← The Futur with Chris Do
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- [00:00]
Caleb Raulston
I think what Alex does an incredible job of is understanding that if he were to take these concepts at a third grade level, he's making it accessible to the masses and he's not making assumptions about people understanding what CAC means. So I think for anybody watching or listening, it's really important to be able to think through the lens not only of the advanced viewer, but but the lay viewer. My name is Caleb Raulston and you are watching or listening to the Future, the greatest podcast for creatives pursuing business in general.
- [00:42]
Chris Do
My next guest is a person I don't know that much about, but when I met him in person, it's just like this big. I would call you like a friendly giant, a big man, a bearded man. It reminds me a lot of our Chief Operating Officer, Ben Burns, and just the similarities there. But the little bit that I know about you is you worked with some amazing accomplished people. And what I want to do is peel away some of your lessons, what you've learned, a view from the inside strategies that the regular Joe or Jane person can learn from with the limited resources that they have and what they can learn from you. So Caleb, for people who don't know who you are, can you please just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your story?
- [01:18]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, absolutely. My name is Caleb Raulston. I have been in the, I guess brand building and digital media space for about 16 years now. I'll try and make it concise, but I think it's kind of cool to share. So a character who I think you are familiar with, Sean Cannell. I had the wild opportunity to be working or volunteering in the same church that he was the director of Media app. Now I think a lot of people are aware of him on YouTube and stuff, but that was Sean Pre all of Think and video ranking Academy and everything that he's done now. And at the time I remember I was interning and helping with not only the church stuff but his own production company and he gave me a book and it was the only book and I hope that none of my teachers are listening, but it was the only book I actually read in high school and it was Crush it by Gary Vaynerchuk. And I remember reading it and I honestly, I don't think I stopped reading the moment that I opened it. I read all the way through and I remember him talking about people are going to make money and a full time income online, talking about the Smurfs and I didn't know anything about the Smurfs or anything like that, but I Remember thinking, wow, I have some passions that I'm interested in, maybe I could do this. I was the kid that did not pay attention in school. I just was always thinking about other things. I was making skits on YouTube with my friends. I was filming videos all the time. And so I read that book and immediately realized I'm into powerlifting. My dad at the time was a bodybuilder and I realized all the training videos at the time, fitness is huge now, but at the time it wasn't. And all the training videos kind of sucked and I thought that I could make better ones. And so I started filming with my dad, filming with local bodybuilders, and then slowly started getting opportunities with some of the biggest names in the industry. Ronnie Coleman, Flex Lewis, Jay Cutler, Stan Efforting, a lot of different characters. And I just would go up to them backstage at bodybuilding shows because the way it works is they come in guest pose and I'd walk up to him, the boldness of a 15 year old, and say, like, I'm a huge fan, I don't think your videos are very good and I think I could make a better one. Can I vlog you backstage here? I'll make an edit, send it to you, and if you like it, maybe we can work together. And so that just kept snowballing and I got a lot of cool opportunities with that. And then I hit the age of 18 or 19 and realized freelancing is brutal. I have gigs and then I have a month where I have to find the next gig and I want to move out and so I need some consistent income. And so I got a job at a software company, worked there for about two and a half, three years. And we were making a lot of in house creative for the marketing department. But we also created, it was a faith based organization, Logos Bible Software. We created our own OTT to serve that community. And so we started creating original content, documentaries and everything like that. And I was the editor for that. Learned a lot there. And then from then I went into like a year of freelancing. And this is kind of like the pivotal point in my career here. I had stopped consuming Gary's content because if you follow him, he says, you know, stop watching my stuff and go do execute. And a friend of mine texted me a photo, like a screenshot of Gary's story, saying that he was looking for creators and to reach out to David Rock. And this was a friend that has never in my life told me, you should do Blake. He's not that kind of person. And he was like, dude, you got to apply for this. And so I just, I felt it. I immediately reached out to David through a sequence of follow up emails and everything like that. I kept sending videos to him, eventually got an interview and then got offered an opportunity to either work at Vayner Talent or PureWow. VaynerTalent was kind of taking Team Gary and those offers to external clients. The other option was PureWow, which was a women's lifestyle publisher kind of targeted towards women 30 to 45 in the Midwest. I thought that was super interesting. That's like the exact opposite of who I am and what my experience was. Right. Like previously I worked at a software company which is typically bro dominated, right. And this was an organization that was not only targeting and reaching women, but also was like 90% women in the org. So I thought, wow, that just sounds like an amazing opportunity in a lot of different avenues. I want to learn what it's like. I want to have a female boss. Like I, I was very curious what that was going to be like, you know, and very excited about that. And then also I know that some of the biggest decision makers in CPG purchases in America are that demo. So I figured if I can learn how to communicate effectively to them, that will be advantageous in my career. Anyways, I do that for about nine months. And then Gary pulled me onto his team and I had the opportunity to work for Gary Vaynerchuk for two and a half years as his videographer. And that was, Chris, the most insane time of my life. Like, like it was absurd. I'm talking like day three. I was told the night before, hey, you need to purchase a flight. You know, they were paying for it obviously, but you need to book a flight to go to London. We're going to go there for 24 hours and he'll fly right back. Like, I mean it was just like right away thrown into the fire kind of thing. And that was incredible. I got to run his TikTok. We had a lot of growth there. I was the editor of Trash Talk, kind of a hit series for him and just got the opportunity to learn a lot. And then from there he actually sold Empathy Wines, his wine company, to a company called Constellation Brands. And they were looking to build out the direct to consumer function of their organization. They own like Svetka Modelo, Corona, Kim Crawford, Prisoner, all these different wine, spirit and beer brands. And so I went over there to help build out the direct to consumer team. That was wild. I've never worked in a Fortune 500 before, like, that was a completely different experience. Learned a lot about how those orgs operate. It was kind of a startup environment in a massive company, but it was still a massive company, you know, so things don't move as fast as I was used to and stuff like that. This was during COVID and everything. And so I was working remotely. I was living in Portland, Oregon at the time. Got obsessed with my Harley Davidson, moved to Las Vegas so that I could ride more because it was sunnier and riding in the rain isn't as enjoyable. And then about a month after moving to Las Vegas, Alex and Layla reached out and we started talking about how they wanted to build their own team and build something similar to what Gary had done, but in their own way and kind of the rest is history. It was an incredible conversation that led to the biggest point in my career, which was building out their team, helping scale their brand. We went from zero people in house to 18 at the end there, and it was incredible. We went from 1 million followers to 11.5 million. Twitter targeted followers too. I mean, we could have. They're very prolific, charismatic individuals. We could have hit 30 million if we wanted, but we were trying to make sure that it was all business owner focused. So. Yeah, man, that's a little bit of the pithy statement on my journey.
- [08:25]
Chris Do
Did you say you started, like, when you were, like, 15 years old or younger?
- [08:28]
Caleb Raulston
Officially, my first paid gig was when I was 15. I've been making videos since I can walk. I was grabbing my mom's camera and using it with my sister and making little random skits here and there and stuff. I'm that kid, you know?
- [08:41]
Chris Do
Yeah. So it seems like you have a passion for telling stories and using technology, and you've used that passion to navigate, I think, some pretty choice gigs and moving from place to place. And now I think you mentioned Portland. Is that where you grew up?
- [08:57]
Caleb Raulston
Kind of, yeah. So I grew up in actually a town called Arlington, Washington. Then I lived in Bellingham when I worked at the software company. But I had family that was always down in Salem, Oregon, so I. I frequented Portland. So when I came back, that's why I moved to Portland, was friends and family were in that area.
- [09:13]
Chris Do
Okay, what I want to do is retrace a couple of the steps here. I was taking notes, but you're moving pretty quickly along the story. What is it that compels Sean to say? You need to read this book, man. Something happened.
- [09:25]
Caleb Raulston
Oh, I'm forever indebted and grateful to him. For it. I mean, I think he read it and realized, wow, there's a mega opportunity here that I can take advantage of. And him and I were very similar in the fact that, like, we weren't good students. For example, in first grade, my teacher dumped over my desk halfway through the year to all of these assignments that had just not been done. I was not a good student, and he was the same way. And I think we resonated not only with what Gary was sharing as an opportunity, but also the fact that he was the same. He was not a good student. He was able to be successful via this new world of the Internet and social media that was coming. And I think that it resonated with Sean, and I think he saw something similar in me.
- [10:09]
Chris Do
Okay, so you have similar personalities, similar ways of moving about the world. You're in the same church. He sees that you're producing videos, he's producing videos, and he's like, you gotta check out this thing. And then you're like. You read it, and it changes your life, and it sends you on a path. I mean, I have to ask you this question. When you're reading that book, could you have imagined at a point that one day you're going to be working with Gary, the guy who wrote the book?
