How to Scale Yourself, The Future of Prof G Media, and Scott’s Advice to Interns

Summary

Episode Summary: "How to Scale Yourself, The Future of Prof G Media, and Scott’s Advice to Interns"

Podcast: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Host/Author: Vox Media Podcast Network
Release Date: January 8, 2025

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In this insightful episode of The Prof G Pod, Scott Galloway delves into three pivotal topics: strategies for scaling personal influence in professional practices, the future trajectory and succession planning of Prof G Media, and invaluable advice for interns aiming to secure return offers. Through thoughtful responses to listener questions, Scott blends his expertise in business strategy with practical career guidance.

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1. Scaling Yourself in a Professional Practice

Listener Question:
James, a seasoned physician with over two decades of experience, seeks advice on expanding his influence beyond his successful practice without compromising his personal brand or risking his employees' and family's well-being.

Key Insights from Scott Galloway:

• Delegation and Building a Strong Team:
  Scott emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with talented individuals to "scale yourself" effectively. By fostering a culture of excellence and loyalty, professionals can delegate responsibilities without diluting their personal brand.

  Scott Galloway [02:10]: "Greatness is in the agency of others. It's finding good people."

• Leveraging Social Media for Thought Leadership:
  To amplify influence, Scott advises embracing social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. He shares his personal experience of growing his online presence through consistent engagement and professional content creation.

  Scott Galloway [05:30]: "If you want to expand your sphere of influence, whether you like it or not, it's social media."

• Commitment to Content and Professionalism:
  Investing in quality content and hiring experts to manage social media can significantly enhance visibility. Scott highlights the necessity of "committing to Mr. Beasting It", meaning persistently improving and refining online content.

  Scott Galloway [06:15]: "The first video, the first thing you do will suck. Just commit to Mr. Beasting It."

• Focus on Personal and Professional Growth:
  For those hesitant about social media, Scott suggests doubling down on building a successful practice and investing in low-cost index funds to ensure long-term economic security.

  Scott Galloway [06:50]: "If you're making good money with a practice, my suggestion would be to double down on that, make more money, invest in low cost index funds and just build a great life for yourself."

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2. The Future and Succession Planning of Prof G Media

Listener Question:
Barbara from Istanbul inquires about succession planning for Prof G Media's personal brand-driven podcasts, questioning how the brand will sustain if Scott steps back or passes the reins to a team.

Key Insights from Scott Galloway:

• Acknowledging the Dependence on Leadership:
  Scott recognizes the challenge of building a business heavily reliant on a single individual and the necessity of developing a robust succession plan to ensure continuity.

  Scott Galloway [07:50]: "This business is getting to the point where I need to be thoughtful about creating enterprise value when it's just a group of a small number of individuals."

• Integrating New Leadership:
  Introducing Ed Elson as a co-host signifies a strategic move to diversify the brand and reduce dependence on Scott's personal presence.

  Scott Galloway [08:00]: "I've brought in Ed Elson, and Ed is the co-host of markets at some point soon. I want Ed to start co-hosting with guest hosts that aren't me such that over time, Prof. G Markets is the brand, not Scott Galloway."

• Building Enterprise Value and Economic Security:
  Scott's vision includes scaling Prof G Media to significant revenue milestones while ensuring employees have economic security through revenue-sharing models.

  Scott Galloway [09:20]: "I give the majority of the full-time employees a percentage of our revenues to keep everyone engaged and acting like an owner."

• Long-Term Sustainability Plans:
  The strategy involves fostering multiple businesses under Prof G Media's umbrella, thereby diluting the brand's reliance on Scott and establishing a sustainable enterprise model.

  Scott Galloway [10:00]: "We're going to need to dilute and diversify away from that over the next three, five, ten years. And we have a plan for that."

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3. Scott’s Advice to Interns Seeking Return Offers

Listener Question:
Jack, a 19-year-old industrial engineering undergraduate at Georgia Tech, recently secured a consulting internship at a tier-two firm. He seeks strategies to maximize his chances of receiving a return offer.

Key Insights from Scott Galloway:

• Proactive Engagement and Initiative:
  Scott advises interns to "listen more than you speak" while actively seeking opportunities to contribute beyond their assigned tasks. This includes arriving early, staying late, and volunteering for additional projects.

  Scott Galloway [14:40]: "Listen more than you speak. Offer ideas when people ask you."

• Building Relationships and Networking:
  Establishing strong professional relationships through networking—such as scheduling coffees or lunches with colleagues—can significantly enhance an intern's visibility and likability within the organization.

