Latest / Earn Your Leisure / Study Hall: How to Build a Brand
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- 0:58Speaker 2: What's going on? Earnest Welcome the EYL University, the number
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- 2:00Speaker 5: My graduates from my school being forced back and drop
- 2:05Speaker 5: drop mic drop back, drop drop.
- 2:18Speaker 3: A lot of people come on social media for their
- 2:21Speaker 3: business and they get like two followers and they're like
- 2:24Speaker 3: running fifty percent off ads and sales, and it's like
- 2:26Speaker 3: you don't even have an audience, and it's like, you know,
- 2:28Speaker 3: the whole point of wearing business, So the whole point
- 2:30Speaker 3: is to make money. We're never gonna apologize about making money.
- 2:33Speaker 3: If you are apologetic about making money, this isn't the
- 2:36Speaker 3: channel for you. But there's ways to go about making money.
- 2:40Speaker 3: And sometimes like if you promote too much, or you're
- 2:44Speaker 3: too gimmicky or you it's like you can make money,
- 2:48Speaker 3: but over the course of time, you're diluting your brand
- 2:53Speaker 3: because it's not And even if we look at the
- 2:54Speaker 3: best brands in the world, like Nike, like they have sale,
- 2:58Speaker 3: but how many times do you actually see Itike commercials
- 3:00Speaker 3: selling something. It's not really too often. Most Nike commercials
- 3:04Speaker 3: are like you know Andrea Agacy, that legendary situation on
- 3:08Speaker 3: Michael Jordan with dunking of basketball, Serena Williams and her daughter,
- 3:12Speaker 3: like even Colin Kaepernick. It's an ad to build their brand,
- 3:17Speaker 3: not really selling anything because you're gonna buy it on
- 3:20Speaker 3: the back end, just by the strength of their brand
- 3:22Speaker 3: just becoming so dominant that they don't necessarily have to
- 3:25Speaker 3: beat you in the head with fifty percent off sales.
- 3:28Speaker 3: You feel compelled to buy it because they've built so
- 3:32Speaker 3: much brand equity over the years.
- 3:34Speaker 2: I think what you said is very important, John. I'm
- 3:36Speaker 2: glad you broke that down with the awareness interesting trust.
- 3:38Speaker 2: It's like, if you have two followers, we don't even
- 3:41Speaker 2: have an awareness over you, and you're trying to sell
- 3:43Speaker 2: something which automatically makes me distrust, right, and so how
- 3:46Speaker 2: do I go into a relationship with distrust? I don't
- 3:49Speaker 2: and so now I turn away. So now, even if
- 3:51Speaker 2: you put valuable content out to the world, you've already
- 3:54Speaker 2: lost us because you started selling to us. And so
- 3:56Speaker 2: it's very key to give value, give value, give value.
- 4:00Speaker 2: People see what's happening, Let them build their trust, let
- 4:03Speaker 2: them build the awareness of the brand, which will and
- 4:05Speaker 2: then turn grow the interest in what you're doing, which
- 4:08Speaker 2: will make it a lot easier when it's time for
- 4:10Speaker 2: you to say, you know what, All right, I've been
- 4:11Speaker 2: doing this, I've been doing this. Here's what I also
- 4:13Speaker 2: have to offer, you know what I mean?
- 4:15Speaker 3: And that's something I'm gonna let you finished, John. But
- 4:18Speaker 3: somebody said about how but everybody's way is different as
- 4:20Speaker 3: far as how to build brand. But how we built
- 4:22Speaker 3: our brand in two minutes is that we just created
- 4:25Speaker 3: a maximum value as possible. So before we had a podcast,
- 4:28Speaker 3: we had an Instagram page. Well, even before I had
- 4:30Speaker 3: my own personal Instagram page. I wasn't selling anything. I
- 4:33Speaker 3: was just I was just I was just adding value
- 4:35Speaker 3: people that I would take times write, write captions, write posts,
- 4:40Speaker 3: make videos. When we started earning a leisure the whole
- 4:42Speaker 3: we didn't really even know, to be completely honest, we
- 4:44Speaker 3: didn't know how to monetize a podcast, but we figured
- 4:47Speaker 3: that once we had enough attention, there would be opportunities
- 4:50Speaker 3: to monetize. So our goal was just to add as
- 4:53Speaker 3: much value as possible, and that helped build our brand
- 4:56Speaker 3: on social media, and then you know, all throughout we
- 4:59Speaker 3: just had a unique way to relay information with business
- 5:03Speaker 3: and mix it with pop culture, and that was our
- 5:05Speaker 3: brand building proposition, was that we're going to educate people
- 5:08Speaker 3: for free. We're going to give as much value as possible.
- 5:12Speaker 3: We didn't sell anything, we didn't have merch we didn't
- 5:15Speaker 3: have a live event, we didn't.
- 5:16Speaker 4: Have anything nothing.
- 5:17Speaker 3: So now when we have paid products and we've already
- 5:20Speaker 3: built brand equity, but it took us twelve thirteen months
- 5:25Speaker 3: before we even probably even longer than that, like before
- 5:27Speaker 3: we even sold one thing that made.
- 5:30Speaker 6: Us in Yeah, and so it reminds me of that
- 5:33Speaker 6: of that graph, that last graph right, You guys didn't
- 5:36Speaker 6: start with sales. You could have if you you could
- 5:39Speaker 6: have tricked a few people into buying a quick E
- 5:43Speaker 6: course right at the jump without really knowing anything.
- 5:47Speaker 7: But instead you were that red line. You were you.
- 5:50Speaker 6: You were building that brand equity by just giving given, given, given, given,
- 5:53Speaker 6: given given. And as a result, look at the platform
- 5:56Speaker 6: that you guys grew. And you know, speaking of Nike,
- 5:58Speaker 6: I caught a glipse. So their brand essence framework and
- 6:02Speaker 6: their one word was performance. I don't think that you're
- 6:09Speaker 6: any faster and Nikes than you are in Adidas, but
- 6:16Speaker 6: they their their core brand was performance.
- 6:20Speaker 7: And think about how just think about the look of
- 6:23Speaker 7: their logo.
- 6:24Speaker 6: The swoosh kind of just makes you feel like performance,
- 6:28Speaker 6: the flash, you know, and and and it's a really
- 6:32Speaker 6: a student observation. Rashad that that they don't they don't
- 6:35Speaker 6: sell I never thought about that. They don't sell ship
- 6:38Speaker 6: in their commercials.
- 6:39Speaker 4: No, they don't.
- 6:40Speaker 7: They don't sell their brands.
- 6:42Speaker 6: So so for anyone, so if if you have a
- 6:44Speaker 6: tea company, if you have an e comm company.
- 6:47Speaker 7: You know, what are ways what's that word gonna be
- 6:49Speaker 7: for you? A?
- 6:51Speaker 6: And then B how can you associate your brand with
- 6:56Speaker 6: that feeling. For example, at Loop, our purpose is to
- 7:03Speaker 6: move people. We don't care about insurance in the same
- 7:07Speaker 6: way that Nike only cares about sneakers because it drives performance.
- 7:12Speaker 6: So we we we stand for movement, right, because insurance
- 7:17Speaker 6: gets you on the road and then you go and
- 7:18Speaker 6: you got to do other things that you gotta do.
- 7:20Speaker 7: So how do how are we gonna build brain around that?
- 7:24Speaker 6: Well, we're gonna have photography of people on the road,
- 7:26Speaker 6: all on their hustle, doing their ship and just just
- 7:29Speaker 6: a little photo, just a little kind of the bottom
- 7:32Speaker 6: that's as Loop, right. And so for example, those are
- 7:37Speaker 6: just some of the low hanging fruit ways man that
- 7:39Speaker 6: we could that we could build brand. You gotta lock
- 7:42Speaker 6: in on that specific value that you feel you want
- 7:45Speaker 6: to put brand equity into.
- 7:48Speaker 3: And I also think that for building a brand, going
- 7:51Speaker 3: back to our personal experience, you know, we learned a
- 7:53Speaker 3: lot from raph and we took a lot. We took
- 7:56Speaker 3: a lot from hip hop artists to help build our brain.
- 8:00Speaker 3: So you know, being a big Wu Tang fan growing
- 8:03Speaker 3: up in the late nineties, and you know when you
- 8:06Speaker 3: saw that w that meant something. You didn't have to
- 8:09Speaker 3: hear Wu tang to see that, like you know what
- 8:11Speaker 3: I'm saying, Like when you saw a w you automatically
- 8:14Speaker 3: associated Wu tang, and then you when you had to
- 8:18Speaker 3: kill a bee's like they had a mascot if you
- 8:19Speaker 3: think about it. So it's like even schools. You could
- 8:21Speaker 3: learn a lot from schools. School is not a problem.
- 8:25Speaker 3: It's what they're teaching that's the problem. But the infrastructure
- 8:27Speaker 3: of school is actually pretty brilliant.
- 8:28Speaker 4: Schools.
- 8:29Speaker 3: They have clubs inside of schools. They have sports teams
- 8:32Speaker 3: to keep you engaged. They have times when you check in,
- 8:34Speaker 3: they have parents, they have lunchtime, they have mascots. Mascots
- 8:37Speaker 3: is extremely important. So it's like you when you saw
- 8:39Speaker 3: the kill a bee, that meant something like you know
- 8:42Speaker 3: what I'm saying, but it all equated back to Wu tang.
- 8:45Speaker 3: But they didn't have to put Wu tang on every
- 8:47Speaker 3: single thing. So it's like when you see us, our
- 8:50Speaker 3: mascots are our emojis. That's like a mascot, right, Like
- 8:54Speaker 3: that's like a team mascot that's branded. We don't have
- 8:56Speaker 3: to put legion on everything. So now you see eyl
- 9:00Speaker 3: y L three letters is very nostalgic when you think
- 9:03Speaker 3: of luxury brands YSL Like you know, there's a lot
- 9:06Speaker 3: of stuff when you when you think of like three letters,
- 9:09Speaker 3: like it's real easy to remember, and it's a it's
- 9:11Speaker 3: an abbreviation. People love abbreviations, even if they hate the
- 9:15Speaker 3: abbreviation I R S.
- 9:17Speaker 4: You name it like you know what I'm saying.
- 9:19Speaker 7: People, Yeah, use use anything other than the I R S.
- 9:25Speaker 2: Alphabet.
- 9:25Speaker 7: Boys, we got an in here. Let's let Annie in out.
- 9:28Speaker 4: Let's bring up that.