- [10:29]
Caleb Raulston
Oh, Chris. Not really, to be honest with you. I always, like, in my head, dreamed of meeting him. And actually, ironically enough, Sean and the youth pastor at the church built this YouTube channel called Think International at the time. And they were interviewing different leaders in, you know, the church world that were being a little bit more innovative with using online church stuff. And we actually. Gary came through on the thank youk Economy tour, Bellingham, Washington. And we went up and filmed an interview with him in Bellingham, Washington, where I then eventually moved and then eventually, obviously went and worked for him. But, no, I never could have imagined. It was very surreal. And I remember I have it filmed. I posted it on my Instagram. My first meeting with Garrity, and being able to tell him about that, that was weird. Like, that was Joe Wild.
- [11:20]
Chris Do
I'm gonna jump around here. I mean, this is a unusual background. You're into powerlifting. Your dad's a bodybuilder. So you're like, there's not a lot of fitness stuff now. It's everywhere. As you say, it is kind of one of the most dominant types of content that's on social. But back then, in the Dark Ages, I guess, everything was new. And what gave you the confidence to approach these? Like, Ronnie Coleman is the name I know he's Jack. You just walked up to him like, you know, love what you do. What you do sucks. I think I can help. Let me give you this offer. And if I do it and you like it, did any of that turn into, like, money?
- [11:54]
Caleb Raulston
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, not much, right? Like, we're talking like $200 for, like, a training video or whatever. But I mean, for me at 15, living at home, I was like, I'm rich. I think something that I want to make sure that I. I do a good job of. I'm going to start making content this year and stuff like that. And I think my parents did an incredible job of investing in me and helping me understand that. Like, I remember I read that book and I told my parents, I was like, I'm dropping out of high school and I'm going to work. And they're like, well, okay, maybe not that. But then we negotiated and determined we can do homeschooling. So then I can, like, work my face off and, you know, barely do any schooling and just work. I think that they gave me so many opportunities to build confidence in myself in that. And when I showed interest in this, they invested. They were like, we'll get you a computer and a camera. You'll earn the money to pay it back, but we'll invest in you kind of a thing. So I think that's probably where it came. Also, I think a lot of ignorance. I think I just didn't know any better. And so I think that's the beauty of youth, is you're not really aware of your vincibility. You think you're invincible. Right. It's kind of like the whole thing when you learn how to drive that parents are so scared of. I just. I was audacious.
- [13:13]
Chris Do
I think that's one of the great things about being young. You're not aware, you don't know enough about the problems, the pitfalls and the challenges that you're bold enough to go forward. I think your parents did do something wonderful because this is a rare thing. And I want talk about cultural differences a little bit here. Most Asian Americans or Asians who are listening to this, like, what? I had to get my first degree and my second degree before my parents even entertained the idea of me doing something weird. And your parents, not only are they going to say, we'll let you drop out of school sort of technically, but we'll homeschool you so that you can get your, I think, high school diploma, I think. And then they fronted you the money for Your camera and your computer. So that's not just like, we'll let it go, but they actually put financial support and allowed you to do your thing. I also have to imagine from overprotective parents point of view, letting your kid hang around with adult men that are half naked. There's a scary thought there too, but they're like, just go for it. We trust you. And what is it about you or your parents that that's okay? And I want to see if I can listen for the distinct differences between American culture versus Asian American culture.
- [14:20]
Caleb Raulston
That's super interesting. I love this, by the way. This is super cool. I think one, the fact that my dad was a bodybuilder for so long, there was a deeper understanding of that culture. I have this very vivid memory. I was like 7 years old and being backstage at a show and my parents introducing me to this woman named Molly. And Molly was bigger than most men you've ever met. And I remember her being like, hello, Caleb. And I just, you know, and I was like, wow, you are incredible. And so I like, that's something that a lot of my friends would make fun of or thought was weird. And I just, that was normal to me. Right. Like, I never thought anything of that. And like growing up, like seeing like spray tan leak onto the sheets or whatever. Right. Like, I just, I was so used to all of that. And I think this, they were too now. I mean, there was some freaky stuff with that, like Universal Nutrition, they own like animal pack and everything. They used to host this event at the mystery Olympia called the Animal Cage. And they hired me when I was like 16 or 17 to fly out to Las Vegas and film that. I went solo. Now Sean at the time was living in Las Vegas, so I stayed with him and stuff. So I think they felt comfortable with that. But yeah, I mean, they took some big risks. I think maybe in the back of their heads they were like, well, Caleb, he's never going to go down that path. This is his only shot. So like, we got to help him with it. But yeah, I think that there was a little bit of that, but I think a lot of it was just. They were more used to it. So I think it would have been a completely different story if they had never had experience with it. And I just all of a sudden started going to the gym and met these guys.
- [16:00]
Chris Do
Did your mom or dad ever say, hey, we need to go with you, citizen, because you're a 16 year old kid and we gotta look out for you. Did they help you with the money part or any, was there a safety or security, financial concerns at all or like, you know, you're a big guy, you go out in the wild and you learn.
- [16:14]
Caleb Raulston
So I was also at the same time working at Adidas, just as like a salesman. And I have always had a beard. I mean, like, I basically was born with a beard. I looked like I was 30 when I was 16. So they didn't. This is technically illegal, but I was working more hours than I legally should have been able to. So I was working like 38 hours a week at Adidas, living at home. So I had a lot of, at the time, a lot of money. So I would front the cost for things if I felt like it was a good opportunity for me. Now the one with Vegas, for example, they paid for everything. So like, that was a really good gig that I got. So I didn't ever really have too much concern on that. And no, they never really needed to accompany me. I think probably I will say my dad did try to get to know like, Stan Efforting was like the best client. He was my first real client and unbelievable human. And my dad definitely made an effort to get to know him just to make sure everything was good. But like, I'll tell you, with Stan, I remember he was getting ready for a powerlifting meet and we were in Sacramento at Mark Bell's gym. And if you're familiar with Mark Bell at all, amazing, awesome dude. Bigger, stronger, faster documentary, incredible character. But we were at his gym and I remember like, you know, this was like my first traveling gig. And I land and Stan picks me up and he handed me a couple hundred bucks cash and was like, here's just walking around money just to take care of yourself in case you need anything while you're here. I got lucky and very fortunate that I had clients that were just good people. And I, I just seem to get lucky with that, I guess.
- [17:51]
Chris Do
Okay, there's a couple of different things. Number one, you're, you're a power lifter. Your dad's into bodybuilding. So this is like familiar culture to you. So there's, they know the ins and outs, so to speak, the behind the scenes stuff. So they don't have a lot to be scared of. And this is your world too. It's not like you're being thrust into some other world that you're like, what's happening here? I just out of curiosity, anything sketchy happened, where I go, maybe this is the right place to be at right now.
- [18:14]
Caleb Raulston
Honestly, No. I mean, as Far as like safety wise, I was always a big dude. I mean these were like huge guys. But I never have had any fears on that, to be honest with you. I think that's the privilege of being a 6, 7 bearded guy that's bald and looks kind of scary sometimes. I'm not, but I think I give that impression sometimes. Oh, actually I will tell you a story but I'm going to keep it very anonymous because this is a fun one though. There was a time where I was traveling for a client and when I was out there, the client's friend loaned me their truck for the trip. And I had never driven a truck before and I was driving to a film session and it was raining and I went through an intersection and I completely spun out and got in an accident. Nobody got hurt, but I was terrified. One that I never wanted the client to find out. There was no damage to the truck, it was just damage to the other vehicle. So I talked to the lady and I said, hey, my parents can't find out about this, they'll kill me. I'm on their insurance still. I want your information. I will give you my information. You tell me whatever the cost is for the repair and I will send you the cash in the mail. For whatever reason, she trusted me. And at 16 years old I have this lady telling me exactly what it is. It was like $2,000 and I being an ignorant kid, literally in an envelope mailed $2,000 cash to her to pay for it. I stayed in contact with them for a while. There was a really like sweet old couple. They were very nice and very like sweet to me and stuff. That was probably the sketchiest thing.
- [19:59]
Chris Do
That's pretty sketchy. I mean it was wild. How did you not damage the truck but they got damaged?
- [20:05]
Caleb Raulston
I have no idea. I have no idea.
- [20:07]
Chris Do
You made contact but just trucks showed no damage?
- [20:10]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess that's.
- [20:12]
Chris Do
Sometimes that happens.
- [20:12]
Caleb Raulston
The value of trucks, right?
- [20:14]
Chris Do
Yeah. Okay, so no one's the wiser. You pay it with cash. And I guess the beautiful part to the story is as a young man you're already making enough money that you can pay down a two thousand dollar accident where my 21 year old doesn't have that kind of money. He'd be freaking out. It'd be a really big deal.
- [20:30]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, that was all my money for like that month. Like it was. Or probably a couple of months. Like it was tough and it was, I was scared. But yeah, it worked out.
- [20:40]
Chris Do
That's so cool. Okay. And I'm glad you threw in there that you're six, seven, that you look much older. Like, if you don't know Caleb, if you walk down the street, you might think this is a big dude from a Hell's angel kind of thing.
- [20:51]
Caleb Raulston
He.
