How Sam Gaudet Grew Dan Martell to 10 Million Followers

Summary

Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship For Your Life & Business

Episode: How Sam Gaudet Grew Dan Martell to 10 Million Followers

Host: Brian Luebben
Guest: Sam Gaudet
Date: March 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Brian Luebben sits down with Sam Gaudet, the driving force behind Dan Martell’s explosive growth to over 10 million followers and eight-figure annual revenues. The discussion dives deep into the operational playbooks, content strategies, and the core principles that fueled this meteoric rise, offering a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it truly takes to build a transformational media empire in the creator economy. Together, they dissect actionable strategies for replacing a job you hate with a business and life you love, aimed at high performers ready to escape the rat race.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Car Gift” Story: Building Culture through Recognition

Timestamp: [01:37 – 04:05]

• Brian recalls seeing a viral video where Dan Martell gifts Sam a Porsche GT4—Sam’s dream car.
• Sam: The gesture stemmed from Dan’s commitment to “dreaming big with his team” and knowing what motivated Sam.
• “He just started talking about our journey together... and when he gave me the keys, I just didn’t believe it.” ([03:35], Sam)
• The story illustrates how companies can create loyalty and motivation by deeply investing in their people’s goals.

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2. Redefining Excellence through Proximity & Mentorship

Timestamp: [04:05 – 08:32]

• Sam shares how working with Dan from age 16 shaped his sense of “excellence,” giving him direct access to success playbooks.
• Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: Find the most successful people in your city and get as close as possible—proximity is power.
• “If you want to achieve greatness, find someone who’s done it a thousand times—and learn from them directly.” ([06:09], Sam)

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3. The Value of Action & Follow-up in Networking

Timestamp: [06:34 – 11:44]

• Sam’s networking mantra: Don’t ask “How can I add value?” Instead, ask a specific question, take action on the answer, and follow up with results.
• “99.9% of people do nothing with that advice. Be the 1% that does something. Be the 0.001% that follows up and tells them how it impacted you.” ([07:30], Sam)
• Brian agrees, demonstrating with his own example from real estate, and describes the “proof of action” loop.

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4. Age as an Advantage – Curiosity vs. Competence

Timestamp: [11:25 – 12:24]

• In your teens and twenties, curiosity is a superpower; in your thirties and beyond, leverage competence and experience.
• “Curiosity is your advantage in your twenties, competence in your thirties and forties.” ([11:25], Brian)

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5. Building a Media Empire: The Real Metrics that Matter

Timestamp: [12:38 – 15:28]

• Sam describes growing the Martell Media engine to 10M followers and 200M+ monthly views, but stresses that only three metrics matter:
  • Followers gained
  • Views
  • Revenue
• “Those are only vanity metrics. What I’m really proud of is eight figures in recurring revenue.” ([13:28], Sam)
• They review the evolution from tracking “views” to tracking followers and, ultimately, revenue per follower.

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6. Followers Over Vanity: Content that Converts

Timestamp: [17:18 – 18:19]

• Both Brian and Sam found that optimizing for views alone creates shallow growth; it’s the follower-to-view ratio that reflects genuine impact.
• “We focus on making content that actually converts to followers, not just racks up cheap views.” ([18:16], Sam)

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7. Mastering Topic Fit and Brand Positioning

Timestamp: [18:19 – 22:54]

• The importance of aligning content topics with ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): Core, Casual, and New Audience Fit (Patty Galloway’s CCN Fit).
• “Who do you want to sell to first? Work backwards from your ideal customer.” ([20:33], Sam)
• Example: Dan Martell’s brand remains consistent even on relationship content—always through the lens of business.

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8. Going Pro: From Marketing Department to Full Media Company

Timestamp: [24:50 – 27:55]

• Turning from a “guy with a phone” or “marketing department” into a real media company is the leap that professionalizes branding.
• Three phases of building your media machine:
  1. Editor/VA phase—DIY, getting reps in.
  2. Pro phase—bring in a creative director and build an in-house team.
  3. Channel-owner phase—each platform (IG, YT, FB, TikTok) has its own owner/revenue responsibility.

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9. Content Monetization Models: Traditional vs. Non-Traditional

Timestamp: [28:00 – 30:41]

• Traditional (ads, sponsorships) require massive scale and have diminishing incremental value.
• Non-traditional (coaching, consulting, done-for-you services, group programs) allow for higher LTV per follower and scalable revenue.
• “Know your revenue per follower and acquisition cost per follower. Treat media as CAC/LTV like any business.” ([29:40], Sam)

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10. The Secret: Default to Service & Leverage Life Experience

Timestamp: [33:59 – 35:43]

• Document your journey, help people for free, collect feedback, and build offers tailored to real needs.
• “The reason most creators get 10x results is they’ve actually done something—they have life experience to share.” ([34:23], Sam)
• “Default to service, not to selling. Do cool shit and talk about it.” ([35:20], Sam)

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11. Personal Brand Differentiator: Useful Beats Interesting

Timestamp: [40:03 – 41:43]

• The “meta-skill” is to be useful, not just interesting. Focus on specific problems your ICP faces; document unique, 0-to-1 experiences no one else can claim.
• “Stop trying to be interesting, start being useful.” ([40:10], Brian)

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12. Building a Multi-Character Media Brand: Avengers Analogy

Timestamp: [42:04 – 44:27]

• New frontier: business brands with multiple “faces” (Like Disney, Marvel). Diversify your reach by adding characters.
• “We’re going to build the Avengers of business… to reach a broader total addressable market.” ([43:09], Sam)
• Reduces “key-man risk” and increases enterprise value.

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13. Platform Strategy: Practical Playbook (Rapid Fire)

Timestamp: [58:00 – 59:49]

• LinkedIn: Use info-dense image carousels/infographics ([58:16])
• TikTok: High posting volume; each piece should have a single, actionable tip ([58:41])
• Facebook: More volume than TikTok, repost top content multiple times ([58:50])
• Instagram: Post 2–3 videos daily; maximize engagement by actively replying to comments and DMs ([59:10])
• Email: Weekly actionable newsletters; run quarterly challenges to boost monetization ([59:34])
• YouTube: Prioritize quality over quantity; even 12 high-quality videos/year can outperform volume ([59:50])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Be the 0.001% that actually acts on advice and follows up—that’s how you get mentorships that change your life.” — Sam ([07:30])
• “Curiosity is your advantage in your 20s. Competence is your advantage in your 30s and 40s.” — Brian ([11:25])
• “If you want to build the Disney of business, you need multiple characters.” — Sam ([43:09])
• “Default to service… You’ll build life experience a lot faster, and can do cool stuff, talk about it, and win.” — Sam ([35:20])
• “Shitty content is still shit content—no setting or hack will change that. It starts with a killer idea and clear structure.” — Sam ([45:10])
• “Stop trying to be interesting. Start trying to be useful.” — Brian ([40:10])

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Frameworks & Action Steps

How to Connect with Mentors:

1. Ask a specific, context-light question.
2. Take action on their advice immediately.
3. Follow up with proof/results.
4. Repeat and deepen the relationship. ([07:30])

Building Content that Converts:

• Focus on ideas that have “demand” and “audience fit.”
• Use CCN Fit (Core, Casual, New) to filter your topics.
• Track three key metrics: Revenue, Followers, Views.

Content Creation Framework (HOOK-EXPLAIN-ILLUSTRATE-TEACH):

• Start with a powerful hook
• Explain the context
• Illustrate with story/analogy
• Teach a clear, actionable next step ([45:10])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:37] – The story behind Dan gifting Sam a car
• [04:42] – Redefining “excellence” via mentorship
• [07:30] – Sam’s “networking hack” for landing top mentors
• [13:28] – Metrics that matter in content businesses
• [18:19] – Topic fit and the “CCN” approach
• [24:50] – Going pro: from DIY to building a media team
• [29:40] – Content monetization: revenue per follower
• [34:23] – The true differentiator: life experience
• [40:10] – “Stop trying to be interesting. Start trying to be useful.”
• [43:09] – The ‘Avengers’ playbook for media brands
• [58:00] – Platform rapid fire: tactical playbook

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Closing Advice

Sam: “Follow my frameworks and you will get results. DM me the word ‘topic’ on Instagram and I’ll send you my custom GPT for generating viral topics.” ([60:25])

Brian: “If you want to stand out, act quickly on the advice, show your results, and you’ll earn the attention you’re seeking.”

