, on IG, put a link below and then boom, people can find you. I think your IG is pretty optimized, to be honest with you, because I checked out your links. Like you go directly to your website, you got your products, your services, everything. It's like online portal. It's nice. So that looked good.

Yeah.

Your branding looks good. I might change your logo. The—

so the Lights and Science one? I just changed it.

Really? Oh, okay. It's okay. It's just, it's just a camera. It doesn't stick out. It doesn't say anything about you. Doesn't say anything about Flights and Sites. Like Flights and Sites, I'm thinking if you could put a drone in there with a camera, with a mic, like, I don't know.

I, I have been battling the logo.

Everybody does.

War for the last 2 years.

Really? It's tough.

I've tried 10 different logos and I don't, I don't know.

Have you ever tried to get on Fiverr and pay a dude $10 to give it a bat?

To give it a bat. So I found a girl in Abilene. Mm-hmm. She kind of do— it was more of like a hand-drawn type situation. I was like, "OK, I'll give it a shot." Right. Um, I mean, they turned out good.

It looks good.

It looks very good. It's usually not the type of thing she does, so— She does like a bunch of Western stuff. Oh, OK, OK, OK. And it's phenomenal. Um, but yeah, I've been battling. I've tried to make a bunch on like Canva and stuff.

I do. I love Canva, dude.

I, I use Canva all the time. I, I've attempted logo design work.

It's so hard.

People have asked me to do like a brand package. Oh yeah, yeah, with logo and everything. And I'm like, brand book. I have skills that are in the same realm, but that's not one of them.

It's a tough one, dude.

I can mess with the camera and do great things on a camera all day, but when it comes to like specifically logo design and being creative in that way, I don't have the— I don't know, that's not— that's just not where my creative mind goes. Yeah, my mind goes to like stories through videos, and like I can do still pictures and stuff, but yeah, logo is something else because you have—

it's like almost creating like a subliminal symbol.

You're creating a symbol that make something about it that captures that person's brand, what they do, who they are.

It's a lot, man.

Their colors, everything.

Yeah. And most of the time when you create a logo, people are always like, well, can you do this? Well, can you do that? And so you go through 50 edits.

Yeah.

Which is cool on Fiverr because they're like, we'll give you 2 edits.

Yeah, cool.

If you don't like it, move on. And that's why I was like, I did like a $5 and $10 route for a while. I finally found something I liked. But yeah, dude, I would say try it.

So do you outsource a lot of your work?

No, I don't.

Do all of it.

Yeah, I do like everything in-house. Kind of like you. I do like everything. So between making the clips to recording all the content. Now the shocker that I don't know if anybody see my content, but I record everything on my phone. So like all my TikToks, everything on IG on my phone, even like—

You set it up on a tripod?

Set it up on a tripod. Just got one that you walk around with. And then even for YouTube, I use my phone because you can in OBS, you can use your phone as a webcam.

Yeah.

And the camera's not too bad on it. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm just going to use this now until I'm like, all right, I need to get a Sony. ZV, you know, and it's all—

what kind of phone do you have?

iPhone 13 Pro.

A lot of people think you got to have the newest phone, dude.

You don't have to have— you do not have to have anything crazy to like— you don't, you really don't. Just start if you want to create content, that is. But like some of the best content creators that I like, they record everything on their phone. Yeah, they may do something with the audio, but like it just looks real. What are your thoughts on this? So like, you know, like you said you went to the Paramount the other day and you said you saw a bunch of commercials that were like, yeah, Oh my God, he's kind of boring, right?

Yeah.

Do you think the future of like commercial and ads is moving to more like organic on the phone, like real, or do you think the super polished stuff still works super well?

No, it's raw, right? The authentic— people miss the authenticity because there's that relationship that they build and that connection.

Yeah.

And so I think that's where it's going. We went through a phase of social media where it's like very, very edited, like cut up, like only the juiciest parts, but like people kind of— I feel like people kind of got overstimulated, and so they're like craving the, the real connections, which is good. Like, it's very good. I think social media in general, in order for it to be effective and for you to actually be connected to people, it has to be like authentic.

What do you think about this theory? I think the reason that social media is becoming more raw and organic is because of the rise of reality TV and how there are so many— like, back in the day, think of Jersey Shore. Yeah, that was like it. And maybe Real World versus Road Rules. I might be dating myself here, but like, or like Survivor. Yeah, there's not really a lot of like reality TV shows now. There's so many, dude. Like you get on Prime Video, a ton.

Selling Sunset, dude, have you seen that? Yeah, people love it.

90 Day Fiancé. Yeah, like My 600-lb Life, My Wife for Everything.

My wife loves those shows.

Like she'll turn on Love is Blind, Love is Blind, Love Island, and I'm like, dude, what is going on?

Like, and of course me being the good husband that I am, I'm just like, fine, watch it, and then I'm invested.

Oh, and then I'm screaming by the second episode. I'm like, why would Mark even do that? That's totally me. That's totally me. But that's, that's how it always is, right? Because once you get bought into the story and the lore, as I call it, you get bought into the lore. You're like, I'm in, dude. Yeah, I hate, I hate Mark. I like Jason.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so building like a brand around yourself, have you found that to be successful or like how have you built your brand?

I built my brand off of trend. I'm a trend backer. So like if if you're on TikTok and you're seeing something that's popping, you'll see audios. That's what I learned. And then you can go into the audios, you can see like how many views they've gotten, how many people have shared a video. And I would go in there and just put my own twist on it. But in my niche of like relationships, I'm talking about me being an annoying boyfriend or her doing something or me doing something. And I did that for a really long time. And I, you know, for the first year I did okay. I got some traction, maybe got 10 or 12K followers, but then I just kept doing it. And then after 2 years, like, oh, I hit $50K. And then after 3 years, I'm already at $78K. It's like you just keep doing it. After a while, you're like, wow, I didn't know this was a thing. Because in the first 30 days, 60 days, you're going to get real discouraged. You're going to post a lot of content that gets 300 views, 500 views.

So how many pieces of content would you say you had to put out before you start seeing any kind of traction?

I love this question. I'd probably say I have like 881 posts right now. I probably had to hit the 200 mark before starting.

200 posts before.

Yeah. And that's 200 days in a row.

Yeah.

That's not like, oh, I posted here and then I posted a couple of days late.

Like I posted every single day.

What I tell people, they're like, how'd you do it? And I'm like, you see how many posts I have? I have like 880. I'm like, post for 880 days and you'll see the same thing. And people are like, there's no way.

Yeah.

But if you don't do it, you don't do it.

880 days. So is that like 2 or 3 years straight?

Yeah, pretty much 3 years straight. And so I'm taking—

Have you missed a day?

No, never miss a day.

You never miss.

You can scroll through and see. Never miss a day. I might be late. I usually post at 12 p.m. every day. I might be late, might be 4 p.m. I never miss a day.

Wow.

Never miss a day. And so I'm taking that philosophy with the short-form content and I'm like, if this works on IG Shorts, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, I'm going to do the same thing with long-form content on YouTube.

Yeah.

So now I'm posting like a long-form content video, like 20, 30 minutes a day, and I've been doing it every day since November, like 15th, and I've averaged around 300 to 400 new subscribers every single month, which is like, I don't know how much you know about YouTube. Insanely hard to get any subscriber. I was lucky before that I was just posting shorts. I was lucky to get 10 or 12. Yeah, like shorts just didn't get the subscriber count that I wanted. But when you do long form, people get to know you. It's like, so I'm going to try that for a year and by November I'm hoping I have around 10K on YouTube. But, but like I said earlier, I'm changing. Like I'm thinking of myself as my brand. The service that I sell is attention. Because if you look at the top 10 niches, like it's like fitness, health, entertainment, comedy, you know? And so it's like, I was like, all right, which one of those am I good at? And I was like, okay, I'm gonna go with entertainment.

Yeah.

And so if you like to teach, teach. If you like to entertain, entertain. I tell people like my superpower is talking, so that's what I'm gonna monetize. It's the easiest thing to do. And if you think about it, I'm getting real philosophical here. What's been always the most, like, expensive thing in the world? It's never anything monetary. It's always information or it's never something material. Information, right? People pay tons of money for information.

So that information and attention.

Information, attention, dude. That's, that's what, that's what it is now. It's like, cool, you could have the coolest product, you have a great service, you could do wonders for that. But if you can make money off of people's attention, you'll never go broke. Yeah, because you can work when you're not working. And that's something I think you understand being in real estate. It's like passive income. I don't want to have to be working every second for every dollar that I make. I want to sleep and wake up and I have more money. And that's what you can do with content creation because people are watching it at night and consuming it at other times.

You become omnipresent.

Yes, omnipresent. Exactly.

You can get your message across over and over and over and over and over. No, the entire world.

No, 100%. So how long have you been doing like the content stuff? Like how long have you been doing consulting or social media pages or—

So really for only like a year and a half.

Okay, um, you're really far along for a year and a half.

And it's— it wasn't like my goal wasn't to become like this person who creates content. It just happened, like natural progression. Like once you figure out how to use a camera, people are like, oh, can you do this? Yeah, since you know how to use that. And so it's just been a tool and it kind of has led to this. And so, um, the last year and a half I've just been studying and like testing and like figuring out like what works on each platform and how we can— and branding too. Like, you have to put a personality with a brand in order for people to trust it. And so like, I've been trying to figure out how to do that, and I think these last couple of months I've really been pushing into my brand and getting in front of the camera. It hasn't been consistent, as consistent as you.

Hey dude, it takes time, man. Like, takes time.

I just, I find myself running out of hours because I'm dressing for other people and, mm-hmm, and which isn't, shouldn't be an excuse. I need to delegate more, honestly. Yeah, like that's another challenge that I ran into is like figuring out how to delegate properly and like how to train people to make it more efficient and instead of more time-consuming, mm-hmm, trying to control what they're doing. Yeah, and so that's been a journey and Yeah, well, you're getting better at it.

And the thing is, dude, when you're— so when I was a teacher, because I originally got my degree in education, when I was a teacher, I— you had to plan out every 30 minutes of your day because, you know, you only get a 30-minute break. And so I took that and correlated it to my professional life. And so every— like, I'm leaving here at noon. I'm not staying until 12:30. I'm not staying till 1. I'm leaving at noon because that's what we talked about, number one. But number two, I got things to do today other than, you know, this. So it's like I do 30-minute increments. I don't know if that would help, but I also— I'm an early riser, up at 5:30 AM. I go to the gym. And so like having a habit and having a routine is like— makes me thrive. It's almost like I look forward to having to suffer through a workout at 5 in the morning. It sucks, but like, yeah, God, you feel so much better afterwards. You get a good shower, you look nice, you put on some smell good, you know what I'm saying? You go out and do something like this and you do that every day and you're like, man, I'm showing up for myself. And that was really what—

what gym do you go to?

I go to Planet, go to Crunch, the basic ones, dude. I just do basic exercises. I'm not trying to— I'm not competing. I'm not on testosterone. I'm just like, just being healthy. I just want to be able to touch my toes, maybe.

Yeah.