- [20:52]
Chris Do
He's got that vibe. But then you instantly talk to him like, no, he's just a really super friendly, sweet person. Right. So there are certain kind of physical advantages that you have that allow you to move into the world of adults without you having to feel like, oh, my God, I'm in danger. Right. They're going to think twice trying to mess around with you first. Okay. Okay, let's move on here. So you get this opportunity to work with Gary. Did you have to move to New York because he's in New Jersey, right?
- [21:17]
Caleb Raulston
Well, he's in New York.
- [21:18]
Chris Do
No, he's in New York. Okay. So did you move to New York to work with him?
- [21:21]
Caleb Raulston
I did. I literally got the job offer for Purewow, and two weeks later, I was living in Brooklyn.
- [21:28]
Chris Do
Okay. How old are you?
- [21:30]
Caleb Raulston
I think I was 24, I believe.
- [21:31]
Chris Do
Okay. Ever been in New York or Brooklyn before?
- [21:34]
Caleb Raulston
My family and I had gone on a family trip out to New York when I was in high school, and then my dad actually competed at a show out in New York that I went out with him maybe, like, two years later. So I had done, like, two trips out there, but never had been out in Brooklyn, especially not the area that I ended up living in and never really navigated the subway. And that was insane.
- [22:00]
Chris Do
Yeah. It can be overwhelming after a while. You're like, oh, this is not a thing. But at first, it's total chaos. Like, things are moving, like, where are you supposed to go on your right train? All these kinds of things. You got to get off here.
- [22:11]
Caleb Raulston
I would see more people in my commute in the morning than I would see in an entire month. Back where I grew up, it was sensory overload.
- [22:20]
Chris Do
Yeah. So you're there, you're making your way. Many people know who David Rock is by his other name, D. Rock, who was, I think, an important figure in Gary's evolution as content creator, storyteller, because he was there filming. And probably one of the first few entrepreneurs who were successful at it had a crew or a guy at least, following him around, documenting those stories. What was your role like when you were working with him?
- [22:46]
Caleb Raulston
David's the goat, and I learned a lot from him. Basically, I was the number two to David. So I did a lot of the Traveling with Gary for a significant portion of the time that I was there and helped with a lot of like, the technical lead stuff. So when it came to any sort of technicalities on an edit, for example, I would jump in and help with that if we needed help. I would always make sure to lend a hand to David with filming and stuff like that. But there was definitely an effort to try and get David for his season out of traveling, so much so that he could start working more on the strategy and everything like that. Because there is nobody out there that understands Gary and Gary's brand more than David. I'm talking, like, you could mention a random moment from any dailyvee and he'll be like, oh, I remember what day it was. I know where we were. He's an encyclopedia. And so our effort was like, let's give him more space to be able to utilize that power that he has. So that's when I started to transition more into the traveling and stuff.
- [23:51]
Chris Do
So Drock becomes like this human archivist who understands all the stories because he was there and he has a brain to remember it. And then you start filling in the role of, like, primary shooter. You're out there shooting. We're going to nerd out everybody. So those of you guys are super non technical. Go get a coffee or something. You'll be all right. So I'm curious because to be a fly on the wall to see how y'all work would probably be a thing, managing media equipment that you're using. What? Tell me a little bit about tools and the workflow, because it's got to be insane.
- [24:22]
Caleb Raulston
Well, I can't speak to how they operate now, but I'll tell you, when I was on the team and I loved this, it was chaos. But we got so much done in the chaos and I thrived in it. So we didn't have like some crazy system for ingesting footage, right? Like I started working on towards the end, was building out a dam for us to be able to utilize and tag footage, right? Like, he's got years worth, decade worth of footage, right? That was a tough initiative to get off the ground. For sure. It was a lot of footage. But basically we would film. We used Sony's. So at the time it was Sony A7 SIIs, using whatever the equivalent is now. We did that. We used the Sennheiser Labs and always zoom lenses and everything like that for versatility. And really the main priority was not the way that we filmed it, but what we were capturing, right? So, like, you can See, there's so many times where the footage is like super shaky, right? And like the amount of times that I'm filming Gary and I'm like, I know people are going to know that I filmed this because he mentioned my name or whatever. And this is so embarrassing that we're going to put this footage out. But what people don't realize is the reason why it's so shaky is because we're on the other end and he never asked us to do this, but this is how I like to operate. When we would be traveling, I would wheel his suitcase. When somebody would come up to him and give him a gift at the airport because they're so grateful or we're at an event, I would then hold that while I'm filming. I would also hold his latte and his croissant. In the morning I would also be texting on my phone with the admins talking about, okay, we're walking to the event. The event. He's going on stage in 30 minutes he has a call and in five minutes that's a five minute call. And then right after that he has a 10 minute call. And then after that another five minute, and then he has five minutes to decompress before he goes on stage. All of that occurring at the same time while filming. So there is a so much more. Like David and I, Jason, Marina, Tyler Bavin, we all talk about this. Like one day I think it'd be cool for us to all sit around and kind of do like a round table and talk about it because nobody realizes the level of effort that a videographer. And like Dustin Lee, who's doing it now, I love Dustin to death. That's my boy. People have no idea what he's actually doing behind the scenes. There's so much more than just filming some trips. There wouldn't be an EA that would join, right? They'd be back at Hy Hudson Yards. And so like we were the ea if Gary is running late. I remember there was one time where Gary was running late to a meeting with the CEO of AT&T Global and I had to go in to the room and speak to him to stall basically and make sure that Gary didn't look like he was being bad or anything like that, right? Like try and smooth it over or whatever and entertain him for a second. Because Gary literally is like five minute increments on his calendar. All back to backs. There's no buffer, no break, nothing. And so like, I think the thing that people can understand maybe from me sharing this Is like, if you're a videographer for Gary, you pick up so many anseller skills to the actual thing of filming. And the priority wasn't the lensing. Right. The framing, the white balance, the lighting being proper. It was like, are we making sure that we're capturing the moment where somebody at an airport walks up to Gary and talks about how this moment changed their life, asks him a question, blah, blah, blah, kind of a thing.
- [27:52]
Chris Do
I'm trying to visualize this. So let's paint a picture, because this is the podcast and it's a YouTube episode. Here's six foot seven, Caleb. Camera in hand. Is there some kind of rig, a shoulder rig, or it's just all hand. Just like this little cage.
- [28:05]
Caleb Raulston
I always used a strap, so then if I needed to, I could use my elbow because my arms are long enough that I could extend the camera out and hold it like this while I was holding something else. Literally. Like, there'd be times where I was operating the camera like this.
- [28:17]
Chris Do
Oh, I see. Strap around your neck. Push. Stop with elbow hit record. One hand holding the luggage, the other hand coffee and croissant. And elbow propping the camera. And that's why it is shaky. It might not be framed correctly. And phone in your ear, probably on your shoulder and your neck. Talking to a coordinator, producer, ea, saying, he's late. You gotta get him to here. This is what's going on. All the while shielding Gary from the nonsense that he can do what he does and only he can do. Sound about right?
- [28:45]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah. And, like, this was never an official thing, but I always also thought of myself as, like, an unofficial bodyguard. I love G. I love him to death. And, like, I would do anything for him. Right. And so I was always, like, cognizant of his safety, too. Right. So that's like another element. And you can ask all the other video. Like, they were all thinking the same thing, too. Like, there's so many things going through your head.
- [29:07]
Chris Do
Yeah. So you're, like, multitasking at a very high level and you're doing your thing. Okay. So I'm also guessing that because anything can happen anytime. Memory cards galore. System for new media and safe media. So you can transfer at some point. And fresh batteries charge all the time. What people don't know is. I don't want to share this. Maybe you have a workaround is after the shooting. That's just the beginning of the workday. Because now it's offloading the media, double checking to see if it's good because you want to Clear those memory cards. Did you buy all new memory cards or did you repurpose memory cards? Because some people have different systems for that. Like they, like, they treat it like film. They don't use the cards. Again, just in case, we would repurpose.
- [29:48]
Caleb Raulston
So we would ingest. Chris, it was crazy. I had a SSD with me. I would ingest to the SSD and that was it. No other backups, nothing like that. Like it was crazy. And you're 100% right. Like, we would film all day, and I'm talking like Gary would do late meetings, we'd be done at 11 or midnight, go back to the hotel, not only ingest, start cutting clips so that we could literally post stuff the next day. Because we were, especially at that time we were really big on real time content, whatever was top of and the reason why, and I think this is a cool insight actually that I'll share is so many people would comment and be like, you somehow read my mind in the situation I'm in right now. And the reality is, is he did because he was consuming all the comments, the DMs, the tweets, everything. So he actually knew what people were thinking and wondering at that moment. And then he would talk about it during the day. And so when we would clip it, the reason why we tried to do it really fast is because we were literally reading the audience. He'd see five DMS about the same thing and be like, all right, that means that there's a lot of people that need this. I'm going to hit on this right away. Let's get it out tomorrow. And so like the speed of everything was just on a completely different level.
- [31:02]
Chris Do
When I first bumped into a piece of Gary's content, I think he was speaking at usc. And the speed of which his mind works and his recall ability was something that was to behold. And I remember thinking to myself before I made any content, like, God, how does a person do that? Is the real life Gary like the one that I see on camera where he's like, I'm ready, and goes and just starts talking off the top of his head. And he knows how to hit his points, he knows the references, and he's able to, with relative accuracy, refer to very specific things?