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Action Links

• Follow Sam Gaudet: @samdogged
• Learn more about the podcast & Brian: Action Academy

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Takeaway:
To build a thriving personal brand and scalable education business, relentlessly focus on serving your ideal customer, track the metrics that drive your business (revenue, followers, views), default to making yourself useful, and don’t wait for perfection—start documenting, sharing, and iterating today.

Transcript

[A]

Sam, welcome. Long time coming. Dude, I feel like we've been boys forever and we haven't really been able to have too much time to hang out in person, but we're just like, we got the bromance, like through the Instagram DMs. I've been following everything you and your girlfriend have been doing. You've been following us. It's just freaking awesome, man.

[B]

Yeah, dude, I appreciate it. I'm fucking pumped for this. Long time coming.

[A]

For somebody that's brand new, they have no idea who you are. First time seeing your face, hearing your voice, give yourself a 60 second power pitch about freaking wild ride. We're about to go on a value.

[B]

Yeah. No pressure, no pressure. I've been in the trenches over eight years. Dan Martell's Curve Director, G channels from under 100k across all platforms, over 10 million. So quite a bit of growth. And I'm probably the only like operator that's been with the same creator for that long and also got those results. So I think it's going to be interesting conversation, distilling all the frameworks and principles that I had to go through and all the learnings and the hardship and all the problems I had to deal with along the way. So yeah, that's gonna be this dude. High level.

[A]

We'll get into branding, we'll get into content, we'll get into what's working today, what's not working, why you should think about brand, how you should think about brand. But I actually wanna start with a specific video which is one of my favorite videos that I've ever seen and it inspired how I do business. And that was I come from a corporate background, so I don't know what your background was before working with Dan, but I come from a place where it's like I'm a number on a spreadsheet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, I was number eight out of 5,079 sales reps in a, in a Fortune 500. But at the end of the day, I was as replaceable as somebody else. And so you're just really employee number 492 to them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When I saw a video of Dan gifting you the car, I was like, that's how business should be. So walk us through that story. Because when I saw that, I was just like. That immediately went on my bucket list as a business owner, as something I wanted to do for my team.

[B]

Yeah. Which a lot of people also had that thought too, which is really cool. And I think it's cool that it spread like Wildfire once, you know, he posted it and then all these other pages picked it up. And then all of a sudden, everybody's texting me. And it was super cool how it happened, but this goes back to vision, right? And Dan always invited everybody on the team to dream big. And so I've had a white Porsche GT4 on my lock screen for, like, four years throughout building the company with him. And he obviously knew, like, he would check on my phone, you know, see what the car was. And it was the same car. That's all the car I wanted since I was, like, 16. And, you know, like, this was 2024. We obviously got some really good results the last year and a half. I had been on his team at that time for, I think, four to five years. Yeah, four to five years. And, you know, obviously he wanted to bless me up. And I remember the day I was actually landing, we were landing from la, and he's like, bro, I got to go to the car dealership to go check out some cars. You want to come? And I'm like, you know, I hadn't seen my girlfriend at the time for, like, a month. And I'm like, dude, I don't want to go.

[A]

Like, you don't need another car. Like, I got to go see my girl.

[B]

And he's like, no, dude, I really think you should come. Like, you said it like that. And I'm like, oh, something's up. Like, there's something going on. And so we show up to the place and, you know, I walk in and I see the white GT4 on the pedestal in the corner of my eye. And I thought he was going to make me buy it because he'd been, like, telling me to buy the car, like, telling me to, like, treat myself, because obviously he paid me a lot of money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And. And I thought he was going to, like, show me the contract and, like, make me sign on it and be like, hey, this is your car.

[A]

Like, go. Time to move up.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Destiny. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And then obviously went around the dealership, came around, saw the car on the pedestal, and he just started talking about, you know, our journey together and everything that's happened since then. And then, you know, when he gave me the keys, I just. I didn't believe it. I think what I said was, like, fuck you. You know, I mean, like, I didn't actually believe that. You know, I thought that was the craziest thing to do as a business owner. But looking back, I think it, you know, obviously made sense. And I'm extremely Grateful. Like, even two years later, I still drive the car every day and. Yeah, forever grateful for that.

[A]

Dude, it's been two years. That's freaking insane to think about. Dude, we have known each other for a second. That is. That's crazy to think about. Yeah, man. So I want to. I want to talk a little bit about. Each one of us has, like, mentors and people that we get into their orbit and into their wake. I like the phrase, like, surf in somebody's wake. And you're like, what I thought excellence was actually was pretty mediocre. And now I have reevaluated and redefined what excellence looks like. And so I'm curious, when you entered Dan's world, what was your previous definition of excellence and how's that shifted over the years?

[B]

I think I had no definition. When I think that's what's unique about me is I joined dance team when I was 16 years old. Like, not a lot of people realize I'm 24 today. Like, I'm not 30, I'm not 35. So I've only been, you know, in business for maybe eight years. But those eight years were like, pretty much all my development years. So I had no definition of like, what success looked like when I was 16. And I think I just got lucky, you know, maybe by design, maybe God's grace, but I was able to find somebody like Dan that, you know, had all the playbooks and the knowledge and obviously was really successful in at the time. And I was able to learn from him because I think that's what a lot of people don't realize is, like, Dan was rich before I even met him. And I met him eight years ago.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And so, like, before all the fame, before all the stuff that happened in the last two years, like, he was already a really successful entrepreneur. And I think if you're a young guy growing up and you're also looking to redefine success for you, you want to get like a better definition or get access to playbooks. I would just ask myself, like, who's the richest guy in your city and how can you spend more time with them? Because that's what I did. Like, I was like, you know, I wrote down a list of people in my city when I was 16 of people that, you know, I knew were around, that had money, and I wanted to get closer to them. And then I started working for, you know, Dan's videographer at the time, and then kind of moved up into a full time position. But I think that's. That's the cheat code to achieving greatness in life. Because you can go from, you know, 0 to 10 to 10 to 1 a thousand times and not learn anything. But if you go find somebody who's done the thing a thousand times and you go learn from them directly, then you're going to get a lot closer to your goals.

[A]

What's the. What's the difference between. Cause everybody wants a mentor.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Everybody's like, oh, yeah, I want to reach out to that person. And they reach out and they're like, how can I add value to you? How can I add value to you? And it's the worst question you ask somebody that has unlimited resources but very limited time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So how do you stand out in an environment where you have thousands of people sending dms saying, how can I add value? How do you be the one person that leads with value?

[B]

Yeah. This is kind of something that I don't think a lot of people listening would agree with, but it's something that I truly believe about networking and getting access to, you know, high, high influence people. I don't think you should actually do anything for those people. I think you should ask a simple question, because people like me, people like you, and people way bigger than us, all they want to do is help people. That's why they're at. They're where they're at. And so if. If you ask a simple question right. To anyone, and they get back to you, and then this is the key, take action on their advice. And then after that, circle back on the result that you got that that person's gonna get. Be way more likely to give you more advice in the future, dude. Right? And so that's the fulfilling loop, which is in every single relationship that I have. You know, every mentor that's ever mentored me in the past, I always started with a simple question. Whether it's like going to an event and asking a question in the crowd or asking a really clear, simple DM, which was a lot easier, you know, four or five years ago. Now DMs are fucking full. Or, you know, somehow meeting them in person and asking them a question. But I always would ask them a question, simple question with limited context, like, don't give them a fucking life story. Be like, hey, this is my problem. What do you think I should do? And they'll give you a really clear answer. 99.9% of people would do nothing with that advice. Be the 1% and do something with that advice, and Then be the 0.001% that follows up and tells them much it impacted you in your life. And that way they realize that you're a student of the game and you're gonna execute on every single piece of advice that you're. They're gonna give you. After that, like, it's locked. And I could count em, you know, one hand, five of the biggest mentors that I've had in my life that had the most impact on my life. It all started like that. And I would keep following up, Hey, I did, I did that. I got this result, I did that, I got this result. And then they give you the next task and then you keep doubling down. And that's, that's. If this podcast could be distilled to one single thing that, you know, young guys have to figure out, it'd be that one thing.

