 It's the mat work Ball what's up everybody once again, it's brand man Sean and this is inside the network It's our series where we show you exclusive content Interviews and artist sessions from inside of brand man network comm and we chose three Interviews for this initial series It's one of my favorite of all times this particular interview right here with spectacular Smith If you don't know who this guy is he's a part of legendary R&B group pretty Ricky He's CEO of at was our one of the the foremost social media marketing agencies when it comes to music and just branding influencers in general and in this interview we go over how he basically lost it all in music and then how he went from 60,000 to over one million a year in Well just using Twitter, which is crazy Just like but he was one of the earliest people when we talk about some of his meme Marketing and so many things and how he went throughout that process and it's just a great interview for those people who really take Entrepreneurship seriously, so I'm not gonna go too deep into that I'm gonna just let you guys watch the interview check this thing out As you can see I have another very special guest with me today, none other than spectacular Smith This guy is one fourth of the legendary group pretty Ricky responsible for a lot of good times in my childhood a lot of Things I probably can't talk about now, but I but I thank you for him But even bigger than that today There's been a lot of impact He's made and making that transition from music to legitimate entrepreneur It's something that so many musicians has struggled to make and as many of you guys know who are musicians It's hard enough to just be become a successful musician. So we're gonna talk about a lot of those good things But without further ado Welcome. What's up spectacular What's up, man Not much not much man. I appreciate you doing this man Just first and foremost, I just want to get a little bit into that beginning that backdrop, right? So obviously so many people will know you just as a part of being a part of Ricky Rick pretty Ricky But how old were you when that all blew up again? So when I first got into the group pretty Ricky I was I was in middle school Yeah, I was in middle school and I'm pretty much just My father wanted me to join a group because I used to be in the dance group All I really cared about like when I was actually performing and stuff back in the day It was basically just performing with You know on the stage like I just wanted to be in the dance group and just dance and have fun and had a lady scream and then my brothers and them they want to actually Get into this rap group. They created a rap group called The Mavericks and they wanted me to my father wanted me to join the group He was like, well you on the stage dance with all these other people like get on the stage and dance with your brothers I didn't know how to rap at the time. So that wasn't something that it was That they wanted me to do I didn't rap at all, but then one of the producers named Jim Johnson Who produced the whole first album blue star album? They was basically saying like hey Let spec get a verse on the song. So I was like, all right cool. I mean, I don't know how to rap nothing But I get a verse Then they gave me the one verse on the song and I performed it and all the ladies went crazy. So from that point 40 was I put spec on all the songs now So we went back and redid the whole album and they stopped put me on the Put me on all the songs and I taught myself how to rap and Pretty much from there. We just kept making singles and putting releasing them and Going out and street team in and doing everything we had to do perform to actually build on the brand and blow ourselves up What's up? So how long were you a part of? Yeah, from the time that you guys like really hit with that project What was y'all's first hit saying was that grind on me or was it something before that? I can't remember. Yeah, so if you are it depends on how much of a fan you are pretty ricky, right? So if you was a fan of pretty ricky from day one then our first single was called flossing And it was it hit the air waves it went crazy and it was building from there And that's when we got our first hype from so back then it wasn't no Twitter instagram and all that stuff out back then so we literally had to perform perform perform We perform at one show somebody that was there. I was like, hey, I want you to perform at my event Somebody that was at the event that we perform at next was like, oh, I want you to perform at our event So we kept getting shows shows shows bookings and then we ended up with two shows a day Some days sometimes three shows a day were hit like two cities at one day just to do two shows so Pretty much we just really just start building from there, man And and the song just really pretty much took off and started getting played on the radio and then that's when we started doing grind on me and We created the record and we performed at a place called Hollywood horror in miami with power 96 And things just kind of took off man from there like they started playing it once a day in the love hour started at 9 p.m. And then Everybody started calling and requesting it. Please play that song. Please play that song and it broke the record of the number one Requested record in the history of the radio station and it was forced to play it and then things just kind of took off from there and after that CEO Craig Kalman came down from Atlanta records and it was like, well, I want to sign somebody from florida Who's the newest thing like who's the best thing to pop next and it was like, well, you got to meet these guys pretty ricky and we met with the CEO and we met him in a hotel room and he asked us to perform and my father taught us like When it's time to go it's time to go And he was like, all right cool perform we grab forks knives and we just went crazy right in front of Right in front of him. He was like, yo, i'm trying to sign y'all right now Yeah, he whipped out paperwork. He was like, yo, i'm trying to sign y'all right now. My dad was like, oh, wait, wait, wait and we got the paperwork together and Signed to Atlanta records and pretty much took off Sheesh Hey, that's what I didn't realize that y'all dropped that single before getting signed That's interesting. Yeah, we we dropped That's the reason why we got signed because the song was the number one song on on the radio at the time in Miami And it started spreading throughout the nation and everybody started picking it up and playing and we started charting Then everybody was like damn who the hell who the hell is this group? So When he met up with us, we already had history, you know Actually job records offered us way more money like 2.5 million more than what we was actually getting offered And my my pops turned it down to go to land the records so Off a handshake. He felt like kray came