Latest / The Marketing Brief / Social Fabric Sessions: E6 AJ Vernet
Transcript
- Brian: Hello, and welcome back to the Marketing Brief Podcast. I am your host, Brian Aquan. And of course, this is the podcast where we talk about anything and everything involving marketing. We've been doing these social fabric sessions recently, and I'm really excited to introduce our guest today, who's a founder of the Social Fabric, AJ Vernett, longtime friend and colleague. Welcome into the podcast. AJ: Great to be on. Thanks for having me. Brian: Absolutely, AJ. How would you, I mean, you have lived many lives. you are a pro surfer. how would you introduce yourself to the listeners of the podcast? AJ: I do love I do have a love of outdoor sports as well as we've volunteered over that many times. I guess Brian: I know. AJ: I would introduce myself as as somebody asked me when I supervise the other day. It's I'm a connector. one of the reasons we kind of got into the social fabric was over the course of my thirty year career, just been connecting the dots on businesses, places, things, people and doing doing majority of that. That however led me to my career in advertising and I I I I when I introduce my work self, I'm really a business development entrepreneur who can build up and stand up businesses inside organizations or or do partnerships in deals and and also goes to you gotta be a good connector. Yeah. Brian: Yeah. And you've done that successfully over and over and over again. I've seen that. you're now the founder of the social fabric. So why now, why the social fabric? What what you know, why did you start this? AJ: because my friend and colleague told me it was a great idea, Corey Trevoletti. No. I started it right now because I started to see a problem that even people like myself who were extremely extroverted and out and about were having a hard time meeting people in this new world, right? After COVID, everything's changed. We went fully online and now we're swinging back a little bit in this hybrid world. And I started to see that. A lot of friends and family and colleagues and folks were having a hard time expanding their network. And some of the online things that were happening, like LinkedIn is and others, were just becoming so crowded and people were ignoring them because there was too much noise. And some of the other advertising groups were really so transactional. And when we started to construct what would the social fabric be, it was more about Getting people like you and I together and getting to know each other, sure, at some point there's gonna be a transaction. But the social fabrics, modus operandum is really executives in real life. Getting people outdoors, doing things together and learning more about each other. Hopefully that then that bonding then leads to something work-wise. you know, a connection, a new job, a deal. a partnership, a biz dev, you know, connection that happens around like, you know, a brand and a a talent and the creator gami. So that was the sole purpose of it. We launched it and realized we needed to have like an online component. So we have this wonderful WhatsApp group which you're a part of as well. And you know, we have an online community of about close to 300 plus people in the first six months of this. Which is really great. we did the standard things that a lot of others are doing, which is an informative newsletter about and but if you read our content, it's all about getting people out in real life. We're sticking with that. and getting to focus on getting to know each other instead of saying, Well, I sell media and I buy media Brian: Yeah. AJ: and can you hit my YouTube, you know, number that I need to hit in order for me to buy with you? Brian: Right. AJ: my ECPM. No. On its old media for a long time, you can tell. Brian: This idea of net networking, I tend to think of most things on a spectrum. there are people who are very, very good at networking, and then there are people who seemingly can't figure it out. And of course, everybody else falls along the spectrum. what do you think is is an issue for some people with networking? Like, why can't they get it? We just talked about maybe trying to be more transactional. I think that's part of it. are there other challenges you think that that individuals have with with networking in a traditional sense? AJ: Yeah, I think one of the things I got frustrated is I show up to like a I'm not gonna name the organization, but like a local event in Los Angeles. Brian: Okay. AJ: And you can tell if I'm not a brand marketer, though all those salespeople are just hunting for that one person. Well, imagine Brian: Right, right. AJ: or or you go to a big conference like possible and you see someone like I I saw Allison Gifford, I think, speak once at at an event from State Farm. And at the end of the day, I saw like 20 people line up to talk to her. And they all just wanted to introduce themselves really quickly and say hi. And sorry, it was at a brand storytelling event. She was that Sunday. Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: And like they just lined up. And I'm like, do you think that's working? She's not she's not relaxed. She's not Brian: No. AJ: that person is not relaxed at all. And then on LinkedIn, how many people, my CMO friends tell me like they don't even go on anymore Brian: Yeah. AJ: unless it's to scroll the news? They don't answer anything. So there's a lot of noise. So how do you get to know, you know, someone like State Farms needs? How do you get Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: to know what what makes them tick if they're having a good day, a bad day, what what their problems are? You gotta do those in a a more quieter setting. This goes back to your question. we need to create those environments, right? And and there's only so much time in the day. and some of the best business relationships I have have been teaching somebody how to surf or hanging out with somebody and Going with snowboarding with you and just learning a little bit more about what you're working on, when you worked at POW, and and then understanding pain points and then saying to them, hey, I might know a friend that has a solution, or I might have a solution. And I think those little moments compound. And I don't think a lot of people right now, I mean a lot of my friends, they're stuck in their kitchen table. They're stuck inside their LinkedIn and social world. And it's not big enough. They're not expanding it. And that's what I think the crux of the problem is. I think the second thing you have is you have a lot of people getting laid off and traditional jobs changing. And that's due to AI and and a myriad of other things. The way media climate's shifting and stuff like that, and bizdev and things going global, and their networks are too small. Like I know somebody who's on like their 17th interview at an entertainment company, but there's Brian: Wow. AJ: Probably 1100 people going after that same job. I'm like, how you know, like you have to expand. So a lot of people are gonna expand their careers, their shift, their verticals, and everything. And that is why we created the social fabric to help with that. Because, Brian: Yeah. AJ: you know, if you're only talking to the same five people, it doesn't compound. So Brian: Yeah. AJ: then going out to networking events, I seem like One of the most extroverted person I I've been told that. And I'm not, you know, I'm constantly like, I think I I was telling you this earlier. Like, I'm constantly referencing Dale Carnegie's thing he wrote a hundred years ago on how to win friends and influence people. I'm looking for the common thread, like, I love that ocean background picture you got there. I surf. Do you surf? And trying to find that icebreaker that allows us to, you know, drop our cortisol levels and just relax for a minute, shoot the shit. talk and then move on. Yeah. Eventually it all has to track back to how do we earn a living, or maybe it doesn't. Maybe you just make a lifelong friend. I I I believe I've got actually more of those in from the industry than I do transactions. But I don't know if she's ever gonna listen to this, but my friend Shannon Light literally we did a deal with Nike and for Sir Creators years ago and sh I've known her and pitched her for like eight years. And we became friends and drank wine and we grew up and you know, we ended up in Napa. And one day I she was working for Nike and I just presented a product, an idea. I Hey, I need some help. Here's my idea. And she's like, my God, it only took eight years. Your idea finally works. Let's do this. And dropped Brian: Yeah. AJ: a half million dollars in my pocket so I could do a Snapchat campaign with like Rogan Paul and all them. But Brian: Nice. AJ: my point was is it wasn't pitching. For eight years. It was talking for eight years. Brian: Right. Right. AJ: And that compounds. And eventually all the stars align. I think people have to get back to that. That that is sales, business development, marketing, all of it. It's like you have to have all these little awkward conversations and and you have to be able to get to know somebody and what they really want and need, right? And and maybe you can then solve that problem and maybe not, maybe somebody else can. Brian: Yeah. AJ: That's the that's the essence of networking. That's why we go to possible can, you know, brand innovators, brand storytelling, sundance, all these different events is try and meet people. But the problem is a lot of people walk in to these events, they've paid three or four thousand dollars to go. There's hundreds of people in a room, and they don't talk to anybody. That's a big problem, right? They've just sold Brian: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It happens a lot. AJ: it, or they talk to 10 people over the course of three days. And those were the wrong 10 people. But actually, I shouldn't say that. There's no wrong ten people. They talk to ten people, right? But maybe they wanted to talk to 30, or maybe they needed to whittle it down to like, how do I know who these who my people are? Right? Brian: Yeah. AJ: There's a there's a lot of people that need help with that. It it's really it really is like I I heard Gary V talk about this, like, but a lot of people get stuck in their online world, their their Zoom world, and it's it's not big enough. to accomplish what they need to accomplish in this day and age. And that is the essence of what we're creating with the social fabric is all about bringing executives in real life together and helping them get to know each other. And something good will come out of that. I I believe that one hundred percent. Brian: It it yeah, it always does. And that's something we've been exploring on these social fabric sessions is that relationships shape opportunity. And that's really what we want to create with the social fabric is more opportunity for people. Once they create those relationships, now you can see the opportunities are kind of coming to you. It doesn't come from starting a transactional relationship, it comes from understanding who it is you're talking to, how to get to know them, how to how to like AJ: Yeah. Brian: you know, function within a community, right? No one goes to a party and screams out that they have a sponsorship opportunity, right? You go in and some people do. AJ: Some people. Some people do. Brian: Those people don't get invited back. but you do you go in and you meet people and you start to connect with