[A]

That's exactly what I did.

[B]

Heck yeah, dude.

[A]

I've been talking about that for five years.

[B]

Let's go. It's crazy.

[A]

No, it's exactly what I did. And I tell people, I'm like, when you DM somebody, I like, I need to create a framework for this. But it's like when you, when you DM somebody, instead of asking, how can I add value to you? It's like you do first, you do your research, you go to them and say, hey, like if some. So I got started in real estate and so it's just like, hey, you're doing multi family apartments. You know, hey, I'm looking at multifamily apartments. My goal is to get like, here's my buy box, class B in this environment. Like, I want this location, this buy box. I'm already looking at 20 deals, so you're showing proof of action without them, you know, like, I've got this very specific question because I know that this is your thing. Like when you're looking at your tenant agreements, what do you think about this? And if you ask a very specific question like that in a paragraph, they'll respond and then, or they'll give you a book or they'll give you a podcast and then you go read the book. You listen to the podcast. Immediately after you finish, I take a screenshot I like showed where I highlighted something in the book or like circled something, send it back to them. Dude, it's, it's really effort.

[B]

Yeah, Money's made in the follow up. Not just in sales, but in networking too. Like, if you follow up to all your mentors, you will 100% have them pour more into you.

[A]

Yeah, I have, I have a take and I want your take on it as well because. So you said you what, 23? 24.

[B]

24, yeah.

[A]

I think that the biggest risk that the biggest risk in your 20s is like. And the biggest kind of mistake I see of people in their 20s, because now I'm 31, is that they don't take risk and they don't ask for help because they lack experience.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And to your point, with what you just said, it's like your 20s is the best time for you to ask for help. Because that's the time that somebody that's 50 or 60 years old is going to come down and say, like, oh, yeah, of course I'll help you, but if I'm 37 and I'm asking for help, they're like, dude, go pay your mortgage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, don't kick rocks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I'm curious about kind of to close kind of this chapter of the conversation, like closing advice for anybody else that's in their 20s, they're looking to get started.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's your advantage. And my age was always my advantage. I was always the youngest guy in the room. And I do, I do realize that that's extremely, you know, I'm grateful for that opportunity to be like, young and have those ideas and, and, you know, start young. That being said, like, if you're in your 30s, 40s, I still think you can ask people advice. But if you're listening to this and you're in your 20s and you're in your teens, you have the advantage over everybody else.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Just because of your age. Because if someone sees you at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, asking questions that, you know, no other 17, 19, 20 year old is asking, they're going to want to help you even more. And I'm already doing this with, you know, the people in Dan's community Kings club, where we help, you know, at risk youth or even youth in our community build businesses. Like, I'm always giving advice to young guys and the ones that take action, I give more advice to.

[A]

Yeah. I just came up with a bar, dude. So in your, in your teens and your twenties, curiosity is your advantage. And then when you're in your 30s and 40s, competence is your advantage. So it's like curious curiosity versus competence. You don't have to be good when you're 20. No, you just have to be curious and you have to follow up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's just like. But when you're 30, like, if I go to Dan now and I'm Just like, hey, I've got a question. Or if I go to you and I'm just like, hey, I've got a question but I've got no track record of, of anything. You're like, maybe you'll answer it. You're not going to be too fulfilled with it.

[B]

Yeah. Because yeah, if you meet someone that's 35 and you know, let's say nothing drastic happened in their life to stop them from taking action and they haven't done anything materialistic yet, you're like, well if I give you advice right now, you're just, this is wasted space. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where you know, if you meet a 16 year old and he's like asking you about how to start a business, you're like, hey bro, go selling, sell something to someone. And then he goes and does it and then he follows up. And I think that's a really cool place to be, especially if you're in your teens.

[A]

Freaking love it, man. So now walk us through the media empire. So like, where are you guys at today with like view count, follower count, like what are the metrics that you guys kind of use as your scoreboard whenever you're doing like a, a bumper sticker of what you've built this media machine to?

[B]

Yeah, I mean high level. We've built our media engine to over 10 million followers across all platforms. You know, 2 million on all the top platforms. So YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, almost on TikTok and you know, we get over 200 million views a month. It keeps going up. Uh, that being said, like those are only vanity metrics. Um, what I'm really proud of is it of is we've been able to generate over eight figures in revenue every single year since we started, you know, multi figures. And I think that's what's cool about the media empire is we're able to build it in a way that self fulfills and self monetizes. And that's all of, you know, what Dan teaches in his elite program and what we do at Martel Media. But I think a lot of people waste their time, you know, tracking retention, you know, likes, shares, comments. I don't think those things matter at all. All that matters is the followers that you're adding, your, the views that you're getting and the revenue that you're driving. Right. Those three metrics I think to its core is what I look at every single day daily. Because this is also the key, like a lot of people don't look at their numbers. I literally have my whole team drop Their numbers from yesterday in slack daily, weekends included. And if you stare at your numbers long enough, they'll grow because you don't want them to go sideways or down. You want them to go up into the right. And so, yeah, if you want to win, I think find the 3:2 to 3 metrics that drive your business. And for us, it's a hundred percent views, followers and revenue. And as long as those are going up into the right, that's all I focus on. Everything else else is a. There's two things, right? Leading indicators, lagging indicators. I want to track the lagging indicators so I can see exactly where we're at. But then I'm also going to focus on some leading indicators like retention, likes, shares, comments after the fact. But that's not how I track success.

[A]

Okay, that. No, that's super cool. And that's applicable to all areas of life because me and you just spoke and I got freaking fat. Yeah, I was 192 pounds.

[B]

I thought. I thought you looked jacked, dude.

[A]

Yeah, well, with a shirt on and a sweatshirt, dude. But I got a DEXA scan, you know, and for people that don't know what a DEXA scan is, it will show you like, it is the scientific best way to know what your actual body fat and lean mass is.

[B]

Yeah, it just scans your whole body.

[A]

As soon as I saw the number of 30.4% body fat, I was just like, oh, okay, 30 per. Like one third of me is just butter, dude. And that's what made me like, be like, oh, okay, I've got the data now. Like, because everybody lies with their body fat percentage. You're like, oh, I'm. I'm probably 20%. Like, yeah. And then so I immediately was able to leap into action because I knew my numbers and that's the number one thing that I see in business over and over and over again is people are either stuck or they're moving backwards just because they don't know what numbers to actually track.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So when you guys got started to your point, you have kind of your key three right now. How has that evolved over time? Like, what did you originally think was the source of truth when it comes to content in media? And now, like, how did that journey shift over time?

[B]

I mean, yeah, we used to just track views and that was our. Yeah, I think views are important. The amount of eyeballs you get is still important and I still do track it, but that's the last thing that I track, you know, as the three. The most important three, you know, Revenue first, followers second, and then views would be last. But, yeah, when we started off, it was just like, how many views did that video get? Oh, it got a million views. Okay, cool. But there wasn't. We didn't have any benchmark. We didn't have any baseline. We didn't have any, you know, over time, tracking any tread lines. And I think, you know, that's how that's evolved, is our. Our tracking system has a hundred percent become more sophisticated as we scaled. Because I think a lot of people, you know, myself included, get wrapped up into vanity metrics and be like, you know, how many views of that video get? You know, how. How many comments did that video get? How many saves, how many. You know, how many. How much people are actually sharing that video? Which is all important, but at the end of the day, how many people actually followed from that video and then how many people turned into actual customers? Because that demonstrates trust. Because I could have two. Two videos that get a million views, right? One gets a thousand followers, and the other one gets 10,000 followers. I'm gonna make more of the video that gets 10,000 followers, not the one that gets a thousand followers, because that's just wasted air time. Because there's this thing called facial recognition, right, where you post. Let's say you get a video that gets 55 million views and it gets you 50 followers. That's a bad facial recognition opportunity because people are gonna see your face, not like it, and then keep scrolling, and that way you're gonna keep building this negative brand and get a lot of views, but not a lot of followers, right? And I think that's what I'm really proud that we've been able to build at Martell Media and Dan Martell's brand is we're able to actually create videos. I get, you know, obviously views, but then also convert to followers from those actual views, which demonstrates that we're making content that people actually like. And then when people see Dan's face and they see him say things, they want to lean in and learn more.

