"DO Whatever You Can to MAKE IT HAPPEN!" - Cole Bennett (@_ColeBennett_) - Top 10 Rules

I met with a web designer and I showed him this piece of paper that I drew out in study hall and he's like, "Let's make it happen." People aren't just gonna— you can't just sit back and everyone's gonna listen to you or you're gonna sit back and everyone's gonna see your work. You gotta like really grind and do whatever it takes and make those connections and push every boundary.

If you brand yourself the right way properly, you know, you could do anything you want.

Need motivation? Watch a Top 10 with Believe Nation! What's up, it's Evan. My one word is believe and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I wanna see explode out onto the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from the founder of a music promotion and event coordination company, Lyrical Lemonade. He's Cole Bennett, and here's my take on his top 10 rules to success. Enjoy. All right, let's kick things off with rule number 1: Make it happen.

My name is Cole Bennett. I own a company called Lyrical Lemonade. It's still difficult to kind of explain it as a profession, you know what I mean? Because naturally people just don't take it seriously. But I would say I own a music promotion company, event coordination, film production. I throw shows, I do music videos, we do merchandise. I'd usually just summarize it like that. I met with a web designer and I showed him this piece of paper that I drew out and studied and he's like, "Let's make it happen." And I remember I was stoked, and I got like 200 stickers made. I went to high school, I just passed them out to all my friends, and they'd have them on their agendas and stuff. And, you know, I'd tell a lot of people about it. Some people thought it was really cool. All my friends were supportive, and then some people were like, "What are you doing?" Like, you know what I mean?

Like, "This is stupid." Hey, yo, dude, what the fuck?

No, hey, come on. Use this shit for the thing, bro.

He knew what he wanted to be, you know? He didn't want to just make videos. Like, he knew he wanted to create an empire. Like, he wanted to create something so special and no one could remake, and that's what he did. I did exactly that.

Rule number 2 is take every opportunity seriously.

When we shot the Speed Racer video, which is one of my favorite videos by the way, that video was like the start of everything for Warhol. Because that's such a good look for him and it's like you really kind of just— everybody watches that video who's sort of involved in the industry would probably be thinking like, damn, who did that video? Exactly. So that video opened up a lot of lanes for me. Like when I was editing that, Warhol was at a point where I was like, you know, Some people are gonna see this, gonna be cool, but it's not gonna benefit me any great amount. I just want to help him. So when we put it out and we're like, I remember he said he was like 100,000 views, and I was like, in my head I was like, there's no way. And now it's at like 450,000 views. I'm like, that's unbelievable. I never thought it would be at that point, but that helped me so many ways I didn't even realize it would. Like, I was just trying to help him, and then when it came out, it was like, you know, like Keef's manager called me. Like, I was on the phone with Chief Keef's manager for like 45 minutes, you know, that's cool. And that was incredible for me because they're like, they're watching my Instagram, whatever, and they were like watching my videos, they said, and they're like about to contact me. And then they saw one day when I put the snippet up for the Warhol video, there's this shot where I put up a Keef poster in like one of the scenes. So like, there's— they saw Keef in there, was like, oh, they call me like, he already fucks the gang. And, um, you know, from there we just talking like Glo Gang and everything and, and like, yeah, like we watched everything, and I got the opportunity to meet Keef a few months later. And, you know, I showed him, you know, some of the videos, and he's like, I already know who you are. And like, that was the craziest thing ever. And that stemmed from Speed Racer, you know what I mean? So you never know what— you know, you don't know what your hits are going to be, basically. You could be working with anyone, you know, whatever. You never know where that product's going to go. So that's why I think you should take everything seriously, because something that you thought was going to be something, you know, small and you know, real local could blow up in a certain extent, to a certain extent.

Rule number 3, build your brand.

Do you ever watch other people, other visual videographers, like video YouTube channel and see what they up to? Not really. I don't really try to pay attention to like what other people are doing, to be honest. But I mean, sometimes I definitely have some people that I look up to, so, you know, I'll use their work as inspiration.

Definitely.

If you could give these videographers out here some tips, what could you give them?

I would just say to really brand yourself. I feel like a lot of people, you know, some of the coolest videos out there, no one knows who made them. So I mean, I feel like we're in a time right now where I feel like producers, videographers, artists obviously all have the shot at building their own name, you know, just as much as the people performing the music can. So I feel like if you brand yourself the right way properly, you know, you can do anything anything you want. But I mean, if you don't really attach your name to it or really build your own trademark, then no one's ever gonna know.

Okay, rule number 4 is start small.

It was like junior high school when I started like doing everything, and, um, it was just like me like passing out stickers to my friends and they'd have it on their agendas. We just mess around, like they record songs on GarageBand and it sounded awful. And like, I mean, we were just messing around really, and I would do music videos on my mom's camera and like we shot videos here, and we shot videos all over the town, and, you know, the high school really liked it. It was just fun for the time being, and then I realized, like, I actually really like making music videos. So I started branching off and doing some work in the city with, like, real small local guys, and then that turned into me realizing that I wanted to be more involved with the music scene. So I was like, why don't I start a blog and then, you know, be able to further knowledge myself on the scene and step in different waters and do different things. So I decided I wanted to do that, and then, um, yeah, there's Lemonade. That's how it started.

