100M Content Expert: The New Way to Build a Personal Brand (w/ Caleb Ralston)

So you clicked on this video because you're building a personal brand. But if you're anything like me, you get overwhelmed. Like, which platform should I focus on? The algorithm keeps changing, and every expert is telling you something different depending on which day of the week it is. So this is why I'm so pumped to have my friend Caleb Raulston on the show today. He is the man behind some of the biggest personal brands online, people like Alex Hormozi and Gary Vee. And now he's pulling back the curtain on actually what content drives conversions, actually gets you paid.

I've been doing this for 17 years now. In order to accomplish our desired outcome, we what would you have to be known for in order for that to happen? If you think about trust as your North Star, you will build a brand that you will feel better about, you'll be more proud of, and you will get way better conversions on.

So if you're tired of posting content that gets you nowhere and just feeling lost in the sauce, then this is the video that's going to change the game for you. Thanks for being here, Caleb. Appreciate you being on the show. And fun fact for everybody out there. Like, we actually first met, I think it was six years ago. I was doing a quick podcast with Gary Vee and you were drocking that day.

Yeah, yeah. I was the man following him behind with the camera and everything. Yeah. And I remember very distinctly trying to coordinate some backstage interviews or something like that.

Yeah, man, it was crazy. So when we look at content strategy going forward, I think a lot of people, like I said, just get lost. So right now, just before we dive in and we have a ton of tactics to share with everybody today, but before we do that, can you just kind of define what is the thing people need to back up and do first? Because I think, like, people are, like, so chaotic. There's so much noise out there. And I think you're a good person to be like, okay, well, hold on a second. Let's move back and figure out what we're doing here.

Yeah. I think getting clarity on the why you're building your personal brand is really important because I think that there's a lot of people right now that are making content that don't need to be.

Really?

Yeah. I think that there's a lot of people that, like, it's not necessary because they couldn't articulate to you why it's necessary. Yeah. And the exercise that I always like to run people through is the Brand Journey framework. And I talk about this all the time. And it's so simple. And people sometimes let the simplicity of it negate the fact that it provides insane value. It's four simple questions. And like you, you hinted at, it starts with the end in mind. So the first question that I ask people is, what is your desired outcome? What do you want to have happen? AKA, like, what is the W behind building your personal brand? Why are you doing this? Okay. And then the second question becomes, in order to accomplish our desired outcome, what would you have to be known for in order for that to happen? Okay, then the next question. We don't get known for things just by talking. We get known for things by doing. So what would I have to do in order to be known for the thing to get the outcome I desire? The last question takes us all the way. We're starting at the end and we come to today. In order to do the things to be known for the thing, to get the thing I want, what do I have to learn? Yeah. For example, if you have to build a business within a business, there are many departments, right. There's hr, there's marketing, sales, finance, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You gotta learn all those things within each of those departments, there's a ton of different disciplines and skills that you have to learn in order to be able to do that. And so this helps you create the web and the roadmap of how I go from where I am right now to where I want to be and how my personal brand can help me get there faster.

Yeah. That's huge, because I think people just are throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what sticks. And then you wonder why. A year goes by, two years go by, and you're kind of nowhere.

Yes.

Maybe you had some views, but you didn't get the results.

Yeah. And the thing that I hear so many times is like, it's not even that I haven't gotten anywhere. It's people saying, I don't know if it's working or not. Yeah. Because they haven't defined what working is.

Yeah. Or they're not even clear about what they would like to get from this. You talked about that as one of the first things you need to do is like, okay, what do I really want to happen?

Yes.

And I think for some people, it's like, hey, I want to grow my organization. I want more people to join us. And it could be multiple things. It might be, I want more customers. It might be, I want to speak on more stages. I want to launch a book, whatever it is. What do you Say about this though, Caleb? Like, for me, there are things that I wanted which was just to get more clients, make more money, which is like the first goal for I guess every entrepreneur. But the biggest wins for me have been things that weren't on that roadmap. So for example, like I wanted to speak more, but then I didn't realize I would actually get good at it and be invited to speak on bigger stages. And I then there'd be like conversations backstage with people and then, hey, let's do a collab on this. You know, there's all these like unknown things that happen. And I've been. Got this from Jesse Itzler, who's a billionaire who spoke at one of our events. He's like the biggest wins for me happened from just random things that weren't. I didn't even think were possible. Like, he just. They're just a serendipity. You know what I mean? So I guess it's just putting yourself in a position to get lucky.

Yeah, you can't predict those things. But I think that, you know, something that I've been kind of messing around with is a concept. And this is like for years and a lot of people have talked about this, but it's been so real for me, which is the more in motion you are, the more cool shit just happens to.

That's true.

So when you're pursuing real shit, I don't know what it is. I'm not a woo guy. I don't believe in that kind of shit. So I have no idea. I don't know if it's the universe or what. But when you're doing shit and pursuing a goal, it's wild what starts happening. I mean, you felt it, right? You're describing it, but like I've seen it with you from afar. Right. When you really started taking this content seriously, like, things started changing for you. I could see it from the outside and I don't even really know you that much. Right. And so like I. I think it's. It's not something that you need to predict. It's more just. This is a beautiful byproduct of pursuing a goal that you have actually tangibly figured out what it is. Yes.

And have some clarity first. Okay, so now you're. You have some clarity. Okay, cool. As we get into like creating more videos, do you. Are you big. A big advocate for picking a platform or like single platform focus or just kind of spreading it across the multiple.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that with really Good intention tell you to post on every platform everywhere. And I think what they're actually trying to do, the ones that are the real players in the game, they're giving you an exaggerated version so that. Cause they know you're not going to do what they're saying. And so they're like, if I give you this crazy version, maybe you'll at least post once a week on one of them. The way I like to approach it is if you're a solo creator, you pick one primary platform and one secondary platform. Your primary is where you're making your pillar content and you're making your content specifically for that platform. Let's call it YouTube. You're going to make YouTube videos. And let's say your secondary platform is YouTube Shorts. Again, just for example here, if you're going to do that, you're making, let's say it's a podcast, right? Then what you're going to do is you're going to mine moments from. From that long form and then you're gonna figure out, how do we package this moment contextual to our secondary platform? So YouTube shorts, you're gonna cut a reel or like a short form clip. If it was Instagram, you might do a reel, you might do a single image post, you might do a carousel. There's different versions of it. For those of you that are listening or watching that have a team, I expect far more from you. You need to pick three primary platforms. These are three platforms that you are making content native for. Right.

And then you're not just repurposing.

Correct? Exactly. You might be repurposing a concept, but you're wrapping it differently. Okay. And we can get into wrapping paper in a little bit here, but that's the way that I like to approach it. And then the 2.0 version of this is, even though you have a team, when you have three platforms, you can't be perfectly excellent at all three at the same time. You need to apply extreme focus to one at a time. I am a Lord of the Rings nerd, so I use the Eye of Sauron analogy. For us, we picked YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn as our top three when we started making content for me.

