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The Think Media Podcast
365: Changes EVERY Content Creator Must Make on YouTube w/ Codie Sanchez
00:55:16
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com now let's jump into today's show.
- [00:38]
B
If you want people to trust your advertising or marketing, you need to show not tell Cody Sanchez. I think she makes some of the best content on all social media as it comes to business.
- [00:48]
A
She's brilliant.
- [00:49]
B
You're going to take a ton of notes today.
- [00:52]
A
It's a special treat. Cody Sanchez in the house. You saw Donald Trump go on places like Joe Rogan's podcast and that interview has been viewed more than 90 million times.
- [01:04]
B
You right now are the newest version of capital with the most precious of all commodities people's attention. In a period like we have right now, we are going to be able to buy businesses even as content creators in a way we never had before. You have the same thing as private equity guys who have a lot of capital. You have attention. But the second that you figure out how to structure attention for equity, you'll never have to use your cash again. There's a formula to making money and the formula goes, goes like this. How much risk are you willing to take? How valuable are your skills? And you need to have recurring income that is not tied to your relevancy, which is what a business does. Otherwise we all just have jobs as creators.
- [01:43]
A
You did 26.5 million just on YouTube. What's one thing you think you've done differently on YouTube that's really helped your channel take off, especially recently with the numbers you're getting. And hey, heads up. This podcast has some adult language in it. So if you have any little ones around, just want to give you notice as we get into this life changing content. Here we go. So there are a lot of changes coming for content creators as we prepare for 2025. The rise of AI in automation. Short form video continues to dominate. Ultra long form video is dominating. Influencer marketing continues to grow and is expected to reach $22 billion per year in 2025. And today I'm joined by social media influencer investor, business owner investor in over 50 companies and author of Main Street Millionaire, Cody Sanchez, to really talk about content creation strategy, how to adapt and pivot in uncertain times, and ultimately how to grow your influence in your business faster right now. Cody, welcome to the show.
- [02:55]
B
Thanks for having me. Excited to talk about all of that.
- [02:58]
A
So how do you see the current economic climate, whether that's inflation potential, recession impacting business owners, and also those that are making a living, and aspiring content creators going into 2025?
- [03:11]
B
Well, let's just say this. I think that Baron Rothschild said it perfectly. He said, buy when there's blood in the streets, even and especially when the blood is your own. And I think that's what we're coming into. In my opinion, we are going to be in a really hard economic cycle. And with every hard economic cycle, there becomes a lot of opportunity. So, you know, we know that before, let's call it 2005, 2004, influencers and people talking on social media were nowhere near as prevalent as they are now. And now more often than not, we hear people talk about, there's too many of them, they're everywhere. It's noisy. Is it too hard to grow on YouTube lot now? Is it too late to have a podcast? Are there too many people? And something actually wonderful happens during recessions, which is the committed persevere and the uncommitted change paths. And that's a gross oversimplification. But I do think that in any market environment, a recession is a period of culling to allow for more progress. And so from an economic standpoint, sort of interesting if you were to look at any economic boom and bust cycle or what's called an expansion or a recession cycle, those that weather recessionary or downturn period periods, they end up making 9x more profit after they've weathered one of these recessionary storms and 3x more revenue. And so I think there's a lot of reasons to be really positive about even a dark time.
- [04:39]
A
You're an investor in over 50 companies. Do you think we're in a recession? Are you feeling a recession right now?
- [04:46]
B
Yeah, I think we are. I think the way that we have out, you know, I think the way that we have historically looked at recessions is slightly outdated. And so we have precise economic indicators which tell us if we have, you know, three quarters of, you know, x level of growth, plus unemployment claims go up plus GDP growth stagnates in some way, shape or form, then we have a recession. But the moral of the story today that we're seeing is that I haven't talked to very many small business owners that don't say it's harder out there right now than it's been probably since 2010 or so. And they might make as much money as they did last year, but with a lot more effort. And that, especially in an election year where we have the costs for acquisition of clients, goes way up because the politicians are spending billions to get your vote. It feels tougher out there right now, and I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing to at least be honest about. Yes, it is tougher. No, that does not mean that we can't make more money than we want to this year.
- [05:48]
A
What is the mindset that you have going into Q4 and Q1 as a business owner and then also contextualizing that to content creators? They often say that because of holiday shopping. Of course, there's that boom in the fourth quarter for different types of businesses and then there's this whole new year, new you, and a lot to leverage strategically during this season. How are you talking to your team, those businesses and business owners you coach, and how do you think about this particular time of the year?
- [06:21]
B
A couple different things. Yes, you always want to draft off what's happening in the cultural conversation around you, whether that's Black Friday or the holidays, for instance, or even the election. You can out kick your coverage by drafting on things that are already getting attention, which you see a lot of influencers do. I mean, hell, the Daily Wire was built entirely off of reaction videos to start with, right? So reacting to something that goes really, really viral, catching some of that virality and growing. I think, though, that we should look at it from a different perspective. Obviously I acquire businesses for a living. That's what I've done for a really, really long time. But I think in a period like we have right now, we are going to be able to buy businesses even as content creators in a way we never had before. Content creators historically weren't the best at making money. That's changed. Now we have a lot of very sophisticated content creators at making money. Where I don't think they're sophisticated yet, is realizing that your audience right now, the people who watch you are your form of capital, AKA investors. So they are giving you money in the same way that investors do. And then you get to use that money to do things like acquisitions, which is how the richest people in the world are made, AKA private equity, for instance. All largely done through acquiring things that already exist. I'm curious coming into a Q4 in which we Might have some recessionary issues. Will there be more things for us to acquire out there? You know, can we acquire our podcast vendors who do the production for us? A boring business, you know, can we go out and acquire a competitor who's going to close up shop because they're kind of tired of being an influencer? And we could buy their email list. And this is how I am pushing content creators to think about acquisition today. That word acquisition is typically paid ads, right? But instead of giving all your money to Facebook, meta, et cetera, for a potential lead, what if you could actually buy the entire email list that people had to spend years building up instead? And that's what I'm curious about right now. And to be frank, it doesn't matter what fucking time of year you do it, man.