And then I'm good, dude. I'm good. But nah, man, I think— I think what you're doing now so early is— is what's crazy to me, because most people flip it. Most people get really good at the content and they're like, I'm going to get good gear. But you went the other way, which I think is going to boost the views way faster because people are so judgmental on aesthetic and superficiality. My philosophy is somebody judges you 75% of the way, but just by the way you look. So if you look sloppy, they're already thinking, the first impressions are everything, right? And so like even when I was getting dressed this morning, my fiancée was like, "What are you gonna wear?" I was like, "I don't know." She's like, "Well, you better dress to impress. You gotta wear something nice." And I was like, "Well, I'll wear something nice, but I wanna let 'em know I'm chill. I'm not gonna wear a suit or anything like that." And so she's like, "Okay, that looks good. Wear your jewelry." But like, we understand that, you know, the way you look, if people are gonna judge you. So yeah, it's the same thing with this. And now you got a good brand, like, the sky's the limit for you, man. And you start being consistent, dude. Oh man, oh man.

Yeah. Yeah, I love—

really good.

I love how you brought that up about like presentation and the first impressions. And one of my favorite things, so like in the realtor world, like that is huge.

Like vibes.

If you don't drive a Mercedes-Benz and you don't have shades on and you don't have a tie on, like You're a clown, you're a joke. And like, theoretically, you're not professional and you're not like qualified for the job.

Oh yeah.

I kind of like to go the other way, against the grain, and not be that. Complete opposite.

Like where, like where you're like a ball cap?

Yeah, like I, I wear this to showings because like I want people to work with me because they want to work with me, right? And like what I can do because I know them and have a relationship. As to showing up trying to impress somebody.

Yeah.

And so same thing goes with like this stuff. Like, I don't really ever dress— I mean, if there's like events or something, I'll dress nicer, but like, I drive a Prius. I drive a 2011 Prius. Yeah. And once you can get— so I, I drove a Mustang GT convertible. Like, it's how I got my girlfriend.

Oh.

And, uh, as soon as, like, when I was graduating from college, I was like, okay, this is not practical because I, I'm a musician, so I had to put music gear.

Oh yeah, it's not room in a Stang, dude.

Everything. And then my camera equipment and all this stuff. And so I was like, what's the most efficient car with the most space? Priuses are great, dude, that run forever, that are insanely good quality vehicles and, well, reliable.

I think Priuses are great. My buddy had one and we toured in it for a while. They're great.

So I mean, 50 miles per gallon is not bad. And as long as you can get past the first 2 months of people just roasting you.

Dude, that's only out here, bro.

Like, I will—

Go to the city, nobody cares.

I know.

Everybody's on a Tesla. And so here it's all, "You ain't getting that unleaded." It's just like, dude, chill out, bro. I want to get better gas mileage. Yeah. So I'm not— I'm just gonna drive the— if I could, I'd drive a Tesla. Yeah, people are like, you're gonna get a Tesla? Yeah, yeah, they're sweet. Yeah, it drives itself. Are you kidding me? Yeah, I just don't understand. That's, that's West Texas though, man.

That's so— once you can get past that 2 months of just like roasting and torture over here in West Texas, people forget about it. Oh yeah, and then you're enjoying the savings and like, once you get past that ego part. And so just that whole thing, that Prius is freaking beat up. It's been a champ.

It looks good.

I've had no issues with it for the last 60,000 miles. Like, it's from when I bought it, nothing has happened. And so I don't want to jinx it, but the bumper's falling off. I got it zip-tied on. My spoiler fell off on I-20 one day, just like Absolutely brutal, and I love it. Like, it— like, the missing spoiler just completes the whole thing, and the bumper falling off. My wife's always like, you need to fix that so people don't think you're an idiot. I'm like, I kind of like driving a beat-up Prius. Like, just producing like fantastic stuff, like, yeah, products and services, and then showing up in a Prius like in Converse.

Like, and they're like, wait, just—

yeah, yeah. And that's part of the thing about being real. Like, even in real life. Like, I mean, be an adult. Like, don't dress like a child, but yeah, just being like who you are and like showing the people you're working with like that authentic relationship. I— that, that I have found the most referrals to come back, and they're like, this guy was great, he was relatable, like he's likable, he's funny, he's easy to work with. And so I think that's been the biggest like growth factor. So far.

Yeah. Well, dude, it takes time.

What's your biggest pet peeve in, in like the business world or like in general?

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Dude, hold on. I'm trying to think of this.

I'll give you mine while you think.

Okay.

Mine is being on time. Like this morning I considered myself super late. Didn't like it. I told you I'd be here by 8. I was like, it's like 8:45. I thought my girl had to be at work at 8, so I was like, I was mad internally. Hopefully Hopefully I didn't make you mad.

I assume you weren't.

Yeah, you were chilling. But like, being late is my biggest pet peeve. I'm always like 5, 10 minutes early.

See, that doesn't bother me at all.

Oh boy, it bothers me.

Like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. If I should— I try to show up on time.

Like, it starts at 9, I'm there at 9.

Exactly.

Okay, see, you're late.

If some people, that's late, but I'm like, if I say I'm gonna be somewhere at that time, I want to be there at that time. And so I like Like if I have a real estate shoot or something and it's at 3 PM, I map it out from where I'm at on Apple Maps. I'm like, okay, it's 13 minutes away. I'm leaving at 2:47 PM.

You're—

I like to live on the edge a little bit.

What if you have traffic?

Or then I'm like, hey, ran into traffic, I'll be 5 minutes late.

Well, there's not a lot out here, but yeah, cow crossing. But you like to live life on the edge.

Yeah, my wife is the opposite. She likes to be early, and I love early.

I like to get a lay of the land just in case I need to dip. Like, you know what, I'm actually out. I'm not even going to show up. Like, I know I'm early, but actually I'm not even going to go. Yeah. Um, but I always have to because I want to find parking. I want to be comfortable. And I, and I'm like, I'm big about like understanding the space you're in and really like, all right, where are the exits? Where am I at? Like, I like to be just a little bit early.

Yeah.

I'm just—

I'd probably say one of my pet peeves is—

your biggest pet peeve?

My biggest pet peeve is whenever people think that they're above other people. Mm. Like if somebody has money, for instance, and you look down on others because they don't have money, that's pretty evil. That rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah, as it should. Yeah, everybody's human at the end of the day, man.

Like what I always hear people say, and I love it, it's like everybody has a butthole. Yeah, like everybody, every—

yeah, has to wipe. Everybody does, man.

So I don't know. I don't know why you would think you're so much better just because that money can be gone like in an instant.

Oh yeah, for sure.

And so I don't know, that'd be probably one of the biggest—

that's a good one. The golden rule: treat other people like you want to be treated. Like, you see a lot of that in the city where people treat people that are maybe homeless or something, they treat them horribly. Yeah, there's not a ton here in Abilene, but I wish I'd like look them in the eye and give them a firm handshake, something the kind of respect that a lot of them never get. Yeah, ever did, and it sucks, man. But it's kind of— it's kind of what it is.

Yeah, and I have some friends who moved from California.

Ooh, it's bad there. Yeah, San Fran's brutal, dude.

And they're like, brutal. People are so nice here. Like, if you went up and like waved at somebody on the street in California, like, you'd probably get jumped.

Yeah, get the finger or get ignored completely.

Yeah, like they probably think you're trying to like fight them.

Yeah.

And so here in Texas, it's nice. Everybody's friendly.

You wave at everybody you drive by, like you shake everybody's hand, like Well, another thing, like being in the sales world and working with people all over the state is like we say yes, sir, no, sir, no, ma'am, no, you know, like, and they don't— people are like, are you in the military? Never been in the military. It's just like I got popped in the mouth by my grandma if I didn't say yes, ma'am.

You know what I mean?

So it's something that we have here. Have you seen that viral, like, football? It's like a high school combine video and they're like, let us know in the comments which players are from the South. And it's like they ask them a question like, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And then someone like, yeah. And it's like every guy that said yes, ma'am is from the South. I promise you, it's just how it is though. Like, and then respecting your elders, that's one thing I was always taught. It doesn't matter what their socioeconomic status is, who they are as a person. If they're older than you, they deserve respect. And I think that's stuff that we're missing out on these days a lot.

Yeah. And in Texas you get a lot of it, which is—

Yeah, everybody here. So nice.

I love being in Texas.

I'll never move out of Texas.

Did you grow up in Texas? Yeah.

Yeah. Paris, Paris, Texas.

Paris.

Do you know about Paris, Texas?

Oh yeah, I got some friends from Paris.

Really? I'm old, so I probably don't know them, but the Tuggles— I do know the Tuggles.

The, the Annabelle Tuggle. Mm-hmm. You know her?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, she went to Hardin-Simmons. We played music together.

That's wild to me. I had a—

she's married now. She did live here for a while. She was like one of the news anchors.

Oh, okay.

Okay. Now they're in Tyler.

Tyler's about the same size as Abilene. Like, they're— we were looking at Tyler for a while, like, should we live there? I don't know. Yeah, because it's pretty big.

It's pretty nice.

Yeah, I like Tyler. They got good barbecue out there. I played a shot there one time.

Um, yeah, I feel like Abilene is also like the best barbecue you could possibly find. And like, oh, those are—

you might get— somebody might bow up to you for saying that. I don't know, man. I feel a lot of good Texas barbecue out there.

There, there is. There is.

I might have to disagree on this, but like The Shed.

Have you been?

I haven't been to The Shed.

Everybody talks about The Shed because it's the best barbecue. Okay, in Texas.

I'll, I'll, I'll try it. I've tried, uh, what is it, Sharon's?

Yeah, Sharon's.

It was good.

Sharon's is good.

It was good. It was like good old Texas style, just beefy cornbread, like get the sweats afterwards and you're like, I love it.

Now you got to try The Shed.

Yeah, everybody's been talking about The Shed. I'll have to try The Shed.

Have you seen it before down on Buffalo Gap?

Mm-hmm. I gotta do it.

You gotta try this.

I've also heard, um, what is it, Catfish Corner? Yeah, I heard it's good.

I've only been there once. It's like, because there's really no other than like Red Lobster, there's like no seafood, bro.

I ain't going to Red Lobo. All you can eat shrimp on Wednesdays. What is wrong with that shrimp? Why are y'all doing all you can eat shrimp? What is wrong with the shrimp?

They came out of the lake.

Yeah, it's good old lake shrimp. Yeah, but seahorses and shrimp.

Yeah, have you been to Jay's Barbecue?

No.

Okay, those are the two top barbecue spots in town, and then make your decision.

Okay, that's fair enough. Have you been to Spicy India? Yeah, wet, very good. I like— you like it?

My wife loves it. I can't—

you don't like Indian food? I can't even say—

I ordered something, I don't even remember what it was called. But I was like, okay, she was like, do you want it mild or like normal or spicy?

Don't do spicy. Spicy India.

And I was like, well, okay, I'm Hispanic. So are you for real? Yeah, I'm half Mexican.

You look totally Anglo-Saxon.

I am the whitest looking.

You look like you're from the Caucasus Mountains.

Yeah, like your great-great-great-grandparents. I got Indian in me, I got Mexican in me.

Are you 50/50? What's your— what's your last name?

Pacheco.

Uh, okay, it checks out. Yeah, but Darren though.

Um, I don't know, my mom's white. My middle name is Dravon. What? Dravon? Yeah, bro.

What? That is— you got the every culture you're touching.

Oh yeah, shout out Mom.

Darren, shout out Dravon, Pacheco. Like, what?

So people are confused.

I would be too.

Yeah, so the spicy India story. I like spicy stuff like jalapeños, like that kind of thing. And I was like, how hot is the mild?

It's pretty spicy.

She's like, it's not that bad. She's like, if you like spicy stuff, it's not that bad. Yeah, it was the most spicy thing I've ever tasted in my whole life.

Do you have a good spice tolerance?