And you do have a team member.

Yes, one team member. One team member. Okay. And so I could get away with the three primaries, otherwise there's no way I could do it. Uh, we picked YouTube as our main focus and for the first five months, all we did is put all of our energy towards YouTube. We barely even posted on Instagram. And LinkedIn. We did, but it was maintenance. And I view when the ifs are on, is on one of the platforms, the other two are on maintenance mode. It doesn't mean that you're not posting, it means you're not trying to innovate all your energy and resources for innovation go towards the platform you're focusing on at that time. And I believe this is the way to actually break through. Rather than posting on every platform to check a fucking box. This allows you to actually break through to the audience that you want.

Yeah, it's so true because I, I think of even my own example and then people in our, in our groups, we, where, you know, where they're just dabbling and nothing's happening and it's like, hey, it's okay to be like, hey, I'm not going to do all the things I'm going to turn off. And it's hard because it's like as an entrepreneur, especially if you are listening to podcasts and watching things, it's like squirrel, like over here. Oh, go there, over there. And then it's just like you get pulled in so many things. I hear this new email thing I want to try and then I want to try this new event strategy and it's like, well, wait a second, like, let's just focus on the first thing. And I feel like once you nail, like you said, okay, six months, whatever that is, maybe it's a 90 day sprint, six month sprint where you're just giving all of your energy, then the thing starts moving and it becomes easier to maintain. I think that's the hard part. Like people, they're like, who are feeling overwhelmed. Like, how in the heck would you even manage all this stuff? But the amount of energy it takes to maintain it is not the same amount the brute force that requires it to go.

Agreed.

Like it seems like easier to get views when you're getting views 100%.

The, the thing that you got to keep doing though is rotating. So I said the Eye of Sauron approach, right? We got YouTube, then we're gonna move to Instagram, then LinkedIn. And that's usually where people stop and then they go into, everything's on maintenance mode. You need to go back to that primary and start innovating again. Because by the point that you've gone to the other two, we need something new over here. And that's a huge problem that I see a lot of creators get into is they get comfortable and they just stick with what they know works until it doesn't. And Then they're in panic mode. Being like, this format that we've had for so long, that worked so well for us, no longer is working and we've spent the last six months not testing the next thing.

Yeah, I love that. And so I think about just my experience on Instagram, because that was where I put the IFSR on first, was just like, ig build my community there. I'm going to just focus on that. I tried to dabble in other things and it really just didn't work. So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to go there and on. What I. What I found was like, every six months or a year, the entire platform algorithm would be have some major shift. So, like, like the same type of content wouldn't even be working next year. And that's true, like, especially with information. And you talked about, like, different formats. So, like, for example, on Instagram, carousels came and went and then they were gone for a while. Now they're back and they're a great way to reach more people.

Yeah.

Like I've noticed.

And they're already fading right now too, by the way. They're already fading in how effective they are. Like, two months ago they were at their peak and now they're already fading. That's what we're finding for a lot of our clients. Yeah. Like, to your point, dude, it's always evolving.

Yeah. And so kind of, I think about consuming content is like, on short form, it moves faster. Like, some of the concepts I learned on YouTube last longer. I feel like, is that true statement versus Instagram, like, short form, it feels like it's like six months from now, it could be totally different. And YouTube, like something that worked last year is still working for me this year.

Yeah. I don't. Without having the specific examples, I can't guarantee that it's this. But I do believe that if you make tactics your North Star, you will constantly be doing busy work. If you make principles your North Star, you'll build a system that is sustainable and lasts. And what I mean by that is tactics, in my opinion, are amazing. Cherries on top. They are not what are going to cause your brand to actually blow up and stand out. So, like the, you know, make sure you do your cover image on Instagram this way. Post your reels with, you know, somebody walking around in the background to hack attention. Right. These are all little tactics and they work for now. But tactics are things that people just jump on and very quickly become ineffective because everybody's doing it. Principles, in my Opinion allow you to build content and content systems that are evergreen. They're not beholden to whatever the algorithm is serving at this moment. It's content that not only is working when the algorithm is serving your content, it's actually content that your audience seeks out, even if the algorithm isn't pushing it.

I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to continue to put out the absolute best content that's going to help you move your business and brand forward. But I need your help. So many of you guys are watching this channel, but you're not subscribed. And that's the number one thing that's going to help me grow. So if you haven't done so already, hit that subscribe button. Normally I'd have a fancy ad read and promote some product, but today all I want you to do is just subscribe to the channel. And now let's get back to the episode. Yeah, that's huge. I think of the brands and the people that like, actually matter to you versus the content that matters to you. So, like, I think a lot of people mistake this. And this is the problem where your views don't equal dollars. I've noticed is you're just making informational content. And it could be tactics for clients. Like you gave the example of tactics for content creators. But it's the same thing. If we're teaching finance tactics or real estate or marketing or whatever, they'll just teach you the thing. And then it's like, okay, I like the thing. I'm going to keep watching that. And I've seen people get a lot of views this way. Like, they'll be like, okay, AI is the new thing. Cool, I'm going to make AI tactics videos. Okay, GPT5 just came out. I'm going to talk about GPT5. You get a lot of like, news trend jacking those kind of things. And I'm a big fan of like taking news and, and applying your point of view to it. That's awesome. It's a great strategy. But what I've noticed is, you know, there's a shift that you need to make or like, it goes from the person where I just like the information versus, oh, I need to work with that person. I like what they stand for. And the thing I've noticed, and I would love your opinion on this, the most valuable content creators for me are the people who changed my perspective on something. I was like, hey, I never thought of it that way. You made a shift and it doesn't have to be mind Blowing like, it could be a tried and true principle, but I just like the way you explain it. I like your. The way you package that. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So I'm thinking like, is this a great exercise for people to do? As you talked about earlier, the four questions you need to ask for your brand is a good thing for people to do. Like, hey, let's write down, what are the things you stand for? What are your principles in business? Like those types of things, your values.

I believe that there are three levers that you can pull to stand out no matter how saturated you think your market is. And one of them is, and the most important one is your belief, your contrarian belief. I'll share it in a way that could be kind of self deprecating, but I've been doing this for. It'll be 17 years now in October. This is what I am obsessed over. And 90% of my conversations revolve around this. And yet just recently, I had a wild breakthrough. I knew this at a surface level, but you know when you like, know something versus you believe it. Yeah. The other day, actually, it was probably like six weeks ago now, but Trevor and I, my content director, we were talking and, and we were looking at some of the clients that we have that are getting insane results versus clients that are getting, like good results but not results that I'm fucking stoked about. And it was like, okay, is it their packaging? Is it the formats? Is it how they're delivering the content? And I realized I couldn't articulate to you what these individuals believed about their industry that was different than everybody else. The thing that will blow you up is not how you package your videos. It's not your hooks. It's not even necessarily just the ideas of your videos. It's what is your view about the world or the industry you are in that is fundamentally different than everybody else.