[A]

Two things that we just did incorrectly in ours. So for people that are maybe perhaps new to watching this video or listening to the sound of my voice, I think we're. We're doing like, 5, 10 million views a month just on Instagram. And so we got, like 322,000 followers. And our big thing was we were doing 10 million views a month with a previous agency. And I won't name, but it was just like, hey, man, we getting 10 million views? But, like, where's that going? Yeah, and because it was a lot of surface level, it was a lot of clickbait topics, it was a lot of views optimization kind of polarization content. And I was just like, this isn't adding any value versus I do a talking head video and I just take my phone out and talk selfie style into it. What the, what do they call, like a yap video?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's just like, then that pops a million views, gets me. I've gotten. In the past, I've gotten 40,000 followers off of a video. So it's just like, it's crazy when you say like that, because when you look at the follower ratio, like, that is the number one metric that we pay attention to now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It just, it makes way more sense 100%.

[B]

It demonstrates trust. And, you know, you just mentioned topic, like, most people think that camera gear is important, that, you know, this. The editing style is important. They think that, you know, your hook is important. That's all important. But what you just said, topic, you know, having a really good topic is really important. And there's three kind of parts that kind of hit on that a little bit that I believe makes a really good topic and topics that you should do more of. Number one is demand. Right. Is it actually in demand, which that agency might. Might have been doing really well because they were picking topics that were actually hot that were in demand. But if they're only doing that first thing, then all they're doing is getting views. The second two is, you know, fit, which is actually fit with your audience. I think that's where we spend most of our time. Right. Where it's like I have this thing called CCN Fit that Patty Galloway called coin, which core casual new audience fit. Right. You want to make sure that your topics actually have fit with your core audience. The people that buy from you, the casual audience, people that watch your stuff but don't necessarily buy from you, and then the new audience of people that, you know, haven't seen your face before. And so the more you can actually focus on demand. Yes. Like, you know, do your research, find topics that are hot, then also find, you know, topics that have fit. And the last part is actually do videos that you're genuinely interested in. Right. Interest. That's when you're going to actually find those topics that get, you know, a million views and get you 10,000 followers from that one single video. And we have tons of those videos because they, they match that intersect of those three things.

[A]

Yeah. And it's it's super interesting because a lot of people, you know, even with me included, it's just like, okay, cool. Like, when do you niche down versus when do you go broad? And so some of that stuff is a little bit more broad. Yeah, like, for me, travel. I like travel. But then you're like, okay, well, I don't want to build a travel audience. So it's like, you have to be very selective with who you're speaking to and how you're speaking to them. Because then all of a sudden, you build a followership where you're like, oh, well, you guys aren't actually who I serve at all. So can you, like, reverse engineer a little bit about, like, who do you guys speak to? How do you. Because I want to position all of this for the rest of the conversation. It's just somebody that's. That's getting started. They want to start a brand. They want to get going. Because most people listening to this aren't, like, at 300,000 followers. So if somebody wants to get started, like, how did they develop the ICP that, like, ideal customer, that ideal listener, that ideal viewer.

[B]

Yeah. It's funny because I was just gonna mention icp because I think that's what you should work backwards towards, right? It's. It's figure out who you want to sell to first, right? And that comes from who you want to be known as. You don't. If you don't want to be known as the travel guy who sells to travel people, then don't be that guy. It's really. It's really easy. You just don't be that guy. So if. If you work backwards from your ideal customer profile, and for us, we. We have a name for him. It's called Frustrated Fred. And he's a builder, and he's, you know, he's at 1.7 million in revenue. He's, you know, 40 some years old, and he loves. But his business, he has a family. Maybe he doesn't take the best care of his health yet. And we're very detailed on who we help that icp. So then every single piece of content hits that ICP from different angles because that person might have different pain points. Right? Whether it's relationship pain points, mindset pain points, business pain points. But we want to make sure to actually work backwards from the ICP and not just work backwards from our interests. Right. Because obviously you want to make.

[A]

I've made that mistake.

[B]

Content that's. That you're interested in. But the problem with that is then it becomes Very gray for what you stand for. Right. And if I can't look at your Instagram bio and see, like, okay, this guy's about this, then you're creating bad positioning.

[A]

If anybody wants to see what bad positioning looks like, look at my Instagram account.

[B]

Well, maybe not. Maybe we'll fix it before the end of this podcast. We'll see.

[A]

Well, because. Yeah, continue.

[B]

But that's. That's what it is, right? And you look at Dan's profile, and he's like, you know, bestselling author. He's got, you know, $100 million HoldCo, and he's an AI incubator where he helps other people grow their AI businesses. Very clear that Dan stands for building, you know, businesses. And then all of our content, even the relationship stuff, Right. Always is through the lens of business. Right. Like our top performing relationship video, the one that got the most views is, you know, I treat my marriage like a business. And he gives the analogy of like, hey, in business, we have meetings because we care about the outcomes. In our business, we should have the same marriage. Right. We should have a scorecard for our marriage. We should, you know, rate each other. Right. All that fun stuff. And, you know, that obviously is a video that's talking about marriage, but it's through the lens of business. Right. And I think as long as all your content is aligned with one single ICP and their pain points and what, you know, pain points they have, then I think you should be fine with making some content that's a little bit what I call niche adjacent, which isn't, like, totally on the one niche, but it 100% resonates with that one person you're talking to.

[A]

Yeah. And so here's how not to do it, guys, is how I'm doing it. So take his advice and ignore mine and do the opposite of what I'm saying. So what we did was I make content about what I'm interested in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so obviously that shifts over time. And so I originally started content as a, you know, quit your corporate job, like, travel the world guy. And then that really caught fire during COVID and it was just like, all right, cool. Like, let's invest in real estate, buy businesses. All this stuff. Leave and travel. And now it's like, dude, I'm four years out. I'm not thinking about corporate. I'm thinking about how do you scale from seven to eight figures now? Like, that's what I'm interested in. It's what I stopped making corporate content. Like, leave your corporate job content like, how do you. How do you build your first cash flow? How do you create your plan? How do you do this? And solving, like, to that person. And so to your point, exactly. It's like, I did it the opposite way, which is incorrect. And then also, we were so scattered with our profile that nobody knows what the hell you do or who you stand for or what you stand for. So now we have Corporate Chris.

[B]

There we go.

[A]

That's our icp.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

So, Corporate Chris, we just. I just got a media team, and now we're going pro with this. Heck, yeah. Which side note, I want to ask you the question about going pro. Cause I want to talk about that. So Corporate Chris is 26 to 46 years old. Normally he has, you know, a kid on the way. He's got a young one or two young kids. He's got a couple of Airbnb. He's got a great job making between 150 to $300,000 a year. He's fed up. Him and his wife want to travel, or her. Or like, or in the flip flop, like, she and her husband want to go travel, and they just don't know what to do. They know. They've read Rich Dad, Poor dad that listen to the podcast. They've taken action. They've got a couple Airbnbs. But now they're like, I got to go faster. I got to do more for our kids, for our life, for our future.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now that we're making all of the content for moving forward to your. So we've done it the exact opposite way.

[B]

You're coming around this point around.

[A]

Yeah. Dan told me something, and. And I want to. I want to ask you about what that process has been.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So. And this applies for somebody that is with a iPhone, with no revenue, with no team, with no nothing. Like, you can still implement this mentality. And it's called going pro turning pro. And so Dan looked at me and he's like, right now you've got a marketing department. He's like, you need a media company.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's like, you need to go pro with this. He's like, you're not a. You're not a guy with a phone. You're not a marketing department. You're a media company. You've got a whole thing here. And then that changed how I was thinking about things, and I was just like, man, I really have to button up and take this thing seriously. So walk me through that process that you guys have kind of gone through.

