Manifestation & Building Influence | Olivia Ormos

What's up guys, welcome to the Zen Hard Podcast. In this episode, I am interviewing Olivia Ormos, the founder of Maven, with tons of experience in events. She put together the Beach Volleyball, uh, Model event that you guys probably seen because it's been around for 14 years and tens of thousands of people show up to it. But she's a female founder, has created a lot of really great things in her career, and better yet, she's a bunch of fun to talk to. So stay tuned. I hope you enjoy. We're live. Yeah.

Good.

All right. We got Elliot, uh, rocking the audio and video and we got Olivia here in the studio.

Let's go.

Thank you for, uh, driving here from Miami. We, we started having a conversation prior to the podcast.

We did.

And that's how I know it's gonna be a good conversation because we couldn't contain ourselves from talking. So I put an abrupt pause to that conversation.

You did. Yeah.

We can talk about it. —so other people can hear as well.

Waste the authenticity of the conversation. Yeah, totally.

It's a beautiful way to start. And, you know, when I started getting to know you a little bit, I didn't really know you too well, but when we walked in, you're talking about manifesting. You know, that's a topic in life that I love talking about because, you know, we're humans in this 3-dimensional world, but there's way more to life than what our minds can comprehend. And we can create things in ways that are not linear, that are not, if I do this, then that happens, because we live in a universe of unlimited possibilities. So to expect a way for something to happen, it's impossible to expect it because anything over infinity is zero. It's impossible. So manifestation is a real topic to talk about.

And you said that in your Human Design, what are you? A manifesting generator.

Okay. I'm a projector, by the way.

I just looked it up. Okay, cool.

But, um, We're talking about manifesting things, manifesting people. I wanted to tell you some things, but I want to hear what you were gonna tell me first.

Yeah, I think all my life, I think I was always, you know, leaning in on the positive. That's something that my parents really, I think, enlisted in both my brother and I, where it was just like, you got to be positive, lean into the positive. But I never realized I kind of had this whole other level of positivity that I could use to generate a result that I wanted. And I think once I really like gave in and leaned into it and started seeing things for myself appear, I just leaned in it more and more and more. And, and it's kind of become like a superpower of mine.

So by, by creating a positive energy, you feel like you can manifest things around you?

I do, I do, I do, I really do. I even like people that I've been wanting to meet that I had no connection to, no degree of separation, like it has happened totally organically because I visualized exactly what I wanted and it happened. Did it happen exactly how I visualized it every time? No, but I think I've also done it in real life scenarios where I've been at an event and I'm— and I see someone in the room and I'm like, this is happening. I'm leaving with a new relationship with this person.

Yeah. And you don't know how, but you know it will happen. And it goes back to what I was saying. Like, if you are attached to, I must go up to this person, I must say this thing, they must react this way, and this must be the outcome. It won't happen that way. But a lot of people get attached to things happening the way they expect them to because we have these expectations that have to be true, right? And when they don't happen, then they are now feeling like separation from their achieved goal and changing their energy, and then it doesn't happen. So it's like, set the intention and let go.

Yeah, and it's not always that it happens right away either, right? It's— some things have taken a minute to procure. Yeah, but I think it's been an interesting almost experiment with myself to really see how far I can push my limits of just saying like, yes, stay positive, think it through, this is gonna happen. And like a lot of it is obviously like me being a go-getter and wanting to like pursue something, and it's important to me. But there's been things that have happened totally randomly that just surprised me every time it happens.

Yeah, because time is a concept that we think we have to live within, right? But But as you're thinking about things and projecting those thoughts and you're putting an energy and an emotion behind those thoughts, you're creating them. It doesn't happen right now necessarily, and, and you could make it happen sooner rather than later, but time is just an illusion of this whole existence we have.

Yeah, I mean, I can give you a few, like, few, like, fun examples. Um, but so ever since I was like 16, I've been going to see Dave Matthews shows. Oh, nice. He's been somebody— yeah, I've seen for like over 50 shows. Like, I'm a super fan. Nice. And I've used every connection in the book. I like I know this person that works at Live Nation and this person here. Like, somebody introduced me to Dave Matthews. Yeah. And I struck out every time. Yeah. I came close, I came close, I came close. And then kind of when I shifted my mindset was like right around like this— I was within the last year or two, and friends and I, we went to Mexico City to see him for a show. And I just said, fuck, like, we're in Mexico City, like, I got to meet him. Like, this is crazy. Like, we're in Mexico City. First night we're there, we see the guitarist Tim Reynolds. Yeah. On the street in Mexico City. And I'm like, I think that's the highlight of the trip. Yeah. Because I'm like, okay, like, yeah, how big is Mexico City that all the restaurants, like, Tim Reynolds is outside the restaurant, right? I don't even ask for the photo. I'm just so thrilled to say what's up. Yeah, cool. Yeah. And the next day we go in a hot air balloon, and I'm like looking out, and I'm like, damn, like, this is amazing, over like the beautiful like pyramids and everything in Mexico. We come home and we got a reservation at this restaurant that takes normally like 8 months to get into, and a friend luckily got us in on a Monday at like 2 PM. Yeah, I'm like, okay, sure, okay, yeah, we'll go at 2 PM, no problem. We walk in and it's this beautiful small little intimate restaurant, and as we're being seated, Dave is sitting right next to us at the restaurant.

Oh my God.

Yeah, and I just— we made eye contact and I said Hey Dave. He said hey. I sit down, none of my friends even noticed that he was there, and I looked at them like, you guys see him? What?

They're all fans too.

Oh yeah, we all went like for the show, for the show. So then the entire, like, this is like a, you know, Michelin star top, like ranked like number 8 in the world restaurant. That went out the window. It was like, what are we going to do? Yeah, Dave is here. Yeah. And we strategized and we sent him a bottle of wine and he turned around and like, you know, we, we talked. We just said we wanted to thank you for the memories And then we made sure we got the photo, and it was just one of those things where I was like, holy shit, I didn't think this would happen. Yeah. And like, here it's happening. Like, just happened. But Tim, then it's him the day before, and Dave, like, it was one of the crazier. And I think that was the start of what has, you know, transpired a lot since then. Yeah. With really just kind of honing in on the manifest.

And I think when you're manifesting things, there's like these little breadcrumbs to show you're on the right track. Like, maybe running into Tim was the breadcrumb.

I agree. I think so too. Um, and even when I'm in a situation where like things are going wrong, like I also find myself saying like, no, like I'm not accepting this. Like we have to shift. Yeah. You know, even last weekend I was actually here in West Palm for, um, the Vault, the conference that was here, and I brought one of my best friends. She was dying to meet The Rock. Yeah. And he was the headliner and we literally went just to meet him, thought we had the connection lined up. It fails. Yeah. And she looks at me like, it's okay. And I'm like, no, it's not okay. We're meeting The Rock. I don't know what I got to do, but I'm going to figure it out. And I'm striking out, I'm striking out. And then all of a sudden, a friend of mine walks by. I said, Sterling, what are you doing here? And he's like, oh, I've been here. What's going on? I was like, well, what are you doing right here? Because I was at the entrance where I thought we'd be able to get in. He's like, oh, The Rock's publicist is coming to get me to meet him. And I said, 'Can we come?' And he took us backstage and my friend got to meet him. That's amazing. So yeah, it was just— I don't know if it's just determination or luck, but I think it's a combination.

I think it's determination. I think it's, it's the positive energy. It's the visualization of it happening. Yeah. I have one I want to share with you too. So ever since I was young, I always idolized Richard Branson because he's like the coolest guy in the world. You know, builds billion-dollar companies, flies rocket ships, has an island. Yeah, it was an island. And yeah, and so I was— I do my kind of like spiritual practice is going on walks, right? I have music I listen to, I let go, I just kind of be in the moment, right? And I was on a walk and I just had this thought like bubble up and it was like, you need to meet Richard Branson. And I was like, all right, like, how can I do this? I'm thinking maybe I could email him. Now he's not gonna answer. Maybe like DM him on social media. He's definitely not gonna answer. I'm like, Just let it go. And then I'm walking and I'm like, wait a minute, I remember my friend was in a photo with him. Like, I have to follow this. So I'm like, I'm gonna text my friend. I'm like, hey, like, I saw you in a photo with Richard Branson. Like, what's the deal with that? He's like, well, I'm actually part of a mastermind that goes to his island once a year. It's $60,000 to go and there's one spot left. And I'm like, I'll take it. Sold. Wire the money that day. Yeah. And then it was crazy because like when I was walking, the thought I had about meeting Richard was like me being on his private island with him. And then one year later comes up and I'm like, you know, I had just moved to Florida from Texas. I had a lot going on. And, you know, I have a new baby. I have a 16-month-old now. But at the time he was younger. And I'm like, I don't really want to leave for a week and leave my family for a week. So I was going to cancel and I reached out to the company and I'm like, unless I could bring my family. And they're like, yeah, it's like an extra— yeah, like an extra so-and-so amount of dollars. And I'm like, sold. So I end up going to Necker Island and Richard is with us every day. I literally played chess with him on his balcony overlooking the ocean, which was kind of almost the exact— I didn't have the chess part in my visualization. But like just being there. Yeah. And then my son's taking photos with him and we became friends and it was just from a thought that led to a breadcrumb that led to an action that next thing you know it happened. Right.

