December 14, 2024 • 62 mins
Have you ever wondered why your favorite artists are struggling despite millions of streams? Creative work isn't always valued as it should be, especially in the digital age. Join us for a hilarious yet enlightening talk with William "Classic" Thomas, a visionary content creator and brand strategist, as he shares unconventional strategies for breaking through the commodification of creativity. We'll even take a detour to discuss "baby bananas" and the quirky side of online sales, ensuring a few laughs along the way.
With insights from fast-paced product development to the intricacies of creative marketing, this episode uncovers the art of balancing passion and profitability. Hear how independent brands can outmaneuver industry giants by leveraging audience feedback and authentic collaboration. Plus, follow a personal tale of transitioning from music to film, driven by the relentless pursuit of passion and perspective, and how this can fuel innovative content creation.
This episode is your guide to connecting with audiences, building genuine narratives, and navigating the complex world of digital content with confidence.
"Unglossy: Decoding Brand in Culture," is produced and distributed by Merrick Creative and hosted by Merrick Chief Creative Officer, Tom Frank, hip hop artist and founder of Pendulum Ink, Mickey Factz, and music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to hear this thought-provoking discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @UnglossyPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://unglossypod.buzzsprout.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on Unglossy .
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Like.
Who the hell said this is lessthan a fraction of a fraction of
a penny Like.
How do you break down a pennyLike?
And the fact that we can getthese views?
We've valued being seen morethan being paid.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yes, that's it right there.
We value being seen more thanbeing paid For the past six
years.
No exaggeration, I will refuseand I have refused to post my
Spotify numbers.
That is nobody's business.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
At the end of the year everybody posts their
numbers.
But they really got checks forlike 600 bucks.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yes, From the top.
Yeah, I'm Tom Frank.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm Mickey Fax.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
And I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Welcome to Unglossy decoding brand and culture.
I'm Tom Frank, partner andchief creative officer at Merit
Creative.
This is Mickey Fax, hip hopartist and founder and CEO of
Pendulum Inc.
And that is.
Jeffrey Sledge, a seasonedmusic industry veteran who has
worked with some of the biggestartists in the business.
We're here to explore themoments of vulnerability,
pivotal decisions and creativesparks that fuel the
(01:14):
relationship between brand andculture.
Get ready for athought-provoking journey into
the heart and soul of brandingthe unscripted, unfiltered and
truly unglossy truth.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yo, yo, listen, I got us, I got us.
That's mad weird.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Something's weird.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
These are called baby bananas.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
All right for people who are listening to this right
now.
Did it cost mad money?
Mickey's holding the smallestthree bananas I've ever seen.
Are these bananas that are soldas small bananas, or did you
just happen to pick out thesmallest three bananas you could
find?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
These are sold as small bananas.
It is a supermarket in Atlanta.
It's like an Asian marketcalled like Dae Nam Nu.
You ever see that, Jeff?
It's like a Korean market andthey sell mini bananas.
This is called Banana Babies.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It tastes just like a banana, I mean if nothing else,
for this episode, you're goingto learn about baby bananas.
I got us started a little latebecause I sold a couch on
Facebook Marketplace.
It was a crazy story.
Got us a little bit off track Alittle bit.
The deal went through, though.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Couches are gone a little bit off track A little
bit.
The deal went through, though.
Couches are gone, so talk to usabout you selling your couch
really quickly for the peopleand what you do to prepare for
selling to people online.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Now, it's not like I do this all the time, but let's
be honest.
We're all selling things onlineand if it's a physical thing,
that means there has to be aninteraction.
I don't know these people.
They don't know me, so you gotto kind of protect yourself.
So I have come up with the ideathat if I'm not selling it at a
third-party destination andthey're coming to my house, I
(02:56):
like to hide weapons all aroundthe yard just in case something
goes south.
I've never had to use onebefore, but I'm prepared and I'm
ready to go.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
My guy is Matami Culkin.
He's home alone.
B Word home alone, home alone.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I like to think of myself maybe as more of a Van
Damme or something like that no,no, no, no no.
Like a blood sport.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
No thanks, You're Kevin McAllister.
It ain't that All right.
So let's talk about our guestthat we had today.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
We had a great guest William Classic Thomas Thomas.
I want to say Johnson.
Wow, not Johnson.
Thomas Thomas Thomas.
He's related to this guy, norelation.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
This time We've had some guests that are related to
me, but not this one so you know, for me, I wanted to talk about
the algorithm, and I think hehad not only an incredible
analogy, but he broke it down sowell for all of us to hear
about it, um, and I think, justfrom that perspective, I got a
lot out of it.
What about you guys?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
yeah, the same.
Yeah, he has some issuesperspectives on the algorithm
and being an entrepreneur inthis day and age and being able
to find your own way and notrelying on big companies to, you
know, give you something of akind of earning your way and
having those big companiespartner with you to do things,
(04:19):
as opposed to kind of likegiving you things.
It was dope.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
For me it was like a full circle moment, right,
because we've talked so muchhere about content and doing
things a little different andthe idea that you have to
deliver things consistently andwith an action to people, and to
me that's everything that wetalked about and summarized well
, and I'm very excited to get tocontinue to know Classic,
(04:45):
continue to get to work with him, because we've got something
special coming up very soon.
Oh man, sounds good.
Ooh, it's going to be good.
With that, let's dive into ourconversation with William
Classic Thomas.
Unglossy is brought to you byMerrick Creative, looking to
skyrocket your business'svisibility and drive growth.
At Merrick Creative, we solveyour brand and marketing woes
(05:07):
With big ideas, decades ofexperience and innovative
solutions.
We'll draw in your targetaudience and keep them hooked.
Remember, creativity is key tosuccess.
Partner with Merit Creative andunlock your brand's potential.
Learn more at meritcreativecom.
And now back to the show.
All right, fellas, on thisweek's episode of Unglossy
(05:28):
Podcast, we're thrilled towelcome William Classic Thomas.
We're going to get to thebottom of the classic between
the William and the Thomas.
He's an innovative contentcreator, storyteller and brand
strategist with a knack forturning ideas into memorable
experiences.
Classic has collaborated withmajor brands like WeFunder we
shout out to our friend Johnny,who was on the show recently and
(05:50):
Factory Lab produced viralcampaigns for rising artists in
the music industry and helpedstart up craft compelling
narratives that resonate withour audience.
From his work shaping culturethrough campaigns for community
focused initiatives, to hisability to create buzzworthy
moments for globally recognizednames, classic brings a very
(06:11):
unique perspective to the table.
Let's dive into his creativeprocess, some of his memorable
projects and the future for thefor his future for the uh
branding, because I think it'skind of interesting.
Hello classic.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Classic how goes it?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, yeah, all right .
So we need to start right there, because I have been meaning to
ask you this question when doeswhat's the backstory behind
Classic?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
All right.
So initially I did music and I,but just in general I was very
shy and so I always had theseideas no-transcript.
(07:11):
It'd be like, well, what wouldclassic do and create that story
and then just go perform that?
It's like just leave it all outthere.
So after a while I didn't haveto ask that anymore and it just
became like embodying thisconcept of classic.
And so now it's funny.
For a while it was classicreinvention.
It was like the idea of takingold things and modernizing them.
(07:32):
A lot of my ideas come fromjust things I love from the 90s,
2000s, and kind of rope it intotoday's day and age, like how
we were talking about earlier.
There's a lot of stuff that waslike really early and so you
can still replay it, and outearlier there's a lot of stuff
that was like really early andso you can still replay it, and
it's new to the current audiencebut familiar to the older
(07:53):
audience, and so that's how youend up getting more of the
market share, um, and so that'swhere classic came from.
That's where I've been stickingwith it for a while.
I love going into corporatesettings and they're like what's
your name and it's like classic, it just makes the whole room
feel uncomfortable.
But it's perfect, because nowit's like well, let's open this
up.
