Sean Mike Kelly: Viral Marketing and the Power of Social Media | E132

Summary

In Search Of Excellence: Episode E132 with Sean Kelly – Viral Marketing and the Power of Social Media

Introduction In Episode 132 of In Search Of Excellence, host Randall Kaplan sits down with Sean Kelly, a serial entrepreneur and influential figure in the Web3 space. With an impressive social media following—over 11 million on Instagram, 1 million on YouTube, and 400,000 on TikTok—Sean shares his journey through various entrepreneurial ventures, the challenges he faced, and the strategies that propelled him to success. This detailed discussion delves into viral marketing, the intricacies of social media power, and personal growth amidst professional turbulence.

Early Life and Family Influences Sean Kelly opens up about his multicultural upbringing and the profound impact his parents had on his work ethic and intelligence.

• Family Background: Sean’s mother, an immigrant from China, arrived in the United States with only $20, hardworking her way from scrubbing floors to becoming a self-made millionaire through a sales position at Telcordia (now Amazon).

  “My mom was an immigrant from China, came here with 20 bucks in her pocket, didn’t speak English, scrubbed floors, worked her way up to become a self-made millionaire from a 9 to 5 job.” [02:15]

• Father’s Influence: His father, a brilliant computer programmer with an IQ of 150, taught Sean the value of intelligence and hard work, despite battling mental health issues.

  “My dad... was a genius. So his IQ was 150 and he had a lot of like mental problems too.” [02:15]

First Entrepreneurial Ventures: Jersey Champs Sean recounts his early foray into entrepreneurship during his freshman year of college with Jersey Champs, a company selling custom jerseys.

• Identifying a Niche: Unlike the saturated T-shirt market, Sean capitalized on the popularity of jerseys at fraternity parties and tailgates, successfully selling pre-orders for Toronto jerseys inspired by Drake’s album.

  “I did a pre-order for this Toronto jersey... And that was the first jersey. And I think we sold 100 of those.” [06:55]

• Overcoming Obstacles: Sean faced significant challenges, including unreliable partners, undelivered orders, and locked funds in PayPal, which threatened the business’s viability.

  “When I did the mass, I was emailing probably hundreds a day as well. And that's how we were able to do good revenue there.” [08:37]

Challenges and Lessons in Business Sean discusses the hurdles he encountered, such as partners stealing from him and dealing with payment holds, which taught him valuable lessons about trust and cash flow management.

• Financial Setbacks: The suspension from school for selling candy showcased the early signs of his entrepreneurial spirit and the consequences of youthful ventures.

  “My mom had to pick me up and they suspended me, man. For selling candy for how long? I think it was a day or something.” [04:56]

• Mentorship and Learning: Sean credits a robust support system, including mentors and extensive self-education through YouTube and online courses, for guiding him through these tough times.

  “Luckily had a really good support system and I was watching a ton of videos on YouTube and courses and stuff and had some mentors to help me guide through the process.” [16:03]

Pivot to PPE Sales During the Pandemic When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Sean pivoted to selling personal protective equipment (PPE), capitalizing on a critical market need.

• Strategic Connections: Leveraging his mother’s Mandarin skills and connections in China, Sean secured deals with major PPE companies like Cine Farm and became an authorized 3M distributor.

  “She brokered some deals for me... We signed with an authorized 3M distributor. So we were an affiliate for them.” [23:17]

• Revenue and Profit Margins: The PPE venture generated $17 million in sales, with a commendable profit margin, highlighting his ability to seize timely opportunities.

  “On the $17 million, guess how much profit I made? 1.7 million. Because he had 10% margin.” [24:22]

Experience in Crypto Marketing Sean shares his foray into the volatile world of cryptocurrency marketing, detailing both monumental gains and significant losses.

• Success and Downfall: At 25, Sean made $10 million in altcoin flipping but lost it all due to holding onto his investments too long, influenced by greed.

  “So I made $10 million and you lost $10 million?... On paper, I had $10 million and I could have sold it for US dollars and I didn't do it.” [21:35]

• Insights on Crypto: He reflects on the ephemeral nature of altcoins and the importance of timing and discipline in the crypto market.

  “I think back then it was easier. You could just list books for the cheapest price and undercut people. But now it's a lot harder. You need volume.” [03:57]

Personal Growth and Overcoming Negativity Sean delves into his personal transformation from a pessimistic individual shaped by his parents' negative outlooks to a confident podcaster and entrepreneur.

• Mindset Shift: Overcoming a negative upbringing required significant mental reprogramming, which Sean achieved through relentless practice and interaction with thousands of people.

  “That's the biggest mindset shift for me, by the way, when I realized no one cares because they really don't.” [42:13]

• Building Confidence: Engaging in public speaking and networking helped Sean develop the confidence to thrive in his professional endeavors.

  “I've trained myself to do that.” [40:46]

Networking and Cold Calling Strategies Sean emphasizes the critical role of networking and cold outreach in his success, sharing practical strategies that listeners can apply to their own ventures.

• Cold Calling and Emailing: By sending hundreds of DMs and cold emails daily, Sean built a vast network that was instrumental in his business expansions.

  “When I was doing the mass, I was emailing probably hundreds a day as well. And that's how we were able to do good revenue there.” [08:37]

• Effective Tools: Utilizing tools like Google Alerts and Zoom Info allowed Sean to stay ahead of market demands and identify potential clients swiftly.

  “Set that up. Whatever business you're in, set that up for what? Your services.” [25:24]

Thoughts on Influencer Marketing and Business Advice The conversation shifts to the evolving landscape of influencer marketing, with Sean providing insights into its current effectiveness and future trends.

• Evolving Strategies: While influencer marketing was highly effective in the past, Sean notes that its impact has diminished, advocating for influencers to build their own brands instead.

  “Not like it used to. Before, you could just pay any influencer, have them promote any product, and there might be a good chance you make money.” [33:28]

• Celebrity Endorsements: While acknowledging the success of celebrity endorsements like Ryan Reynolds with his mobile company, Sean argues that they are not essential for every business's success.

  “I don’t think you need it. It might help on the branding and if you use it for ads in the right way, it might help.” [34:28]

Closing: Advice and Future Plans In the final segment, Sean offers valuable advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and shares his future aspirations.

• Key Ingredients for Success: Sean identifies work ethic, mindset, and networking as the three most critical factors driving his success.

  “I'd say for me, because it's quite different for everyone. Work ethic, mindset, and I'd say probably networking and connections.” [37:24]

• Future Aspirations: Sean expresses his ambition to host high-profile guests like Joe Rogan on his podcast, aiming to further establish his influence in the industry.

  “I'd say within three years he'll be on.” [49:57]

• Advice for Young Entrepreneurs: Reflecting on his journey, Sean advises gaining work experience before diving into entrepreneurship to build financial stability and reduce risks.