[B]

Well, let's Hit on marketing department versus media company. Because I think that's the frame that's going to help all the viewers think through, which is PayPal just hired a head of content, right? The CEO PayPal just went and hired his head of content, I think, like, six months ago. And what that tells you is he wants to go now, build his personal brand. Because if you go on your Instagram right now and you look at everybody that you follow, they're all people, not companies, most of them, right? Unless you're weird. But 99% of people, right, have. I'd say 99% people that they're following, and then maybe 1% companies. And so the future of business will be every single business will have a media department or company within their actual business. And what that looks like is not just marketing. They're not just, like, spending dollars on ads and making funny videos. They've built the infrastructure so that their personal brand shines through on all platforms, across all ecosystems, and resonates with their icp. And I've got three phases that I kind of take people through that can help people visualize where they should spend their dollars and cents, right? So the first phase, which you were in before, is editor VA phase, right? Where you have an editor and you have a virtual assist. They're, you know, making the content, but you're still the. The dancing monkey, right? You're doing everything with your phone. You're kind of scrambling, like me, honestly. Like, if you look at my content, I'm the one doing everything, right? And so that's phase one. That's totally fine. And that's just to get the rep. The reps in, right? And then when you go pro, that's phase two. And that's when you go and hire somebody like me, a creative director, somebody that can actually run the operations of the media company. And that's when you deploy, like, your dollars, which is go hire people, and then your time, which is spending time in the studio and shooting content to build your real media empire. And I think there's a third phase that not a lot of people talk about, which is, you know, in phase three, you have. And this is more aspirational for the people listening, but you get to this place where you have channel owners, right? Where every single channel, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok has an owner that reports on that channel every single day. And so for us, like, if Facebook's not performing, I have somebody that can go to. If Instagram's not performing, I have somebody I can go to. If YouTube's not performing same thing. And I think, you know, when you get to that point, that's when you've built a real media empire and you're able to actually scale past just like repurposing everything on all platforms. And I think that's why Dan's been able to grow so fast.

[A]

Yeah, you need a chest to poke and a throat to choke for each one.

[B]

Yeah. 100%.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

100%.

[A]

Yeah. We're getting now to the point where we can hire a team and then that team is what we're going to be able to scale with. So, like, we're, we're really going pro here. So let's talk a little bit about, like the revenue models when it comes to content. Like, how do you guys think about it? Like, how do you, like, for somebody that's watching this, they're like, okay, cool. Like when I think of, you know, when I think of generating money from media, I'm thinking of ads, I'm thinking of sponsorships.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, how do, how do you guys think about it?

[B]

Well, there's, there's two ways to make money with content, Right. The first way is traditional, which is sponsorship, brand deals, ads, sense. And honestly, that's kind of a waste of time in my opinion, because you can get big. You just have to get a lot of eyeballs, right? Yeah. And if you want to make over, you know, six, seven figures a year, you're going to have to be like one of those main shows. And the chances that you get to that point are very, very slim. The second way to make money with content is non traditional, which is, you know, coaching, consulting, implementation, and even, you know, done for you services. And I think that's the world that I'm going to, that we're going to see grow more of, especially as less people go to traditional education and they go to more non traditional education and find these creators that are making six figures a month that have 5,000, 6,000 followers on Instagram and that's 100% possible if you sell to the right person. And so for us, just high level, we have a dollar amount that we know we can generate from a follower. So we have a dollar amount that we know we can generate from a follower. And then we have a dollar amount that we know we can spend per follower. And as long as you have those two dollar amounts, and if you want the math on that, you just take your total revenue last month divided by the amount of followers that you added, that's your revenue per follower and Then take your media spend and divide it by the amount of followers that you've had and that's how much you spend per follower.

[A]

So it's like CAC to ltv.

[B]

Exactly. And so trying to distill it a little bit more.

[A]

Beginner.

[B]

Yeah, I don't want to pull out the big, big business terms, but yeah, basically you've got those two numbers and then you have an equation that you're able to now go spend more money to get more customers. And so for everybody listening that, you know, wants to monetize with content, my recommendation is to start with the, you know, done for you services if you don't have a ton of experience, and then try to move your way into implementation coaching. And then at the end is, you know, have a group coaching offer like we have where people can get value from you and get, you know, insane amounts of results, but you're not necessarily stuck in the bottleneck of delivery. Right. Because if it's done for you, if I do everything for you, once you sign contract with my company, then I can only get so many clients before I go. I have to go hire some people. And then I have an agency with 50, 100, 200 people. And that's totally, that's a cool model too. But if you want to scale with ease, I would say go build the expertise and then offer some kind of group coaching program that can actually scale without you.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, we, we did the. Dude, it's crazy to think about, but we scaled from 0 to 5 million with my iPhone.

[B]

That's so fucking sick.

[A]

Just me.

[B]

I hear that. I'm, I'm excited because, you know this. I'm on a mission to get to a hundred thousand followers on Instagram with just my iPhone. But yeah, I truly think people are holding themselves back. And it's funny that we shoot this with all this fancy equipment, but yeah,

[A]

now we've done enough money. Now we're just going to let it sing. Now I'm just going to ask this shit. I want to, I want to talk to you about.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, yeah, I scaled from 0 to 5 million in revenue with Action Academy just from my iPhone. So we had no media team, no va, no editing. I was in charge of ideation, posting, scheduling. I have. It's been me the entire time.

[B]

Just so sick.

[A]

Dude in the podcast. I edit the podcast.

[B]

Hell yeah.

[A]

And so up to this point, but now I'm like dying. And so now we have a bunch of help. So what got us, which, by the

[B]

way, is really rare. Like, your position is really rare. It's. I rarely, rarely meet someone who's doing it all by themselves and also figured it out at Skills. So I want to, like, we're right

[A]

and figured it out. Yeah, brother.

[B]

Well, we're getting a lot of views. Yeah.

[A]

But I've got enough smart friends like you that hopefully, hopefully we'll have help there. So what I did was. I just did. Well. It's crazy.

[B]

So.

[A]

And this is going to be leading to my following question, which I'll give you a little bit of time to think about while I share my story, is if you were to, like, put some ingredients in a pot and stir the pot to make a Dan Martell, like, what ingredients would you put in? Because what is. Everybody that's watching this particular episode that's made it to this point of the episode. What. What do they want? They want to be that. They want the brand, they want the accolades. They want the stuff. They want the. They want the revenue, the freedom. And so number one is I did the thing. Yeah, Crazy. I quit corporate. I want to travel the world. I just documented it. I was like, hey, here's what I'm doing. Doing. I'm not trying to teach it. I'm not trying to be an influencer. I'm just like, I'm at a corporate. I live in Brazil. I live in Europe. I'm. I'm hanging out. And then I went and did what nobody else is doing. For some reason, it was. I just started getting dms, and I just talked about it, and I started getting dms. Once you started getting dms, then I went and I helped people for free. And I did a hundred free coaching calls. Just one on one. And I was just like, hey, what are you. What's your problem? Cool, I can help you with that. And I just helped him with it, and no charge, no offer, no nothing. And then I go back to that first a hundred people that I coached a month later, and I was like, hey, like, what do you want me to build? I'll build something for you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then I ended up doing, like, a course which turned into a community 30 days later. And I was just like, 1500 bucks. Sound good? Sent one email to those people, made a hundred thousand dollars in 48 hours.

[B]

That's so sick.

[A]

That's how it launched. That's how it launched.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then we started low ticket, and then, you know, a thousand, then 2,000 a year, then 5,000 a year, then 10,000 a year. And now we're like 15,000 for two years for our. And like, that's how we grew is organic. And now it's just like, it's a completely different game today because now it's, it's honing in. It's really going pro. So it's just like, it's completely possible. Like, I did it too, and you're doing it right now with your phone. I didn't have any cameras. I didn't have any, like, fancy stuff. You know, it was me. And so to your point, now it's like, so if you had to put all these ingredients in a pot to create somebody, like, what would. What ingredients would you put in that pot?

[B]

I think you nailed it. And I'll double click on what Brian just talked about, which is at the end of the day, your content performance. Yeah, you can have all the hacks and yeah, you can follow my frameworks, but at the end of the day, the reason why most content creators, you know, end up having 10x results and others end up not getting any results is because the ones with 10x results actually have what's called life experience. Where they've done something, they're doing the thing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Where they've done something that they can report on or they've done something that they're showing in real time.