Everything doesn't need to beso stodgy, stuffy, uh, how do we
get to the people anyway?
We're just constantly thinkinginside of the box, and so for me
(08:15):
that's like the ultimateicebreaker now used to be
icebreaker for me.
That was an icebreaker foreveryone else there you go.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Well, you're on with two music guys.
We got to hear a little bitabout your journey in music
before we go any further.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Oh man, Pink for me was like a festival in Canada.
It was like one of those thingswith like the crazy lineups I
was like but like small name,you got the big names and the
small names at the bottom.
It's one of those I was workingwith.
I think the only real likeclaim to fame was Pop Wanzel.
(08:48):
He did Usual and it wasactually cool like sitting in
the studio listening toreferences for like Nicki Minaj
songs and things like that.
But music started to feel alittle too limited for me and I
got into film because it feltmore three dimensional, Like I
(09:10):
can still do the music and kindof use it as a means for shaping
these narrative and thesevisuals, which would then help
people appreciate the music evenmore.
So that was always my thing.
Like eventually I am going tomake my way back into music.
That was always my thing.
Like eventually I am going tomake my way back into music, but
from like a directorial, uhbrand strategy perspective, like
understanding the story behindthe music, understanding the
(09:31):
story behind you.
Now, how do we create that in away where people can enjoy it
and we're kind of putting themedicine in the applesauce by
time they get to the end of it.
They feel like they know youbetter, they feel like they
understand where you're tryingto take this better, and so now
you can easily weed out who issupposed to be there versus who
isn't supposed to be there,because I'm resonating on such a
level that now I'm just yourpeople, Uh, cause I feel like
(09:53):
whenever we put anything outlike our audience is an
extension of us and but youwon't really properly find them
until you can tell that storycorrectly.
And so that was the musicjourney that led into the film
side of things, and now we'rekind of back to music, even with
the most recent project withVanellie Chopper.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
So how did you link up with Chopper?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Through Factory Lab.
So Factory Lab again.
I'm constantly finding thesecorrelations between art, tech,
culture.
And so there was a venture firmcalled Slauson Co.
They're on the West Coast.
They invested in Factory Laband I happened to be talking to
one of the folks there and I waslike hey, yeah.
(10:37):
I was like hey, what you guysgot going on, I would love to
talk about something.
And they were like, hey,factory Lab just dropped these
duck boots with NLE Choppa.
Cool thing Factory Lab justdropped these duck boots with
NLE chopper.
Cool thing about Factory Lab isit's ran by Omar Bailey.
Omar Bailey was the head of theYeezy Innovation Lab.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yes.
So he built that foam runnerand so, doing that for years,
got that division to a billiondollars.
He had a lot of people in hisear that were like, hey, man,
you should probably start yourown shop.
And so that's what Factory labis.
It's mini manufacturing and 3dprototyping, and so it allows
them to actually take on anybodyand get them to market a lot
(11:17):
quicker than a larger situation,because we can do it within
these small batches, and sothey've done it.
For jayalen ramsey, the cleatthat he's playing in is a
factory lab shoe, uh, and elliechopper was the first sort of
more mainstream musical take onthings, I would say.
And so I just started talkingabout the duck boots and then
(11:41):
they reached out and sent meduck boots and then I shot a
commercial for the duck bootsand then they were like, hey,
we're going to ComplexCon, doyou want to go?
And which means I ended uphaving to do the whole campaign
for the duck boots and NLE Chopand them.
So it turned into like a reallycool cross collaboration where
it helped amplify Factory Labeven more, because now they had
(12:02):
this visual that really spoke towhat they were doing and mixing
in LA, which gave him reasonsto push it even more as well.
I think one of those videosended up hitting like 440,000
views.
This is big for me.
I usually don't get like a lotof looks, but it speaks to the
hacking of things and, like I'ma real big fan of saying great
things about people in a highquality way that kind of makes
(12:26):
them obligated to want to shareit.
It's like damn, I got to showthis to folks.
Like he said some really coolthings about me I probably
couldn't even say about myself,and this might be like the first
one that like went, went and sonow we're having conversations
about like well, what does itmean to kind of do this a little
bit more?
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Like how do we apply this to Jalen ramsey?
How do we, you know, apply thisto other folks that we have
coming down the pipeline?
You got some other artists andstuff that you that you uh that
they're designing uh shoes forum, I'm not sure who else is
like, because this was my myfirst run with them.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I know DDG was there and DDG was working with NLE and
he was like that wholeconversation was like you know,
how do we do this for us now andI think that's the cool factor
of it, where we don't have todeal with bureaucracy I can talk
to you right now.
This is what I was thinkingabout shoot-wise.
Do you want to do this?
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
We just figure out the business and get it to
market in like three to sixmonths.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
That's like unheard of, when you think about like a
large, it turns that quick.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, like there's just like,like they can move as fast as
they want because they're goingto sit down.
The folks are designing you 3dprint it.
How do we feel about it?
Let's press up a thousand, likethe timelines are a lot quicker
.
And so when you're dealing withan adidas or something, I think
omar was saying like you'retalking about like 18 months,
(13:52):
yeah, maybe more, yeah, six,because a lot of people want to
make sure that, like everybodyknows that I did it and yada,
yada versus like no, let's getstraight to it.
Let's go straight to theaudience.
Let's let's let the audience bethe a b test, versus us trying
to decide what's going to workon the inside because you don't
really know.
You can't plan for somethingyou never experienced.
You got to throw it out therelike like apple, like that whole
(14:14):
concept of you know how do youknow people want?
a home computer.
Well, how do you know?
They don't.
They never had it before, andso it creates those
opportunities.
Without the every accuracy tolike.
Just go straight to testing,seeing what works, refining
until you finally get somethingthat the people really want,
because they've literally beendictating it to you.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
So, mickey, if you need a shoe brand, the Mickey
Facts shoe, I'm already thinkingabout it right now.
Facts shoot, I'm alreadythinking about it right now.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We tried with Supra back in 2008, 2009,.
And they glossed us over andwent over to Wayne and then,
once they went to Wayne, it kindof tanked, of course.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I mean, I know we're getting kind of off track, but
my theory is always like whenyou try to launch something with
big artists, you catch an Lbecause the artist is doing it
for the check.
They're not into it.
They'll just maybe do a coupleof photo shoots and then bounce
off.
What you do with somebody who'sinto it, like even Chopper
(15:19):
Chopper's still, he's known,he's definitely known, but he's
growing, he's still got a lot ofways to grow to be a big artist
.
So he's not like that would beinto it, or even DDG it would be
into it now because they, youknow they can, they can grow
with it, as opposed to like justanother check on the pile of
the other 20 checks.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yep, yep, that's true , it's a classic.
Tell us a little bit about howyou got started in content
creation, right?
I mean, I understand the musicside, I understand the switch to
film, but now what you're doinga lot of, and I'm very
interested in from a brandperspective and even from a
music perspective, is how didyou really first start doing
this, like, what were some ofyour first milestones that you
(15:57):
conquered?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, I had when we were doing the music stuff.
I had this one homie that wouldalways hear me complain about
movies and and he presented mewith like the biggest dub moment
in my life where he was like,why don't you just make them?
And I was like, yeah, I guess,I guess why not?
And so we brought a camera andit was just started focusing on
(16:20):
trying to create what we liked.
Same same way with music, whereyou watch a film, and it was
like, all right, how do we getthat shot?
How do we get this, that andthe third, and so that turned
into.
Well, now we got to pay for it.
We got to, you know, like yougot to pay for your hobby, and
if you 100% nine to five, it'skind of really hard to
(16:41):
transition and find that spacefor creativity.
And so we just started sellingcommercials.
So like local businesses, likehey, man, I'll come through,
we'll do like a short film,we'll do a web series or
something along those lines.