- [31:32]
Caleb Raulston
Chris, what I'll say is he's way better off camera than on camera in a lot of different ways. So there was so many different things that he did that I just thought were like, wow, you're a really good human. That we would film and he would turn to me right after it happened and be like, never put that out. I'm talking if he was going to let someone go, he'd have like five opportunities lined up for them already. And I knew that was happening. And he'd be like, we're never going to put that out. I don't need to do that. His business acumen, people who actually sit down for a business meeting with him to talk about, like, private equity are like, this dude knows way more. We would always push more of the business content. Please put out more of the business content. And he always would say no. He likes being underrated. He likes people thinking that he's just the happiness guy kind of a thing. That dude is 100 like that all the time. He literally, when he talks about it, and you've probably heard him say it, like he walks up on stage and he says, hey, what's up? I'm Gary Vaynerchuk and today I'm going to talk about. And that's the moment that he figures out what he's going to talk about on stage. He's not preparing or anything like that. He is looking at the tweets of all the people that are at the event, what they're talking about. He's asking the person backstage, hey, what is the buzz, Ben, at this conference or whatever, right? That is 100 how he operates.
- [32:46]
Chris Do
I think he's one of those people who is able to make ADHD his superpower because the ADHD brain, as far as I know, works much faster. And if you can tame it, you can literally do that. I imagine a couple things. Number one, he doesn't have time because 5 minute meeting, 10 minute. He only had 5 minutes to get there. And then he's on to the next thing, Right. I remember one time hearing about him in Las Vegas for Sean's event. He goes, I have to leave. I have another event. And I'm doing another event the day after. It's like three speaking engagements back to back to back. It's like this guy never stops. And a few people who have this ability, who can harness it are named Gary Vaynerchuk. I don't know who the other people are. So it's kind of very impressive to behold. Okay. And you're there and you're witnessing all this and you get to see all the behind the scenes stuff. I have to ask you this question. Why did he not want to show his business side in his human side? Because it seems like he's very transparent by everything. Well, maybe not everything. There's A couple things he keeps private. But why wouldn't he want to show that?
- [33:44]
Caleb Raulston
I genuinely think that he likes being underrated. And I think that he always wants to kind of have a little bit of an underdog chip on his shoulder. I think that's the main reason, honestly, because my favorite content that I filmed with him was, like, the 4Ds. I don't know if you've ever seen any of those. That is Gary in peak form. And then there'd be. I mean, I filmed. I won't name the companies, but, like, the biggest brands in the world. I'd be filming him breaking down what their strategy was going to be for the year and be like, no, you need to do this. They go execute it. And it would lead to the most viral super bowl ads. And, yeah, he always kept that a little bit more private. And I think it's mainly just because he likes being underrated. He would always say that he wants to have that chip on his shoulder. And he would always talk about how, like, I remember him mentioning, like, being almost concerned about a day where he's viewed as top and, like, not wanting that. Always wanting to have something to kind of, like, build up to almost.
- [34:45]
Chris Do
That's an interesting perspective. He does say that a lot. But unless you know the other side, you're never sure as to why he says that and how much of it is true. It's like, I like to be underrated. I like to be underestimated. And I was thinking that's an unusual position.
- [35:00]
Caleb Raulston
It's kind of. I mean, Sun Tzu, right? Like, appear strong when you are weak. Appear weak when you are strong. Right? Like, I think there's a lot of value to it. That dude is a business gangster. And I'll tell you, I know a lot of individuals who are also known as business gangsters that have met with him and walked away speechless.
- [35:22]
Chris Do
There's a guy I think is his name Neiman, who does the impersonations of Gary that are just freaking hilarious.
- [35:27]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [35:29]
Chris Do
And he's like. And blueberries. And, you know, like, I don't have time to spit on my gum, so I'll swallow it. I'm like, I didn't know these things about Gary. I'm assuming it's true. Does he just literally swallow gum and feast on blueberries all the time? What are your favorite Gary Isms that people are like, some of it's true and some of it's not true.
- [35:46]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, well, the Blueberry thing is 100% true. That was Actually, one of my, like, favorite clips that I filmed and made with him was the blueberry clip. And after that, like, took off, people would send pounds, like huge boxes of blueberries to the office. It was worried so many. He genuinely. He does love blueberries. I think the funniest thing that we would always joke about, though, is like. And I think that the team, if they haven't done it, they should do it. I think there could be a Gary V ASMR channel because the amount of times that we have clips of him with his mic right next to his mouth where he's like eating like celery or something, it's just he eats in the way you would imagine, very efficiently and he doesn't like to waste time on it. As funny as that sounds now. I mean, if it's a really good meal or whatever, he'll savor it and stuff. He's not, you know, a robot or anything like that. But, yeah, I think that is a funny thing. I think a lot of his mannerisms and movements and stuff, I always, like, I probably picked up a few of them being around him so much. I think probably another one is how much content we captured in the process of him walking from his office to the bathroom to take a piss. We would utilize every moment. And I think that I always was impressed that he didn't get annoyed with me for asking him for that. And he was always just down. So I think, like, that's probably one of the biggest takeaways that I had from him was like, he always made me feel good about asking him for content. For example, even when he was like, insanely busy. 30 seconds in between a meeting, the next person's walking up to the office and I run in, hey, can you record this TikTok real quick? Yeah, sure. Boom. Does it then into the next call. Never was like, dude, are you kidding me? I'm about to meet with the CMO of Abi or whatever. He just didn't operate that way. And I guess the last one that I would say is, well, there's two. He remembers everybody's name somehow. I'm talking person that he meets for 30 seconds at a conference. He'd see three years later, they'd come up and he'd be like, I don't know if you remember me. He'd be like, brian, I remember you, Brian. And I mean, they would just be like, what on earth? And I remember seeing that so many times and how much that meant to people. And another one that might sound funny, but I just I admired it. There's a clip actually on one of the dailyvees where I called it out. Whenever he speaks about another human without mentioning them by name or a potential role, he always goes she or he. And I just always thought that was so cool. In a world where a lot of characters like him only talk about men and only make it about men, he would always mention like the potential of a role being a woman or something. How crazy or novel of a concept. But I don't think many people probably pick up on that. But it was one of the first things I started noticing when I was filming with him and I literally called it out that I admired it in him. I think he is a. He's an individual that sees more than people realize.
- [38:45]
Chris Do
Very cool. Thanks for sharing that with us. I want you to put on your content strategist hat right now and be as objective as you can. Clearly you have a lot of admiration and affection for him, but tell us what you think is happening because there was a moment when Gary was the only talk in town. Everything he did was exploding and popping on whatever social platform. I've noticed some strange phenomena the last couple of years. I barely see him on any of my social feeds anymore. Despite his large following, some of his videos get less views than ours and we only have 2.6 million followers ourselves. What is happening? So why did it work? And what do you think the challenges are with your strategist? You have no relationship with him. It's totally objective. What's your take?
- [39:28]
Caleb Raulston
It's a sequence of things people don't realize. Like, a lot of people know Gary as the content creator, but he runs a massive agency. Right? They have, I think they're up to like 12 locations worldwide, a couple thousand employees. They execute on multiple super bowl campaigns every year for clients. They're working with the biggest Fortune 1 hundreds. They're the fastest growing independent agency in the world. They. So he has a massive company that he's building. He also has this brand called Vee Friends that is the culmination of, I think, so many different passions and skills that he's had over his whole life. That all. I mean, let's just call it what it is. He got lucky that that came to be like the NFT thing at the time gave him the ability to build this. It's not about NFTs in my opinion, from my point of view, it's about the universe that he's trying to build and everything. And he was talking about that stuff way back in like 2012. 2013. Like, he's been talking about this for a while. So I think what you're experiencing is, and this is just my point of view externally, this is not anything he's told me. I think that there's just been a shift in focus. So his attention has gone More so towards VaynerMedia and Veefriends than the Gary Vee brand in this season. And I remember when I was on the team, there was different seasons where there was different focuses. There'd be times where it was like, hey, I got to focus more on Vayner, so we're going to have a little bit less involvement from me on stuff. And then there'd be seasons where he's like, no, I have more time to dedicate towards the GaryVee brand. So I think it's a combination of that and that I would apply more to like the Instagrams, the TikToks, the short form content. Right. Then when you go to the long form, like on YouTube, for example, I'm not saying anything that he hasn't already acknowledged and said way back when I was on the team. YouTube, as you know, is a tough platform to package vlog style content for. Right. If you have 10 different things that occur, how do you package that in a way that YouTube prefers? Right. YouTube prefers you talk more narrowly about one theme for the best practices. Obviously there's podcasts and that's a different story. But in this world, I think that the way that Gary created DailyVee, I think it was very novel in the beginning and I think that that got a lot of traction. We were able to capture some incredible moments. But as the platforms evolved, that style of content became very difficult to get any sort of traction with because in an episode, he might be meeting with a CEO, then a rapper, then he's going to an event and then he's doing, you know, maybe book signing or something like that, and it's all over the place. And so I think that the way that YouTube has evolved is not super conducive for the style of content that he is able to produce. Given the amount of time that he has, he's not able to like sit down and record. Like, there was never a time where we were like, let's sit down and record a YouTube video. That never happened, not once. Because he's operating his businesses and then he's building Gary Vee as a documentation of that and he stayed consistent with that. Do I think that it'd be awesome one day for him to sit down and Do a direct to camera video? Yes. I think it would smash. I think that really it's just a matter of priorities right now.