  “I would say to work for someone else at first, if I had to redo it again with the knowledge I have now would be a safer route.” [31:54]

Notable Quotes

• On Overcoming Greed in Crypto:

  “My greed kicked in and that's when I took a step back and realized, wow, this is a psychological game. It's a player versus player game.” [21:48]

• On Building a Successful Brand:

  “Everything I did was from sheer volume, and I see everything as a numbers game and I still have that mentality today.” [08:37]

• On Personal Transformation:

  “That was the biggest mindset shift for me, by the way, when I realized no one cares because they really don't.” [42:13]

Conclusion Sean Kelly's journey, as shared in this episode of In Search Of Excellence, is a testament to resilience, strategic thinking, and the power of relentless networking. From his early days selling jerseys to navigating the highs and lows of the crypto market, Sean provides invaluable insights into what it takes to achieve and maintain excellence in the ever-evolving landscape of entrepreneurship. His candid reflections on personal growth and business strategies offer a roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs aiming to overcome obstacles and realize their dreams.

Transcript

[Randall Kaplan]

So you made $10 million and you lost $10 million?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, well, I made, but I never realized it. But on paper, I had $10 million and I could have sold it for US dollars and I didn't do it.

[Randall Kaplan]

You got no one to sell.

[Sean Kelly]

Exactly. My greed kicked in and that's, that's when I took a step back and realized, wow, this is a psychological game. It's a player versus player game.

[Randall Kaplan]

Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories with all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the host of In Search of Excellence, which has started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Sean Kelly. Sean is a serial entrepreneur, Web3 Advocate, an incredible podcaster with over 11 million followers on Instagram, 1 million followers on YouTube, and 400,000 followers on TikTok. During his freshman year in college, Sean started a company called Jersey Champs, which sold custom jerseys and partnerships with rappers, athletes and influencers, and later sold it after dropping out of college. And after that, he started a company that sold $17 million worth of masks and other supplies during the coronavirus pandemic. Sean is the host of the number one marketing podcast, the digital social hour, where he interviews celebrities, entrepreneurs, and industry experts from all walks of life. Sean, it's a true pleasure. Welcome to my show, In Search of Excellence. So I always start with my family. Your mom was born in China, both your parents from different countries. Your dad was a computer programmer. What were they like and what kind of influence did they have on you growing up?

[Sean Kelly]

Wow, you did your research, man. No one's ever said that before. Yeah, growing up in a multicultural background was really interesting. Looking back at it now because I got two really different perspectives. So my mom was an immigrant from China, came here with 20 bucks in her pocket, didn't speak English, scrubbed floors, worked her way up to become a self made millionaire from a 9 to 5 job. So I witnessed the work ethic from her. My dad, similar story, immigrant, grew up on a farm, working really, really hard. But he was a genius. So his IQ was 150 and he had a lot of like mental problems too. So I grew up around that and that ended up playing a big role on me too. We could dive into that later.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. So how do they go from your mom go from scrubbing florist to becoming a millionaire? That's pretty incredible.

[Sean Kelly]

Pretty insane. Just hard work, man. That Asian immigrant mentality is to beat. So she did that for a few years and eventually learned English, worked her way into a sales position. And she's still at the same company.

[Randall Kaplan]

Erickson, a telecommunications company?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it was Telcordia before.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay.

[Sean Kelly]

Got acquired.

[Randall Kaplan]

And then. So I know she's in sales and marketing there. So did she become a millionaire based on commission revenue or both her base plus commission.

[Sean Kelly]

So she did that for 25 years. Now she's at Amazon and so.

[Randall Kaplan]

And your dad sells books now for. On Amazon and ebay?

[Sean Kelly]

Yep. Watched him do, I think, a million dollars in books. And this was when I was a kid. So a million back 15 years ago was a good amount in sales.

[Randall Kaplan]

And is he still doing that right now?

[Sean Kelly]

He stopped. It was on the side. He had a main job and he did that on the side for a long time. But I think these book scanners started coming out. So it removed his skill level because he could just eye a book and know the value.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. But you were younger at the time, so were you saying to yourself, Amazon is new and are people selling books? These were not his own books. He was brokering books on Amazon.

[Sean Kelly]

Brokering books. We would go to dumpsters, we'd go to book sales. He could eye any book and know how much it's worth. It was the craziest skill I've seen. When you're that smart, it's almost like a savant, like skill.

[Randall Kaplan]

So he's getting discarded books or he's getting them at used bookstores where they're 99 cents and he's basically flipping them on Amazon.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, Amazon. Neba and I would help him ship.

[Randall Kaplan]

Them to using keywords. Because how does a guy. But it's absolutely no experience compete with Amazon, for example, where you can buy used books on Amazon.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. Well, I think back then it was easier. You could just list books for the cheapest price and undercut people. But now it's a lot harder. You need volume.

[Randall Kaplan]

So let's go to seventh grade. You're selling candy. You make $20 a day some days. And tell us what happened and why you got suspended from school.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So pathetic that they make your. Your own students think this way. But I guess the school had vending machines. And I don't know what the kickback is like, where that money goes to exactly. But this teacher was just so upset and she's like this huge lady, probably £250. I'm walking to my bus stop. In one hand I have a bag of money Other hand, the rest of my candy left for the day. And I'm smiling like there's a huge smile on my face. 20 bucks as a kid is a lot back then.

[Randall Kaplan]

Huge.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, because you didn't really have many expenses. So. Yeah. She said, what is that? I'm like, sold candy. She said, come with me right now. Takes me to the principal's office. So I missed the bus going home. My mom had to pick me up and they, they suspended me, man. For selling candy for how long? I think it was a day or something, but I just, I had to stop selling. So that was the part that sucked.

[Randall Kaplan]

You snuck out of the house at night to get the candy? Yeah, 10, 11 o'clock at night.

[Sean Kelly]

Crazy story. So I would sneak out at Wegmans. Have you heard of Wegmans? Yeah, yeah, they're big on the east coast.

[Randall Kaplan]

And you said it was two to three miles from your house?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So I, I had to either bike or run and I think they closed at midnight. So I would leave at 11, be like the only person in the whole grocery store. One day I came home, my dad pulled a gun on me cuz he was on drugs and he thought it was a robber or something. So he's literally pointing a Glock at me from the upstairs. I'm a kid.

[Randall Kaplan]

Like how old were you at this point?

[Sean Kelly]

Probably in middle school, probably seventh grade. So 13. So he pulls a gun on me. I'm like begging dad not to shoot. And he still didn't understand like the situation because he was so messed up on drugs. So I had to hide in the bathroom that night. There's a bathroom right by the front door.

[Randall Kaplan]

So the doors were locked. Were you upstairs? This kind of thing where you see on TV where you open the window, you hop out the window or you just kind of tiptoeing out the front door.

[Sean Kelly]

I left the front door open, so I walked in. As soon as I walked in, he's there with a gun. It's like midnight pointing at me. There's a bathroom to my left, so I walk in there and hide there for like an hour until he went back to his room and fell asleep.