  Scott Galloway [15:00]: "You want to walk into offices or send people emails saying, would you be willing to have coffee with me?"

• Attention to Detail and Professionalism:
  Delivering work that is free from errors and demonstrates meticulous attention to detail reflects positively on an intern's work ethic and reliability.

  Scott Galloway [15:10]: "The work doesn't have to be breakthrough or even write, but it has to be professional. No typos, attention to detail."

• Consistent Contribution and Problem-Solving:
  Bringing fresh ideas and solutions to the table, even those outside the immediate scope of work, showcases an intern's initiative and problem-solving abilities.

  Scott Galloway [15:05]: "Come up with ideas every week, trying to at least have one or two ideas and say to someone, can I help you do this?"

• Expressing Gratitude and Support:
  Regularly thanking team members and offering support fosters a positive work environment and strengthens interpersonal bonds.

  Scott Galloway [15:20]: "Whenever you work on anything, immediately thank other people for their help."

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Conclusion

In this episode, Scott Galloway masterfully addresses diverse listener queries by blending strategic business insights with practical career advice. Whether it's scaling a personal practice, planning for the future of a brand-centric media enterprise, or guiding young interns toward professional success, Scott provides actionable strategies grounded in experience and foresight. His emphasis on delegation, thought leadership, succession planning, proactive engagement, and professionalism offers valuable takeaways for listeners navigating the complexities of modern business and career landscapes.

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For more episodes and insights, follow The Prof G Pod on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

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[Claude]

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[Host]

Welcome to the Profit Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship and whatever else is on your mind.

[Scott Galloway]

If you'd like to submit a question.

[Host]

Please email a voice recording to officehoursoropgymedia.com Again, that's office [e-mail] so with that first question, I have not seen these questions.

[James]

Hello Scott, My name is James. Thank you for what you do every day. My question is simple but requires some background. How do I scale myself? What do you do when the product you're selling is you? As a physician with more than 20 years experience in practice, I have some professional assets. The first is my work ethic, the second is my experience and expertise. The third is that I care and the fourth is the integrity of my personal brand that's been built upon all of the previous. I'm blessed to have a successful practice that draws patients from a surprising distance and for which I am very grateful. And over the years people have asked me to expand my presence locally and beyond, but I've been unable to figure out a way to duplicate myself to make that happen. I have very many employees for decades and they depend upon me and they have made me who I am. So I don't want to do anything to risk my family's well being or theirs. I've been reluctant to expand my influence or espouse my Opinions through social media because I don't want to come off as an opportunist or a quack. But more and more, I feel like I have something to offer to a wider audience and I would like to get it out there. At least I feel I should try. If I can't clone myself to help people face to face, how do you think I could do it? Indirectly?

[Host]