Yeah, it's kind of scary to do that sometimes.

Gary.

Yeah.

Someone we both love and admire, he did this when he came onto the scene. And, you know, we're of the age where we remember this. There used to be a time where the only conversation around marketing was TVC ads, billboards, newspapers, magazines. And he was like, there's this crazy thing called Facebook. And I think it's gonna be a really big deal. Massively contrarian compared to everybody else in advertising and marketing. Cody Sanchez, she came in and started talking about boring businesses at the peak, at the height of society, believing the only way to get rich and wealthy was to be A tech bro founder. You have to have the Uber of blank or the Airbnb of blank. She came onto the scene. Boom. I'll give you another example. That's not a personal brand. Savage Fenty, Rihanna's lingerie company. In a world where all lingerie advertising was for one body type, they were like, we believe that all women of all sizes should be able to have lingerie and feel good. And so what did they do? They came onto the scene, started advertising with all body types, showed product photography with all body types. Within three years, they're worth over $1 billion.

Yeah. And like, I think of people thinking, okay, well, I don't have that super contrarian belief. I think a lot another way of doing it is like, stale industry, innovative idea. Like, I'll give you example. Like with events, for example. Like, I noticed the events in my space were boring. Like, so I'm like, okay, they're teaching tactics. They're bringing up the same people over and over and selling information. I think that the most powerful part about the event is the transformation that occurs live. That's not possible on the Internet.

Yeah.

Not possible at home. So I'm selling that and making the experience totally different than any other event. So when I really focused on that, nobody was doing that. It's like a white space, you know, and you get this like, blue ocean strategy. It's like my becomes my moat because nobody's doing it like that. And so I think about, what could you do? And the thing that I think people don't realize is like, let's just say you're funny and you want to make content and make jokes. Like, if you wanted to go to like, Hollywood and be a comedian, like, dude, the bar is so high. You have to compete. You're like, you could be like, really, really good and just struggle for a decade and may not even make it. But let's just say you want to be funny. In my industry, like real estate, mortgage, and put content out, you're the only guy or gal. Like, you can be that person. You can crush it. And if you're like the dude who also tells jokes, the dude who also. So it's like, I think a lot about contrast of like, okay, you're the expert at real estate, but you also skateboard. You also love music. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's something there about contrast.

I got two things for you here. First one is what you just described. I operationalize with my exercise called brand differentiation. It's very simple.

So is brain. By the way is Brand different than the contrarian belief or. Okay, cool.

Yeah, so we'll come back to the contrarian belief here. Okay. Because there's two other levers that you can pull. I'll give you a preview. It's delivery and wrapping paper. So yeah, if you can write that down so I don't forget to come back to that. But. Oh, did I just lose it? God damn.

Brand differentiator.

Yeah. Thank you. It's a two column exercise. And because I was hearing so many times like I, you know, especially in real estate, I do not want to make content because I don't want to be the real estate agent dancing and pointing at, you know, text on TikTok and shit like that. Right. Or there's so many real estate agents making content. Why would I get into it? As a, as an example here, and what I would always tell people is write out two columns on the left side. You're going to identify all the things, one, that people in your industry are saying that you disagree with, that you think need some nuance applied to it or just is wildly wrong. And two, all the things that people are doing in your space that you're like, these are the reasons why I would never make content. And then on the right side, this is where it gets really complicated. We're going to take all the things on the left side and just write out the exact opposite. And that's what you're going to do and talk about in your content. And this is how you differentiate yourself in a saturated market. It's very simple, but again, very effective. It's what you did with your event.

Yeah, literally the opposite.

Exactly. You identified all these things that were like boring as and stale in this space for events. And you're like, well, let's do the opposite of that. And you put on an incredible event, which by the way, I think is a phenomenal event. You run it so well. Yeah, but like you did the opposite of what all the boring people were doing. Yeah. Now back to the so with when.

You get into content though, like, does that mean you have to be super, like skilled, like, you know, like a performer, these types of things? Or could you be the boring guy but you're just saying something different.

Whatever you view as your disadvantage or reason why you couldn't be effective, you need to shift it to the main reason why you will be effective. So if you are the boring guy, there's a lot of boring people. You're relatable.

Yeah.

You lean into that. Right. Like I, I have identified A lot of different things that I could view as disadvantages or reasons why I wouldn't make content. And I just made the decision. I'm just going to lean into them. I'm a wildly natural, insecure person. Wildly insecure. And so what did I decide to do? Whenever I feel a moment of insecurity when I'm on camera for our videos, I just mention it on camera. I tell Trevor, let's keep it in. So, like, in the course, there's a moment where I had looked at one of the clips. I was like, man, I look pretty fat. And so I sat down for the next take, and I was like, you know, I'm talking about content strategy here and everything, but, like, just to be honest and real with y', all, I'm struggling right now because I feel like I look like I am Tubby McGee over here.

Yeah.

And I think that I've had many people reach out to me and say that that was one of the most relatable moments in the course. Yeah.

I love that. It's also like, the people think they need to be perfect, and, like, the imperfection is what's going to connect you to the most people. And I think about that's relatable, not remarkable. Like, just be relatable. Like, what's the. You know, I mean, everybody else is struggling with the same thing. And when it comes to health and fitness, I've seen people incorporate that into their content strategy and it being the number one thing that connect, because everybody, it seems that on the Internet right now is interested in health and fitness. Like, it's like the number one piece of content you could provide.

Yeah. And with AI, I think AI is going to dominate. Remarkable. And so the only thing that we'll have left is relatable.

Yeah. That's huge. Okay, so you talk about brand differentiators, things that you disagree with from the. From the status quo. And then as far as things that are, like, tried and true, would you say that when you're teaching things and it's something that is. Everybody else is saying you can just put a unique spin on it, or you just kind of wouldn't post that video at all. Are you only posting the things that are contrarian?

No, no, no, no, no. Basically, the best version. So I said there's three levers. It's contrarian belief, it's delivery or it's wrapping paper.

Yeah.

Best version is all three. But if you can't authentically disagree with something, don't do something controversial for controversy sake. That is that is actually the worst thing that you could do. And we could talk about that in a second.

That's like faking it.