- 9:30Speaker 3: That's something that that's something to keep in mind as
- 9:31Speaker 3: well as far as you don't necessarily and even assets
- 9:34Speaker 3: over aliability, assets over liabilities, that's ours.
- 9:38Speaker 4: We made that up.
- 9:39Speaker 3: Anybody that's knocking that off, you should shame yourself. But
- 9:42Speaker 3: once again, we don't have to put your leisure on everything.
- 9:45Speaker 3: Because whether you see the mojis, whether you see E
- 9:46Speaker 3: Y L, whether you see asset overliabilities, it all equates
- 9:49Speaker 3: back to the mothership.
- 9:50Speaker 4: That's exactly where I was going.
- 9:51Speaker 2: And if you look at the most popular thing we
- 9:53Speaker 2: sell it is assets overliabilities. But it goes back to
- 9:56Speaker 2: the point of what we're doing. Right, value value in
- 10:00Speaker 2: your life. Take the things out that don't add value. Right,
- 10:03Speaker 2: So assets over liabilities. And so when you see that,
- 10:06Speaker 2: it doesn't matter where you see it, most people are
- 10:08Speaker 2: gonna think us. You don't have to it doesn't have
- 10:10Speaker 2: to say earn your legion. When they see assets of
- 10:12Speaker 2: a liability. Even some of those bootleggers out there, they
- 10:14Speaker 2: automatically think that that must be and shout out to
- 10:18Speaker 2: our lawyer who's on that uh desists please.
- 10:20Speaker 6: Yeah, you guys, someone's under your guys skin man, because
- 10:24Speaker 6: you guys, you.
- 10:26Speaker 2: Just got to put it out there. We got to
- 10:27Speaker 2: put it out there.
- 10:28Speaker 4: You gotta be original.
- 10:30Speaker 2: It's synonymous with us. And so like again, you don't
- 10:33Speaker 2: have to see your leisure on the shirt. You see
- 10:34Speaker 2: assets of liabilities, we're thinking, all right, those people must
- 10:37Speaker 2: be an earner. I had a friend of mine today
- 10:39Speaker 2: who was climbing in the uh the Catskill mountains over
- 10:42Speaker 2: the like over the spring break, and she made it
- 10:45Speaker 2: to the top and was wearing the assets of a
- 10:47Speaker 2: liability shirt. You know what happened when she got up there,
- 10:49Speaker 2: somebody ran up to her and said, oh, you're an
- 10:51Speaker 2: earner too. Oh talk about freaked her out right because
- 10:57Speaker 2: she was like, huh, No, I worked with Troy. We
- 10:59Speaker 2: were tea it's my coworker. She's like, oh, but you're
- 11:02Speaker 2: not an earnest. She's like, yeah, I'm an earner, but
- 11:04Speaker 2: like that's my friend, Like I can call him, and
- 11:06Speaker 2: it was like call him. I'm like no, no, let's
- 11:08Speaker 2: not do that. But it's anonymous. You can one thing
- 11:11Speaker 2: leads to the next, and so we don't have to
- 11:13Speaker 2: put your leads on everything. People know us asset to
- 11:16Speaker 2: a liabilities. Wait, we got alumni in here.
- 11:19Speaker 7: We got alumni.
- 11:20Speaker 2: Yo.
- 11:21Speaker 7: What's up Annie?
- 11:21Speaker 2: How you doing?
- 11:22Speaker 6: Man?
- 11:22Speaker 2: How you living going?
- 11:23Speaker 8: Well? Man? I'm excited. Shoddy and Troy, what's up y'all?
- 11:27Speaker 2: My god, what's going on?
- 11:29Speaker 9: We taughd y'all were regular human beings and now that
- 11:33Speaker 9: is you know, range rovers and bus downs.
- 11:35Speaker 2: I see what it is. It was your fault, partially
- 11:39Speaker 2: your fault, your.
- 11:42Speaker 8: Two tone back on your wrist. Congrats.
- 11:45Speaker 2: You know I did lose it for a minute. We
- 11:47Speaker 2: did get to watch and we get the car. We
- 11:49Speaker 2: haven't gotten the driver yet, so we're getting there, getting
- 11:53Speaker 2: to your level.
- 11:57Speaker 4: Yo.
- 11:57Speaker 7: Annie, I'm glad you jumped on.
- 11:59Speaker 8: Man.
- 12:00Speaker 6: You were the first person I thought of when when
- 12:03Speaker 6: when I thought a brand. I think that you've done
- 12:06Speaker 6: an exceptional job for those For those that don't know,
- 12:10Speaker 6: Annie Man just total total legend. Been in the game
- 12:14Speaker 6: a long time, one of the practitioners that I am
- 12:17Speaker 6: most in the space. A lot of people talking man,
- 12:20Speaker 6: but but Annie has been doing this shit and doing
- 12:24Speaker 6: it across industries managing artists. Have wrapped with Khalif at
- 12:28Speaker 6: some time, is now managing the career of the young
- 12:31Speaker 6: star on e con. But in addition dabbles in a
- 12:34Speaker 6: little e commerce. We had launch Equity Apparel together UH
- 12:38Speaker 6: owner and CEO of co Cutta Chaco dope concept that
- 12:43Speaker 6: the audience wants to hear more about, but also dabbles
- 12:46Speaker 6: in real estate. So you're a lot like me in
- 12:48Speaker 6: the sense that we are multi hyphen it practitioners.
- 12:53Speaker 7: And the one you know, the one through line that you.
- 12:57Speaker 6: Have across all your projects is that they all have
- 13:00Speaker 6: impeccable brand. I mean, we're not big landlords by any stretch,
- 13:06Speaker 6: but you would think we were because you know the
- 13:10Speaker 6: way that we brand our ship. And for example, in Philly,
- 13:13Speaker 6: where I know you have some real estate, you have
- 13:14Speaker 6: just regular plots of land which anyone would have just
- 13:17Speaker 6: called a plot of land, but Annie then branded it.
- 13:21Speaker 2: Then called it.
- 13:22Speaker 7: You know, Tiger Park created a website.
- 13:25Speaker 6: Around it, you know, really made an experience, hosted some
- 13:28Speaker 6: pop up art, you know, all that kind of stuff.
- 13:31Speaker 6: And even with your with your Child concept, which I
- 13:34Speaker 6: believe is your anchor at the moment, you really lead
- 13:38Speaker 6: with a super super brand forward approach.
- 13:41Speaker 2: Man.
- 13:41Speaker 6: So, welcome to the show. Welcome to the limited series.
- 13:44Speaker 6: Guest number one, episode number one.
- 13:48Speaker 7: Thank you, Yes, sir Man.
- 13:49Speaker 6: Well, I would love to get your take for some
- 13:51Speaker 6: of the audience on the power of brand and how
- 13:55Speaker 6: it's been able to effectively elevate.
- 13:58Speaker 7: And distinguish your concepts from a concept.
- 14:07Speaker 10: Brand.
- 14:09Speaker 8: Yeah, I missed the end of it, but I think
- 14:10Speaker 8: I caught enough to respond.
- 14:12Speaker 9: I think you know, I look at brand as the
- 14:16Speaker 9: real only way to get competitive advantage when you're playing
- 14:19Speaker 9: down a couple of cards, right, people like us first
- 14:21Speaker 9: generation entrepreneurs, when you're coming up, we just don't have
- 14:24Speaker 9: access to the same things that a lot of people do,
- 14:26Speaker 9: and therefore your own ingenuity is your competitive advantage, right.
- 14:30Speaker 9: And I think brand, you know you touched on it,
- 14:33Speaker 9: it's when you you got to make a big investment
- 14:35Speaker 9: in it up front, right, But being tactical and being
- 14:38Speaker 9: smart about brand upfront allows you to create that moat
- 14:41Speaker 9: around your business, right, nobody can do it like you
- 14:43Speaker 9: do it if you do it well. And I really
- 14:46Speaker 9: learned from you know, hip hop music, and you know
- 14:48Speaker 9: eyl is kind of spot on with my education in
- 14:51Speaker 9: terms of like jay z Rockefeller, right that diamond went up,
- 14:55Speaker 9: you know what time it was, master p no limit,
- 14:58Speaker 9: you know, make them say oh like it was these
- 15:00Speaker 9: these references to their brand at all times that created
- 15:04Speaker 9: that moat around what they did. And to me, I
- 15:07Speaker 9: looked at it the same way like if I was
- 15:08Speaker 9: going to you know, build a company or launch something
- 15:12Speaker 9: from zero when I have a lot of you know,
- 15:14Speaker 9: much better capitalized players around me, what's my advantage. It's storytelling,
- 15:19Speaker 9: it's branding, and it's creating that you know that bridge
- 15:22Speaker 9: and I think you know, I tend to look at
- 15:24Speaker 9: brand like it gives your company personality and it also
- 15:30Speaker 9: most importantly allows people to buy in with an emotion.
- 15:33Speaker 9: And that's the toughest thing. You know, you're talking about
- 15:35Speaker 9: sales versus brand. When you have a brand that people
- 15:40Speaker 9: can emotionally relate to, that is the most definitive thing
- 15:46Speaker 9: about where you know about your company and going forward
- 15:48Speaker 9: because people can't take that from you. Right, Your sales
- 15:51Speaker 9: might get cratered because of COVID or you might have
- 15:54Speaker 9: you know, a supply chain issue, whatever it is. But
- 15:58Speaker 9: if your brand represents all of your values and has
- 16:03Speaker 9: that personality, people will always stick by you. And I
- 16:05Speaker 9: think I'm a very long term player similar to y'all.
- 16:09Speaker 2: Uh.
- 16:09Speaker 8: And That's how I'll break it down, yo.
- 16:10Speaker 6: So talk about talk about talk about like your your
- 16:14Speaker 6: chiy concept. Right, There's a lot of T shops out there,
- 16:18Speaker 6: but I have never seen any of them with a
- 16:22Speaker 6: line around two blocks with like straight up, you know,
- 16:27Speaker 6: all the Indian boys out there lining up, they can't.
- 16:30Speaker 4: Wait to support.
- 16:32Speaker 6: Had you had eater dot com over there, you, I mean,
- 16:35Speaker 6: you guys unlocked ridiculous distribution. You guys have fanatics. You
- 16:41Speaker 6: guys created like the uh, like what do you guys
- 16:43Speaker 6: call it? Like that the pour over Challenge? Like you
- 16:45Speaker 6: guys have done so much shit and it's like a
- 16:49Speaker 6: two hundred square foot space, but it is like really
- 16:53Speaker 6: a crazy It's crazy what you've been able to do.
