I Asked The Mastermind Behind GaryVee and Alex Hormozi How To Build a Personal Brand In 2026 w/ Caleb Ralston

Summary

Podcast Summary: Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship For Your Life & Business

Episode: I Asked The Mastermind Behind GaryVee and Alex Hormozi How To Build a Personal Brand In 2026 w/ Caleb Ralston

Host: Brian Luebben
Guest: Caleb Ralston
Date: October 28, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this high-energy episode, Brian Luebben sits down with Caleb Ralston—the strategic mind who’s shaped the personal brands of industry icons like Gary Vee and Alex Hormozi—to dissect the real mechanics of building a meaningful, sustainable personal brand in the saturated 2026 landscape. The discussion goes beyond viral hooks and clickbait, diving deep into trust, differentiation, and the practicalities of assembling the right creative team. If you’re a business owner, aspiring creator, or want to level up your brand game, this episode offers actionable wisdom and unfiltered advice from someone who’s engineered the rise of household names.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The 1% Signal vs. 99% Noise in Personal Branding

• Caleb identifies the “contrarian belief” as the ultimate differentiator—the 1% that moves the needle, versus the 99% of packaging and imitation.

  "In the education space right now, everyone's doing the same… stop trying to look like everyone else. You need to figure out your own version of this." — Caleb (01:54)

• Most creators merely copy leaders in their niche, never moving beyond surface-level imitation.
• Starting with imitation is natural, but developing your unique angle is essential for lasting impact and avoiding “mini-me” syndrome.

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2. Trust as the Foundation of Brand (09:13)

• Defining Trust:

  “Brand is just when the audience associates two or more things together. Trust is believing you can predict what will happen… If you watch every video I put out and get results, you’re going to trust me more over time, not less.” — Caleb (09:13)

• Brand is about repeated association with value and predictability.
• Over-focusing on hooks and packaging is noise; repeated usefulness creates loyal viewership even when content isn’t “hooky.”

  “If I see someone I trust, I don’t need a fancy hook. I’ll listen because I associate them with usefulness.” — Brian (08:17)

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3. The Art of Contrarian Takes (12:17)

• Contrarian beliefs must be authentic, not controversy for controversy’s sake.

  “It needs to be something that you believe. I do not believe in controversy for controversy's sake.” — Caleb (12:17)

• Layer contrarian takes, but if your core opinion becomes mainstream, it’s time for new insight.
• Lived experience and action give rise to contrarian taste; beginners may lack this, but “learning in public” is a powerful and honest path.

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4. “Building in Public” vs. “Learning in Public” (15:53)

• Beginners should embrace the "learning in public" model.

  “This path is being the guinea pig for your audience… That is incredibly useful for the audience as well.” — Caleb (16:05)

• Be honest about your stage and let the audience learn from both your successes and failures.
• Faking expertise backfires in the long-run, especially in credibility-challenged niches like business or real estate.

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5. Overcoming Market Skepticism (17:22)

• Educational content—especially in business, investing, and real estate—faces skepticism (“guilty until proven innocent”).
• Stand out by NOT copying the trappings (e.g., traditional captions/thumbnails) of scammy competitors.

  “If you show up looking like other people, people will lump you into that crowd.” — Caleb (19:21)

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6. Choosing & Refining Your Brand Pillars (20:19)

• Select 1–3 core beliefs or angles to attach to your brand.

  “If you pick two or three and just start talking about them, see what resonates and lean in.” — Caleb (21:02)

• Experiment like a comedian testing jokes—see what the audience responds to, then double down.

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7. Relatability vs. Contrarianism (23:19)

• Relatability is a brand lever, exemplified by Taylor Swift’s and Zach Bryan’s radical vulnerability.

  “Taylor was one of the most contrarian artists… She brought us into her world and showed she was a human, not just a rock star on a pedestal.” — Caleb (24:31)

• Modern audience craves authenticity and relatability; vulnerability is now a mainstream strength that can set you apart.

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8. Audience Targeting: Who Should You Make Content For? (27:42)

• Make content that solves the “smaller” problems for your ideal customer before they’re ready for your main offer.

  “Get clear: what are the painful problems your ideal customer is experiencing, and what small problems can you help them solve before they hit your main offer?” — Caleb (28:05)

• Be clear about who you serve best; align content accordingly.

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9. Views vs. Business Value (32:17–35:50)

• Beware of chasing views as a vanity metric.

  “Do you need people who aren't interested in what you have to sell to watch this?” — Caleb (32:17)

• Measure content success by its impact on business results (e.g., clients generated), not just raw views.

  “If views are going up, but sales are not, then what the fuck are we doing?” — Caleb (35:26)

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10. The Realities of Building a Creative Team (38:30–47:00)

• Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s mastery.

  “Massive mistake for people to look at the top creators and what they’re doing now and try to do that in the beginning.” — Caleb (39:45)

• Start by focusing on one content medium you enjoy (video, audio, written, visual).
• Sustainable, enjoyable systems beat unsustainable sprints.

  “The greatest returns are from years of jogging, not a year of sprinting.” — Caleb (43:54)

• If you hate content creation, pair it with something you love to create enjoyment (e.g., travel, hobbies).

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11. Hiring & Structuring Your Media Team (52:12–58:53)

• How to hire:
  • Look for people you genuinely enjoy spending time with.
  • Seek a “Swiss Army knife”: someone competent at multiple roles (filming, editing, some strategy).
  • For all-in-one creative talent, expect to pay at least $10-20k/month (for true execs: $250k+ per year).
  • Prioritize evidence (“Show me what you’ve done before”) over resume titles.
• Where to find talent:
  • LinkedIn (organic posts), YTJobs.co, Indeed, personal brand audience.
• Hire on a 90-day trial; invest heavily in onboarding and shared context.

  “You need to make a heavy upfront investment in order to get that time back for years to come.” — Caleb (66:41)

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12. Weekly Content-Director Relationship & Workflow (62:20–67:19)

• Over-communicate: give your creatives clear context, regular feedback, and honest personal signals.

  “If it goes bad, tell them it went bad and why. If you’re feeling motivated, tell them and why.” — Caleb (66:41)

• Relationships drive great content: invest in rapport, not just transaction.

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13. The True X-Factor: Action Over Perfection (67:43–71:18)

• Most people will never start building a brand out of fear of imperfection.

  “The 10 who succeed are okay iterating as they go, rather than needing it perfect before they start.” — Caleb (67:43) “Nobody gives a shit and nobody is paying attention… at some point, planning becomes your enemy.” — Caleb (68:26)

• Release content before it’s perfect—the process will improve as you go.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the 1% that actually matters in branding:

  “What is it that you believe about your industry, your space, your niche, that is different than what other people are talking about?” — Caleb (05:03)

• On trust and predictability:

  “Trust is really just believing that the ability to predict something… If you are making useful, valuable content, you’re making it easy for the audience to act and get results, which builds trust.” — Caleb (09:13)

• On not chasing vanity metrics:

  “I don’t pay Trevor and Kate with the views that we get… wild concept.” — Caleb (35:50)

• On hiring for creative roles:

  “You hired the wrong person… you did not qualify them correctly and didn’t do a good job of determining what it is you actually needed.” — Caleb (52:12)

• On starting before you are “ready”:

  “They have decided that they are okay with iterating as they go rather than it needing to be perfect before they start.” — Caleb (67:43) “Perfect is the enemy of postage.” — Caleb (71:22)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote/Insight | |---------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:06–01:54 | The 1% of branding: Contrarian belief vs. imitation | | 09:13 | Definition of trust and usefulness as foundation of brand | | 12:17 | Contrarian for controversy’s sake vs. authentic belief | | 15:53 | “Build in public” vs. “learn in public” | | 17:22 | Overcoming skepticism in business/education niches | | 20:19–22:06 | Deciding your 1–3 brand pillars | | 23:19–26:51 | Relatability & the Taylor Swift/Zach Bryan example | | 27:42–30:23 | How to decide who your content is for (customer targeting) | | 32:17–35:50 | Views vs. business value (raw views do not equal impact) | | 38:30–44:29 | Sustainability, systems, and improper expectations in building a creative team | | 52:12–58:53 | How to hire: qualities to look for, what level to hire, and realistic salary expectations | | 62:20–67:19 | Structuring relationship & workflow with your creative director | | 67:43–71:18 | The difference between those who start and those who never do: Action over perfection |

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Summary Takeaways

• The foundation of a lasting personal brand is being uniquely you—anchored on authentic, sometimes contrarian beliefs, and not imitation.
• Packaging and hooks are important, but usefulness and predictable value build trust and longevity.
• Honest documentation (“learning in public”) is a powerful route, especially for less-experienced creators.
• Don’t chase views at the expense of actual business results.
• Sustainable systems, joy in the process, and real relationships create durable content engines.
• Hire for curiosity, context, and evidence—not just someone who talks a good game. Start with a versatile “Swiss Army knife.”
• Perfection is the enemy: iterate in public—no one remembers your early flops, but you’ll never succeed if you don’t start.