- [08:27]
A
I love this concept. And you spoke at our event a few months ago and you were hinting at these ideas from your new book, Main Street Millionaire, which there's a bunch of cool stuff that you're doing and we'll link to that in the show notes. But I would love for you to go a little bit deeper because you threw out a concept that I'm hearing nobody else talking about, that content creators could be having a mindset of acquisition. And you're kind of famous for saying, hey, buy a local laundromat. You know, get a boring business like that. Which certainly could be a move for a content creator listening to this, but now you're kind of shining a light that that might not be exactly what you'd encourage maybe an influencer to do, but can you acquire the podcast production company? Can you unpack this, that if a content creator is listening to this, how they might be thinking and what some of the possibilities could be using your contrarian point of view?
- [09:21]
B
Sure. So Main Street Millionaire, the idea is simply this. All around us are businesses for sale right now that we can't even see, because it's sort of like the Matrix before you know it's there until you've taken the red pill. You kind of go through life like everybody else does, acquiring a client or a subscriber one at a time, right? And it's a grueling, monotonous, consistently long process. We've all been there as content creators. My point is I like to steal people's homework who have already done more of the work than I have. And so when I was in private equity and finance for 10 plus years, I watched these guys and I watched how they didn't have any brilliant ideas, they didn't have viral one off videos. You know, they didn't have a crazy startup to pursue. What did they have? They had a knowledge of money and a knowledge of deal making or how to acquire things. And for content creators, I want us to have the same thing because I think that we are the new version of capital. You right now are the newest version of capital with the most precious of all commodities, people's attention. And because of that, I think we need to think differently. So for instance, I needed a new video production team. My videos weren't performing that well and I had two guys kind of running them. So I was thinking like, like a poor person thinks. Let me tell you the difference between how rich people think and poor people think. Poor people think I have a problem, how do I solve it? How do I solve X problem? Kind of wealthy people think I have a problem, who do I get to solve it? So who's my who? Not my how. Really rich people think I have a problem. How do I buy the solution that's almost guaranteed for it? So it's how who buy. And what I realized is with my video problem, I was thinking like a poor person. I was like, how do I fix this? I don't really know. And then I was like, who could I have fix it? So I hired a couple vendors, had them, you know, go out on each other, see which one performed the best. Then I was like, wait a second, I'm going to actually do this. Whichever is the vendor that is best, I'm going to acqui hire them. So I'm going to buy that vendor's business because most of these businesses that do video editing are small. And I am going to bring on all of those video editing people into my company through a quote unquote acquisition where the only way I buy them is by saying, hey, this is a rocket ship. You want to get on my rocket ship? I can be bigger than you can. You can be bigger with me and I can have a dream so big that it envelopes both of us. And because of that, come on with me and I'll pay your salary over the course of a year and I will pay you more than you made in your current role. But you will come on under under me. And by the way, you get to say that you had an exit because I bought your company. That's called an Aqua Hire. And so I think more content creators should be doing stuff like that. And I did the exact same thing when I bought part of a company called Viral Cuts. So you guys could do this same Way I bought Viral Cuts, a portion of it with my friend Sam Parr. And Viral Cuts is essentially short form video editing at scale. I needed it for a bunch of my businesses. They needed small short videos done. My team couldn't handle it all. And so I said to the founder Hunter, hey, I want to own X percentage of a company, let's say 25% of the company. I will own 25% through future revenue. I drive to you by giving you additional leads and for that I will take 25% of the company plus a 25% distribution every single month above XYZ revenue level and off to the races. And now we have Viral Cuts. And so because of that I don't actually have to fulfill the service. So I don't have to edit all the videos and take care of it and run the business Hunter does. Because of that, I don't have to figure out the how to my video problem. That's Tanner who I acquired from that business. Those are just two examples of how content creators can do untraditional acquisitions.
- [13:11]
A
So what would you say to the objection though? That okay, well Cody has all this wisdom and experience and money to buy businesses and I'm maybe a mid to, you know, I'm a solo creator. I have a few people helping me. I may even be doing pretty well six figures a year, multiple six. But like buy a piece of a company or buy an entire company or even I'm mainly working with contractors pay someone's entire salary. Could it be possible to invest in this recessionary time in other businesses without having a lot of capital?