[Randall Kaplan]

So let's talk about college.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And the start of your first real company. Talk to us about spending $250 on a design and then spending a thousand dollars and how you got started in your dorm room and kind of what happened from there.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, so I was broke in college. Even though I grew up in a family like middle class, they one thing I love about that Is they didn't give me any money or anything. It was normal in high school for their parents to buy the kids a car. I was the only kid that didn't have a car. High school. So shout out to my parents for not doing that. At the time. I hated it. Believe me, I hated it. But shout out to them for doing that. But yeah, in college I was broke and drop shipping was hot at the time and I really took advantage of that wave and I did pre orders because I didn't have enough money to order inventory.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. Tell us though, first what you were making and why you were making them and where the idea for that came from. Because it's a little different than selling T shirts, which a lot of people were doing.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So everyone was doing T shirts. And I think that market's super saturated for people watching this, trying to start T shirt companies because I still get DM daily about that. Please don't do that. Jerseys, on the other hand, at the time weren't as saturated. So I would go to fraternity parties in tailgates. Every guy was wearing a jersey. So I knew there was a huge market. Sports is big in America, obviously. So I did a pre order for this Toronto jersey. Drake dropped an album at the time, the rapper and I had like views in the number six and Toronto on the front. And that was the first jersey. And I think we sold 100 of those.

[Randall Kaplan]

You. You sold out?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

What you made and you paid $250 for someone to make the design for you.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, because I didn't know what the going rate was, so I overpaid for sure, but ended up working out.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. So tell us how you got influencers to wear them, which is very, very tough to do. That's a. It's. It's so important now to do it. But before social media really exploded, it was still a great way to do it, right?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Free advertising of Kim Kardashian. Where's your stuff? Good things are going to happen to your brand, right? Kendall Jenner. So how. How are you doing this? I mean, what was your first rapper? And you know, you can't look up their email addresses. So where are you finding these people?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, you can't look up their emails, but you could get their agents. There's a few websites, booking agent info and the handbook. Those are two that I used to use. But DMS I feel like worked better. So I would DM 100 people a day on Instagram until I was blocked, basically.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

And I did that for probably two Years straight. So just from sheer volume, and I see everything as a numbers game and I still have that mentality today. When I was doing the mass, which we'll get into, I was emailing probably hundreds a day as well. And that's how we were able to do good revenue there.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. So who was the first rapper? And then I want you to tell us about Donald Trump and how he just changed your. Change your entire career.

[Sean Kelly]

Crazy. I still remember that day vividly. Was probably Khaled. And then Logic. Um, I don't listen to rap anymore, but at the time those two artists were pretty hot.

[Randall Kaplan]

And then tell us about Donald Trump and what happened there.

[Sean Kelly]

Crazy. It wasn't planned. I wish I could say it was some elaborate marketing scheme, but someone bought one of my jerseys and he was front row at his rally, I guess, and had access to Trump and handed it to him. And then we got a whole video of him holding it front and back.

[Randall Kaplan]

And how did people know it was yours?

[Sean Kelly]

My logo is on the bottom, right?

[Randall Kaplan]

But it's small.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it's super small.

[Randall Kaplan]

What'd you do, take it? It's like on these football replays where, where you blow it up. I mean, yeah, he probably didn't have that blow up mechanism back then.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, I guess people just had to trust it. The video was a little blurry, but surreal moment because my, my father was a huge fan of him, even though very controversial. But in 2016, he was always talking about him.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, I have a Trump story I'm going to tell you. And then I want to go back to the T shirts. So my best friend's getting married at Mar a lago. This is2015, 2014. And mar a Lago is a very nice place. Trump owns it, we all know it now, but as a hedge fund conference, he's in the financial business. So there's all kinds of wealthy people there. And Trump is there and he's the 10th candidate in the race. He's the joke candidate. Just announced never going to win. And he comes down, right? He's schmoozing with people, saying hello, everyone's getting their photo with him. And I said, oh, let's go take a picture. My wife wanted none of it. She had met him before. New newest sons used to live in New York, so. And she doesn't like taking pictures with celebrities or famous people. She's never going to do that.

[Sean Kelly]

Got it?

[Randall Kaplan]

Me, yeah, sometimes.

[Sean Kelly]

Good branding.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, it was good branding. My son was 10 at the time, so we have a great picture of Donald holding my son Charlie, looking directly into the camera. And it's cool. It's my son's screensaver today. And the only post that I made there is one of these men will be president one day. Hashtag 2040.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow.

[Randall Kaplan]

Thinking it's gonna be my son, not Donald Trump. Because 2040, I kind of did the math. You know, he'll be kind of in his late 40s, but it's kind of just amazing how someone can go from dark horse, no candidate to no chance of winning to what he's done as a president, whether you like him or not.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep.

[Randall Kaplan]

It's a. It's, you know, coming from the rear and winning the race is unheard of.

[Sean Kelly]

Especially for president, because you need a lot of money.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. I mean, he raised a lot of money and he's still raising a lot of money. Not spending his own money, but he's.

[Sean Kelly]

He just raised 50 million the other day.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. One night.

[Sean Kelly]

Nuts. And he could do that once a week, probably.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. Well, we'll see. It's going to be interesting.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. I know people that have paid 100k just to be at a dinner right next to like at his table.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. Let's go back to selling T shirts because I know you tell people today, don't do it. Back when I was in college, I went to University of Michigan, greatest school on the planet. And I saw some people selling T shirts and I didn't have money, so I thought, all right, so. And these were people that I befriended. One of them is Brad Kewell has become one of my best friends. He's on my show. They started four public companies. Groupon was the fourth. It was the fastest company at the time to a billion dollar valuation and uptake. His company that he started was the fastest company to a $2 billion valuation. He signed the giving pledge. But he got going in college. Actually, he got going when he was six years old selling greeting cards. So when you see someone doing something in college, I thought, well, it's an inspiration, Right. If they can make money selling T shirts, so can I. So I took $500 of my bar misfit money. And today you can just go online, Right. You can buy T shirts. You can see what kind of cotton they are. You can see photos. Back then, there wasn't any of that. I said, I wanna make a University of Michigan inspired T shirt. And I called and I remember thinking, God, I'm in the Yellow Pages. Right. So you're calling one by one and you're on the phone and I don't know what I'm at. I'm 18 years old and I just want some pizza money. So I get the T shirts I copied and today you couldn't do this, but back then it was loose. So Just do it was a slogan. It was huge. They have that trademark font and I made just do it T shirts for Michigan. And then Michigan was in the final four, so it was road to final four. Just do it. It was maize and blue. It was a very good looking shirt. And I made shirts previous to that, but I sold them in the dorm door to door.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So I think there's 11 or 12 dorms at Michigan. I went through every single hallway, every single dorm. I got kicked out of almost everyone. I go on the back door. And it was very invaluable. It was a great experience for me because I learned margins were big. I sold the short sleeve for $12. Cost me. Five long sleeves were even more killer. $6 cost sold for 18.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow.