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Resources & Further Action

• Find Caleb: Search “Caleb Ralston” on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn.
• Highly Recommended: Caleb’s 6-hour free course on personal branding + workbook.
• Community: Learn more and link up at ActionAcademy.com.

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If you’re committed to building a personal brand—or any brand—that lasts, this episode is your blueprint for combining authenticity, patience, deliberate action, and smart hiring.

“Perfect is the enemy of postage. Start, keep iterating—nobody’s really watching as closely as you think.”

Transcript

[A]

So when you think of brand, like, what do you think is the 1% that is actually signal that people should be thinking about versus the 99% that's noise.

[B]

What is it that you believe about your industry, your space, your niche that is different than what other people are talking about? In the education space right now, everyone's doing the same. Everyone looks at the top person in their niche, space, industry and is copying exactly what they are doing. If you want to stand out, stop trying to look like everyone else. You need to figure out your own version of this.

[A]

You arguably took two guys in the polar opposite ends of the spectrum. You have Gary Vee that has a million thoughts a minute to. Alex is like a very stoic dude, but you took these two, like really extreme versions of personalities and helped them package and frame their ideas. In a way, it's almost like an art versus a science. Like, you're saying that the identifier of this works. Now, how do I make that uniquely me?

[B]

Back to your 1%. That is the thing that is going to move the needle for everybody making their personal brand the most. I believe the 1% as you're articulating.

[A]

It right now is Caleb Ralston. Welcome to the show in the flesh, man. How you doing?

[B]

So good. I appreciate you having me on, man.

[A]

Excited to rock, man. In a world now where there's a study that was conducted with everybody's children, I think it was like kind of teenage children to coming up to young adults, they asked them, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it wasn't doctors, it wasn't lawyers. It was, I want to be a TikTok star. I want to be a streamer. I want to be a YouTuber.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So in a world now where brand has become more important than ever and more coveted than ever, we're going to have a lot more people flooding into the market. And a lot of people that are now millennials or older business owners are now seeing that they cannot do the same business that they used to do without the brand. So what is one thing that you've seen now with all of this saturation in the market? Where do people go wrong with brand and then where do they crush it with brand?

[B]

I mean, there's a lot of different ways we could take this. But something that I've been talking about a lot recently that I think is really important is in the beginning, you need examples of what good looks like, and you need to replicate those examples. Right. For me, when I got into photography, for example, years Ago, I had a couple photographers that I really admired. Dylan first and Aaron Brimhall are my two favorites. And I wanted to replicate their style. So I looked at what they did and I tried to copy it. The problem is, is the majority of people that you are describing right now, they're doing that, and that's where they're stopping. And in order to develop your own photography style, to use that example and to keep going with that, you have to copy those people. But then eventually you got to figure out what's your version of this. Right. Like, what do I do differently than them? Otherwise I will always at best be second to them. Right. I won't have my own lane. And what a lot of people right now in the personal brand, especially in the education, I. I talk mostly about education, entertainment. That's not as much my wheelhouse.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

In the education space right now, everyone's doing the same. Everyone looks at the top person in their niche space industry and is copying exactly what they are doing. And I think, again, to the point of, like, learning, yes, that is a great way to start. But very quickly, I would encourage people, if you want to stand out, stop trying to look like everyone else. You need to figure out your own version of this. And I know we'll probably go into detail of what that looks like, but I think that's the biggest mistake I'm seeing people make is they're just becoming Mini Me's, just little versions of the top creator in their space. Rather than figuring out how can they stand out, how can they make their own lane that causes people to want to consume their shit versus other people in their space.

[A]

Nobody can be you better than you. But for somebody that's listening, that doesn't understand packaging, that sounds fucking daunting. You know, they say, okay, cool, I want to be me. I'm a quirky dude. Or like, I invest in real estate, or I'm a business. This guy. You know, you arguably took two guys on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum. You have Gary V. That has a million thoughts a minute to. Alex is like a very stoic dude, at least on camera now it's kind of coming across. But you took these two, like really extreme versions of personalities and helped them package and frame their ideas. In a way, it's almost like an art versus a science. There's like, there's like a taste, like you're saying that is the identifier of this works. Now how do I make that uniquely me?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so there's something I've been, I've been working on in a new concept that I learned. I'm curious your take on. It's called like signal versus noise. Yeah, that is that. That's it. So signal versus noise. So signal is going to be the top 1% of actions that people are taking. Where you're like, this is actually going to move the needle and then the other 99 is noise.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So when you think of brand, like, what do you think is the 1% that is actually signal that people should be thinking about versus the 99% that's noise?

[B]

Yeah. I think Trevor and I have been jamming on this. Trevor is my content director. We've been jamming on this a lot recently. And we've identified three big levers that you can pull to stand out. And we have contrarian belief. We have delivery and then wrapping paper. And what you're talking about is like kind of what you were alluding to is more of the delivery and the wrapping paper. Wrapping paper is like your packaging, your title, thumbnail hooks, all that shit. I believe the 1% as you're articulating it right now is your contrarian belief. The two characters you just described, they had already gotten a lot of traction relative to their niche before there was anybody that was packaging their content or figuring out how to. Like they were making lo fi, low production value content. But what they had to say is what caused them to gain the traction they got early on. Does that make sense? Like they came onto the scene with fundamentally different views about their industry than what the majority of people in their space were saying. Right. The example I use with Gary all the time is he came onto the scene and was Talking about Fortune 500s and 1000s spending their marketing dollars on Facebook in a world where all of his competitors on Madison Avenue were talking about TVC and programmatic ads. Right. And that's what they were pushing brands spend their money on. He had a very contrarian view. And I believe that's the most important thing to figure out. What is it that you believe about your industry, your space, your niche that is different than what other people are talking about? You know, I'm in this wild new journey of making content. We were talking about this before we started rolling. You asked me what's it like, you know, now that you're. You've gone from behind the camera to in front of it. And I think for me it's been a very interesting process because I've started to get more convicted around this idea that the contrarian belief is extremely Important. And I think it's why our content is getting a little bit of traction. Right. I think the reason why is because the majority of my competitors or other characters in the space talking about content and brand strategy, they almost all default to talking about going viral. Viral hooks, viral packaging. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's great. But I believe in optimizing personal brands in a different way, optimizing around trust. And I communicate that. I just got it out in this podcast. I communicate it in every long form video that we do and every podcast that I go on. And so what I'm doing is I am trying to distinguish or differentiate myself from the pack. And I think that back to your 1%, that is the thing that is going to move the needle for everybody, making their personal brand the most. More than the hooks, the titles and thumbnails. Those are great, those are important. But I don't believe that is the biggest driver of success.

[A]

So what is trust in content?

[B]

What is trust? I don't know if I've ever really sat down to define what trust is, so I'm not going to be able to give you a great answer on that. I could, you know, word vomit my way to it, but I'll think on that a little bit more.

[A]

Yeah. Because that's essentially brand, right? Is here's a good example that I can use of the best way that I can describe brand. So for me, the simplest way I can describe brand is I will watch your video without you needing a good hook. For me. So it's like, if I see someone's face that I follow and it's a guy or a girl that I know, like, trust and respect, they don't need to come up with a fancy packaging or a fancy hook or a fancy topic. As soon as I see their face, I'm like, I'm gonna listen to what you have to say regardless. But if somebody doesn't have that recognition with me and I don't trust them, then the first two or three seconds is like, I need the first two or three seconds to be hyper interesting. Otherwise I'm completely lost. And I'm kind of like stuck right there where it's like, I feel like. And again, personally, the best part of this interview is going to come from my own personal curiosity, is like, I feel like we are really good at generating views, but the brand is what we're working on, which is like that inner trust, that value.