them, right? And then you connect with them on a personal level. And then maybe there's an opportunity there. Right. So just it's it's the intention of trying to connect with people rather than trying to sell people that I think trips people up about networking sometimes. But you brought up the the in real life aspect of this, which is amazing. That's that's what we want to do, right? We want to get people away from their screens like this and get into into real life and and connecting with each other. I guess that brings us to chapters. So we're rolling out chapters starting next month. can you talk about, you know, what what the chapters are, what they mean, how people get involved. AJ: Yeah. So the social fabric for anybody listening that hasn't gone onto our website and signed up. It's completely free. You do not need to pay us anything to become a member. The chapters were something that I kind of saw a friend, Ken Seaton, who's doing something amazing with this thing called the Athletes Touch, which is all former pro and D1 athletes that are getting together locally and networking. So it's similar, right? But they're All lots of business. The only key thing is you had to be a former pro athlete or an a D a college athlete. And it so that's the group's criteria. Ours is like marketing tech entrepreneur essence, advertising based. And these people were so happy and they, you know, that in that instance they do pay a membership fee, but they were using their networks and in deals and great things were happening and the camaraderie and that. And I saw these people smile and flourish. And I was like, I want that for me. The social fabric, one thing I'll say, this is the first time I ever said I'm just creating something for no other reason, not monetary gain, nothing, because I wanted it. I want to be able to network with people and I want to find more people like me, right? Like that I can do things with. And so chapters just made sense is to go local. We'll have this national. you know, layer with our WhatsApp and our newsletter and and comms and marketing and all the great podcasting stuff that you're doing. We wanna expose our members and we wanna, you know, let shine lights on them so other people can say, Hey, I like that. I want to meet that person. And Brian: Right. AJ: then we want to help with connectivity. But locally everybody needs help. I give you back my my I got inspired and I think you've been and we'll go together in September. When we launched the first one, but Scott Donaton and my friend Kirsten Ludwig, you know, they do this breakfast meetup, which somebody Brian: Yeah. AJ: else in the East Coast actually inspired them. And I was like, this is awesome. And I met there was there was no specific target. So it's marketers, entrepreneurs, Brian: Yeah. AJ: health coaches, everything. And I met some great people out of it. And I just had such a pleasant time and it was super easy. It was show up at 8 Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: 30 at zinc. Well, and people network, and I met 30, 40 great people. I I talk to all these people now and I enjoy going back. And I think that plus the WhatsApp, which we were inspired, I was inspired by Stellar Humans, my friend Shannon Pruitt, who's like t awesome. Him, her, and Steven Wolf Pierre put together this group of supermarketers in advertising that just just for pure purposes of getting to know each other, right? And those two things kind of collide at the same time that we launched this in January. While you and I were skiing in Japan and bonding over sushi Brian: Exactly. Yeah. AJ: and great snow. And essentially I realized that those tools right there were gonna help people. They were Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: gonna be able to ask a question. They were gonna ask for advice. They could they could go meet up for a drink or coffee. And there didn't need to be any sponsored element. There needed you didn't need to be any paid medium. And and that was going to help people grow their networks. And if you feel stuck. You'll have a community that helps you giving back. I always say we should give more than we take. 100%. Like it just comes back in spades. So essentially the chapters are a local way of connecting and feeling connected to a community. And my goal is, you know, we grow into a every chapter's couple hundred people. There, there's a monthly meetup that happens. And getting the community and sharing resources. And for the social fabric, we'll build out a total infrastructure behind to make sure people are able to show up and able to access information, meet other members, all of that. So it's pretty exciting. And then eventually we're playing around with the idea of slipping in AI into helping people like myself or you, who sometimes are are introverted and and I have not mastered Dale Carnegie's rule of how to win friends and influence people, but I do remember reading it from my first boss, gave it to me. And I remember the things like look around the person's room that you're in and notice the paintings and try and talk about things that are personal Brian: Right. AJ: to them. I think people need help with that. So when I say slip an AI, I think it means to help you find the people that you should be talking to, that you have the most match with, you know. Where that goes, we'll see. That's really early days, but essentially chapters are next and we'll launch third week of September. Five cities, New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago, Los Angeles to start. And we'll go as big as we can. And you know, it could end up being ten people meeting for coffee. Could be a hundred. We don't know. It's exciting. I'm trying I want to go to all of Like that's one day. Brian: And you