It's just good to know that somebody I know knows Richard Branson. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. If you have any favors, you'll just, you'll owe me one afterwards. And then one other, one other small example. We got Elliot here behind the cameras and the mics. I was, uh, I just moved here to Florida and we didn't have a podcast studio. And I'm like, on my walk, I'm like, man, I got to figure this out. It's complicated. And I go to the gym and I see this guy standing outside my car and I'm like, you know, I'm not really in the mood to talk right now. I'm going to wait in my car a little bit longer. And then 5 minutes later, he's still out there. So I'm like, all right, let me get out. And I'm like, I'm not in the mood. Like at the time, you know, I'm like, whatever, dude. And then we started talking and he seemed to be like a really brilliant, like bright young guy. And I'm like, you know what? Do you have any experience with podcasting? He's like, yeah, I could film, I could edit, I could do this. I'm like, can you set up a studio? He's like, I could set up a studio, like so confidently. I'm like, all right, 1 hour from now, meet me in my office, we'll talk. And just from putting it out into the universe that I think it was the same day that I thought about it, either the same day or the next day. And now we have this whole studio and this podcast. I complimented him.

I thought he did a great job.

He did a great job. Shout out Elliot over there. Crushing it. But it's just crazy that, yeah, but I think like a lot of people in society, especially with social media, social media is good and bad, but like the bad side of it is that people are consistently consuming things that make them feel like they have no chance in life. Like politics, for example. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, there people are debating and the, the kind of the main theme of politics is not here's how we're gonna be amazing. It's here's why the country sucks. Yeah. You can't afford bread, you can't afford gas, you can't afford a house. And what does that do to people psychologically? It makes them believe that they can't afford a house, right? Right. So of course they can't afford a house, right? But if you can not let that into your, your being, you don't consume it so much, and you can change that with a habit where you're visualizing and you're building visions and you're putting a positive energetic emotion behind it, You could, like, I personally went from probably negative $10,000 to a multimillionaire in 3 months after changing my energy at a Tony Robbins event. Wow. Like, I know this is not about me, but I have one more thing to tell you because I think, you know, we're talking about manifestation here. Crazy story. I went to, I was living in Los Angeles and I was living with my now wife, then girlfriend. We were splitting a one-bedroom apartment. I was hustling, I was grinding, I was just getting by. On the outside, I looked relatively successful to my friends, but I was just, you know, beating myself down, just living. And a friend of mine who was an NFL player invited me to Tony Robbins' event, and I had never been to Tony Robbins before. I was like, sure, whatever, I'll go. And we did a visualization exercise where you imagine yourself as someone else who loves you, like, who just cares and wants the best for you. So I thought of my aunt because she always wants the best for me. And in this visualization, you're walking up to your future life, you're looking at your future house, your future cars, pictures of your family on the wall in the house. You walk upstairs, and then eventually you get to a mirror in the bathroom, and you look in the mirror, and it was you the whole time. And it was like a— I got the craziest chills and goosebumps because I visualized my future life not from my own limited perspective, but from the perspective of someone that didn't have any limitations on me. And then 2 months later, I physically owned the car that was in the driveway of my visualization. It was a gray Lamborghini. And this is not to say material things are important. The thing to say is that I had negative $10,000 to my name, and then I owned a $250,000 car 60 days later in a way that I never could have imagined it happening. It wasn't a linear strategy. It was— things just happened and shifted. Well, your wife's a—

your wife is a real one. Yeah, she stuck around.

Oh yeah, you And now we got another baby on the way too. She's, uh, yeah, so family's building. Love it. Yeah. So what kind of got you into this? Like, I know you're, you know, businesswoman. That's how we got connected originally. You got all this stuff going on. But on a personal side of things, like, what made you start to realize that, you know, energy and thoughts and manifestation, like that whole world, what kind of got you into that whole—

I don't know if something like specific was like a landmark to say because of this this transpired, I think I've always felt like my priority has been being a builder and working and really enjoying that, not working just to like, I need to pay this and this and this. It's like, I really enjoy waking up today and running toward what I'm building. Yeah. And I think that the more that I saw the potential in what I was building, the more excited I got. And I think that just immediately like put me into different rooms and meeting different people and finding myself like I think generationally a lot of the relationships that I've built like are also, you know, coming to a forefront for my friends and business relationships. So I'm watching a lot of other people grow alongside me and being able to like, okay, like let's support, let's do this, let's partner. So I think that like there's been— it's kind of a full scale of what's happening, not just only a personal thing that I've been witnessing.

What were some beliefs you had growing up that were like limiting beliefs that kind of held you back that maybe you've broken through now and changed. But what, did you have anything that was kind of like, you know?

No, I think my, my mom totally let me believe, let me to believe that I could do absolutely anything I wanted to do. I said I wanted to do and try PR. She called friends of hers from Brooklyn where she grew up and was like, let's get you an internship. You know, it was like, yeah. And, and I think I leaned in on what I was good at and what I, and I knew what I wasn't good at. But I think through starting my newest company, Maven, I've realized different superpowers than I thought I only kind of had, right, up until this point.

By the way, Maven's an incredible platform. Thank you. I have been using it with a company that I put in the seed funds for, and, you know, and with Zendrop, we do a ton of influencer marketing, and it's, it's a whole world to try to navigate and negotiate, and it's, it's very challenging. But you made it really easy.

That was the entire premise of building it, was my own frustrations. So working in influencer marketing for the past 10 years, I was also kind of just fed up with this, this process. Yeah, the process that required of the creator, of agencies like my own, and what brands had to do. Yeah, everybody was excited about influencer marketing, but the amount of work and manual tasks that it took was very discouraging. Yeah. And I knew that I couldn't continue scaling without something that would help me scale. Yeah. And doing things manually was just not an option anymore.

Yeah. Honestly, like the, the thing I like most is that you can, you say, here's what we're willing to pay and here's what we want. And then people come and say, hey, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. And then you get to pick, right? As opposed to reaching out to someone, hey, we want you to do this, how much do you want? I, we, I mean the campaign we're doing with you, I, and I don't want like people to think they gotta be cheap, but I'm spending so much less money to get so much more. I mean we have like 4 influencers with almost a million followers, right? Posting. And that would've cost us probably 10 times more money had we done outreach ourselves. Yeah. And didn't do it that way.

The thing that I realized about creators is like they don't all have the access to even know about some of your companies. Right. And I think putting them in the driver's seat to be covered is a step that was missed along the way by a lot of other people. So being able to say, hey, this is the opportunity, this is what we're looking for, this is what we're going to pay, it just eliminates like the gray area and the back and forth negotiation and even hoping somebody answers you. Yeah, feeling like spammy. Yeah, reaching out like, no, we're a legit company, why are we DMing you? That's absurd, right? So being able to say, okay, we've aggregated the best influencers for real, not like just aggregating data. These are real people, right, that took the time to like apply to something, are active on a platform, want to be discovered, are making their living as a creator. To put them in touch with brands— and you had probably never heard of those 4 people, you— right? No, right? So you discovered those 4 people and then hopefully building a long-term relationship with who actually performs. Yeah, it's amazing.

Well, well, how long have you had Maven for?

So we started building in '22. It took me about 7 months to get my full MVP ready to go. Um, but technically we were like full-scale January '23. We launched. What were you doing prior to Maven? So I have and still do a full-service marketing agency. So it started off primarily as an events agency when I founded it. I also started an event called Model Volleyball at the same time as when I was starting my agency. So they were both really great anchors to one another as I was growing, where people would sponsor Model Volleyball, become clients of the agency, and vice versa. So we scaled from just being an events agency to adding in social media, content creation, branding, and then influencer marketing was also at the forefront of our services.