[A]

Oh, yeah, the reporting on, the doing.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. And so I think if you're listening to this and you want to, you know, start getting better results, it sounds super dumb. And I know I'm up here like, telling you to, you know, go be someone, but it's like, focus on life experience first and then from that life experience. And by the way, life experience could be helping someone for free, getting on 100 calls for free. Right. And there's a lot of people that, you know, default to selling instead of defaulting to service. And then when you default to Surface service, you'll build life experience a lot faster and you're, you'll get to that point where you can just do cool shit, talk about it. Do cool shit, talk about it. And that's all I've done in my life.

[A]

Yeah. And I realized how many people are in your DMs right now asking you to do Millions.

[B]

Millions of people. Millions of people. Well, not millions, but like thousands of people are in my DMs asking me to sell them something. And I'm literally like, I'm not selling anything because I default to service.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so when, when, you know, I hear that question and I'm like, what should you go focus on? It's life experience, go focus on being a better human and helping other people. And in that, you know, process of you gaining life experience, share that with the world. Because when you look at even people that are at the top. Let's look at Alex Hormozi. What did he do six months ago? Right. He sold a hundred million dollars worth of books in 48 hours.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then now he's leveraging that life experience in every single hook on his YouTube channel, every single hook on his YouTube video. He's like, I think he says something like, I'm the best selling author of a book that broke, you know, a Guinness world record in 48 hours for the most nonfiction book sold, you know, under 40, 72 hours, I think. Correct. And that life experience, nobody else can say. Right. And I think that's what you have to go focus on, is try to find ways that you can separate yourself from everybody else. Right. Some people would call this, you know, your unique perspectives, your contrarian takes, or even just your contrarian actions, which is like, what have you actually done in this world that nobody else has done? And for, for me, like, I realized that I wouldn't grow as fast as I did on Instagram if I didn't actually grow Dan's personal brand. And that's the ultimate proof of why people, you know, come to my content for advice. And so I kind of leveraged that life experience after I've gained it and then started making content. But, yeah, there's two frames. There's the reporter frame and there's the, you know, doing the thing in real time.

[A]

Yeah, it's the excited rookie versus the grizzled veteran.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I mean, even with, like, we're just now starting on YouTube. Um, so we're taking YouTube very seriously now, and we haven't before. And so that's exciting for us. And so I got a guy that, you know, knows what he's doing. And, like, we've heard Patty too.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

And so it's like we're launching it from scratch. And so it's. It's cool to learn all this stuff. And I'm curious about your perspective on this. Like, personally, I'm just, I'm taking the podcast personal now, guys. And then you guys can just sit around for the ride.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So for. It's like, how we view it is. And I think this will be helpful is I don't want to go toe to toe with Dan or Hermosi or any of the big creators on business content. Like, Dan is Significantly wealthier than me. Alex is significantly wealthier than me. And so I'm like, what content can we make that's really like 0 of 1 content? Like, what content could we do where we're like, hey, this is our specific life experience. This is our specific story to where somebody can resonate with you. So what's your advice kind of on that? Where you have done some stuff, but now you're in this kind of meta space where you're, you're floating around, especially on YouTube, long form, and you're like, God, like, I don't want to make a top five businesses to buy video. You know, I don't want to make a, you know, so does that make sense?

[B]

I think just like we talked about earlier, working backwards from your ICP and what they want to learn, I think

[A]

that's like, remove your ego from it and just talk to your icp.

[B]

I think you could be a lot bigger than Dan and Alex because your tam's a lot wider. Total addressable market is a lot wider. Like, there's a lot more people in corporate looking to quit their job job than people that have businesses from what I've seen in the world, or at least people in corporate that are, you know, curious about quitting their job. And if you made a YouTube video tomorrow, that's like, you know, five, five things to tie up before you quit your corporate job.

[A]

Brother, we made that fucking video today.

[B]

Well, that's a sign.

[A]

The title of the video was don't quit your. Don't quit your job until you have these four things.

[B]

Let's go. Heck, yeah, dude.

[A]

That's what I did right before I was here. I filmed that video. I went to the gym, came here.

[B]

Well, that video is going to do really well if you tie it with good packaging. And, you know, YouTube's a momentum game where you have to be, you know, known for that thing over and over again. But I think you're in a beautiful position where you have, you know, this broad TAM topic, right. That you can also monetize. So I would double down on that. I wouldn't try to be somebody that you're not by talking about those topics. Because I think everybody, you know, all the business owners look at, you know, Alex, Dan, all these people in the space as like the gold standard, but they forget that there's literally thousands of YouTube channels bigger than Dan and Alex that are also in educational content. They're just in adjacent niches. And they don't show up on our for you page because we're business owners, we're the ICP of, you know, Dan and Alex, and there's tons of other creators that have way more views that are talking about stuff like quitting your corporate job. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I should only make content about, you know, building businesses, like, yeah, if that's what you've done and that's what you want to be known for. But if you want to be known for, you know, creating content. Right. You can make content about that too. If you want to be known for helping people, you know, change their lives and quit their corporate jobs and start a business, you can be known for that too. But it's working backwards from the person that you help. And I think that's what people get away from when they see all these business creators and look at them as a gold standard and they want to make that video, you know, five best businesses to build in 2025, 2026 now. And it. It doesn't perform because it doesn't have fit with their audience.

[A]

I think the meta skill from that part of the conversation is stop trying to be interesting and start trying to be useful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, if you're sitting here thinking about which I'm guilty of, dude, like, I've messed all of this up, and I'm like, okay, what angle can we hit? You know, how can we say this uniquely to your point? Why don't you just go back to that. That person that you're trying to serve and just be as freaking useful to them as possible? Because, like, dude, I came from corporate. I love corporate. Like, that's different than Dan's story. That's different than Alex's story. Like, that is my story. Like, I was on the conference calls. Yeah, they suck, dude. So, yeah, no, I think that's really good. That's good for me too. I'm gonna. I'm gonna use that one.

[B]

Yeah. And same for me. Like, it'd be really easy for me to go on, you know, YouTube and make a video about, like, hey, Here are the 15, you know, business rules that you should learn. But, like, at the end of the day, people know me for content. They want help from me for content. And that's what I genuinely love, too. So I think it's the Intersect, like, you know, what do you want to talk about? And then what you people know you for or want to want help with, and 100% default to service.

[A]

Have you heard of Bear in the Unicycle?

[B]

No.

[A]

So it's like you got a bear, you got a unicycle. You say, so what? You see a bear on a unicycle, you say, holy shit, that's cool. So it's like, how do you take, like, unique thing one or unique skill two? And you take unique thing and unique skill like one and two, and you put them together that normally aren't, like, paired together. An example of that is Tony Robbins Alex Hormozi interview broke the Internet because you have beer in a unicycle. So you've got the art of fulfillment guy with the science of achievement guy. And you put them together and you're like, whoa, that's not normal. You know, Dan with a six pack. Yeah, that's not normal. You're supposed to be. You're supposed to be old and fat. Like, why do you have a six pack? Why are you ripped? That's not normal. And so it's just like, I always think about, like, what's my beer? What's my unicycle? What's my beer? What's my unicycle?

[B]

That's a beautiful analogy, dude.

[A]

I freaking, freaking love that one, dude. What are you excited about? Like, what excites you in content right now? And what do you. And then the second side of the question is, what do you. You think is overhyped? That too many people are thinking about that actually doesn't move the needle.

[B]

I've got a lot of answers to that second question, but I'll answer.

[A]

We'll start with the first. Well, thank God we've got time in the studio.

[B]

So the first question, what am I excited about the most right now? I think it's building the Disney of business, of the business space. And I think we. We're currently doing this thing. And, you know, people listening to this podcast are going to get, you know, first look is if you notice, and you look at what we do now. Yeah, we built, let's say Dan's personal brand, which is iron man in 2008, came out. You know, everybody loved it. And now we're building these side characters, right? Secondary movies where, you know, we have Renee Warren, Dan's wife, who, you know, also happens, that started going all in on content in January. And then we've got my personal brand that I'm also making content about. Making content.

[A]

People saw you making content, and they're like, oh, is he leaving, Dan?

[B]

I'm a lifer, dude.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's what they thought.

[B]

I got the T shirt on.

[A]

So, yeah, everybody. But I mean, that's just like. And then you start seeing everybody start to branch off. And then that's the perception, though, is you're like, but why is he making.