I usually do.

Yeah, like you can eat pretty spicy, like Yeah. Okay.

Like habanero.

Like, okay, habaneros are spicy.

They are.

Yeah. But it was getting you though.

It was in the— like, yeah.

What was it like?

I guess it was the curry.

It was a curry or— okay. It wasn't like a biryani or anything?

It was like some— it was like some like chicken and like rice and like a— you got this bread tortilla looking thing and you dipped it in the sauce. I don't know.

That's fire. Spicy India is good.

Spicy India, go try it out.

Yeah. Uh, Khru Thai is good.

I haven't been to Gru Thai. I've heard a lot of good things.

Yeah, their chicken penang is the bomb there. And then they have some DUI noodles. Okay. Like drunken noodles. Those are the best. And then the lady at the front, dude, she is so funny. She comes in and she's just immediately talking to you.

Yeah.

Oh, you were here last time. Now you're late. You haven't been here in a while. I'm like, how do you remember me? She's like, you get the same thing every time.

And talking mess, dude.

Yeah, dude. Like, she's just— and she'll give you a hard time. And like, I remember one time I was having issues at the terminal. She's like, just give it a second. It'll be okay. Like, there's no rush. Yeah. Feel bad, but no, she's funny. Um, we tear up Texas Roadhouse, of course. My girl loves the rolls.

Yeah, this is kind of hard to beat, honestly.

Have you been to Pho Noodle Bar?

Yeah.

What do you think?

Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, the one right across the street from— I thought you meant Phoenix Pho.

Oh, how's Phoenix Pho? I've never been.

It's great.

Yeah, really good.

It's fantastic.

Do they just have pho? Do they have ramen and like everything? Okay. Oh, so it's okay, okay, like a typical Vietnamese restaurant.

Okay, I think so. You ever tried boba and like—

oh, okay, okay. Have you ever tried durian? Never tried durian? Have you heard of durian?

I think so.

It's the fruit that smells like, like rotten eggs. Like, like if an— if a boiled egg could fart is what it would smell like. Oh, it smells really bad, but it's like a delicacy. Like, people really like the taste of it because it's so stinky. It's like eating really stinky cheese. Do you like stinky cheese?

I don't.

Not a big artisan of cheeses.

No, I'll eat like mild cheddar.

Okay, so you're pretty vanilla when it comes to—

It's like the white people cheese. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll just have not the sharp, the mild.

Yeah.

The Colby Jack.

Yeah. Yeah.

Me either. I don't like, like, Gorgonzola or herbari cheese.

I don't want to throw up at the same time as I'm eating my cheese.

Do you like spreads? Like charcuterie boards?

Yeah, I'll go hard on some spreads though.

Yeah.

My favorite. I ate a whole pack of salami yesterday. Like, like a big pack. Salami. And I have to have cheese with it. It.

Oh dude, yeah. Well, and then maybe the occasional cracker or grape. Yeah. Oh, that's good for me. A little bit of jelly.

I go hard on some grapes. And then I love fruit. I used to eat it like— I would sit there and eat a whole bag. And then you'd be so full. Me and my wife, he's so full eating all that grapes. Me and my wife this last year have kind of been like on a nutrition kick. So we've been like— we met with the nutritionist for a while, learned everything about foods, and, uh, After I learned how much sugar in grapes, I'm like, there's a lot. It's nature's candy. Like, it is. No wonder I liked it so much.

So were you eating like the Concord, like purple grape?

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. Oh yeah, those are good. So have you said— have you ever tried the cotton candy grapes?

Yeah, those are even sweeter. They're dangerous.

Very dangerous.

So, uh, yeah, this last year I've been kind of weaning myself off of sugar a little bit.

It's tough, dude. Are you a big soda guy?

It's more addictive than cocaine. Uh-huh.

Cocaine.

I'm not a— well, soda.

You don't do soda?

Not really.

Me either.

I used to. I used to go hard on some Dr Pepper, but same thing.

It's good, dude.

And then I got onto this like diet Coke, like Coke Zero, like diet drinks.

One of those, huh? I've seen those.

I've been trying to wean myself off of that because I've been researching like all the artificial sweeteners and stuff and how—

stay away from sodas, man.

It's so bad.

You're young now, so you're good. But like, yeah, once you get up in your dirty 30s, you really got to watch what you put in your mouth, man, because it's like you'd be drinking some Coke for a while and you're like, there's a zit on my forehead. Yeah, what is that?

Well, yeah, yeah, the amount of sugar in one of those drinks is just mind-boggling.

60 grams in like a 12— I'm like, good Lord.

Like, I saw something the other day, it was like you only need like— it showed like one little sugar cube and it's like that's all your body really needs in one day.

Oh yeah.

And you drink one bottle of Coke and it has like 60 times the amount of that. Yeah.

And then you're drinking 2 or 3. There's people that drink 2 liters.

Yeah. And your body cannot like—

your kidneys are like, your liver is going crazy.

You can't do anything with that much sugar.

No, no, it can't. It'll turn it into fat.

Yeah.

And then that's what happens.

And then that's America.

America, baby. Well, that's what they say. Like, if you can cut back drinking your calories, like liquid calories is where a lot of people gain most of their weight.

Beer.

Dude, I've stopped drinking alcohol. Yeah, because it wasn't doing anything. It wasn't doing anything for me. I love beer. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, I love a good whiskey. If it's a celebration, we'll do it. Yeah, but like the casual drinking, I had to cut it out. There's no point when you do it on the daily.

It adds up.

Oh my gosh. Yes, you will be— you will have a beer gut in a month.

Yeah, I've luckily— I don't, I don't like beer. Yeah, like I'm not a beer guy. I'll sip on some whiskey.

Yeah, some good whiskey with like a good old-fashioned.

That's a good— that's a good Or a cigar. Good time. Whiskey and a cigar. You can ask my wife. I'm trying to— she's kind of into it now too, because she's like, oh really? It's fun.

She's like, dude, just sit here, relax, and just like you're in an episode of Suits and you're just, ah, you know?

Yeah, it's just, it's just classic.

It's a gentleman.

Put on some Frank Sinatra.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness. Fly me to the moon. With your wife. It's a good night.

Yeah, it's a very good night. Um, but I had to cut it back because I was like, I'm drinking but I'm not even getting tipsy. I'm not even getting like— I'm having 2 whiskeys and I don't even feel anything. I'm like I'm just gonna stop because then it's like your belly kind of hurts the next day and it's expensive. It's very expensive, especially the good stuff. Yeah, I'm not drinking Kentucky Deluxe, $12 in a plastic jug.

It doesn't taste good.

It tastes horrible.

We got— have you heard of Garrison Brothers, the whiskey? So they're a distillery in Fredericksburg.

Oh, I love Fredericksburg.

It's my favorite whiskey. And I mean, one bottle is like $100 though.

How many milliliters, like 750? Is that a big boy?

Is it like a— no, it's, it's like a I don't know what the milliliters are, but it's like, okay, it's a pretty good size bottle.

It's okay.

It's a decent size.

Yeah, it's probably close to that.

It's pretty good. It's not like the most fancy whiskey in the world, but we went to their distillery like 2 weeks ago. It's so cool.

I would love to see a whiskey distillery.

That's amazing.

I've only seen it on Moonshiners.

We went, we went there and tried, got to try all the whiskeys that they make, and then we went to some wine Uh, tours.

Oh yeah, wine tours are fun.

Those are cool. They have like whole like cellars full, like underground caves where they store all their wine, keep them in a cool spot. Oh, it's crazy the amount of work that goes in. I'm not really a big wine guy either. I mean, I'll drink it, but me either. Just if I drink it, I usually drink the sweet stuff. Yeah, that's just as bad. I mean, that's just as bad as a Coke, like Yeah, we got a bunch of sugar.

Well, if you could drink some Scotch on the rocks, that's much better than—

So do you like Scotch or whiskey?

I'm more of a, like, a bourbon whiskey guy. Yeah.

Okay. I tried Scotch.

It's okay.

Not my favorite.

Not really my thing. Like, but I'm pretty basic, man. I'm like Woodford Reserve.

Yeah.

Four Roses. Maker's Mark. Nothing crazy. I don't like Elijah Craig maybe sometimes.

Yeah.

But nothing crazy, man. Um, and then like, I like tequila, but we— it's because we when we did drink more margaritas, you know, Espolón. And, um, trying to think of the other one. Espolón's really cheap and it's, yeah, actually pretty solid. So we drink that a lot. Yeah, once you cut like sugar, alcohol, and a bunch of the like preservative fast foods, man, processed foods, processed foods big time, whole fat right there, you'll lose weight.

It'll change your life. Like you'll start to feel better, your joints will feel better. Like You lose weight. You don't even have to work out. Like, no, we really didn't work out that much. I worked out some and Katie didn't. She was like testing it. She didn't work out for like 3 months and was just burning, like losing. And everybody's like, what is your workout routine? She's like, I don't work out. They're like, what?

Yeah, put the sodas down, put the fork down.

It's just, yeah, what you're putting in your body.

100%. No, we've, we've taken, we've started taking it way more serious now that we're older. It's like try to eat whole foods. Like last night we had steaks and mashed potatoes, but we usually do mashed potatoes out of the bag. You just put it in some water and mix it up. Like, no, we did actual potatoes, peeled them.

Yeah.

So it just tastes so much better and you feel so much better the next day. The next time— the next thing I'm trying to figure out, and because I don't know, is like, I want— I want to drink protein shakes, but all the protein shakes you buy are horrible. And some of the even protein powder is horrible for you. So it's like I'm trying to figure out like, what's the best source of protein? Because I need to be eating like my body weight in grams of protein a day. But it's so tough. I'm tired of eating like the protein bars. I know they're bad for me.

Yeah.

So it's like, I don't know, that's my next venture.

Yeah, we have some protein shakes at the house, but they have artificial sweeteners.

That's what I'm saying. Like everything.

So I looked it up. Have you heard of Huel?

Yeah, I've heard of Huel.

I think they have some drinks that don't have any artificial sweeteners. If you can find drinks with stevia or— yeah, stevia sweetener or like—

I thought that was artificial though, stevia.

I, I don't— it's like a natural sweetener.

Oh, it is? Okay, okay.

It comes from a leaf.

Oh, okay.

I didn't know that. Uh, reacts completely different than aspartame or sucralose, the artificial.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you can find stuff with monk fruit extract, which is fruit— okay, natural.

Yeah.

Um, or stevia, that, that's way better.

Okay.

Actually, I got into a deep dive one day.

It sounds like you know a little bit. Yeah. Did you go monk mode on monk?

Did we go hard on some monk fruit? Everything So like if we make any dessert instead of putting sugar, we just put monk fruit.

So is it just like dried, like kind of like sugar?

It's, it's, it looks like sugar.

Oh, okay.

It's like granulated.

Oh, okay. So it literally kind of looks like sugar, acts like sugar.

1:1 ratio.

Yeah.

Tastes, I think, even better, honestly. And what it does, it like, it does, your body doesn't absorb it like sugar. Mm. And so I don't know, it's kind of weird. It also helps kind of heal your kidneys. Like if you've had a sugar addiction, your kidneys are like screwed up. Yeah, it goes in and kind of cleans it.

That's cool. I'm going to have to check this out. Can you get it at H-E-B?

Oh yeah. Yeah, it's like a— there's a red bag.

Red bag, monk fruit. I'm going to do— I'm going to have to try it.

It's— yeah, it's kind of expensive, but it's worth it.