And then so I'm from philly, soto me I like to study
advertisement and I feel likerocky is the greatest long form
(17:03):
advertisement of all time.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I would agree.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I feel like, for since the 70s it has driven more
than a billion dollars inPhiladelphia through hospitality
, travel, tourism, all thosedifferent things, because people
come here just to run up thesteps, take pictures in front of
the staff.
We got an actual Joe Frazier'sgym is a furniture store, like
we don't even care about thereal hero.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
This guy didn't even this guy didn't even exist and
he has a massive trophy that Ihave been to numerous times to
take my picture in front of.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Rocky one.
He don't even want to fightLike it's a, this is a, but what
it?
What it showed was it sold theidea of Philly grit, philly
toughness, and so people wantedto experience that.
And so my takeaway was yo, ifyou can create a character that
people can learn to love, thenby default you'll learn to love
(17:56):
the things that they're into.
And so those are the brandingopportunities.
And so we really focused onbecause I did a lot of theater
work and like sketch and allthose different things, and so I
was I would be the only personinside the theater.
That was actually like ropingin some fake brand just to see
how people reacted to it.
And so we got our first solidopportunity with a vintage store
(18:19):
in Philly where I was like, hey, tell me every week what you
want people to focus on.
And I'm going to shoot anepisode where I play the store
owner and my homie is like thatone customer that never leaves,
and the funniness of it is ustrying to figure out how to sell
the item, but all we're doingis putting the item in your face
for like three to five minutesthrough all these different
(18:41):
scenarios, and it was likeinspired by Atlanta.
So if you think about like thatslow sort of pace Atlanta feel,
with the quirky jokes andwhatnot, and then I watch,
people start to come to thestore because of the show.
And then somebody came in witha screenshot of an episode and
was like yo, do you have thissweater in the back?
(19:03):
And I was like that'sinteresting.
Like he saw something else inthe shot screenshot of the show,
roll all the way to the storeand then wanted to see if we had
it.
I was like yo, I think we gotsomething here.
And then next thing, you know,like people started they wanted
to be in the show because thestore was a part of a apartment
complex.
So, like people that lived inthe complex, they would cameo
(19:25):
somebody, let us shoot in theirapartment.
It was like because he lookedlike Action Bronson.
So we was like yo, we're goingto do a whole episode, we're
going to score with nothing butAction Bronson music just
because you look like him.
He was like I'm with it.
And it just kept growing andgrowing to the point where I was
like yo, people are coming tothis part of the city that they
normally wouldn't because ofthis silly show.
(19:46):
So let's see how big.
We can go with concepts likethis.
And so I ended up joining an adagency in Austin for a bit
during the pandemic, and thatdidn't work out.
But then the big next milestonewas a friend of mine started a
tech company called ChargerHealth.
She got like one hundredthousand in seed money and so I
(20:09):
don't know anything about any ofthis stuff.
And she's like, hey, can you?
I've always liked your work Canyou do our curriculum?
Because on one side, we feellike it'll make the techs want
to pay attention more, but onthe flip side, we think more
people will want to be a part ofthis conversation, because now
they feel like it's actually forthem versus like oh no offense
(20:30):
old white guys talking aboutthings in like a really boring
way, and so it only feels likeit's for a certain group of
people.
And that was sort of like mylight bulb moment of well, how
many things can I do this for?
And then you start to learn that, like man, there's a lot of
money flowing in tech.
Not only that, there's a lot ofpeople getting this money that
don't know how to talk aboutwhat they do on a on a like a
(20:53):
mainstream, like digestible, uhand entertaining level, and so
this ends up becoming like abeachhead for me.
Slowly but surely, somebodycomes around for we funder.
They're like hey, I'm not, Idon't want to tell you what to
do, but you should probably talkabout we funder.
And so I talked about them and,maybe like four videos in,
(21:13):
somebody gave one to the vicepresident and he dropped it into
the company slack and the ceowas like we should hire that guy
.
And then, like two weeks later,I was at the company first six
figure, first time gettingequity in a company, and I'm
like all right, art to equityman.
Like ideas are currency.
You just have to apply yourcreativity to something tangible
(21:36):
so you can properly understandthe return on investment.
And if you can explain that ROI, it makes sense for somebody
else to be like all right,here's a check.
And so since then it makessense for somebody else to be
like all right, here's a check.
And so since then it's justbeen how many times can we
create opportunities like this?
So, even with the factory labmaking that happen, spending 400
bucks on a commercial turnsinto hey, we're going to pay you
(21:56):
for two days.
Hey, we're going to cover yourtrip, we're going to cover your
flight, we're going to cover thehotel.
Hey, we're going to give youmoney to shoot more content.
And now we're havingconversations about like well,
what does it mean to kind of dothis whole time for you?
That's at this point I feellike I have a really good handle
on targeting something that haslike really good bones that I
(22:18):
can amplify and then have thatflip into like a, you know, like
a thousand X.
I think that I did the math onfactory lab.
It might be like an 800 Xreturn If you think about
everything that we've pulled insince then to shoot that $400
video and the one before thatfor free.
So that's like the goal rightnow.
How high can we go?
(22:38):
Can I get a Zuckerberg one day?
Why not?
Like it's just a matter of issix degrees of separation.
You talk about the right personthat knows the right person that
knows him.
It works its way over.
That's the game right now.
That's why I'm even interestedwith Factory Lab, because Omar
is so connected, working withYeezy, making Adidas a billion
(23:00):
dollars, being inside a complextown and him just pointing at
folks like that's the presidentof complex.
Yeah, those are, those are headCEOs over at Adidas.
Yo, that's such and such,that's such and such.
They all know him, but hedoesn't have a vehicle that can
talk about them in a way whereit almost Trojan horse makes
them have to, like, throw thatto their audience Now, which
(23:21):
then amplifies this even more.
And so that's what I'mconstantly working on and seeing
like, how, who can I get next?
That gets us the next thing.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
So you consider yourself an advertising agency?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I would say that A combination of advertising and
journalism.
Wow, advertising and journalism.
So my question to you is howdifficult is it for you to take
an artist and get them into aspace that he needs to be or she
right, she needs to be uh, tokind of have a foundation for
them to kind of live off oftheir art?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I think.
I think you have to be okaywith compromise.
So it's a little bit difficultat times, not saying you have to
lose all integrity, but youhave to find the balance between
what it is that you want andwhat it is that the people that
have the money want, and there'salways going to be lack of
common ground, but there'salways going to be some common
(24:18):
ground and you don't have to doit with everybody.
You just have to have thepatience to find those people
that understand you enough thatwill allow you to do your thing
enough, and it doesn't hurt youor hurt them, hurt their bottom
line, and so I think,unfortunately, a lot of folks
(24:38):
catch a little plow and thenthey turn that into a privilege
and that privilege then turnsinto an ego and then that ego
actually stops their blessings.
I don't think it's hard foranybody, because everybody has
an audience and larger companiesare constantly looking for
people that have audiences, likeif you already done the work,
(25:00):
we don't mind investing in you.
It's like a larger companybuying a smaller company.
Why will we build a wholedivision to do that when you're
already doing it at a high scale?
We'll just give you the moneyand say, put our name on it too.
Same thing with artistry.
And if you're not taking thattime out to become to be brand
friendly, like I found out thatlike the NLE situation was great
(25:24):
for him because a lot of peoplelooked at his situation and was
like I don't know, do we wantto associate with that?
You're judging him because ofthe music and because of the
audience and what they look like, and so on and so forth, and so
you don't know if that's a goodbet or not.
But then here comes Factory Lablike yo, we'll do it with you.
That created a pilot thatshowed that he was like super
(25:45):
brandable and now it's turninginto even more opportunities.
So I would say on the artistside, it's like properly
understanding your story andbeing okay with finding common
ground, that comfortable medium,because there's tons of
opportunities out there, anddon't stay local.
Like like, go outside, bro,like the real opportunity might
(26:07):
be on the other side of theworld.