[B]

When everybody zigs, I think you should zag. And I think that's what we're doing right now, is we're gonna be the first business brand to have multiple faces, and we're still gonna have Iron man as the face, the main face. But then we're gonna build up. You know, I'm not starting at exactly. I'm not starting at. You know, we're gonna start at three, but I'm not ending at that. And we're gonna 100 build the Avengers of business. And, you know, just like in 2013, when Avengers drop and broke the box office record, I think we're gonna be able to get a lot more results with a broader audience. Tam. Because I think that's what people underestimate is the reason why, you know, people are asking, okay, now you've built Dan's brand up, why are you now focusing on Renee's brand, your brand? Well, it's like, out of all the reasons that people follow you, one of them is likeness. Right. How you relate to them as a

[A]

person, even how you physically look.

[B]

Exactly. And if Renee and Dan make the exact same video talking about how to grow your business, literally same script, there's going to be 60 women on Renee's side and 60 men on Dan's side.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

And so just by changing the character, you now get a broader tam. And if you want to build the Disney of business, you're going to have to need multiple characters. And that's what Dave Ramsey does. That's what all these big companies and corporations understand is they have to have different characters within the organization. And that's what I'm most pumped about in this next year.

[A]

No, I like that. It's a really cool idea. Ramsey. Yeah, Ramsey did that. And then it also adds to your enterprise value 100%, because now you can look and point to something and say, hey, it's not just dependent on this guy. No. Now we have an entire ecosystem. The Hormozis are doing that with Sharon, Layla, Alex. Yeah.

[B]

It derisks the business, and it also grows. Tammy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, you have broader TAM because you have more characters, and it also de risks the business because you have higher enterprise value, less key man risk.

[A]

Beautiful. So in media, what is everybody talking about constantly that you think is completely pointless?

[B]

It's hard to narrow down to one. But the one thing.

[A]

Just let it fly, dude. Well, the Let it sing.

[B]

So anytime I see dude, like anytime I see somebody share tactics and you know, setting changes that make videos perform. Like, no setting will make your video perform better. I'm sorry, like shitty content is still shit content. If you don't follow any framework to make content, you don't know, you know how to pick topics that are in demand. Your videos aren't gonna perform. Like, whether you change your high quality upload setting or not. Like, I'm literally shooting on my fucking iPhone in 720p and I get millions of views a month because I understand how topic is so important and how to actually structure a reel, right. And if anybody listening wants to know how to actually structure a reel. Hook, explain, illustrate. Teacher. That's my framework, right? You hook somebody in giving them context for what's gonna be said in the video. Giving a contrarian tape and then creating an open loop using a unique mechanism or a roadmap, right. Showing the things on screen. You've seen me do this in real time. And then you explain it and then you illustrate it using a story analogy example. And then you give them a teach a really clear, actionable step to take next. And if you are making videos, right, and you think that changing a setting is gonna replace that, dude, you're already losing. And I see a lot of content gurus out there, you know, change settings, do this thing, these small hacks, but at the end day, if you make really good content with a solid framework, you will get views point blank, period.

[A]

Yeah, I really like that because it's, oh, if I go get this really nice Airbnb or if I sit here and I've got this beautiful studio like we've got right now, it's like, that's gonna do it. Not necessarily. You said something I really liked you actually said in your content, and I think you mentioned it here. It's like it actually starts with the idea.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like the idea and the title is more important than anything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's like you start with the idea, then it goes to Title, then it goes to Hook, then it goes to Body, then it goes to payoff, and then kind of the cta. So walk me through your ideation process.

[B]

Yeah. On long form or short form? I could talk both. All right, So I mean, they're com. They're kind of similar. I'll talk about ideation as a whole. Right. So there's. There's kind of three stages to ideation. First is research, then it's validation, and then it's Execution, right. And so research, it's basically go look at what's performing online. And I'm not saying copy other people. What I am saying is 100% create a fake account where you can go search for demand, right? So you know, create an account on Instagram, follow everybody in your niche and then go scroll on the for you page and what you're gonna get is a ton of validated content that is talking about topics that are hot right now and take the topics, write em down and then also use tools like sandcastles from Callaway or you know 1 of 10 or is a really good tool for long form for YouTub that you can actually go and filter, right? So I always like consuming like the consumer, right. Use a fake account, go consume like the consumer and then once I've got the topics that I want to go now validate which is step two I'm going to use tools like sandcastles and one of 10 to go find more volume, right? So let's say I find a video on YouTube during my research stage that is you know 15 AI tools that will blow up your business, right? I'm going to take that topic which is AI tools, right? I'm going to take that topic, I'm going to go into one of 10, I'm going to go filter by forex outlier in the last six months and only on channels that have under a million subs and because I don't want to you know, get inspired by channels that are too big because sometimes big audiences pollute data. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm going to put AI tools in there using those three criterias and then I'm going to go validate that idea. So I do research first I find a topic, then I go validate that topic. And I want to find at least four outliers, right? Because one video is no proof of demand.

[A]

Demand.

[B]

4, 5, 6, 12, 20 videos, that's proof of demand. So I'm gonna go validate that topic and then it's all about execution, right? How do you actually execute on that idea and always work backwards from what worked about the, the, the outlier, right. If a video got 400k views and the person has like six cameras that are you know, moving around or you know, they have a top down shot or whatever. I'm not saying to copy people but understand why that video performed because sometimes

[A]

it's not dude, R D rip off and duplicate. Yeah but like, like in your. So I don't know man, how I always thought about it Was it's just like you can order a million things from Amazon, right? Yeah. But it's always going to be the same box.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

So it's like, why would you try to recreate the box? Why are you trying to change the box? The box is the packaging. And then so it's like take the packaging that already works through the US Postal Service. Like it already is formatted to deliver the best way possible. And then you open the box and it's your unique package inside the box. And so it's just like, like, dude, we're constantly looking for hooks. We're looking for ideas. I see hooks on like there was one hook that I really liked, which was this girl. I think it was like this maybe 22 year old girl and she was like, six things my, my awesome father has done that would make, you know, men I date cr. Like make men I date shaking their boots or something. And it's just like how awesome her dad is. And like I was just like, like, oh, like that's a cool idea. Like that's a cool hook. Like, how can we use that in like in your business perspective or in my relationship perspective? And it's just like, so we're constantly looking for hooks and we screenshot stuff and we're constantly sending stuff like that.

[B]

That's the funnest thing that I do is take niche adjacent topics or even like completely different niche, you know, topics and hooks and then repurpose them inside of your own content. Because you'll see human psychology works very similarly across all niches. And if you take a, you know, cook from a beauty niche video and you implement it in a business niche video, it's going to most likely perform.

[A]

Dude, I saw, I saw one hook that was this girl talking about like using credit card points to travel. And she goes, my husband doesn't make $400,000 a year, but here we're staying here. Yeah, here's how I did it. And it's just like. And it's like. And it's immediately like, yeah, this is my chase points. And I was like,

[B]

it gives context to the viewer. It creates a contrarian insight and then it opens a new loop. Right? And if you do those three things in your hook, you'll get people to watch till the end.

[A]

Oh, absolutely. What else are people talking about that you're like, dude, why, why do you keep yapping about this? On the flip side of that, I think yapping is the new trend. I think actually I'm actually pro yap.

[B]

Yeah, I'M pro yap too. And I think getting better at yapping is probably the most, most lucrative thing you could do.

[A]

That's my six.

[B]

Yeah. Is just have the ability to riff. And I think that's what, you know, I've been trying to develop these last six months by making content on the fly with my phone is the ability to just have an idea and talk about it. Right. And I have the hook explain ill street teach framework inside the back of my mind at all times. So whenever I'm talking to people, I try to practice it at least. Right.

[A]

And podcasting helps a lot with that.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. Because you're just on the fly all the time. And I think think something that pisses me off that people still do and I still think they're wasting their time is trying to overproduce content.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

Like if you're. If you have a fancy camera, fancy lighting, and you have a, you know, really dialed in script, it's not gonna replace your ability to just riff and be authentic. And if you can pick up an iPhone and follow a really simple clear idea and get somebody value in 30 seconds, I think that's a lot better spend of your time because that's what I'm trying to prove with, you know, while film, I'm trying to get 100k with just my iPhone to prove you don't need any fancy equipment to get views on social media. Right. You just need to have a really clear message. And I think your ability to distill a message to yap right into your phone and get somebody a result, which is, you know, what I call RIA results in advance. Right. Where they implement your framework, they get results and then they tie that result back to you. That's how you're going to get actual viral reach on social media. Not by buying a new camera, buying new lights. That's just procrastination masked as, you know, productivity. It's not.