Yeah. And that. I mean, that causes problems like, you can't even imagine that I have seen and witnessed and had to, like, untangle for people. But delivery is the second one, and I think this is a very unique one. Are you familiar with, like, Comfort Creators? Yeah. Okay. So for the audience listening or watching, you might not be familiar. Comfort Creators are not a niche. They are a delivery style within different niches. And what they are is they're an answer to what has been predominantly aggressive content online. Right. Even, like, think about the biggest name vloggers on YouTube back in the day. Right. How did they start every episode yelling at you? Like, super intense. Right. Think about a lot of people in health and wellness, in entrepreneurship, in finance. A lot of very aggressive, demonstrative characters. And that works for a lot of people. But there's a lot of people out there that don't receive or learn well from a character like that. And there's been a massive rise in people that are sharing similar information. Like, not. Not necessarily anything crazy new, innovative, but they're delivering it in a softer tone.

Yeah.

They're not yelling at you about all the things you're doing wrong in your business. They're like, hey, have you ever considered doing this? Instead of.

Yeah. Be more empathetic.

Yeah. And it's not that one is right or wrong. It's that there's difference in humans. And so we need difference in what we're providing to humans. And so delivery is a way that you can stand out in your market. If you look at your market and you see everyone communicates one way and you're slightly different, lean into that. That is your advantage. Again, I see so many people talk about, like, how charismatic some people are in their space, and that's like, a reason why they shouldn't get in. And it's like. Well, I would argue there's probably a lot of people that would relate to you feeling awkward on camera. I mean. Oh, shit. What's his name? Oliver, I think, is his name. Right. The guy that was sailing to Hawaii from Oregon with his cat, Phoenix.

Yeah. Yeah.

That motherfucker talked all the time about how awkward he was, and you could see it, and everyone loved it.

Yeah. I think people think that needs to be perfect. And it's not. It's actually the opposite. So I love the fact you said delivery could be your thing. Now, obviously. Great. In perfect world, do all three.

Yep.

But just to give you an example, I'm going to tell you like in our industry I'm helping a lot of people who want to get clients to buy homes and to finance homes and all that kind of stuff. And so I've seen the, the status quo being people lecture you on why renting is dumb and why you're dumb if you're not owning and you know, like you're throwing your money away and, and almost like hey, you should have bought years ago. And you know, you missed like almost talking down to you. Right. And I've just seen this kind of like this tone and I'm like, you know what, why don't we meet the consumer where they're at? And so I just made a video one time and just said, you know what? Like hey, if you, if you feel like you missed the boat on buying a home and you should have done it 5 years ago cuz it was cheaper. Dude, I'm right there with you. I wish I would have bought a bunch of bitcoin five years ago and a bunch of stock in Tesla and like look at all these things. But the problem is, this is why, this is the problem with that thinking. There's a psychological term for this and here's why it's keeping you stuck. And then we moved into like how we could move forward. And that video ended up being like a turning point for me because I got way more conversations and leads from the content where I was meeting the consumer, where they're at and my entire industry is yelling at them and selling at them all the time. So I think of, yeah, that was a cool moment. Like you being, saying that just the way you tell the message and how you speak could be, that could be the whole differentiator.

Yeah. And if you want a great example of this, I keep shouting her out because I love her content on Instagram. Sarah Snow.

Oh, I love that.

Yeah, yeah, she's awesome. Like I, I just, every time a video comes up I, I love it and I always feel better after watching it too. Like it's a good vibe. But the next lever that you can pull. And I do think I, I put this in order of magnitude. Right. So it's like the contrarian belief that's your biggest lever that's going to provide the most. If you have that and not the other two, you'll beat the other two every day no matter what.

Yeah.

So then we got delivery wrapping paper. This is your format, this is your packaging. Right. This is how you're wrapping that delivery and the ideas or that contrarian belief, ideally that you're sharing. And somebody that I think did an incredible job with this is Adrian Per. Omg. Adrian on Instagram. Phenomenal. Right now everybody does these kinds of reels right? Where they're like, why walking into frame, it's like instead of doing a direct camera short, it's like there's 16 different shots in 40 seconds. Yeah, he was sharing a lot of, he shared new stuff too. But a lot of what he was sharing was like timeless storytelling principles. Right. Like frameworks on storytelling or filming techniques, why you choose this lens, et cetera. It wasn't like that he was sharing some groundbreaking new way of doing filmmaking. But, but the wrapping paper that he presented his ideas in was fundamentally different than everybody else on Instagram at the time. Yeah, he created this wave, I believe, or was one of the creators of this wave. And so that was another way to stand out. Now if you have all three, that's when I think you hit maximum velocity very quickly. This is where you get the brands that like, you're like, why the hell are you growing so fast out of the gate? And it's because they have all three. Whether they did it intentionally or they just stumbled upon it.

Yeah. I feel like I saw some sales trainer videos back in the day and like, and they were trying to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. And then like it ended up backfiring, you know, because it wasn't like true to who they were or people find contradictory content from you and then they call you out on it and then you get known as a fraud. Like your brain just, it was literally like this and it was boom. So I, I, I really want people to think about, like, don't just be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Like you, you, you, you do have thoughts of your own and make sure it's real.

Yeah. And what I'm about to say is not a rule, it's just a.

I.

Guess a guideline that I recommend. It's a recommendation, which is if you're going to do the contrarian thing, don't rip people apart by name. Yeah. Like this whole call out culture I think is disgusting. I, I am, I am so over it.

They're doing it for views though.

Yeah, yeah. And, and what kind of pairing is that like you're pairing yourself with? I mean, again, everyone has their own version of this. I do not believe all views are good views. I do not believe in that mantra that's been going around forever, which Is all press is good press. Like, it's just. I could debunk it in a million different ways for you right now. Like, it just does not make sense. And so I would just say if you're gonna disagree with something, make it about the thing and concept, not the person. Or if you're going to make it about an industry rather than calling out one person. And I'll give you an example. There's somebody in the fitness industry who I love and admire and I've been following for a very, very long time, like since I was in high school. And I think they're incredible, very intelligent. They got their PhD. Like, they actually share fitness advice based on science, not bro science. But one thing that they started doing the last couple years is they started doing a lot more call out content where they call people's names out and rip them a new one. And they have a reputation around that now. That is their brand. It's not their genius. It's, oh, that's the guy that calls everybody out. And I don't know about you, but that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want to be associated with that. Right. And so when I talk about things that I disagree with in my industry, I generalize it. I say my counterparts, people in the space that say virality is your number one goal, aim for virality. I'm never going to point fingers because I don't believe it's about any one individual. It's a concept as a whole.

Yeah. So you're against the trend or the thought, not necessarily the person.

Exactly. Yeah.