Be okay with beinguncomfortable, because on the
other side you're onlyuncomfortable because you don't
know what's over there and it'sturning into a fear and that
fear is creating a paralysis.
But everything you want is onthe other side of fear and the
moment you like, take that leap.
Okay, we're finding commonground.
(26:30):
It's it's kind of off to theraces, because I'm an artist man
.
I was like the most stuck-upartist you could find like, no,
I'm not doing that, it's notcool.
No, I'm not doing that because,yada yada, I was broke for a
really long time because of that.
But once I was able to findthat way where I can be myself
and give you what you need,things got a hell of a lot
(26:52):
easier.
You started to become like verybrand safe.
More importantly, you become avalue add, because if you can
help somebody make money andsave money, you'll always have a
job, Wouldn't you?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
say, the best ever.
Example of what you just saidis Snoop Dogg.
Oh yeah, I mean talk about aguy who has, I would say,
probably, initially, probablymade some compromises.
Has, I would say, probably,initially, probably made some
compromises, but that has paidoff beyond belief.
I mean, he is everywhere todayand he is, I mean it's kind of a
(27:25):
remarkable to me to think aboutthis guy like how he is world
renowned right now, but if weremember where he came from, the
same people that love him todaywould have never listened to
him 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Some and if some people could argue that between
he, he could be one of the mostfamous artists like I, I feel
like I'll put him like neck andneck with like a kanye as far as
like globally renowned mostfamous hip-hop artists, just
because of integration and and.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Not because of music, but because of everything he's
done beyond music, including theOlympics.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I think they said he got like a half a mil a day or
something like that for theOlympics.
We just want your feed, don'tdo nothing else, just turn the
camera on and stay us.
That's crazy, but it's becausehe's created something that
people want to be a part of.
And now and now he's reachedthe point, he probably wasn't
(28:25):
really compromised.
Because you want to get intothe door, you do a couple of
things, a couple of favors thatyou may not be that crazy about,
but it don't hurt you Peopleremember those things.
And then later on down the lineyou have such a brand cache
that now you get to dictate theterms, you get to build your own
world and teach people how tolive in it.
Like that's what Snoop is doingright now more than anybody I
(28:48):
can think of, and he's havingfun doing it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He just sold like a smokeless grill or something
like that, but to me it allcomes back to putting him next
to the person that he neverwould have been next to Martha
Stewart.
The two of them made no sensewhatsoever together, except for
everything that Martha Stewartwent through and having to
(29:14):
happen to just be sitting nextto him at the Justin Bieber
roast.
It was a Justin Bieber wrote.
The two of them happened to sitnext to each other and the
relationship began, it took themto a whole new stratosphere.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's an uncomfortable position to be in
for somebody normally, but it'san important position to be in
because I have this term, thebeautiful unknown right.
Like I know, I have a minimum.
I know what I'm not going to do.
I know as far as like valuewise, but as far as like the
most I'll accept, I don't know.
And so I don't put a price onit because I want to be
(29:49):
surprised.
I just want to position myselffor that blessing and make sure
that I can take full advantageof it when it comes, because you
never know what's going topresent itself.
So by him walking into thatsituation, he just walked in
with the utmost faith that thisis going to be good.
Did he know how good?
Probably not he.
Probably.
There's no way in the world hecould imagine that everything he
has now was going to come fromthat relationship, and so he was
(30:12):
just open to whatever it wasthat was going to come and walk
into it, and that's the kind offaith that you need as an artist
when walking into theseopportunities.
You don't have to understandwhat this means.
Factory Lab.
I was super excited about thatbecause I can't guess the order
of effects on it.
I don't know how far it goes,and that to me is extremely
(30:36):
exciting because it can go tothe moon.
But even if it don't, it can goto the stars close enough, like
there's there's still like a aton of upside on that, and so
you have to think like aninvestor in that, in that sense,
and like you know, if I do this, what's the cause and effect?
And then what's the series ofcause and effects that happen on
the, on the on the backside ofthat, and if everything kind of
(30:58):
skews positive and there's likejust consistent gain, go for it.
But people won't allowthemselves to see past the
current moment and like what theperception is of this moment,
and so I'm not going to do it,because people might look at me
a certain way and then they killthis and the third off and it's
like, well, you, you're cuttingyourself at the knees, you're
(31:20):
stopping the train before iteven starts.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And this was the reason that we met a couple of
weeks ago or maybe a month ago,I don't know what it was now
that I was immediately attractedto what you were saying,
Because even the podcast we dotoday, right Unglossy is about
brand and culture.
It doesn't make any sense theway it was launched, in that it
was originally launched as partof Merit Creative.
(31:46):
Merit Creative should notnormally have a rapper, a music
guy and a brand guy doing apodcast for a company that
traditionally did real estate.
But it's my belief and Ibelieve your belief too, but I'd
love to hear more about it isthat brands got to think
differently.
It almost is full circle for us.
It brings us back to ourconversation we had with Mags
Miller a while ago in that thefuture of brand to me is.
(32:11):
It's about storytelling and it'sabout entertainment, and it's
about not overly sellingsomething but selling the
benefits of it, selling thevalue of it and selling the
lifestyle of it, and I thinkthat's ultimately what you're
trying to portray in the workthat you're doing.
That it's not about just here'sa shoe, buy this shoe.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's about creating a lifestyle.
Like if you were to take asnapshot of the room you're in
right now, like look at all theopportunities.
It's a microphone, it's a shirtyou're wearing, there's earbuds
, there's books, there's signs,there's HVAC.
Like, all of this is anopportunity to kind of tell a
story and combine those two,those different things, to the
(32:50):
best of your abilities.
And so if you're not goingoutside and looking at things
that you're not familiar with,then how can you find
correlations?
And I'm pretty sure it makesyou the same thing with battle
rap.
Like, if you're not introducingyourself to like a ton of
information, how can you findcross lines?
Where now I can you know, I wasthinking about coming into this
(33:14):
like, like, what's my favoritebattle rap line?
And I think, as of recently Idon't remember how he completely
worded it, but I think hismurder move saying to A-Verd,
this vegan must have made amistake.
And I was like this isbeautiful because he figured out
a series of words that soundlike two things at one time,
(33:37):
that mean literally twodifferent things this vegan that
made a mistake, battling me,and this vegan that made him,
made him a steak and I was likethat's freaking beautiful man.
But if you aren't, if you aren'topening yourself up to as much
as possible, how do you evenfind the opportunity to meld
(33:59):
things together like that?
And so the same thing withbrands.
Every, every audiencerepresents a culture and a
series of variables that isunique to them.
And if you aren't understandingthem, how are you actually
telling a story that resonateswith them?
And if you aren't understandingthem, how are you actually
telling a story that resonateswith them?
(34:20):
Like the story for the oldergrandma from Panama isn't the
same as the young Jewish kidfrom the Bronx that just happens
to be.
You know, mixing in whateverthey're mixed in.
But you can find common threadsand now put them in the same
room and now we're watching thething and we pull something else
.
That's very specific to me.
But now I've also learnedsomething about you.
(34:41):
And if your storytelling isn'tdoing that, then you're actually
isolating yourself and you'rekind of like stuck in one group
and there's no growth.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think that even going back to that
line right, like he was able tocreate a pathway for your mind
to hear one thing and translateit as something else, right, we
call that like a double entendreor potentially a minimal right,
(35:11):
because mistake made him astake right.
The m is also into a stakeright, um, but also, you know,
just kind of finding thesedifferent pathways for brands to
go into a way where it'sprobably unconventional and
something that they probably youhear it or you see it one way,
(35:32):
but in the flip side it can goanother way and we'll be right
back.
What's what's up?
Y'all?
It's Mickey Fax, ceo of PendulumInc.
The first ever online hip-hopacademy.
We're leveling up andintroducing the new Pendulum
with three free celebrityclasses on December 17th, 18th
and 19th.
To kick things off, we gotFlawless, the fire runner-up
(35:54):
from Rhythm and Flow, the OGSauce Money and Disaster, one of
the coldest battle rappers inthe game.