What type of events were you guys doing for clients?

So it was, you know, PrettyLittleThing is a client of ours, so we built a custom runway for their swim week show and produced the entire event. We've done things with brands like Puma, Keurig. So really These brands especially would come into Miami and say like, how do we launch this? How do we produce this? And we were kind of that foundation that helped them pick a venue, pick a concept, get the production going, the decorations, all that good stuff.

I would say that is the most stressful environment you can possibly be in. For a lot of people.

For a lot of people, yes. Uh, for me it was something that I loved doing, so it didn't feel like that for me.

There's just so many moving parts that have to fall into place.

Don't get me wrong, there's moments at model volleyball where I'm like, I'm leaving. Yeah, just gotta go. Yeah, nobody talk to me anymore. Yeah, I'm taking a break. I'm going over here. Yeah, but, but I think there's always that moment where I stand up on my stage, look at 20,000 people and be like, this shit's 20,000. Yeah, I'm like, this is, this is awesome.

What kind of events have that kind of crowd?

Model volleyball does. There's 20,000 people? Yeah, so my partners and I started that in 2010. It takes place, it's a free event, it's on the beach, and, um, it's the modeling agencies playing against each other. Ah, beach volleyball tournament.

That's so cool. Actually, on Necker Island, uh, the, the attendees played against the staff. That's cute. It was honestly— volleyball is a great game to get some competition between people.

No, I mean, it's, it's a whole ordeal. I mean, it's 2 days and these agencies are legitimately competing. Yeah, for bragging rights. Like, it's the last thing that they have to do on planet Earth. It's so competitive. And they're not even like winning anything. That's like so crazy. It's just like, we have to win. So it's, it's a special, it's a special event. The city of Miami Beach gets behind us. The, even the police play in an exhibition match. Yeah, for us. Tyreek Hill came this year and like he did an expo with his, his, you know, friends and family. So like, it's, it's deeply rooted in community. Yeah. And our attendance is widely successful.

That's amazing. You said that was 2010 that you started?

Yeah, the first tournament was 2010.

Wow. Yeah, that's been running for quite a long time.

This is our 15th anniversary in March coming.

So you do it once a year? Once a year. In March it's going to come up? March in Miami Beach. All right, I'll be there. I hope so. Maybe I can, uh, work out a lot and become a model before I—

Listen, it's, it's, um, it's something where you don't really get the energy until like you're there. Yeah, I would imagine. So cool.

That's really— how did you get like dealing with cities and like, you know, government organizations? It sounds like Wow, good luck. How did you end up—

it's not— yeah, especially in the beginning, tapping into a relationship with a city is, is really kind of defeating most of the time. Yeah. Um, it's also really expensive to say I want to use the city's property.

Yeah.

Versus a private property, right? For something—

oh, so you have to pay for the beach?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, of course. And there's a lot of requirements, like certain amount of police and paramedics and fire. There's a square footage fee. There's all these things. But we've learned In partnering with the city, there's like a ton of ways that they can support you if you're doing things a certain way that they want it. So for the last like 10 years, we've had a grant that the city's given us. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, so it's a tourism grant, so it's a reimbursement type of thing, but you get reimbursed if you do what you say you're gonna do. And you know, we push hotel rooms and press and impressions and all that type stuff. So a lot of people don't even know that that exists in their cities, and chances are it does. Yeah, yeah. So we've, yeah, we've been pretty successful with, um, partnering with the city versus having to pay so many fees and being an event this longstanding. They, they help support quite a bit.

Yeah. Because like government organizations, cities, like the people working there don't really have much incentive because it's not a company, it's a city. Yeah. But I feel like if you become the person that they like and the, you know, the employees there are familiar with it, it's like that relationship can be extremely valuable long term.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a reason why we've lasted 14 years with, with a city, that's for sure. We've also dabbled. We did this in Los Angeles on Venice Beach, we did this in the Hamptons. Um, yeah, but not the same support as, as home, as Home Beach.

Have you ever thought of getting into other model like pickleball or, or golf or like any other events?

Not really. I think there's a lot of like— there's more chances someone's going to get hurt in some of these other sports With volleyball, it's been like a little low risk on injury for us.

You think, you think volleyball? Yeah, soft. Yeah, I think, I think golf, you'd get less hurt.

Yeah, but we've had really cool things happen in modern volleyball, like, like Travis Scott performed, surprise performance. Oh wow. Yeah, um, Joe Jonas and his band DNCE at the time, they performed. Wow.

Yeah, that's amazing.

Yeah, we've had quite a few big— Jamie Foxx performed 2 years in a row. Very cool. Um, and these are all people that just showed up.

Really? Yeah. Wow.

So from a celebrity side, we, we have some great enthusiasts. Everybody from like Dwyane Wade to like Adriana Lima, big names have come by.

Yeah. I don't know if you know, my first career was in the event space. I used to throw concerts. Cool. And I am traumatized by events.

I started, I started early in the event space too, while I was like still in school.

Yeah, same. I was in college and I threw the world's largest foam party. Oh, and it was a huge success. And then I was like, I'm going to do this.

I used to go to those underage parties with the foam.

Oh no, foam. I'm talking foam, like foam. Yeah, it wasn't underage though.

I'm saying like I used to do that when I was in high school.

Disgusting place to go to.

Would not recommend it. It was like Baja Beach Club and they used to do these like booty shaking, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, underage parties.

Ours was a bit different. We would bring in like Steve Aoki and like we brought in Lupe Fiasco for one of them. It was a big concert. That's cool. But I'm so traumatized by events because like, I mean, for us we had to sell tickets to break even. We didn't have like sponsors and stuff like that. And like, you don't know if you're gonna make money till the last day. And then God forbid something happens, a vendor messes up. It's like, yeah, there's so many things to manage. And actually that kind of brings me to a topic I wanted to talk about with you. You're doing events, you're dealing with influencers, employees, like you got a lot going on. I do. And I think, you know, everyone kind of has their own unique personal organizational system that they use. And maybe there's similar frameworks that people use, you know, similar ways of, of organizing your life. How, how do you keep your life organized being that like, first of all, events is like, to me, a nightmare. And then dealing with a lot of people, also a nightmare. Like how do you, keep things organized and like know, keep the things in your mind that you need to keep in your mind when you have so much stuff going on? For sure.

That's a great question. I think on the influencer home front, Maven has solved that for me because everything is there. It's systematically like done in the way that my brain ultimately like dreamed up it would work. So instead of remembering like which influencer didn't sign their contract or who hasn't submitted their content yet, like, that's there for me. System. And just waiting. Yeah. So I built my own tech to support the influencer side of the business for sure, and it's skyrocketing because everybody feels that pain and that burning pain of nobody wanting to deal with this. So thankfully, like, that part of it is there. With Model Volleyball, when you've done it this many times, like, we've got that on lock. Yeah. But I think it really just depends on what event and what brand and what they're asking of us. Yeah. But I find myself waking up at 3 in the morning and writing things down on a simple note that I don't want to— on your phone? Yeah, on my phone.

I want to know like specifics, like what tools, what software is like, what, like how— for example, I know you got the systems down, right, for Maven, and but there's still like things you want to keep top of mind. Maybe they're opportunities, maybe it's like—

I'm simple, I put everything in my notes. And I have it in your phone, in my phone.

So it's just your phone notes and your calendar?