So this is the thing. I think that's a perfect segment into this whole like obsession with going viral. Okay. And it's honestly the most viewed content from content creators teaching content creators how to create content, you know, that whole thing. Or coaches teaching coaches. And you'll see so much content about how to go viral, how to get more views, how to get. And I think at a certain point, everybody, if we're being honest, we want more views, we want more eyeballs on our content. But I think the thing that you're clarifying here and what I've seen in my own journey is like there is certain value to certain types of views. So I'll give you just quick example of your take on this. So I saw a finance creator in our space who was creating videos on simple finance hacks like budgeting, credit card points, this type of stuff. And they just kind of like found their niche and then they just kept going and their Account grew super fast. Right. What they found was it was a bunch of broke people watching the videos. And then they were trying to segment into like, the people they really want, which is more affluent people who could buy things and invest money. And it was very small. So, like, at scale, it worked. But for everybody else who didn't reach millions of followers, it was kind of like you have this audience, but the audience doesn't even really care. You haven't built any connection with them. You're just the guy who gives them tips. You know what I mean? And then conversely, there'll be somebody with a fraction of the size of audience who could host events. Meetups provides real value. You know what that person stands for. And so I think that all views are not created equal. Is this your feeling as well?

Yeah, I agree with it. I think we need to be careful. And what I would clarify is going viral is great.

Yeah, it's kind of cool.

It doesn't. More often than not, it does hurt some businesses. I've seen it hurt, actually a lot. But more often than not, it's going to be beneficial. My thing is around intent. If you're always aiming to go viral, you're going to make content that is bullshit and not useful or valuable to the audience that is going to provide you monetary income. You're gaining the wrong audience. That's the main thing. Like that. That's. That's what all these people are doing. And the other thing too, as a side note, like, if you make your brand around going viral, what happens when things don't go viral anymore?

They stop producing is what I've seen.

Yeah, it's a very. Like, as a side note, that is a shitty brand, in my opinion. Sorry. That. That's a strong statement and I love a lot of people that do that. But like, personally. But like, that is not a good brand to build. As a side note, like, it's just like building your brand around. Drop shipping. Yeah.

And then drop shipping doesn't happen. Yeah. So, like, do you think that we should have two types of content? Like, we should have content for awareness that brings in people and then we have content that we're okay getting less views on, but that's going to speak to our people.

I'm so glad you asked, Neil. I like to think of it as you make deep content and then you make not wide content. You make niche wide content. Okay, so I'm gonna give you an example here. The deep content, I'm gonna use my own content that I'm putting out as an example, we put out a video a couple months ago on how to lead a media team, not how to build one from scratch. How to lead a media team that already exists. Niche as fuck. Right. Like very niche. I think it maybe has 7 or 8,000 views on it. It'll be one of our lowest viewed videos probably of all time. On the contrary, we put out a video that was 12 minutes long and that media team video was also two hours. So it's really in depth. It's like basically a mini course on YouTube on how to lead a media team. We then put out a video, I think it was either right before or right after. That's 12 minutes. And it's. I think it's titled, if you struggle with making content, please watch this. And it's me talking about all the struggles that I had mentally, the mindset around making content, my insecurities, my fears, da da da. And that one is our second best performing video of all time. If we just looked at those numbers, we would say less of the media team video, more of the struggling with content. Right?

Yeah.

And that's what 99.999999% of you listening and watching are doing right now. But here's where it gets interesting. No qualified clients reached out from the struggling with content video. Every creative director. Not every. A lot of creative directors for a lot of the personal brands that we either work with or, or want to work with reached out.

Yeah. So the bottom of the funnel.

Yeah, well. And I don't even like thinking in the top, middle, bottom of the funnel anymore, because I don't think that's how it works anymore. I think that that is a broken way of thinking of marketing. We could go into that some other time probably. But I just believe that it was more useful to my ideal audience if I was offering services to solo creators for like a, you know, $100 a month price point, we would crush with that other video. But that's not our intended audience. That's not who we want to work with. Right. And so if you start, what we're really getting at here is you don't want your intent to be going viral. You want your intent to be providing usefulness for your audience so they increase the amount of trust they have towards you. Because the way trust is built in content is you tell your audience to do something, they do it. They get their desired outcome and they associate you and their desired outcome, which means their trust in you goes up. And when they're trusting you goes up from all this Free content. Guess what happens when you tell them about an offer you have? They trust that they'll get the value.

Yeah, I think like that was a component of like a personal brand is like do are the things you're teaching working? Like okay, if the things you say work, then great. Like, and I found this to be like kind of a weird thing with content creators. They'll teach things that are may only work for like a fraction of fraction of people. And they'll say like focus on that result because it's like candy, you know, And I get it because that's what's going to get you more views to talk about these huge outliers. But like it's not practical for everybody watching.

No. Like for example, I've worked in house for two of the biggest entrepreneur creators in the space.

Yeah.

And I am telling people all the time in my content and interviews like this do not copy what they are doing.

Yeah.

It's not practical for 99.9% of you. I agree. I, I couldn't agree more.

Yeah. And that's the problem is like okay, what would work for the actual people? Like what would actually help people? And so I think, you know, it just comes to a basic thing of like, okay, is this video going to help people or not? You know, and, and, and then how we structure it is a little different.

But real quick, help people, all that means is that they change what they do after they watch the video. And so tiny little pro tip, a tactic for y' all is when you are editing your content, when you, when you're pre producing, when you're writing it, when you're filming it and you're editing it, every decision you make on, should we include this, should we have this graphic pop up? Should we do this explanation here? The answer is, does it make it easier for your audience to change what they do or does it make it harder? So for example, a lot of people started getting way too crazy with motion graphics on their YouTube videos because they were trying to do retention based hacks. Guess what the best retention hack is? Give people something that is actually useful, they'll keep watching. A lot of times those graphics and retention hacks, they don't aid in making it easier for the audience to change their behavior. They, they actually make it harder. It's a distraction. And so every decision you make in your content should come down to one thing. Does it make it easier for the audience to change or harder?

Yeah, I think like that this was a huge thing on social as well. On short form People were doing these really like fast edit videos with a bunch of stock B roll and graphics and it ended up just being cringe, honestly, like it didn't work anymore. And then I, I feel bad when I see people who are new to the content game and they'll be be advised by the wrong person or someone who's didn't get the memo, you know, and they're still producing content like two years ago and it's like, oh, wait, you know, like you're actually taking away from your message, not adding to it.

Yeah, what, what's happening there is they're getting taught by somebody who is just teaching and no longer in the game. And what happens when you learn from those people is the learning stopped the moment they stopped.

Yes.

So like you're learning shit up to the date where they stopped being in it.

Yeah, it's so huge. So, okay, think about this now as we get into the content that people are producing and we want to get into some tactics as well on like effective ways for turning this content into actual clients. Because I think a lot of people, yes, we want views, but at the end of the day, last time I checked, you cannot deposit subscribers at the bank, you know.

Yeah, we want profit, not views.