- [13:48]
B
It's a great question. It's the number one question people ask. First they say is this possible? Then I show them some examples and they say is it possible for not much money? And then they ask is it possible for not much money? And I've never done this before. Can I actually do it? And so the idea in Main Street Millionaire is, let me break that down for you. 10 steps about how you can acquire any sort of business using 21 different methodologies in order to use, I hate to use this term too much, but other people's money really what I call creative financing. We always want to have a win win. I don't like the shticky guys that say buy this business for $0 and no time and go on the four hour workweek. Not going to happen. It is going to take you some time and you're going to have to learn upfront. But for a $30 book you can start doing transactions that Formerly, only private equity does. And how do you do it without a lot of cash? Well, viral cuts is a perfect example. This is only really relevant to content creators. I'm only coming on Sean's podcast and saying this particular aspect of it, which is if you apply the Main Street Millionaire methodology to audience instead of bank account, you have the same thing. You have the same thing as private equity guys who have a lot of capital. You have attention. The problem is you might not know what your attention is worth and you don't know how to do a deal yet to structure attention for equity. But the second that you figure out how to structure attention for equity, you'll never have to use your cash again. You think the Rock invests in companies? Let me tell you what. No, I'm with an agency right now, uta, one of the biggest talent agencies in the world. I've talked to caa, I've talked to them all. And back when I used to run a private equity firm, we had a bunch of what's called CPG products, consumer packaged goods. These were a lot of them were in the hemp and cannabis space. So we walked our little tootsies down to caa, this big huge management company, in order to talk to bad Bunnies, who's a Latino artist, talk to his agent and team. Now, Bad Bunny wanted his own cannabis strain. So we owned, I don't know, maybe 40 companies at the time or something like that. And he wanted to own a piece of one of our companies in order to put his name on it and direct his audience to that brand. Now, when we went in, we gave this presentation. Here are the brands, here's what you think. They gave their presentation. Here's Bad Bunny, here's all the attention he would bring. And at the end we said, okay, well how much do you want to invest? And like, at what valuation? And they were like, that's cute. No, no, no, we don't invest. You pay us. Literally, they wanted us to pay them for the right to have Bad Bunny and use his name and for the privilege of his distribution. And we did one of those deals, not with Bad Bunny, but with somebody else. And they happen again and again and again. And in this day and age, low level content creators can do the same thing with not huge businesses like we had. Our businesses were doing 20, 100, $200 million a year. But if you don't realize the power of your audience, I think you're missing out on deals left and right and all over the place. And instead you're chasing Gummy Bear sponsorships, AG1 sponsorships for you know, $2.99cent first post.
- [16:56]
A
So is this kind of like you just mentioned, if we're doing brand deals and sponsorships, we're maybe getting the short end of the stick if they give us a couple thousand dollars or some kind of affiliate split. And what you're saying is think about actually leveraging your influence and looking for equity, looking for some kinds of deals that you could do. And there's so many creator economy startups, it's a massive space. Goldman Sachs research said that the creator economy is going to double in the next three years. The next three years are going to be the best three years in the creator economy from about $250 billion a year to half a trillion dollar. Industry people are trying to get different SaaS platforms off the ground. There's things like Carrot with a K, a credit card for influencers based off their audience to solve their cash flow problems because they understand influencers. And so there's all these different creator economy startups. Are you saying we should be thinking about kind of partnering, acquiring and thinking a lot bigger than just doing, as you mentioned, just a one off deal with AG1?
- [18:00]
B
Absolutely. I mean if you think about it, why would. And I like AG1. I'm friends with Kat, the CEO so I don't mean to pick on them. I think they're a great company. But take any business, take any supplement business for instance. In order for them to pay you a dollar they have to think that the ltv the lifetime value of the customer. So what the customer is going to be worth for them is anywhere 10 to 30x your dollar. So every time they give you a dollar they are making 10 to 30x. So inherently you are not taking home the biggest portion of the pie. Except here's the problem. You as distribution are the most important piece of the pie and the difference between you and Facebook and Instagram and you know, TikTok is that they understand their value and content creators on average don't. You know, I certainly did. I had to go create an entire model and we have it in the book where you can basically see what your value is. How valuable are your skills in order to increase what I call your expertise to equity bucket which this would fall into in order for you to get paid for deals without you having to put money down. And you know, if you don't have an audience at all, there's ways to do it with your time. So sweat equity with your experience and knowledge. So if you're an accountant to help somebody do an accounting acquisition. But if you're a creator, there's a way to do it with your audience. And the smartest creators are doing this every single day. And the problem is, is that they gatekeep how like, Logan Paul loved the guy. He would never tell you how he got that prime deal done. He would never tell you how much he paid for it. And yet that is how they are making their money. Because they know at some point one, we will all no longer be relevant, me included. Uh, at another point, at any given moment, our audience could die down, which scares me, like every day, all the time. I want to, like, I want to keep hard charging, but at some point, you could just become irrelevant, or a content platform could shut you off, in which case you need to have recurring income that is not tied to your relevancy, which is what a business does. Otherwise, we all just have jobs as creators. We don't actually have businesses. And I want you guys to have ownership that is lasting and continues to pay you even if you don't show up to your job.
- [20:13]
A
Well, this is shifting my Thinking and Think media podcast. We're going to dive into some of Cody's social media tactics and insights and lessons. But the book is Mainstream Millionaire, and I think you could see that this is needed to think different. And if you want to check it out, check out show notes, the link in the show notes. Cody, here's a question for you. Who do you think? Obviously, there's probably people we don't all know, but there's kind of like the main entrepreneurs on YouTube specifically. Who do you think is getting the most views right now on YouTube?
- [20:48]
B
I mean, I guess I would go towards Mr.