- [42:47]
Chris Do
He's in a season where he's focusing on his business and not so much on Gary Vaynerchuk or Daily V. And so that's kind of why it is what it is.
- [42:55]
Caleb Raulston
That's what I think. But I'll be honest with you, I feel like I noticed around five months ago, maybe like three or four months ago, I started noticing the content was hitting again a little bit more. There was a couple of images that he did, image posts that went like mega viral. Hundreds of thousands of likes and stuff. So I know that there's seasons where he puts a little bit more emphasis on it.
- [43:19]
C
It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
- [43:30]
Chris Do
Want to make the most of the opportunities coming your way this year. I'd like to invite you to join me inside the Future Pro membership, your ace in the hole for 2024. With expert guidance and a supportive community, the Future Pro Membership was created as your ultimate business lifeline. And we have years of testimonials from members to prove it. Check it out. Thefuture.compro.
- [43:55]
C
And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
- [43:59]
Chris Do
So I'm going to offer you the outsider's perspective, which is probably a good bridge for our next part of the conversation. So I think Gary is the first mover in many different things and being a professional person who is an entrepreneur who's successful creating content on YouTube before it was kind of in vogue to do so, created all the space and when there's no competition, you can dominate. And he was crushing like crazy. But as he was speaking to a very specific, I think mostly male oriented demographic that like these young hustlers who are going to grind all the time because you would see the audience and it's mostly young men who is like, I'll swap me, I'll go and sell and I'll flip this and I'll make some money. Him doing the garage sales, I don't think he does that right now. But seeing that, I'm like, okay, well your audience eventually grows up and you grow out of it. But him providing business advice was taken over by somebody else. So the space is dominated and then someone else does it better or different and then draws that audience in. And that person is Alex Hormozi. One of my criticisms of Gary, despite all, like, what we've just been talking about is he was giving more or less similar advice to someone who was kind of at a certain level in their life. And it wasn't like I, as a multimillionaire business person, am going to learn from, unless maybe I did the 4Ds with him. But it was kind of very rudimentary stuff, which is good for broad audience. Then comes in this new guy with a crazy handlebar mustache. The. The tank top with his plaid shirt and his cutoff jeans. The craziest style comes in and really gives high level, really good business stuff that's highly actionable for people anywhere from the $100,000 to maybe $10 million range where they can learn a lot from. And so then he starts to dominate. And I think maybe the universe can only have so many players in one category. And so now Alex is just crushing and destroying. And it's kind of wild that you're moving from person to person, coincidentally, I think. But you seem to have your finger on the pulse, or maybe the pulse finds you. I don't know what the deal is, but what do you think about that theory that there's space and somebody else is going to take it one day? Somebody else will take it from Alex, the next version, the next iteration of.
- [46:06]
Caleb Raulston
It, I will give kind of an interesting theory that I have on this, which is if you were to go back to really early Gary content, it is far more tactical. And as he evolved, he got out of the tactics and more into the mindset. And I think what a lot of people who create content and give advice and all of that online, especially if they engage with a lot of different people, is you do start to realize that the tactics are very important, but if the individual doesn't have the correct mindset, they will never actually put those tactics into place. So, like, you can talk all you want about, like, social media strategy, but if you're terrified about ever showing up on video, it doesn't matter. I wasn't with Gary in the very beginning by any means, but I consumed his content. So the evolution I saw there is he went from more in the dirt tactical to more in the clouds mindset. I think that's typically the journey that these individuals go on is they start more tactical. And I think that as a side note for anybody watching, that's wanting to build their brand. That's where you should start. You build your base off of that. You build credibility and a strong foundation off of people going, this dude knows what he's talking about. She knows what she's talking about. Right? Like, that's what you want to build in my opinion. I totally hear what you're saying, and I think you're right. I would almost say it's like Gary occupied this space and then moved to a different space, and Alex came in and thunderously took over that space for sure. And I think what you probably have maybe even observed in Alex's content and maybe over the next 10 years, we'll see is there is a little bit more that he speaks to the mindset, because that is kind of the variable that it comes down to. Even with, like, CEOs, right? Like, taking action, there's a lot that comes with that, and a lot of it comes down to helping walk them through some sort of mental blockage that they have or whatever. So I think right now we're in that season with Hormozi, with Alex, and I'm curious to see what the next five years look like on that front.
- [48:19]
Chris Do
I like your take on that, that we grow, we evolve, and we are start to understand, and I agree with you and them that you can talk tactics into your blue in their face, but if somebody doesn't believe it's going to work, they'll never take action. So the bigger place to understand what the mindset, the limiting beliefs are, help them overcome that. But then what happens is you start to drift away from this core audience of young entrepreneurs who want more tactics because they have the right mindset, let's just say. And so you have to choose. And so Alex comes in, he does this, and then this is kind of interesting because it's the crossover part, I guess. They reach out to you. They're in Vegas, you're in Vegas and you're talking, and then you wind up being their content director, and you're managing teams and you're building teams. And what is that transition like for you? Because now you're not like the. The second to drock, you're the first to Alex and Layla. So different roles, different responsibilities. Tell me a little bit of what, what that's like, and I have a lot more questions for you there.
- [49:12]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, I kind of brushed over the way that we got put in contact, so I want to give credit where credit is due. There's a character by the name of Ed Turney that worked at Prestige Labs, and Ed was really into the Gary world. Big fan of Gary, and he actually was one of my best friends. Jason Marina, his first client and kind of mentor. Jason did kind of the Gary Vee stuff with Ed. Jason ended up coming over onto Team Gary and him and I became like, best homies when Alex and Layla, Ed had for years been like, Alex, you gotta make content. Like, you gotta do what Gary's doing. Like, you got so much up here and the way that you are able to distill high level concepts into a way that like a lay person would understand, you'll dominate in content. So he just kept pushing that and stuff. And Alex and Layla were like, yeah, we agree. I think this makes sense. We want to find our drock. And Ed reached out to Jason and was like, do you know anybody? And Jason was like, caleb moved to Vegas a month ago. This is insane. So Jason reached out to me and he was like, dude, there's this couple. They are very interesting. And I think that this is a legitimate opportunity. And the reason why he said that is. And I'm sure you can imagine as somebody on Team Gary, you get a ton of people that reach out. Like, I mean, my inbox was like flooded with people being like, I want to do the Gary Vee thing. But they never meant it. They didn't realize what the actual investment was. When I talked to Alex and Layla, I realized they get it. Because our conversation immediately went from being, let's bring you on as our drock to like, no, we need to build a team. We need to build something that is going to have the infrastructure to be able to scale this thing the way that we want. They had a really big vision for it right off the get and they were willing to invest the time, the effort, and the money that it takes to build a team like that. Right? That was just serendipity. Like, that was just crazy and it was insane. When I started, everything was out of house. It was all vendors that they were working with. And so my first task was to meet with all the vendors and get a deep understanding of what they were already doing and to work with them, help get them more ammo, get them more media. Right? Like, be that bridge. But then ultimately we wanted to bring everything in house. And I'm a Lord of the Rings nerd. So I like to use this analogy. Like I applied the Eye of Sauron approach one thing at a time. And so it would be like, cool, we're going to prioritize bringing this platform inhouse. So then we made our first hire, then our second hire, and Chris, the thing that was super interesting and my fear going into it, because you called it out, I had never built a team. I had managed people before, but I had never built a team and I had never managed more than like two individuals at a time. And I remember talking to Layla about that and being concert and just being honest with them of like, I'm down. And I have taken a lot of notes over the last, at the time, like, 13, 14 years of managers, creative directors. I've worked for things that they did that I loved and things that they did that I did not love that I would do differently. So I had my theories, but I was. I was nervous about it. And she, I remember she was like, you have all the right character traits, you have all the hard skills. I can train you on how to do the team stuff. And I remember wondering, what is it going to be like going from being the doer to empowering and overseeing the doers? And I was scared. But, Chris, that's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done with my life. I realized I enjoy helping editors grow in their craft more than I enjoyed editing. And I thought when I was an editor, I was like, this is peak happiness. There's nothing I could ever do that I'll enjoy more. I would sit for 12 hours straight and edit, and it felt like it was like two minutes. Like, I loved editing. And I realized I love this even more than editing. It was a wild transition.