- 16:56Speaker 2: With that space.
- 16:56Speaker 6: Man, So talk about like how you approach that and
- 17:00Speaker 6: what gave you the what's the secret sauce man Like,
- 17:04Speaker 6: how can someone who has pretty little by term in
- 17:08Speaker 6: terms of space and in terms of resources be able
- 17:10Speaker 6: to maximize the.
- 17:11Speaker 4: Way you have? Right?
- 17:12Speaker 9: I mean, you know, just for context, we opened six
- 17:16Speaker 9: months before COVID shut New York City down, and we
- 17:19Speaker 9: ended up twenty twenty. We ended up in the black
- 17:21Speaker 9: with both our restaurant and our e commerce operations.
- 17:24Speaker 8: And I do a lot of that to brand.
- 17:26Speaker 9: That's why I say it is because you know, I
- 17:29Speaker 9: mean to answer your question about how we unlocked it,
- 17:31Speaker 9: I think we approached it as.
- 17:34Speaker 8: And I talk a lot about this, you know, storytelling.
- 17:36Speaker 9: What is the story that you're telling as a company, right,
- 17:38Speaker 9: that becomes part of your brand story, which thereby leads
- 17:42Speaker 9: to brand equity. Right, And you guys touched on this
- 17:44Speaker 9: a lot. What's brand that we simply put its credibility?
- 17:47Speaker 4: Right?
- 17:47Speaker 9: It is the intangible reputation that you have with your
- 17:53Speaker 9: customers that nobody could take from you. So when we
- 17:57Speaker 9: spent about eighteen months before launching the cafe doing pop ups,
- 18:00Speaker 9: doing events, food festivals, you know, hustling around the city,
- 18:04Speaker 9: that was to create brand equity, right, because we knew, look,
- 18:07Speaker 9: whether we had a thousand square foot space or two
- 18:10Speaker 9: hundred square foot space. They couldn't take that brand equity
- 18:12Speaker 9: from us. And you know, Johnny, you and I have
- 18:15Speaker 9: talked about this a lot, is like how do you
- 18:17Speaker 9: scale the one to one interaction?
- 18:19Speaker 4: Right?
- 18:19Speaker 8: That's what we did to build up that brand equity.
- 18:22Speaker 9: What I mean by that is responding to every DM
- 18:25Speaker 9: going above and beyond, you know, at events or online
- 18:28Speaker 9: to give people you know, an extra cup on the
- 18:31Speaker 9: house or you know, FaceTime with their mom because they
- 18:33Speaker 9: were excited to walk into a child shop, whatever it was.
- 18:36Speaker 9: We made ourselves really available to that, built up that
- 18:39Speaker 9: brand equity, and then monetize that, right. And I think
- 18:42Speaker 9: that's where a lot of creators struggle with, right. They
- 18:46Speaker 9: some of these YouTubers have you know, decent brain equity.
- 18:49Speaker 9: You got a lot of social media personalities with decent
- 18:52Speaker 9: brand equity. But if you don't have a product to
- 18:54Speaker 9: sell back to them, you're just popular.
- 18:57Speaker 8: Right and don't pay the bills.
- 19:00Speaker 9: As we know, so we you know, we turned our
- 19:03Speaker 9: brand equity into into that experience, leaned into our community.
- 19:07Speaker 8: Stepped up for them. Right.
- 19:08Speaker 9: What I mean by that is we were hosting you know,
- 19:11Speaker 9: artists meeting greets at the cafe. We were letting, you know,
- 19:14Speaker 9: people meet with their book club and things like that.
- 19:16Speaker 9: We were pouring back into the community because that's what
- 19:19Speaker 9: our brand represented. And now you know, we did you know,
- 19:22Speaker 9: well into the six figures of e commerce in twenty
- 19:25Speaker 9: twenty in the middle of the pandemic, which really opened
- 19:28Speaker 9: up what this business can look like. Right, So now
- 19:30Speaker 9: we have a true omni channel model with with the retail,
- 19:34Speaker 9: with e commerce. I'm actually gonna be in Austin in
- 19:36Speaker 9: a couple of weeks, John, We just locked in with
- 19:38Speaker 9: neighborhood Goods out there. You know, we're taking it now
- 19:41Speaker 9: to retail as well. And you know it's that line
- 19:45Speaker 9: from American Gangster, right, It's it's what is it General Mills?
- 19:52Speaker 7: Right?
- 19:53Speaker 9: When when when Frank Lucas is making that that comparison
- 19:58Speaker 9: Blue Magic, Right, that's that's a they don't need more
- 20:02Speaker 9: than they know the CEO of General Mills, but they
- 20:03Speaker 9: know what that stands for and that you know, that's
- 20:06Speaker 9: that's a hustle's anthem right there. So I think a
- 20:08Speaker 9: lot of that is is is what I've picked up
- 20:11Speaker 9: and what I put down.
- 20:13Speaker 3: Can you talk about like I feel like branding. Storytelling
- 20:18Speaker 3: is extremely important and the power of creating myths. And
- 20:23Speaker 3: shout out to my brother Wallow. He had one of
- 20:26Speaker 3: the most profound things I've ever heard. If anybody does
- 20:28Speaker 3: know his story, he spent twenty years and jail, he
- 20:30Speaker 3: came out hit the start. He has one of the
- 20:32Speaker 3: top podcasts in the world. But long story short, he
- 20:34Speaker 3: said something else extremely profound to me. He was like,
- 20:37Speaker 3: you don't you don't have to never beef with the information.
- 20:40Speaker 3: You don't have to like somebody to learn from them.
- 20:43Speaker 3: And I say that to say Donald Trump, regardless of
- 20:47Speaker 3: how you feel about him. It's not a political show.
- 20:49Speaker 3: But one of the greatest things he's ever did was
- 20:51Speaker 3: brand himself. And he made things that was normal seem
- 20:55Speaker 3: out of this world, extraordinary normal in his world. As
- 20:58Speaker 3: far as a lot of people in Manhattan have buildings,
- 21:00Speaker 3: that's not really normal what I'm just saying. As far
- 21:01Speaker 3: as being a millionaire billionaire, and you know a lot
- 21:04Speaker 3: of people have buildings, and he didn't even own those
- 21:07Speaker 3: a lot of these buildings, but he made sure he
- 21:08Speaker 3: put his name on every single building. So now when
- 21:11Speaker 3: you drive down the West Side Highway and you see
- 21:13Speaker 3: ten buildings that say Trump on it, whether he owns
- 21:16Speaker 3: it or not is irrelevant because the story in the
- 21:19Speaker 3: myth lives much larger than his, you know, royalty fee
- 21:24Speaker 3: for actually leasing his name out right. So to bring
- 21:26Speaker 3: it down on a micro level, you know, I talk
- 21:29Speaker 3: about this a lot, but you know, people see our trucks.
- 21:32Speaker 3: We have a truck, an eighteen wheeler. We're not the
- 21:34Speaker 3: only person in the world that has trucks. A lot
- 21:35Speaker 3: of people have eighteen wheel trucks. But the story in
- 21:39Speaker 3: the myth was told, and it's going to live way longer,
- 21:43Speaker 3: and it became a million times bigger than the truck
- 21:46Speaker 3: because we put our emojis on it. We put eyl
- 21:48Speaker 3: University on it, we put earn your leege on it.
- 21:50Speaker 3: We made a complete monstrosity of it. And whatever we
- 21:56Speaker 3: get from the truck, the value and brand equity and
- 21:59Speaker 3: the value doing that is going to live way further
- 22:03Speaker 3: than just traveling goods from Atlanta to Houston.
- 22:07Speaker 2: And what it also does is it stamps us in
- 22:09Speaker 2: that world. Right. People watched us have an interview about it,
- 22:13Speaker 2: they watched us learn about it, and they watched us
- 22:16Speaker 2: actually execute on the information that we obtained. So now
- 22:20Speaker 2: it's always it's a funny question. Everybody asks how we're doing,
- 22:22Speaker 2: how we're doing, and that yo, y'all got a truck?
- 22:25Speaker 2: The what because nobody had ever seen that done, even though,
- 22:28Speaker 2: like I mean, we're from New York, so we see
- 22:30Speaker 2: eighteen years old the time. Never did we ever think
- 22:32Speaker 2: that that's actually money that's passing us, that's actually a
- 22:34Speaker 2: business that's passing us. And so now to see us
- 22:37Speaker 2: do it, being from where we're from, it's like, oh
- 22:39Speaker 2: my gosh. And you guys are bold enough to get
- 22:42Speaker 2: a truck, and like John said, you're crazy enough to
- 22:44Speaker 2: put your face on it.
- 22:45Speaker 3: Even I want to get on these perspective, but even
- 22:47Speaker 3: I want to even break it even lower than that
- 22:48Speaker 3: because some people might you know, a truck is still
- 22:50Speaker 3: costs a good chunk of change.
- 22:53Speaker 4: Merch.
- 22:53Speaker 3: Everybody does merch, A lot of every small business does merch.
- 22:56Speaker 3: So we're not the first people to have merch assets
- 22:59Speaker 3: of a liabilities, track suits, things of that nature. But
- 23:02Speaker 3: we took a lot of l's in our merch journey.
- 23:04Speaker 3: We're still learning merch and we revamped our merch. We
- 23:07Speaker 3: founded distributor in Pakistan. It's the whole process. So We
- 23:11Speaker 3: could have just we could have just put online that
- 23:13Speaker 3: we're selling merch. But going through that process, we gained information.
- 23:18Speaker 3: So we filmed the podcast about how to start a
- 23:21Speaker 3: merch company, and we did every single thing that we
- 23:24Speaker 3: do from A to Z free. We could have charged
- 23:27Speaker 3: a lot of money for that. We did that free.
- 23:29Speaker 3: We put it out and then we said, okay, here's
- 23:33Speaker 3: the discount to buy the merchan We created a story
- 23:38Speaker 3: and we added value and then we're going to sell
- 23:41Speaker 3: the product. And we're not gonna apologize about selling the product,
- 23:45Speaker 3: but we made a story about it.
- 23:47Speaker 6: But a lot, a lot of the things that you
- 23:48Speaker 6: guys are saying is illustrated on that last graph. Things
- 23:54Speaker 6: that build brand. You will take it L four up front,
- 23:59Speaker 6: the truck is not making you money. If it's making
- 24:03Speaker 6: you money at all, it might even be costing you money.