[Randall Kaplan]

And so, and by the way, these are heavy. So you're lugging around the boxes.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. You got 50 shirts with you. It's not, it's not, not, not a great thing. But one of the great lessons of that was the art of cold calling. So let's talk about your cold calling. I know you've done it for your career. How important is cold calling to our success?

[Sean Kelly]

Oh my gosh. I know you've done more volume than me, but I'm more of a cold email. But cold email, cold call. I'll group them in the same group. Changed my life. That's how I did $17 million in PPE sales. I didn't know a single person I sold to.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. So we'll get to the PPE in a minute. I want to go back to political issues in high school and really the regulation of that.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

You had a principal remove one of your jerseys because it was anti patriotic or something In a football game.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

How the hell does that happen? What happened and how the hell does that.

[Sean Kelly]

I know, I woke up to that. Pretty crazy. Someone wore the Trump jersey to football game and the principal kicked him out of the whole game. Isn't that nuts? It's nuts just for wearing a Trump jersey.

[Randall Kaplan]

So what? So this kid's in the stands.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Principal comes over. Hey, Joe, come with me. Joe's looking around with everyone there.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So what?

[Sean Kelly]

I do crazy. And that just goes to like all the programming schools are doing these days. I mean, they should never have political influence like that. It's crazy to Me, it's crazy.

[Randall Kaplan]

So all businesses struggle before they get going. I've never heard of one, by the way, that didn't struggle.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So he started the jersey business. You had a lot of issues, so you got two partners who stole from you. You had jerseys that didn't come. You had 100 grand locked in PayPal that you couldn't get out.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep.

[Randall Kaplan]

So. And you're young and that's a shit ton of money. Yeah, you. So how are you dealing with those? And then there's something at a festival as well. I think you had 100 shirts come. They didn't come. Yeah, you know, pissed off. So how do you overcome those challenges? And you're young, so it's not like you have the maturity where you've done this before.

[Sean Kelly]

And yeah, at the time it really hurt because all these numbers are relative. So even though it sounds small, back then, it was a lot for me, like 100k. Being locked in PayPal was a difference of the business being shut down versus doing a million dollars the next year. So, yeah, it was just tough. Luckily had a really good support system and I was watching a ton of videos on YouTube and courses and stuff and had some mentors to help me guide through the process. But E commerce is tough, man. The margins are thin. Payment holds are common. So it's just something I don't do anymore. But yeah, I sent Hunter jerseys to that music festival. Never got paid. That sucked. And I just never fronted people again after that. I always got paid first.

[Randall Kaplan]

So you mentioned something that I think is very important to the importance of mentors in our lives. We'll talk about the people that you studied before, later in life, in your career. But what mentors did you have and how important are mentors and our success?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, I had some that I just watched which I consider mentor. So back then it was Gary Vee, Ty Lopez, Patrick Bet David really liked his show back then. And then I have some in person mentors now that I could just text. I'd say Dan Fleishman is one of them. Matthew Morgan. These are eight, nine figure guys, but they also have a really balanced life, which is important to me these days because I've achieved the money part of what I wanted to do a very young age. And now it's more about health and lifestyle for me.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. So sometimes we're in businesses that kind of peak and then they fall. We'll talk about the mask business in a second. But after the jersey, you pivoted into E commerce. So what was that? Like, what motivated that? And then talk about your rise in your arc and then kind of the downside of what happened there.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, I did E Commerce for five years. It was great. Learned a lot, never made a killing. And I also wasn't fulfilled. So I was making 50k a year the first 3 years. This was in college. And when I dropped out, which was decent, nothing crazy. And then once I got into, I think, crypto from there, that's when I became a millionaire. And then I realized I could use that money to start doing what I actually like, podcasting, mentorship, stuff like that.

[Randall Kaplan]

And talk to us about the crypto game. I was in the crypto game a little bit. It was kind of crazy. Not kind of crazy. It's fucking crazy.

[Sean Kelly]

Insane.

[Randall Kaplan]

You had people with no experience running anything. I mean, they didn't even work in a coffee shop ever, let alone manage a single dollar. Manage a single person who are writing white papers. And a white paper, for those people who don't know, is a plan. What this crypto currency, which is actually worth absolutely nothing, when had a plan that it's going to be used. And we're talking about altcoin. So we're talking about things that are not bitcoin. Primarily not bitcoin.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep.

[Randall Kaplan]

Which. Which people knew. And then they're raising $100 million, $200 million on a deal. You got all these people promoting this coin that has ultimately no value. And you got to get in to this deal. So talk to us about that and who you knew and how you made money in that space.

[Sean Kelly]

A lot of it's timing, man. I remember this one kid in my high school, 2015, it might have been 2014. Oh, my gosh. So he was mining crypto. Everyone made fun of them.

[Randall Kaplan]

Mining it.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So tell people what that is.

[Sean Kelly]

So mining is basically, you use a bunch of fast computers and you mine it and then you collect fees. Basically. It's hard to explain, but basically you're creating bitcoin. Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

By plugging in a computer using power, hopefully that you don't pay for electricity. Right. A lot of people were doing it at work, so they have to pay for electricity at their house. So they're creating their own bitcoin.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So that's one way of making money. And everyone made fun of him. I messaged him a few months ago, he has $10 million and everyone in. Yeah, bitcoin. Everyone made fun of him in high school, I was the only one who was semi interested. But that's one way of making money. So there's people mining. They buy giant warehouses. Adam Weitzman is one of them. There's guys doing eight, nine figures a year just mining. It's probably the most passive form of income I've ever seen. And then if bitcoin goes up, it's just like a double win, you know what I mean?

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

So that's one way of making money. The altcoins you mentioned earlier is how I made my money. So I made $10 million at 25 years old, and 80% of people would probably lose that money in their 20s. And it happened to me. And I was like, wow, that is crazy, because I felt like I was so disciplined. And it happened.

[Randall Kaplan]

You were flipping the altcoins because if you had held the altcoins, most of them are worth zero pennies on the dollar zeros. I think 99%. I was a speaker on stage at, I think was the largest crypto conference in Los Angeles at the time, in 2017, in the wave. So there are all these people. A couple of people had paid to be on the stage.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep. Right.

[Randall Kaplan]

They were promoting their own shit, which, again, was just ridiculous. Most people didn't know that they had paid to get on there. And I sit up there, maybe 2,000 people there, and I said, this thing's gonna end badly.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And 95% of these companies are gonna go bankrupt. I think it's 99.9 have gone bankrupt. There's going to be class action lawsuits everywhere. And this is weird, right? I'm in a tie. I've got, you know, my name's up on the board, and I was heavily booed.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow, look at you.

[Randall Kaplan]

Heavily, heavily booed. I mean, these are young people who had no experience. Everyone is into crypto.

[Sean Kelly]

It's the fastest way you can make money.

[Randall Kaplan]

Not. Not now, but it was back then.

[Sean Kelly]

Well, even now, I mean, there's still altcoins popping now, but you got to get in and out or you're screwed.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean Kelly]

So I got caught holding the bag on some stuff and lost $10 million in a few months.