should. Yeah. I I can tell you from my experience, going to Scott Donaton's breakfast, very low stakes, right? It's just people grabbing their coffee, right? Some people might stay for 10 minutes, some people stay for 45 minutes. I would I would go there with my laptop and then maybe do some work afterwards. But it's kind of engage as you want to, right? And I sometimes can get psyched out about that. I'm like, my God, who am I gonna talk to? I don't know any of these people. but I found it very easy to talk to people once once you're engaging them. And everyone was really open to kind of talking. And like you said, there's AJ: Yes. Brian: there's no agenda there. People aren't selling you, people aren't selling. It's really just about getting to know everyone in this community, but on a more personal level than we would get in a 30-minute meeting or you know, a 15-minute introduction to to someone. You could you really have the time to kind of figure out what people are doing in with their time, with their families. you know, out and about. And I really love that. I really love that about AJ: I do too. And and yeah, like I l we need more of that. If you did that Brian: Yeah, we do. AJ: every day, you'd act be exponentially happier, actually. It's Brian: Yeah. AJ: proven that interacting with other humans is good. And that and that's that's that's the purpose here. And to give people ways to do that and more frequency. I think there's some stat that says like a lot of people depression's going up because people are like stuck at home and they're just on devices and they're not like getting that energy. I know that me personally, while I'm somewhat awkward sometimes when I'm out there, like my cup actually fills up my battery charges when I interact with real people in life. So yeah. My wife Brian: That's good. Yeah, I'm the opposite. Mine mine depletes. AJ: too. She's like, no. Brian: That's great. And I love the idea of, you know, you've got to give a little more than you take, maybe a lot more than you take because it comes back to you. one thing I've been asking people in these in these interviews is, you know, why were you part of the social fabric? Is there something you think you can get from it? But also, is there something you think you can give to it? And that brings me to the point of like, we have a lot of professionals here on the marketing side, on the sales side, researchers. Like, there are people all around our industry that are part of the social fabric. And that's a reason the reason is to help each other, right? To support each other in kind of what we're going through. So that was the other thing I wanted to get to with you is like how can people use us as resources within the social fabric? AJ: I think people are somewhat fearful sometimes of just asking for help, right? And I but I do see people on the chat like, does anybody know anybody here? You know, Brian: Yeah. Right. AJ: I'm trying I'm I'm trying to make this happen. Does anybody have any ideas? Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: and it that could be anything. And I think that's what it'll eventually become. The first hundred people were Corey and myself and a few other friends, right? That we told about. And then the next two hundred. were associates and that people saw every time you put up a podcast or something like that, they came in and they were like, and I don't think they quite understand it. I think people still think the social fabric's more like a traditional pay-to-play transactional event. which is something I've told you before. It's like we actually want to, if you're going to CES, if you're going to CAN, if you're going to wherever, it doesn't matter the event. We're eventually gonna point people in a direction and help them network and meet up and get what they need. As we mature as an organization, we'll build out infrastructure so that people can have resources and find a job or, you know, make Brian: Yeah. And I even see the opportunity as like a a pregame, right? Like a a preparation for going to CES, a preparation for going to CAN, right? Can we all get on a call and talk about, hey, what's the environment going to be like? Like what's the best way to interact with people when you're at this at this event? Cause we've got people who have been to it for numbers of years and have kind of navigated and they have that knowledge to share. AJ: And it it that's a key point. I I I really always forget that part is is sharing knowledge. Like, what's the best party I need to get on? How do I get on a list? Brian: Yeah. Right. AJ: Like that's the point of this networking is sharing. Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: I think about the future. I I I think about the future of my kids and other people's kids, your child, right? If they Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: choose to come into this industry, how are they gonna learn? It's gonna be totally different. Brian: Yeah. AJ: One of the things we're playing around with is an under twenty five membership. mentor program. Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: So once now that the infrastructure's sort of built, we're like, how do we do that? And randomly so the other part of the social fabric with executives in real life plays to some of my experiential strengths, which is like throwing a taco tour or taking people surfing or going skiing for a weekend and and like Brian: Yes. AJ: taking smaller groups to spend more time together. And we do a bunch of that. we did a taco tour in Austin at last year south by relatively new idea where we go to four or five different cool places in Austin during the festival for an afternoon. And somehow our invite, which was core sort of private to our network, got out and we had like a hundred college kids try and crash Bakotur. And they were coming from because we knew they were educational emails. So like we're like, how is Tulane and all these people getting us? And somebody had put it on a college blog and they all Tried to register and we ended up getting a few of them before we figured out what was going on, like that showed up and tried to jump on and we let them jump on and they hung out with all there's like 27 of us and we went on this bus that we rented and we went from Michelin Star Taco Stop to Michelin Star Taco Shop to a happy hour. It was it was so much fun. And I met all these new people. The point I was saying is it kind of was like all these college kids were thirsty for knowledge. They all wanted some Brian: Yeah. AJ: network with us. I do some stuff here in LA and the LMU kids they they host and and work and and they just wanna learn and they're gonna have a harder time breaking into the industry. They're gonna have a harder time learning protocol, networking, Rolodex building, because they're not all gonna be in an office all day long like we did when we came Brian: Yeah. AJ: up. And that's a real problem. I know a lot of people are building tools to solve that. Brian: Mm-hmm. AJ: But like what about the in real life portion of that? So I Brian: Yeah. AJ: think about that a lot. And I think some of this that we're building is to help my kids, your kids, and the future. Cause I think there's a real component to that. Where it ends up, I'm not quite sure yet, but I I I I it was validated organically. And you can't like a hundred eight people? I could dismiss that. Brian: Right. AJ: A hundred people from like thirty different colleges? Brian: Yeah. AJ: That's Something. Interesting. Yeah. Brian: That's exciting. AJ: and maybe that's a way to help our youth get a better job and be more successful, you know? Brian: Yeah. Mentoring is very rewarding as well. I find it very rewarding to kind of help people. I I'm at the stage of my career where I want to see people succeed and and kind of navigate it. I can I can help them with what I've stumbled on and what I've learned so far, and they're gonna have their own challenges, but I always get a great deal of gratit, you know it it feels good to be able AJ: Yeah. Brian: to mentor someone and and kind of show them a little bit of a path. AJ: Yeah, I mean, listen, I realize that my age that my superpowers connecting people, I realize that Brian: Yeah. AJ: I have such a big network because I've done so many art entrepreneurial things over the last 20 years that have led me all around the world, you know, working for the World Surf League or Seismic or Google or DoubleClick, etc. And building divisions and and being The biz dev guy who was always at the tip of the spear. So I had to go in the room first, figure out the product, sell it, et cetera. In doing that, I had this wonderful gift that was given to me. I got to work with teams all over the world. I got to work on different types of projects and industries and verticals. So I was constantly learning and then teaching. Because in order to pull something off, I had to learn it, become somewhat of an expert at it, figure out how to scale it and operate. rationalize it and then basically teach everybody else how to do it so I can move on. That's biz dev essentially. and so I didn't realize I became a teacher along the way. Brian: Mm-hmm. Yep. AJ: and as I became a parent and started to grow up and get rid of my the selfish side of me and become more of like the dad AJ I'm so old these days. I realized Brian: Yeah, yeah. AJ: that teaching and giving back is is the best reward. Brian: Yeah. It really is. AJ: It it is is the mo it yeah. So you know, Brian: That's great. AJ: these these are the things that kind of have provoked all of this and as we s as the journey continues and we're on here month month eight of the social fabric. It's relatively new, it's growing rather quickly. And you know, we're gonna launch our first summit in January, which we're gonna keep a little secret for now. And then we're gonna be doing some some dinner meetups in all of the cities and And then we're we're working on expanding over the pond and and it in in in Asia as well. And it's like really exciting time because the thing I think about, and if I can leave it with one thread, is like all of this is going to be done in real life. You know, we're Brian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an important component. Yeah. AJ: Yeah. And it's gonna be done in a way that it's very inclusive instead of exclusive. There'll be there'll be criteria, right? We can't just have anybody come in and and we definitely I learned this I learned this phrase from a guy named Frank Chung who's a former CAA guy he does this thing called the FMC collective and and I he inspires me. He's nice people only. N POs. That's it. Yeah. Brian: Good. Yeah. AJ: That we're filled out the bad people. Brian: Nice people only. AJ: That that that will be something we do diligently. 'Cause it's i you know if you're Brian: That's a good through line. Well, thank you so much for for AJ: Yeah. Brian: spending time with me here on the podcast and talking about the origins of the social fabric and the future and the chapters. It's been really exciting to hear about. AJ: Yeah, I appreciate it. and thank you for all you you do for us 'cause I I love these podcasts. I love like Brian: Yeah. AJ: hearing about all the members and like all the fun things and the and the unique spin on it. So I I couldn't be more appreciative of you, buddy. So you appreciate it. Brian: Awesome. Love doing it. Yeah, we're gonna keep doing it. Cool. And to all the listeners out there, stay curious, find your community. AJ: Later.