- 24:10Speaker 6: Costs me a lot of fucking money. All of the
- 24:13Speaker 6: things that I've done that have enriched my brand. Copend Harlem,
- 24:16Speaker 6: for example, is incubator that first put me on the
- 24:18Speaker 6: map cost me a ton of cash.
- 24:19Speaker 7: Anni, you have kicked off a number of projects and
- 24:24Speaker 7: I know you front.
- 24:26Speaker 6: Loaded the investment up front, right and we are delusional
- 24:33Speaker 6: practitioners in that we heavily over index on brand. What's
- 24:39Speaker 6: that you know, there's probably a balance between going to
- 24:42Speaker 6: brand heavy, uh, you know.
- 24:45Speaker 7: And compromising sales.
- 24:46Speaker 6: But I just I feel like I see you execute
- 24:49Speaker 6: on your projects, and when I see you storytell to Rashad's.
- 24:54Speaker 7: Point, I know what it is that you're doing so
- 25:00Speaker 7: for you, I mean, is the hope that the brand,
- 25:03Speaker 7: Like are you just going all in and you feel.
- 25:05Speaker 6: Like you're going to cash in on some big opportunities
- 25:07Speaker 6: down the stretch, and for you it's just about kind
- 25:09Speaker 6: of going the distance.
- 25:12Speaker 7: Or you know, or is it a is it just
- 25:15Speaker 7: the only way?
- 25:15Speaker 6: You know? How like helped me make sense of this
- 25:18Speaker 6: ridiculous thing that is like going all in on brand
- 25:21Speaker 6: up front.
- 25:21Speaker 9: That's a really great point and to Rashad's point too,
- 25:24Speaker 9: And this is I think one of the most tactical
- 25:26Speaker 9: tips that I want to share with people watching tonight
- 25:28Speaker 9: is like, you know, Rasha mentioned the word myth right,
- 25:31Speaker 9: and sometimes when you're starting out early on that story
- 25:35Speaker 9: that you're telling, you may not entirely be living or
- 25:39Speaker 9: you know, you're trying to make it look a certain
- 25:41Speaker 9: type of way, or you know, you don't really know
- 25:43Speaker 9: if you're gonna make it to the other side of that, Right, Jonathan,
- 25:46Speaker 9: You and I have been in many scenarios where you know,
- 25:48Speaker 9: we're in the middle of something, whether it's a residential
- 25:51Speaker 9: you know, development project or or something crazy.
- 25:54Speaker 8: And we don't know what the outcome is going to be.
- 25:57Speaker 9: But that documentation and that's telling and you reflecting on
- 26:01Speaker 9: your experience throughout that whole process is to me all
- 26:05Speaker 9: an extension of brand. And I want to mention something
- 26:09Speaker 9: that happened in my life that changed It didn't change anything,
- 26:12Speaker 9: actually just validated what I already knew, and that was
- 26:16Speaker 9: I was in the middle of a couple of my
- 26:18Speaker 9: first real estate projects, right, And so what I would
- 26:20Speaker 9: do is I would work, you know, five days a
- 26:22Speaker 9: week on the agency job, and then every weekend I'd
- 26:25Speaker 9: work real estate. So I wake up at nine am,
- 26:27Speaker 9: go to Newark, New Jersey, painting, you know, spackling, doing
- 26:31Speaker 9: all these small things, trying to get my units turned around.
- 26:34Speaker 8: And I used to document all of it. It wasn't glamorous.
- 26:37Speaker 9: It was literally just me eating shit the entire time,
- 26:41Speaker 9: but talking about what was going on, talking about the
- 26:44Speaker 9: value the neighborhood, the ARV you know, the construction budgets,
- 26:48Speaker 9: And in eight months I had raised a quarter million
- 26:52Speaker 9: dollars just from people on Instagram who I didn't know,
- 26:56Speaker 9: watching my stories and being like, yo, I trust you,
- 26:59Speaker 9: I like what you're doing, and I want to get
- 27:00Speaker 9: into real estate. What's your minimum and me being like,
- 27:03Speaker 9: it's fifty grand to invest with me on a joint
- 27:05Speaker 9: venture and walking out of that with two hundred and
- 27:08Speaker 9: fifty thousand dollars from Instagram stories, just because my brand
- 27:14Speaker 9: was constantly being extended through you know, stories or through
- 27:18Speaker 9: my post or whatever storytelling I was in the middle of,
- 27:20Speaker 9: and that to me was so real because that validated
- 27:23Speaker 9: this thing that I knew that I think nowadays we
- 27:26Speaker 9: focus on micro interactions with people that we look up
- 27:30Speaker 9: to or respect or want to learn from, and those
- 27:32Speaker 9: micro interactions actually have much bigger impact than we realized.
- 27:37Speaker 9: Maybe a fifteen second clip, but it sits with people
- 27:40Speaker 9: if your brand story is whole. And then I took
- 27:44Speaker 9: that too fifty and I created you know, millions of
- 27:46Speaker 9: dollars in portfolio value without having to put up my
- 27:49Speaker 9: own brand. Right, So for anybody that's like wary about
- 27:53Speaker 9: where they are with brand or if they're like, you know,
- 27:55Speaker 9: they got two hundred followers, It doesn't matter, right, What
- 27:58Speaker 9: matters is you telling that story and or that myth.
- 28:02Speaker 9: At certain times, I'd being consistent with it until the
- 28:05Speaker 9: right people pick up on it and be like this
- 28:07Speaker 9: is dope.
- 28:07Speaker 8: Let me share this.
- 28:08Speaker 9: And that's how you grow, and that's how you honestly
- 28:11Speaker 9: remain who you are. Nothing changes about you or your story,
- 28:14Speaker 9: you just consistently tell it.
- 28:16Speaker 2: Annie, I got a question in that because it's it's
- 28:19Speaker 2: like again, it's that hip hop coming into our lives, right,
- 28:22Speaker 2: Like when Drake said I'm the greatest. I said that
- 28:24Speaker 2: before I knew I was. It's that same thing. But
- 28:26Speaker 2: I wonder in this sense, we see people start businesses
- 28:30Speaker 2: and they try to start brands and then they don't
- 28:32Speaker 2: even trust themselves become something deviated in the story. So
- 28:36Speaker 2: for me, I'm thinking about your situation and how covid
- 28:40Speaker 2: was an alter right you six months after you start
- 28:43Speaker 2: this business and we actually recorded the podcast, this unimaginable
- 28:48Speaker 2: event happens in your business, but you still trust the brand.
- 28:51Speaker 2: So can you talk about that, how you didn't deviate
- 28:53Speaker 2: from what the story that you created and try to
- 28:56Speaker 2: create a new one.
- 28:58Speaker 9: Yeah, that's that's a great point. I mean I think
- 29:00Speaker 9: that first of all, sometimes your brand story might change
- 29:03Speaker 9: a little bit. And having the flexibility and knowing what
- 29:05Speaker 9: can change and what can't change, that's like an intuition
- 29:08Speaker 9: you had to have as you know, a founder, as
- 29:10Speaker 9: a creator, and you'll build that up over time. Right,
- 29:12Speaker 9: That's like a muscle that you build over time for
- 29:15Speaker 9: for us. You know, my my guy right now is
- 29:18Speaker 9: taking a video of all this that day that the
- 29:20Speaker 9: cafe shut down. We pulled up with cameras and we
- 29:22Speaker 9: documented in real time, you know it raining on the
- 29:26Speaker 9: on the window, me standing outside being like yo, this
- 29:28Speaker 9: is insane, and in real time sharing how I felt,
- 29:32Speaker 9: you know, because that was still central to who we
- 29:35Speaker 9: were as founders in that brand, right. We still believed
- 29:39Speaker 9: in the business, believed in the community, believed in our product.
- 29:42Speaker 9: We just got hit with the act of God. Right,
- 29:44Speaker 9: But that didn't mean that I wasn't allowed to be vulnerable.
- 29:47Speaker 9: And I think that's the other key here, right. It's
- 29:49Speaker 9: like people look at you know, even with John now,
- 29:52Speaker 9: like John's the face of Loop, but John's brand is
- 29:55Speaker 9: different from the Loop brand, right, and so like there
- 29:58Speaker 9: may be certain vulnerabilities that he has to share as
- 30:01Speaker 9: a founder that won't be reflected on the company, but
- 30:04Speaker 9: you know they'll be reflected in his journey.
- 30:06Speaker 8: And that's the perspective I took.
- 30:07Speaker 9: I was like, look, I'm the founder, I'm the owner,
- 30:10Speaker 9: and I'm taking these l's and I'm gonna I'm gonna
- 30:13Speaker 9: take them and I'm gonna share them. But the company
- 30:16Speaker 9: is still going to be all things go, sticking to
- 30:19Speaker 9: the story, but we're gonna show the reality of it
- 30:22Speaker 9: in different ways.
- 30:23Speaker 3: This is I want I want to say something before
- 30:24Speaker 3: we go on different topics. We interviewed Grant card.
- 30:27Speaker 7: Dome and he he actually shot our Uncle Gee.
- 30:32Speaker 4: Episode out now Classics.
- 30:33Speaker 3: So we were talking him about the trucks and he
- 30:36Speaker 3: said he said, he was like, you know what you
- 30:39Speaker 3: you know would be really good marketing.
- 30:40Speaker 2: I'm like what he was like, Ernest, what's up? You
- 30:43Speaker 2: ever walk into a small business and everything just works,
- 30:47Speaker 2: like the checkout is fast, the seats are digital, tipping
- 30:50Speaker 2: is a breeze, and you're out the door before the
- 30:53Speaker 2: line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We love
- 30:57Speaker 2: supporting businesses that run on Square because it just fit
- 31:00Speaker 2: Fel seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor
- 31:03Speaker 2: at a pop up market, or even one of our
- 31:05Speaker 2: merch partners, Square makes it easy for them to take payments,
- 31:09Speaker 2: manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from
- 31:13Speaker 2: one simple system. If you're a business owner or even
- 31:16Speaker 2: just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down
- 31:20Speaker 2: one of the best tools out there to help you start,
- 31:22Speaker 2: run and grow. It's not just about payments, it's about
- 31:26Speaker 2: giving you time back so you can focus on what
- 31:29Speaker 2: matters most Ready. To see how Square can transform your business,
- 31:33Speaker 2: visit Square dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn
- 31:37Speaker 2: more that Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait,
- 31:43Speaker 2: don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you
- 31:46Speaker 2: can keep pushing your vision forward. This episode is brought
- 31:52Speaker 2: to you by P and C Bank. A lot of
- 31:54Speaker 2: people think podcasts about work are boring, and sure, they
- 31:57Speaker 2: definitely can be, but understanding a professionals routine shows us
- 32:01Speaker 2: how they achieve their success little by little, day after day.