Yeah, honestly, I want both. But like at the end of the day, what's going to drive business and allow you to keep investing in this game is going to be profit. Right. So what have you seen is the best way to turn viewers into clients? Like what is that system? Is it a specific type of video that we should be creating? Or what is that? Or is it all of the things we've been teaching so far?

Yes, I think I apologize for those of you listening and watching that are getting annoyed at how simple my responses are. The way you make content that produces qualified leads that convert is you give them content that they can use that will give them better results and you do it over and over and over again. And that is how you do it at a high level. Like it's, it's so basic.

That's the North Star.

That is the North Star. And so again, the tactic is literally the only thing that you should be focusing on. For 99% of the people watching and listening, the only thing they should focus on is do I make it easier to know what to do and for them to take action on it?

So what's that next step?

So yeah, you share what to do. Right. But the reason why they're not taking action typically is they're not convinced or they can't see themselves doing this. And that's where stories become very powerful. Stories allow you to share your principles or tactics to your audience and it allows them to see this in a totally different scenario. Right. The person on camera is probably not very relatable anymore, but maybe one of their clients that is very similar to the audience member watching is. And so when they share this tactic or principle through the lens of a far more relatable person, it persuades the audience to then take action. And so I just think that a big thing, like a tiny little nugget here is if you're the type of creator and we can talk about hour long plus videos in a second, but if you're making like 15 to 20 minute videos, that is not a video where you should have five different things you're teaching. It should be one thing and five different stories to support it.

Oh, that's great. Yeah. Because I think we're trying to do too much in one piece of content. Many times I've seen people try to do seven things in one video.

Yeah. Know what the hell you're trying to accomplish and stop trying to accomplish multiple things with the same piece of content. Right. It's the same problem that people have when they try to go deep and wide with content content. It's like cool. You're gonna accomplish neither. And so I think like on the shorter now, if you're gonna do like, you know, I've done a six hour and 22 minute video on YouTube. So like, there's a lot of learnings in that and I actually reduced the amount of stories because of the format of it. But if you're operating in that 15 to 30 minute window, one, stop making these 15 minute masterclasses. It's, it's not true. It's not a masterclass if it's 15 minutes. But if you're doing that, I would argue the greatest value for your audience isn't you trying to jam as many different concepts into a 15 minute video. It's one concept and then five different ways that that can play out. And that increases the odds that your audience is going to actually act on it. If they act on it, they trust you and then they'll convert.

So then in that video, would you consider this, like, how effective would a case study video be for a relatable person? Like you talked about bringing up client success.

Yes.

So like, could the video simply be about the case study?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Just, just when you're making it, make sure you make it in a 20, 26 modern way. Not in the boring way that lives third tab of your website.

What is that difference?

It's literally just looking at what the best practices are at YouTube at the moment. So right now you need to make sure that you have an intro that isn't boring as like most people's intros for their case studies. Right. You need to speak. Something that I think your audience will probably resonate with is you need to think about your YouTube videos like an offer. Simplicity, clarity, and a very clear outcome. Right. Not multiple things. Yeah.

By the end of this video, you should be able to do this.

Yeah. If you think about your YouTube videos as an offer, I think that you will probably end up making far more effective in this example case studies. Right. Cause you're not thinking about it from the standpoint of let me share how awesome I am and the great results I get. And it's let me share with you these principles that you need to do. And here's evidence as to why you should do it. You make it about the audience, not about you. The majority of case studies that live on the third tab on people's websites are about them.

Yeah. Because they're trying to promote themselves.

Exactly.

So it's about the person, not you. And it's also like, okay, here's the thing I want to teach you. And by the way, you know, don't take it just for me. I want to show you someone who's just like you, who got the same results and where they, how they, how the things that they had to overcome.

And all that kind of stuff. Yes. And ideally it's like maybe multiple different examples, different scenarios, different, you know, you.

Could touch on different types of people.

Exactly.

So it's more relatable. And then at that point, are you putting in a call to action in that video? Meaning, like, but like, for example, middle of the video, end of the video, mid roll or enroll, maybe even pre roll. Some people say, yeah, am I popping on to say, hey, you know, just quick interrupt the video. Like just add, add, read. And you're saying, hey, if you're someone who wants to do this, but you've been lost on the process, we actually offer this service. And so if you're interested in that, here's a QR code, there's a link in the description, and get back to the video, Is that okay to do?

I think that's totally acceptable to do. It's not ideal. The best case scenario is that you give in public and you sell in private. And so what I would do in that scenario Is instead of that technique, it takes a little bit longer. And so you have to have more patience. I understand. Some people need the money right now. And so like you gotta do you. I'm not the guy for that. I'm not the get money right now kind of guy. I'm the build a brand for the longevity that's gonna convert hardcore.

You want to get money forever.

Forever, exactly. Yeah. And so. Oh, where was I? Conversion. Yes. Thank you. No, but where were we within the conversion?

So like I was saying, put a call to action in the middle of the video.

Yeah, thank you. My brain is going a million miles an hour right now. So I think the best version of it is you have a. And here's the key, I'm going to say lead magnet and people are going to roll their eyes. I mean a good lead magnet, not some bullshit three steps and you're done kind of shit like a really actually useful lead magnet. And a good lead magnet is something that solves a narrowly defined problem of a much bigger problem. So it solves one small problem and reveals a bigger one. And guess what? That bigger problem is the thing that you solve with your offer. Incredible.

Yeah.

That is the best way. And so you, you put out a really useful video. You have a PDF or whatever the hell that accompanies it. And people have to go to your website, enter their email, and then you email that to them, and then you sell them and convert them in the email process, not in the videos. And here's why. We all know everyone who makes content knows that you lose people when you do that ad. Or if you're doing short form and you post a video that is a right hook, it always underperforms like it. Unless you do something that barely feels like an ad. And then at the very last second you like tell people, hey, this was an ad, it underperforms. And what you ended up doing there is a couple of things. You burned a posting slot that you could have been using to either re engage your audience and give them more value or acquire new audience. But you also do this thing where it wasn't something that was actually useful for the audience. And I don't believe on the surface, like in the front of their head, they're like, ah, Neil just did this thing that was less valuable for me and I don't want to watch the rest of his content as much as I did before.

Yeah.

But subconsciously that's what happens, right? Like the thing that a lot of people don't talk about in content performance and how to optimize your content is like, if you make good content, people want to watch your future content. If you make shit content, people will want to watch the next one less. And that happens on a grand scale with YouTube, but it also happens on a micro scale when you upload an ad on your Instagram account.

Yeah, it's like that whole thing of 7 11, 24, you know, the people need to see seven hours of content, 11 touch points or four, you know, four different platforms. And there's all these studies on what would drive a consumer to make a decision. And they call it the zero moment of truth. Like this is the, the moment when somebody would be able to pull, be in a position to pull the trigger on working with you. And it's usually not going to be they just randomly came across your video and then loved your call to action. It's normally going to be you entered into this person's world, continued watching things, maybe got into an email sequence, saw some more videos, and then at the right time, you decided to work with them.