Hey, well, you're— I always say you got to pay for it now or pay for it later. And if you're not going to pay for the expensive food now, you're going to have to pay for it later. Yeah.

So we've made that switch. And so that right there has been huge.

I hope energy levels and then, dude, The biggest thing that I was sleeping on was sleep.

Yeah.

Getting good rest. So we've invested— it's like a science experiment in my bedroom now because we have a humidifier. Yeah, we also have an air purifier. And then we bought a Tempur-Pedic.

Yeah.

So like we can raise our feet up, we can do it and like bought like $100 pillows. But dude, best investment.

Yeah.

Because you spend like, what, a third of your life sleeping? Yeah. So you might as well have something good to sleep on. I'm not in my 20s anymore like you. I can't just sleep on a couch.

Hey, no, we— I don't ever sleep on a couch anymore.

It hurts. It really hurts.

We have a— have you heard of Purple Mattress?

Yeah, dude, purples are good.

We have a purple mattress and it's the greatest thing.

Yeah, purples are great.

I love it.

Well, you got to invest in a good bed, man. Yeah, good sleep is, is big. Have you tried the— have you seen the hostage tape, like the things?

Yeah, and the, and the nose tape.

Yeah, have you ever tried the hostage tape? Me either. We've, we've got some, I just haven't.

No, I So that scares me because I have like a deviated septum.

Yeah, so do I.

And so half of my nose doesn't even work. Yeah, most of the time.

Yeah.

And so I'm like, if I— if my mouth is taped shut and I need to breathe, like, you got one nostril working, baby. That's a lot of air going in that one nostril. Yeah, but it is though. So I've looked into the like strips before.

I've heard they do.

There's one that has like where you tape two magnets on top. Oh yeah, I've seen you set it on top and it like suctions it up. Yeah, I want to try that one, but they're kind of expensive.

So yeah, have you seen that? Have you seen the nose flushing like that?

Yes, like a neti pot type. Yeah, dude, I do that all the time.

Really? Oh, I've seen them online and I'm like, oh, what? Just— is that part of your brain?

Amazing.

I've heard it's really great.

Bad.

It's not that bad. Okay, it just like flushes it all out.

So there's the one where you could squeeze, and then there's one where you just like tilt your head and it—

the water straight up just goes like up and down and out and just flushes everything out.

Yeah, and you feel like so clear after.

Yeah, I can see clear, I can smell clear.

Yeah, I have to do that a lot because I have bad allergies.

So does my fiancée.

I always have it.

What do you take? Do you take anything like Zyrtec or anything?

Well, I did just take regular allergy daily medicine, but like since we've changed up our foods, it's helped a lot. Really haven't had any allergies.

Makes sense though, dude.

Yeah, like kind of went away. I mean, my nostril's still crooked and like blocks my airway, but yeah.

Yeah, but you're not like sneezing like crazy or coughing or itchy eyes.

No, and you can ask my wife whenever we were dating and my friends from home, like We also grew up in West West Texas, like Denver City over by Lubbock.

And so how far is Lubbock from here?

It's like 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Okay.

Okay.

It's pretty far west.

Yeah.

And so even further west.

Yeah. And so you go an hour past that and it's Denver City by New Mexico.

Oh, okay. So you're—

it's just oil town.

Yeah, that's what it all is.

Dirt, flat ground. So I thought it was because of that, and it probably was a lot of dust. Yeah, but like I moved over here, it got a little bit better. Not really. And then once I changed my eating, that's when it like actually like— I can't even tell you the last time I had a sneeze. Like I used to have these sneeze attacks. I sneeze like 20 times in a row. And so I haven't— I haven't had one. And that's brutal, dude.

You were one of those people. It's like, sorry, I need the next 2 minutes. I'm going to be sick.

If I was getting on it, if I started sneezing, I wasn't stopping. And so that's kind of gone away. But the neti pot helps. So like on Sunday mornings, I got to get up and our first service is at 8 a.m. And so we're way up where we're up way earlier than that because we got to drive 30 minutes to get to get there. And yeah, for rehearsal, which is an hour and a half early before. Sure. Yeah, we get like 4:45, 5 o'clock every Sunday. And my allergies, it's like gross. As soon as you wake up that early and you try to sing, you sound like awful.

Yeah, yeah.

So you got to get warmed up, you got to clean out your nose. Like, it's a process. Sleep with a humidifier.

Like, now we invest in all that. Um, I didn't think it'd make much of a difference, but it's so dry here. Yeah, like you forget how dry it is.

Yeah.

Um, but then when you're sleeping and you're waking up All right, we need a humidifier.

Yeah, it is pretty dry. And what's crazy is when I moved over here, I thought it was not like— I thought it was like humid.

You thought it was humid here? Oh, because it's even drier there because closer to New Mexico it's bad.

It's—

Phoenix is real dry.

Zero humidity there.

Yeah.

And so like, yeah, it was bad.

Good old Denver City. I've never been to Denver City. Yeah, how big is Denver City?

Don't go. It's like 3,000 people.

Don't go, he says.

If you're going to like Ruidosa, New Mexico, you, you can go through there. So if you're ever going to Ruidosa, but other than that, don't.

To be fair, never heard of Denver City until I saw like your Instagram. It looked like a football picture. I was like, Denver City? Is that Denver? I was like, why is he here? Like, this is so confusing. I'm like, this guy's story, like he's playing guitar, he's got a Denver City jersey on. I'm like, who is this guy?

Hispanic?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got 3 weird cultural— culturally ambiguous names.

Yeah.

Who is this man? Is he a made-up avatar? Is he AI?

This is the Howdy Podcast.

Yeah, this man is straight up AI. That's crazy. But no, West Texas is much different than Austin or—

oh yeah, I love Austin.

You would fit. You would fit good in Austin.

We— there's a bunch of weirdos there, but a lot of weirdos. We— it's just so gorgeous.

Oh, it's beautiful. Like, especially the West, man.

Every time we go to, like, Fredericksburg, even like, we're like, should we move here?

Like, Fredericksburg is dope too, but then we see how much it costs and we're like, very expensive.

I'm gonna have to get a good—

well, because you're, you're competing with all the older folks that are like retired and empty nesters and like, yeah, we're not on that level yet. It's not our time. Yeah, we're supposed to be building something right now so we can retire later on. Yeah, I mean, but Austin's— it's good for a creative community, but I'll tell you right now, for something like this in Austin, bro, you'd be paying, you'd be paying an arm and a leg and it'd be at one of the it'd be super north or super, super south. Like you couldn't get anywhere centralized. Like you're in downtown Abilene. When I went— when you told me that, I was like, oh, this man is downtown. You ain't getting that kind of treatment unless you got 10 racks a month.

Yeah, it's downtown. Pretty nice.

It's a great location if you're like, hey, let's go around the corner to get a slice of pizza or something like tacos, pizza, coffee. Well, what is this Leaf place? Is that— is that a cigar bar? Cigar bar?

Yeah.

I don't even know we had one.

Sick. Really? You need to stop by there. Do you like cigars?

Yeah.

Yeah, you can stop by there.

Yeah, I would love to go by, but I just didn't even know we had one there.

Here in a minute.

Yeah. Check out the Leaf Cigar Bar. I'm just trying to think, are there any other, um, now that we've been talking about local places.

I know.

Yeah, I like, I love, I actually love talking about because I don't know a lot of places. Taylor County Tap House, been to. We talked about Cork and Pig, was really good. Twisted Root. Phoenix Five, I want to try. Um, the, uh, you like burgers? Love burgers, dude. Rock and Rollers.

Have you been to Lucy's Burgers?

No.

Go to Lucy's Burgers, the best burger in town.

Really? Have you been to Rick and Carolyn's?

Where is that at?

Rick and Carolyn's is off of, uh, it's— there's a church on it. I don't know streets that well. It's, uh, I don't think I have. Best burgers in town.

Really?

Yeah. I, I'll, I'll come back. I'll, I'll come at you on that, cuz Rick and Carolyn's— apparently Rick and Carolyn were a couple here.

Okay.

They lived here for a while and like Their burgers are pretty slamming, but I need to try Lucy's. Rock and Roller's a thing.

It's like a husband and wife.

Husband and wife.

Yeah.

But I've heard Rock and Roller. I've had Rock and Roller's. It's pretty good.

Have you ever been over there? Okay. I know where that's at.

Have you ever been to Hopdoddy? Hopdoddy's like a, I guess, gourmet burger bar or whatever, but it reminds me a lot of Hopdoddy. Rock and Roller's does. It's good. I think you would like it if you like—

Rock and Roller's good.

Yeah. Trying to think what else we talked about. Crew Thai, Spicy India.

Have you been to Perini's?

No, I haven't. That's the nice spot. I have heard of Perini's.

That's in Buffalo Gap.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Maybe I'm tripping. I've been to Beehive. I heard Beehive's another one of the nice ones.

Yeah, that one's here downtown. Yeah, I haven't been there, but I heard it's good, man.

It's expensive.

Yeah.

Like for one person, I went one day, I was like, I was off and my fiancée had to work and I was like, you know, I'm going to go treat— I'm going to go try to learn the town. So I started walking downtown and said Beehive was nice and I went and like had like like filet mignon and lobster. It's like $100. I was like, geez, that's probably also the most expensive thing on the menu. Yeah, well, they were like, it's a special. I was like, cool, especially expensive.

Yes.

And I think I had an appetizer and like a cocktail, like I did the whole thing.

Yeah.

Um, but I was like, $100, like sheesh. Like, I can— most places here you go and it's $30 with tip and you're like, I love it.

Yeah. Okay, so let's get back into the social media thing.

Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Um, Have you ever done any work for like local businesses? Like if you were to do any work like in your realm, what would it look like?

Oh man, it'd be more of like a consulting strategy, not as much.

So explain that. Like, what does that mean?

So basically I would like, I call it a social media audit. So like where I would sit down with you and beforehand I would ask you to get all your social media pages and I would just basically do a health check on your social media and what you're doing, the content you're putting out, the demographics that you have, how many people are following you, what your engagement look like, and kind of give you like a, hey, almost like a report card on how good your social media looks. And then I would give you like a 30, 60, 90 day strategy of like what we need to do to get you there.

So does that mean like how many posts, like at what time of day, like what kind of content?

That's exactly what it is. Yeah. When to post, what type of content. Because the first month is going to be— we're just going to try a lot of stuff. We're going to throw stuff against the wall, throw stuff up against the wall and see what works. If it sticks, great. If not, we're going to pivot. So we'll do that for like 30 days and be like, all right, so let's say you're a personal brand, so I'll use, I'll use you like, right? So you have, you have your personal brand, but your personal brand also kind of goes into Flights and Sights as well at the same time. But then Flights and Sights also kind of blends into the Howdy Podcast.

Yeah.

What I would probably do is double down on yourself. Yeah, but I would rename myself as like Darren the Something, and it would be like a some type of photography or video title. And then push everything to that while still pushing to this. But make sure you're posting natively in the app to your personal page.

Yeah.

And then because, because people are going to get bought into, well, what's Darren do? And it only makes you look more professional when you have these other pages. And then, and then I know you can actually keep up with them where a lot of people are like, I can only do one page. But most of the time I'd say double down on one page to start posting content. But for you right now, I would say this content is great. Yeah, the talking head stuff, the podcast clips. But if you really want people to get bought into the services that you provide, you're either going to have to start doing like a A day in the life.

Yeah. Or like we're working on a week in the life, right?