down. He had the interest everybody else was just phone calls And kray came down met with us and it was more more interest there for my from old boy and Which old boy stand for dad just in case you ain't from florida but yeah, so That's how I went and we Know god knows like if we would have went with job records Who knows that we would have been bigger or we even would have got shelf. I don't know. I'm pretty satisfied The way things went with Atlanta records. So Who knows sometimes it ain't about the money. It's about the passion in a and a team that's behind you that believe in you I'm interested in that because like where you are now and having to be a leader in your business right how How much do you look at people in terms of? You know how they carry themselves the passion those things that you mentioned versus actually delivering like some people They just love a certain specific area of of business But then they might not necessarily follow up with actually being a deliver with it And then when you take certain principles and values Like uh, like what you said like with the dead You know off of a handshake and the fact that you came down here How much does all do all those type of principles? Play into the way you go throughout business for me I look at Numerous of things when I decide to do business with you or I'm hiring employees What my team is really about learning you got to be a learner if you like there's no such thing as I'm I'm good Like there's no such thing We always want to go from good to great and different great to unstoppable And a lot of a lot of times people don't even understand their greatness So I make sure that the person who I'm hiring See at least have the potential To get there and have the mindset to get there So that's number one you have to have the mindset you have to be willing to learn You have to be willing to help it out You have to be willing to give back to the community because it's not all about us at the end of the day It's not about money. We're a fast growing company. So money is no issue to us We got a Literally a waiting list for people who wants to partner with us and hire us to run their social media and monetize their social media You know paying us from 5k all the way to 25k A month just on monthly retainer and then we got some campaigns from 35k You know the six figure campaigns once a month So we we get tons of tons of people that want to work with us So we make sure that the people who are involved My team we make sure that they have those different Things checked off Always learning always testing always willing to change You know things change all the time in the social media industry. So if you're not If you're not cool with change then you kind of like shooting yourself in the foot because Things change all the time and if you one of those people that you get flustered and like Things hit the fan and you're like, oh my god, you panic then you might not be great for my team. So we we really come in focus on certain things and Focus on the people we like and the products we like the people we like You might not even have a huge product, but you might have a great story Or you might have a great product But no story and we can help you build your story. So it's different things. So just like When it comes to my team, I look at certain things when it comes to doing business with people I have to like you Like I can do business with a million people. I get opportunities through to me Throwing me every single literally every single day somebody is DMing me about something or Walking up to me asking me about something when I'm doing speaking engagements They're asking me about certain things and partnering this investing in that. So it's really about Me connecting with you as an individual And me connecting with you as a person who's who's doing things in a community of people who's doing certain Things that's gonna better the world or Just somebody who's just a genuine good person Because if you're asshole, I still I just I mean I rather not I rather not deal with the headache because it's so much money. It's money everywhere You can I know people getting rich off of selling socks. I know people getting rich People getting rich office rich office selling Bracelets, you know cars crypto like I mean it's Million ways to make money. So I pick and choose on what I believe in and what I like and the people I like and I invest in people so though I can respect that for real because I I definitely understand like Especially if you don't have to but yeah, there's so many ways to get a wide deal with certain headaches So just to rewind for a second and make it even clear But for those watching how you even got into where you are now because I've heard you Tell that story as far as like twitter, right? You starting there And I even know you can make money for for um from it at first like how did You actually decide okay? I'm gonna make money off of this thing and I'm actually cap off of it too twitter So at the time it was 2009 and I was on tour I just got off the tour, but I was on tour back then also And now it was the late night special tour and one of my colleagues named Maddie j hit me up trying to get a referral fee off a company called my likes Which is now bought out so don't do the research trying to go get some money They got bought out by uber and amazon But I was You know he hit me up and told me that I could make money off of tweeting and I felt like it couldn't be None easier than that, you know, I was on stage all day and Sleepless nights in the studio. I felt like that was super easy to do. So I was like, all right, cool. Let me figure it out and At the time I had like 50,000 followers But I felt like in order for me to really make some serious money Like I got a I got a span is I got a skeleton up and I can't I couldn't scale it with my own personal brand I couldn't create a hundred spectacular accounts and pretty ricky accounts So I just started thinking of creative ways I can grow a massive following which was different fan accounts parody accounts So all those parody accounts you see on twitter and all that like I was one of the first parody accounts ever So I really created the whole parody theme and really creating The role playing accounts acting like, you know, I was the celebrity and Things like that and people started following because the real will ferro not worried about entertaining everybody all day but Me I was because I had a sense of you know, the more followers I was making the funnier I was people want to follow me and when I post ads and traffic sold against the ads Uh, I mean as sold against the traffic. I'm able to make some money. So I had a been I had a sense of Said again, you got a fake will ferro account. Oh my god. I had will ferro angelina jolly brad pit I had cat williams adi murphy jim carry I had pretty much everybody if you was hot, I jumped on the page. I