I definitely have Excel sheets for other things like tracking like business development. And right, I never liked the Asanas and the Mondays. Like I never— like I felt like it was more work. Yeah, that's how I feel too. Yeah, like I never got behind like those types of systems where other people have always told me like, you're crazy, like you need to get on one of these things. Yeah, I love Slack. For comms. That's like been a game changer. I think it's been like 5 years since we've been using Slack. But I think I'm simple because I'm so— I'm such an in-the-field type of person. Like, I thrive in the field. And I think like the passion of like networking is what's at the forefront of what I love so much. So sometimes when you're just like on the go and you're meeting people and you're doing things, like it's inevitable. Like, the tool in my hand is the phone. Right. I'm actually doing a tip video today. I'm gonna film something because I do a bunch of fun like iPhone tips and Instagram tips. Oh nice. Again, trying to get back in the routine of those, but something that I was doing naturally at a conference last week, I realized like a lot of people may benefit from doing this, and it's maybe a little janky, but like it works. That's what I want to hear. Okay, so we met at an event and I was just like, hey, like let's exchange information. Like that point is a little bit, I think, of a friction point for some people to get to. Yeah. And now you're seeing this thing where you're putting your phone Tap the phones and you AirDrop your contacts, right? So I AirDrop you and I'm like, cool, Jared, cool. So save, move on to the next, the next guy down the block. And I'm like, oh, nice to meet you, Jennifer, David, whoever. Yeah, I want to remember my conversation with you because I want to make sure when I email you and I pitch you or I want to do business with you or ask you whatever, like, I want to remember you have a kid, a great wife, you live in West Palm Beach, you have another baby on the way. Like, but when you're talking to 15 people, sometimes not everybody cognitively can keep up. Right, with all these details. Yeah, details are really what drives home deals. Yeah, so what I'll do is before I let you go into outer space into my phone and never remember how to find you again, I screenshot your contact. Yeah, and then a feature on Apple that a lot of people don't know about is you can actually swipe up on the photo and you can leave notes. Ah, so at the end I can go back and look at the 10 people I've met, all the screenshots, the notes I left on the fly, and on each one of them. And if I don't have time where I'm gonna be emailing them right away and I'm taking pictures, video, it's all gonna get scrambled. Yeah, I basically just highlight all the screenshots and put them in an album.

Beautiful.

And I'm like, networking event ABC, and that's right, all those people. That's a great tip.

Thanks. You know, I'm— I don't know why, but you can't go and look at your contacts and sort by when you added them. Correct. Right, right.

So that's why I was kind of forced to be like, okay, let let me just be in the moment, but let me just screenshot it so that I remember, like, I met you. Yeah. And jot down very quickly the few things that I think will be key when I email you. Yeah. Because I think that that type of, you know, emailing is way different than like, it was great meeting you and can we get on another call? It's like, no. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like finding that common ground with someone is what makes a difference. Even when I get pitched and like people want jobs or things like that, when they're like, I listened to your, you know, Zen Hard podcast and really liked that you talked about, you know, manifesting. Like, if they use that in the email, yeah, that means that, okay, you really cared. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that goes a super long way. Yeah. Being able to share something personal. Like, we get cold emails all the time from like investment firms and they're always generic, but we got one that was like a long— like, they did all their research, they had all these ideas, they And I'm like, I at least owe this guy an answer because he really spent a bunch of time.

I hire people based off of just how they connect on an initial email. Yeah. And it doesn't need to be like every single grammatically, you know, sentence was perfect, right? It's just like you showed me that you cared, right? And that I wasn't just another person you pulled off LinkedIn. Right. And I think that that is why I take into account this like little baby strategy when I'm in the field. At events because writing those things down, like, you don't realize you probably won't remember them, right? You don't write them down. Yeah, you think you're gonna remember something and then 3 days later, and then you go to the screenshot and you swipe up and it literally says add caption.

That's amazing. Yeah, I'm gonna start doing—

then when you search in your photos, like, let's say you wrote like Jared Zenhard podcast and I couldn't remember your name but I remembered Zenhard. Yeah, you can find it if I search Zenhard. Yeah, in my photos it'd find that screenshot.

Wow, that might be the most valuable tip we've ever gotten on the Zen Hard Podcast. You heard it here. I love that. I love that because like people are trying to navigate this world and there's all these softwares and tools and you got to do these morning routines, you gotta do all this stuff, but sometimes it comes down to those simple little things. Yeah, like I got, um, I got one of these. It's a Kindle Scribe. I don't have one of those. Well, I'm a big paper and pen guy. Are you a paper and pen person? I am. So it's cool, like for example, I have you here, I have the notes, right? And then I have like all of my notebooks, like I have my planning notebook, my journal, and it has unlimited pages and it feels like I'm writing on paper. Yeah. But when I'm at home and I'm writing on paper, it's like I don't know where that notebook is.

Yeah, I find myself sometimes having to take pictures of the notebook to remember certain things.

Yeah, but I never go back to the pictures personally. Yeah, but this is cool. Very cool. I recommend it. I just got it recently and I've been using it a bunch and I, I like it a lot. So, um, this is a cool one as well, the Kindle Scribe. So you have probably one of the more, like, you know, people building different businesses have different levels of things they need to think about. You're dealing with people and events and it's just kind of crazy to see that you're able to, you know, run this model volleyball for so long, you have this influencer marketing software that you've built. Like, where do you see your career going? Like, obviously what you're— Maven right now has tremendous potential. Yeah. Like, where do you see yourself in 20 years? Like, what's your big vision?

I mean, I hope I'm on the beach in the Bahamas chilling, but you will be. I think growing and really honing in on Maven right now is the priority because I do see the upside. I think I said to myself, like, I'm never gonna sell my agency as much as I would sell Maven for. Right. So I think that's, that's the main priority, is getting an acquisition within the next, like, 5 years, I hope, or less. Yeah. And then I hope to be an investor. Yeah. In just female-founded businesses. I hope to be able to make so much money that my whole purpose is to support people that were once in, you know, the building years that I'm in.

Do you think it's— yeah, do you think like being a female founder, do you like— in my eyes it's like kind of an advantage. It's like you're, you know, I feel you can get attention of people easier. Like, you know, people like to support female founders. Am I wrong in that? Is it easier or harder?

I find myself meeting a lot more successful men. Yeah. In the rooms that I'm in. I love obviously like finding ways to support support other female founders. I just, I don't find myself as often in rooms with them for whatever reason. That is not that they don't exist, and I know that they're there. And I'm— and I was just at a female-only retreat actually last week. It's called Create and Cultivate, and it was 40, you know, women that were looking to connect with other women and grow through, through this, this group. But I don't think that there's necessarily an advantage But I do find myself like feeling lucky when I, when I meet a great mentor that's like a female founder who's, you know, had a bunch of exits and sees what we're building and kind of gives me the nod like, yeah, you got this, keep going.

Well, the female founders I'm friends with seem to be doing really well. Do you know Mimi Bouchard by any chance? Mimi Yoga? No, Mimi Bouchard. She's a really good friend of mine. She started an app called Superhuman and it's a meditation app. No, no, meditation. It's really cool, but she's crushing it and she's just really good at networking with people and people want to support her. Sometimes I'm like, you know, I think I feel like there's an advantage because yeah, you know, when you're at an event and there's, I don't know, it just seems like there might be their pros and cons. It also might be like, you know, there might be just inherent, inherent, like subconscious limiting beliefs being a female founder too, because it's, you know, just in society it's You know, actually, I think when society tries to help certain scenarios, they're also kind of beating people down at the same time. Like, for example, when you're, you know, support a female business. Okay, great. But what's that also doing? It's saying female businesses need support. I know. Or like, you know, end racism. I remember I was— I don't watch football, but I watched a game and there was, there was a, there was a thing that said end racism on the on the, the, the, uh, goalposts. Right. And I'm like, no one who's racist is going to look at that and say, all right, I'm not going to be racist anymore. It's just perpetuating racism. Yeah. So I feel like, I don't know, maybe that kind of thing in society where, you know, people are support females, things like that, maybe make it for people that are females to think it's harder for themselves. I agree.

I think there's a lot of that in-your-face stuff that we just could rather go. But one of my mentors really early was, was a man. Yeah. And he was tough. Yeah. He was so, so tough. Tougher than I've ever been to anybody. Yeah. And I look back and I'm like, thank God. And he used to tell me, Olivia, you need to toughen up. You're gonna have to deal with a lot.

What do you mean by tough?