[B]

The reason why you'd click on the video despite the packaging is because you Associate that creator with usefulness for you. So I believe that brand is just when the audience associates two or more things together. And I believe that branding is the action that we can all take. So if we were to use my YouTube channel in this example, we optimize around building trust and providing useful, valuable content, right? And so we, and we try to do an ungodly amount of that, right? Like we've put out a six hour plus video, a three hour video, a two hour plus metal. We try to do, yeah, very metal. Like we try to provide a lot of that value. We are trying to intentionally pair my brand with usefulness consistently so that you then associate me with valuable useful content. So despite how we package it, you're going to click on it is the hope, right? So I, I believe that's what brand is back to trust. I think I'll give a, a rough attempt at this, a V1 for all my editors out there. I believe that trust is really just believing that the ability to predict something, right? And so if I trust, like my truck, I have a Ram 1500, it's a push start, right? I trust, I believe that every time that I push the break in and hit the button, it's going to start, right? So I think that's boiling it down again. I'm not putting great words to it, but I'm giving an example here. That's what I think trust is. And so if you are making useful, valuable content, I think what you're trying to do is make it easy for the audience to take action on what you say, get the result they wanted and trust you more. Just like when I push the breakdown and press the button, I get the result I want, which is my truck starts every morning. That that happens. My trust, this is a small example, but this is the way that like it works. My trust in my truck, starting through those actions goes up, right? And my trust in, in ram the brand goes up or whatever, right? And I believe it's the same way in making content. If you watch every video that I put out and action on what I say to do and get good results, I believe that you are going to trust me more over time, not less.

[A]

Few things I want to pull out of that. So the first is to pull out the contrarian point because I can see that also going the opposite direction where I see some people that are trying to be too contrarian. And it's like the street interview guys where they're like, hey, what do you think about like the red, whole red pill shit it's like, bro, like, yes, touch grass.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Like, go breathe air, drink a glass of water. You're gonna be okay. And so there's, I feel like there's a fine line there. And then also to piggyback off the same question about double clicking on the contrarian point, right? So one is, let's hit that fine line.

[B]

Let's hit that first one real quick because I don't want to forget and my brain will, will go down the rabbit hole. So the, the big thing that I would say is contrarian to your core. It needs to be something that you believe. I do not believe in controversy for controversy's sake. That's why I don't use the word controversy. You, you'll see a lot of people that talk about viral hooks, for example, they'll use the word controversial. And they are doing that because this is a very, like, as old as time media playbook, right? This works with television, with newspaper, with the local town square. Like everything. Controversy for controversy's sake does get attention.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I just believe that it doesn't build the brand that a lot of people that are consuming my content want to build. So to your point, I couldn't agree more. Don't, don't be that asshole. Nobody likes that person. Right? But if you believe it to your core, you don't have to be an asshole about it. But if you truly believe that, you're going to feel compelled. Like, I have to share this, right? I see everybody optimizing around, going viral every. And building these brands that are these prisons for them. I feel compelled. Like we put together the six hour course and put it out for free on YouTube because I had had years of people DMing me saying, I took this person's course or I did this advice and it got me to this point and this point was really bad. I felt compelled. I had to share it, right? My, my contrarian take. So I couldn't agree with you more. It needs to be something that you believe at your core. And if you do not, then I would not recommend going around and preaching it like it's the Gospel.

[A]

Yeah, no, 100% agree with that. My two big contrarian takes is number one. And I feel like you have to kind of layer them because if, if a contrarian take all of a sudden becomes more widely, widely accepted, then it's not so contrarian anymore. I mean, the number one thing that I built my brand off of is corporate America is kind of a stupid idea, you know, where it's like, oh, I'm going to delay my life and any chance I have of happiness or fun or travel around the world for 40 years with the hope that I make it to 65 and I can go do something fun. Right, that's contrarian. Take number one and then control your take. Number two is I actually think the opposite of Alex, where I say, I think you can have your cake and eat it too. I think you can enjoy the ride, I think you can enjoy the journey. And I do optimize for fun. Like, I take an entire month off every single year for fun. And that's not going to build my business faster, maybe, but personally, I don't give a shit. You know, it's not something that I care about.

[B]

So, dude, you know thyself, you know yourself, and you know what you want out of this whole journey that you're going on. You're optimizing around that. That's.

[A]

Here's something that's the best. Here's something that's super important about that, though. I have enough lived experience through action, right? So it's like luck is. Luck is the dust that's kicked up from action. And so I've taken. I've done enough things in my life to develop taste, right? That's what we're talking about, taste. And so I have enough context to say, this is what I like, this is what I don't like. And actually, you know what? From my body of evidence and experience, here's my con, here's my contrarian take. But for somebody that's listening to this, which is probably the majority of people that are just getting started and they kind of want to document that journey, they don't really have enough experience to have a contrarian take. They don't really know what they believe or what they don't believe yet. And they're in the process of figuring it out, and they're in the process of building that journey and kind of documenting themselves as they grow the business, as they grow the brand, and they really don't know what they believe yet, what's some advice we can give to that creator?

[B]

So what we've been discussing so far is the build in public lane as a. An expert or somebody who's qualified enough to be deemed an expert.

[A]

The grizzled veteran.

[B]

Sure, yes. On the other hand, what you're describing now is what I like to call learn in public, which is equally as valuable and useful for your audience if you do it correctly. This path is being the guinea pig for your audience. I'm on the journey to accomplish this desired outcome. I'm learning these things along the way in order to get to that point. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you all the things that I do right and all the things that I do wrong. That way you can do more of what I do right and avoid the things that I do wrong. And that is incredibly useful for the audience as well. I think there is great value in that. The problem that a lot of people find themselves in is there's a lot of people going around right now talking about being an expert and doing the build in public route, but they don't have the experience to back that they should be more the learn in public. They're the person that had a video go viral once or twice and now suddenly they have a whole program teaching you how to go viral. It's like, well, maybe we should be learning how to do that consistently across different niches for an extended period of time before we go around teaching like we're an expert.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's the whole issue with the online space. If we're going to be real, it's an uphill battle if you are entering an education right now because you have to compete against everybody's prior expectations. So you're not even starting from a zero brand value, you're actually starting from a negative brown brand value. Because if you're talking about investing or real estate or business in that space, you're immediately until you're guilty until proven innocent, essentially. So people are going to see you and they're going to immediately equate you to somebody that posted something before where they got scammed and now you have to actively convince them that you aren't that. And to your point, I think that's a wonderful frame. It's a frame that I've used. It's just like, hey, I'm kind of figuring this stuff out as we go, you know, and then just being honest about that.

[B]

And, and you know, one thing that I would say is like we were just talking about when we were young festival in high school, if I showed up to school with heavy eyeliner, black lipstick, spiked choker, like collar thing. Oh yeah, man, the skin tight jeans and my Doc Martens. Right. I'm probably into metal or a goth. Right. And if I want people to not interpret me that way, one, you know, I probably shouldn't be at my core of goth if I don't want them to interpret me that way. But let's just pretend that that's not the case. Okay. I'm going to start dressing differently. Right. And I don't think people apply the same logic to showing up online. If you are making content in a space that is typically known for scammy that take advantage of people, then don't show up looking like them online. Down to simple things like if you want to stand out and not look like them, stop using the same thumbnail and title that they are using.

[A]

Stop doing the same podcast video that they're doing. Stop doing the same captions they're doing.

[B]

Yeah. Like whether we believe at our core that this is right or wrong doesn't matter, it just is. Which is that if you show up looking like other people, people will look at you and lump you into that crowd.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's one big reason why the second video we released was taking what the majority of people in my space charge for and putting it out for free. I wanted to make it very abundantly clear I am not like these other people. I love them. I know a lot of them. They're great people. There's nothing wrong. My values are not inherently right or wrong. They're just right for me. But I did my best out the gate to show that we are different and to not get lumped into that crowd. Because I agree with you, a lot of people in this space have tarnished the brand. And so in order to not get lumped into that what I would call bad brand, I'm doing everything I can to stand out and be different.