created it I grew all my followers up to six million followers twitter decided to delete me because they felt like They felt like I was impersonating people and things like that So they deleted all my accounts and I had star from scratch And uh, they was like, oh, you got to put parody in the bio so people know your fan account All right, we're in so I put it put parody in the bio So now if you see all these parody accounts on twitter, it's because of me that they got to put parody in the bio and then I blew it up to like four million followers again and then um Yeah, and then I started making money So I was basically top five on twitter Like I was literally number one almost every single day and every single time you hit number one on my likes You get like 150 dollars So I was literally making probably like an extra like four three to four thousand dollars a month just off of being number one Number two got 50 dollars. Number one got 150 and they had a leaderboard Where you can see who is making what money and I was always number one You know, sometimes I'll be number two and then I go hard like it's like what I'm down by 200 dollars I go hard make an extra $200 at the end of the day just to hit that number one spot. Yeah And wait, so how exactly do they judge? Who becomes number one and how they get get the money So they had a they had a basically a whole system that tracked everything So once you post on social media post the link or some articles or something And then once you post the link the people who click on the link you get paid off of it So they had a leaderboard. So every it was over a hundred thousand people in the database and whoever was making the most money was on the top 100 leaderboard got you and I was always number one. It was it was me Matty j. It was a guy named Kevin get them and then it was another guy named your favorite white guy Yeah, I remember a couple of those names now. That's funny, but I just you know, you see them on social media. You didn't actually Uh, like actually process and then think of it as a real person for real for real. That's funny But I I'm hearing something interesting though, man because you're Like that same thing that made you say I am number two right now I want to be number one Actually eludes to something that I was curious about because the fact that you were already successful in music right and Like some people don't understand. It's like, oh, yeah, you you posted memes and all this kind of stuff growing a fake page But that drug is like real work like for real for real work Yeah, so What had you doing that but as opposed to just and yeah, like what had you For real going that hard where you're already successful to the point where you know, you don't have you don't necessarily need Need money at the time. What have why were you doing it? I mean, I just it was just another thing to conquer Really, that's it. I mean everything that I do in life. I want to be Top five if not number one You know, you talk about musicians and the bands that came out in our era You have to put pretty Ricky in top three if not number one That's how I feel so When I did the whole social media thing, I'm like, okay, cool. How can I become number one? So I started figuring out ways I could become number one and And taking it serious. I take I take everything in life. This I approach everything in life the same way It's like You got to do the things that the people don't want to do to get what people don't have and people then want to go and and be on the computer for 12 hours a day 18 hours a day on a computer all day and my girl sometimes had to beg me to come to bed Like I was like nah every time I refresh I made a hundred dollars like I'm going crazy. So It was just it was it was addicting that time because how the money happened Like you can literally post something refresh you make money you can see the money growing growing growing So I just wanted to grow and then it was fun And then when twitter started deleting all accounts and like banning all the parody accounts They kind of took a l because once that stopped everybody was coming on twitter for the parody accounts and trending topics Like we had like five trending topics at one time and we the reason me me matty j Your favorite white guy we had our own little squad We the reason why they switched the way trending topics work Because before if something was trending and actually trend, but now they started Controlling what trends and we was the reason because we had like freaking five six trending topics up at one time like You know Dumb hashtags, it's just like dumb hashtags. It's like, you know, you mad win hashtag And then like everybody put like whatever behind it and it just goes viral. So I had so many pages I was making things go crazy had grumpy cat page which pretty much took off once I created it and That blew up. So like it was just a constant grind and and at the same time I had the incentive of making money and incentive of racing for the number one spot And I just approached it like that then it came a point where I just started taking Other people pages. I was like, hey, I knew who the top five was top 10 really and I went to him like, yo I'm number one You ain't got time for this. I know you got time for this. Let me actually run this for you and I get a percentage we split it like, you know, I take this amount you take this amount I'm gonna run everything. I'm gonna run your ass. I'm gonna grow your page and I was I was automated I automated all my accounts all my accounts. So I was shooting out probably like 24 tweets or like 25 pages every single day means everything And I started recruiting other people and that's really when I started kind of started my business I started running like 10 15 accounts and everybody was making like three to five grand a week And my pages was making like $50,000 a month And we was just like I just started killing it for everybody and then that's when I thought like, hold up If I could do these for fake parody accounts, I could do these for celebrity accounts So that's what gave me the mindset to actually transition into the whole Celebrity space, you know, so once I actually got to a point I was just like, yo, I need to make this transition and then like anybody, you know I you procrastinate so much you want to really take that step But I kept waiting waiting waiting and then I actually seen somebody doing my idea I'm just like, hold up now. That's my idea like people start monetizing celebrity accounts And I was like, hold up now. So the stuff I was doing on twitter people was doing on facebook I'm just like, uh, oh hell no So I kind of transitioned to facebook after having a conversation with us shonkeys and the soldier boy and Made the transition after I seen somebody doing my stuff and from that point forward I kind of like Yo, let me jump on this and I created a company around it. I moved to la After