Well, he would send an email, not with no instructions, and it figure it out. Yeah. And I didn't know if I had to like place the order, pick up the order, pay for the order. We didn't know anything. Yeah. I can tell you a quick story that I think has really resonated, and every time I've told it. Yeah. So I must have been 21, and I was in the city, and I was interning at a PR firm, and then I was working for him. And I had met him in Miami because we did a massive New Year's Eve party. Yeah. And he was a big shot, did a bunch of parties in the Hamptons and New York, and big events guy. And he called me and he was like, I need you to get this case of tequila to the Hamptons. And I'm like, me? Like, I don't even have a car. Yeah, you want me to take like the jitney? Like, I was like— he's like, figure it out. Like, I need the case of tequila. He was already in the Hamptons. A PR firm was dropping off cases of tequila, and he was like, I need you to figure out how to get them there. I was like, okay, cool. Yeah, sounds good. So I reach out to one of the promoters that I know works in the Hamptons I said, when you guys are driving out, can you come by and pick up these cases of tequila? He's like, leave me the key, I got you. Yeah, my friends are in town from Miami, we're going to Sushi Samba, and it was like happening in New York. And my BlackBerry, such a cool— it was like the cool BlackBerry at the time. I'm sitting at dinner and his name pops up and I just like immediately have a stomachache and I'm like, oh, why is he calling me on Friday? Whatever. I pick up the phone, no hello, nothing. It's Where's my tequila? Yeah. And I'm like, what do you mean? Click. I'm like, guys, I don't know what's going on. I don't know where the tequila is. The guy who was supposed to take it out doesn't answer my calls. There's no service in the Hamptons. I'm like, great. So we have to leave dinner and I go to the office and I'm like, I gotta know if the guy picked up the tequila or not. Yeah. Get there, no tequila. Okay.

Good news. It's gone from here.

Gone from here. And I'm pacing Park Avenue just like, somebody answer me, like, what's going on? Finally get a hold of him and he's like, I dropped it off like 3 hours ago. And I was like, you did? He's like, yeah. I call him back and I'm like, it was dropped off. What do you— like, it's there, it's there. And he's like, why didn't you know that? And I have never not followed up a day in my life. Wow. So, so he was really just testing me to know if I actually followed through. I expected this other guy to deliver the tequila and I was in the clear. Yeah. And I— and it was, it was a big lesson on follow-up.

That's amazing.

Follow through to make sure that if you are overseeing something, you oversee it.

Full ownership, full accountability. You see, in today's world, people are so sensitive. Yeah.

That like, this was a long time ago.

But yeah, but still, like, as CEO of my company, oftentimes I'm like that too. I'm like, There's this whole thing that needs to be done by this date. I know it's beyond your guys' scope. Get it done. Right. No excuses. Do whatever you gotta do. And I think that's a really good way to weed out people that are your ride or die, that are gonna be moving up the chain into leadership, that can get things done and handle them. I agree. But there's also a balance. Like, you also need to occasionally talk to people and have a real human interaction with them. Right. Hey, I saw you were up. This happened to me the other day. I, you know, something had to get done. It was urgent. And I see two people on the team on Slack at like 1 o'clock in the morning. And I'm like, oh man, they really took this seriously. And then I'm up the next morning at 7 and I'm like, you know, sending a message, not expecting them to answer. Answer right away. I'm like, wow, they must not have slept. Maybe got 4 or 5 hours. Wow. Yeah. So I'm like, all right, that is amazing. I don't want them to think this is always gonna be their life because then they might not want to be on board long term. Mm-hmm. So I sent a message. I'm like, You know, it's extremely admirable what you did. I, you know, I appreciate it. If you need time to rest, you're totally fine. But like, thank you for being an example to other people on the team. So being tough, I think weeds people out and it's important to show for sure what your expectations are. Mm-hmm.

But then giving people some real love, you know, some real genuine attention makes them realize, all right, this is, that mentor didn't, you know, didn't do a lot of that, but it was a lot of tough love and, and it was, it was something that I look back on and I genuinely do think that it has made me a lot more assertive, a lot more confident. Yeah. Even like the printer that printed like all the stuff for all the events and things that we're doing, he called me for like 10 years after that, every year my birthday, you know, because we just became such good friends because he helped me. And I remember, you know, being lost in the city and not knowing where to go and taking the wrong subway and this. And like, it's overwhelming when you're starting out. Yeah. And you're doing all these things. But I am grateful that he was that hard on me. Yeah. I don't think I would've preferred something else.

I also think as your career grows, as your net worth grows, as you've proven more to yourself and you become more confident, you have higher levels of expectation from those around you. And you don't even wanna waste time with people that aren't on that level.

And it's hard with this newer generation. Like, I don't think that they're as committed to, to like the long game and putting in that work. Like a lot of it is just like, I expect that.

They— that this is a topic I think often about because it's— yeah, they feel— and I don't want to say like everyone, right? Like, yeah, but the— that generation is very entitled because of the media that they consume. And then what amplifies that is that you see all these people online that are, you know, showing off their lifestyle, right? And then people are like, well, why am I not like that guy? And it's like most of those people aren't even real. Like, back when I used to show off online when I had my Lambo and this house, and I was not really rich, I was fake rich. I had enough money to buy these things, but I wasn't— you're rich when your, your passive income from your money sitting in an account can support your life and keep growing, right? But I used to show off because I had just bought this stuff, and then a bunch of people are like, oh, I want to be like this guy. But I wasn't— now looking back, like, I would tell people, don't be like me, you know? So I think the entitlement plus feeling like you're behind because of all these fake people online make the younger generation want to hop back and forth and try to find that golden ticket.

Yeah, I also think there's also like the generation now of these creators that, you know, are on the OnlyFans type of paywall content, and they're making way more, like hundreds and thousands of thousands of dollars a month. So it's like this, like, oh well, I could just be doing that. And it's like, instead of going to a 9 to 5, um, but yeah, I totally agree with you there. It's, and it's something that I see constantly and it's like, don't you need money? Right. Like, don't, I don't know. I'm confused. Like, do you, if you don't need money, why do you work here?

I, well, I think, you know, people shouldn't just settle for like any 9 to 5, right? But when you have a good opportunity, you need to give it some time. You need to give it a chance. Like, you know, you and I have really cool companies with really big visions. And if someone comes into our organization and they add a ton of value, are they not going to be moving up in the company? Of course they are. Yeah. So, you know, you gotta, you gotta commit to things. If you're gonna do something, at least commit a year, at least commit some time. Yeah. Like, don't just go and dabble in, because then you're losing the respect of people too. Like, what about in 20 years when, yeah, you know, when you're a billionaire and that person that just, you know, kind of used you needs something?

And I think it's so easy to spot those types of people at this point. Like, you know, out the gate, like, they might interview well, they might come out strong the first month, and then you just like all of a sudden you, you can watch it and witness somebody that wants to be there and someone that just kind of is there to be there.

Are you a remote company too?

We, as of January of this year, we went fully remote.

Oof, we're going the other way. We're getting, uh, a big office here in South Florida and bringing more people in house.

I, I was always like, the last decade I always had an agency office, always required everybody that worked there to be in person. And then I took a really long trip where I worked remotely last summer. Yeah. And loved it so much, couldn't believe how inspired I was by it. And I found myself not wanting to go back to an office. Yeah. I felt less inspired and felt like, if I feel this way, am I really gonna like have all these other people come to this office when I don't even really want to come to this office anymore? Yeah. And I said, let's try it, and if it doesn't work, I'll just go get another office. Yeah. Um, so far so good.

Yeah, yeah. See, for me it's like, you know, I, I can almost guarantee that there's a segment of people that are working, you know, maybe 2, 3 hours but answering things and not really.

Of course, but when you're at a small company, you can notice when those people are— if you have like you with like over 100 employees, people can hide. Yeah, a bit amongst each other. Um, oh yeah, I got that done, even though maybe it took 3 days.

Yeah. And one of the other problems, like, as you're growing as a remote company that I've been encountering lately, so we had a transaction a couple months ago and we have a, like, a really big opportunity over the next year that, you know, we need to capitalize on. So, um, for the first, like, 3 years of my company, I was very hands-on. And then the last 2 years I was kind of more, I was in that manifesto state where I'm like, as long as I change my energy, everything will work fine. And it did. Yeah, but I started diving in the weeds like a month ago. You know, a couple of my leaders were on a trip and I was like, let me see what's going on. Right. And I noticed that there were things like problems that if people got together for like 20, 30 minutes and talked about it, they can get to the solution. But the way what was happening was someone would, you know, be in a flow state. They're sending messages and then the response to that message was maybe 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour later, when that person's now not in the flow state anymore, right? And then that other person is now communicating information to someone else, and it's a game of telephone. And next thing you know, that problem is now 2 weeks. Oh, we tried to solve this 2 weeks ago, we still haven't solved it. Some of these things drag out a month, 2 months, where I'm like, all right, guys, I noticed one of these problems. I don't remember specifically what it was, but I'm like, Let's just get on a call right now. Mm-hmm. You're on, you're on, you're on. Let's talk about it. Okay. That's a problem. Let's solve that. Let's solve that. Let's solve that. And we solved something that was taking 2 weeks of communication in like 15 minutes. Mm-hmm. And as the company grows, there's more and more problems to solve. Yep. And that's that, that being out of the flow state, the, the lag in communication time. Mm-hmm. And the game of telephone oftentimes make makes very simple, maybe not simple problems, but problems that can be solved quickly drag out. And once you start to add up those problems, the amount of inefficiencies becomes unbelievably large.