Yeah. There you go. Week in the life of a 22-year-old multimedia owner in Abilene, Texas. Like, the more you can niche down, the more granular you can get, the more targeted people you're going to reach. You ever have issues with blah, blah, blah posting to Instagram? Call me. And then I would do that and I would just give out like appetizers, 10, 15 seconds, 10, 15 seconds. Because if I showed you my analytics right now, What do you think the average time somebody watches my content is on Instagram?

I don't know. How long is your average video?

Anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds. Some are longer.

I'd say 10 to 15 seconds.

3 seconds. Doesn't matter if the video is a minute, a minute and a half, 10, 15 seconds. I get about 3 seconds for somebody to say, yeah, I want to keep watching this or not.

Yeah.

So like when you think about that and I tell people this, like you don't need to be putting up editorials or dissertations. It needs to be like 10 seconds. Don't give it a lot of effort. Because people aren't going to give it a lot of effort when watching it.

Yeah.

So it needs to be something that becomes easy to you. But if you keep showing up, something will eventually pop off.

Yeah. And if you can make those 3 seconds like count and valuable for them. Yeah.

Like I always like the reason I started. Well, the reason I started my YouTube channel the way I do is because a lot of people are like, what's up, y'all? Welcome back to the channel. It's your boy Blobbity Blee. We're back. And I'm like, I just like I'm cutting all that out. So what I'm going to say is like, what's up, y'all? Let's get straight into it. Within the first 2 seconds, we're already to the— we're already to the thing. With the Shorts I'm posting, it's like immediately into the action. I'm not introducing myself. I'm not telling them anything to do. You know, it's just straight to the point because people are— it's an attention economy. And when everybody's trying to sell something, that's when it becomes difficult. Yeah, but it was a long-winded answer for what I would do, but essentially a social media audit.

So, so that's just kind of like a side thing though, right? Oh yeah. Just like very—

the consult. I was doing it more when I was in Austin and like it was more like a business thing. But it— from work-life balance standpoint, when you're doing it all yourself plus you're doing it for other people, it made me kind of not like it. I had some disdain towards it, kind of like what you talked about earlier. It's like it's kind of overwhelming. Like it is like most of the time when you're pumping out content for other people, the last thing you want to do is go do it for yourself.

Yeah.

So I pivoted and said, I'm just going to do it for myself. And if people want me, they can bring me in for like an hour or two. Like I've got a consultancy right now where I have equity in the company, but I meet with them twice a month for an hour.

Yeah.

And that's it. They get to pick my brain. I talk to them. I don't have like really any ties, but if I was to do it now, I'd sit down with the business owner for free and just, hey, let's chop it up for a bit just to kind of meet people, especially here. So if anybody ever reaches out to me, feel free to like I'll give you a free social media audit and we'll just go over everything, kind of talk about it. And then but if you want content, go to him because I'm not gonna do any of that. I'm not gonna edit your content. I'll give you strategy, but I'm not editing. I'm not shooting. I'm not, I'm not doing that. It's too much work. It's too much work.

Yeah, to do all of it. And that's what we've been trying to do. Mm-hmm.

And I think you will. And what I think for you, at least what helped me, is like getting your processes down. And it sounds like you're already like well ahead of where I probably would have been if I would have started this. But like getting it down to a science where I can do a lot of work in 4 hours.

Yeah.

Like Opus Pro. Hopefully that helps with the long-form content. Hopefully you can find something that will chop up things and cut stuff like this. Editing is what takes forever. It takes so long.

Yeah.

And that's what people sleep on is the editing. Like the recording part's the fun part, but the editing part's the grueling. Like, I've got to sit here for 5 hours and you're good at it, which it makes you want to flex that muscle, but it takes up so much of your time.

Yeah. Yeah, editing, I, it's like an emotional roller coaster with editing. Like, I'll start off hyped, like a lot of energy, like ready to go, like, I'll get this done in 10 minutes. No, things go a different way. I discover a clip didn't look the way I wanted it to or sound the way I want to do. Now I'm fixing the audio, like, now. And then I have to zoom out and look at the story. Yeah, what is this actually saying? Does it make sense? Mm-hmm. Putting captions, you got to go proofread everything, like, yeah.

Now, Opus Pro makes it a lot easier. Yeah, I think you'll be able to pump out a ton of content. And so I always— and I've— because I've been on a few podcasts and they— we usually get to this part in the conversation, and I want to ask you this question. What do you think is more important, quality of content or quantity of content?

I think if you can have a good mixture of both, that's what I would do.

I personally could just have one. Just have one.

Quality.

You think? Well, why?

That's just personal preference.

Okay, okay, that's fair. What I—

if I see an Instagram page and it looks like crap, mm-hmm, in my mind there's a less likely chance of me staying there and looking at it because it's not aesthetically pleasing. Like, nothing catches my eye. It's just a normal thing, right? But I also am a photographer and creative, like, videographer. So like I take pride in those things, right? Like I want my things to look good. Mm-hmm. And so that's why I would say quality. And, and whenever you put that quality into things, I feel like it takes it to another level and people notice.

No, they definitely do.

They notice that you put the extra effort and time into that. I'd rather put 3 videos out a week right now.

Mm-hmm.

That are very, very high quality.

Mm-hmm.

Then put out— because I mean, I don't even have any— I like, I gotta curate and like take time to think about the type of stuff.

Yeah.

It's a very weird niche. Like, mm-hmm. I'm still discovering who my audience even is.

Yeah, well, that's the beauty of it though.

And so, like, I'm making all different kinds of videos and, like, different types of content, and, like, I've got it. I'm trying to be creative and funny and, like, get my message across all at the same time. And so I would say quality.

Okay.

For you, quantity has worked.

Well, I've always said, and this is something Gary Vee says, quality is subjective.

Yeah.

Like all the things you just explained, quality to me, quality to you means that. But like when— who was the popular people in class or the popular people? They were always the people that were there, all those people that were seen. And so I've taken the quantity approach because Gary V talks about that. He's like, quality is so subjective and a lot of people don't have that level of knowledge that you have, like to even appreciate it. They think it's too polished.

Yeah.

Because like even to your point earlier, you were like, I like the realness of it. Yeah, I like how raw it is. Um, but then good, I just have access to a very nice camera. Yeah, very, very nice gear. It's a lot.

Why not use—

no, why— yeah, why would you not? Why would you not? I completely agree. But like, a lot of stuff can be done from a phone that's— it's okay. Like, if you were to look at my content, the quality of it, and then look at yours, you'd be like, wow, Darren's got 10x the quality that he has.

Like, see, but at the same time You're a content creator. That's what you do. Yeah, we have services.

You're like a business.

We're— we provide a service. Yeah, that— yours is attention, audience. Ours is media, like, yeah, quality, like video editing, like— so I think it also just depends on like what you do. And like, if I was straight up going in like content creating, picking a niche only doing that, like, yeah, I would be pumping out. Like, I didn't— I wouldn't care. Yeah, what it looked like or like anything.

It's kind of what you have to do.

And then I also, as a brand, I have to represent the kind of stuff we can produce so people are more willing to— like, they're like, why do I need to pay you that much? I'm like, well, trust in my Instagram. Like, yeah, there's good stuff. Like, it's not—

yeah, I used to, when people would ask me like, why is it— why is it so expensive? And so I always kept a one-pager of all my gear, like a total at the bottom.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I completely understand that you feel that way. If you want to get started and kind of do what I do, here's— and they're like, 15,000? Like, yeah, it's a lot. And then you have to learn all this stuff. Do you want to do that, or you just want to pay me like $600?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll pay you $600. Because people don't realize how much the gear costs.

Oh yeah.

Like, every single piece of everything that you see in here was purchased And it's, it's a lot of money. So it's a very big—

everything, all the furniture, cables, microphones.

Like, you might have some of this stuff laying around, but, but you had to buy pretty much all of it to get started. It's not like you're like, I just took my couch out of my living room and I took my side— no, you're not doing that. You're buying actual things. But to your point, I completely agree. Like, running an agency, much different. Like, you need to have higher quality content. But it also needs to be, I think, real enough where people can relate to you. Yeah. So even the biggest brands, it's like kind of like our commercial point we were talking about earlier. It's like almost sometimes it's too polished.

Yeah.

The good thing about a podcast though, if it's well done, it's like it's polished, but it's also real because it's just two people talking. It's not like it's anything crazy. There's no script here and we're not following guidelines. We're not pitching a product or a service.

Yeah. Yeah. And now I don't, I don't post every video like that. I do post straight up phone videos sometimes. And I mean, those do just as good, if not better.

So I mean, it's just whatever you can, man. I, I always say it's just, I'm just going to keep showing up. Like, people are like, well, what's the key? And I'm like, post every day for a year.

Yeah.

And they're like, that's a lot. Like, I know, I know, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is any type of brand. Because to your point, my whole thing with trust is, um, I think trust building is showing up every day. It's kind of like a kid's philosophy, like Why does a kid trust their parent? Because they're there for them all the time.

Yeah.

Content creation. I've kind of taken the same approach. I'm going to be there for you every day to laugh at me.

Yeah. And I've heard the other day on another podcast, they said it takes about 7 hours for somebody to watch you online before they trust you enough to buy something from you.

That's crazy.

So if you do an hour or 2-hour-long podcast, that's 2 hours already.

Yeah, right.

Instead of doing like 10-second clips, it takes a while.

Oh, it takes a very long time.

And so if you can get somebody to trust you and like watch you for that long, like like they're bought in.

Oh yeah, 100%.

So like, and then you lead them to over to your Instagram channel and they see what you're doing and they're like, okay, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, you have a link and they buy your product, they're like, okay, he obviously knows. Then you blow their minds with a little 50-page ebook. Yeah, explaining how all of it works. And like, it's just like, yeah, it's crazy.

Well, like I said, like I said earlier, man, like information is one of the highest, uh, and it's one of the things you're paying for.

Like our services, like you're not just paying for a picture or like a video. Like, you're, you're paying for the quality, you're paying for the last 2 years of experience and like knowledge of video production.

Like, yeah, I would do it. There's so much that goes into it. And I like that you're like a full suite of products.

Yeah.

And services, I guess, essentially. Like, you'll, you'll not just create it, but you'll post it, which makes people a lot more.

I figured out to do that, that is the sweet cherry on top that may convince people too.

Well, because people, it's overwhelming. Well, what do I do with this content? Yeah, I don't want to put— I don't want to have to learn.

Yeah, all these social media platforms, and it's not the funnest thing in the world.

Like, even though we do it, like, we'd all rather be sipping mojitos on the beach, but like, and there's worse things you could do.

I've thought about trying to outsource it somehow and like delegate it somewhere. To somebody who knows what they're doing. And so like, you know, I think it's kind of cool I'm talking to you about this. Yeah, do it every day.

Yeah. Well, I do, um, I tell people, you feel overwhelmed, get a VA in the Philippines, $5 an hour.

Yeah, so, so I looked into virtual assistants. Mm-hmm. Do you have one? Mm-hmm. How is that?

Have you loved it?

So it's like, what does it look like?

Basically, they comment back on every comment. Like if I get a comment, they comment back for me. I get a DM, they DM for me.

Got it.

And so, but what I've done is I've created like keyboard shortcuts depending on what they say. So if somebody's like, yo, love your content or something like that, I'm like, hey, I really appreciate you. You're a real one. Make it, just make it kind of seem like it's me.

Yeah.