this and and at this point my father was handling all my funds. It's pretty ricky and I had this money coming in But twitter deleted all my stuff. I had to start over from scratch So all my money went from All his money basically millions basically in revenue all the way to like zero within like a dame just flat lined me And then my father was handling all my money in pretty ricky and he just made bad business decisions with the money Left was flat broke from that and then I had to build I had to build up Company called sound exchange gave me 60 grand by mistake Uh off of my royalties and it was like, oh, you know, uh, can we get that money back? And I was just like He didn't get nothing though I was like, don't don't you don't and uh, you know Don't I have more money coming and it was just like, yeah So I was like, I really take it out of that and I basically took that 60 grand And that's what I started my company hours are with and I started signing my first People of course, I signed soldier boy when the signs song Kingston and I start cutting checks up front Then became like the money man and start monetizing the pages and was like, you know what? This is a way that I can prove to you. I'm gonna make money I'm gonna put my money with my mouth that boom and I give them a minimum Like I'm gonna make you guarantee every single month 15 grand And I put that in the contract and I gave him money up front And then I started working my way up and now I I ended up with over 100 celebrities monetizing from day to day Some guys make a 20k a month some guys make a 60k a month And just start killing it for him and I started my company from that money by mistake and turn it into millions Hey, man, that's dope. I didn't even know sound Exchange was out here making mistakes like that. That's interesting. Oh, they took a L They took a L and then we're making so bad My brother thought that they overpaid me and underpaid him So he called and he was like, yo y'all underpaid me and he said, oh, it was a mistake And that's how they found out they overpaid me. They was gonna continue to pay me for the whole for the whole group Every single month and then you know, he kind of says something then they They figured it out and then that's when they uh, oh, you owe us money. I don't you nothing. Y'all better recoup that Pardon the interruption for a quick commercial break because have you noticed we say that we're brought to you by brand man network.com That's us. Now, what do we mean by that? Well, we've signed ourselves and taken control of our situation So we can bring you the most educational most impactful content without any middleman Now what is brand man network.com? It's an online artist development platform that allows artists to help build and develop their fan base But not only that starting with their brand and their actual marketing infrastructure So they can cut out the middleman in their own process and actually have a true Success that they can repeat right their own systems their own formula because there is no One size fits all when it comes to the music industry We help you find your fit and it's not a one-off consultation You have the ability to build ongoing relationships with the mentors and other resources within brand man network.com So we can understand that yo, this isn't just a plug and play This artist right here literally is dealing with an investor situation This artist right here is currently about to get signed by our record label And we're trying to tell them what the negotiation should look like and this other person right here They just need to get their content game heavy. So then maybe one day they can get in a position where they can build their fan base We do this very well And it's all about building a relationship So we can get you where you need to be versus trying one particular system or one course and hoping that it works for you So of course is that you or you have any artists or manager friends that you think might be interested Tell them to check out brand man network.com and let's get back to this interview. All right. Um Like with what you're doing today Like obviously those are beginnings But how would you best say it looks like for Add was our today because are you have these big celebrities? But can't anybody Just sign up to pay for you guys services. Have you split it off into different types of services? So we got a triangle. So our triangle is basically Celebrities who have over a million followers. We help them monetize it. So now we kind of have a play with instagram So it drops down to like 500k now to start monetizing with us And that's the whole monetization strategy. So we help you with video monetization Sponsor polls, you know different ways to make money on social media then the next Part of the triangle is actually helping those people who have a great story Have a great product and we basically give them a signed team So they don't have to worry about doing anything because a lot of people they're confused on what to go What a start or they feel like they they got themselves to a certain level and they just plateaued So we help them With pairing them up with the right influencers to get their message out and the right strategy Proving strategy 90 day strategy on on figuring out what their go-to message is to go to market with And we help them launch it with content viral content And they get we give them a whole social media team to either be a part of their team Or if they don't have a team we become their team and That part is like our growth x part of the program And then we have our influencer marketing program where it's like these these companies who want to use our celebrities you know They like well spec we know you got all these celebrities like let us not only use you to help grow our social media, but let us Come in and use you guys to help sell our product So we started to influence the marketing leg of the company And now we started helping different personality brands and companies from fortune 500 companies startups Start launching their products and really get them going with like a minimum 35k budget They come in they submit the budget and we do a campaign dna what we basically figure out who's actually Who's actually the people who are want to buy from you? So we look at the influencers and we see who has a certain infinity score or a certain, you know Score that I can pull through my technology and find out who's The people who will actually buy from you. So like savings if you're left, right? We can find the influencers that have a huge Huge demographic that loves uber 80 percent of the following loves uber So we'll find those different pages and then we'll put the offer in front a lift offer in front of them We know they love uber already uber never even promoted with this influencer So we come in and we go snag all uber influencers and uber followers and customers off a campaign with