Ready to school?
You Don't sleep.
Head to PendulumInccom rightnow to sign up and explore our
online classes on lyricism,mental health and the culture of
hip-hop.
This ain't just a school, it'sa way of life.
Long live lyricism.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So I want to ask you something else right in terms of
algorithm.
Right, why does the algorithmlimit so much from?
You know, when I think about Idon't know when you know, jeff
and Tom joined Instagram, but Iremember joining Instagram in
2012.
Joined Instagram, but Iremember joining Instagram in
(36:43):
2012.
And I remember having athousand, maybe 2000 followers
and receiving the same amount oflikes and visibility in 2012
that I'm seeing now.
Like, if I have a 2000followers, I was getting three,
four hundred likes and theanalytics were high.
Now, on Instagram, now I haveseventy six thousand followers
(37:04):
and I'm still getting 200 to 400likes and potentially shorter
viewed videos.
Is the algorithm?
Is it is?
Do you have to say specificwording for the algorithm?
Is it that?
Do we have to boost?
Do we have to pay for traction?
Is it a time thing, like how doyou break the algorithm?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So as a two-parter there there's what is the
algorithm and like what is itdoing?
And then how do you break it?
And I think what the algorithmis is like truly like population
control for the sake ofmonetization, Like if we can
make everybody like the reasonwhy it isn't hitting is because
you aren't doing trendy things.
(37:51):
There are, there are, there'salways going to be like a sort
of like a top 10, top 100 thingsthat are like just going viral
left and right because andthey're going viral not because
of one person is doing it,because millions of people are
doing it, and so if it doesn'tfall into that, then it's not
deemed as valuable and so we'renot going to boost it.
(38:13):
And so if you do want to boostyour originality, you got to pay
for it.
You have to pay to be yourself.
You have to pay to be organic.
Isn't organic food always a lotmore costly as well?
There's like this, these, thesevarious correlations between
like being real and the sugarcoating, uh, industrialized
version of things that somehowseems to always be cheaper and
(38:35):
always in front of you.
And so, just like a food deserton the on the food side, we're
on a, an, an, an or and notorganic, but more a unique
desert over on this side.
Every everything looks the same,right, music sounds the same
same flow, same beats, sameeverything.
(38:55):
No-transcript, you know wherethe algorithm doesn't affect you
(39:24):
.
A newsletter, a text thread,using something like SuperPhone
that Ryan Leslie created, likehow do you get the people that
do care over to something thatyou can own and can control and
now get that messaging to themand now?
So instead of I have to pay you, uh, just to be seen, now you
(39:45):
guys are paying me to uh, tojust to follow, like so you can
put like these small numbers onthings and like run it up.
You look at, like you know,ten10 a month isn't a lot of
money.
1,000 people isn't a lot ofpeople, but $10 a month, 1,000
people.
Now you've got 10 grand, 120 ayear.
(40:06):
What can you reinvest that in?
That now grows at 1,000 peopleto 10,000 people.
Now we're talking about 100,000a month, 1.2 a year.
People don't have the time andpatience going back to the
patience on the artist side toplay that compound game.
Same thing would happen withstocks and stuff like that.
Do you have the patience to getone person at a time and run
(40:27):
them over here, a palace is aseries of bricks.
But if you're stacking yourbricks and somebody walks past
and you only got six, you'relike man fucking hand palace.
Bro, watch when I'm done.
It's like they can't see that.
And because they can't see that, you may get, you may like, uh,
(40:50):
you may stop, and now I'm justgonna go through the thing that
they can see.
That's falling into thealgorithm.
Versus if you took the time out, if you just spent that time
being consistent, doing onething consistently, one person,
one person.
Give them that, like you said,you have 76,000 people.
Well, 76,000 people are payingyou $10 a month over on that
(41:13):
flip side, via that newsletter,via that, you know, like the
well Ryan Leslie did withSuperphone is like amazing man,
like he, he's crowdsourcing tothe folks, cause it's not just
like paying him for the musicdirectly through his platform,
but it's also like, hey, man,I'm going to be in X city, I'm
trying to shoot this video.
(41:33):
Anybody got a car dealership.
Just send that text out to thepeople.
This many people come back like, yeah, use my car dealership.
So now he's just cut the coston that music video.
Hey, we need wardrobe.
Now he's just cut the cost onthat video he did the same thing
.
I think I think the first casestudy was um, he was like hey, I
(41:55):
want to do this.
Uh, this new year's eve partyin a castle in vienna.
If I did it, who would come?
This many people said they'dcome and he was like all right,
well, here's the pre-order.
If we do this amount, I'mmaking it happen he hits his
number, he takes that money,rents the castle.
It's like the, the.
The opportunity is there.
(42:15):
If you can just stack thoseadvocates because a true
follower should actually be amarketing and your sales team
Are you incentivizing themaccordingly to be able to do
that for you, and are they alsopaying you at the same time?
And so pull it off thealgorithm, use the algorithm to
the best of your abilities torack those numbers up and then
(42:35):
break that percentage down intothe amount of people that you
can swing over to somethingowned and then grow that,
because then they'll go to runaround and be like hey, if you
really want Mickey facts, yougot to check out his newsletter.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
But I think that's true.
I mean, that's a great pointfor all brands.
So many brands think it'ssocial only, but it's really
social is just one trigger todrive somebody to the ultimate
place which, as you said, isyour own content.
You can do all the trendythings to get them there.
And then here's where I am, whoI am the new stuff, the
original stuff.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, so there's a company and not to cut anybody
off who may have had a question,there's a company that I'm
working with called Tapioca,where you get this card Right.
This is the card right here.
You get this card right, thisis the card right here.
And if you're a musician, youtap this card and your music is
just like Apple Pay.
You tap this card onto yourphone and the music uploads into
(43:25):
your phone immediately that youcan stream it right, and
basically you just kind of pay.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
So I'm paying for that card.
You're paying for the cardright.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Right now they also classic have this.
They have this analytictechnology that can tell you how
much money you should be makingby collecting all of the data
(43:55):
from all of your sites, fromYouTube, facebook, instagram,
da-da-da-da-da-da right.
So I gave them all of my data.
I gave them all of my data andit took them about an hour and
they came back to me and theysaid yearly I should be making
(44:16):
$778,000.
What If I have a?
It's literally saying.
It's literally going with whatClassic is saying If I have a
dedicated, they're not fans.
You have to treat them likeinvestors.
They are investors in yourbrand that are dedicated and I
(44:38):
would have to constantly put outcontent, right, but sell
directly to them.
Do not go to streaming, do notjust stay on social media.
You know, put out merch, do ashow here and then, and these
particular fans will pay apremium price as opposed to the
streaming price that that Iwould get there or a feature
(45:00):
from here.
You know so.
When they calculated it andthey said that number, I was
just like and you know I brungthem also to my students there
was a student who had 3,000followers and they were like
your number is $12,000.
Another guy had 10,000followers.
He were like your number istwelve thousand dollars.
Another guy had ten thousandfollowers.
He's like your number is fortythousand and they, they did all
(45:22):
of the analytics and broke itall.
I want to see what my number is.
Yeah, I mean, it's probablyhigh, bro, it's probably I like
it.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
We've got, we've gotten so used to.
Man.
It's just like governmentintervention, anything else
we're like.
We feel as though like we can'tdo something unless somebody
gives it to us, and that's thebiggest trick of a lot of these
platforms and just anythingaround the world has kind of
played on us, where you can'tmove until I help you move,
(45:52):
whereas though, no, you actuallyhave more than enough.
Like I'm a firm believer in ifyou think you can, you're right.
If you think you can't, you'realso right.
Like whichever you know side,you kind of throw out into the
universe.
That's the energy that's goingto come back, and so it's really
hard for people to kind of beton themselves long term.
That's why I like folks.