- [20:52]
A
Beast and I mean entrepreneurs. Okay. He's an entrepreneur. So is Logan Paul and stuff, I guess. I mean, the guys like, you know, Alex Hermosi or Gary Vee and stuff. And not to put you on the spot, but I actually am teeing up your expertise because I did some research. I'm just curious, like, if you were to think in the last 30 days, like, yeah, who do you think is up there?
- [21:12]
B
I love that you know this and I don't. That's so embarrassing. Shows, you know, I'm more. I know more about acquisitions than anything else. Yeah, I don't know. I would guess Alex and Layla. Friends of both of ours.
- [21:23]
A
Yeah. Layla did 2 million views in the last 30 days. Grant Cardone did right under 4 million. I think media in there, I don't think we'd be classified as that or more YouTube. We did 4 million. Gary's at 5 million. Dan Martel, 7.2. Come on. And I'm kind of separating out podcasts because some of these podcasts impact theory blowing up. 13 million. Simon Squibb is crushing it right now. 15 million. And then Modern Wisdom and Diary of a CEO. I'm kind of putting them aside. They got pretty big numbers. But Cody Sanchez, Alex Hermosi did 23 million views in the last 30 days. But you did 26.5 million views on YouTube in the last 30 days. And I know those numbers are always changing. And at any given moment, different people have viral videos and nod to Patrick, that David, who's definitely gone political. So that's a whole different deal. But they're over 107 million just on valuetainment. So that probably if we thought about the Entrepreneur channel, it's up there. But I was kind of blown away. You did 26.5 million just on YouTube. You're on multiple platforms. I think it clear you've cracked the YouTube code. What's one thing you think you've done differently on YouTube that's really helped your channel take off, especially recently with the numbers you're getting?
- [22:41]
B
Let's be really. I'm going to tell you tactical and then I'm going to tell you, like, gut feel. So why do I think that we do such big numbers on the channel? I think that we, one really only talk about the things that we actually think that we're experts in. So what you'll find with our channel is it's a lot about buying businesses, doing deals, building big businesses. I've been doing that for 15 years. And so one differential, one differentiator I think is like, only talk about the things that you actually know. And if you don't know anything now, that's okay because you can talk about your journey to knowing and you can get huge views for that. I think Simon Squibb's a good example of that. He's like, not necessarily talking about all the stuff that he knows. He's just showing you his journey of asking people questions. That's real. And I think in this day and age, people are like, I don't trust anybody. I don't trust any motherfuckers out there. And so they can kind of like sniff it out if you're not doing that. The second thing that gut feel on me is people are tired of influencers and people online who stand for nothing. I think that is why Patrick, Patrick bet David has such big numbers Right now too. At least they know that he takes some hard stances. And I don't know about you, Sean, we've talked about this before too, but I am so tired of influencers online who seem to waffle all over the place with what their stances are. And they only talk about things that seem to seem to serve them. And it's a lot of I, I, I, me, me, me, blah, blah, blah. I think what you can see with us on YouTube is like, we put a little heart, we put a little mission into these things. So we're talking about bringing back Main street and doing acquisitions, not exactly at home entertainment. And simultaneously, we're talking about the fact that if you don't do this, the big guys own everything and they, they ask you to like it. And so there's like this mission behind it. And we are starved, I think, for a society with people who want more than money. We're like, give me purpose in this life. And so I think that's a big reason why maybe me and Patrick and Chris Williamson and Simon too were like, it's not just about the views. It's about, do we stand for something bigger than that? And I think that shines out and it's actually very scary to do. And we lose followers all the time from taking stances that people don't like. But I'm like, fuck it, I didn't make all this money so that I could just become everybody's like, wallflower. Not interested.
- [25:05]
A
Hey, we're going to get back into today's episode in just a second, but if you haven't heard, we are running a special sale on the complete package for growing a successful YouTube channel in 2025 for just $57. This special offer includes your ticket to our upcoming YouTube strategy event, the updated YouTube starter kit, our brand new AI prompts guide, our video editing basics course, and our five hour YouTube workweek system all included in one bundle. Basically everything you need to start and grow your YouTube channel in 2025, valued at over $1,900. But for a limited time, you could get a massive discount on our most comprehensive YouTube training bundle yet for just $57. If you want to take advantage of this offer, just click the link in the show notes or go to think media sale.com. but I gotta be real with you, this bundle with these products at this price is truly limited. So just click the link in the show notes or go to think media sale.com. all right, let's jump back into the.
- [26:12]
B
Episode from a technical standpoint on YouTube. The stuff that I think is really working right now is I don't think the clickbait works as well anymore. In fact, we test lots of different titles every single time. All your audience knows this already, but what we found increasingly is people are more interested in the reasonable than the unrealistic. And so they actually want to hear the stories that now we talk about a lot, which is like, I don't want to hear how to make a billion dollars. I'm never going to make a fucking billion dollars. Shut up. They want to hear about, I want to make my first thousand or $10,000 a month in a way that feels real to me, not dropshipping on Amazon. And so I think that real verse or rational versus unrealistic is really important. And then on top of that, I think it is a massive obsession with brand. When they come to our channel, I hope they get exactly what they think they're going to get, which is stories about Main street millionaires, which is ways to buy businesses, which is ways to do deals, which is ways to make more money in a way that feels a little bit heartfelt, reasonable, and Main Streety. And you don't see on my channel a lot of jumping around anymore into 452 other things than that. They're like, I want to come back for this show. This is what I subscribed to.