[A]

I love that. So I feel that the contrarian views. So to kind of summarize this first part of the interview, for people that are listening, it's like number one, what one or two things. What's the maximum amount of pillars that you would put towards a brand? Let's say to somebody that has a body of experience, maybe they've invested in some real estate or they've had some business success and now they feel that it's worth it for them to document. Document what they're doing as they scale. So they're new to brand.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But let's say that they have some trench level knowledge. Is it maybe if you're one to three things that you want to attach your brand to. No more.

[B]

If you're deep in it, you probably have two or three that immediately come to mind. I did when we started this and I just started talking about them and saw what one resonated the most with the audience and then I've leaned into that.

[A]

So experiment.

[B]

Yeah. It's I mean, you know, I think it's kind of like how comedians do crowd work. It's like how good content creators make content. It's putting things out there and seeing what one's core and true to me, of course, but what ones stick the most like. Another big one that I talk about, but not as frequently, is I believe in leading a media team with empathy, not fear. But that hasn't caught on as much. Right. Because it's not as applicable how many people lead a media team. Right. And so I still talk about that and I'll reference that. But the other one is. Is definitely catching more attention and gets more interest from people. And it's also the one there's less people talking about. You know, there's not a ton of people out there scaling media teams. Right. There's a lot of people that lead their media team with fear, but very few people that are doing that go around talking about it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so it is. It is a contrarian take, but it's not one that is publicly blasted out into the universe. Like optimizing your personal brand around virality is.

[A]

Got it. No, that makes sense.

[B]

So in the beginning, though, I talk about them equally. I think I had probably two or three, and I talked about them. And then we just started noticing what are people. You know, we have the luxury, for whatever reason people are choosing to do this, where they are taking the content that we make, whether it's our videos or podcasts. I go on and they're dissecting it and making content about it on LinkedIn. And that's this, like, subject matter is what I saw the majority of people referencing when they were making content about our content. And so to me, it was like, cool, that has caught fire. Let's double down on that.

[A]

Got it. So pick two to three brand pillars, two to three contrarian things that you believe to your core tools that we could put in our tool belt. Another tool that I actually want to talk about is actually kind of the opposite of this. Cool. So we just talked about the importance of being contrarian and having your contrarian beliefs. I want to reference two individual artists that are the polar opposite, and that is Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan. So Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan are both country, I guess, country pop right now. And arguably some of the largest artists in the world in America, like Zach Bryan's selling out these headliner tours. Taylor Swift, I think, just did the largest tour in existence.

[B]

Taylor Swift changes the economy of everywhere she goes. Correct.

[A]

And I would actually argue that they're the opposite of contrarian. And the reason that they're popular. I saw this TikTok video that I actually really agreed with, which is the reason that Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan are both so popular isn't because of how good their voices are. There's arguably much better voices that exist in music. It's just that they are so effing relatable to people. People listen to Taylor Swift and they're like, I can. I can see myself in her. In her music. And with Zach Brian, you can see yourself in him and his music. And so they're actually kind of the opposite. They're just so relatable that everybody that's working in a grease shop or. Or is doing anything can relate to Zach Bryan. And any girl, mom or daughter can relate to Taylor Swift. So can you talk about relatability also?

[B]

How old are you?

[A]

30.

[B]

Okay. For the majority of the music industry's time, rock stars have been very unrelatable. They've only presented the glamour life. They've only. They've only projected a perfect existence.

[A]

Oh, so you're saying this is actually contrarian?

[B]

Taylor was contrarian. She was what? She was one of the most contrarian artists of our time. She didn't hide the fact that she went through all these nasty relationships and breakups and horrible moments and ups and downs of trying to find who she was. She brought that out in her music. That was her whole thing. She was one of the most contrarian artists of all time. She. She brought us into the world and showed that she was a human that was relatable, not a rock star on a pedestal that we could never aspire to be. We all related to her. I actually. We just clipped something where I was talking about this where, like, it's interesting because a lot of the artists that preceded her that came before her, they only showed the good life. And that's what the paparazzi made their money on, was when they would get those moments of imperfection. And Taylor's whole brand and music was like, let me show you the imperfection. And when pop culture shat all over her, because they did for a while, right? Like, she was made fun of her and Bieber and all these characters were made fun of for a very long time. Meanwhile, her fans were. Were becoming tighter and closer and more loyal to her than ever. Name another artist that has more loyalty than her. There isn't one that I could articulate right now, like, not even close. Literally, like, the line that I made wasn't. It wasn't. Hyperbole. It's true. Like, when she goes into a city, she changes the local economy. When she is there with ticket sales and everything, people that fly it. Like, it's unbelievable. The lift she had on female viewership with the NFL. Incredible. And I believe all of this is because she did the exact opposite of what the majority of artists were doing at the time. Now it's popular. Now it's cool, right, to be vulnerable and talk about your struggles or whatever. But that was actually pretty rare in music at that time.

[A]

I think that's a great, great point. That's actually. I didn't think about that that way.

[B]

Taylor's the goat man.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She. In so many ways, too.

[A]

There's softy.

[B]

Oh, big time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But a very specific era. I. I really like the Folklore album. I believe that's what it is. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So it's that. That makes a lot of sense, because now it is more mainstream to be vulnerable. And I would say that probably Zach and Taylor pioneered that. And I want to wrap that back to. There's a point that we're talking about Taylor Swift on this freaking podcast about business, entrepreneurship, and brand. Right. Is that, hey, if you don't want to be labeled as a guru, maybe stop flexing your Rolexes and your Ferraris. Maybe you talk about some things that didn't go so well in your life, and you leave with some vulnerability. You say, hey, I'm figuring this stuff out too, guys. I'm just a couple of steps ahead of you. Can you talk about that, perhaps about, you know, who do you make content for? You know, so you have people that feel like they have to be so far ahead of someone or, like, years or mil or revenue mark. Like, who should a person that's listening to this make content for?

[B]

I mean, that's, you know, six months of working together. Yeah. So let me try to condense six months of work into a sentence here. Basically, what you want to figure out, in my opinion, is the majority of people, let's be real, that are listening to this, they're not doing it to scratch some personal passion itch. They're trying to grow their business.

[A]

Trying to grow their business.

[B]

And so, okay, in influence. Right? Yeah. But ultimately, I think the majority of them, their influence is desired to build an A business, whether it's the current business or one that you're going to do down the road when you hit another stage of life, whatever. But if that's the case, then, okay, cool. You have an ideal customer that you serve best. Right. So Then what kind of content do you make? In my opinion, you get very clear on what are the painful problems that that ideal customer is experiencing, and how can I make content to help them solve the small problems that then ladder up to the big problem that my offer solves. And that's ultimately what I would do. And so your business, in my opinion, who you can serve is going to be a reflection on the skills, experience, and results that you've gotten over your career. Right? So, like, the people that I could serve 12 years ago are different than the people that I can serve now based on my skills, experience, and results that I've gotten.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so I have a clear understanding of who my ideal customer is. And so I make content to help them solve the problems that come before the problems that I solve. Does that make sense? To give a very clear example here, I am not a fire starter or I don't help people start their personal brands. Like, if you work with Ralston, you need to already be creating content consistently. There needs to be. Not like a bizzling fire, but I need a flame because I am gasoline on that.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And we've identified that as, like, that's where I'm really good. That is who we serve. So now that we have clarity on that, well, what kind of content do we make? Well, a lot of different things, but one example is a video that we're going to be putting out probably in the next three months, hopefully before the end of 2025, maybe beginning of 2026, which is how to. This is not the title. We'll have a better title. Trevor will have something far better than what I'm coming up with. But basically, it's like how to jumpstart your personal brand, how to start it. Right? Because that's a problem that we need to solve for free for people so that they get the momentum to then be able to work with us. Right? It's. What is the problem that they have to overcome to get rolling to then be at a point where they can work with us is how I like to think about it.