- [53:13]
Chris Do
Lots to kind of figure out here. When I saw Alex speak, and I've seen him speak at a couple different events sometimes with Layla, and she did her thing and he did his thing. They speak very fondly and affectionately of you. And I feel like somewhere along the way, maybe I'm misreading or reading too much into this that you guys transcended just like, hey, he works for us, he runs our team. And, like, you're having dinner together and it's not work related. And so you're part of the fam. So if that's true, I thought you were a lifer. And then I hear from our mutual friend, like, oh, Caleb's not there anymore. I'm like, what? Yeah, what? Okay, so what's going on?
- [53:49]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, absolutely, you're 100% right. Like, I think there was a much deeper, deeper connection than just like, kind of like an employee dynamic. I mean, we did. We did holidays together and everything like that. And we were building, and they're still building something absolutely incredible that I believe in a hundred percent, to be honest with you. It kind of just came to this point where I was ignoring too many incredible opportunities. Over the last two and a half years, I haven't been super public and done, like, content and stuff. I've done like three podcasts and one of those podcasts kind of blew up, or at least for me, right? Like, I'm a nobody. Nobody knows who Caleb is. It had like 200,000 views. And the characters that were reaching out to me were insane brands that are, like, I mentioned my obsession around Harley. Like brands that I love were reaching out to me and I was ignoring it all. I really agree with what Alex talks about, about like extreme focus on the opportunity at hand. And I really believed and still believe they're the most prolific in business. And it was an amazing opportunity that I had that I wanted to kind of have. I wanted to think of myself like a racehorse with blinders and not take on anything. So I just literally ignored all of these inbound messages. And it started getting to a point where it was no longer making sense to ignore those. The opportunities were getting too crazy. And I just felt like this was the next natural step in my career. And I would regret in five to 10 years if I were to look back and be like, I wonder what would have happened if I would have tried this idea of going out on my own. I mean, since I was like a little kid, I mean like 9, 8, 9, I always thought I would have a business of my own. Then I worked for Gary and I was like, this is insane. I worked for Alex and Layla. I was like, this is insane. And then I realized I'm not trying to build a billion dollar company. I don't need to operate the way that they have, but I do have some things that I really want to accomplish and different sectors that I want to work in, not just with entrepreneurs. Right. I'm really passionate about musicians and entertainers. I think CPG is a very interesting space and I do have experience in it. And so I had just kind of been testing the waters. I reached out to a few people and opportunities started turning into realities. And so we just kind of had a conversation where it was like it was the next natural step. And what was so great was we were building everything for this to be able to happen. Now I was moving up in the org and so we were building in infrastructure to come in behind me, right? Like, I had hired creative directors that I was training to be able to run Team Alex, Team Layla, they were running the teams, right? And Michael Lim, absolute gangster. Like now he's the director of media there and he's overseeing the team. Like an absolute savage. As a side note, like, total beast comes from the beast world, actually. But yeah, we had built that out so that it wasn't like, I just was like, deuces run with it kind of the thing. There was already the infrastructure in place for that. And what's been crazy is since I've gone out on my own, I've been blown away at how I can't put it in any other way. Things have just fallen into place in absurd ways with brands that I've dreamed of working with. It's freaky. I've always wondered if I had the chops. And so I'm going to spend this next year seeing and documenting. If I do have the chops to do my own thing, how do they take it?
- [57:29]
Chris Do
Just information that you're going to go do your own thing. You said the infrastructure set up, it was ready to go. It wasn't. You leave them in a weird bind. So you have this conversation and everybody, like I'm talking about from the employer's perspective, like, oh, my God, I love working with this person. I can't see not working with them. Then one day they come. It's like, it's time for me to go, boss, I got my own thing. How was that conversation? How did it go?
- [57:51]
Caleb Raulston
It wasn't just one conversation. It was a sequence of conversations. So I think we just over time started realizing that we were getting to the point where this was the next step. And the other thing that I would say is I think there's a lot of individuals out there that are running or on teams like this that kind of have no judgment, but one foot in, one foot out. I think the moment that that occurs, you gotta jump because all of a sudden your focus is no longer the same. And so for me, I've chosen my whole career. The 16 years I've been doing this, I've always focused on the brand I'm working for in house. At the time, there was times in New York, you know, it was expensive and I was broke, so I had to do side projects here and there just to pay rent. But other than that, like, I really believed in focusing solely on this. And when I started seeing that my focus was maybe starting to go towards what could be next, I think that's when we started having conversations around, this is the next logical step.
- [58:52]
Chris Do
So what I'm hearing from you is once you realize maybe your. Your focus is drifting ever so slightly and you got wandering eyes, it was time to have like a real conversation with yourself and your bosses at that time to say, hey, at some point this may happen. And so everybody's getting prepared for that moment, right?
- [59:09]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, is like the team, again, I didn't make a lot of content, but I did some podcasts. I got credit. But it's the team. Mozy Media was what built it. Right. I empowered the team, but, like, it wasn't me that was doing it right. Like, I wasn't the one that was editing all these amazing hits. That was my editors that were doing that, you know, and so the infrastructure was in place that. That we could do something like that. And I think that's. I think, you know, ultimately, and I don't mean this to sound like a humble brag or something like that, but I think that's the sign of building a good team, is being able to have the ability to do that. Towards the end, I would take, like, a weekend where I would go for a motorcycle trip and I would go on airplane mode. And I wasn't having a panic attack about it, you know, whereas in the beginning, I was right. Like, I could never do something like that. And so I think that that's something that we can talk about here that I am very passionate about is building a team that isn't dependent on just one individual.
- [60:10]
Chris Do
You've had the opportunity to work with arguably the two biggest content creators on the planet at the point of peak interest. I think it gives you a very rare position to see things that no one can see. I would love for you to do this. And they're both, like, also thoroughbred entrepreneurs. I would love to hear your top five or three or whatever strategies from content, like what you've learned if you want to establish a media empire, and then also your top five business lessons you've gleaned from them. Because it's like, there's Caleb, the creator, and helping to build media and empire, and then there's like, they're saying things that are just like, this is like a master's degree in business.
- [60:53]
Caleb Raulston
Right.
- [60:54]
Chris Do
Taking to business school.
- [60:55]
Caleb Raulston
I literally got paid to get my mba, basically. Yeah. Like, absurd.
- [61:01]
Chris Do
Yes. So I would love to hear your top three to five takeaways from the content strategy side. Pause and then switch to business side. Go ahead.
- [61:09]
Caleb Raulston
The first one is going to be around Layla. I think that vlogs are a very interesting medium to create content around and to utilize online. And I think that right now we're kind of in a weird spot with vlogs where I think that a lot of people are operating in, like, a 2012, 2014 environment with them. We brought, like, there's a show that she does on YouTube called the Hormozies, and it's. It's a vlog we created that because unfortunately, the way our world works is people assume that it's only Alex running everything and that Layla doesn't do stuff because she's a woman. The reality is quite the opposite. She's an absolute gangster, like a savage. And so we wanted to create a series and content that documented her excellence and showed her expertise in action. Up to that point, there had only been videos where she was talking about what she did or Alex was referencing what she had did, but nobody had actually seen it in action. So I think what we discovered with that, because that changed the trajectory of her brand, in my opinion, massively is it. It allowed people to see her expertise in action. And so I think for a lot of people, they have an incorrect desire in making a vlog. It is not a wit play, it is a depth play. We built extreme depth with the audience through her vlog. So I think that's a big one. On the content side that we learned was like, if you are an individual who is sitting in front of a camera on a couch talking about what you do, there is going to be a natural amount of skepticism. And now more than ever, because there's a bunch of hucksters that are talking mad stuff online that don't actually do anything and don't know what they're talking about. We wanted to show that she was actually doing this day in and day out. So I think that is a good utilization of like the vlog format. I actually think that that's going to be a big thing over the next two years in content online. I think YouTube, we're going to see more of that. I think another one is, and this is really, I would say, a lesson that I got from Alex, which is being able to take really in depth information and high level concepts and truly like people talk about, think about your audience, always make content for your audience. I think a lot of people say it, don't actually do it. He really does it. He is so, so passionate about figuring out how to define terms in a way that will make things operational that you can actually execute on. I remember when he, you know, started