- 32:06Speaker 2: It's like banking with P and C Bank. It might
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- 33:29Speaker 1: Indeed is all you need burn it.
- 33:32Speaker 3: He's like, burn the truck. So he was saying, how
- 33:36Speaker 3: all home one of his so grand man from birth to.
- 33:40Speaker 4: His truck burn.
- 33:41Speaker 3: He had a truck and it burned and they called
- 33:43Speaker 3: him like, yo, the truck is on fire. And he
- 33:45Speaker 3: was like, tape it. Let's good content. But so and
- 33:49Speaker 3: shout out to Matty J. This is this is one
- 33:51Speaker 3: of the most profound things I've ever heard in life.
- 33:54Speaker 3: Maddy J on Ashcash's podcast inside the volte Eyo Network
- 33:59Speaker 3: slipe blok.
- 34:02Speaker 4: So, Matti J.
- 34:03Speaker 3: Said he was on Toro. He took a major l
- 34:07Speaker 3: his cars was getting messed up. He had to go
- 34:09Speaker 3: to mechanic. He was losing money. While he was losing money,
- 34:13Speaker 3: while he was making all of these mistakes, he was
- 34:16Speaker 3: documenting his journey because he said, one day people will
- 34:20Speaker 3: pay you for your failure. That means is that everything
- 34:24Speaker 3: that you went through is now going to be a
- 34:27Speaker 3: learning experience.
- 34:27Speaker 4: Now you can teach.
- 34:29Speaker 3: So now you went through a global pandemic and lost
- 34:33Speaker 3: money and did this and did that. Now you are
- 34:36Speaker 3: in a unique position as somebody that actually made it
- 34:40Speaker 3: out of that, as the.
- 34:41Speaker 4: Voice of authority.
- 34:43Speaker 3: Now people will pay you for mentorship, for courses, for classes,
- 34:47Speaker 3: for books, whatever. So it's like, even in the loss,
- 34:51Speaker 3: there's a blessing because by documenting that and by not
- 34:55Speaker 3: running from it, by embracing it, it puts you in
- 34:57Speaker 3: a position as being an authority that people have to
- 35:00Speaker 3: come to you because the next time there's a global pandemic,
- 35:03Speaker 3: you've been the only way that they can learn is
- 35:05Speaker 3: from somebody that's already been through.
- 35:06Speaker 2: It and that and that's the thing, Like they've watched
- 35:08Speaker 2: you go through something, right, They've watched you in the mud.
- 35:11Speaker 2: And it's like I was with him. I remember when
- 35:13Speaker 2: he was crying. I'm so happy for him. I want
- 35:15Speaker 2: to I want to support him in any way I can. John,
- 35:17Speaker 2: I got a question for you. As Annie was talking,
- 35:19Speaker 2: I was thinking to myself, Right, you have a trusted
- 35:22Speaker 2: brand as yourself as John Henry. What is that like
- 35:26Speaker 2: now going to loop or do you feel like you
- 35:28Speaker 2: have to reinvent yourself and or your audience that was
- 35:31Speaker 2: with you, that knows you as John Henry? Is are
- 35:33Speaker 2: you thinking that automatically gonna come with you now the loop?
- 35:35Speaker 2: And what's that process like? Man, it's a learning experience
- 35:39Speaker 2: for sure. My brain is gritty as fuck, right like
- 35:44Speaker 2: like Annie Annie. When he came on, he said, John,
- 35:46Speaker 2: I see you got the two tone back. I got
- 35:48Speaker 2: the two tone back. Here's here's the thing, day day,
- 35:53Speaker 2: here's the thing. This is yet no no, no, no, no,
- 35:55Speaker 2: sirtain just the day just they just.
- 35:59Speaker 7: I had to pawn this bad boy, this bad boy
- 36:02Speaker 7: right here.
- 36:03Speaker 6: I had to pawn it when I was in my
- 36:06Speaker 6: lowest point of these renovations went south. I'm out of pocket,
- 36:12Speaker 6: you know, And and I had to come up with
- 36:15Speaker 6: the mortgage.
- 36:16Speaker 7: And I was his act. I was tapped and I
- 36:19Speaker 7: was looking around, like, yo, what what could I just like,
- 36:21Speaker 7: what could I sell for three g's?
- 36:23Speaker 2: And you know, and I did one of these.
- 36:25Speaker 7: I was like, oh fucking you know.
- 36:28Speaker 4: I knew what I had to do.
- 36:29Speaker 6: And I pulled up to the Diamond District shout out
- 36:31Speaker 6: my boy Gabriel and uh and and yeah he gave me.
- 36:35Speaker 6: He slipped he slipped me three g's for it, and
- 36:37Speaker 6: I and I bought it back. And then that happened
- 36:39Speaker 6: one more time before the end of the day. And
- 36:41Speaker 6: so now it's a badge of honor. But for example,
- 36:44Speaker 6: that's my brand. I'm just a gritty motherfucker. I don't
- 36:46Speaker 6: I don't mind it. But the Loop brand is an
- 36:50Speaker 6: insurance company, it's a financial services entity. And so this
- 36:53Speaker 6: for me has been an exercise of Phase one is
- 36:57Speaker 6: me leveraging my personal brand much like so much like
- 37:04Speaker 6: you do to prop up these new entities. But at
- 37:07Speaker 6: a certain point you got to step back and let
- 37:10Speaker 6: this new entity grow because if you lean on your
- 37:13Speaker 6: own brand too heavily for too long, then you will
- 37:17Speaker 6: never be able to outgrow the current size of your brand.
- 37:22Speaker 6: And I know that Loop will be a multi billion
- 37:25Speaker 6: dollar company. We will take a public and it can
- 37:29Speaker 6: never get there if it's the JH Show. It has
- 37:33Speaker 6: to end up being something that's larger than any one person.
- 37:37Speaker 6: And in order for that to happen, I have to
- 37:39Speaker 6: take a step back. And so it's still something that
- 37:41Speaker 6: we're learning and doing. We're proactively thinking through because at
- 37:45Speaker 6: the same time you want to think about you want
- 37:47Speaker 6: to use all the.
- 37:47Speaker 7: Things that you have at your disposal.
- 37:49Speaker 6: Because if you are Bobby Bernstein and you got a
- 37:52Speaker 6: rich uncle who put up bread to get your business going,
- 37:55Speaker 6: and by the way, let's say he's got a portfolio
- 37:56Speaker 6: of buildings that he can put you on and whatever,
- 37:58Speaker 6: you're gonna take advantage of it. And so we as
- 38:01Speaker 6: a culture have very little things that we can that
- 38:03Speaker 6: we can take advantage of. So the few tools that
- 38:06Speaker 6: we have we definitely should deploy. That's my take.
- 38:10Speaker 7: So wo man, Annie, I want to give you the
- 38:14Speaker 7: last word here. We're coming up.
- 38:15Speaker 4: Can we just can we can we do like a
- 38:17Speaker 4: bonus round?
- 38:18Speaker 7: Let's do a bonus round?
- 38:19Speaker 3: All right, Well, let'st I just got one more question
- 38:21Speaker 3: than can we get like two questions from the from the.
- 38:25Speaker 4: Got questions?
- 38:26Speaker 3: I just got one question before we go to question
- 38:28Speaker 3: and answer scarcity. How do you feel about the scarcity
- 38:31Speaker 3: model as far as branding, Because like Cronuts, that's a
- 38:35Speaker 3: shop in h in New York that they sell Chronuts,
- 38:38Speaker 3: which is like a combination of donuts and croissants. They
- 38:41Speaker 3: only they only open for like an hour day at
- 38:44Speaker 3: like eight o'clock in the morning. This is before Coviona
- 38:46Speaker 3: what happened. But you gotta and I actually did this
- 38:48Speaker 3: before you gotta like wait in line at like six
- 38:52Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning they open up. But just like
- 38:54Speaker 3: it's a scarcity model, this is a variety of different
- 38:57Speaker 3: people that even sneakers Jordan's they release the sneakers, they
- 39:00Speaker 3: only have a certain amount they could make. Nike can
- 39:03Speaker 3: make as many sneakers as they want, but they know
- 39:06Speaker 3: that if they have a limited amount, it drives to demand.
- 39:10Speaker 3: It's a whole scarcity place. So how do you feel
- 39:12Speaker 3: about scarcity model in building brand and marketing?
- 39:15Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean so personally. I think that as a
- 39:18Speaker 9: society or just there's so much going on right now
- 39:21Speaker 9: that if you can afford to lean on scarcity as
- 39:24Speaker 9: a as a a point of attraction, use it sparingly.
- 39:30Speaker 9: But I think that nowadays, like if you're in the
- 39:32Speaker 9: middle of a goal rush and you're like being romantic
- 39:35Speaker 9: or being cute about how much you're putting out, I
- 39:38Speaker 9: think that could actually be a disservice for a lot
- 39:40Speaker 9: of brands.
- 39:40Speaker 8: So I'm aware of the power of scarcity.
- 39:44Speaker 9: You know, we went through it ourselves last you know,
- 39:47Speaker 9: during COVID, we had a brunch at the restaurant that
- 39:49Speaker 9: was like only had ten seats a day, and we
- 39:51Speaker 9: would sell out in like fifteen minutes every day, you know,
- 39:54Speaker 9: And it was a great way to like build awareness
- 39:57Speaker 9: around what was happening and keeping us top of mind.
- 40:00Speaker 9: So it does work one hundred percent. But I think
- 40:02Speaker 9: what a lot of people do is they lean on
- 40:04Speaker 9: scarcity when they don't really have something that actually validates
- 40:08Speaker 9: their brand, if that makes sense, right, And you know,
- 40:10Speaker 9: if you're starting something new and it's like, oh, only
- 40:12Speaker 9: fifty payers, like I think scarcity is is a tool
- 40:20Speaker 9: that you can deploy with with finesse when you're at
- 40:23Speaker 9: that point, but don't lean on that to start something
- 40:26Speaker 9: because it's kind of secret.
- 40:28Speaker 6: Yeah, there's other ways to deploy scarcity too though, right,
- 40:30Speaker 6: it's not just quantity, it's also time sensitivity.
- 40:35Speaker 7: Right, so you can make it for a limited time.