[A]

Yo, what's up, guys? One sec. You're listening to a podcast right now, and I freaking love that. But this is not making you more money. What makes you more money, more wealth, more equity, is being in the room with the people that you're hearing on today's episode. If you want to be around hundreds of other people like you leaving corporate America, doing big deals in business, commercial real estate, agency and land, check out actionacademy.com, go in the show, link the show description and click the link to book a call with our membership director team. We'll give you the resources, the connections and the community to actually pull off the stuff that you're learning about on this podcast. And we'll hold you accountable to the actual implementation of the information that is actionacademy.com now let's get back to today's episode. Well, here, here's a million dollar question. And it's something that I've ran into a lot, especially in the like, kind of heavier space of like investing, education, business, stuff like this. And I feel like you've done a really good job of this, helping Alex and Gary both with their packaging of like complex business advice broken down to a fifth grade level. And so you'll say, okay, cool, so solve these problems. And then I'll go and I'll be like, okay, well here's how you underwrite a small business to buy and, and it gets like 37 views because it's like such a small niche thing that it's not packaged in a way, and we're talking short form specifically here. It's not packaged in a way that people are watching or digesting and then they just die at the hook. Whereas if I make something that's a little bit more general, like that's the stuff that gets more views like we're talking about. So it's like again, balancing that art and the science. So I think the biggest thing that people are struggling with in the space is how do you balance making content that's packaged in a way where it's like almost like you're spoon feeding them the medicine in a way that tastes good. And they're like, I like this, but I also want to watch costs money.

[B]

To make content, right? At some level, sure, right. It costs either you're spending your own time if you don't have a team or anything like that, and you use all the free softwares out there, whatever, and you can upload to Instagram for free, but it costs something, right? It's at least your time, if not more. I would ask you the question of do I? Do you want to determine where you spend your money based on your business growing directly from it or from your ego feeling better from it? Meaning what we're articulating here is how do I get more people to watch this? But it's like, do you need more people to watch this? Like, do you need people that aren't interested in what you have to sell to watch this? Truly. And if you have good context on your offer in the market and what your TAM is, your TAM might be small. Like mine is a lot smaller than somebody who just provides video editing services for anybody.

[A]

Branding advice. Right.

[B]

Even that. Yeah. Like, I don't just work with any old person. I have a very clear customer that we work with. So I think that's the big thing. And I want to be very clear. I've said this for years behind the scenes, and it's very easy when you're leading a media team for somebody to be like, views don't matter. We're optimizing for conversions and for sales. Right. Like, it's really easy. The moment that it's now my face in the content, it's me in it. And I see, like, we put out a video targeted towards our very clear customer, but because of that, it's not doing super well, views wise. I have to fight that. I see it. I'm like, I turned to Trevor. I'm like, what can we do to make this a little bit, you know, spicier for the packaging?

[A]

Well, yeah, because you, as the, as the business owner is like. I mean, in the beginning, it's like you don't have any money to spend, but it's like now in my position, I'm like, you're hemorrhaging thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of dollars a month towards this. And you're like, all right, where's the roi? Where's the roi? Where's the roi? That's from the business owner perspective of it.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And now I'm in that seat.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So what I measure is clients, customers that we get from the content, not the views. The views I do look at. I do. And I care about them. Anybody who says that they don't care about views entirely is lying. It's not true. Like, we're all humans, right? That's what we look at. But what I would encourage people to do is make sure that they're not following the noise of constantly trying to hit that view benchmark. If your sales, the thing that keeps your business alive is not matching that. Right. If views are going up and we're optimizing for that and sales are tracking along with that, by all means, keep doing you right. You're hitting both things. But if views are going up and sales are not, then what the fuck are we doing? Why are we doing this? It makes no sense because again, the people that are listening to this, they're not building their. Their revenue is not coming from AdSense.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Like, it's not ads. It's not brand partnerships and sponsorships. It's building our business. And if that's the case, then I think we need to be very careful around not optimizing for the thing that feels good immediately but will not pay our staff. I don't pay Trevor and Kate on my team with the views that we get.

[A]

Oh, man. Can't pay your mortgage reviews, Trevor.

[B]

It's crazy. It's insane, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Wild concept. And so if that's the case, then why would we optimize for the thing that does not actually provide our business value?

[A]

Right.

[B]

So when I hear those things, I. I immediately question it. And when I have those thoughts, I immediately question it with myself. Now, a little caveat here is you can have different goals for different pieces of content. So we have content that we make that is what I affectionately call niche wide content. And the goal is to reach more people within our lane, not just our ideal customer. Right. Like to get very granular for a second. If you look at our YouTube channel, there's two different videos that I like to use for this example, one where we were making it very granular for our ideal customer. It's how to lead a creative team, not how to build one. How to lead one that already exists. Then we have another video which is, if you struggle with making content, please watch this. It's me talking about all the mindset shifts I had to make going from behind the camera to in front of it. But it'll help anybody who's struggling making content. One is addressing our direct ideal customer. One is for anybody who makes content, even the mom and dad making content with their family on their Instagram. Right. It's applicable there, but it's still within my niche of content and brand strategy. Do you see what I'm saying here? Right. And so that. But my objective with that video was very clear. We did not make that to get clients. That was not the goal. The goal was purely to help people. That was it. It was literally just a give into the market and hopefully it would hit for some people. The goal was not to get clients on the media team video. It was. Right. And so this goes to a, you know, subterraneous level here where I believe that the 2.0 version of content creation is identifying individual goals for individual pieces rather than one collective goal that you shove everything through. But that is definitely a more advanced version of this. And I don't recommend people, especially in their first year, try that.

[A]

Okay, well, now this stage of the interview. Let's go into the 301 stuff. So let's talk to the person that is like, okay, you know what, man? Like maybe I don't have a brand effort. Like, I want to invest money into this. I want to invest time into this. Like this is something. Because if somebody's candidly listening or watching this point in the video, like 35, 40 minutes deep, they're pretty invested in this topic, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So let's, let's give them a little bit of reward. Let's give them a candy bar here. And let's talk about creative teams because again, you were behind Gary with his short form growth, what was it, like 300,000, like 3.5 million in like a couple of months?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I got to lead the charge on managing the TikTok channel when we went from 300k to 3.5.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And then, so, and then Alex and Layla, like you were their creative director. That's where you and I met too. Yeah. So arguably two of the largest brands in the space. You had your hand on both of them. So let's talk about everybody wants to be a Gary Vaynerchuk. Everybody wants to be a Hormozi. But. And they're like, okay, cool. What's required? I don't have, you know, the team to do it. I don't have the resources to do it. How do I do this? And I'm even in the same boat where I'm like, God dang, dude, how do I build a media team? How do I build a creative team where I do have resources now. So if somebody's like, I'm in it. I'm in it for the long haul, for three plus years. I want to build a brand. I want to do this the right way. I want to be the next Dan Martell. Of course an argument can be made. You want to be yourself, but that's the level that you want to get to. Who do you hire in what order to build your media team to establish one of these mega brands?

[B]

If you're one of those people that are watching or listening and you want to or aspire to be to the level of one of the top creators in your niche, don't. For 99% of you, you'll just stop there. And that's good for the 1% that got it like that. Cool. You'll hear that and be fired the up and you'll murder it. Amazing. I love it here. Here's why it is such a massive mistake for people to look at the top creators and what they're doing right now and try to do that in the beginning. It's the classic thing that anybody who has ever competed in any form of athletics knows for certain, which is, if I'm gonna go start playing tennis tomorrow, I'm not gonna do what Serena Williams is doing for her workouts and her practices right now or at the peak of her career. Right. Maybe I'll look at what she did in the beginning to get started. Right. But I believe that we're in this weird era right now where it's funny, I was actually talking to a buddy of mine about this for running. I'm not in the running world. He's become obsessed with it. And something when we were talking, he's like, dude, all of these running experts, they're making content on how to get into running, and it's useless because they've forgotten what it's actually like in the beginning. I don't care about a lot of the stuff they're talking about. I'm trying to figure out what shoes to use so that my knees don't hurt. I'm trying to figure out what shorts do I wear, how do I plan a route, all the things that are actually applicable for somebody in the beginning. And so we have this hyper fixation and glorification and putting on a pedestal these top creators where they are right now. And then we say that we need to do those things now. And that is so unrealistic.

[A]

Right.