Yeah, no, I obviously every company sees those kind of inner workings happening on, on communications and we try to nip it as soon as we can. But I don't think that I want to go back to four walls with, with a requirement to work because I think I've also found talent in other places that have been stronger than just Miami. Yeah.

I mean, there's definitely a lot of companies that are successful and remote, like we are. But I think as you grow, it becomes, maybe you don't need to have everyone in an office, but like you get some, maybe it's not every day, but it's like 3, 4 days a week. Yeah. I don't know. That's kind of, I went from, we had an office when we had like 30 people and then we went remote and we were like 50 people and then we grew from like 50 to 180 in like 8 months. Yeah, that's a lot. And we're also— a lot of people are new and stuff, but I, I'm kind of on the other train now.

Just to say, maybe I will have like a badass office, you know, at some point in the future. But I think I'm enjoying like the freedom of, of like working in, in a bunch of different places.

For sure, as you should. I think, um, as entrepreneurs, it's great to share our own perspectives. Like, I'm sharing something that maybe maybe you knew a little bit about, but you didn't realize it. And then maybe you'll look at it and see that. And totally. So I think that's a, totally a great, so I am, I wanna kind of circle back to the influencer marketing stuff. Okay. The, the internet, social media. Mm-hmm. Things have been changing so rapidly. Algorithms have gotten much more good at getting people's attention. AI is making it much more efficient to create content. People are spending more time on their phones than, than ever. So attention's becoming more and more valuable. I guess from a high level, like, what is the future of social media? What, what, what do you think it's going to look like?

Well, I think AI is, is making a huge, huge impact, and I love it. I'm, I'm in, I'm leaning in on it as much as I can because I think some of the tasks you look at that you would have done, like, they just do it a lot faster. Like, I could put my notes into something and then be like, write me an email with this. Um, so I think from a social media perspective, the creator economy grows every day. I don't think it's going anywhere. Mm-hmm. And I think we're gonna hopefully weed out a lot of the creators that are BS. Yeah. Is the hope. But I also think like recognizing, like you said the word algorithm, even on the Zendrop campaign we're working on, like I noticed something by just posting on my own channels that when you post a single story, nothing else before or after, just one photo, one story, it's going to 10 times the views. Really? Yes. Wow. So when we were trying to think like what we're gonna do for the campaign, I was like, let's put this new theory to motion. Yeah. So it's proven time and time and time and time again. Literally like the craziest thing I've ever seen and I tested it on friends of mine's accounts. I was like, guys, one that has 2.5 million, one that has 3 million, and they're getting upwards of 200,000, 300,000 views. Yeah. By just using this hack. So if you want to try it, it's super cool. Don't post anything for 24 hours. Yeah. And then come back and just post one single story that's a photo. A photo. And nothing else.

You know what? That's crazy. I, uh, I took, you know, I've, I've only flown private like once in my life and I took a private jet to the Hamptons and I posted a photo of it cause I thought it was cool. You know, I was trying to show off a little bit even though, you know, whatever. It was just like me and my wife, my, one of my best friends and his girlfriend. And I posted a photo and I don't post on it. Like I've been kind of off social for a while. Finding myself, I guess you could say. And I posted the photo and it got like 10,000 views. I only have 60,000 followers and most of my stories get like 1,000 views, maybe 1,500, sometimes 600. Right.

I got 10,000 views. Yeah.

And how long ago was this? This was less than a month ago.

Yeah, because it was single.

I thought it was because I was on a private jet.

No, it's the algorithm rewarding you for posting one thing.

Wow. Yeah, that's interesting.

So there's anybody listening who's struggling with their story views, because this is something that everyone is struggling with. So like Relatability 101, like everybody is really, really struggling with this. So many creators are really embarrassed because they used to have much higher views. So kind of hitting the reset, um, and doing this a few times. Um, I think also when you're going into brand deals, if you're a creator, saying to them, hey, I know that if you pay me for 3 stories, yeah, and I post all 3, you're gonna get somewhere around XYZ visibility. But if you, if you trust me and we do it this way, I guarantee you, you're gonna, you're gonna be much happier when I send you my analytics. Right. Performance. So that's why I designed our campaign that way, because I want the influencers to post singularly to make sure you guys get the most amount of views.

How do you know these things? Like, is it just because you're seeing it, or like, how do you How do you know what the algorithm is going to be like? Don't they change things pretty often?

They do, and it's a lot— a lot of it is trial and error. A lot of it is, is experimenting, and I usually guinea pig myself. So me, as my own account, I'll be like, okay, if I post this, I got 2,000 views. If I post this, I got 5,000 views. If I use an Instagram like tool, like a poll or a question, you also will see some spike because Instagram's rewarding you for using their feature— for using their features. Exactly. Um, there was a moment in time where like when you were transferring content from TikTok, you were not being rewarded. Creators that put an OnlyFans link anywhere in their stories diminishes. Really? Yeah, so they're picking up on all these things. So I think sometimes you just need like a reset, and, and that's like what I've seen after guinea pigging like myself.

How do you— how do we find someone that works at Instagram that tells us how the algorithm works? Well, they're the—

one of the main, you know, guys in charge, like I follow him and he does a lot of talking about like myths and things and new features.

I don't even know what guy you're talking about. Yeah, he's got like kind of brown curly hair and he like wears cool necklaces. No. Yeah, no. What's that guy's name? You know the guy I'm talking about?

Moseri? Yeah.

Okay, that's the exact kind of guy.

I didn't know he wore cool necklaces.

Look at his stuff, he's got necklace.

Yeah, so sometimes he'll come on and like try to, try to help, but to be honest, a lot of it is, is, is pretty frustrating trying to figure it out and navigating it. And I've seen So many reels go, go viral, and so many things that should have gone viral that didn't go viral. So it's sometimes it's, it's confusing, and that's okay. Um, but that's why I hope to support brands like in this also, like this boutique way with Maven, because you came and you were like, what's going to be the most successful? Like, what should we, what should we try? Yeah. And, and this is what I think we're gonna try. I even had like a crypto newsletter. Yeah. Call us and they were like, well, what should we do? And I'm like, Well, you know, hate to break it to you, but I don't think anybody's just going to like incentively because an influencer was like, sign up for this newsletter. Yeah. So like, we're going to pair it with a giveaway. We're going to pair it with— so I think strategy is like more than even 50% of, of like what becomes successful when you tap into working with creators and how are you empowering them with ways that like they can actually deliver versus just like do whatever you want and then you're disappointed.

And how do you know, like, when you're looking at creators, you know, there's tons of people have like fake followers, fake likes, fake engagement. Maybe there's people that have like a combination of fake and real. And like, when you're going to pay a creator, how do you determine how legit they are?

So we do at Maven have that capability. So I am pulling all of their insights before they even get accepted to the platform. So, okay, if they're on your platform, they're verified as legit. Yeah. I mean, and that's something in a larger scale way, I hope. That like kind of becomes this universal verification for influencers where if like Maven verified you, then like there's an extra layer of brand trust that, that will take place. Yeah. Um, but everybody's gonna have fake followers. Like there's bots everywhere, no matter what. It's just like even Instagram came out with a new feature to help you get rid of them. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you saw that, but it's like you can go to your followers and then there's a new feature now right on Instagram, no extra app needed, where it'll tell you that like, hey, we're assuming that like 9,000 of these followers are trash. Really? And they give you the option to dump them. Oh wow. So a lot of people are scared and they're like, oh my God, I can't lose 9,000 followers. Yeah, me, I'm like, dump, get rid of them, get rid of them because they're screwing you up. Because the whole way that your content is even shown to your audience is how much that audience engages, right, with your audience, how often you DM with that person, how often, you know, you're tagging with that person. So if 9,000 people are not engaging with your content, they're useless. Yeah, it's just an extra 9. It hurts you. Yeah, because then it thinks that those 9,000 people just don't like your percentage of people that don't—

that just don't like your content.