[A]

Yeah. And the irony is you have so many people that are now doing that and, and providing zero value then now it's actually, I think a negative correlation to overproduced content. They're immediately thinking this will probably provide me less value.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's what we run into is like we've got two different types of content. We post produced content and then raw content and then it's just like, dude, it's like the raw content just pops. Or like you just talk in front of a green screen on. On TikTok and you just got like an article behind you. And you're just like, hey, yeah, like, want to talk about this?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Boom. Dude, it takes a minute. Oh, yeah. It takes two minutes. Why do you think people have such a fear around content?

[B]

Well, I'm not, like, insecurity. Like, I. I used to have all those same fears. I can just talk to it, right? Like, I don't want to be seen on camera. I don't like the way I look. I don't, you know, want to see this, to be on the Internet. Internet forever. I don't want certain people to find it. And I think that's totally valid. But if you look at the flip side, the amount of impact that you can have in a short amount of time by posting one video that gets a million views, that people actually take it, you know, advice from and get results.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's more interesting to me than all of my fears. Like, I think not creating content is the most selfish thing you could do because you're not actually helping people.

[A]

Dude. When I started the podcast, I had this idea. Cause we all have these stories that we tell ourselves. It was 2021. I was at a Mastermind event that I was not qualified to be at. But they kept inviting me back because I kept documenting what they taught me. And I was like, hey, man, I read the book. Hey, here's my favorite chapter, page 72. And they were like, dude, keep coming back. And I was golf with this guy. And I was like, hey, I think I'm gonna start a podcast. And he was just like, oh, well, you should. Like, you can keep a good conversationalist. And I was like, yeah, but until I got a hundred units of real estate, like, till I got a hundred doors, I'm not gonna start a podcast. He goes, hmm, Most selfish thing I've ever heard. I was like, what the hell?

[B]

That's a good question.

[A]

What do you mean selfish? Yeah. To your point, as he's like, so you're. You're letting your insecurity directly rob other people of access to information that you have.

[B]

I was bang.

[A]

And I was like, oh, that's the most selfish thing I've ever heard in my life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then I left, and I got a 279 sure microphone.

[B]

Let's go.

[A]

And I started up the Action Academy podcast in 2021. And I. I mean, I was working a corporate job.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I. I wasn't a millionaire. I didn't have any cash flow. Like, I mean, I had a couple rental properties, but I was just like, hey, I'm gonna interview millionaires till I become one. And then the show became, oh, I'm gonna grow this from zero to $10 million while traveling around the world. And now I don't know what the next thing is, but so sick, dude. It's just like, it's exactly what you're talking about. So I share these stories to illustrate every single thing that you're sharing is fact. It's completely true, like thousand percent.

[B]

And, and you know, if you're listening to this, I definitely feel everybody in that position where it's like, it's scary to get started. But just know understand that like you not sharing is way more, more selfish and you know, than actually doing the thing and being selfless and sharing the information.

[A]

Another example of something that's very small. To further illustrate this point, we'll put a pin in it. So me and my girlfriend went to do our couples vision retreat. So super easy, we got an Airbnb in Utah. We Both had a 50 question document each where I filled it out, she filled it out. We didn't see each other's answers. You guys should do it. By the way, if you haven't done

[B]

it, I want that document.

[A]

Yeah, dead ass. And so we, we took these documents and then it writes out, what, like what in three years, what do you want your life, what do you want your business? Like, hey, like when I, when you're angry at me, like, how do you want to be community communicated to or like what's your dream? You know, what's your dream body? Like, how do you want me to look? You know, stuff like that. All this different stuff in document. And then we meet together, we got giant, you know, sticky notes we just wrote down on the, across the entire house. Like, and then you have finance, you have family, you have faith, you have location, health. And we have all these different categories of when we use all these to create our three year vision together as a couple. And we did that and I'm filming some of this stuff like just with my phone. And she's like, why are you filming this stuff? And I was just like, I don't know, I'm just gonna throw it up and see if it helps someone. You know, it's just like, we'll see. We're not doing it for content, we're just doing it. And I was like, might as well document it, dude. We posted a carousel of that, that and we posted a reel of that back to back by the way, same hook, same everything. And we with the trigger, a CTA that said like, hey, like here's the. Here's the sheet, right? You wanted the sheet. It's open loop. 10,000 people downloaded.

[B]

That's fucking crazy. That's wild.

[A]

10,000 people. So 10,000 couples. Just 20,000 people, dude. We had freaking Bella Hadid and like, these like, supermodels. Like, hey, I want the. Did we just send a CTA to Bella Hadid? That's freaking sick. And it's just like a good example of you don't need a huge followership. Like, that video would have popped for anyone. It's just like. It's just so cool, dude.

[B]

Now it's from a place of service.

[A]

It's from a place of service. If you put this entire podcast episode on a bumper sticker, it'd be, get out of your own head, get out of your own ego, and just think, how can I be of more useful, more value to the person that I'm trying to serve?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So in closing, let's go rapid fire each social platform. And your best piece of advice right now for that social platform. It could be. It could be a tool, it can be a framework, it could be reels versus carousels. It could be whatever you want. So we'll just go platform by platform.

[B]

LinkedIn image with text. Make sure that your image has a lot of information in it.

[A]

It because a lot of information.

[B]

100%. Make sure your designer is condensing information inside of a very nice square. If you look at all the best creators on LinkedIn right now, they're all posting these, like, infographics that are performing really well. And I think that's the hack on LinkedIn right now.

[A]

TikTok.

[B]

A lot of volume. Volume post volume. Actionable content that has one clear, actionable piece of advice that they can take in their lives.

[A]

Facebook volume.

[B]

Even more so than TikTok, really. And repost all your best performing videos.

[A]

Really? More volume on Facebook.

[B]

We've gotten 350,000 followers on Facebook in December, and it was on the back end of posting 10 videos a day.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And half those videos were videos that we posted on that platform before.

[A]

Oh, my God. Instagram.

[B]

Instagram. Two to three videos a day. Focus on creating engagement with your audience. Respond to every comment, respond to the DMs and you will build a cult, like following email, I mean, weekly emails. Ideally, you are sharing actionable advice. And if you want the part two to this is create campaigns where you launch a challenge every single three months where you can actually monetize your audience through that challenge. So get them to kind of Sign up for the challenge. Send out, you know, three to four emails over three to four day period, and you'll be able to monetize your email list a lot better. Better.

[A]

We're literally about to do that same thing.

[B]

Heck yeah. YouTube quality over volume. Focus. YouTube videos have a lot of legs. If you create a very, very high quality piece of content, and if you can make 12 videos a year, that's totally fine as long as you keep the quality bar really high.

[A]

Beautiful. Last piece of advice for somebody that's looking to become a creator or somebody that, that perhaps has already got some success or whatever field they're in and they're listening to this podcast, they're bought in. What's a. What's the piece of advice you can give them to be successful in this field?

[B]

Follow me on Instagram. Literally, just literally, like follow my frameworks. You will get results. Shoot me a dm. And if you want, you know, I've got this custom GPT that I have that helps you generate viral topics. Just comment the word or message me the word on Instagram topic, Brian, and I'll send it over to you.

[A]

Beautiful. So there we go, guys. And then also, if you guys really want him to pay attention to you, take something that he said in this video and say, hey, let's go. I implemented what you said here and here's proof that I did it and it worked for me. And then all of a sudden he'll think that you're worth talking to and pouring into. So, dude, long time coming. Glad that we finally did it, man. Freaking, freaking banging episode. Drop your Instagram for somebody that's following

[B]

Sam Dogged at easy, you'll find it beautiful.

[A]

And then we'll post that in the show description. Guys, thank you so much. Send this to a future or current creator that's trying to be even better and like, and subscribe. You know the, you know the drill. So see you guys. Thank you.