(46:14):
You know you invest in thestock, it drops 10%, you pull
the money out, but then it'slike bro, you were there for a
week.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Give it five years, give it ten years.
Yeah, it goes up everybody'smind.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, but just be mad at yourself for not betting and
thinking long term.
So the same thing with thecareers.
I put out a video.
It only got this many views Ah,I'm out.
No man, you gotta keep rockingand you gotta.
You have to continue puttingforth something that makes
people feel as though that, likeI, really rock with this person
(46:50):
because of something tangible.
It's not even just the music.
That's why it's important totell your story and where you
come from, because thatamplifies the music even more.
Your upbringing, what you'regoing through, that amplifies
the music even more.
Now you're starting.
Now people are like man, thisdude is real and it's real not
because of some like streetstuff, but it's real because of
like vulnerability.
(47:10):
People are scared to bevulnerable and and like
honorable and and just createsomething where, yes, somebody
is going to make fun of it.
So what?
That's not your audience.
They weren't going to buyanyway.
Why are we worried about them?
Worry about the people that arelike man, I'm going to do that
same thing, or I know somebodythat's going through that same
thing.
I can relate to that.
(47:31):
I'm actually.
Now I'm going to support.
Now it isn't even just buying.
Now I'm supporting because Iknow my little bit can be the
reason why you keep going andthat actually makes me want to
talk about it more, but thenit's probably going to help me
improve.
Some want to improve somethingin my life as well, and that's
that that, that reciprocation,that like is missing where, like
(47:53):
, everybody thinks everythinghas to be strictly entertainment
.
It doesn't.
Man like you can find thatbalance between, um,
entertainment and education,like they call it, uh,
edutainment.
And so, yeah, that's yournumber.
But you know my joe button rantwhat is the screen?
My most deaf rant.
Or yassine bay like, like who?
(48:14):
Who the hell said this is lessthan a fraction of a fraction of
a penny, like.
How do you break down a pennyLike they're?
And the fact that we can getthese views, we've valued being
seen more than being paid.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yes, that's it right there.
We value being seen more thanbeing paid For the past six
years.
No exaggeration, I will refuse,and I have refused to post my
Spotify numbers.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
That is nobody's business At the end of the year
they post their numbers.
But they really got checks forlike 600 bucks.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yes, I refuse like, and then my whole timeline
spotify spotify spotify spotifyon december 1st.
For what?
Speaker 1 (49:07):
for views only because, because everybody else
did it.
Speaker 4 (49:11):
Yeah, that herd mentality yeah, for cloud
chasing, because most peopledon't understand the formula of
what those views break down tomonetarily.
So it looks good.
It might look good but inreality, like my producers, I've
met some producers and we did arecord for this cat and it hit
like a million streams a couplemonths ago or whatever he said
(49:35):
the thing.
I got a million streams and Iwas like cool, I was happy.
But in reality I was like hey,ain't no bread, it's like 2,000
hours it looks good because Ithink you would still equate the
old with the new.
A million streams means amillion sales.
It's like nah, it means nothing, but again, it looks nice, but
in reality what are you runningthem into?
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Like, well, like, what's your call to action?
What's that other thing Like,whether it's a newsletter or
it's a uh on demand t-shirt,where, like you, you know you
ain't holding them in story andit's just it's.
It's sold for 80.
You pocketed you know howevermuch the distributor pocketed
that like uh, exclusive content.
(50:17):
Like you come over here and payfive dollars and get behind the
scene access to inside thestudio and little things like
that.
Like if people could thinkoutside of just that main thing.
Like that, million streamsdoesn't mean anything on its own
right when it attaches tosomething and you start playing
the 80-20 rule, like 10% carryover.
(50:39):
There's 100,000 people goinginto something, then 100,000
turns into that $10.
Isn't that a million?
I'm not agreeing with math$100,000 is a million.
Yeah, so look at that on 10% ofthat stream number.
Just because you ran them intosomething affordable, that 10%
(51:00):
is not a large number of peoplein the grand scheme.
So even at that 5% to 10%, lookat how much you could have
flipped if you ran them intosomething that you owned on your
end.
That now allows you to slowlybut surely kind of buy that
freedom back and start doingthings a lot more independently
where you can see even moremoney.
So now a thousand streams turnsinto like even more things,
(51:24):
because now you have the bigbrand side.
If you're consistent, again amillion streams.
I want to give you a check justto do something with us.
But that don't stop the othercheck that you're getting over
here, that you own 100% of.
It has to be the balance of thetwo, otherwise you're
constantly at the mercy of whatsomebody else says you're worth.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
But in essence, this has been the evolution of social
media.
Right, because social media wasall about views.
It was all about people feelinggood, putting everything they
had.
And I think, as a society nowwe're getting smarter, because
now content people are realizingwhat they're doing is of worth.
Right, whereas before theplatforms were grabbing
(52:07):
everything.
Right, it was the Facebook, theInstagram, the TikTok, whatever
they were making all the money.
And it brings you back to likewhat's the basic facts of
advertising?
Right, it's consistency andaction, and we have to be
consistent.
Whether you're a musician, acontent creator, a podcast or a
brand, you can't stop.
You got to be consistentlyputting out content, but when
(52:29):
you're doing so, you got to havea reason for it, you got to
have an action for it.
You got to have a way to getsomebody from point A to point B
, which is where I think peopleare starting to rethink how
social media is used, rethinkhow video is used, rethink how
content is produced, and I thinkthat's the future, that's the
next wave of where we're heading.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
That's a lot of what I was thinking about.
Going into a lot of thesecompanies as I learned more and
more about the importance ofbottom line and like this is our
overhead and we only have thismuch to spend on this, but we
need to make X, y and Z andthese are our quarterly goals.
It's like, well, how do I takethat and rope it into the story?
Because that's an action that Ineed the folks to take.
(53:09):
So I can still talk about thebrand, but I need to talk about
it in a way where it activatesvarious consumers on various
levels.
If we're talking about a recordshop, look how many different
conversations you can have.
You can talk about running arecord shop, you can talk about
the history of music, you cantalk about the making of vinyl.
All these different thingsactually speak to a whole
different audience but also havelike a whole nother action on
(53:30):
the flip side the idea of goingto buy the vinyl.
Maybe I wanted to start my ownrecord shop, maybe I want to
invest in your record shop,maybe I have an artist and I
want to put them in your recordshop, and so if you're not
taking the time out tounderstand the different layers
of what it is that you're tryingto push, then, yeah, you are
going to be limited to that onestream, but these are all
opportunities to kind of likestack it up Like this the goal
(53:54):
is to make your millions, thegoal is to make your billions,
but but that's not supposed tobe one stream, it's supposed to
be a series of them and as anartist, you have the ability to
manufacture value in any ofthose spaces.
Like you can just come up withan idea right now, shoot it and
somebody will pay you for it.
(54:15):
Like that's.
Like I don't think peoplereally sit and think about.
Like how crazy that is.
We can come up with an idearight now, go shoot it.
Somebody.
Probably at some point, if wetap into the right number, we
could probably make a millionbucks on it.
Like that's, that'sunfathomable.
The currency flip on that, justby attaching it to the right
(54:41):
variables and it hitting theright time, right trend, right
this, that and the third and thenext thing.
You know you're out of hereLike Hawk to a girl.
What does she have to talkabout?
That one concept went like thisNow she got a podcast, she got
this, she got that.
I think if we take that forgranted, we can be a lot more
(55:03):
intentional about it and youactually create a lot more
purposeful opportunities thatwork their way towards you.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
So, as we talk about the evolution of social, the
evolution of advertising, howdoes AI play a role in this?
Because that, to me, is thecurrent wave that's happening
now, and I still think we're noteven close to tapping into what
the real value is, in the sameway that people really didn't
understand social at first.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Yeah, I think with AI .
I think AI is a beautiful thingif you view it as such.
I look at AI the the recession.