[Randall Kaplan]

So you made $10 million and you lost $10 million?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, well, I made, but I never realized it. But on paper, I had $10 million, and I could have sold it for US dollars, and I didn't do it.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. So that's also a lesson that you got to know when to sell.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, exactly. My greed kicked in, and that's. That's when I took a step back and realized, wow, this is a psychological game. It's a player versus player. Game.

[Randall Kaplan]

So many things about life are about relationships. And for me, my ability to get into some of these crypto deals was because I had the resume to do it and I had relationships. And if I didn't have them, people would find them for me. And people like to say, oh, Randy's got this, he's done this and that. It helps credibility if I'm in the deal. And I was not promoting anything, but people would use my name. And so it allowed me to get into a lot of deals. We made money like you. We lost money as well. I mean, timing is everything, right? These coins can go down 80% in a day.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep.

[Randall Kaplan]

And they did. And the interesting thing, by the way, there isn't a single Altcoin that has a single effective use in the world today. Not one that I can think of.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, I mean, you can argue Ethereum and Solana, but really, what is it? If you look at the bigger picture, you're right for sure.

[Randall Kaplan]

So relationships have been a huge point. Has been a huge, important part of your success. Let's talk about your mother and speaking Mandarin and how you were able to take advantage of relationships in a very difficult time to get a certain product with supply chain issues.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So I used to speak it fluently, actually, because she. When I was a baby, I was in China for a couple years, but I forgot it because I just wasn't practicing. But my mother grew up in China, so she had connections and could speak it. So during the pandemic, she had a friend at a big PPE company out there, I think one of the biggest in the world, called Cine Farm, and she brokered some deals for me.

[Randall Kaplan]

You were able to get the math?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, we. We were also an authorized. We signed with an authorized 3M distributor. So we were an affiliate for them.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay. It was important to have credibility, to have 3M, which was leading mask maker in the world.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep.

[Randall Kaplan]

N95 mask. And there was another mask that was even more. I don't know what the word is better than. Than that.

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, the medical grade one.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. There's N95. Yeah. Because it was.

[Sean Kelly]

There was KN95, which was the cheap stuff from China.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

And then N95, which was from 3M.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. Okay. So you see people needing this. You're reading about it. You can't get masks. Prices of masks have gone up three and four times. Right. Price gouging for people. And you say, hey, hey, mom, can you give me some masks? Or where did the idea come from?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, no, literally that I would See it in the news. These hospitals and governments struggling to get masks. I'm like, why is that? That shouldn't be an issue. And especially gloves, nitro gloves and gowns and stuff. So I just. My biggest skill is connecting people, so I knew I could. I could take advantage of that. But here's the crazy part. On the $17 million, guess how much profit I made?

[Randall Kaplan]

1.7 million. Because he had 10% margin.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow. How'd you know that?

[Randall Kaplan]

Because I did my research on you.

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, wow. But, yeah, you would assume it's way higher though, right?

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

If you just see that number. So I learned a lot from doing that, from cold calling and cold emailing.

[Randall Kaplan]

So let's talk about that, because we cold call cold email now in a lot of our businesses. So tell us about the services you use, setting up Google Alerts, how important it is to read the news and then react and say, hey, what's going on here? And then walk us through the process. Because as I was reading about what you did, I said, shit, that's the exact same thing that we're doing.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, those Google Alerts are fun, man. I do it with podcasting right now, too.

[Randall Kaplan]

So tell people what that is for. Don't know. And then what's the value of that and your success?

[Sean Kelly]

Yes, you could set up Google Alerts for search terms. So I think mine were mask shortage, gown shortage. Just any type of alert where a hospital or something, some company would need ppe. So as soon as an article would pop up, I would know within hours.

[Randall Kaplan]

Step one.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, so set that up. Whatever business you're in, set that up for what? Your services.

[Randall Kaplan]

Step two.

[Sean Kelly]

Step two. I use zoom info. So that's also similar to Google Alerts, but they set up. I forget what it's called. There's a term on zoom info, but it's similar to Google News.

[Randall Kaplan]

To do what? What was Zoom Info?

[Sean Kelly]

They would basically know if companies were in need of a certain product or service and rank it from zero to a hundred on a score. So I think it's based off if the company employee emails are searching terms on Google, they track all that.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay.

[Sean Kelly]

So they'll know if a company is in need of a product or service and it's really targeted and it gives you their email to contact.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay. So emails are in zoom. We use Lucia and we've used Rocket Reach.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And we've used a whole bunch and the cost is not allowed. 50 to $100 a month.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, same thing. I use Apollo now. Rocket Reach. Yeah, it's all the same. And man, that's how I get a lot of podcast guests too. It's such a big database. You could sell anything on those.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, I mean, we get emails daily. I'm sure you do too. We get emails for Salesforce customers or Salesforce people. And you can actually go and contact these companies and say, I want restaurant email. List of people that manage restaurants or own restaurants.

[Sean Kelly]

You could use it for anything, man. So I host networking events. This is a bit of a tangent, but in a new city every month and I get 500 people in the room every month with very little ad spend because of Apollo. I just email.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

Email campaign.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay, so walk us next. So you've got, you got the search terms. You found a niche in the market. You're reading about it every day. We are all reading about it. We're seeing it on the news every day. Shortage, shortage, shortage. You have the connections. You're now set up search terms where you're getting identifying potential customers. Then you have to find out the identity of the people at these companies. So for those people who don't know, are you targeting.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

As your customer? Because not only the company, you're not going to target the CEO of the company. So who, who are you targeting? And then how do you determine that?

[Sean Kelly]

For me and for ppe at the time it was chief procurement officer because they have the final say in purchasing. If I couldn't get them, it'd be someone else in procurement and try to work my way up. And that was basically who I was looking to email or cold call. And it was just a numbers game, man. And just when you had the targeted leads, it made the number game a lot better, a lot easier. The close rate was pretty high.

[Randall Kaplan]

What is the close rate? I mean, the close rate in that business, that specific time was a very unique period of time. The close rate is going to be massively high.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it's not normal.

[Randall Kaplan]

I mean, it's 90% plus. I would have said once they realize that you have 3M masks and they're not counterfeit masks.

[Sean Kelly]

Well, it was, there was a lot of competition, but on the 3m side it was definitely high. But for other stuff, gowns and gloves, it was lower, I'd say.

[Randall Kaplan]

One thing I learned at a young age, I was unsuccessful lawyer. I wrote 300 letters looking for a job. Everyone said, you're crazy writing to CEOs of some of these biggest companies. And I got all of these meetings during that year long process, what I call a letter writing campaign. Emailed a senior investment banker at Bear Stearns and just going through the meetings and said, okay, well I want to meet some more people. Who can you introduce me to? Because it's all about meeting people, shaking their hand, then ask for the order. And he said, well, I can't do that. But Bear Stearns has a very successful, well known media conference in Laguna Beach. And he said, if you want to hunt moose, go where the moose are. It was great advice.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So because all the CEO of the companies were there, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, the head of every media company in the world, bmg. And I just went there armed and ready to roll. I mean I was ready to just fire away. I met so many people, got a ton of meetings there. Some people became my friends.