- 40:37Speaker 6: And for example, when I'm out there raising money, one
- 40:41Speaker 6: thing I realize is if you don't give them a
- 40:43Speaker 6: re like if you don't, if there's no time that
- 40:46Speaker 6: the round is going to end, people will kick the
- 40:49Speaker 6: tires forever until there's an action forcing event. So I
- 40:55Speaker 6: would agree with with you, Annie, But also some of
- 40:58Speaker 6: these classic retailers, you know, ironically I have gone out
- 41:01Speaker 6: of business. They've done they do things really well, certain
- 41:04Speaker 6: things really well, and that was the offers, right, So
- 41:08Speaker 6: like it ended up, it can be something that cheapens
- 41:11Speaker 6: your brand. But these man, these these cats are good
- 41:15Speaker 6: at straight off like J C. Pennies with the ill offers. Now,
- 41:19Speaker 6: not every brand is going to be a coupon brand. However,
- 41:23Speaker 6: I pay attention to, you know, offers that.
- 41:26Speaker 7: Drive a lot of value.
- 41:28Speaker 6: And you're in the e comm business and ey l
- 41:31Speaker 6: you know you guys run these flash sales too. So
- 41:34Speaker 6: I think scarcity I agree with you. I like your
- 41:36Speaker 6: take that scarcity is a tool and you should learn
- 41:39Speaker 6: to use it. And I think that scarcity in the
- 41:42Speaker 6: fashion business specifically works very differently probably than any other
- 41:46Speaker 6: industry from what I've seen.
- 41:48Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get get one. Let's get one question from
- 41:52Speaker 4: the see, we gotta handles it. If they actually did,
- 41:56Speaker 4: just what's going on on?
- 41:56Speaker 2: Mute yourself, you've been unmuted. What's going on?
- 42:00Speaker 4: They had they hand up the whole time?
- 42:02Speaker 2: Good morning, Uh, good brothers.
- 42:06Speaker 11: You just answered my question.
- 42:08Speaker 4: Annie did.
- 42:08Speaker 11: Because I have a couple of real estate properties and
- 42:12Speaker 11: it was hard for me to find.
- 42:16Speaker 8: People to do good work.
- 42:17Speaker 11: They was always like, in my opinion, half ass you
- 42:21Speaker 11: or they told me they knew how to do something,
- 42:23Speaker 11: and after the job was done, it was you know,
- 42:27Speaker 11: it was wat. So I ended up having to get
- 42:29Speaker 11: the knowledge myself to do the job on my own.
- 42:32Speaker 11: So he answered it for me. That's why I have
- 42:35Speaker 11: my hand and I appreciate you calling on me and brothers.
- 42:38Speaker 2: Have a nice step.
- 42:45Speaker 6: Also, also to the folks watching right now, because I'm
- 42:47Speaker 6: seeing some questions around that that pdf. So if you
- 42:51Speaker 6: go to loop insure dot co slash e y l
- 42:54Speaker 6: Loop Insure dot co slash e y l, that pdf
- 42:59Speaker 6: is now available, so you could just click on it
- 43:02Speaker 6: and you type in your email and then you'll get
- 43:04Speaker 6: a PDF sent to your inbox, so you can get
- 43:07Speaker 6: all of that, all of that brand is his framework
- 43:10Speaker 6: and all that other jazz sent.
- 43:11Speaker 7: Sent to you and just using your hustle man and
- 43:13Speaker 7: let me know, let me know what you think of it.
- 43:15Speaker 2: YO.
- 43:16Speaker 7: While we get another audience question, can we just do
- 43:18Speaker 7: a quick lightning round hip hop? We all referred to it,
- 43:22Speaker 7: we all pulled from it.
- 43:24Speaker 6: Let's go through and name who we think has been
- 43:27Speaker 6: the most effective brander in all of hip hop and
- 43:32Speaker 6: some key lessons that we've taken away personally.
- 43:36Speaker 7: Who wants to start?
- 43:37Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's been so many great brands, from
- 43:42Speaker 3: death row records to no limit records to cash money
- 43:45Speaker 3: records to But I think the greatest brander has to
- 43:50Speaker 3: be jacause, you know, he's his brand has survived three
- 43:58Speaker 3: decades and that's extremely impressive. And the biggest takeaway that
- 44:01Speaker 3: I get from Jay is that he always reinvents himself
- 44:06Speaker 3: and he always Drake does this well too. He always
- 44:10Speaker 3: surrounds himself with the newest people. He has no problem
- 44:17Speaker 3: severing ties, whether that's a good thing or not. Jay always,
- 44:21Speaker 3: you know, he's always in the mix with something that's
- 44:25Speaker 3: new and progressive. He's not afraid to change with the times.
- 44:29Speaker 3: And he's built his brand off of a mistique. It's
- 44:32Speaker 3: a nostalgia. You never see him. He's not on Instagram,
- 44:37Speaker 3: he's never on Twitter, he's not on TikTok, and that's
- 44:42Speaker 3: the way that you know, that's that's risky because it's
- 44:45Speaker 3: like you know, and that's extremely extremely risky and extremely
- 44:47Speaker 3: extremely rare. But he's built such a nostalgic brand that
- 44:54Speaker 3: at any given moment, when you see him, it's like
- 44:57Speaker 3: seeing a ghost, like you know what I mean.
- 44:59Speaker 7: If it wasn't for these pictures, they wouldn't see me
- 45:01Speaker 7: at all.
- 45:03Speaker 3: So I think he got that intentionally and that has
- 45:07Speaker 3: helped him remain relevant for thirty years.
- 45:12Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, obviously Jay is our guy. Jay is
- 45:15Speaker 2: our favorite guy. We're gonna keep saying Jay's name. And
- 45:17Speaker 2: I know, John, you're sharing this until we sit next
- 45:19Speaker 2: to him. But I'll say easy, easy, I think. I
- 45:23Speaker 2: think what Yay's done is incredible, right like the Yeasy
- 45:28Speaker 2: name that the brand itself speaks for itself. It's transcended music,
- 45:33Speaker 2: it's trans it's transcended fashion. It is the symbol of
- 45:38Speaker 2: new and cutting edge. And he's done that over time,
- 45:41Speaker 2: and he said he was going to do it right
- 45:42Speaker 2: like he lives that line too. I'm the grades with
- 45:44Speaker 2: I said that before I knew I was. He's been
- 45:46Speaker 2: saying it since O three. He would say it to
- 45:48Speaker 2: anybody that would listen, so to watch it come to fruition,
- 45:51Speaker 2: and even like with the Forbes thing, I know, John,
- 45:53Speaker 2: you have some things to say, and I was right
- 45:55Speaker 2: on with you as far as the Forbes thing. It
- 45:56Speaker 2: doesn't matter if he's worth six billion or two billion.
- 45:59Speaker 2: He's a billionaire and he said he would be and
- 46:01Speaker 2: he's here doing it now. So his branding is amazing
- 46:06Speaker 2: with everything he does, and everybody might agree with the
- 46:08Speaker 2: way he goes about it, but you can't deny if
- 46:11Speaker 2: he steps into a room or if he puts his
- 46:13Speaker 2: name on a product, it's out of here. Right. People
- 46:15Speaker 2: are wondering, Hey, look at Gap Wow. Why is gap
- 46:18Speaker 2: stock rising? Well, yeah, this guy said he's doing a
- 46:20Speaker 2: brand partnership with him, and they know when he puts
- 46:22Speaker 2: stuff in the stores, it's leaving the stores. I've been
- 46:25Speaker 2: If anyone has been to a Kanye concert, I've been
- 46:28Speaker 2: to a bunch of them. There are people who literally
- 46:30Speaker 2: don't come to see the music. They will stand in
- 46:33Speaker 2: line for the merch for the entire show. Wow, for
- 46:37Speaker 2: the entire show, no joke. I went to the Saint
- 46:41Speaker 2: Pablo to him, it was one who was like floating
- 46:43Speaker 2: over the whole crowd, and I tried to buy his
- 46:46Speaker 2: shirt and I couldn't get I was like, I'm miss
- 46:48Speaker 2: the show if I wait in this line, and people
- 46:50Speaker 2: will wait in line. My wife was like, oh go,
- 46:52Speaker 2: I'll miss a song or two. Him like, Noah, it's fine.
- 46:54Speaker 2: At the end of the show, I have to wait
- 46:55Speaker 2: an hour to get a T shirt. I'm like, these
- 46:57Speaker 2: people have not left everything. He puts on a lot
- 47:00Speaker 2: of concert cells out.
- 47:01Speaker 3: But also before you go John. He's also like Jay
- 47:04Speaker 3: in a sense where you don't see him. He's also
- 47:06Speaker 3: built a nostalgia. He pops up. He's more active than
- 47:08Speaker 3: Jay on Twitter, but he pops up for Twitter rants
- 47:12Speaker 3: every now and then, and then he's like the groundhog.
- 47:13Speaker 4: Then he goes under. He'll be on Instagram then delete
- 47:16Speaker 4: all his Instagram that.
- 47:17Speaker 2: He's driving in water.
- 47:19Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that.
- 47:19Speaker 4: It's that that crazy, you.
- 47:22Speaker 3: Know what I'm saying, Like he's he's another one where
- 47:25Speaker 3: he's not really accessible like that.
- 47:28Speaker 2: I think that's something we said, like one of the
- 47:29Speaker 2: best attributes is that you can't access access mysterious Manchronica.
- 47:34Speaker 3: Said, familiarity doesn't breathe. Just content like just content like
- 47:41Speaker 3: meaning like sometimes you oversaturate yourself. It doesn't even breathe.
- 47:45Speaker 3: People get they start to hate you just because they
- 47:48Speaker 3: see you so much. It's like like being with a
- 47:51Speaker 3: you know, what's a spouse or somebody.
- 47:54Speaker 2: Said what he said one day, they want to knight
- 47:56Speaker 2: you the next good night you.
- 47:57Speaker 7: Yeahnny. What you think, man, Who's who's the best brand
- 48:01Speaker 7: in the hip hop game?
- 48:02Speaker 8: I mean I think, yeah, I think the answer is Jay.
- 48:04Speaker 9: Because of the ecosystem of product and brands and businesses
- 48:08Speaker 9: that he's created, right, I mean what he did with
- 48:10Speaker 9: title Champagne Rockaware. You know, Jay's pedigree and his track
- 48:18Speaker 9: record are insane. I'm gonna throw in a dark horse
- 48:22Speaker 9: just to acknowledge what what Nipsey did while he was here,
- 48:25Speaker 9: you know, and peace. But I think Nick was instrumental
- 48:30Speaker 9: in branding a consciousness in a way of thought that
- 48:34Speaker 9: we hadn't really seen in a long time.