defining like anxiety and sadness in these ways that I looked at it and I was like, this gives me what I can do about it. So I think whatever industry you're in, if you're making content, taking the very in depth knowledge that you have and boiling it down to, I mean, he would always talk about trying to get things down to a third grade level to be able to communicate. I think that's a Big one. I'll dive deeper on that, actually. When you make educational content, like if you're a professor, right, and you're teaching a class or whatever, you're operating under the assumption that all your students are at a similar baseline of knowledge. There's going to be outliers and stuff like that, but they're all operating off of a similar amount of knowledge. When you're a content creator online, it becomes very difficult to do that, Right. Because you have no idea who's going to watch your videos, right. You might have somebody who is ultra experienced in business and has been in it for 11 years and somebody who has been into it for 11 seconds, right? Like the moment they clicked on the video, they're like, oh, I like business. That becomes very difficult to create true educational content off of because you're having to make massive assumptions about where the audience is operating off of. I think what Alex does an incredible job of is understanding that if he were to take these concepts at a third grade level, he's making it accessible to the masses and he's not making assumptions about people understanding what CAC means. Right. What LTV is. So I think for anybody watching or listening, it's really important to be able to think through the lens not only of the advanced viewer, but the lay viewer. And something that we did that we created, I think is super helpful is we created two different avatars. Nothing like Complex, but we had Advanced Adam and Simple Sam. And if you're making really in depth content, you're making it for Advanced Atom. But when we're making the more wide content, you're thinking about Simple Sam. This is somebody who maybe hasn't made even 100k in their business yet. Right. I think that taking that and applying it to your content is extremely useful. So that's a big one there. I think another one is, ooh, this is a huge one. Chris, utilizing Customer Wins as your source of content. If you take a look at Alex and Layla's YouTube channel, 95% of the content is just case studies. It's just made in an entertaining way. Platform native. They're not the boring case study that exists on that one tab on your website that nobody watches. They're engaging, but they're. All they are is just case studies. So over and over and over, they are just hammering with the audience, success after success after success that they've had. Right. Or that their customers, partners have had. And I think that if you do that over time, I truly believe that brand is just deliberate pairing of two different things, multiple things together through repetition, and eventually the audience starts to create the association. So if you, over repetition, show success with your advice or your tactics, over time, your audience associates you with that success, that business success, those outcomes. And so I think some of what they're doing is training their audience to trust them. They're giving the tactic that worked for a previous partner or a business that they had, then they're sharing how you can put it into place. Then you put it into place, you find success with it, and then you associate that success with them, AKA scaling trust. And so I think that is something that they have done in an excellent way that a lot of people do struggle with. I think Layla has the most incredible interpretation of Gary's document, Don't create. I can't remember if you guys talked about this or not, but when she said it, I was like, I can't believe I didn't think of this. Like, this kills me. She was like, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a videographer follow you around all the time. It means that you talk about things that have occurred. So you can look at your calendar for the last week or month and talk about those items. Success stories of, like, a tough conversation she had with an executive, and then she can share that and then five other stories that she has. So I think sharing wins and success stories is something that a lot more businesses should be doing, but just not in a boring, you know, customer testimonial way. That would be a third one, I think, for a fourth one, it would probably be. And this is something that I've always believed, but we started to see success with it, and so it verified, kind of a belief is the best version of content in 2025 is making it for each platform specifically. Now, in the beginning, we didn't have the infrastructure in place to do that, right? Like, no. When it's just me and I'm editing everything, I can't make unique content for Instagram, TikTok, you know, YouTube, LinkedIn, et cetera. But final form, I think that is the best version of 2025 content, right? It's you have somebody who is maybe clipping from a podcast. Maybe you're still using that, you know, OG Gary Vee method where you have your pillar content and you're clipping from it. But you should have somebody that's clipping with TikTok in mind, with YouTube shorts in mind, with Instagram in mind. Two years ago, you know this, Chris, like, if you had success with a clip on TikTok you knew it was going to slap on Instagram and YouTube shorts. Now they're completely fragmented, they behave completely differently. And so I would say that was more of a learning of us as a team operating in action and realizing, like, okay, we now have the bandwidth and the bodies to be able to do this. Let's start to assign different platforms to different individuals and have them own it. Now, we didn't have a team of like 50 people, so the way that we would operate on that is you define your top four platforms that you prioritize and you give those out and then the remaining four, you give them as a secondary platform. Right. 80% of their energy goes towards creating for the top priority and then 20% goes to the secondary priority. I think that's a big one. I think the other one is, and this is so basic, and you say it a lot, but I'll just hammer it home again. Be the same person you are online offline. Who you are in your content is who you should be when people meet you in person. The discrepancy between the two is what creates a lot of brand problems and trust issues. And I think that right now we're in a season of culture where everyone's showing up in a completely different way online than they actually are behaving in real life. And that creates a real issue when your audience, fans, whatever you want to call them, meet you. I remember when we were at that dinner and I met you, I was like, oh, Chris is exactly who he is online. He's just a cool, thoughtful, kind human, very intelligent, very, very knowledgeable. There's no difference from what I had seen. And that for me was confirming of your brand. Right. I trusted you more in that moment. So I think those would be a couple of different takeaways.
- [71:01]
Chris Do
Okay, that's wonderful. Let me quickly recap for everybody. When it comes to long form content, you're, you're, you're making this call that what you want to do is go deep, show the people versus talk about what it is that you do. That's how you build credibility. Plus, it's way more entertaining to watch because everyone can talk about something and I think you call them hucksters. There's a lot of them out there. There's tons. There's more of them out there than there are the real ones who are actually doing it. You talked about how Alex, I wish I had an opportunity to interview him, but he has a gift. Not everybody has this and some people throw this kind of gift on me, but I'M like, I've seen a master at work when he's able to take super complicated concepts that you don't care about and make him so digestible. If you've not seen his book before and he says in his book, I write this for like a gym rat who doesn't want to read books. And it's using large point type phrases, things simply kind of Sharpie marker cartoon kind of drawings so that you can read it. And there's a genius in that approach. You talk about sharing customer success stories. It's just a large driver of proof that you can do it. And it kind of builds upon itself and connecting and associating the success with the person who brings it to you. Then therefore, that person is successful and you just keep doing this over and over again. You talk about doing native content for specific platforms versus the cop produce ones and push out to all platforms. We know that it doesn't work. I'm not even sure it worked in the beginning because they all behave a little bit differently. If that's the only thing you can do, then do that. But it's like, if you want to grow on specific platforms that are important to you, you have to spend the time and energy to do it in the way that the platform and the people who show up understand it. Last one is, be the same person, be you. Whether you like you or not, just be you, because eventually the world will find out. And it's really weird. It's super fractured of a brand experience. And here's the sad part. As I'm in more creator circles, like, oh my God, that person is nothing like how they appear. They talk one game, they play a different game. They have one personality, they have a different personality, and it's really jarring. Hence that phrase, be careful of meeting your heroes because they're bound to let you down. I'm trying the best to be me. And sometimes me on camera is not somebody you like. And I don't want you to come up to me in real life. It's like, no, you're a prick. Well, I was a prick on camera too. So there you go. I'm just going to be consistent all the way through. And like you said, when people connect the dots, they're going to make a decision about you and they're going to tell other people. Here's the thing, you think, oh, only one person. I always tell my wife, it's like, I gotta be the best me, the meest me I can be, because sometimes I go out and it's like, I look like a scrub. And somebody's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I didn't shower and shave today, did you? You know, like, you're right, I didn't. And I'm gonna hide for a little bit. You know, it's even those little things, like people want you to show up the way that you've been showing up. Those are excellent. I'm sure people can say you want the rest of that, and that's another conversation for another day. But I do want, before time runs out, to talk about the business insights. Now you're in business for yourself. I'm curious if you could do the same thing. Share with us what you think the big business ideas are the top five.