Rule number 5: Do it for free.

Anyone trying to get into anything, when I tell people, like, you're gonna work for free for a little bit, you know, maybe for a while. Like, you worked for free in that you probably weren't getting paid for the first— you probably took some losses on some shows.

Yeah, I've definitely taken losses on shows, and, you know, I've had incredible shows. You're just like, there's always ups and downs. Like, My first music videos, I remember when I first started working with Chicago artists, there was one time where I sent this kid this hoodie link that I wanted. I was like, as soon as the package gets to my house, it was like a $20 hoodie, as soon as the package gets to my house, I'll release the video. I was just like, you know, whatever worked. I was doing like $50 videos, $20 hoodie videos, whatever it was. You know, it's just like, you gotta start from nothing and just work your way up and just find that, At the beginning, a lot of people are too prideful to understand, like, sometimes you gotta do free videos. Sometimes you gotta, you know, you know, you know, just do whatever you can to make it work. And, you know, once you do that, once you establish yourself, you're able to, to charge however much for a video. You're able to do this, and, you know, you're on a list here, whatever, you know. But you got to push those boundaries beginning because, you know, that's the only way you're gonna be heard. It's like people aren't just gonna You can't just sit back and everyone's going to listen to you, or you're going to sit back and everyone's going to see your work. You got to like really grind and do whatever it takes and make those connections and push every boundary and push every line and do whatever you can to make those people hear you because they're not just going to hear you.

Rule number 6: Work super hard.

My junior year, the summer leading into my senior year, my senior year of football, I was really busy. I mean, obviously we had like two-a-days, we had doubles, we had practice every single day. So Like literally after practice, you know, if there's something going on in the city, we'd go to like small music garage shows, whatever it was. Like I remember like Alex Wiley would have shows like Lincoln Hall, like Reggie shows, whatever it was. There's something in the city or like if someone's willing to pay me like $20 for a video, I was going. So like, you know, I just drive out to the city and we'd make it work and I come back that night and wake up for football.

Rule number 7: Always do your best.

When you're putting out so much content and trying to be creative at the same time, like, you run into this problem of too many moving parts sometimes. But kind of like what I did was every piece that I would work on, I want to make this the best possible thing I can make, and whatever kind of comes of it comes with it. And I'm gonna go until I can really make that change and I can really build a platform for artists and I can make something new.

Rule number 8: Just be yourself.

What advice would you give to someone out there who like wants to be the next Cole Bennett?

Um, well, I mean, it depends. It's really whatever you want to do, but I think that just like a lot of people right now, I feel like with the scene and where it's at and everything, everyone's trying to be something they're not. Like everyone wants to dress a certain way because everyone's doing that, or everyone wants to do this or that, and it's just like, I think just knowing what you want and going about in the right way and just being yourself is the best way, as corny as that sounds. Like I don't wear Supreme or whatever that, 'cause everyone else is doing that.

You got the Birkenstocks on.

You should try Supreme.

$800 jacket.

Try Supreme.

Try it out, it's great.

Eventually, yeah, it's all Birkenstocks. But eventually I'll do, maybe rock some Supreme, but it's just like, if I like it, it's just like, I'll never, I think it's really about just being yourself.

Rule number 9, my personal favorite, take responsibility.

A lot of challenges come with throwing a show. Obviously you have a headline artist who people are going to see. But if anything goes wrong, it's Lyrical Lemonade. You know what I mean? It's not whoever that headline artist is. So you kind of have to understand that whatever you're creating, no matter how many people are involved, it goes back to one person.

And rule number 10, the last one before the bonuses: give people opportunities.

YouTube channel has almost turned into a platform so I can give people opportunities and I can really break new artists. And that's so fun to me because I can handpick someone who I really believe in, do a video for them, and you know, if enough people agree with me as far as, you know, talent or if they enjoy the artist, then bam, you know, that might be a chance to break them and possibly change their lives.

Now I've got some special Cole Bennett bonus clips for you, but before that, the question of the day is, what do you think about doing work for free. Good idea, bad idea? Have you done it? Do you regret it? Are you doing more of it? Let me know, leave it down in the comments below. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, see you soon, and enjoy the bonus clips.

There's this guy named Austin Beasley who directs all Chance the Rapper's videos, and if you're from Chicago, like Chance the Rapper, like, he means so much because what he did for Chicago and just like watching his growth is incredible. So his videographer, Austin Besley, that was like my whole inspiration. So when I was, you know, shooting videos and, you know, coming up with these, you know, storyboards and everything for the videos, I would just like try to make it as cool and as extreme as possible. And we didn't have many resources, but, you know, we just did what we could. And I think that, you know, trying to just like make your own lane and just like, I don't know, just being as creative as possible with it and just doing whatever you want with it.

You know, I'd say just stay focused. Don't get involved with the wrong people or the wrong crowd and just, I don't know, really just staying true to yourself and to the brand or the company and just keep working at it in whatever way possible and do a lot of research and I don't know, just make all the necessary and proper steps.

Raise your standard.

Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 real estate Success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.