And if it's like, because Instagram especially is like, if you don't comment back on a comment quick enough, they're like, oh, you're not engaged with your audience. So they want it to be quick. So I've got— as soon as I get a comment, they'll go in and heart it and reply it. And like just general things, like I'll give them like a sheet of like what they can say. And so they just copy paste it with like a keyboard shortcut. And if I, if I like on the weekends when I'm not having them work because, you know, I'm a nice guy, I'm not trying to have somebody work. Yeah, 15 hours a day. But like during the meat of the day from like 11 to 5, they're just sitting there doing that. But it's helpful, man. Like it takes up so much of your time off, like having to worry about it. The next thing I might do is get a thumbnail creator for YouTube, but I can just do it right now. So I'm like, my philosophy, and I think you would probably resonate with this, like, I like to learn how to do it first. Yeah, and then I can outsource it.

Yeah, I like, I've learned how to do all of this, and so now I'm in the process of like teaching. Yeah, somebody who can help me how I do things. Yeah, and I'm also looking for like outsourcing options, really, even for like video editing. I've looked into. I can do it, but just the amount of time that it takes on top of like keeping a business afloat and running a business. Yeah, doing the finances, all that thing, paying the space and like client relations and all of that side of things that you don't really think about going into starting a business. Yeah, that's, that's kind of why I've started to think about that. But whenever you, you're creative and you turn it into a business, there's a lot things that nobody ever tells you about.

Dude, nobody tells you anything about it.

Cuz like, as soon as you start making money, okay, you got to start worrying about taxes.

Yep.

Okay, start worrying about taxes. How do you reduce those taxes? Yeah. And so now you're all of a sudden an LLC, and then you're like, okay, how do I reduce even more? Like, what's a business expense? How do I keep track of it? Like, am I paying the right amount to the government? Yeah. Like, all of that stuff, you then become like a business manager.

Uh, yeah.

And then you have way less time to be a creative.

Yeah.

And so like, if you can figure out a system to like bring somebody on or have somebody assist you and delegate that to. I feel like that's the sweet spot.

Oh yeah. What I did, man, is I just made like a, a one-pager of like, what are the most time-consuming tasks that I have? And I was like, what can I outsource and what would be the cheapest? Video editing is expensive because I thought about that and I was like, I'll get a video editor. And I was like, $50 a video for— I'm like, dude, I'm— yeah, I'm not even making that much. I'm not about to pay you. But then I looked into, all right, what can I do? So Opus Pro is great because it's like, what, $10, $15 a month? It'll edit all the clips. But as far as long-form content, the only, the only platform I think that does anything like this kind of CapCut. But Premiere Pro, I think you said, does this where they take out the silences.

Yeah. Yeah, they do that now.

Yeah, I think that's— I mean, that'd be your— probably your best bet is what I would do. Take out all the dead time, post up the raw, and then—

and you know, they have a podcast AI editing software now.

Yeah, I would just do that.

I haven't— yeah, I haven't tested it yet. I wanted to make sure I knew how the heck to do it.

Oh yeah, that's smart.

And make sure I could do it if I needed to. And so before I started relying on AI completely. Yeah, because that's the thing, especially like photo stuff is different. It's getting really good with photo stuff, dude.

Midjourney and Sora. Have you seen Sora?

Yeah, is that the new video?

It's insane.

It's getting really good. So like the editing stuff for the videos is it's really good, but it's not reliable enough to be the main thing that I use.

Yeah.

And so like, I still have to edit majority of things, but like the Opus Pro, I tested it out and it was fantastic. Like, dude, I put in like, I put in a 50-minute video and in like 5 to 10 minutes it gave me almost 30 like clips with a virality score, with captions, with—

yeah, you can put your logo. It's crazy.

And you can schedule it to post. Like, it gives it even a caption, almost like a title.

Yeah, it gives you a title, and it's like, yeah, it's crazy. No, yeah. Have you ever used it?

Very impressive. Like, like, I— we did a bit where we shot a bow and arrow at the camera, and I missed the camera with the arrow, and behind the camera was Mike, the guy who'd made the dad joke. Oh yeah, that's funny. Everybody knows him by that now. But I hit him right in the nuts and he was like, oh, and I was like, oh, we hit Mike in the cojones. And then it gave it a title. It was like Prank Gone Wrong, like hitting Michael in the cojones. I was like, that's impressive.

It's listening. Opus Pro is probably the best one. I've looked at a lot of other ones. Video.ai, Munch. They were okay, but Opus Pro gives the best like aesthetic and they'll split up the screens and then they'll go to like one shot, like Opus Pro does a really good job. Don't sleep on Opus Pro. They're very good because I used to do what you were doing, like manually cut up. Like, dude, it's—

it takes a lot of time.

Oh my God, it takes so much time. Yeah, but Opus Pro is going to save you time. Have you— oh, I meant to ask, have you ever heard of Hootsuite?

Yes. Is that a scheduling platform?

Yeah, for like social media. So you can have like multiple accounts, you can schedule.

So I use something pretty much the same.

Okay. Okay.

It's called Metricool.

Okay. Okay. I think I've heard of it.

Yeah, it's been, it's been good.

I mean, as long as it does the job, dude.

There's been a few limitations, like the audios and the trending audios.

Oh yeah, you can't do that.

Quite figured out that. So if we do use a trending audio, we just have to go on and—

right. What you could do, which is what I have done in the past— I don't use Hootsuite anymore because I post natively in the app— but like, if you go from Hootsuite, put it in your drafts, and then you can go in the app, go from your drafts, and then add an audio.

So you can put it directly from into your drafts. Mm-hmm. Okay.

So like, that's what I'll do, like my camera roll sometimes, like, because I'll post like an old video I haven't posted in like 30, 60 days, and I'll post it, but I don't want to like post it to Instagram. So I'll go from my camera roll, save it as a draft in Instagram, and then go in Instagram. Yeah, mess with it. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Yeah, dude, there's so many, there's so many. And I feel like I don't even know, like, the only reason I know what I know is because I've just tried to look it up. Like, all the stuff that you're doing, I'm completely ignorant to. Like, I've really just doubled down on like, how can I get the most out of my time when creating content. Yeah, that's like when you asked me earlier, do you create a batch of content? Like, yes, like, yeah, I have to record.

And that's what we do with our clients too, is we'll pick a day, um, we'll call them media days.

Yeah, that's perfect, dude.

Batch create, we'll film like 10 to 12 reels worth of content, and there's that. And then we go in, we edit it, and like we post it, schedule it, everything's good to go. That's it.

Yeah, that's all you have to do. So, um, But dude, there's a lot of power going back to VAs. There's a lot of power in a Google Drive and a VA on WhatsApp. There's a lot of power in that because that's what I'm doing that right now with. Like, I'm trying a couple other accounts on TikTok and I'm just like bulk uploading a Google Drive link or like a drive, I guess.

So what do you— oh, you put up— you put the videos in there.

I put the videos in the Google Drive and then I'll put the caption and the hashtags because it's the same every time. Can you relate? And then they'll go through and post it every day. Because I don't feel like posting on like multiple accounts. So it's like, hey, I want you to do comments this week. Hey, I want you to— so my VA can do a couple of those things. Yeah. So it's not just like I have one person for this, I have one person for that. It's like you can teach them a couple of different things. They're pretty savvy, dude. VAs are great and they're not super expensive, like maybe $5 an hour, $6 an hour, India or the Philippines. And they're— I've asked one, one time I paid a guy to like, like build me because I was going to start like website creation, kind of like what you're doing, but like calling up local businesses. Hey, you don't have a website? And they're like, yeah, I don't have a website. Hey, I built one for you and it's got a ClickFunnels and it's got everything that you need. All you got to do is pay me $600 and then $200 a month, I'll host it for you.

Yeah, something like that.

And so I had a VA build me a list of just like every single, like, business around me in a 150-mile radius that did not have a website. And it was so many.

Wow.

Yeah. Phone numbers, email addresses. Went through and then after like a week I had the list.

Wow.

You can do anything. There's some there. You're like, I— this would have taken me a year. Yeah, they'll go through and do it. So you could do that, be like, go through and make me a list of every single real estate agent within 100 miles. Go through, make me a list of every single broker within 100 miles and real estate investor within 100 miles. Any small business owner within 100 miles. And now you have a massive list. Create an email list. But now you're sending out to everybody and it's like, who's this? Guy?

Yeah.

How does he know I need—

so like if you have that list, you can say, hey, send this email out at this time, and they can just—

they— you would probably have to provide them some software. When it comes to like data mining, they— you got to find a guy that does data mining. But for like email campaigns, you'd have to be like, hey, do you have MailChimp or do you have HubSpot? Because email marketing is you're going to have to have software, but you can hire somebody to do it. Be like, hey, I need somebody that does this. And you could find a VA like on Fiverr. You could find a VA that's like, I'll do an email campaign for you and send out 500 emails a day to those people. Or you could do it yourself and go through MailChimp or HubSpot. I think HubSpot has a free account, but I don't know, man. What are your thoughts on email marketing? For you, I think it'd be good.

I want to do it eventually.

I think it's smart.

I just got to get the emails.

That's the hard part. Well, that's where, that's where you get a—

I gotta get the emails and I'm not gonna have time to do the emails. Yeah, I'm gonna have to have somebody help me write them. Yeah. And figure out what's going on, the email.

Yeah.

And so one of the things that we could do is if we continue to release this podcast, like every episode, we can send out and like kind of push them towards the episode. Maybe if we have like, if somebody comes on and they have like a product they're selling, include the link there. Like probably do that kind of stuff.

Mm-hmm. Oh, smart.

I just haven't got there yet, dude.

You're so— and I'm just spitballing ideas like, yeah, I know.

That's what we do all day. I'm just, okay, what else can we do?

This would be cool. This would be nice. But yeah, man, and it takes time, man. You're like, I've already said, you're well on your way. You got a, you got a great setup, a good vision, and you got a really good head on your shoulders. You know what you're doing. And you're just gonna learn a lot, like exponentially. You're gonna learn a lot, like from now, I think from here to 30 days from now or 60 days from now, you're gonna be like, I didn't know anything last month. Now you're gonna know a lot more.

That's how I feel even like a year ago.

The growth is just exponential. You're like, wow.

Like if you would have told me I would have had this studio a year ago, I would have been like, no way. No way that was gonna happen.

No.

But like, like even 3 months ago, like it wasn't even an idea.

That's wild.

Like, this wasn't— yeah, it wasn't even a thought.

This is something I've been wanting to do for a hot minute. I just haven't.

Yeah, and I've been a bull. Yeah, I just feel like with this kind of stuff, especially when it comes to my business, once I like make my mind up on something, it happens and it happens very fast. Like, I go 150%, as you should. And so, as you should, that's— I think— I feel like that's been like the biggest one of the bigger growth. Like, some people are like, how did you do that so fast? Or like, um, like, you had a good first year, like, you've grown an insane amount. Which, yeah, I mean, for a first-year business, I think we've done pretty good. I want to have bigger, more growth.

Oh yeah, 100%.

I'm just like, I just work every day. Like, I make time for family. Like, yeah, I make time for traveling too. Like, it's possible to do both. But like when you're at work, what are you doing? And like, how are you being productive during those times? Are you just on your phone scrolling?

Yeah, mindlessly.

Like, yeah.

Well, when you're— what is it? What is the saying? I would rather instead of working a 9-to-5, I'd rather work 24/7 because that's what it is when you're an entrepreneur or solopreneur.

Yeah.

Like you got to work all the time.