So what about like on YouTube?

So like let's say there's a creator that would get like 300,000 real views, but he's buying another 300,000 views and now he's charging twice as much money. Are there any specific tools you can use to see to see for sure what's real and fake? Like, anything tried and true that you know about?

Um, well, we see it. Yeah, yeah, we see it through the tech that we have. But there's plenty of, plenty of, um, like websites you can subscribe to that you can input people's, um, Instagrams, and it'll give you a detailed kind of breakdown of, of their audience and real versus mass followers or suspicious, how many influencers follow them. And I think that's really an important part of the decision-making process when a brand is spending money Because influencer marketing is never guaranteed, but if you position it with the right person with the right strategy, you got a better shot at it and the power of repetition has to also be something that you consider. Like it's not like let's wave this magic wand and like this influencer is going to be your savior. Right. You know, so and I think a lot of people get really disappointed when the magic wand isn't there and they're like, but I just spent $1,200, like what happened? And I'm like, uh, you know. So, so I do think that an easy way, if you don't have the tools to just like eye it, is to say, okay, this person has 100,000 followers, but 72 people liked their post. Or, yeah, are the comments that are coming in, they seem real? Yeah, like, is it everybody saying how pretty you are? Like, chances are, like, that's a bot. Yeah. So I think, I think if you're paying attention, it's easy to spot. If you're really wrapped up and you're running your business and you're not paying attention, those things are really easy to, to kind of fail at.

That makes sense. Yeah. So in this influencer creator world, more and more people are trying to become creators or becoming creators, right? By posting and things like that. Do you see it as being kind of a, a diversified pool that more and more people are gonna have a little bit of success, or do you see it kind of like You know, in the e-commerce world, like Amazon took 50% of the market share. Big companies that are providing best solutions are taking big parts of the market share. Well, I guess let me frame the question a little bit. To become a creator, it, there's a bit of risk. You have to invest time and sometimes a bit of money, right? But there's not a lot of risk. I mean, if you're posting, you're posting. Do you see the market being more consolidated or do you think it's gonna be fragmented with lots of small creators over time?

I think small creators are amazing. I think sometimes they drive more sales and, and really have that audience trust that a lot of large creators don't have. And I think that the micro creators you'll see have far more value on a localized level for businesses. Whereas somebody with 5 million followers, like, how many of their followers are even in the location that your business is operating in? And I think we've seen so many creators go from 0 to 100 very quickly. Yeah. So I think if you're confident and you're cool and you have like very something specific that people like you for, like there's a TikToker that I've been following for like a year or two. Her name is Tiana and just can't help but like the girl. She doesn't worry about her hair, her makeup. She's so raw. She's so real. She kind of just is so likable. And she was dating this NFL player and went through this public breakup on TikTok. Like she was engaged. Everybody was obsessed. Obsessed with them. Yeah, but really everybody was really obsessed with her. And it was like these followers, it was like we ride at dawn. Wow, wow. You saw the algorithm was madness. And all these women, all these women, crazy, crazy shit came out of the woodworks and was like on it for her. Yeah, like an army of people that were just backing her up because he cheated and whatnot. And now she's skyrocketed, you know, into millions of followers, but she's still just like so authentic. Yeah. And anybody who follows her like you can't help but just like her. But at one point in time, she had no followers, so it was quick. Yeah, same with like Alex Earl, went from like 0 to 100. So I think if you have, you know, you got it, it's gonna happen. Yeah, you gotta lean in on being your authentic self and what you're okay with doing every single day online.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I've been a bit of, a bit of like a social media hiatus, like, uh 6, 7 years ago, I had this e-commerce education business. I was like the e-com guru. I would run paid ads. Like my videos got 50 million views and I, that's kind of what my follower base was built on. And I don't have a lot of followers. I had about 60,000. Um, I mean, that's like a nice— but my, my personal values have changed a lot since then. Right. So if I post something in front of a nice car or like a, you know, something that those people value, it gets a lot more engagement. Sure. But I cringe when I post it. I don't, like, I just don't do it. But I'll post like, I'll post like some real, like raw shit. And occasionally it gets, you know, the comments are much more attached to the content. Maybe it's just like a selfie video talking about a thought. What do you think the fine balance is like for someone that's changing their values and they have a follower base?

Inevitably, if, if those people aren't here for what you're providing now, Or just let them leave. Let them leave. It's okay. It's the same thing. Like, do you want people in your house that make you feel uncomfortable? Right. No, right? Like, they don't need to be a part of the journey you're on now. They might have been part of that past journey, and that's okay. So people can't really get discouraged when they lose followers. It's like, you'll gain the followers that are more important to you anyway.

What do you say to someone who, like, for example, I won't name any names, but I, I had this person in my life, um, like maybe 2 years ago, and he was a young kid. Um, never— he's never like accomplished anything in life. Like, he was just, you know, trying things. And he kept talking about how he needs to build his personal brand. And I'm like, in my head, like, maybe you should do something first and then build a personal brand. But I don't know if I'm just being an old grumpy guy or if I'm like— do you think everyone needs a personal brand when they're getting started?

I do. I do, and I think it's okay if it's, if it's something that's continuous and built up, and like the strategy doesn't need to be there from the beginning because you're discovering things, I think. Yeah, of what works and what doesn't work for you. And you might try like, okay, I'm gonna start my fitness stuff, and then like it bombs. You're like, oh cool. Yeah, you might want to say no, like fitness is my pillar, fitness is, is, it is my personal brand, and I'm not going to give up on it, and you know, F everybody if they don't like my fitness stuff.

Yeah, but like, on the contrary to that, some of the most successful people I know that are my friends don't have personal brands. They're kind of behind the scenes. And I feel like, well, what's your definition of a personal brand? Like, um, like a social media account that you're consistently posting on and like talking about things on. Yeah.

I mean, for me, it's, I think it also depends on the inter— like the industry that you're in. Like somebody who's an investment banker that's very successful. Chances are they don't want people knowing their shit. Yeah, you know, but somebody like me who like relies on connectivity and networking and meeting new people and growing something that's like a flourishing business, that I could work with the guy who does the oil exchange or I could work with you. Yeah, it, it matters.

Like, that's my personal website. 100% for you it makes total sense, but it doesn't need to be for every single person the exact same way. Yeah, well, yeah, for like, I'm just thinking, I often think about like the next generation. Yeah, I got a little I got a little kid at home, I'm thinking about the world, and it's like, I feel like a lot of young people, like they're maybe they're just getting outta high school, college, like they think it's so important to be famous on social media. And I think it's, you know, there's a chance that you can kind of hit a wave, but it's so rare. But if you took that energy and focused on building a real business or doing something, you can get a lot further.

I 100% agree with you. It takes a lot of energy.

And it also takes a lot of—

I forget all the time in cool scenarios to even take a picture or a video. I have to like constantly remind myself like, oh, this would be good to show. Even when I walked in, I was like, let me take a video now because I know I'm gonna be all wrapped up and I'm gonna forget about it.

Oh nice, you took a video? Yeah. So that means I'm gonna get like maybe some followers.

Maybe, you never know. Uh, we'll take a pic after too. But, but I think, um, I think it is something that doesn't naturally come top of mind to people. And like, that's okay. You don't have to flex, oh, I got a smoothie, I got a salad, I'm at this thing. But I think when it matters, like, try your best to remember. Yeah, because I think the more people see you in your element and you're in like, it's just better if you're an entrepreneur for sure for your business. Like, wow, like the month of August, Olivia was in LA, she was doing this, she was doing this. Like, wow, this is a girl that like maybe we should work with.

Yeah. So I kick myself today still. I like 5 years ago or something, I went to play golf at Bears Club, which is like a really cool course in the area. And my, the person I was playing with, he was my neighbor. He's an older gentleman, lawyer, really cool guy. He's friends with Michael Jordan. Mm-hmm. And I didn't even know Michael Jordan lived there. I didn't know anything about it. And we finished golfing and we got invited to MJ's house and it was literally just me, my neighbor, MJ, Ahmad Rashad, who's like an NFL sportscaster.

Did you ask for the photo? No. Good.

I, but I was there for like 3 hours. We were smoking cigars, drinking tequila, hanging out. But like, I tell people the story, I'm like, I wish I had a frickin' photo to show.