There's like one group ofpeople that are scared of
recessions and then there'sanother group of people that are
like I'm waiting for arecession, I'm about to be up
every, I'm buying everything low, and so ai is sort of like that
same thing, where on one side,it's like, oh man, it's gonna
(55:52):
take my job, it's like.
Or you can view it as it'sgonna make you super at your job
.
Like for every job loss.
You can create it as it's goingto make you super at your job.
Like for every job loss, youcan create one with AI.
Ai is going to be the reason whywe have a billion dollar
company with less than 10employees.
Yep, yep, because all you needis an idea, uh, uh, an
(56:14):
understanding of what it is thatyou're selling, uh, an
understanding of your audience,and you just let the agents run
you.
You and your a hundred personteam wasn be able to talk to
that many people.
Anyway, I came across a videowhere they were talking about
Salesforce was talking about.
I can't remember whichlarge-scale fashion house was
(56:35):
utilizing them in their callcenter, but it turned their
customer success team into asales team because generative AI
was on the call, like listeningto them as they were
troubleshooting issues and thenable to tell them like hey,
pitch them this, they mightactually need this.
So people are coming in with aproblem and leaving purchasing
(56:56):
something because of the powerof this tool listening on the
conversation and offering whatyou need.
And so I feel like if youaren't utilizing ai, you are
actually pricing yourself out.
You.
Ai is the reason why, yo I, Iget so many scripts done in a
week just because I'm like, hey,this is the brand, this, I give
(57:21):
it a full profile.
I need, I need something.
I need you to explain it to me,cause I may not 100% get it.
I need you to explain it to me.
I need you to tell me theaudience is for, and I need you
to do it in a layman's way sothat anybody can understand it.
And I take that information andI'll all, right now, give me
the key selling points.
Then I take that informationand I write a script and I'm
(57:42):
just literally like this isinformation.
Speaker 4 (57:44):
Do you let chat GBT write the script?
Speaker 2 (57:50):
I write the script, I just let it give me bullet
points, because it doesn't knowhow to be like uber creative.
It knows how to beorganizational.
So like, whether you're usingchat, gbt, perplexity, claude,
it doesn't even matter, let itset you up.
So it was like all right,that's the selling point.
How do I say the selling pointin an interesting way?
Let me add a joke.
Selling point interesting way?
Let me add a joke.
And it's literally like that.
And next thing, you know, I'mlike breezing through.
(58:12):
And then on the editing side,it's like I can take the audio,
throw it into Adobe Enhancer.
Two minutes later she saysChris, like there's a ton of
things where it's like, yeah, onone side it's like all right,
now I don't have to pay somebodyfor that.
But that person that feels likethat they lost their job how
about you use that to enhanceyour job?
The engineer that I probablywould have sent this money to
(58:34):
initially, how about you usethis tool?
And now you've gone from mixingdown two artists this week to
10, 20, 30 artists this week,and now you can actually lower
your prices and play the volumegame because of how much is
running in.
(58:56):
There's so many different waysto look at it.
I just I view it as anamplification of whatever your
dreams are.
You just have to find the righttools, figure out the right way
to position it for yourself andgo out there and earn some
money, because there's a billionpeople in the world, so it is.
And, like we just said thatnumber, you only need a hundred
thousand to start Like.
So why not incorporate a toolthat can get you to that quicker
?
So now, if you can make thatmillion dollars quicker, what
can you invest in next?
(59:16):
And do the same thing, and dothe same thing, and do the same
thing.
I think, instead of it likemaking everything
disproportionate, I think it isone of those main things that
actually give us a fightingchance.
Like there's no reason tocomplain anymore about such and
such, won't give me anopportunity, I can't afford this
, that and the third to make ithappen, no, like there's nothing
you shouldn't be able to know,there's nothing you shouldn't be
(59:37):
able to do, and at this point,if you ain't got it, it's
because you don't want it.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
That's a great point.
I look at it as an accelerator.
It's the same way you said thatit gets us rolling and at a
faster volume.
All right, we're running alittle bit out of time, but I
want to mention this.
There's a rumor out there thatyou and I might be teaming up on
a podcast.
What that's the rumor, I'm notgoing to confirm it or deny it.
Did you start?
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
this rumor.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I didn't start this rumor.
This is a widespread rumor,mickey Fax and I think this
podcast has everything to dowith what we've been just
talking about.
It's understanding brands andit's using the right tools to
come back and tell a great storyabout a brand, and I'm very
excited about this class.
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Yeah, I'm excited about it too, especially with
the folks that we're going to beworking with.
I've always enjoyed helpingpeople try to figure it out in
the beginning.
Everybody wants to run to thewells because, of course, you
operate with them and that's thereason why you'll blow up,
because they're big and you'restanding next to them.
But I feel like there's even aneven bigger return if you can
(01:00:45):
help somebody become that, andso the the difference maker for
that is storytelling.
Like, if you can't outspendsomebody, you just gotta out
storytelling.
You gotta out weird them, yougotta out, you know, communicate
them.
You gotta out uh friendly them,like something where it just
allows you to uh catch anorganic wildfire, and so I I
(01:01:06):
feel like our little tool.
Uh, that's what I'm calling thepodcast.
It isn't just like anentertainment it's not a regular
thing, yeah yeah, our littletool will hopefully be the
reason why other folks feel asthough they can tell their story
and and do it confidently, sothat way they can get even more
folks to buy in.
Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
I like it Coming very soon.
Folks Coming very soon that'scrazy, Are you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
ready, mickey, I'm always ready.
Man, Y'all need a theme song.
What's up, man?
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
We do need a theme song, and, don't know it, maybe
that too, but don't think I'mnot coming to you first.
That works, let's do it Allright, fellas.
This has been very interesting.
Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
Very very.
Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
It's a classic.
Before we let you go, tell thepeople everywhere where they can
find you.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Yeah, everywhere IG, twitter there's Classic LLC, cl,
ssc LLC.
Linkedin.
William Classic Thomas LLC.
Linkedin William Classic Thomas.
And then I have a website rightnow tioutsiderbeehivecom is the
newsletter that I do, whereright now I'm housing all of my
(01:02:10):
content and like droppinginsights around.
You know, like the process ofwhat I created.
Eventually it's going to rollover into a new site that's not
on Beehive but, as of right now,that's where you can check me
out.
Thank you, classic, thank y'all.
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Eventually it's going to roll over into a new site
that's not on Beehive, but, asof right now, that's where you
can check me out at.
Thank you Classic.
Thank y'all.
All right, folks, that's ourshow.
Tune in to Unglossy, the codingbrand and culture, on Apple
Podcasts, spotify or YouTube,and follow us on Instagram at
unglossypod to join theconversation.
Until next time.
Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
I'm Tom Frank.
I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Smicky, that was good .
This week on Unglossy .
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Like.
Who the hell said this is lessthan a fraction of a fraction of
a penny Like.
How do you break down a pennyLike?
And the fact that we can getthese views?
We've valued being seen morethan being paid.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Yes, that's it right there.
We value being seen more thanbeing paid For the past six
years.
No exaggeration, I will refuseand I have refused to post my
Spotify numbers.
That is nobody's business.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
At the end of the year everybody posts their
numbers.
But they really got checks forlike 600 bucks.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yes, From the top.
Yeah, I'm Tom Frank.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm Mickey Fax.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
And I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Welcome to Unglossy decoding brand and culture.
I'm Tom Frank, partner andchief creative officer at Merit
Creative.
This is Mickey Fax, hip hopartist and founder and CEO of
Pendulum Inc.
And that is.
Jeffrey Sledge, a seasonedmusic industry veteran who has
worked with some of the biggestartists in the business.
We're here to explore themoments of vulnerability,
pivotal decisions and creativesparks that fuel the
(01:14):
relationship between brand andculture.
Get ready for athought-provoking journey into
the heart and soul of brandingthe unscripted, unfiltered and
truly unglossy truth.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yo, yo, listen, I got us, I got us.