[Sean Kelly]

Nice.

[Randall Kaplan]

And it was really great. So, so talk to us. You mentioned conferences. What's your advice to people who want to get and want to get in? Meet these people. Should they go to these conferences where there's 500 people? Can they really make a difference?

[Sean Kelly]

Here's the best hack I've ever seen. I've said it once. You have to host dinners around these events and it's going to be a hefty bill because you're paying for six to eight people. But the long term networking value from that dinner is amazing. So you want to invite the VIP guests or the speakers to the dinner and have that at any conference you go to. If you can't afford that, then offer to be a videographer of one of the speakers, do it for free and just follow them around all day and meet people. So I'd say if you do one or two or both of those, you'll be in a good, good position.

[Randall Kaplan]

But how are you going to invite people that you don't know? I mean, here, here's Randy Kaplan. No one knows who he is. You're going around and say, hey, you want to come to a dinner at Carbon?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And people are going to look at you. I'm not going to that dinner. I mean, I been invited to dinners before.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And I don't mean to be snooty about it, but I always want to know who else is there. And by the way, it's rude to ask who else is very rude. And there are times where I've been rude and I've done it because I don't want to sit there and say I really don't want to be here. I've got kids and I like being home for dinner every night. And, and it's it's one of these things where I don't know if I should go and then I'm always worried about. I mean today I have a little bit of a name and have some kind of credibility. I've thought about doing that, but I haven't done it before.

[Sean Kelly]

David Meltzer does it really well, have you been to any of his?

[Randall Kaplan]

No, but I want to meet him. I know he's in Los Angeles and I definitely want him to get him on my show.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So he does it phenomenally. So he'll do it in a new city and then he'll charge people a thousand bucks. So he'll make 20, 50k every dinner.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

And he'll have a big celebrity there. So the 20 people, that's why they're paying to meet and be close with a celebrity like Drew Brees or someone. Yeah, but yeah, I think for someone like you it wouldn't work on. But I think they can find 6 to 10 people at the conference, VIP attendees or people in their industry and just invite those guys. Start there.

[Randall Kaplan]

You were a natural born entrepreneur, right. A lot of people are not. So you never had a boss, you never worked for somebody else. A lot of people think they don't want a boss either. So what are you telling the 18 year old kid or college graduate today? Say I don't really want a real job, I don't know what I want to do and I don't want to be a slave and sitting at a desk all day. Should they go out on their guard and go start a new business? And can you learn to be an entrepreneur if you don't have the DNA?

[Sean Kelly]

I would say not at first. To the first question, I look back at what I sacrificed. I had gray hairs at 21, I had no friends, wasn't close with my family and just sacrificed so much and was making 50k a year those first three years. So I would say to work for someone else at first, if I had to redo it again with the knowledge I have now would be a safer route. I like what Cody Sanchez kind of teaches people, which is get a job first. She, she made a, I think she saved a million or so working a 9 to 5 and then went out on her own and did her own stuff.

[Randall Kaplan]

My goal is to make $1 million before I was 30 years old. I think you made your first million at 24 years old.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, 24 I believe.

[Randall Kaplan]

And I thought all right, I'm going to started as a lawyer. I figure all right, well I got to go make Some money. I got to save money. And then I want to figure my. Not every year was $40,000 a year. And when I ultimately left, I didn't make a million dollars by the time I was 30, but I had 10 years to bet on myself because I'd save $400,000. And I think it's really important that you have. If you have gone to college, you may have some debt. You got to pay off the debt. It's very, very risky to just say, I'm going to go do something.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep, agreed.

[Randall Kaplan]

So does influencer marketing work today? I have a lot of friends who own companies that say, all right, you know, even people that own the company say, you know, it's really bullshit, but people are still paying for it because everyone is doing this. They have corporate clients and say, well, we got to do it. Someone else is doing it, our competitors are doing it. Does it work?

[Sean Kelly]

Not like it used to. Before, you could just pay any influencer, have them promote any product, and there might be a good chance you make money. But now it really has to be aligned. But you do see, see some campaigns work out, but from an influencer point of view, it actually makes more sense for them to start their own company now because they'll make way more than just getting paid to post a brand. Look at Logan Paul. Look at Beast. Look at that girl. Emma Chamberlain with the coffee company. There's so many other creators starting their own brands now, so I'd recommend influencers to do that instead of getting paid to post stuff they don't care about.

[Randall Kaplan]

Is it more effective to have a star power like Ryan Reynolds or someone making, you know, as. As the face of a brand in the VC business, I always felt like it was very rare to have a celebrity promoter because it's still the vc. It's a very high risk game, but when it hits big, it hits big today. What do you think about the use of having stars to promote your brands? Do you need it to be successful and does it really help? I guess is the real question.

[Sean Kelly]

I don't think you need it. It might help on the branding and if you use it for ads in the right way, it might help. But look what Ryan did with his company. I mean, he sold for what, a billion dollars, the mobile company. So I can't knock that dude.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, I think he made $300 million on that deal.

[Sean Kelly]

Crazy. More from that than acting, I bet.

[Randall Kaplan]

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Not, not a bad. And it's long term capital gain as well.

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, yeah. So only like 15% tax.

[Randall Kaplan]

20. 20%. Don't know where you live.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

You know, probably lives in Florida, Nevada.

[Sean Kelly]

Hopefully not Cali.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, hopefully not Cali. Yeah, we pay. We pay a lot of tax. How important is it for people to go and study their mentors to learn when they're not in the classroom? People don't really do that. You did it and it was like a class for you. You're taking notes on it like it's a real class in school. What's your advice to people who are just not doing that and who really want to learn from people who they may not be their personal mentors, but they can be your mentors on YouTube because you can learn a ton of things from them.

[Sean Kelly]

It's crazy to me that more people don't do that. You're the most prepared man I've ever seen, by the way. So that's awesome.

[Randall Kaplan]

Thank you.

[Sean Kelly]

But, yeah, that's goals right there. For real. I've never seen a host do that much preparation, so I think your show is going to kill it.

[Randall Kaplan]

I appreciate that.

[Sean Kelly]

Thank you. But for me, I still do it. I watch probably three podcasts a day right now, or I listen to an audio book and I'm probably learning at least three to four hours a day. And back then it was way higher. It was probably 8 to 12 hours a day. Just videos, non stop Ted talk, scary V, Patrick, Beth, David, Tom B. And I attribute so much of my mindset to watching stuff like that.

[Randall Kaplan]

Really want to talk about how has extreme preparation led to your success? Can you talk about some examples about preparation, getting results that would not have been possible had you not done it?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. I think I'm a bit different with you in that regard. I know there's levels Bradley does no prep. I don't know if you knew that.