You built trust with them all on the way, made a short video that they liked and they were like, oh, I trust you enough to watch the next one.

Yeah, and that's the whole power of being consistent too. Like, I feel like people showing up consistently throughout the year allows them to catch those people at those. Because you don't. You just never know when people are going to be ready to take the next step. And it's different for everybody, 100%.

It's why you need to optimize around trust, not virality for your personal brand. If you think about trust as your North Star, you will build a brand new that you will feel better about, you'll be more proud of and you will get way better conversions on.

Yeah, I love that, man. I think about this too. With the lead magnet. I love the fact that you said it needs to be really useful because I feel like people say their lead magnet doesn't work and I'll look at it and it's trash.

You're like, yeah, you're right, it doesn't work.

I don't even want, like, it didn't work for me, but you couldn't give. You know, it's bad when you can't even give it away, right?

Yeah.

Like, it's like, it's free.

Yep.

And I'm like, dude, that would cost me too much. I'm like, what do you mean it's free? Like, no, it would cost me the time to opt in and to read it. It's not even that good. So I think of this, bro, I think of the best lead magnets. I love the fact that you defined, you know, that it solves a problem and then reveals a bigger one. But I think making it solve the problem where people get hung up on in my industry especially is they don't want to give away the secret sauce. They feel like then now the person won't want to work at them. So they're like, hey, I'll give you like this little meaningless tip and then. Or I'll give you a quick guide that's super generic, seven steps to whatever. But I don't want to tell you the thing. So like, dude, I had this idea for real estate, you know, separate from all the different entrepreneurs in our group, I was thinking of just real estate people. Like, what if you made the thing on how to buy a home without a real estate agent? How to sell your home on your own. You know what I mean? Like, bro, it would be scary because you like, dude, I'm cutting out. I'm giving them everything. But it would reveal the thing that you want, which is that you're the expert and I can handle all this for you. So I feel like people want DIY until they get the box home from ikea. You know, like everybody wants, they want to feel empowered, they want to do it on their own. They don't want to be lectured. But then you realize you need help, right? Like that's how I am. I'm always like, hey, let me dive in. And I'm like, you know what? I can't do this. I need help.

Everyone listening and watching that has been to Costco before. If you're walking through Costco and one of the friendly individuals working the sample station hands you a sample and. And it tastes like dog shit, are you going to want to go buy the full pack of that item? No. Your lead magnet is a sample. If your lead magnet is dog shit, nobody's going to think, oh well, when I pay him, it's going to be better, right? If you make a really impactful, powerful lead magnet, all you do to your point is you indicate to the customer, if this is free, what the is it like if I pay them?

Yeah. And I think people don't get confused with it needs to be pretty. Because I'll tell you what, like, I've had great success with a simple Google Doc.

Yeah.

I've had great success with a loom video where I walk people through a 10 minute process and I show them the secret Sauce on loom, no fancy editing. So like, and I think people think like, oh, I don't have the. I can't make the lead magnet. Well, use AI, refine your thoughts, organize your thoughts, and then put it into a simple package. We could make it pretty later. You know, I love like build the plane as you go. Because I have so many examples of my first content, my first class, my first event. And it's like, it was not pretty, but like, that's how you get to good. By doing a few things that maybe aren't so good.

Yeah. And to double down on this point, like, I love my Harley Davidsons and I've customized the hell out of them. When I went to change the exhaust pipe on my 2021 Road King special, I watched hundreds of videos on it and I knew how to do it. But what actually I saw was I'm not mechanically inclined. Everybody that's mechanically inclined is like laughing at me and they're like, what a loser. But I decided this is too complicated for me to do. And the likelihood that I could fuck this up and it costs more money for me to fix all the damage that I caused by doing it myself is high. So who am I going to go to? Well, Las Vegas, Harley just showed me on seven different motorcycles how they did it. Seven different ones, different than mine. They're probably an expert. I'm probably not gonna have any issues with it. I'm gonna go with them. And so it demonstrates your excellence. To your point, what you were saying, like, I think me putting out my course is a perfect example of this. That's a lead magnet. Then we attached a lead magnet to the lead magnet. Right. The course is 6 hours and 22 minutes. We filmed it over 14 hours of footage. We cut it down. It is wildly like high vpm, high value per minute. Right. And then we associated like a 45 or 50 page workbook with it for free. All for free. And I have been behind the scenes of some of the biggest brands that are the biggest givers of value for free. And even I was uncomfy putting it out. I was talking with Trevor and I was like, dude, we could sell this for like some good money. We made it like my North Star was, I want to make this. And feel totally comfortable charging anybody 10 grand to access it. $10,000 for free. And then we gave it for free.

Wow.

And what ended up happening is we. It's insane. We started posting videos in March of 2025. As of right now, we're filming this in August we went from like around a thousand subscribers to now we have, we're about to hit 40,000 subscribers in less than six months. We put out the course on April 4th and on April 4th we had zero people on our email list. We now have 23, 24,000 people. I've only promoted the email list through that one video, nowhere else. We've had 500 people apply to work with us and I haven't been able to respond to any of them because we have demand coming in through my DMs on Instagram and LinkedIn, all because of the course. Yeah, I put out. Now granted, I could make probably two or three more of those. So I didn't give everything away, but like I gave everything away for what people needed at that level.

And the cool part about this is you're perfectly fine with people taking all the value and leaving and never buying anything from you. Like, that's, that's the goal because that gives you the opportunity to serve the 500, which you can't even serve to begin with. Like, you don't have the capacity for anyways for anybody that has like a high margin business or where one client is meaningful to your bottom line. Like, I think you're optimizing for the wrong thing. Like if you had 15 more clients this year and you're watching this video, would that impact you in a positive way? Then this is the strategy you need to use. Because you're making the content trying to find the 15. You should be making the content to serve the 15,000. And then, bro, the 15 will wait in line. There'll be a line of 500 waiting. Like you said, there's a line of 500 people waiting to work with you essentially. You know, if you think about it right, and then you get to be choosy, who do you want to work with? Who's going to be your right person? Like, you know, everyone's like, hey, this is my ideal client. You get to pick.

Now, if you're a gangster, but you sell a course to provide profitability into your company, I would argue if you actually took that course that you charge for and put out for free, you would actually make more money than you do off of charging for. Just takes a lot of stomach to do that.