- 48:35Speaker 4: Right.
- 48:36Speaker 9: He he made people believe in ownership and and and
- 48:40Speaker 9: got people interested in real estate, and you know, was
- 48:43Speaker 9: doing a bunch of technology smartphone ars, you know, nf
- 48:47Speaker 9: T related things way before you know, any of these
- 48:50Speaker 9: things were in mainstream consciousness. And I think that you know,
- 48:53Speaker 9: nips all money in, no money out. You know that
- 48:55Speaker 9: there was a lot. There was a lot there. You know,
- 48:57Speaker 9: fuck the middleman, like there was a lot there.
- 48:59Speaker 7: He was more marathon.
- 49:01Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, thank you minded me right like that.
- 49:05Speaker 9: It didn't it wasn't mainstream, so less people will acknowledge it.
- 49:08Speaker 9: But for for people like us who were grinding during
- 49:11Speaker 9: the time that Knit was grinding, it was like, you know,
- 49:13Speaker 9: he had a different effect on consciousness. And I think
- 49:17Speaker 9: that's been you know, obviously it's big for me. People
- 49:19Speaker 9: know how I feel about Nip, But ye I gotta
- 49:21Speaker 9: acknowledge that because I think that he was one of
- 49:24Speaker 9: the new school players, you know that that was really
- 49:27Speaker 9: about to run it up after that first crop of
- 49:30Speaker 9: Jya fifty Snoop Dre, you know, like that that graduating
- 49:34Speaker 9: class had already moved on.
- 49:36Speaker 8: I think Nip was the revolutionary in that sense, yo.
- 49:39Speaker 6: Can I also just say that what what jay Z
- 49:42Speaker 6: did with titles should be fucking illegal, like that's my
- 49:45Speaker 6: man's and he made his bag, but like had did
- 49:49Speaker 6: no one.
- 49:49Speaker 7: Like guys, remember when we came out with Title.
- 49:53Speaker 6: He made his fucking entire catalog exclusive to title, brought
- 49:57Speaker 6: a bunch of artists, got him exclusive to Title, inflated
- 50:01Speaker 6: the value, sold the third of it to Sprint, cashed
- 50:04Speaker 6: in I think it was two hundred mil, right, and
- 50:07Speaker 6: then once that shit was flopping, Uh, he pretty much
- 50:12Speaker 6: brought his cadillag, brought his catalog right back on Spotify.
- 50:16Speaker 6: And so because he was vulnerable during that time that
- 50:19Speaker 6: he was only on Title. Uh, and then he made
- 50:22Speaker 6: himself accessible again and sold that bitch and he sold
- 50:27Speaker 6: it to Jack Dorsey.
- 50:27Speaker 7: And then finished cashing out on it.
- 50:29Speaker 2: That is ridiculous.
- 50:32Speaker 6: That's that's like market manipulation, except for it's his own
- 50:36Speaker 6: personal catalog and IP.
- 50:37Speaker 9: You know, so he could do it, but he took
- 50:39Speaker 9: the risk, right, I mean with him, and you know
- 50:41Speaker 9: Beyonce did with having their music exclusive on a platform
- 50:45Speaker 9: that wasn't available to everybody, that when they knew they
- 50:48Speaker 9: were losing millions of dollars on them that you know,
- 50:52Speaker 9: it was it was a risky movement that paid off
- 50:55Speaker 9: for him.
- 50:55Speaker 6: So bought it for fifty, sold a third for two hundred,
- 50:58Speaker 6: finished selling Man's Crazy. I think, you know, I think
- 51:00Speaker 6: the best brainder in the in the game is Puff.
- 51:04Speaker 6: I just I think that bro I seen recently the
- 51:08Speaker 6: Ready to Die documentary. I mean, the guy has an
- 51:11Speaker 6: eye for talent and when he backed Big, you know,
- 51:14Speaker 6: he put this whole like like movement and brain around
- 51:17Speaker 6: And for as long as I can remember, Puff has
- 51:20Speaker 6: been that flashy type and he took that whole persona.
- 51:24Speaker 6: Going back to that, you know, to the earliest part
- 51:26Speaker 6: of this episode. His word really like is just lifestyle
- 51:32Speaker 6: in a way that Hove is not. Hope is mysterious.
- 51:34Speaker 6: Hope is kind of crusty. Actually, Puff, you just you
- 51:38Speaker 6: won't find you know, with the exception of when when
- 51:41Speaker 6: his when his girl passed away, and of course he
- 51:44Speaker 6: was in that in that dark period of just mourning.
- 51:48Speaker 6: That was the only glimpse of time really that I
- 51:51Speaker 6: could think of that Puff wasn't smiling, laughing, and he
- 51:54Speaker 6: was able to productize that entire just persona. He's got
- 51:59Speaker 6: the Spirits brand and I had the chance to kick
- 52:01Speaker 6: it with his CFO, and his CFO told, Yeah, projects
- 52:09Speaker 6: that we invest in don't net a whole lot. The
- 52:13Speaker 6: projects that we build from scratch and vertically integrate and
- 52:16Speaker 6: that we own the i r R the internal rate
- 52:18Speaker 6: of return, the profit is through the roof.
- 52:21Speaker 7: Because Puff is not really that that speaks to his superpower.
- 52:25Speaker 7: He's not one to invest in another vehicle and then
- 52:28Speaker 7: let it do his thing.
- 52:30Speaker 2: He's one to just live it.
- 52:32Speaker 7: He lives his products, man, and and for that, I
- 52:36Speaker 7: think Puff is the best brander in the game.
- 52:39Speaker 2: That's a good point, John, because when you were talking
- 52:41Speaker 2: about brand, I was thinking about some rock. It's more
- 52:42Speaker 2: than a drink, it's a lifestyle. But this guy had
- 52:48Speaker 2: like every commercial was a James Bond movie. Right then,
- 52:51Speaker 2: it became The Ocean's Eleven's movie and it was like this,
- 52:54Speaker 2: I have to taste this. This is the only thing
- 52:56Speaker 2: I can drink. I need to feel like that. I
- 52:58Speaker 2: want to look like that. I need to have that lifestyle.
- 53:00Speaker 2: Does this drink? Bring it? And now you got Klid
- 53:02Speaker 2: and he's on a jet ski and every time I
- 53:05Speaker 2: look at his glass and I'm like that, son's that
- 53:07Speaker 2: new uh summer breeze is like that new drink looks incredible.
- 53:11Speaker 2: I have to try it. It's like it becomes a
- 53:13Speaker 2: part of your lifestyle. It's great market.
- 53:15Speaker 3: I just want to say one more thing before we can,
- 53:16Speaker 3: maybe just get the one more question before we wrap,
- 53:18Speaker 3: but bringing it back, like X said, get well soon,
- 53:22Speaker 3: let's bring it back to the streets. And I want
- 53:26Speaker 3: to always make this as relatable for people as possible.
- 53:29Speaker 3: Another Eyo alumni that we had Nacho Banger. He's a
- 53:32Speaker 3: he's a young man out of Baltimore, crazy story, grew
- 53:34Speaker 3: up in the streets, literally eats Baltimore and uh, you know,
- 53:38Speaker 3: became six figure entrepreneur off of nachos.
- 53:41Speaker 4: So yeah, he does.
- 53:42Speaker 3: He's not shows where he puts like you know, so
- 53:47Speaker 3: a long story show so this is the most practical
- 53:49Speaker 3: thing in the world, right, Like anybody can make nachos
- 53:51Speaker 3: with shrimp, and he was making it in his microwave
- 53:53Speaker 3: at first, before he learned how to cook. So this
- 53:56Speaker 3: is like because people be like, you know, this is
- 53:57Speaker 3: a high level this is the most practical thing in
- 53:59Speaker 3: the world brand right, he built He told the story
- 54:03Speaker 3: through a bunch of other stuff. So he created a
- 54:05Speaker 3: dance called the Nacho Benga Dance, and he won't viral
- 54:08Speaker 3: in Baltimore and colleges like Morgan State and you know,
- 54:12Speaker 3: Talents and and all of these schools and all the
- 54:14Speaker 3: high schools and in the neighborhood. So now he's going
- 54:18Speaker 3: this is before TikTok. He's going viral for his dance.
- 54:21Speaker 3: He made a dance attached to the food. So it's
- 54:24Speaker 3: one thing to make the nachos, but now he's branding.
- 54:27Speaker 4: It with the dance.
- 54:28Speaker 3: And you know he's doing like going to parties and
- 54:32Speaker 3: hosting clubs and all of that. So it's so many
- 54:35Speaker 3: different stories that come to mind as far as branding
- 54:37Speaker 3: is concerned, but that's one of my favorite because there's
- 54:39Speaker 3: nothing more practical than that. Like he literally started from
- 54:43Speaker 3: the bottom legit making nachos out the bando. Literally, you
- 54:50Speaker 3: had to watch that episode. It's very inspirational. I'm going
- 54:54Speaker 3: to finish, and he without even knowing what he was doing.
- 54:58Speaker 3: He's branding himself by creating a story and making himself
- 55:02Speaker 3: a legend and a myth. But it comes down to nachos.
- 55:06Speaker 3: That's the most practical thing in the world. Like, he's
- 55:09Speaker 3: not selling anything that's out of this world. He's literally
- 55:11Speaker 3: selling nachos that you get from nachos, like the bag,
- 55:15Speaker 3: the nacho.
- 55:16Speaker 2: Bag, jeez, and anything you want. This is the craziest
- 55:19Speaker 2: part about that story. Right, So he's getting booked to
- 55:22Speaker 2: come to clubs and be the host, right, he's getting
- 55:25Speaker 2: paid that because this song is crazy. The dance is
- 55:27Speaker 2: even crazy. You got the club doing it. You know
- 55:29Speaker 2: what he's doing when people are leaving the club selling
- 55:31Speaker 2: the nacho. He's got his food truck outside selling you
- 55:34Speaker 2: the food. Because the first thing you got to do
- 55:35Speaker 2: is eat. When you come out of a party, you've
- 55:37Speaker 2: been sweating, you've been drinking, you're hungry. He goes to nachos,
- 55:40Speaker 2: five dollars, get your sauce. Wow, incredible, that's fine.
- 55:46Speaker 8: I think that's a valuable lesson too on brand.