lift and we kind of like Built technology around it like that so we can really get to the masses and we use different celebrities to actually do it At the same time with using, you know, different paid media methods and and running through our technology and then we realized that That triangle that everybody couldn't be in that triangle. So what we did was not only We figured out a way to package everything up for the average person to come in and join Our academy where we actually teach everything we do in that triangle So we teach you, you know, how to build your social media We teach you how to build content. We teach you how to do lead generation marketing Leadership credit like all these different themes. That's actually going to help you build on your brand because I really thought about people in general and the things that People go through go to college and they end the debt right that you in a hundred thousand dollar debt You get out of college. You can't even find a job or you get out of college You do find a job, but then the extra money you made you went to college for to make extra money You paying back and damn student loans. So I just feel like it's a huge a huge huge huge um Gap, you know, and I feel like it's kind of scammy when it comes to college, right? And then I end up going to Harvard just to see What I was missing right and think and make sure I can take what I'm saying and make sure I can prove Out what I'm saying. So I will end up going actually got my Harvard shirt on right now but But actually I went I went to Harvard just to see what they was teaching and see what I can actually add in my program and some some ways that they're teaching teaching methods and You know figure out ways that I can help prove what I'm saying right back up and What I realized is It's things that they're not teaching like in school. They're not teaching you how to Manage your money. What's the difference between the LLC? S corp or C corp taxes credit leadership You know things that you need to know To become successful in life and they they're not teaching that so instead of being a person that actually complains About what's going on and not doing nothing I'm an action-based person like if I have an issue or something I come up with a solution in my company and life and relationships and business everything And I felt like this is a way not only to get people who can't afford that triangle that I was talking about earlier But actually help more individuals, you know, get out of debt when you join my program You're not in all this debt. So at least you you invest in yourself But now you don't have to be in debt within the first two three months You're making money or you're growing your followers to get more Credibility more social proof to make more money and we teach you all the skills to bring in You know all the revenue you want as long as you're dedicated to your craft and we have Million dump teachers so instead of professors We actually have people killing it right now as we speak with million dollar companies Multi-million dollar companies hundred million dollar companies eight figures six figures seven figures like and we have Not even six figures my bad. So it's seven seven eight and nine figure businesses Yeah, yeah, that's teaching in the program and That was the difference like all right cool Professors teaching but already doing the stuff that they're talking about right now in their own business Like I feel like if I want to become a fit person Like I want to go to a bodybuilder who already killing it guy who won awards in bodybuilding the guy Who's number one. That's who I want to learn from that's who I want to get fit from And uh get fit with and be my trainer and things like that And I take the took the same approach with my academy. It's like yo these dudes are killing it This guy is you know doing millions in revenue off his agency This guy is two million dollars. This girl does sales and she's she did 1.2 million dollars off her sales strategy So everybody who's actually powerful in their niche and in their expertise. I got the teach that in my program So it's called at was our academy. That's my university and then um The program that i'm pushing right now is my entrepreneur nva program, which is entrepreneur a master in mastering business affluence which stands for master in business wealth and teaching everything you need to know to build wealth in the community and for your family So Yeah, that's those so you really created your own college basically for real basically. Yeah So I always say that next I like I have a true. This is an ongoing thing with me I've been wanting to reform education personally in some form of fashion the year just because of stuff in college Like you said it's not necessarily applicable or it's so high level Right like even if you're in marketing maybe it's changing today probably in some programs. Hopefully marketing is the worst though Exactly because if you learned something three years ago, and then you finally get out of school and apply now It don't work no more exactly And it's like when I was realizing that some people weren't even doing like facebook ads and things like that in college Like I mean and that's pretty much how everything is moving outside of that Exactly whether you're teaching me when am I learning why am I paying all this money to use something? I can't even use all you basically giving me is a is a degree That once I get to my workspace and they asked me to do a facebook ad launch a facebook ad. I can't even do it man, I to me Colleges at the end of the day are just a brand and you really just go on to flip the brand Hopefully you can flip that branch some money and it don't work exactly I think college is basically about networking if you're not taking that approach and Going to a ivy league school. I feel like for networking. I feel like college is not I think college is good to learn Right, but it's way better things out there right now on in the internet that can teach you way faster than college can And get you a a result way faster than college can if you literally go and you study the top 10 books in your niche Right and you go take the top 10 programs in your niche It'll probably take you six months to do so And you'll already be making money within the seven month and have more experience and the ability to generate wealth with that and listening to podcasts and Reading blogs and and other than being in college all day in like every single every single week you at college and you in all Is debt and and then those programs that you buy is probably going to cause what two two grand a piece five grand Get some mastermind groups. You like by time by the time you spend 50 grand Max probably like even 20 grand Probably like 20 grand max and some books and some masterminds like you're literally 25 grand and you way more Influenced you than a person that wouldn't call