[B]

The easier example to understand is if you were to take Chris Bumstead or Ronnie Coleman. Right? I use Ronnie Coleman because that's more my era of bodybuilding. But if I took their workout routines and tried to do them, I would fall apart. Every limb and ligament would be torn.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I'd be screwed. I would definitely not be able to get out of bed the next morning. And that's obvious to us. But then we think like, okay, how do I do a couple hundred pieces of content every single week when maybe you've only been posting a couple of times a month, Right? That is too big of a jump. And so I think the number one thing that I would caution people to do is not try to accomplish that. What I would do is I would figure out what am I competitively great at? What is my medium that I can show up really well with? Right. And so medium meaning video, audio, written or visual, like graphics. Pick one of those. And then what you're going to do is ideally figure out what your contrarian belief is, or if you're going to learn in public. Cool. Do that. But then you need to develop a system that is actually sustainable for you. Look at the two characters that you named high volume of content that I come from that world. How much content am I putting out? Trevor and I put out one YouTube video a month and, like, about one Instagram and LinkedIn post a week. That's it. That is incredibly low volume. Right? Like, that's like, nothing compared to the systems that I've been a part of. What did I. Because I would never be able to sustain that. Not right now. I built a process and system with Trevor and we're refining it, but we're optimizing not for output, but for longevity. The greatest returns from doing this shit isn't going to be a year of sprinting. It's going to be years of jogging, in my opinion. Okay, there are people that will sprint to the top, and that's great. But I will also say a lot of people that sprint to the top don't stay there very long because it's not sustainable. Half of the fuckers that y' all idolize hate making content and are, oh.

[A]

I. Dude, I hate this. Like, no, seriously, like, I'm brother, I'm there. So I enjoy this. I enjoy being able to meet people like you and sit down, break bread. Because a lot of times we form friendships and partnerships that. That, like, lasts years and years and years. That's why I've enjoyed the podcast. But, like, I'm snapping, like, flying out to places in. In doing this constantly. I can't do it anymore. I'm now going from a season of yes. Like, yes, takes you there. No. Keeps you there. And so I'm in a season of entering a season, a big season, a no.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I'm trying to do. That's the exact question. So let's say it is the 1% that says I am the 1%.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm like, dude, I will do. I don't do my best. I do what's required and I will do what's required for me to make this. Because I've got a mission of helping a million people leave corporate America, because I think corporate America's fricking trap. And so that's what we're doing. We've helped a few thousand so far. Now I need to get to a million. And so I want to figure out how I can do this, because in the beginning, it was more content focused, and now this would be a bit selfish, guys, but you guys will get value from this. I promise. Like and subscribe and follow Caleb. Sup chat? So like right now I went from creator to now. I built multiple businesses in the back end of it. Now I'm a freaking business owner, man. I gotta run my teams, I gotta run my businesses, I gotta run my investment portfolio. My, my content has now become like kind of the side chick, you know, where I'm like, oh, I need to pay a little attention to you over here. But it's like I gotta go back over here and focus here. So it's like how do you figure out what is sustainable and like how do you build the processes and the team and the workflow for people that do have resources? Because to give you a little bit more context and what a lot of people are doing that are watching this, that are in to have some good businesses and they're getting started. I hired a creative director or I gave it a shot. It was a ten thousand, twelve thousand dollar a month guy. And he comes in and I say okay, cool. So like, I don't know what to tell you to do. I've never done this before. But you've got experience running some brands. It's like, are you going to shoot me? Are you going to edit it? And he goes, oh, I don't shoot. I was like, okay, what do you edit? He goes, no, I don't edit. I'm like, what do you do that I'm paying $10,000 a month for? He goes, I'm more the ideas guy. I'm like, well, I don't have anyone to shoot or edit. And I feel like there's so many people in my space that I talk to that are like that. They're there. They're like, bro, I've got maybe 10 to $30,000 a month, which is a lot for some people listening that I can invest towards this, but I don't know where my headcount goes with that amount of resources. So can you help us? Like what processes, what team can I build to make this sustainable? If I do have, let's say 10, $20,000 a month to put towards this? We'll say 10.

[B]

Okay. There was a couple questions in there, so.

[A]

A lot.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's why we fly to Vegas and do these interviews in person, baby. That's why it's worth it.

[B]

What ones do you want to hit first? So do you want to hit on like hate making content sustainable output and then creative director you want to hit. Yeah, so let's go, let's Making content. Okay, let's talk through that first, because that's going to lead to the most sustainability, is if you enjoy it, beautiful. I believe that you should just learn branding. If branding is pairing two things together consistently, and the byproduct is brand, when the audience associates the two things together inherently, then I think you need to take the thing that you don't like making content, and and pair it with something that you do like consistently. And over time, you will start to associate making content with something that you enjoy. An example is when I started getting back into my fitness journey and wanted to start getting in shape. I started simply. I just wanted to go for a walk every day, and my habit in the morning was I would go get a very sugary latte and a sugary pastry from Starbucks and listen to a podcast on my drive, and then I'd go home and start work. And the way that I started branding walks in the morning was I would take that sugary latte and that sugary pastry and that podcast on a walk with me, and then eventually that latte turned into an Americano and the pastry turned into an apple, and then there was no longer an apple, and it was just the podcast, the Americano and my walk. And then eventually I didn't even need the Americano. I would just listen to a podcast and go for a walk. Right? I branded walks. I paired something that I maybe wasn't as into with something that I really loved. And over time, I didn't need that thing that I loved because walks became something that I loved. So if you don't enjoy making content, put some shit into the content creation process that you enjoy. If you like golfing, go film some shorts out on the golf course. If you like hiking, film a YouTube video on the peak of the mountain that you just climbed. Right? Like, pair those things. I really enjoy visiting new cities and staying in cool airbnbs that have cool architecture. So how do we go about booking our locations for YouTube videos? The majority of them, we pick a cool location and a cool Airbnb and we film in that. And I enjoy it. And it makes it so much fun, right? And so I set out at the beginning, I told Trevor, I was like, we both know what the best version of this looks like from an output perspective, but we also both know that I will not stick with that. This needs to be something that I enjoy. So the first year, we're optimizing around my enjoyment. That is it. Enjoyment over performance, even at the expense of the performance. So that was the huge thing that we were optimizing for there and then on the next one. I think we were talking cadence. So what I would do very practically is just say I'm going to do one video a week. And if you put that in your calendar and you get anxiety and stressed seeing that, then what about bi weekly? Oh, I feel relieved. That's easy. I can do that. Cool. Then that is your cadence. If biweekly makes you feel, like, uncomfy inside. Amazing. Monthly. Oh, that feels good. Awesome. Do that. That's what I settled on. Right. And I'm going to stick with that. Maybe halfway through 2026, we'll go to twice a month. Who knows? But I want to do this for longer. Not again. Just like some short sprint, climb up and then dip. Because I no longer can sustain this cadence that I built. Because now I have a business that I'm operating and I don't have the time for that. Right. And so I'm trying to think of, like, what am I going to stick with and what is going to be something that I'm capable of doing when Ralston is at peak. Right. And it requires a lot of operation for me. So that's those first two.

[A]

I think that's genius. I know Ryan Pineda just started, like, a golf mastermind, where he literally just golfs because he enjoys golfing. And now he's filming content from it. That's a huge thing. My big thing is traveling. I love traveling. So six months out of the year, I'm traveling. I spend my summers in Europe. And so I've done that for four years now. And that's a contrarian thing. Like a guy in his late 20s, early 30s that spends half of his year in Europe traveling. And I'm not documenting any of that because the idea of, you know, no offense, Trevor, of having, like a Trevor follow me and my girlfriend around and have to pay for their plane ticket and play, pay for their hotel room and everything. That seems daunting.

[B]

It's because you're not hiring correctly.

[A]

Okay, so to A two coming with Kat and I.

[B]

My girlfriend's name is Kat. Yeah, Trevor coming with us on a trip is awesome. Like, we were just talking about this before the podcast. Like, we have our one on one today and a couple other meetings that we're doing, and we oftentimes do them over zoom because it's more convenient. And I was like, hey, you want to do it in person? He's like, yeah, you know. Any particular reason? It's like, no, I just want to hang out. Like, I enjoy hanging out with Trevor. And so something back to the third question that you had around hiring, like, the people that say, I hired the content director and it didn't work, it's not their fault. It's your fault. You hired the wrong person. You did not qualify them correctly and you didn't do a good job of determining what it is you actually needed.