- [27:34]
A
I want to unpack some of these things. Do you think for the creator, that's like, man stand for something. But what if I get canceled, number one? Number two, do I need to talk about what my parents or grandparents would say? Listen at the dinner table. Never talk about religion or politics. Do I need to bring this stuff into my content? And are you saying that's, you know, more or less essential to stand out in a 2025 world?
- [28:03]
B
I think. I think people won't trust you if you don't show them that you. If you don't show them who you really are. And so I think it's so easy to peel back the layers. I mean, this is a funny short story, Sean. So I. I did a speech. I'm doing a bunch of speeches right now for the book. I typically don't do a ton of speeches. I did yours because you supported the book, and it was amazing. And I did one for a person that I was like, shoot, once I got there, you know, have you ever gotten to a speech? I kid you not. There was a Ferrari in a conference room in, like, a Hilton. I was like, oh, no, I should not be here. This is not a good idea. I do the speech. The guy's got planes on his Instagram, he's got watches on his Instagram, he's got checks and their numbers on his Instagram, like he's getting mailbox money or something. And this motherfucker hasn't paid me like three months later, you know, whatever the amount was that he was supposed to for the event in the books. And so it's not so much that you have to take a hard stance, it's that we have a high problem with a low trust culture today. And so you don't have to talk about politics or religion. But if you're like, I'm obsessed with raw milk, I know it's more illegal than guns in Texas, but I drink this bad boy like it's going out of style. Like, tell the people that give them something real. Don't do the Bentley Lamborghini, blah, blah, nonsense, because that doesn't signal trust anymore. That actually signals that you have so little to say that you need a third party logo to back you up, up. And so that I think is the difference between the two.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah, there's a big trend where people are using the word authenticity and transparency. YouGov said that only 18% of consumers believe that social media influencers are truthful. So it sounds like we need a new game plan going into 2025. Hopefully it was always the same game plan. But it's, I mean, you're saying less clickbait because I mean, people are kind of burnt out and maybe there's a maturing to social media. They're looking for the reasonable your brand, which also is going to be what people trust you to be. You know, there's this verse in the book of proverbs that says a good name is more desirable than great riches. And what's a good name? Well, a name is Nordstrom, a name is Ferrari, a name is these different brand names and a name is Cody Sanchez. What's your name mean? And so if someone's wrestling with this, maybe just a few final thoughts about how somebody could maybe rework their brand or not that they need to rework it, but like sit down and get a fresh perspective of maybe a few prompts of man, okay, I really want to lock in. Who am I? What questions should I be asking for? Who am I? What do I stand for? And how might I might position myself? And maybe even a video I should make. Is there a video idea or a topic I should hit or stories I should tell? I don't Know if that inspires anything, but just anything for maybe getting my brand aligned to this trust recession that we're living through.
- [31:02]
B
Yeah. If you want people to trust your advertising or marketing, you need to show, not tell. And so a good way to do this, for instance, is you could say, hey, my business will get you 300 new clients within 48 hours. Sign up with us right here. Crazy stuff happening in the background. Ferraris planes. Okay, great. That might be 2020 version of marketing, but a great brand instead would go, watch me try with this stranger I just met on the street to see if I can get new leads for his business with my business. 60 seconds, let's do this. You're going to show them live what you're doing. It's why we go on site to Main street millionaires businesses and we say, okay, this guy says that he made $30,000 this month with a trash truck. Well, let's see if that's true. And if you think about some of the biggest YouTubes online right now, it's like Chloe Abrams, right? Huge apostrophe. If true. It's not called huge. There's like a little skepticism that she's inserting on the people's behalf. And so you want to show, not tell. So for instance, you know, if you're like, oh, does Cody own businesses? Which ones are they? I'd be like, oh, well, right over here. This is pink. So you can see the little hat over here. Here's our window washing business. It's literally right behind me. You can't see it. But over here is that one painter, that's our painting company that we own, that I have right behind me, you know, and then if you think about the brand that you show up with, when was this weird era where everybody had, like, light up, like neon signs behind them, like, everybody and a dark background. And instead I was like, who is. Who am I at a deep level? Well, I'm from Arizona. Cactus. Cactus. I believe in justice and freedom. This is my grandfather. He was a federal magistrate. I can't get my. I don't know right or left. This is my grandfather. He was a federal magistrate. He's right behind me. I believe in America and individual citizens and your ability to be the producer of your life. And so there's the flag that my husband flew over his base when he was in the Middle East. Here's our logo over here with me and my dad branded, because I'm from Arizona, and it's on a tree that I planted with him at our very first house billion years ago that we ended up having to cut down and then planted our logo on top of it. So it's like everything we do is a reminder of who we are and it doesn't mean I'm not going to fuck up and say things wrong. And I have a terrible memory, Sean. So like a lot of times I'll be like, oh well, last year. And Chris will go, my husband. That was three years ago, babe. You know, so you can still mess up, but remind yourself who you are.
- [33:46]
A
And so for listeners, what Cody just did was this even this is such a practical tips you just gave your very background for this interview. Is brand, is values, is stories and is different and true to you. It is really easy to maybe fall into the pattern of just trying to look like everybody else, sound like everybody else. So these have been such powerful insights about how people are craving authenticity, transparency. We need to stand for something and this is going to be a huge key. With all the changes happening for standing out in 2025 and beyond quality versus quantity, there's a lot of pressure to just create more and more and more and more, especially for smaller creators. They see a media company like you or even think media and there's quite a bit of volume coming out. But do you think that they're actually on social now? There could be value in creating less, higher quality content. And when does more just become a waste of time?