Today's Saturday. Like I'm usually off, but like I'm technically—

this is working.

Technically this is working. It doesn't feel like work. It doesn't feel like fun, but yeah.

But I mean, technically it is because you're gonna take these and probably make clips or something, you know. So, but I just, I don't know, I love it. I love the whole creative aspect of it because when I was making music, I loved creating music. And now it's like other people get to enjoy it. It's the same thing with content. It's like other people get to enjoy it. And I think, I think everybody's got something that they're really good at that they could talk about. Yeah, but a lot of people just don't do it where it's like, okay, I'll be, I'll be the one to talk about it because why not?

Yeah, and I feel like knowing how to use a camera is a skill that you'll be able to use for a very long time, ever.

Like, anything technology-wise, man.

Yeah, like, it's that— and once you learn the camera, because it's a tool, it's a tool. Like, if there was nowhere to put this stuff, it would be useless. Yeah, it'd just be for fun. But like, you can use it as a tool and it opens up so many doors once you know how to use it. Oh yeah. And so That's, that's it.

I think, I think 2024 is going to be a very big year for you. And if we— I think if me and you can come up with a plan of what we could do and make it happen and like cross-promote, and then I'll even help. Like, there's anything you need me to do that you think I would be good at, please implore me. I'm, you know, I'm not going to ask for anything back because I feel like just building the relationship of me helping you, you helping me, like, yeah, mutually exclusive where we're both getting something out of it. I like those relationships more than like, you just, you know, you just pay people for their time. It doesn't feel organic, you know?

Yeah, maybe. I feel like I just had this idea. Maybe so, like, you're a creator, and so maybe, I don't know, maybe we could start something cool and build like a little creative community. It's a good idea just to have.

There's a, there's a rollerblade chick here that's got like 48,000 followers. Yeah, she's pretty big. There's, there's people here that I think create content. Some of them are just like maybe on YouTube, maybe on Instagram, but like, yeah, no, assembling people is something that I'm pretty good at. And I feel like if it was, if it got to the point you're like, let's find some people, I think I could find some people.

Yeah. Because I don't know, I feel like it could be cool just to kind of have everybody on the same team, like, just to gain like relationships and like that network, not even necessarily work together. Like, you don't have to work together.

Yeah.

But like bounce ideas off each other, like, hey, what do you guys think of this? Like people who have done it and have experience in it. Yeah, because there's not very many people who are in your shoes and around this area.

Yeah.

So like, nobody I know, it's like unknown territory.

Yeah.

Including me even, like I haven't been like, I've learned that side of things, the camera side of things, but like I'm still learning the marketing and like the branding side. Yeah, yeah.

It's a lot. What's crazy, man, the thing I've learned is it's a lot simpler than I ever thought it was. It was like, think of the big brands that you like. There's probably like one reason you like them. Like, you like Converse because of what, the aesthetic or the feel?

Aesthetic.

He loves the— you love the way they look. You really don't care about like the gold stuff is cool. You may—

yeah, these are custom too, so these aren't—

yeah, okay, so well, and there you go. But see, you've bought in so much to the brand that you like the aesthetic that you've created your own custom pair, which is like another level of like, you're a super fan at this point. You're not just a fan, but like your jeans, did you go that far for? Probably not. You probably were like, I like the feel, they're cool, right? But it's like turning people from a fan to a super fan is the hard part. It's like that you get them bought into you, but then getting them, getting them bought into what you're promoting or services, that's the hard part. But you could just kind of— I've always just kept it super simple.

Yeah.

Because I've I don't know if you're big on watching streams or anything. We talked about this earlier. Do you know who Dr Disrespect is, or—

I don't think so.

Okay. Okay. So there's like— his name's Dr Disrespect. He puts on a wig, he puts on glasses, and it's like he's a character when he's on stream. You know, he's off stream, he's a regular guy, but essentially, like, good branding, good marketing. He has like some of the best because he goes into it like he's a character and everybody knows he's a character. So I've always treated it like I need to create like an online persona, an online character. Yeah. So people are like, oh, this is you. And then when you connect with them on a real level, they're like, they take it like— anytime I do an AMA, every time I hit like a milestone, I do an AMA, ask me anything. I get a ton of engagement on it. And a lot of people ask me really personal questions I don't want to share, but people will ask. And it's like, that lets me know they're getting bought more into the brand. Yeah. But that's the hard part.

Yeah. It's like, how do you get there?

Post a lot. It's literally that simple. Like, because like we talked about earlier, quality subjective.

Does it have to be Can you just post whatever? Do you have to—

has to be a niche.

Have to pick, like, make a plan of what you're going to post.

You don't necessarily need a plan. You just need to know, like, what do you want people to know you for? That's what you need to know. I wanted people to know me for the relationship guy because my goal is, is once I hit 100K, I'm going to drop an ebook and also a masterclass.

Yeah.

So people can go and be like, oh, what is this ebook? It's going to be the secrets to dating or the secrets to this. This guy's making it right now. And then I'll offer a course as well. And then on top of that, I'll offer consultations with me. But I'm going to wait until I have $100K because people have asked me. The only people I work with are people that I'm like, I actually like this Flame app. I really like their apps. I'm like, I'll work with you guys. But for the most part, I'm holding off on the consultancy to kind of build up like people want to work with me. And then I'm like, all right, I'm offering. It's the— what is it, the 1-5-30 rule? I don't know if you ever heard of this. I'm going to offer one solution. To 5 people for the next 30 days. Once I have 5 people, I'm done. You charge more for it. You don't have to work with as many people. So that's one thing I did at start of 2024. I used to do $100 for a video. You want me to do a video? $100. Soon as 2024 hit, I said it's $200. Yeah, nothing really changed. I maybe had a few different thousand followers, but nothing really crazy. But now I can work less and get paid more.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's something I'm not saying raise your prices.

No, I think that's crazy.

But that's a It's a good way to—

that's what you have to take into consideration too. Like, the more experience you get, like, I've had to do that with some real estate pricing. Some people like it, some people don't. But the people who trust me and like my stuff, they stick around, and that supplements the people I lost.

Yeah. So, no, exactly. And you can work with fewer people but make more money. So you got— sometimes you got to raise your prices.

Um, it also brings in a different clientele, client Because like, if you have the prices, like people who actually are wanting to pursue this are like, okay, yeah, I'm ready for it.

Well, I've always, I've always found what's so funny is like the $50 people, the $40 people are way more picky than the $250, the $300 people, the $1,000. The $500 people come in and they're like, just do it, I trust you. Like, thank you. Yeah, $50 person, can we get this revised? Can we get that? Can you go back? I didn't write— I'm like, God. 'Lee.' So that's why I also raised my price. I was just tired of working with a bunch of people that were very picky.

Yeah, less serious.

Yeah. Well, and then these people that have bigger budgets, they understand that it's like, this is just one cog in the wheel of the system. Like, I just need to put out some content that looks good. I'll leverage you as a creator. Yeah, but I need— they're like, I'm not like, I'm not spending half of our marketing budget on you. Okay, great. But for some people, $50 is a lot of money for them. And it's like, well, I don't want to have to work with those people. It's a headache. I hate to say that, but it's just, it's just the mindset. Yeah. It's the nature of the business.

Mindset of your clients.

Well, that too. Well, you need to know your ICP, your ideal client profile. And for you, I'd be, I'd be going for business owners. That's, I'd be with that Cupid's bow. I'd be straight up trying to shoot them in the face with that because, you know, they're going to be eating it up.

See, yeah. And they have budgets set aside for this kind of stuff too. So like, why would I waste my time?

I could see an Instagram ad going crazy for you. Are you a small business owner in Abilene? And they're like, you know, have something, but like, have like a really catchy one. Like, I got your back like a chiropractor. And then just list out the services. Do you need this? Do you need that? And just have it be quirky, stupid, dumb, holding weird objects and like, make it like 15, 20 seconds. Yeah, it's like I'm offering this to 5 people for the next 30 days and you get one, you get this one thing. You create scarcity because a lot of business owners, what I've noticed is they just offer it like just everybody. I've got it. So now there's no time limit, there's no persona limit of how many people can buy it. And there's, and there's an unlimited amount of choices.

There's a thing in sales, no, like call to action.

Yeah. CTA. There's another thing in sales we call the illusion of choice. So when you— a lot of people, you know, you're not a parent yet, neither am I. But there's a parenting thing like a kid's doing something and you're like, Don't do that. So that's not giving them the illusion of choice. The illusion of choice is, okay, you don't want to put on your backpack. Okay, well, if you don't want to put in your backpack, then you can either not go to school or clean all day, which they hate, or something.

Yeah.

And not play on your game. Or you can just put on your backpack and you can go to school. What would you rather do? I'll put on my backpack and go to school. As opposed to telling your kid, you got to put on your backpack. Yeah. It gives them that illusion of choice when clearly one of the options they're not going pick. You have to do the same thing with your clients.

Yeah.

And limit the options. Like on my— I'm working on doing this right now where I have— when you click the link in my bio, there's going to be two things you can click. Yeah, that's it. It's either you want to look at my social media or you want to email me. That's it. It's not going to be, here's my YouTube, here's my Instagram, here's my TikTok, here's my media kit. Here's like— just you got to control the options.

Yeah.

Because people get burnt out with like too many choices. Yeah, too many choices, man. Like Think about when you went and bought a car, you probably looked at 5 or 6. If they only had 2, you probably would have been in and out of there in 30 minutes. But you can do that with an online business.

Yeah.

Which is what's so cool about it. A lot of things to think about, man. It's like, but you got the— you got, you got a lot ahead of you because you're just now getting into the— I feel like you're like ankle deep right now. You're about to be knee deep eventually and then waist deep and you're going to be fully submerged and be like, I am in here.

Yeah. And I feel like One of the reasons I picked this, like, area of expertise to kind of pursue— not only is it, like, fun, I enjoy a lot of fun. Yeah, but, like, also with the way the internet's going, with the way everything is going on earth, it's going digital.

Yeah.

And so, like, if you can learn these skills and, like, especially, like, Adobe products, even if you can know how to edit a simple video your, your value just like skyrockets. Yeah, skyrockets. And so like in the next 10 years, these big corporations who are just now catching on are gonna be hiring tons of these people. Oh yeah, some market, market, market, like constantly.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, so like we're gonna be seeing podcast studios, like all kinds of content creation studios all over the country. Oh yeah. And so like we're just like beginning that.

Oh yeah. Well, the content creator houses. Yeah, a bunch of content creators live together, but the creator economy is like half a billion dollars, I think, right now. Like, it's, it's, it's huge.

Yeah.

Like, there's guys that were making TikToks one day and now they're in Gillette commercials.

Yeah.

You know, like, like Addison Rae was like a host for the UFC or something. And like that Bella Thorne girl started doing music and it's like, but you never know what's going to happen. And that's where I was like, I just— people just need to see my face. That's what it is. And they see me and cool, they want to work with me. Because Abilene is great. But how awesome would it be if people outside of Abilene were like, hey, I'm going to send you something, can you like make a video about my product? That just makes your life even easier because now you don't have to mess with anybody.

Yeah.

And now you control the controllables and you're at home.

Yeah.

That was the biggest thing for me when I started creating content is like, I don't know if you went through the struggles, like having to rely on a lot of people. Like if you have a podcast now, you have to rely on one other person. Yeah, right. And you're already relying on all the tech to work.

Yeah.

And so I hope we're rolling right now. Let's hope so. But like, but if you don't have I don't have that many people to rely on. It's like, wow, I really got it for me.