it for four years 100% man 100% that's a Like if I think of a lot more people like just hear that snippet of what you just said and actually take that route it'll be surprising on Like the impact that they can have but absolutely because listen if you take if like if you took 150 grand Right, if that's how much you own college and you took that 150 grand and you joined elite mastermind groups And you got into those mastermind groups for 25 grand 25 grand You're around people are making 10 million dollars 15 million dollars the shit they can teach you in those mastermind groups Is unbelievable on the things that you can actually come together and not only Network with these people but now you have access to these people and now you're able to do things that the regular college person Couldn't do with a four-year degree That's just how I see it So if you're not going in thinking about networking and building a relationship with the people that's in those ivy league schools I don't really see I don't really see that being the most effective way the most effective way to use your time 100% bro. I I agree and you can tell you that from somebody who went to college and I and I hated the whole time I was there, but I was like, you know what I did I did it for my mom, but Yeah, I I agree 100 man There's something specific that you say and that your company says that I want to figure out. How do you guys differentiate, right? So many people say that they can grow your your social media but you guys specifically say We're the number one company for monetization through social media What's the difference than just growing social media and how you can just and how you monetize social media So we've been doing this for so long I I like we figured out every single way to monetize like right now video monetization is on steroids, right? I know guys who don't even have companies making hundred grand a month off of this and this is all people in my space So when I put my hands on it, I'm gonna 10x it every single time so My team understands this world We understand what makes money. We understand what uh when uh trend is coming and we capitalize off the trend You know it was one trend off of facebook facebook watch videos, you know Me and my team was making a million dollars a week Off for three days a million dollars. So it's like those different trends come and go But we understand it so well It's hard for people to compete with us and we have so many people as That's inside of Those trends we connect it like we have so many of those guys working for my company So it's hard for you to compete. So if you have a brand there's no way for us not to know how to monetize it So if it's e-commerce or if it's you know sponsor posts if it's ad breaks on facebook if it's Whatever it is if it's selling programs funnels like we We take pride in really figuring out. What's the next wave? What's the new it and making sure that We're ahead of the curve at all times because things change all the time Like one of my competitors would make a 45 million a year and just went out of business At a snap of a finger because they didn't see the change coming And if you not if you in this business and you can't see the change coming before it comes You're dead and that's just how social media work and you got to be ahead of the curve My team we take pride in understanding what's going on and what's next Interesting that's so that's why you do so many things because you just realize I can't say Oh, yeah, we do this one thing even though you might be able to capitalize off of that one thing for a period of time You know, like you said 40 might make 45 million dollars just doing one specific or a few specific parts types of Cap monetization, but That trend changes then yeah, I think I think for me it's just everything really goes together so Celebrities need sponsors So that's influence of marketing and people who want to be celebrities need a machine behind them to make them celebrities So it just go hand in hand. It's just a big triangle and then the celebrities themselves They need to grow their following even more and they need money from Advertisers so like everything goes together and then I just realized that School system is broke and then the things that I'm doing for my company other people can utilize the skill set And instead of me just coming in and teaching I have my team teaching another millionaire successful friends and mentors teaching also so it's like something I can I can change the way people teach and learn and change the way the culture is Looked at you know and because now you have these different skill sets that you have to offer that other people don't so That's that's my game plan. That's how I look at things Got you now. I got two primary questions that I like to end with the first one is What's the difference between being an entrepreneur? and a musician But I mean I definitely think It all depends. It's it's it's two type of Musicians you have musicians that All artsy and all they care about is the craft and then you have the musicians that understand the business so The ones who's just all artsy and like musically and all that Type of vibe of what they consider themselves as they're more of It's really more like of a puppet honestly is like you know when when somebody decide to pull your screens and make you jump or whatever like you really At the next person beck and call it's up to to them unless you really Well, you still got to know the business is hard So anybody who's just a hundred percent on the creative side is like I feel for them Because it's not longevity. You got to wait for somebody to do stuff for you Right. Yeah some some some pull it off But majority of the people don't So you'll see somebody like spike like they'll have this huge career and then they just flat line and you never hear from them again Or they have this huge career and then the label decide they don't want to deal with them no more They cut them off drop them from the label. You never They never make a comeback Versus the artists who understand the business They might have a huge spike and then end up signing somebody else and now they got a huge spike And like it lives on like that or the people who did make that huge spike They took advantage of the relationships of the business and they set themselves up for For a bigger a bigger uh future. So I would definitely say for a entrepreneur side It's kind of the same thing. It's like you always got to reinvent yourself You always got to be creative. You always got to figure out how to touch the people It's like it's the same thing right and just becoming better and better every single day Like if you look at everybody who's successful in music as a musician They all jumped into the entrepreneur side. If you look at rihanna right now, she's killing it off of her cosmetics or or her makeup line or whatever you want to call it You look