 What's up, what's up? We got a clip today that I think is gonna completely change how artists and content creators understand making money from their own influence. Because we grow our audience, we get fans, but making money from merch shows, whatever you're selling, right? Whatever kind of product, 50 Cent was a master at doing that. And the CEO of Reebok in this clip I'm about to show you breaks down why 50 Cent sold like crazy when he was selling sneakers and what wife beaters and all those things with G-Unit. So check this out right here. What made him also really, what made it work was A, he was very engaged in the business. He's really, really smart. He's very committed, but he would say things like he would ask what's going on. I would say we're not selling as well on the West Coast. And he'd be like, okay, I'm doing nine shows out there next week. What do you want me to do? What do I gotta do? What story do you want me to go to? You want me to have more people come backstage? Like he was just a businessman. Sure. That right there is everything. He was just a businessman asking that question to figure out where are we low on sales and where I can show up, pop up, show face to make sure we drive those sales is a huge lesson that I think so many people need to understand when it comes to artists and content creators because I had to learn the hard way and now working with a lot of artists and content creators, I've seen people not understand this one thing, right? You build a fan base and you think, oh snap, I got a million followers. Oh snap, I got 500,000 subscribers. And you think just because you put something on sale people are gonna buy because they love you. But the amount of effort to actually sell something even when you have a fan base is so much further than you think it is. Most people think it's right here, right? But really it's 10 times that amount of effort not to say that you won't sell anything at all if you just put up one single post, right? But most times you have to go hard. You have to follow up with emails, right? Or you have to do four or five different posts. You have to remind people to buy by a certain day because people are lazy, people have their lives that they have to deal with and there's so many things on their priority list. So they might just forget to buy your tickets to your concert. They might just forget that you only had, I don't know, 50 shirts for them to buy or 1,000 shirts for them to buy that you were selling for your merch. So making sure that you pop up like 50 was doing, saying, yo, oh, I need to go to the West Coast. I'm gonna pop up on the West Coast. I'm gonna do a show. I'm gonna show up in these stores because now people are gonna show up to these stores because they hear that I'm right at the store. That's another narrative, right? Oh shit, 50 cents at Foot Locker and they go to the Foot Locker so they get a chance to see 50 cent. But oh snap, while I'm here, I'm gonna go ahead and buy because he can convert you and close you while he's present, right? And people probably might buy just to say, oh yeah, I got your sneakers so now can I take a picture with you because they might feel bad trying to do so otherwise. But literally the amount of effort it takes even when your fan base is extremely strong, I think most people, they don't quite understand your first rodeo. I remember I did an event when I was in college and I only had like three people show up and two or three of those people were actually a part of my organization because I didn't understand how much effort and then I had it scheduled at a bad time. It was so many things that came into it but the biggest thing was the amount of effort and understanding that just because you get a free ticket doesn't mean that everybody who got that free ticket is gonna show up because it was free for them, right? There was no pressure and not showing up. There was no punishment for not showing up. Now, let's look at another thing though. 50 was also incredibly immersed in the business. Like he came to every meeting on time, ready to go. And his first question, every meeting was, how many pairs we sell this week? I'm not exaggerating, how many pairs you sell this week? How many pairs were you selling? We were selling a lot. This man was focused on the goal, you wanna know, we wanna stay up to date. Yeah, 10,000. Now we were selling like, you know, 50,000, 50,000 per color at a time. We actually, no, for like the season. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. But like, there was one and he was always saying, well, how many Jordans sell this week? Ha, I love it. I'm telling you, he was literally asking that every week. Every week, or every time we had a meeting. And so one time... All right, before they get into the detail, just knowing 50 cent and how much he understands marketing, asking how many Jordans have sold that week, he's thinking, if I can actually beat Jordan, that story that I can share is worth gold in marketing. So you always wanna think about different stories that you can create from the marketing that you do or certain achievements. I think it was like 2005, we had a black GXT trainer. And I remember that, that back to school, we sold like on one color, like a lot, like 75,000 pairs or something. And it was close to what? And I'm not saying, by the way, that G-Unit was ever close to Jordan anyway. 50, I'm saying in that one moment in time, that one colorway, I think we sold in almost as many pairs as the Jordan launched for that period. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I remember telling them, and he was like, I told you, and so you guys didn't believe me. You thought I was crazy. Every time I came in here, I would ask that. Yo, there's a lot of people in these comments saying to this video, nobody was wearing 50 cent shoes, right? Nobody was wearing, didn't nobody wear them, man? Jay-Z shit was nicer. Here's two more. This person said, nobody in New York wore them joints, cap, lies, I ain't see nobody around my way wearing them and our states connect by bridges and tunnels. This is a fact right here. You do not need every single person who is your fan to convert to make good money when it comes to whatever product you're selling. A lot of people are in a bubble and they don't realize the world is a lot bigger than them. So they think the CEO of Reebok is lying about sales when he has no reason to for 50 cent sneakers years over a decade later because they can't see outside their bubble. And that's the problem with a lot of people and then a lot of artists take that into their sales and don't realize that same thing occurs. But what you have to understand is everybody doesn't have to buy. You're gonna have some fans that just don't buy and they don't support. That just is what it is. But they love to consume your content. That is their support. Maybe they're cheap. Maybe they just legitimately don't have the money. Maybe they don't like the product, that specific product. But everybody in your base does not have to buy for you to make good money. Obviously they made great money with 50 cents campaign but a thing to keep in mind, you do want to make a product that appeals to as many as your current fans as possible. So maybe the shoes could have looked better, right? I don't know, there could be an argument there. Or whatever you're doing though, you wanna try to cater to as many of your fans as possible but you're never gonna get everybody buying, all right? So those are just a couple of things that I see here. But artists, content creators, when y'all sell something, whether it's a course, right? A live show experience, some merch, you have to go hard when you are marketing for that product. I don't care if you have a million followers, I don't care if you have a million subscribers on YouTube which is better than followers on these other platforms, you can't just do one video and expect the sales to go crazy. Even if you get good money that more than you're used to, I guarantee you, if you go harder in effort, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. So you don't wanna leave that money on the table and just be satisfied with what you get with the first time around. That's it for this video. So if you're an artist or content creator and you like your art, but you also like making money for your art, hit that subscribe button, follow us for more videos like that. See you in the next video.