[Randall Kaplan]

No, I didn't.

[Sean Kelly]

Dropping bombs. Yeah. So no prep. He gets a one cheater before the episode starts. And there's people that can pull that off. I'm somewhere in the middle between you and him. I'll do about an hour. I'd say per guest and I'll. I'll use AI. So I'm cheating a little bit, but I think it's a tool that everyone should use in the space just to learn faster. So I'll go through. That's why I asked what shows you've been on, because I went on them and used AI.

[Randall Kaplan]

Okay.

[Sean Kelly]

To summarize them for me. And then I took the most interesting points I found and came up with some questions.

[Randall Kaplan]

Gotcha.

[Sean Kelly]

So that's my process.

[Randall Kaplan]

You give a lot of advice on your show. You get a lot of. You had, I don't know, thousands of guests at this point.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And I always find on my own show, I come in. I come in with preconceived notions of what's worked for me. Then I learn what's worked for people. And that's really the goal of our shows. Right. Is to bring people on from all walks of life to motivate people to hear how they became successful. So taking all the data in your own success, what do you think are the three most important ingredients of success?

[Sean Kelly]

I'd say for me, because it's quite different for everyone. Work ethic, mindset, and I'd say probably networking and connections. Those are the three things that propelled me to where I am, so I'd focus on those. And it's been an interesting journey because we had those. The trauma growing up. So I was not talkative at all.

[Randall Kaplan]

Neither was I.

[Sean Kelly]

Like, this is. The fact I'm a podcaster is mind blowing. I was a huge introvert, super shy, didn't want to talk to anyone. So I think being able to adapt, if I had a fourth one to add, that's been major, too.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. My best friend who knew me for a long time said, it's really amazing what you've done, Randy, because you started, you couldn't get, like, you couldn't go into a restaurant. Here you are, you got your own show. You're about to go out and do some paid corporate public speaking on topic of extreme preparation in front of thousands of people. But you've come a long way. I've come a long way, and it's been. It's been great. One of the most important things I think that people overlook is the difference between positivity and negativity. And you are an incredibly negative, pessimistic person. Growing up, your girlfriend told you that.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So explain why and then explain kind of the lightning bolt that hit you and how you change and how the change has affected your life.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. So bad, man. And you get normalized to it. Right. So both my parents and I hate to put blame on people, but this is kind of just what happened. So I would come home. I'd be one of the best athletes in school, so I could run a mile in four minutes, 40.

[Randall Kaplan]

So that's amazing.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. I could have probably went D1 and pursued that, but I would come home from a track meet, tell my mom I won this race, got 440. She wouldn't give a shit. She would just say like, oh, good job. Not even that. So just any type of news to her was a negative reaction. And I think she got that from her parents or something, I don't know. And same with my dad. I could tell him anything and just so pessimistic. And he left on really bad terms with his parents. So he brought that up every day.

[Randall Kaplan]

And his dad beat him every day.

[Sean Kelly]

His dad beat him every day. And he just had so much trauma that he never dealt with. So you just always bring it up instead of addressing it and just rubs off on me. So once I got out of that environment, and that's kind of mean to say because it's my parents, but once I was on my own and with my girlfriend, anything she would tell me negative response. Isn't that crazy to be the best news?

[Randall Kaplan]

And you didn't know it at the time either.

[Sean Kelly]

I didn't know.

[Randall Kaplan]

Don't recognize. It's different subconscious.

[Sean Kelly]

It was so built into my subconscious. And she could be like, I aced this test. My mom's doing. Well, just anything. And it'd be crazy, man. So I had to rewire my brain.

[Randall Kaplan]

But it's hard to do. So I. I think that's very important because a lot of people are very negative. Yeah, very negative. But you can't just. If you've been that way your whole life. So did you go to therapy to do this? Were you reading books on this? Were you meditating on this? Because it's. Yeah, it's hard to do. I mean, that's your DNA.

[Sean Kelly]

It is super hard. I tried all of that. Therapy didn't really work on me. Books, I mean, they're good to know, but applying it is a whole different story. Just reps, just straight reps, just talking to thousands of people at conferences. And now I can see subconscious cues and like body language reactions. So when I'm telling someone good news or bad news, and I can just see their reaction and know if they support me or not. I've trained myself to do that.

[Randall Kaplan]

I think attitude is almost everything, Right. When you walk into work every day, if you're grumpy or have a negative reaction, have a frown on your face, it's contagious. And if you're a leader, people are following your mood, right? So I, as part of my coaching, I tell people, hey, you shouldn't give a shit if you just had a fight with your wife, your kids, or you just blew a deal or something. You gotta walk in with an attitude regardless. A Great attitude regardless of what's going on in your life. And you know, one of the most. The most common asked question in the world is attitude. How are you?

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, how are you?

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. The most commonly asked question in the world. And how many people get that wrong?

[Sean Kelly]

So many people just say good. Right?

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. Good's a B 3.0. You want to be a 3.0? It's the easiest thing someone can do walking into a room. How are you? I'm getting by. I've had better days, you know, doing all right. I can't get, you know, can't wait till I get off. Yeah, it should be. I'm doing phenomenal. I'm great. I'm outstanding. I'm having an amazing day. Even if you're not. No one gives a shit.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, no one cares.

[Randall Kaplan]

No one cares.

[Sean Kelly]

That took me a while to realize.

[Randall Kaplan]

They really don't.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And it's the easiest thing to start off a meeting or anything or a greeting. And it takes no work. And most people will get it wrong.

[Sean Kelly]

Absolutely.

[Randall Kaplan]

Ton of coaching on that.

[Sean Kelly]

That was the biggest mindset shift for me, by the way, when I realized no one cares because they really don't. Yeah. And it sucks to say. Like, it sounds kind of negative, but it was. I just used to be scared of being judged a lot. So when I had that shift, it was major, by the way.

[Randall Kaplan]

I'm not saying fake it to make it. I'm saying if you have close friends who you trust, girlfriend, wife, family, parents, people really care of you. I think it's important for you to tell them I'm not doing well right now.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Because mental health is so important.

[Sean Kelly]

Absolutely.

[Randall Kaplan]

And I think people who care, but just to employees or people you meet on the street, I just don't think. I just have a different mentality in terms of how you should go about that. Before we finish today, I want to ask some more open ended questions. I call this part of my podcast fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play?

[Sean Kelly]

Let's do it.

[Randall Kaplan]

The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow, that's deep. Biggest lesson I've learned in my life. I'd say to cherish life because I mentioned earlier I've had three near death experiences and each one of those, if I died at that moment, I wouldn't have been fulfilled with my life.

[Randall Kaplan]

My number one personal goal is have kids.

[Sean Kelly]

My biggest regret is not being closer with my father. My biggest fear is letting my fiance down.

[Randall Kaplan]

The craziest thing that ever happened to Me in my life is craziest.

[Sean Kelly]

I would say Trump, Trump wearing are showing one of my jerseys at his rally.