at jz. He just hit a billion dollars. If you look at everything I want to analyze everything He's doing i'm like oh i'm doing that i'm doing that i'm doing that I was like i'm on my way if you look at if you really break down what jz did right he took His music stuff. He just didn't throw it to the side. He's like, all right, you know what i'm doing concerts And i'm getting paid peanuts from the promoter. Even if I get paid Million dollars. They're making 20 million dollars. So why the hell am I getting a million dollars just to perform? So let me come in on a partnership in Partner with live nation and then once I partner with live nation learning in and out And then from that point forward I could launch my own stuff So he ended up doing that and then he ended up signing other artists and creating an agency part of it When now he's he's representing sports talent He's representing artists and he said listen if you want to go on tour I'm assigned to exclusive agreement and now I get to make all the money I cut you the check and I'm the promoter. So This is all stuff that's in the works for me. So the same thing So bum you got rock nation put to the side and then you have next is his streaming platform digital a digital product Which is my digital product, which is my academy. So he has his digital product. I have my digital product His is streaming mines is education Then the next thing you look at is a product do say and then ace of spade So a physical product right now I'm in a process of launching a physical product is not done yet So I don't like talk about stuff until it's done ready to launch But I can basically take the place of a physical product and just say hey I got my agency which is not really a scalable model So that's why it's good to actually have a product Right. So instead of actually having a physical product. I just got a I just got multiple digital products for right now until I launched My physical product and then you have a huge real estate portfolio. So same thing real estate ring current revenue passive income Boom, that's done. So it's like everything that he did I'm pretty much doing the same thing right and he had a bigger he had a Better chance to really scale in his up faster because he had his Recalable that took off and he took all that revenue that he earned from that which was millions And he reinvented he did the right thing with his money 40 40 club and he created partnerships and and he really like He's smart as hell and and he really took advantage of his money versus the normal Guy who's on the artist side don't do that They go buy cars and chains and and all this stuff instead of investing me I started from a $60,000 soundest change check, you know and turning into millions within a year So i'm on a it's a slower bill for me Versus comparing me to jz the way he really just took off and made the decisions he made But honestly, you really just one decision one partnership away from blowing the hell up and I understand that it's about products And it's about digital products. I mean physical products and digital products You look at dr. Dre. He had the beats he did the deal I think was her real what his name was Whatever the executive name was he did the deal with beats they got bought out for like three billion dollars or something like that And he made all his money not awful music. He took his He took his name and likeness and he turned it into a business venture And he took advantage of it. It was a product and blew the hell up Boom now. He's close to a billionaire, you know, so all these things is based on products Diddy like I could do I could talk about this all day everything is based on products And digital and then you have some some form of like agency model or things like that. So Yeah, my billion coming soon trust me I love the fact that you are truly like studying it and not just see one thing and say let me go do that thing Trying to trying to catch a wave. It's already done like oh this person has liquor now. Let me get liquor Oh, no, no, no, no, no No, like that's dope Yeah, so what what I got taught from one of my mentors is if everybody is jumping on it Stay away from it And my mentor I'm talking about is warm buffet and not because I know him personally But because I study him as a mentor just because you don't know somebody personally You don't mean they came into are you so I I listen to him He's like listen if everybody jumping on you stay away from it Like even when he buy his real estate or or if he buy his investments if everybody jumping on something That's when you stay away and then when everybody running. That's when you go towards it It was like when that when the when the when the market crashing 2009 everybody was running away from real estate But the wealthy and the rich Realize everything they they look that as in a different light. They're like, oh shit. It's on discount Like this is on the discount rack. Let me buy everything everybody like oh don't don't don't I mean don't Invest in real estate the market is crashing All the rich people like let me get this let me get that let me get this let me get that And then what is already at rock bottom? So guess what it has to go back up So everybody jumping on liquor and then you missed that boat already that boat is gone That's in nobody can squeeze in but the possibility that you just popping off for some damn liquor is like I think that wave is gone. So It's going to be some people that get in but for majority of the people who think about doing something You want to have a high success rate is not going to be something that already popped up Dope dope man. All right, so my last question is Leadership and this book specifically because one that's something that I'm constantly working on my Self especially with my businesses and having to really get to the point where I'm taking on more and more people as opposed to like putting everything on my back And specifically I'm asking you because I remember hearing you say something about leadership I don't know. I can't remember where it was part of my podcast probably um so I just want to hear you talk a little bit about Those experiences and how you approach leadership because it was crazy to me just that You basically was like you're transparent where you're like, I didn't really know how to lead Oh, you're talking about my interview. Okay. Oh, that's what that was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so yeah that Right there. I just want to see that mentality. How you made that switch and how you approach it now Yeah, so for me When I started my company, I knew nothing about a company like I said, I didn't get educated on none of this stuff And that's why I'm a former firm believer in like self education because everything I'm doing right now I just literally learn from books programs Mentors and mastermind groups every single thing Podcast books like that's everything