The first thing is to step back and just acknowledge you're building economic security for other people. It sounds like your employees sounds like, I don't know this, but I'm going to assume you're a good boss. So you're kind of riding like, you know, you're already. You're already on the metal podium. It's just a question of whether you know how many golds you collect, if you will. Look, modesty aside, this is something I'm good at. I'm a good professor, I understand marketing. But the way I've been able to build this life is by quote, unquote, scaling myself. And it all comes down to one statement. Greatness is in the agency of others. It's finding good people. If you have a practice, that means you can bring in other young. I don't know what you are, an orthopedic surgeon or a dermatologist. You can bring in other doctors and, and try and create a culture of excellence such that you can scale yourself. And when I go, you know, my friend is the top orthopedic surgeon. When I hurt my knee, you know, I saw him for the first consultation, but then he passed me off to another very talented orthopedic surgeon to look at my knee. I ended up not getting surgery. But you've already kind of figured out that you scale with other good quality people and you can run a business and run a practice and try and create a good culture. Try and, you know, try and instill loyalty by being good to people. The second thing is you kind of answer your own question when you're talking about social media. If you want to expand your sphere of influence, whether you like it or not, it's social media. I had lunch today with a woman who started, I think it's called Eight Greens, which is this really cool supplements company. You know, all that green shit you take in the morning, I take it every morning now. And. And she runs a great business. But the reason, or one of the reasons her business is so successful is not only because she's got a good product, but she's on. She's very attractive, very articulate. So the view and you know, Oprah, love to have her on. And social media, if you really have desire to kind of scale yourself, unfortunately it involves YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all that shit. And you can be more measured. You can be one of those doctors that is a little bit more, you know, measured. You don't have to say blueberries will cure your cancer, but I think doing stuff in an interesting, visual, arresting way and it's compelling. Talking about whatever your domain expertise is, you know, it's hard, it's a slow build and it's huge. About 15, maybe even 20 years ago, I thought, okay, I need to be. I was a, you know, professor of strategy or brand strategy at Stern. I thought, I want, I have a bigger ambition on this social media. I thought, this is going to be big. So I did a follower strategy. Every day I followed 200 people on Twitter, which is the max you could follow without getting, I don't know, locked out for whatever reason. And about 60 or 80 would follow me back. So over the summer I got a thousand users and over the year I got ten or a thousand followers. And by the end of the year I had 10,000 followers. Now I'd given up Twitter, but I had over a half a million when I stopped showing up. Pulling up a seat to the Nazi porn bar. But I have not huge followings but decent followings for a professor on all of these different platforms. I have somebody very talented, George Hahn, who helps me with my social. I do about half the postings, he does about half. We take it very seriously. We film video, we have a firm, we pay $10,000 a month to that does these mashups of my content or speeches and turns them into cool little 60 second videos that we then snake through LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels. We hit all of these things. So I would say the thing that's missing here is thought leadership and social media. If you want to write a book, if you want to be known as the doctor that gets this domain. But it probably starts with social and it requires some production values. You have to hire some people. The first video, the first thing you do will suck. You can release it or not. Just commit to Mr. Beasting It. What do I mean by that? The second one, better lighting, better video, some visuals, topics. Read the comments. Don't take them to heart because there's going to be bots and weirdos out there that are just angry. Also, I'm not sure I would go all in on any kind of big idea because I don't know how old you are, you sounded like you're in your 40s or 50s. But if you're making good money with a practice, my suggestion would be to, you know, double down on that, make more money, invest in low cost index funds and just build a great life for yourself. And also start to experiment with thought leadership and hire someone to manage your social media and start allocating 4248 hours a week for content that goes beyond yourself. Appreciate the question. Best of luck to you and again, congratulations on all your success. Question number two hey Scott, this is Barbarous from Istanbul.

[Barbara]

Long time listener and reader. I have a question for you that you might not like answering, but I think you would appreciate it. So the other day I was reading the Corporate Life Cycle from Aspath Modron which I got to know for your podcast. Thank you for that. And he was talking about how long lasting businesses usually have a succession plan in place. They usually think about succession just in case and they end up lasting longer. But then I can't help but notice that the podcasts that you release, like profit markers, profit you podcasts, yes, they're based on your personal branding. But what happens if you decide to start one day or if you decide to pass it over, you know, to Ed and a team? Does that mean you will have to rebrand or do you have a succession plan that you wish to share?

[Host]

Barbara sirmissanbul that's a good question. It would be relevant, but I'm going to live forever. Yes, that's right. The Midlife Crisis Arrested Adolescents tour continues. New dates announced okay, enough of that. Yeah, this business is getting to the point where I need to be thoughtful about creating enterprise value when it's just a group of a small number of individuals. You don't have a business or an enterprise. You have a practice and people are too dependent upon one individual. I think about this a lot. Realistically, I'd like to think I have 20 good years in me. I know I have 10 good years left in me, but okay. Still a lot of people are making good money here. You want them to continue to make good money. And any business that's just dependent upon one business, you know, that's you need to be thinking the way you're thinking about succession strategies. So what have I done? One you noticed I've brought in Ed Elson and Ed is the co host of markets at some point soon. Sooner actually, I'd like it to be sooner. I want Ed to start co hosting with guest hosts that aren't me such that over time, Prof. G Markets is the brand, not Sky Galloway. I'm focused on getting us to 20 or 30 million revenue with 15 million in EBITDA. I think I can do that in the next three to four years and then build a series of V that I help foster, create good businesses and slowly but surely reduce the dependence on my voice. I always start a job thinking, all right, I either need to have an exit for people or build something where they could have 10, 20, 30 years of real solid earnings and help build economic security. And this isn't an obvious company that you sell, although to a certain extent every four years you sell the cash flows and you can actually make tens of millions of dollars. Now if you're in a. We have three top 100 podcasts right now, which is exceptional. We're very good at what we do and we've also been very fortun and so you can kind of every four years. We're in the midst of this now, renegotiate a deal. And the way I try and build economic security is I give. And also just selfishly to keep everyone engaged and acting like an owner is I give everyone or not everyone, but the majority of the full time employees a percentage of our revenues. And so the question is, how do you maintain those revenue flows after I start going Biden, if you will. And by the way, I do not run the business. My partner, Katherine Dillon has been running the business for the last few years. I have talented producers, so the risk is that I'm kind of the front end of the talent end. And we're going to need to dilute and diversify away from that over the next three, five, 10 years. And we have a plan for that. But it's a, it's a correct question. Thank you for asking. A board strategy. A good fiduciary focuses on succession strategy and that is German companies demand that the CEO take at least four weeks off every year. And if the company goes to shit when they're gone, they fire the CEO because they need an enterprise, they don't need a practice. Thanks for the question. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us.