[A]

So what is that?

[B]

So, yeah, great question. So help. A big, big thing that you need to look out for in the interview process with this person is do I get stoked about another call with them? If there is any part of you that's like, oh, man, like, if in the back of your head and you hate this about yourself, but you know it to be true, you get off a call with them and you're like, man, they talk a lot. If you have that thought, they're not the right person. Because if, if you notice that now, it will annoy you later. Okay? Any little thing that you're like, like, that's going to get worse. Just like a marriage or a relate, like, and I'm not the person to talk to you for that shit, but it's the same shit there. Anything that you view as a tiny little question mark is going to be a massive, glaring red flag down the road. So you need to look forward to talking to this person. You need to make sure that they have evidence to show you that they have accomplished something similar to what you're wanting to accomplish in a previous scenario that they actually had control over. Not like, you know, for example, hiring a, an editor that was a YouTube editor, a part of a really big brand to run your brand, might not be the right move.

[A]

Maybe they are exactly what I did.

[B]

Maybe. Okay, so this is where there's a lot of nuance. And this is why I, like, this is why I prefer working with people rather than just making the content. Because there's so much nuance that goes into this. But what I would say is, is like, more than likely they aren't aware of all of the strategy that goes into overseeing an entire brand. They might be a fucking genius when it comes to YouTube and how to make good YouTube content. But that doesn't mean that they're going to understand what topics you should or shouldn't be hitting on, what podcasts you should appear on or shouldn't appear like, those things. And so you want evidence to support it. Doesn't mean that they've been in that role previously. Right. Like, when I got hired as the creative director, I had not held a creative director role before. I had managed a couple editors, but I had never built a team that was okay, but I had managed platforms, individuals and done the individual creative. So I had done all of the key elements. And so that's something that you need to look for. It Sounds obvious, but 99.9% of you don't do this, which is you just need evidence to show you data to show you that they are what they're saying they are. Right? Like so many people go around saying, I'm a social media manager, I understand strategy, I'll improve your video content. Where's the evidence to show that you've done this before?

[A]

All right, I want to, because for the sake of time, I have to just hit on this one specific hire. So is this somebody, I guess the question is, is this just a videographer that you hire? Is this a person that you're wanting to hire more of as a video person that's just capturing volumes and volumes of content and then kind of having some taste to be able to decide what's useful? Or is this a strategist that also picks up video skills? Because my issue right now is I'm deep in this and it's like either you've got the strategist that's like, I'm not really the video guy. Like, you know, I've got a wife and kids. I don't want to go travel because I travel around the world. I need somebody that can come travel with me. So they're like, you need to just get some videographers. They're going to upload the videos to the cloud, I'm going to clip it and figure out whatever the, the talking points are. Or is it somebody that you're like, hey, I'm, I want to hang out with you too. Like we like hanging out together. They're good at video and then they learn the other stuff. What do you optimize for?

[B]

Well, the level of opportunity you're providing equals the level of talent you're going to attract. So that's the first thing, right? Like somebody who has a massive opportunity is going to be able to attract better talent for less. Right. And the smaller your opportunity, the lower, the less access to top talent you have. So that's one thing right there. Meaning unless you are a big dog with a very big opportunity, you're going to have to make concessions. Right? Life is a sequence of trade offs. And so is hiring. And so you have to define what is it that I am most comfortable with them learning on the job versus coming in equipped. Okay. And so in the, when I was hired as a creative director, for example, I didn't have as much as much experience on hiring and operations of leading a team. Right. That was a deficit. I had that Layla felt comfortable teaching and filling that gap. If I had a deficit on brand strategy and content strategy, that might have been a different thing. That would have been an issue. Right. So for you, the individual who is hiring this person, you need to figure out what am I comfortable teaching them or what am I comfortable investing to outside consultants, agencies to come in and teach this person.

[A]

Right. The rising star method.

[B]

Yeah. So that, that's going to be the case for 99% of people that are consuming this right now is you're going to have to hire somebody that is a probably a 70% of what you're looking for. And you need to figure out what are the deficits you're okay with. For 99% of you. You need somebody that is capable of filming and editing with the modern needs of social in mind.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

They might not be the greatest brand strategist. They might not understand or all the platforms to a T. They might come in only understanding one and they're going to have to round themselves out over time. But that's, that's where you're at. That's the opportunity that you're providing or the amount that you have. The other thing that we're not talking about is like if you want this person at like premium level, like experienced, been there, done that for multiple brands, we're talking a very hefty investment for salary.

[A]

Like what is a hefty investment for salary?

[B]

Like ballpark, like at least like 250 grand probably for somebody who has done it and I mean for somebody who's led this scenario in multiple times, you're talking 350, 400k plus easily. Right. Like who has done it and led it in multiple scenarios. That is a huge investment, 99.999 of people listening. That's like their yearly revenue. Right. And so like that's not even fathomable. And so for most people you're going to have to get the Swiss army knife. The, the individual who is good at all the things, not great at any of them.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

And then invest in their learning over time.

[A]

Okay, so I've got two follow up questions for that for the sake of time. Okay. Number one, where do you post this job? Is there, are there certain forums, are there certain places that a little bit more of the creatives hang out?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or is this Something that you could post to Indeed. You know, where do you, where do you post this type of stuff? How do you attract this person? From a job posting perspective, there are.

[B]

Recruiters out there that are experts in this and will give way better, more tactical advice. But I'll tell you, who are they? I don't have any names to give, but the places that I like to go are just the general job. Like if you post on Indeed or Monster or whatever the fuck you use for your job postings. Cool, keep doing that post on your website. YT Jobs. Co. I'm a fan of. I like them. I think they do a good job of having a more curated pool of individuals that are YouTube or just modern social or interest media oriented and experienced. So that's a good spot to post it, anecdotally speaking. So I'm not saying that if you do this on LinkedIn, you're going to get great results. But for me and the individuals that I have partnered with this year, with Ralston and people that I have worked for in house in the past, posting on LinkedIn is magical. Like the access, I mean, you know, we've helped a couple of people hire some individuals for their teams this year and the majority of them have come through LinkedIn like an organ. Not, not a paid posting even on LinkedIn, an organic post on LinkedIn describing the role and the beauty of LinkedIn. And this will go away eventually. But right now, if you comment on my LinkedIn post, all of your connections are seeing it. And, and so like I'm finding that in my world and in the worlds of people that we're partnering with, that is in a very effective route. And if you have any sort of audience built up currently, I do like for this role, trying if possible to source from that audience.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like somebody who has Instagram right now. Yeah, okay. Somebody who has context, but more importantly, interest in the subject matters that you are speaking to is going to be really important. One thing that I left out is I look for, right? I'm like looking for, do I look forward to talking to this person? But the other thing is, is like, would I label them as a Curious George? Do they ask a lot of questions? Are they interested in the subject matter? Because if I have to, you know, if you're my content director and I have to pull your teeth, like I have to pull you to get information out of me, that's a huge problem. I need you to naturally be interested in what I do. The beauty about Trevor is he really is interested in this Shit. So when I say something on this podcast, like, I'm sure there's like, one tiny little thing that I said a little bit differently than I have in the past. When we go into our one on one, he'll ask me about it, and that will unpack future content that we will make for the audience. And that comes because I'm. And I'm going to sound like an asshole here, but I'm an expert or whatever. And so all of this shit is kind of, like, boring to me. It's all obvious. But he does a great job of identifying. Yeah, that might be to you, but to the audience, that's brand new. They've never heard anything like that. And he pulls that out. And so that's another trait that you need to look for in hiring this role is like, are they curious by nature? And then more importantly, are they curious about this subject matter?

[A]

Which leads to the next really, really, really, really important question, which I haven't heard any content or anybody speak about, which is literally, how do you structure your week where it's like, with your creative director?