I learned from so and I have a multi-million dollar company within like a year So I knew nothing about that. So I had to study leadership. I had to read You know, how to how to win friends influence people. I had to read what got you here won't get you there and um Goldsmith books so it's like leaders good leaders and their books and figuring out how to lead And think and grow rich but so different things that that develop a mindset and then realizing how to understand people emotional intelligence And I didn't know any of these things. So I was the person that came in and like in that interview I was like having a conversation with my team and they did something I didn't like And in the in the meeting one of my employees was like, hey, well, I thought, you know, it was it was We was a team like I thought that this was like everybody company And I was like, no, this is my company saying nobody company but mines. I said, oh my god I looked I Talked back to what I said. I was like, what was I thinking once I start reading these leadership books and And taking these leadership programs and things like that. I was like, wow I fucked up Right I'm like and if you want to edit that part I messed up Right and basically and basically I realized that in order for you to lead a team correctly, they have to feel a sense of ownership so if they don't feel like they're a part of it and You're not giving them credit. I used to take all the credit. I used to post stuff. I'm like, yeah I'm killing it and know my team. I knew my team did it. I know I didn't do it But I come in and like because I'm the face. So I'm just like taking like I'm just showing the work Like I'm like, yo, we up here killing it. Like I'm out here And I'm not even like giving no credit or anything like that. So damn I realized that people want they credit people want they praise And people want self a sense of ownership. So once I realized that I started praising my team for things they did I don't care how small it is if it's a win It's a win and I'm celebrating I have the whole company celebrated together We in a clapping chair and high-fiving every single Accomplishment just to get everybody morale up and keep that up, right? And giving them credit for things they do if they got a page that they grew to a million followers Hey, if it was if it was josh's josh, if it was autumn is autumn if it's martha's martha like whoever whoever it is Give them their praise. That's who did it. That's who part of my team tagging them This the person like because that's what it's about. It ain't about me because at the end of the day I'm just the ceo they have to run the ship, you know, they all I could do is steer the ship But they have to paddle and you know get the ship the way I gotta go So if they down and not inspired then There's only so much I can do from the top They got to put the work in so you have to give them their credit And they have to understand that this is our vision. This is our vision together, right? I'm just the ceo But at the end of the day, you know the vision that we're coming up with together Right. This is our vision. This is what we believe in. This is our Values, this is our mission. This is when we go left. We go left together when we go right We go right together and everybody lead together jackal Extreme ownership is a great book too. And what he said in that book was jackal Um, he basically said Is no such steam as a bad team only a such thing as a bad leader So when he said that I thought about it like wow Because he had an example in this book. He was like one one boat They had like a boat race and boat one or whatever. I don't know the numbers of the boat, but boat one kept losing Coming in last place and then boat two was killing it boat two was killing it every single time and boat one was blaming it on his people like Yo, they not paddling hard enough. They're not doing this. They know I'm doing that You know they kept coming in last and then he was like, you know what? He took boat one and he gave the lead that the person who was leading the ship to boat two And the person that was on boat two went to boat one And what he did was he basically was encouraging him and pushing him was like you got this you got this like go Let's go coming up with a screen a strategy as a team and and everything he did was was learned from his mistakes He took the ownership when things went wrong and he really started pushing his team and then boom all of a sudden boat two star coming in third place And boat one that was last came in first Man, so it just proves that it wasn't it was the same people But different leaders Yeah, and then when then when you realized that wow, he motivated his people he inspired his people You know, he he gave the credit to his people He took ownership for when things went wrong because I used to be the person to point fingers in my company Oh, it's your fault. It's your fault. But in reality, you really look at anything that has to do with my company is my fault If you're not doing your job, if you missed a meeting of you not, you know Given sitting out reports if you not that mean it's something missing So I go to my team and how can I help you? How can I help you more? What can I do to make this better? Right, what tools do you need? Maybe they don't have enough tools and I figure out what do they need? And then I I help you know, I help them out and and I give them I give them support And I take ownership when things go wrong No matter what because if they didn't send that email out Maybe I need a system in place to make sure they can send that email a lot on time And figure out what I need to do as the leader to fix that issue for them Got it That's dope man. Look that's Yeah, that's that's dope now. I love that perspective especially since you were on one end and shifted I think that's more powerful than actually just being in one place the whole time because you understand both sides and What's required to transition to see your own fault and transition is even even more powerful Hey man, well, thank you again everybody. I hope you guys are inspired by and just just his Have your journey right because I want to commend you of this self education Right the the self awareness to realize the lack of skills you have in some places To and then be able to go get those skills or be able to identify where those skills take place And then actually achieve you and which is that that is a muscle That's a science and journey Individually internally in itself So I definitely want to commend you for that and I definitely hope everybody can take those things away from this interview Or once again as you guys know as always this video is brought to you by brand man network Because I sign myself if you like this video go ahead and like but if you like you might as well share it And if you're not subscribed, you know what to do hit that subscribe, but it's the mat work