- [34:47]
B
Here's the problem with quality versus quantity. In the beginning you don't know what quality is. So how can you produce higher, form less versions of things in order to overcome the quantity problem, which is just more? The only way you get quality is by a massive unreasonable amount of quality or quantity for a period longer than you can imagine. And so I do believe for most people you have to start with the quantity game. This is the game of life and success, which is difficulty for a long period of time. However, once you have figured out what quality means to you and you need to define quality is quality number of views, is quality conversions? Is quality something that you individually think is beautiful? Is quality something that your very particular subset of subscribers finds beautiful or useful? And once you have defined quality and you have determined that you can hit that quality, then you could do less. But in the beginning, I do believe it is easier to do more than less. For that reason. There are very many instances of this not being true. I mean, every time I think about this conundrum, I go back to like the Casey Neistat. He did do massive quantity though. A video A day for a very long time before he figured out what quality was. And so I think I err on the side of pain, AKA mass production for a period of time.
- [36:14]
A
It's also interesting, Casey has expressed many times that actually pushed himself to the very verge of burnout and depth death and that he also, it was, it was both because his even physical fitness and I would say mental fitness. He was editing, shooting and editing sometimes eight hours every single vlog for a string of hundreds of days, which I kind of maybe want to come back to that balance of hustle culture. But you mentioned for a long period of time. Time. I know there's no magic number, but if you were to give us a number, if I'm going to commit to something, in fact, if I'm around New Year's, I'm starting a new channel. I'm, I'm wanting to get into this content creation game. I'm wanting to also get into this Main Street Millionaire game and even think about how much time it takes to really make something work. But let's focus on content. A year. Do I, do I need to put my head down and grind and experience the pain? In your words, two years. What do you think?
- [37:14]
B
Well, they say that businesses are like a baby. And I don't see why content is any different. In the first year of life with your baby, you're kind of figuring things out and trying not to murder the thing. In the second year of life, the thing is now a little bit more alive itself, but not totally independent. In the third year of life, that thing is trying to murder itself. And so I do think for the first couple of years in any business, it's normal to expect some pain in massive joy because there's nothing more wonderful than owning a business and being able to control your outcome if that is the game you like to play. So I do think it is. Multiple years of you learning your craft now you might say, well, Cody, you came on the scene three years ago. Your business doesn't appear to be a little self murdery 3 year old. And at that case I would say, God. Depends on the day, you guys. It totally depends on the day. Every single one of us who has a business that looks really shiny on the outside, I can promise you one thing. We are a carefully held together series of narrowly missed disasters. And that applies to even the big guys because we have all this overhead. It costs us a bunch of money to do this. We're sitting in a studio, in an office I own with a bunch of employees. So the game only gets more complex, actually. And I think if you see it like that, then you kind of know what to expect and it doesn't have to be so miserable because you know what's coming. But if I hadn't spent, you know, 15 years in finance giving pitches and presentations and speeches to big institutional investors, would I be so good at YouTube? I don't know. I think skills stack on top of each other and it is going to take a while. But it's okay, you guys, because guess what? We're not curing cancer. We're doing TikToks. We're okay. Like, I chuckle my little titties off every time somebody says, I'm so burnt out from doing TikToks. I'm like, like, we don't have real jobs. This is, this is like a. This is a fake job. The only thing that sucks about this job is when you turn your life into content. That, to me is really tough. Like, if you're like doing relationship content and then your relationships going sideways, you know, if. If every single day of yours has to seem like an adventure in order for your content to work well. Oof. But if you don't love your business right now, I think the question is like, can you pivot to something else that you love? You're not trapped. And the first video you make doesn't have to be the last video you make.
- [39:44]
A
Your words are like food to my soul. Like, business is like a few narrowly missed disasters on a day to day basis. And even I've. I'm a small town kid, call it dropout. And so we have like 31 W2s right now. And I'm like, and we've been running 1% profit margins. And I'm like that. I'm like, at least we have profit. And in the past, and especially in a digital business, 30, 40, 50 is very common. But we've also been on offense, we've been hiring, we're getting things in place, we're being strategic. But that's not low stress. Cody Sanchez, what's your advice for me in this exact moment?
- [40:16]
B
It's not low stress. I two thoughts that I have. One, if you're running a 1% business for a period of time, you either need to have a goal line at which point you model out that when we hit X, we will get to 30 or 40% margins. And you need to have a strong belief in that backed by data, at least some thoughtful data in order for you to not stay in the Pain Cave. 1% is Pain Cave. And no business owner can run at 1% for a period of a long time and enjoy the ride. I've been there before too. Some of my businesses are still there right now, totally normal. But that is one. So, so you know deadline data and a determined path to get to 30 or 40%. If you keep going along and you hit that deadline and you're still at the 1% number, then it's not that you need to do more, you need to do different. And this is where I think sometimes the hustle people get it wrong is they're like, just keep going, just keep going. It's like, no, no, no. Business model analysis time. There's many games we could play. You could be a pickleball player earning not a great salary. No chicks, just kidding. I hate pickleball, but people love pickleball so I like to pick on it. So if, you know, if you're going to go be a professional pickleball player, you're not probably going to make the most salary. You might like it, you're not going to get huge fame, but maybe it's easier to become a pro than if you go and play baseball. Baseball is going to be extremely highly paid. There's however a lot of competition and so you have to pick the game you're playing. And if you're in a low margin long term business, you need to add a new revenue stream. And the revenue stream, because you are an attention creator too means you need to make sure that you are doing the most you possibly can to monetize your eyeballs to the level of your values. So I don't believe in like churn, like squeezing every dollar out of my audience. It's never been our way. But I do believe that when I put something in front of our audience, I want to make sure that my employees and my business is getting funded fully through it. At which point you might need to say, okay, well sponsorships, they're not making us enough revenue. So I need to either increase our prices or I need to add a revenue line that might be equity plus distributions of a business. And so that's what I would play around with.