- 55:49Speaker 9: Right, there's a lot of times like he doesn't the
- 55:51Speaker 9: way that your product gets popping on the way you
- 55:53Speaker 9: get popping isn't necessarily your core competency.
- 55:57Speaker 6: Right.
- 55:57Speaker 9: The dance might be bigger and getting more impressions than
- 56:00Speaker 9: a picture of the nachos. But that's what good thinkers
- 56:04Speaker 9: and founders do is they find ways to create, you know,
- 56:07Speaker 9: parallel ideas and concepts that lift up their entire brand.
- 56:12Speaker 4: Let's take one question before we wrap.
- 56:16Speaker 2: I hope I did not to apply by saying, my delly,
- 56:21Speaker 2: we're coming to you. Mute yourself. You've been unmuted? What's
- 56:23Speaker 2: going on? Oh wait wait, oh yeah, I'm here, bro,
- 56:30Speaker 2: I'm here, bro.
- 56:30Speaker 4: Come on.
- 56:32Speaker 10: That was less bless How your fellows doing. That's great, man,
- 56:39Speaker 10: Glad glad to hear that. Listen, It's funny. You guys
- 56:42Speaker 10: have touched on a couple of things that I realized
- 56:44Speaker 10: marketing wise, that I never noticed before, even for example,
- 56:48Speaker 10: me signing up with E Y L the day that
- 56:50Speaker 10: I was just listening to one of your market mondays,
- 56:53Speaker 10: and you guys created that urgency with the sale is
- 56:57Speaker 10: about to run out. Next thing I know, Bam, I
- 57:01Speaker 10: throw my card on the thing. Next thing, I know,
- 57:03Speaker 10: I'm blessed to be to become earner. So I'm saying,
- 57:06Speaker 10: but you guys drove it into me by creating that
- 57:08Speaker 10: urgency just crazy, which is absolutely crazy marketing? How that works?
- 57:13Speaker 2: Uh?
- 57:13Speaker 8: Quick?
- 57:14Speaker 10: Thing I wanted to touch on is, uh, when you're
- 57:16Speaker 10: going back to what you were mentioning as far as
- 57:18Speaker 10: creating a brand.
- 57:19Speaker 4: So I'm doing the Amazon.
- 57:22Speaker 10: The Amazon thing, trying to you know, create my brand,
- 57:25Speaker 10: and that's so.
- 57:26Speaker 4: Hard to get Amazon exactly.
- 57:29Speaker 10: It's so hard to do right now because you have
- 57:30Speaker 10: so much competition and you have to get a bunch
- 57:33Speaker 10: of people, you have to get up front, you have
- 57:35Speaker 10: to get uh rated, you have to get a ranked
- 57:38Speaker 10: and all that.
- 57:38Speaker 4: It's so hard.
- 57:39Speaker 10: What can you Is there anything that you might think
- 57:41Speaker 10: that I could be able to use to help my
- 57:44Speaker 10: help me, you know, get better with my business.
- 57:46Speaker 6: Wow, that's a great question for Annie, but it's also
- 57:49Speaker 6: a brilliant question in general. How do you brand yourself
- 57:53Speaker 6: when what you're selling is commoditized and also it i e.
- 57:57Speaker 6: Widely available and also you're on the platform that is commoditized.
- 58:03Speaker 7: Man, Annie, what's your take on that?
- 58:05Speaker 6: That's a powerful question actually because a lot of people
- 58:07Speaker 6: could probably relate to that.
- 58:09Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, you know the idea of when you
- 58:11Speaker 9: engage with Amazon, you have to know that you are
- 58:13Speaker 9: engaging on somebody else's platform and somebody else's brand equity
- 58:17Speaker 9: rights making it easy for you to sell and easy
- 58:20Speaker 9: for other people to transact, and so you're going to
- 58:22Speaker 9: lose a little bit of competitive advantage there.
- 58:25Speaker 8: My recommendation will.
- 58:26Speaker 9: Be create content in your own world and still direct
- 58:30Speaker 9: people to Amazon, but that brand equity and the things
- 58:32Speaker 9: that you're doing on social editorial, you know, livestream, all
- 58:37Speaker 9: those things can still be as fruitful as you need
- 58:40Speaker 9: them to be. So just because the transaction is happening
- 58:42Speaker 9: on Amazon, it doesn't mean that the entire narrative or
- 58:45Speaker 9: the story band is happening on Amazon.
- 58:48Speaker 3: You know, another thing, another thing, This is my take
- 58:51Speaker 3: on this is what I would do. So the good
- 58:53Speaker 3: thing with Amazon is private label. So like lint rollers
- 58:56Speaker 3: shout out to Josh Chris lint rollers or toenail.
- 59:00Speaker 4: Clippers, a lot of these things.
- 59:02Speaker 3: This is what a lot of people sell on Amazon,
- 59:04Speaker 3: because nobody ever asked where's a lint roller coming from?
- 59:07Speaker 3: So like they sell lint rollers in a factory in China.
- 59:10Speaker 3: You get it and you can put your label on it.
- 59:12Speaker 3: So it could be like eyol lint rollers.
- 59:13Speaker 4: Right. What I would do is whatever product is selling.
- 59:15Speaker 3: Let's say we're selling lint rollers, right, I would Now
- 59:18Speaker 3: I would go to every social media blog whatever. Now
- 59:21Speaker 3: going back to creating a story. Black owned lint rolling company,
- 59:25Speaker 3: the first ever black owned lint rolling company out of Philadelphia, whatever,
- 59:28Speaker 3: I would create a story about it and make the
- 59:30Speaker 3: myth and make the story way bigger than would it. Actually,
- 59:34Speaker 3: you're not lying. You're a black on lint rolling company.
- 59:36Speaker 3: But now that sounds way better than me just putting
- 59:39Speaker 3: the lint roll on Amazon. No, I gonna make a
- 59:42Speaker 3: whole movie out of there. I'm making a whole motion
- 59:44Speaker 3: picture out of it. Black own lint rolling company. I
- 59:46Speaker 3: started from the bottom. Da da dada da had to
- 59:48Speaker 3: get distribution from China. It's all about how you say things.
- 59:54Speaker 10: It's damn, it's crazy. That's crazy. It seems to me
- 59:58Speaker 10: like I'm gonna have to cut your checks.
- 1:00:02Speaker 4: Million dollar for a game. You know we're talking about that.
- 1:00:05Speaker 4: Shout out to the earnest.
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: Yeah, so separately, Yes, gentlemen, this, this, This was fun.
- 1:00:12Speaker 4: This was fun. Guys, John, I'll let you I'll let
- 1:00:16Speaker 4: you put this, wrap this up.
- 1:00:18Speaker 6: Episode one Man in the Books. Thank you guys for
- 1:00:20Speaker 6: rocking and rolling with us. Man Annie, always a pleasure
- 1:00:24Speaker 6: to have you on you guys. Got to check out
- 1:00:26Speaker 6: Annie Man. He's at at Annie Hustles, on Instagram, on
- 1:00:30Speaker 6: every other platform. Just one of the realist practitioners in
- 1:00:33Speaker 6: the game. You get a lot of knowledges following all
- 1:00:36Speaker 6: of his content, So talk about storytelling, talk about brand
- 1:00:39Speaker 6: I take notes from him. I personally reach out to
- 1:00:42Speaker 6: him with questions that I have around how to crack
- 1:00:45Speaker 6: the code, marketing on brands, and things of that nature.
- 1:00:48Speaker 6: So definitely tapping with Annie Man. That's the dude, support
- 1:00:51Speaker 6: his his child concept. You won't be disappointed. It's a
- 1:00:56Speaker 6: lot more than Chi So locking with Annie. But yet
- 1:00:59Speaker 6: to all the folks listening, Man, thank you guys. This
- 1:01:02Speaker 6: has been a limited this episode one of a limited series.
- 1:01:07Speaker 6: We're just getting going. We're just testing out and experimenting
- 1:01:10Speaker 6: with the show format. I know that some of you guys,
- 1:01:14Speaker 6: I can already see hundreds and hundreds literally of down
- 1:01:18Speaker 6: loads of the framework, So I hope that you guys
- 1:01:20Speaker 6: take value from it. I think in future episodes we
- 1:01:24Speaker 6: will keep the presentations to a minimum and just keep
- 1:01:28Speaker 6: it more rooted in conversation, experimentation, and you know, examples
- 1:01:33Speaker 6: from pop culture and different moments of that nature. Next
- 1:01:36Speaker 6: up on episode two, we're gonna be diving into content strategy,
- 1:01:40Speaker 6: which everyone here on this particular pod could literally do
- 1:01:44Speaker 6: a master session on. And our special guest for that
- 1:01:47Speaker 6: episode is going to be none other than the team
- 1:01:51Speaker 6: captain for gary V. So this is Andy Kranak, who
- 1:01:56Speaker 6: had he runs gary V's entire thirty five person content
- 1:02:00Speaker 6: team and just crushes their content strategy. So we're gonna
- 1:02:03Speaker 6: get into the three h's of content hub, hero hygiene,
- 1:02:07Speaker 6: how you can mm hm, how much is your cause,
- 1:02:12Speaker 6: how you should structure your whole ship.
- 1:02:14Speaker 7: It's gonna be a banger.
- 1:02:15Speaker 6: So thank you guys, ey L appreciate you all as
- 1:02:18Speaker 6: as always, And for those of you guys listen, remember
- 1:02:20Speaker 6: Loopingshure dot Co.
- 1:02:21Speaker 7: The link is linked up there.
- 1:02:22Speaker 6: Tapping and join the wait list slash, make sure you
- 1:02:27Speaker 6: download the framework. Talk about scarcity.
- 1:02:30Speaker 7: It's going away at the end of the day, so
- 1:02:31Speaker 7: you gotta go and have that ship today and then
- 1:02:35Speaker 7: we'll take it from there fellas. Thank you guys so much.
- 1:02:37Speaker 7: Appreciate y'all.
- 1:02:39Speaker 8: Y'all the link.
- 1:02:40Speaker 3: The link is also in the description of this video
- 1:02:42Speaker 3: and it's pinned here. So yeah, thank you guys.
- 1:02:45Speaker 4: This was fun. See you next week later. Peace.
- 1:02:49Speaker 5: Peace, my graduates from my school being forced back and drop.
- 1:03:14Speaker 12: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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- 1:03:30Speaker 12: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
- 1:03:34Speaker 12: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
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- 1:04:05Speaker 12: Do what's right. Leave Now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
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- 1:04:11Speaker 5: Will be protected.
- 1:04:12Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,