[Barbara]

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[Miro Team Member]

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[Claude]

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[Miro Team Member]

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[Claude]

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[Miro Team Member]

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[Claude]

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[Miro Team Member]

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[Claude]

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[Miro Team Member]

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[Claude]

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[Miro Team Member]

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[Scott Galloway]

Support for Prof. G comes from LinkedIn. It's 2025 and if your B2B marketing strategy for the new year doesn't include improve your ad targeting, then your ads can just get lost in the noise. LinkedIn ads can help by ensuring your message makes it to the right audience. With LinkedIn ads, you can can precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ads relevant. With LinkedIn's targeting capabilities, you can reach them by job title, industry, company and more. LinkedIn ads let you build the right relationship, drive results and reach your customers in a respectful environment. You'll have direct access to and build relationships with decision makers. That's a billion members, 130 million decision makers and 10 million C level executives. You'll be able to drive results with targeting and measurement tools built specifically for B2B. 79% of B2B content marketers say LinkedIn produces the best results for paid media. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll even give you $100 credit on your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com Scott to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com Scott. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be.

[Host]

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[Host]

Welcome back. Question number three hey, Prof. G. My name's Jack.

[Jack]

I'm attending Georgia Tech right now, pursuing my undergraduate in industrial engineering, and I'm 19 years old, which makes me an infant in your eyes. I know. I recently landed a big wig consulting internship at a tier two firm, which I'm pretty stoked about. But as someone who has no experience at a corporate job, I want to make the most of my time there. What can a lowly intern like me do to increase my chances at a return offer? Thank you, Prof. For your insights and dick jokes and for making the professional world more navigable for a young man like me. And a big thank you to my dad, who put me onto your pod and who makes me a smarter, stronger and funnier young adult every day. Love you, dad.

[Host]

Jesus. I'm like, still there. If my son at 19 was a Georgia Tech and this thoughtful and then took the time to say something nice about me on a podcast. You're a wonderful young man. So well done to your dad and your mom as it relates to your actual question. Okay, the easy stuff Listen more than you speak. Offer ideas when people ask you, but when you're in meetings, just try and do a really good job of listening, taking notes. Show up 10 minutes before everyone else. Stay at least 10 minutes after everyone. FaceTime. It sounds stupid, but you want to show that you're there to play, that you came to play. Come up with ideas every week, trying to at least have one or two ideas and say to someone, can I help you do this? Or I was thinking of putting together a list of potential clients or outreach. Or I was thinking about putting together Show Initiative and they might say, no, that's a bad idea. Don't do that. But see if you can't come up with some ideas that aren't a part of your job description. And then ask people, would it help if you did something? If you can save. If you can spend four, six, eight hours making someone senior to you, save them at 30 or 60 minutes, they're going to want you back. People are selfish. This kid gave me an extra hour every week, right? Hire him. So you're going to get the easy stuff, right? You're going to listen a lot. You're going to be very personal, very Nice, very supportive of other people. Whenever any you work on anything, immediately thank other people for their help. You're going to show up early, you're going to stay late, and you're going to try and find little projects that might help other people. And it's going to be your idea and you're going to pitch them to people. What if I put together a data about Now I'm in technology, I understand sites. Would it make sense for me to look at the technology that our site is built on? Can I do a project on how AI is impacting our our business and come back to in a couple of weeks with a presentation? You want to be the guy that was t get off your heels and onto your toes, right? You want to walk into offices or send people emails saying, would you be willing to have coffee with me? Would you be willing to have lunch with me? Right? So you're going to network, you're going to show up early, you're going to stay late, you're going to come up with new ideas. You're going to focus on attention and detail around your work. The work doesn't have to be breakthrough or even write, but it has to be professional. No typos, attention to detail, and just keep doing what you're doing. You're obviously a very successful young man and the fact that you understand the importance of relationships is like you are just so far ahead of the game. So I'm like, jesus Christ. It's like, will you coach me? You have your shit so together at 19 that it's encouraging and inspiring. But again, congratulations on your success today. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehoursovigmedia.com Again, that's office hourspropagymedia.com this episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Chagrin. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prophecy Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for no mercy, no malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prophecy Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.