- [42:38]
A
Great advice. Going a little deeper. There's such an emphasis on just bigger, bigger, bigger, more views viral when in social media it's like viral, like viral is the only thing as big of audience size as possible, as many views as possible. Do you think though that sometimes there's too much emphasis in that area and that creators of all sizes could be focusing more on depth with their Community, but also other areas like maybe product or customer experience.
- [43:06]
B
Yeah, here's why. You shouldn't only care about views and how much attention you get, because the number one websites that are visited in the world are porn sites. So if you want to get the most attention out there, straight path to porn. And I don't think most of us want to do that. And so if you realize, okay, okay, extreme level porn, other extreme level poverty, we need to pick somewhere in between. And that is a unique mixture of what I call the left and right. Or so in every business, you typically have a quality metric and you have a quantity metric. So the quality metric is the metric that kind of like it. It pulls your business back from massive growth or maybe from massive views. And that might be like, Cody's going to keep her shirt on when she's talking about business acquisitions. Maybe if I took my shirt off, we'd get a lot less views or more views, I don't know. But we would probably go a little bit more viral. But I'm not going to do that because my quality or says no. The quantity or says, okay, we want to get as much as possible. And so these two have to argue between the two of them in order to have a healthy business. Every single business has this. This is revenue versus expenses. This is views versus conversion, for instance, followers versus conversion. And so I think, think we need to ask ourselves, what are you actually trying to accomplish? Most of the reasons why the really, really rich are unhappy are because they haven't actually defined what would make them happy. And so they chase money for a really long time, and then they get there and they realize, oh, God, it wasn't just money I was after. I actually wanted something else. So I think for creators, it's really important. You know, in investing, we think about something called our deal box, which is, I only want to buy the perfect business. For me, it has like 14 questions. We ask people to determine what type of business would make you happy, would get you to your goals. Well, how many creators sit down and go, all right, what is my creator deal box? What. What would make me happy if I saw my life in three to five years according to these set of questions. And that's what I think you should do. And it's. It's how I make sure that even if we get 26 million views on YouTube, it's doing something that I like. And so every single time we do a video and we're gonna film it, I will say, what is the easy percentage for this video? So 1 through 1 through 10 can't use 7. How easy is it to film then I'll say, how. What is the fun level of this video? 1 through 10 can't use 7 in order to film. What is the conversion level of this business? Does it get us to our monetary problems? 1 through 10, can't use 7. And then lastly, what is our brand alignment of this video? 1 through 10 can't use 7. So if we look at those four things and a video is really easy do, really fun to do, converts highly and is on brand, bam, we're doing that video. If the business is. If the video is really hard to do but hits all other three, maybe we're still going to do it. If the business hits the three but is like negative fun, because where I'm at in life, I'm probably not going to do it. So a lot of times the team has crazy ideas. Like they asked me to do some of the Simon Squibb stuff. We run around and ask people how much money they make and what their dream is. And I was like, no, that sounds awful. No, thank you. Thank God Simon exists. But you get to ask yourself what your deal box is and set it. And then you won't have to have the daily fatigue of re asking yourself what I should film or not.
- [46:32]
A
Such great insights and questions to be thinking through. I mentioned coming back to this idea of hustle culture. Casey Neistat, hundreds of logs, pushed himself though, to that verge of burnout. And this is a massively divisive of conversation because there's some people that are so anti hustle culture. But then there's this fundamental principle that if you don't actually put in the work and outwork everybody else, what do you think the tension is between this and is there a point for the person that is just grinding and grinding and grinding, trying to win that way, that it's hurting sustainability and business growth?