Yeah, I have been in a lot of those scenarios and I have chosen not to take the photo. Yeah. Because I think some of the bigger celebrities that I have longstanding relationships with, like they just look at you differently, like you're the person that doesn't care about the photo and you care about the relationship. Yeah. So I wouldn't beat yourself up. I mean, it's MJ, like that's pretty shitty, but like—

It's one of the coolest days of my life.

I mean, I met MJ at a wedding and I didn't ask for a photo either.

Yeah, so, okay, fine. So we're, we're on the same page. Feel any better?

I didn't ask for a photo either.

Yeah, it's a fine balance.

Yeah, I remember I was in Ibiza and Roger Federer was sitting at the table next to me, and I texted my mom because she's a huge Fed fan, and I was like, oh my God, Roger's here! And she's like, he's going to retire, go up to him! And I'm like, relax, he's security, I'm not going over to Roger Federer while he's eating in Ibiza. And she's like, you're going to regret it! I'm like, no, I'm not.

So yeah, and I have this like You know, maybe one day the relationship will pick back up and he'll remember me as the guy that wasn't like that. I was just a cool regular guy at his house.

He will. I hope Dave, next time he meets me, remembers I sent him wine. Yeah.

So, you know, yeah, very cool. Yeah. Um, another topic I did want to get into with you, um, for people that are, you know, building, uh, brands, products, things like that, you know, it's easier than ever to start an online business. Like with companies like Zendrop, you can start a store, You can, you know, source products from our platform. You don't have to buy inventory. If people want to start dabbling in marketing, there's like influencer marketing, there's trying to post viral content, there's paid media. And you're a marketing person in general. Yeah. So if someone's starting a new brand, for example, what— like, where do you think they should dabble in? Do they dabble in the influencers yet, or do they need to get some traction first?

Like, where do you start? I actually talk about this quite a bit, so it's a good question. So I think a lot of the times brands are very excited and really eager to just do all the fun stuff, and influencer marketing is definitely on top of that list. Yeah, but I think what they don't realize is like, your social media, like, is it even ready for an influencer to push? Right. And is your— is that first impression going to be like what you hope for, for this new audience that's discovering you? Right. This influencer. So I definitely make them do things in phases. Phase 1 is like, is the brand really aligned? Do you have a brand book? Do you have a logo? Do you have, um, the fonts that you want to be using, the colors, the usages? Like, do you have your, your brand in order as it's, as itself? And that's kind of step 1 for me. Step 2 would be, okay, what is our strategy from an organic social media setting? Like, what do we want to be known for? What do we want? What, what are the pillars of the content? Yeah, like how are we setting the tone for like why someone is going to follow a brand? Because it's really hard as a brand to be followed. A person is much easier, right? Right. So it's like, how are we making this an interesting page to follow versus just open up when you need information on something? So really kind of building the organic foundation of, of like what is our story, how is it being told, and how are we communicating this to the audience effectively? So I think that's step 2 for me is making sure like we're proud. Of our social. And like, if you're leaning in on diversity, like, is your page really communicating that to the audience that you're hoping to connect with? So all of that would be number 2. 3 would be like, okay, like the influencer stuff, like, are we ready for that? Like, are we going to do more of like fan building and are we gifting people products to test their level of excitement and then judging by their level of excitement moving into paid influencer marketing potentially? Um, another thing would be like events. And is it something that you're participating in in real life with people and are they touching your product, trying your product and becoming an enthusiast for you and how are you making that connection in real life? Yeah. Are you sponsoring events? Are you, you know, creating your own concepts and so forth? Right. And then obviously paid and SEO would be like the other kind of obvious thing like is your website, you know, tying into everything we just said and is is your paid strategy, there's the SEO strategy there. And then influencer marketing I think is almost like the last piece. Gotcha. That I tell people.

Okay, yeah, a lot of people when they think about influencer marketing, they're like, alright, I wanna spend $1,000, I wanna make back $2,000, if it doesn't work it's a failure. And I feel like it's rare that you can make an ROI on like your first post with someone.

Look, I've seen it happen both ways, but I definitely don't set that high of an expectation. I think it's, it's a dream when people are like, hey, here's my budget. Like, let's, let's divvy it up. Let's try this. Let's try this. And then know where I really spend my, my bucks later. But not everybody feels that way.

Strategy is so key. Like, we've been paying influencers to promote Zendrop, and we've obviously— the company has grown to a point where we're a known brand. We get a ton of organic traffic, right? But Zendrop is kind of like the fourth step. You know, you got to get a store, then you got to find products, then you need traffic, then you need Zendrop, right? So we just built a new tool that I can't talk about just yet. It'll be live very soon. That's gonna solve a lot of the beginning problems that you're actually very much aware of because we've been talking about it. Yeah. But I think like that strategy, for example, you might have the same people, very similar messaging, but a different strategy. And I feel like that strategy could be 10 times more effective.

Oh, it's the secret weapon. It's a whole different ballgame. Absolutely. And, and I think sometimes listening to the influencer, you find your strategy. You know, having a meeting with them and being like, hey, this is what I think is going to work for my audience. Like, that might be very different than another influencer's suggestion. And I think through managing influencers early on, I realized like so many brands made that mistake where they would say, well, we want you to post at 12, and the influencer would be like, well, I'm most engaged at 6 PM. Can we post at 6? And they're like, no, 12. And you're like, okay, yeah, like, why are you paying me then to not listen to me, right? So I think when there's too much like of a dictatorship happening and you start to like kind of screw with the content too much, it automatically— like, that person's audience will see that it was not authentic and keep it moving.

Yeah, love it, love it. So if people are trying to get into the influencer world, strategy is like the number one thing. If they, if they want to work with you, with Maven, what type of clients are a good fit?

Um, well, we're working with all different categories, so we see everything. I have like a dentist that's actually up there now. Oh wow. Yeah, so think about it, a lot of these influencers probably don't have dental insurance or don't have a dentist. Maybe they just moved here. Um, so doing like an in-kind exchange where they're getting x-rays and a cleaning and all these things, like that, that goes pretty far. Yeah, that's an expensive visit normally. Yeah. Um, so anything that is probably unexpected like that we're seeing. But we're also, you know, working with music labels and artists independently for, um, concerts and song releases. So music sector's something I'm seeing quite a bit of. Alcohol is one of our top categories.

Yeah, you can't do paid traffic with alcohol, but you could do influencers. We can do paid. Oh, you can? Yeah. Oh, maybe I—

yeah, there's some like, um, like guidelines, but, but yeah, you can.

What about books? Uh, have you ever launched books through influencers? Not yet. I have someone to talk to you about after this podcast because I have something that I, I've written. It's done. I have a whole bunch of things that go along with it, but I haven't launched.

Books are making a comeback. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I'll tell you about it. I don't want to segue into it right now because we're kind of wrapping up here. Cool. But speaking of books, yeah, I do— I am curious if you've had any books that have been really impactful to you that, you know, as an entrepreneur, as someone, you know, with a ton of great energy, like anything that you've read that you think people should check out.

To be honest, I'm— I hate to admit it, but I'm not a huge book reader. That's okay. Yeah, I think my favorite books were the Game of Thrones books that I read. Nice. That's the key. A lot of people don't realize, but if you love the show, the books are even better. Really? Because, yeah, because the, the way that the books are written are from the POV of the character. So like, it's not chapter 1 through 20. It's like Jon Snow, Tyrion, and like you're reading from— Oh, really? Yeah.

So you can watch the whole story through that or read the whole story through them and then through someone else and then— Yeah. Do they cut back and forth to different parts of it? Yeah, they do.

Wow. Yeah, so I think that was like one of the cooler like books because of how different it wasn't just like a streamlined, you know, chapters, stories, episodes, whatnot.

I actually think reading fiction is good for you. It's way better than scrolling on your phone. You're teaching your mind to stay focused.

I'm also like not good at like long links. Like my business coach sends me links all the time and I'm like, I'm not reading this shit. Yeah. Like I'm just not good at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm just so hyper-focused on other things like it hasn't been something that I kind of focus on. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Well, if people do want to connect with you, they want to work with you, what's the best place to do that?

Yeah. So Maven is spelled M-A-V-E-N. MavenCreators.com is our website. I'm Olivia Ormos, my full name on Instagram, and I think that's probably the easiest way to contact us.

Amazing. Well, thanks for sharing all of your wisdom, your experience. Really cool conversation, and, uh, I really enjoyed having you on. So thank you so much. Thanks for having me.