- [74:06]
Caleb Raulston
I think the biggest lesson I learned from Alex Formosi was the level of effort that you need to put into making something great. He's talked about it, but I think, you know, he maybe even underplays it a little bit out of humility. But he wrote leads 19 times. 19 times he spent 8 hours minimum a day almost the whole time I've known him working on that book. Relentless focus and effort on making one single product. Incredible. And I think that's why Offers did what it did without him promoting it or having any sort of campaigns or anything, right? Like, it's just an incredible product. And so I witnessed firsthand a different level of effort that goes into creating a high quality product. And it really set the bar for me on how I view projects that I'm going to work on for myself and how I show up for partners of mine. I want to bring that level of excellence, you know, So I think that's a big one. Another one that I think is really important. And I think this will resonate with your audience. Hardcore is never discount. I think I, in my early days when I was freelancing, I would do anything to get a gig. Since I've made my announcement, I've had a lot of different discovery calls. I've been blessed to have a lot of different discovery calls. That is an amazing thing. And on some of them, we discover that my rates are too high for the individual at the current place that they're at in business. And old Caleb would be like, all right, cool, I gotta figure out a way to get them. Now I'm like, what an amazing brand position to be in that they can strive to eventually work with me. And that's what a lot of them are saying is like, okay, cool. I now know what my goal is. I need to be able to afford this rate Monthly. I want to work with you next year. That is the goal. What an incredible brand position. So I think that's kind of an offshoot from it, but I also think that it massively devalues the product that you have. You talk about this so much, right? Like, that's a big one for me. So I want to always, like, if I'm going to discount, I'm just going to do it for free. I'll just do it as a favor if I'm going to do that. Cool. Otherwise, it's full price. And I think that's a really important one especially. And I know we as creatives all think that we're so unique, but I think we are. I think we tend to struggle with that hardcore for various reasons, and you touched on all of them, but I really think that that's a big one for creatives. And so, like, if I could tell my younger self that, fuck, I wish I would have known that earlier, but now I really do. So I think that's a big one. I think another one is the experience you provide for customers. Something that's really cool that I learned from Layla is, I'm going to give you four. So this is number three. I have one more from her after this. But the level of attention that she put towards the experience for people who came through for workshops that we were running, I'm talking unbelievable. Training the team to memorize names and greet people by their name, following kind of like the way that Ritz Carlton operates. Like, when somebody says, thank you for doing this. My pleasure. Right? If you see somebody walking around, maybe looking confused, hey, do you need help finding something? Hey, can I go grab you a water? Do you need a snack? Do you need a coffee? Literally, there'd be times where people maybe you would have worn heels or something like that, and they were super uncomfortable. We would literally order them shoes and have the shoes show up within an hour so that they could be comfortable for the rest of the event. And that all came from Layla. She really prioritized that. So I think customer experience, you know, and it kind of ties into the first point of, like, the level of effort for a great product. I think it's just like, that's the back end. This is the front end side of things. They put a lot of attention towards that. And so observing that and being a part of it was powerful for me. I think the fourth one and the one that I'm probably most passionate about is it's all about the team. It's all about who you bring on how you bring them on and then how you invest in them and train them and your honestly retention strategy for top talent to retain them. So one I had never ever been a part of such a robust hiring process. Like I mean it's incredible, right? Like we would do a screening call, then it goes to a technical interview, right. Then a culture fit interview, then a final interview. And in there somewhere typically there was a technical assessment that occurred super in depth. But process in order to weed out incorrect candidates and find the right one. Right. Because we both know it's highly expensive to hire somebody that is not the right fit that then you have to move out within a couple of months, right? I think so. Seeing on the hiring side, the way that we operated on that changed my view and my bar for how I measure a hiring process in an org moving forward. Also onboarding. I remember I knew what was expected of me before I even started, right. Like a novel concept that I had literally never experienced at any org I've ever been at was a 30, 60, 90. She sent me a 30 day, 60 day, 90 day plan of what I was going to be prioritizing. So like unlike previous roles where it's like the first week you're twirling your thumbs, anxiety goes through the roof. I knew day one exactly what my priorities are and what I would execute on. And so then I was able to do that for everybody that came into the team. I think that was incredible. The training, investing in the team, always pouring into improving their skill sets, right? Like if you improve the people on your team and invest in them, they're going to grow your business. I believed even with the media team in a similar way, I was getting to the point where the team was so mature and powerful. I was like, I don't want a top down strategy. I want to invest in them and have a bottom up strategy. They can inform what we do on Instagram. Not me, right? And so I think just the level of investment and trust being placed in the team, huge lesson for me. A lot of people skimp on hiring, they don't pay well and so they don't. They're not able to get A players. I would trade 1A editor for 10B minuses and Cs all day. You will get so much more value out of it. And so I think a real focus and emphasis on your team who you surround yourself with and then ensuring that you build out a strategy to retain them. Now more than ever, creatives and people that understand social have more opportunities than Ever. They can go off and work for anybody, they can go do their own thing. How are you going to retain talent? And so I always wanted to think about how do I ensure that this is an opportunity for the team, that they always see themselves continually growing, getting new opportunities, learning, being challenged and being trusted. I gave Instagram, I gave YouTube over to people that they would run because I trusted them. And I think that if you build that infrastructure, you can have a team that grows your brand, grows your business for you, alongside you, rather than you being the driver of the ship.
- [81:35]
Chris Do
You're right. You could probably do a whole episode on just team building, management, hiring, firing, onboarding. That was a very high level and impactful insight that you shared with us. So let me quickly recap for everybody. To make something great requires a lot of effort. It's a lot harder than you think. And a lot of us can get to pretty good. But to get it past the greatness, it requires a level of focus and dedication. That's a thematic thing that you're seeing. Both hermosis number two is you're like free or full price. Don't discount yourself, don't discount your value. Set your bar and one day the clients will aspire to work with you and they want to work with you. I have always said this. They will find the money somehow. It's never about the price. It's because they didn't want to work with you. You talked about the designing a beautiful customer experience from beginning to end, looking out for and planning for all the little things to make sure the end to end the experience is sublime. I think everybody understands the Ritz Carlton fication of your business and how they're all trained to like to put the customer experience ahead of everything else and to look out for the wellness and the well being of their customers. He talked about team and wanting to hire for the very best, investing in them because they will make your company much, much better. There's too much to unpack in that moment. But I just like how you said this has been such a thorough process that not everybody gets to enter in the kingdom. And if you're good enough to enter in the kingdom, you'll be compensated well, you'll be treated well, and you can be assured that they'll always invest in you. Because like I thought you were going to say this, like, if your team improves by 20%, multiply it across every person that works for you. Those are gigantic numbers and it's not always linear. Sometimes it's exponential because there's Some compounded effect that's happening across multiple teams.
- [83:19]
Caleb Raulston
Absolutely. And I mean, to be honest with you, you nailed it. There's so much that I think about and I think that this year I'm going to be putting out content for myself for the first time ever. And what I'm going to talk a lot about is training creatives. I think I have some very unique perspectives on training. Giving feedback to editors, to designers. That is not what a lot of my counterparts do, but I think fast tracks a lot of creatives to go from maybe a seven to a nine. And I'll put it this way, I've been managed by some incredible people, but there's a lot of stuff that creative directors and managers do in leading a creative team that stifles creativity and limits the amount of growth that not only the individual can have, but the team collectively can have together. And it's really my hope to be able to share that with a lot of people and hopefully shift kind of how creative teams are run, because I think there's a much better way to do it.
- [84:22]
Chris Do
Well, I'm looking forward to hearing that. I've managed a creative company for 20 some odd years doing production services and it's different when you're dealing with left brainers. They understand rules and how to move forward. It's a lot easier to deal with them when you're dealing with individual creative spirits and beings a lot harder to manage. You want to challenge them, you want to be clear, but you also don't want to be draconian how you manage them because then they stop functioning as creative people and they start turning in work instead. Caleb, I want to ask you this really quickly before we run out of time. What is next for you before I wish you well on your future endeavors.
- [84:58]
Caleb Raulston
Thanks, Chris. Well, I am building out a consulting firm called Ralston and we are partnering with a select few brands to help them scale their brand online. Half of our partners fall into the camp of we have a team and infrastructure in place. We've gotten to 50, 60% and we just, we've hit a ceiling that we can't crack and we need somebody to come in and help lead the direction on how to get through that. I've cracked that ceiling multiple times. So that's the one half. The other half is there are individuals who recognize that their personal brand is the biggest advantage they have in 2025 moving forward, but they don't know where to start and they want to do it correct from the beginning. And so they're bringing me on to help build out their team, recruit, place everything, train them. And so that's what I'm doing and building this year. And I think 2025 will kind of be the internal model I have is it's my proving grounds. Do I have what it takes to do this for others at this scale? So, yeah, partnering with some really cool individuals. I'll be talking about some of the brands that we've partnered with here shortly. Try and do my own thing. I'm going to try and document it too and share it hopefully with a slightly different, unique perspective. I have a real passion for. I hope this comes across correctly like younger versions of myself and wanting to help guide them and maybe fast track and avoid some of the waste of time that I had, you know, coming up and stuff.
- [86:21]
Chris Do
It's awesome. I can't wait to consume that content and just share it with others. So how do people track you down? What are the contact info?
- [86:28]
Caleb Raulston
Yeah, my website is. My name Caleb Raulston.com. i'm on Instagram. Caleb Raulston. LinkedIn. Kilo Brulston. I'm going to start making YouTube content, which is going to be wild. So my YouTube channel, Kilo Brolston. If you go there right now, it's like old interviews I did with like hardcore bands because I'm really into that world. Yeah, I mean, anywhere. If you want to DM me, whatever. I would love to chat. I also real quick want to say thank you, Chris, for everything that you've done, man. Like the amount of creatives that I know that mention the direct impact that you've had and how you've paved the way. Unbelievable, man. Truly, you've done something really impactful for a community that has always been thrown in the cage in the corner. Right. Like the creatives don't feed the wild animals. And you've brought such an amazing light to us. So thanks, man. You're the goat man. So thank you and thanks for having me on.
- [87:24]
Chris Do
Caleb. Thanks so much for saying that. That means a lot. And we all do what we do and we never know who it hits. And so it's always wonderful when we find someone in the wild and like, hey, you did that thing and it helped me. And to me it's like the spice of life. You know, I'm a big Dune fan. It's like the spice Melange. This is my spice. It's what keeps me going. It's what allows me to. To jump and travel space and time. And so it's. It's always lovely to hear that so best of luck to you. You've done so much for others. Now I'm rooting for you to do so much for yourself. And it's about darn time. And we'll link all the websites and the socials in the show notes, so make sure you guys all check that out. It's been a real pleasure talking to Caleb. Thanks for sharing so openly and honestly. And like I'm saying, I'm going to be looking forward to hearing what you've learned, seeing it from the inside for operations way, way bigger than where we are at, how they hire, how they do things and and the impact that you're going to make. Awesome job.
- [88:19]
Caleb Raulston
I appreciate you brother. My name is Caleb Raulston and you are watching or listening to the Future, the greatest podcast for creatives pursuing business in general.
- [88:36]
C
Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris do and produced and edited by Rick Rich, Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture.com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.