[B]

The biggest thing and biggest piece of advice that I would say is, like, people that don't know us don't know how to buy a good gift for us. Right? You got to have some context on somebody in order to get a good gift. Right. The more you know about somebody, the better and deeper questions you can ask. I believe that it's the individual who hires the content director's job to give them as much upfront context and information as possible. So that's what we did. We've had the byproduct or the. The fortune of. We've worked together for years, like, in multiple different scenarios. So he has a lot of context on me, but I think that's a huge missing part, is that he knows how I roll. Right? So he can tell now if I'm in the mood after a zoom call to, like, turn to the camera and talk, or if I'm like, I'm shot. And he can tell because we have. We have contextualized that we have signals. I've told him different things that happen with my body. Like, I. Maybe I'll get this diagnosed one day. But, like, I get, like, what I call weak and shaky sometimes if I go too long without food, right? Like, he'll notice those things.

[A]

And it's called being a human. But yeah, yeah, for some reason, when I don't eat or drink water, I start to get a little loopy. You're like, what the hell You've been working with Hormozy too long, dude.

[B]

That's funny. But I think that a big part is like building and investing in that relationship. You know, you, you mentioned Dan Martel and something that I think that all of us can see from afar is the relationship that he has with Sam.

[A]

That's what we all want. But we're like, where does that start?

[B]

Yeah, well, it starts with you, not them, right? Yeah, just, just like, yeah, it will. And just like fucking take two steps towards them, right? Like that's, that's my opinion on this. Which is like, you need to show them that you're investing in them, that you care about them, that you want them to succeed and you need to give them the upfront context. They don't know, like, they might be interested in your subject matter, but they don't know what your day is. Like, they don't know what your preferences are. Like all of these things, these are all things that you need to download for them. And so I believe that in the opening 90 days, one, don't hire them, do a 90 day trial, right? Like do yourself and the other person a huge favor and don't hire them and then realize two months in that it wasn't the right thing. If you do a 90 day trial, the whole thing is, is you're evaluating and at the end of the day or at the end of the trial, if it doesn't work out, no hard feelings for anybody, right? And you didn't make the investment and they didn't make the investment and then lose out. So 90 day trial and in those 90 days, spend an ungodly amount of time together, like get dinners, get lunches, go for a drive, like hang out when, when you get done with a zoom meeting and it goes really well, tell them that it went really well and then tell them why it went really well. If it goes bad, tell them it went bad and tell them why it went bad. If you are feeling really motivated this week, tell them that and tell them why. If you are feeling undermotivated, tell them that and tell them why. Like, Trevor has a really good understanding of how I roll. Like he, he knows that, you know, I, I sometimes get really excited and I tend to say yes to everything, right? And so something that he's starting to do is double check me like, hey, you're, you're committing to that. But like you have these things that you gotta do. I tend to be a yes oriented individual and, but by me telling him like, hey, I, I'm realizing this week I'm not feeling as motivated because I said two weeks ago, yes to all these things that are all coming due this week. I'm giving him context so that he's adding value not only in the content, but in things that surround it. And so it develops a better relationship. The best relationships in our life are where we get more than just one point of value, one area of value. Right. In theory, our spouse, we get multiple angles of value from them. It's not just singular. Right. And our friends the same way. And as you go further out on the relationship sphere, it's less. Right. It's like one sided, one thing. And so I believe that really investing in this relationship is huge. It's massively important. And a lot of people make the mistake of I'm going to hire a content director because I don't want to spend any time on content. And day one, they're like not willing to invest. You need to make a heavy upfront investment in order to get that time back for the years to come.

[A]

Got it. Beautiful. Final question. Thousand people are going to watch this content and say, I want to build a brand, but maybe only 10 of them actually will. That's worthwhile. What is the one differentiator between the 10 versus the other thousand? That won't do it?

[B]

Well, for the thousand of you that made it this far, thank you. That means the world. And for the 10 of you in this example that are going to take action, I think it's because they have decided that they are okay with iterating as they go rather than it needing to be perfect before they start. I think a lot of us, myself included, are biased towards having a really good plan of attack and everything being dialed and perfect before we start. Because, you know, we think that there are all these eyeballs on us that care greatly about what we're doing. And the reality is, is nobody gives a and nobody is paying attention in any way, shape or form.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like your favorite creator in the world, you probably saw a clip from them this morning and I bet you you have no idea what the fuck they said. You've already forgotten it. Right? And so I think a big reason why a lot of people that listen to this shit and hear me drone on and on about this shit that don't take action is because they're coming up with all the reasons why they need to delay. They're coming up with all. It's the classic procrastination line that everybody talks about, but it's true. And it's like I'm. I'm all for having a good plan. I'm the biggest planner in the world, but. But at some point, planning becomes your enemy. And so I think something that I've learned from a lot of the individuals that I've had the fortune of working for is they release shit way earlier than most people would, and they understand that the first version is not the final version. And the feedback, negative or positive that they're getting, they don't view it as indicative of who they are. And it's feedback so that they can improve the thing over time. And I believe that that applies to a product, but it also applies to you showing up in video content, Right? Like, we. We have this video style that we've been working on. We released one. It's the one that I referenced a while ago, which is, if you're struggling with making content, please watch this. It's like 12 minutes long. I'm on my Harley, riding throughout Las Vegas. There's a lot of different scenes. It's a little bit more. It's our attempt of being more cinematic.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

We filmed another one of these videos in London. It's dropping, I think, this Friday. I don't know when this podcast is coming out, but towards the end of October. And that is a new style that we're still getting down. I think Trevor's got the production down pretty damn well, but I'm still figuring out how do I say lines in public while there's, like 20 people standing around me that I don't know, right? Like, we're just in the middle of Piccadilly Square or whatever in London. That. That's terrifying. And this video that's coming out on Friday, I'm watching it and all I'm seeing is, well, first round I'm seeing, I'm like, man, this is such a cool edit. Trevor, you did an amazing job on these shots. But the immediate thing that my mind goes to is, oh, I see all the areas that I can prove on my delivery. And my mind immediately went to, I know I can make this better right now. And I had a thought after he's put a shitload of effort, and we scrap it. Read 14 hours. We spent 14 hours filming it throughout all of London. Like, Trevor's carrying around this 30 pound, you know, rig. His arms are, like, dead by the end of the day. And I'm seeing the video. I'm like, let's scrap it and refilm it. Because I could. I could project or communicate my thoughts better, but then immediately I'm I'm eating my own dog food. I'm like, you're going to iterate, you'll get better. And people will comment on different things that you said that weren't clear. They'll ask questions because you didn't communicate this thought clearly. And instead of viewing that as like, indicative of who I am, it's feedback for me to get better on the next one.

[A]

Perfection is the enemy of progress. Yeah, love it, man.

[B]

Perfect is the enemy of postage.

[A]

Let's freaking go. So if people want to find out more, if they want to follow along, they want to see you and pick a deadly square. Where can they find you?

[B]

If you search my name, Kayla Bralston on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn, you'll probably hopefully find it. And if not, then I don't deserve any of your attention anyway. So that's where all the free shit is. I recommend going through the 6 hour, 22 minute course, how to build your personal brand. I think along with it, there's a free workbook. I am not trying to, you know, charge people for this. It's like completely free and accessible. I say get the workbook not because I need your email, but because I think it will actually turn it from something that you passively consume to something that you take action on. Which is my whole goal with the content is I want people to actually take action, not just sit and watch me, you know, pontificate, because there's no real value in that. And so, yeah, those are the areas that I would direct people.

[A]

Beautiful. So guys, go follow Caleb and if you enjoyed this episode today, like and subscribe to the channel. Boom. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the Action Academy podcast. My one ask real quick before you go, if you enjoy this episode, if it brought value to you, please share this episode with one to three friends that you think could get value from it. This is how we grow the show. And at minimum, if you could leave us a five star rating and review on Apple, podcasts, Spotify or whatever platform you listen to, that would mean the world to us is how we get in front of other entrepreneurs. If you're done, sit on the sidelines, you're done listening to the podcast. You want to be the freaking guest on the podcast, go into action academy.com go in the show description, the show link and book a call to speak with our Action Academy community. We have hundreds and hundreds of people just like you buying businesses and commercial real estate with full coaches, full mentors, full support, full capital everything. ActionAcademy.com is where you'll find us.