- [47:09]
B
I mean, I think that there's a. There's a formula to making money. And the formula goes like this. How much risk are you willing to take? How valuable are your skills? How good is your mousetrap? So the way in which you make money and how much pain are you willing to tolerate? And I think those four things typically drive to your bank account. And so your bank account is a direct reflection of the problems that you solve, the pain you're willing to take, the risk you're willing to take. And the bigger the problems you solve, the more money you make in the bank, the more risk you take. Potentially the More money you make in the bank. And so that's how I think about it. And I think we gotta be honest about that. The cool part is, is that when you're young, pain and difficulty doesn't feel like pain and difficulty, it feels like adventure. And so I do think young creators have an advantage in a lot of the ways in that, you know, I worked at Goldman Sachs for like barely two years. I hated it. It was during the financial crisis and and yet I was working like 70, 80 hours a week. And it didn't feel that hard. And it didn't feel that hard because I was like learning so much. It was like a fire hose. And I knew that after two years I really wanted to be out. I was like, I'm gonna do this job for two years, I'm gonna learn a ton, then I'm gonna go do something else. And so I think you have to ask yourself, what's your deadline? There's always a light at the end of the tunnel and then on top of it. I think that a lot of times why it's a grind is we really do, you know, three things. Like if you're struggling in your business right now, it's because one, you haven't picked a problem big enough to solve and so you're never going to make enough money on it. Your problem is too small. It's two, you might have a team, but you have a team of equals as opposed to weakness offsetters. So as you hire new people, you shouldn't hire new people just for tasks that need to be done. You should hire for tasks you don't want to do, do that they uniquely want to do, and that takes some of the misery off your plate. And then the third thing is, have I set an operating system in place in order for me to actually achieve my goals consistently with processes and procedures? And that part sounds super boring to people. But the problem is most businesses are just a series of repetitions and check ins continuously. And so content's no different. It's like, is the video edited? Is the thumbnail there? Is the title, right? Have we gone through the 6 iteration? Why didn't you do this last time? We did it the next time. You have a lot less suffering when you systematize everything because then you don't have low level decision fatigue. Of all the things that should just be like an airplane pilot, he checks it off the list. It gets done every time. There's zero stress. So I think a lot of content creators are really stressed because they have no process and if you don't have any process, then you're like, like why am I giving feedback on this video for the 452nd time time. Because you don't have a process.
- [50:03]
A
I have one final question for you, but I want to make sure people can take action if they want to go to the next step. So what right now do you want to shout out? And of course we will link all of this in the show notes.
- [50:16]
B
I think the most important thing is what I'm shouting from the rooftops, which is msmbook.com like mainstreetmillionaire book.com My belief is that we do not have to do everything the hard way. We'd have to spend time up front learning how to steal other people's homes. Homework, which is what you do through acquisitions. So if any point in your business you've one thought, God, I'd like to grow faster. Or you've thought, I would like to have more clients in groups as opposed to singles. Or you've thought, my business is motoring, but how could I take it to the next level? I want more humans to learn acquisitions. I have never met somebody who learned to do deals and regretted it. It is applicable to every sector of your life. And I think there's a series of businesses out there where creators can become more powerful than the biggest private equity firms. And I think that's why like the Kim Kardashians of the world with sky are so scary to the big guys because they actually fear you. Creators with attention, a thing a bunch of middle aged white dudes on Wall street are never going to get. They'll never be able to compete with you for that. And you used to have to go through agents to do deals. Now you can do deals direct. You used to have to go through Hollywood to do deals. Now you don't need them at all. So the only next level of the game is once you get the attention. Are you schlepping gummy bears for hair growth at, you know, 1/10 the price that they're getting? Or do you own part of your distribution?
- [51:39]
A
The future is bright in the crater economy. Two final questions. I'm curious. Who do you think is the greatest living entrepreneur?
- [51:49]
B
Oh, greatest. I mean, God, it's hard. It's hard for me to not say Elon Musk. I mean, how can you see what Elon Musk has done and not be staggered, which I know is not that popular online. But think about some stats here for a second on my man Elon. Not that he needs to be pumped up lately. 60% of all satellites in the sky right now. Starlink. 80% of all rockets that have taken off this year. Starlink. He has beaten government contractors and the actual government in the space race. And then, oh, by the way, because he has the max ownership of risk plus pain tolerance, he has not only started a rocket company, but now has Tesla and Twitter. He's taken on freedom of speech, he's taken on government entities, he's taken on the mainstream media, and he's taken on the automotive industrial complex. And so, you know, one of my life lessons is that I will always at least listen to those who have a bank account that is bigger than I do because they probably have learned something I haven't yet. There's no such thing as a perfect human. Does not exist. Never met one, actually. One of you would like this. One of my pastors said to me, he goes, listen, there's no such thing as a perfect church. And if you find one, don't go there because you'll fuck it up. He didn't say fuck it up. I added that. But it's true. And so it's the same with business people, people, all of us are so flawed. I am such a flawed bipedal monkey running around trying to figure it out. But I learn from the greats, and so I think Elon's mine.
- [53:29]
A
Lots of insights and lessons from Elon and inspiring individual. The plane is landing and we're going into 2025. What's our mindset that you'd give to creators? What advice would you give to creators considering this world of discontinuous change and economic uncertainty? What's our game plan for moving forward?
- [53:48]
B
You know, one of my mentors told me something that has stuck with me for a long time. Whenever I'm really struggling with something and something is difficult, I repeat these words, which is accept, allow, appreciate, take action, let it go. And so as we're coming into 2025, when something happens to you that you don't like, I accept, okay, this is happening right now. I allow that to be the actual reality as opposed to fighting it. Then I take some sort of action to see if I could. I'm sorry, Then I appreciate. I go, thank you. I know there's something to learn from this. I'm going to figure out what it is. Thank you for any difficulty that I have. Then I take action and say, okay, given X, I need to do Y action. And then I let go of anything else. If there's nothing else that I can do. I just let it go. And this idea has helped me through a lot of difficult times because I don't know about you, but often I will worry and worry and worry about a thing that never comes. And so if I can instead accept, allow, appreciate, take a little action and let it go. Turns out I'm still breathing. We're all okay.
- [54:54]
A
Cody Sanchez appreciate you so much. Thankful for your influence in my life and our community's life. Thanks again for adding value to our event. Main Street Millionaires the book hit the show. Notes for all of our links and make sure to grab a pre order or or order it as the book is out soon. And thank you for listening to today's episode of the Think Media podcast.