Yeah, it's, it is, it is un. I guess it is uncomfortable. And I think that is a signal that you're actually on the right path. If you're like, man, there's too much value, like, okay, this is, this is where you need to lean in and it is weird in the beginning, I will admit that, but this is going to be the key. So guys, if you, if you haven't gotten a lot of value from this content, I don't know, maybe you're in the wrong business, you know, but like, maybe you sell T shirts. That would be a different strategy. Maybe. I don't know. But for people that I talk to that are trying to get more clients and more views and more impact, I think this is going to be the game plan for them. If people want to learn more, is that honestly the best way for them to get into your world is just opt in to that, that, that guide that you are giving away the workbook and the. And the course on.

Yeah, you don't even need to. I would say get the guide. Cause it'll make it like the workbook will make it easier for you to take action on the course, but you don't even need to do that. Like, like, I'm not trying to get people's emails. I'm not trying to like do any of that. Like go on YouTube. All you got to do is. I pretty sure if you search how to build your personal brand, it'll probably pop up in like the top 10 or something like that.

Yeah.

And it's my ugly mug on the front. Watch that. And like, the big kicker that I would say is if you're going to invest six hours or if you're going to do it on two, xp, three and a half hours or whatever, fucking take action on it. That is my big request. Like, and I say it multiple times in the course. I did not make it for people to sit and watch me talk. That's the worst thing that you could do me. Right. What I really did it for. And actually real quick to unpack this, I didn't do it for the leads. We were talking before we started rolling.

Yeah.

I told Trevor I want a thousand views on this in like a year. If we get a thousand views in the first year, I'll be stoked. Right. So I did not do it for the leads. I did it because I hate how people are building their personal brands right now. I think they're wasting a ton of time, a ton of money. They're going in the wrong direction. They're optimizing around the wrong things. They're going to wake up one day and be like, why did I invest so much money into this and so much time and it's producing nothing that I actually want and I'm tired of it. And so I put it out to help people genuinely.

Yeah.

So watch it. Take. Do that. That's it. I. I don't have anything else to send people to. Just that.

Love that. And then as far as just the last thing really quick before we wrap here. And by the way, guys, if you had questions or you have ideas that maybe we could have Caleb at our events in the future or on a future episode, like, drop them in the comments. I read every single comment, especially ones of like, hey, I would love to learn more about this. Then that's literally what informs our next piece of content many times. So please leave those comments.

I love that you do that, by the way. So few these days actually do that.

Yeah, I found gold in the comments.

Yeah.

So I was doing an episode, my most viewed episode, which was totally weird. Like, me and this guy Sharon just shot, sat down and talk marketing tactics, no prep. Similar to, like our conversation today. And we just came across all these nuggets in the. In the video and it took off like, I had no idea why. Just similar. Like, I thought maybe a thousand people watch it and then 150,000 people watched it. But then in the comments, people said, hey, I want to learn more about this. And. And I looked at the spikes on the episode and I'm like, okay, that's going to inform my next few videos.

Love that.

You know, so it's like giving the people what they want. Um, but really quick on. You talked.

What?

I lost my train of thought. But it was something on. You said you wanted to make sure you told. Oh, yeah, it was like you just said the. It was about. I think it was about. No, we talked about views. You talked about the content strategy, but it was something to do with like, you wanted to make sure you told them about a certain thing that, you know, most people are doing wrong. So I guess this would be the question to wrap with is like, what is the biggest mistake you see people making with their content and personal brand in 2025 if you had to narrow it. I know there's a lot of mistakes, but if you had to narrow it down.

Well, we talked about a couple already in this. So let me. Let me come up with a new one here, which. And the man that we've referenced several times that we both admire, Gary, talks about this a lot, which is stop making content for how it makes you look and how you're posturing and presenting yourself to others and start making it with your audience. Truly, not some, like, bullshit that you say and don't actually act out. Have your audience be the center of everything that you make. And if you really, actually do that, like, actually, actually you'll end up putting out what we just talked about, which is all the secrets. And what you'll realize is that nobody's going to implement it without your help. And that's where you can monetize. And so I think. I think that's a big one.

Yeah, that's huge. And it actually works for Gary. It's how he built his whole brand. And he scales his agency, and he's launched so many ancillary products on the back of the brand. I remember how I got that first interview with him was, I know nothing about wine. He's launching a wine brand. We want to support it. And then he's like, hey, if you do this, I'll do this. It was like a barter.

Yeah.

And I remember that wine company scaled so fast that one of the biggest liquor companies in the world bought it within 18 months after he started it.

Yeah, Constellation. I went and worked there, actually.

It's unheard of.

Yeah, bro.

18 months. You start a wine brand from scratch. Unheard of. And then it gets bought because the sales were like this off the back of Gary's personal brand. Pretty crazy. And then he sells NFTs and he sells cards and he sells. Like, there's so many other things besides media, but it's like people trust him.

Yeah. And actually, I want to share something real quick, if you don't mind, please, story with him. Like, he does this at a wild level. Like, he. In May, he had a really cool V Friends Chrome Tops, like, release. And he was documenting that by bringing back DailyVee. And he invited a lot of the OG characters to come back and film with him. And it was the coolest thing in the world. And Trevor and I got the opportunity to go out and film with him for a couple of days. And we were at this Vee Friends event. And this is like, he's starting from scratch, right? We're watching him build this thing from, like, literally doodles on a napkin to, like, what he's turning it into. And so, like, this is crucial time right now for promotion of his product, Right. And we're standing at the Veefriends booth and he's taking photos with, you know, all the people that are coming through. And about an hour earlier, we were backstage after he finished his Q and A, and a really big rapper, like a very, very popular rapper, was backstage. And we got some cool shots of them, like opening V Friends cards or whatever. And and then their team was like, hey, let's make sure. We'll stop by the booth. We'll get some photos and stuff for press, all that stuff. And G's like, okay, cool, sounds good. We're at the booth and. And Gary's talking to this kid who's in a wheelchair, and he's just. You know how he is. He's just locked in. And the rapper comes by, and I see everybody trying to get Gary's attention to go over there and take the photo and then come back and talk to this kid. Like, he could have literally walked over there and then come right back, and instead, he stayed with the kid the rapper ended up walking on, and it didn't end up happening. And I asked him about it afterwards. I was like, dude, you're in a moment where, like, that would have been a really good move. And he's like, yeah, but the audience always comes first.

Dang.

At, like, a really big level. Not just, like, I make my videos for my, like, when it is on the line. And so I think, like, I've had the fortune, and I'm very lucky to have been in those moments to see that somebody that's at his level operating the way he is, still prioritizing the audience. And something that I've heard you mention is, like, there's a lot of people that are a 10th or 20th the size that he is and don't give a shit about their audience. And it shows. When you walk through the airport, we walk through the air, like, to this day, Gary is stopped constantly because the audience knows how much he actually cares about them.

Yeah, that's huge. That's the North Star, bro. Thank you so much for being here, man. And we'll see you guys on the next episode.