[Randall Kaplan]

One of the things that we didn't talk about is how much revenue that actually generated from you. So why don't you tell everybody?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it was six figures overnight, which at the time I was 22 years old. So that was a lot of revenue for me.

[Randall Kaplan]

The one thing I've dreamed about doing for a long time but haven't is go to space. It's possible now.

[Sean Kelly]

It is.

[Randall Kaplan]

You're going to do it.

[Sean Kelly]

We'll see. I got some flat earthers on the show saying there's no space.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, no space. So where do they think all these SpaceX rockets?

[Sean Kelly]

I don't know.

[Randall Kaplan]

Ten years from now I want to be doing podcasting. If you could go back in time and give your 14 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

[Sean Kelly]

Oh, 14. So that's high school. Don't go to college.

[Randall Kaplan]

What's the best advice you can give to 50 year old parents today?

[Sean Kelly]

Maintain your relationship with your kids. I think when they go off to college and they go out in the real world, a lot of parents are disconnected.

[Randall Kaplan]

The best advice for a research. The best advice for a recent 21 year old college graduate is internship. I'm going to ask you a couple questions about internship now just because we're on that topic, because we have one more question to go after this.

[Sean Kelly]

Cool.

[Randall Kaplan]

Internships are very competitive. This year for our program of 36 kids, we have 4,000 applications.

[Sean Kelly]

Dang.

[Randall Kaplan]

It's become a thing.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow.

[Randall Kaplan]

It's hard to get a job. And it's a, it's a, it's a 12 week formal program. I spend 60 to 90 minutes a day with the interns. Speakers come in each week. If you want to be a speaker, we'd love to have you.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And I have a bunch of friends who will do this. Just because we're friends.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, I'd love to support.

[Randall Kaplan]

Thank you. And that'll be really dope. So I appreciate that and I think internships are so important. They're so competitive to get. So how does someone citadel for example, Ken Griffin's firm got 29,000 applicants for summer jobs last year.

[Sean Kelly]

Holy crap.

[Randall Kaplan]

I mean, you can google this. When I heard it was hard.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

You know, hopefully Ken will come on my show. I met him, asked him, really hope he does it. So, Ken, we're going to send you this clip and I really want you to do my show. Please do my show. I think A lot of creativity will go into. What's the best piece of advice you have for someone looking at Citadel? Working a jump this summer? How to stand out among the crowd.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah. I didn't know the numbers were like that. When I said internship, I mainly meant just working under someone, being mentored by someone, maybe for free. When I was just starting out, I emailed Gary Vee and said I'd work for you for free. So I was willing to do that.

[Randall Kaplan]

Did he respond?

[Sean Kelly]

He didn't. He didn't respond. I should find the email. Hopefully I didn't delete it, but yeah, for those companies it'd be tough. I heard a lot of connections are involved at that level. Is that true?

[Randall Kaplan]

A lot of what?

[Sean Kelly]

Like if you have personal connections with people at the company at these companies.

[Randall Kaplan]

You know, I think it varies. I think at our company, just because I know a lot of parents and a lot of parents have kids looking for summer internships.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

We hire lead interns from the previous summer to run the program. They do all the sifting, interviewing, hiring. I want to empower them. Lead interns go on to do whatever they want to do. It's the only job that 19 year olds can't have the green light to hire someone and manage your peers. Got it. So we've got kids working at Goldman Sachs and investment banking, which you probably know is incredibly hard job to get.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

Matt Hickerson is here as my right hand person. He's sitting right there. Was an intern came dressed his first day in a suit and tie, did a Test run from 90 minutes away to find out how he got to work.

[Sean Kelly]

Wow.

[Randall Kaplan]

Stayed late till 11 o'clock at night. When this is unpaid internship, you have to get credit for the internship.

[Sean Kelly]

Yes.

[Randall Kaplan]

School credit, proactively send stuff. So I think, I think you got to do stuff like that. Stand out among the crowd to be the best.

[Sean Kelly]

100%. I have personal assistants. I'm interviewing after episodes today and I didn't even look at their resumes because I just would rather see what they're willing to do in person.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean Kelly]

Feel out their energy.

[Randall Kaplan]

Right. We look at the resumes. If there's a period out of place, if there's a comma where there shouldn't be, if the formatting is wrong, we don't even look. And what's crazy is. Yeah. I mean, if they don't have that level of detail, these are easy things to fix.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

So would they be making careless errors at our company? I can't have them missing a period. A letter they're sending out to a client. It's a reflection on me. It just looks terrible.

[Sean Kelly]

Over a period. That's insane.

[Randall Kaplan]

Over a period, wow. Right? And it's a resume. They're looking for a job. This is a job that's going to put food on the table, pay the rent, pay their bills, are going to be spending more time at work than anywhere else. And if they can't see that a period's missing in their resume, something's fucking wrong. I do not work. I do not want them working at our company. They're not going to work at the company.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah.

[Randall Kaplan]

And there are sources online Grammarly, which if you don't have Grammarly on your computer, you're not working at our company either.

[Sean Kelly]

I have that. It's good.

[Randall Kaplan]

There's no reason to have a spelling mistake and there's no reason not to have a missed period.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it makes you sound really intelligent.

[Randall Kaplan]

It's just, you know, there's no need for it. These are low hanging fruit mistakes that nobody should make that could not only kill your chance for a job, but could kill your career.

[Sean Kelly]

Right.

[Randall Kaplan]

Just imagine you're working at Goldman Sachs. You got a major presentation. You go in there, you're meeting with David Solomon, the CEO. Takes you five years to get there. You go with your PowerPoint presentation. There's a misspelled word, you're done. Yeah, done, Done.

[Sean Kelly]

Absolutely.

[Randall Kaplan]

What's the one question you wish I'd asked you but didn't?

[Sean Kelly]

Huh? One question. Oh, I guess. What. What guest do you want to get on your podcast besides me?

[Randall Kaplan]

What guest do you want to on your podcast?

[Sean Kelly]

Right. It's got to be Rogan, man. Grew up watching him with my dad. We watched every single episode growing up for five years straight. So he's the goat to me.

[Randall Kaplan]

You have the ability now. You have the clout, I'm sure, to get to him. So what's the plan there?

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, so just my plan with these big guests is to get people around them first, establish credibility, have those people have great experiences on the show, and then eventually I'll go for the ask. I'd say within three years he'll be on.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. I'm also guessing Joe's gonna be on my show within three years. I'm gonna have Tony Robbins, Elon Musk.

[Sean Kelly]

You already had Dana, so you're right there.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah, Dana was great. Yeah, yeah. Super pumped. So appreciate you being on my show. I'm a huge fan, Sean, and I think this is great. We learned a ton about you. And I think people are really going to love it.

[Sean Kelly]

Yeah, it was cool to get that side out of me.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean Kelly]

Good job, man.

[Randall Kaplan]

Yeah. I appreciate you. Thanks for being here.

[Sean Kelly]

Yep.