Yeah.

And it makes it a lot less stressful. But it's just tough, man.

Yeah.

But it's also a really cool thing. And I think, I think in this area especially, it'll, it'll blossom.

But yeah, because there's really nothing like, at least that I found. If there is, like, I don't think there is. I want to be made aware of it. But like, I don't think there's anything like this. No, there's nothing within even in like 100-mile radius, 200 miles maybe. Is there anything in Dallas?

Oh yeah, like this. Yeah.

Okay. Because I haven't— which I'm assuming there's millions of people there, but like Lubbock, like Amarillo, Abilene, Midland, Odessa, like all of this part of Texas, I don't think there's anything.

Probably like highly doubtful. Now I will say in Dallas you can rent like a studio spot. It's not— it's just not as cool as this.

Yeah.

Like this has like a homey feel. Yeah, it feels warm. It feels like customized. The ones there are just like, it's like almost like a newsroom. It's like, here's a table if you want to put something up, you can. Yeah, like this has more of like you watch it, you feel cozy. Yeah, it's a big difference.

Um, yeah, that's— I kind of wanted it to give an Abilene vibe.

Dude, it's stellar.

The Howdy poster, the Abilene there, like, yeah, like a little bit rustic, a little bit downtown vibes, because that's what it is. I mean, all downtown Abilene looks pretty much this. Yeah.

Like, this is— when I saw this, I was like, he has to be downtown. There's no way he's not. Because I'm like, you get exposed brick because it didn't look real. Yeah, real exposed brick. I was like, it didn't look like a poster to me because, you know, you can do wallpaper. That's what I did for my room. I was like, I want a slat wall. And I was like, they're like $3,000.

Yeah.

I was like, I'll just get wallpaper from Target.

Yeah, that was a good thing about this spot. I didn't have to change any of the walls.

Yeah, that's super nice. When you got foliage, like, that's all you really need. Some plants, some greenery, and you're good.

Just something to make the background interesting, because I like— that's one thing that's important to me, because like I've been studying film a lot too. I want to get into more filmmaking.

And, um, just make a short film, dude. I've been wanting to do it too.

I want to do so bad, like, whether that's like— and I, I probably could, but like write it, write the scripts. Get the actors together and everything. Um, before this, having these cameras, I was more limited as to what I could do. Yeah, but now that I have more stuff, I can— it's coming closer.

Yeah, dude, I would love to do—

so there's been a couple opportunities with some nonprofits to make some films for them, and, uh, it's just— I'm so freaking excited because that's gonna be fun. I've never really got to do a full one. But it'll be cool.

So like a 15-minute or something, like a short film? Yeah, that'd be cash, dude.

So, and a lot of brands need that too, like to tell their story, like to tell their past, like give their history and why they should trust that brand. Like, I don't know, it's more of a fun thing. Oh yeah, for me, like, like content creation is fun too, but it's real short. You don't always get the best circumstances to make the shot look the best and like the cinematic.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, I mean, you can try to make shots interesting, but that's— you do— you have to—

you gotta do what you gotta do. You don't get 15.

You have to deal with what you're given.

Yeah.

So like, and you don't always have good lighting, and like, unless you're in the Howdy Studio, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. But so, so what's the goal for you? Like, in the next 30 to 60 days, like, what are you hoping happens? What would be an ideal situation for you?

As far as the studio goes, really business, business studio. So I mean, I'm still trying to build up my clientele. We have memberships for the studio. If I can build up that membership list to even like— I think we'd be probably maxed out at like 5 members.

So what do you get with a membership?

So like a membership, you get full access to the studio, you get 4 podcasts per month up to 2 hours, no longer than 2 hours.

Okay.

You come in, bring your guests, we'll completely produce it. We will help you with the title cover, title, thumbnail, design that. We'll do a little mini marketing shoot to promote it, and we'll also distribute it to Spotify, Apple Music. Okay, all those things. So like people who don't really have any experience doing any of that, yeah, they'll come here and we'll do everything for 4 podcasts a month. Yeah. And you'll get 10 reels cut up from those podcasts.

Oh, dude, that's really good. Yeah, that's a deal. What do you do? You do like— because I only— when I distributed music, I did, I did like CD Baby.

Like, yeah, there's this platform called Red Circle. Okay.

I don't think I've heard of it.

So you can have pretty much as many shows as you want.

Okay. And so you push it on there and then it pushes to Spotify, Apple Music. Okay.

I do a distributor.

That's cool.

But so there's members. So that's kind of the thing. You can also do individual episodes, which we've had. Individual, because some people don't want to do that many, right? And then if you're only wanting to do like 2 a month, we can, we can make a curated package for you, right? But if we have 5 members filming 4 times or once a week, I mean, one every day, mm-hmm, I think we'll be pretty maxed out at that.

That's, that's a lot of content.

A lot of content. I mean, that'd be probably my goal with this. Yeah, at that point we'd probably bump our prices. Mm-hmm. Because I mean, if we can only have 2 clients for a higher price, and why not?

Yeah, less work.

Yep. But that's kind of my vision here. It's also just a spot for us to like grind and like edit and do that kind of thing, a meeting spot for the team.

How big is the team?

It's just 2 of us.

So it's just you and Mike? Yeah, Mike. Okay. Okay, you go to college with him?

Um, for a semester, but he's still in college. Yeah, he's going to Hardin-Simmons.

Oh, is he younger than you?

Mhm.

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, so he, he also goes to Bethel and helps out over there.

Oh, okay. So you got— did you guys meet at school or at church?

We met at school.

At school. Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, and then we kind of started hanging out at church.

Gotcha. And is Mike kind of like, like you? He can do the Adobe stuff? He can do the—

he can do most things. Okay, okay. Yeah, we're training a lot. Um, he, he worked in the media department production at Hardin Simmons.

Yeah.

Um, and then he started helping me out, and so he kind of had a knowledge of some basic stuff.

Yeah.

Um, which was great. It's a good starting point. And so I've just kind of been helping him figure out all the other ins and outs of content creation, like how— and even like I've been teaching him real estate photography and like that kind of thing. And, um, but yeah, so the podcast studio, maybe, hopefully. And my wife helps me too. She helps me a lot.

Um, so let me ask you this. Would you rather have the podcast be bigger, the Howdy Podcast, or would you rather have the business be bigger? Like, would you rather be getting more attention via the podcast or, you know, getting more attention via the business services and doing that?

It's a hard question because I got to follow up on that. Because if the Howdy podcast continues to grow, that could be a very big door to many things online.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I don't know, why not both?

It's just tough, right?

It is tough.

It's tough.

And right now my priority is obviously the comp— the business.

Yeah.

Um, I'm doing this podcast as a form of marketing. Yeah, for my business.

That makes sense.

Um, if nothing happens with it, that's fine. It's not gonna hurt my feelings. If it blows up, if people start watching it, liking it, that's fine too. Like, we'll keep doing it. Um, but yeah, so that's pretty much it for the, the studio. Just getting more clientele and getting the word out there. I kind of want to have people coming in from like Lubbock and Midland and have everybody meet here to film content. Uh, we also have like content creation packages. Packages. So like you can come in for 2 hours for X amount of dollars and we'll film as many like YouTube videos, TikToks, Shorts as we can within that 2 hours. And then we'll edit all of it and send it to you and they, they can do whatever they want with it, right? Right. So that, that's another form because not everybody does podcasts. Mm-hmm.

So people just want short form content. Yeah.

And so if they want to make a YouTube video, we'll set up a talking head video for them. That kind of thing, just like a full-scale anything with a camera type thing. And then we're also more on retainers with multiple businesses throughout the town. So we'll cover events, photography, videography, make some reels for them, that kind of thing. But yeah, honestly, 2024 is just mainly getting this up and running consistent. And getting a few more retaining clients.

Yeah, that's all you can do, man. Brick by brick. And that was a hypothetical. There's no right answer to that one. I was just like, I wonder what you would, you know, what would you like more?

Yeah, it's hard. Probably 2024, I would say the business.

Yeah. Well, because the podcast you can do when you want and the business is going to be more of like the business-based liquid. Yeah, the business-based, the liquid, you know, the cash that you want coming in. That makes total sense. But yeah, man, I'd be, I'd be excited to see what changes from now in 30, 60 days. The growth is crazy when you're consistent, man. Trust me, I've— I couldn't believe I'd be where I am today.

Even, even the small consistency that I've had this last month, like, well, you almost got 10K views on a video the other day.

Yeah, yeah, it was really good.

The giveaway with Espresso, if you haven't— well, it's probably gonna be over by the time this comes out.

Um, that one did well. That video did really well.

It has about 10K views.

It's very good. For which account was it?

The—

was it the Flights Inside? Flights Inside. Okay. And you only have a couple hundred.

Yeah, really good. I grew 100 followers in like 2 days.

Yeah, that was really good.

So like just doing that kind of thing. And so, and Espresso has a good reputation. She's great. Like everybody loves her in the community. She only has like 2,500 followers. It's a good chunk for— she hasn't really been doing it that long, right? Really? And so that was good.

She has loyal fans, and that's all that matters. Well, it's like the whole— it's a— it's like, would you rather have 1,000 fans that are super loyal or 10,000 that aren't? Like, I'd rather have 1,000 loyal.

Yeah.

And so with— because with me having, having 78,000, it's like a lot of them aren't loyal. Most of them aren't. Like, I have a core audience. But most of them are just like, I just—

oh yeah, yeah, that's how it was with my meme page.

Yeah, people like, I don't care about you.

I grew a meme page like 5K and then it brought me nothing. Like, I tried to make money off of it, didn't really do anything. Yeah, the people who followed me were just following me for their memes, guys. They just like to troll, they just like to say dumb things. Um, I did get to make a couple phone calls though with a few of them. Really? Yeah, it was kind of cool.

Did you go like live on IG or something?

No, it was just in the DMs. Like, they were like, hey, I'm going through this stuff and like I'm struggling.

Oh really? That's, that's cool.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, there's a few good conversations coming of it, but I was doing that for a bit.

I was going on IG Live and like I would, uh, basically give like relationship advice or like ask a lot of questions of their relationship status and do that on IG Live, put it on YouTube. But it was, it was just more work and I was like, I I don't like to rely on other people.

Yeah, I actually never publicly revealed my face or my identity for that meme page. And so I did one Instagram Live and it was a face reveal. I had a, you know, Rey Mysterio.

Yeah, you had a Rey Mysterio mask on.

Well, it was, it was like a Nacho Libre mask. Okay, same idea.

Yeah.

I had it on. It was a freaking wreck. Like, there was like 100 people watching, just waiting for me to take off the mask because they're like, who is this guy?

And then they're probably just gonna roast you.

And I had like a Supreme like bag, like satchel around my thing, fitting the vibe. Reese's Puff box in the back. Like, it was good. And then we listened to Life Is a Highway, like It was, it was epic. And that was the last— it was pretty much the last thing that I ever did on the page. And then I never took the mask off.

Oh, you see, you did the whole live.

Yeah, I know. I trolled all of them because they always troll me.

Sorry, the missus.

No, it's all good.

Well, why don't we cut it now? You cool with that?

Yeah, that's good. Thanks for joining the Heidi Podcast, dude.

Absolutely. Oh, speaking of, I'm watching a clip right now.

Um, where can they find you on social media?

Uh, Levi Nix. L-E-V-I-N-I-C-H-S. Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, all of it.

All the things. Levi Nix.