That's mad weird.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Something's weird.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
These are called baby bananas.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
All right for people who are listening to this right
now.
Did it cost mad money?
Mickey's holding the smallestthree bananas I've ever seen.
Are these bananas that are soldas small bananas, or did you
just happen to pick out thesmallest three bananas you could
find?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
These are sold as small bananas.
It is a supermarket in Atlanta.
It's like an Asian marketcalled like Dae Nam Nu.
You ever see that, Jeff?
It's like a Korean market andthey sell mini bananas.
This is called Banana Babies.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
It tastes just like a banana, I mean if nothing else,
for this episode, you're goingto learn about baby bananas.
I got us started a little latebecause I sold a couch on
Facebook Marketplace.
It was a crazy story.
Got us a little bit off track Alittle bit.
The deal went through, though.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Couches are gone a little bit off track A little
bit.
The deal went through, though.
Couches are gone, so talk to usabout you selling your couch
really quickly for the peopleand what you do to prepare for
selling to people online.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Now, it's not like I do this all the time, but let's
be honest.
We're all selling things onlineand if it's a physical thing,
that means there has to be aninteraction.
I don't know these people.
They don't know me, so you gotto kind of protect yourself.
So I have come up with the ideathat if I'm not selling it at a
third-party destination andthey're coming to my house, I
(02:56):
like to hide weapons all aroundthe yard just in case something
goes south.
I've never had to use onebefore, but I'm prepared and I'm
ready to go.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
My guy is Matami Culkin.
He's home alone.
B Word home alone, home alone.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I like to think of myself maybe as more of a Van
Damme or something like that no,no, no, no no.
Like a blood sport.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
No thanks, You're Kevin McAllister.
It ain't that All right.
So let's talk about our guestthat we had today.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
We had a great guest William Classic Thomas Thomas.
I want to say Johnson.
Wow, not Johnson.
Thomas Thomas Thomas.
He's related to this guy, norelation.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
This time We've had some guests that are related to
me, but not this one so you know, for me, I wanted to talk about
the algorithm, and I think hehad not only an incredible
analogy, but he broke it down sowell for all of us to hear
about it, um, and I think, justfrom that perspective, I got a
lot out of it.
What about you guys?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
yeah, the same.
Yeah, he has some issuesperspectives on the algorithm
and being an entrepreneur inthis day and age and being able
to find your own way and notrelying on big companies to, you
know, give you something of akind of earning your way and
having those big companiespartner with you to do things,
(04:19):
as opposed to kind of likegiving you things.
It was dope.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
For me it was like a full circle moment, right,
because we've talked so muchhere about content and doing
things a little different andthe idea that you have to
deliver things consistently andwith an action to people, and to
me that's everything that wetalked about and summarized well
, and I'm very excited to get tocontinue to know Classic,
(04:45):
continue to get to work with him, because we've got something
special coming up very soon.
Oh man, sounds good.
Ooh, it's going to be good.
With that, let's dive into ourconversation with William
Classic Thomas.
Unglossy is brought to you byMerrick Creative, looking to
skyrocket your business'svisibility and drive growth.
At Merrick Creative, we solveyour brand and marketing woes
(05:07):
With big ideas, decades ofexperience and innovative
solutions.
We'll draw in your targetaudience and keep them hooked.
Remember, creativity is key tosuccess.
Partner with Merit Creative andunlock your brand's potential.
Learn more at meritcreativecom.
And now back to the show.
All right, fellas, on thisweek's episode of Unglossy
(05:28):
Podcast, we're thrilled towelcome William Classic Thomas.
We're going to get to thebottom of the classic between
the William and the Thomas.
He's an innovative contentcreator, storyteller and brand
strategist with a knack forturning ideas into memorable
experiences.
Classic has collaborated withmajor brands like WeFunder we
shout out to our friend Johnny,who was on the show recently and
(05:50):
Factory Lab produced viralcampaigns for rising artists in
the music industry and helpedstart up craft compelling
narratives that resonate withour audience.
From his work shaping culturethrough campaigns for community
focused initiatives, to hisability to create buzzworthy
moments for globally recognizednames, classic brings a very
(06:11):
unique perspective to the table.
Let's dive into his creativeprocess, some of his memorable
projects and the future for thefor his future for the uh
branding, because I think it'skind of interesting.
Hello classic.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Classic how goes it?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, yeah, all right .
So we need to start right there, because I have been meaning to
ask you this question when doeswhat's the backstory behind
Classic?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
All right.
So initially I did music and I,but just in general I was very
shy and so I always had theseideas no-transcript.
(07:11):
It'd be like, well, what wouldclassic do and create that story
and then just go perform that?
It's like just leave it all outthere.
So after a while I didn't haveto ask that anymore and it just
became like embodying thisconcept of classic.
And so now it's funny.
For a while it was classicreinvention.
It was like the idea of takingold things and modernizing them.
(07:32):
A lot of my ideas come fromjust things I love from the 90s,
2000s, and kind of rope it intotoday's day and age, like how
we were talking about earlier.
There's a lot of stuff that waslike really early and so you
can still replay it, and outearlier there's a lot of stuff
that was like really early andso you can still replay it, and
it's new to the current audiencebut familiar to the older
(07:53):
audience, and so that's how youend up getting more of the
market share, um, and so that'swhere classic came from.
That's where I've been stickingwith it for a while.
I love going into corporatesettings and they're like what's
your name and it's like classic, it just makes the whole room
feel uncomfortable.
But it's perfect, because nowit's like well, let's open this
up.
Everything doesn't need to beso stodgy, stuffy, uh, how do we
get to the people anyway?
We're just constantly thinkinginside of the box, and so for me
(08:15):
that's like the ultimateicebreaker now used to be
icebreaker for me.
That was an icebreaker foreveryone else there you go.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Well, you're on with two music guys.
We got to hear a little bitabout your journey in music
before we go any further.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Oh man, Pink for me was like a festival in Canada.
It was like one of those thingswith like the crazy lineups I
was like but like small name,you got the big names and the
small names at the bottom.
It's one of those I was workingwith.
I think the only real likeclaim to fame was Pop Wanzel.
(08:48):
He did Usual and it wasactually cool like sitting in
the studio listening toreferences for like Nicki Minaj
songs and things like that.
But music started to feel alittle too limited for me and I
got into film because it feltmore three dimensional, Like I
(09:10):
can still do the music and kindof use it as a means for shaping
these narrative and thesevisuals, which would then help
people appreciate the music evenmore.
So that was always my thing.
Like eventually I am going tomake my way back into music.
That was always my thing.
Like eventually I am going tomake my way back into music, but
from like a directorial, uhbrand strategy perspective, like
understanding the story behindthe music, understanding the
(09:31):
story behind you.
Now, how do we create that in away where people can enjoy it
and we're kind of putting themedicine in the applesauce by
time they get to the end of it.
They feel like they know youbetter, they feel like they
understand where you're tryingto take this better, and so now
you can easily weed out who issupposed to be there versus who
isn't supposed to be there,because I'm resonating on such a
level that now I'm just yourpeople, Uh, cause I feel like
(09:53):
whenever we put anything outlike our audience is an
extension of us and but youwon't really properly find them
until you can tell that storycorrectly.
And so that was the musicjourney that led into the film
side of things, and now we'rekind of back to music, even with
the most recent project withVanellie Chopper.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
So how did you link up with Chopper?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Through Factory Lab.
So Factory Lab again.
I'm constantly finding thesecorrelations between art, tech,
culture.
And so there was a venture firmcalled Slauson Co.
They're on the West Coast.
They invested in Factory Laband I happened to be talking to
one of the folks there and I waslike hey, yeah.
(10:37):
I was like hey, what you guysgot going on, I would love to
talk about something.
And they were like, hey,factory Lab just dropped these
duck boots with NLE Choppa.
Cool thing Factory Lab justdropped these duck boots with
NLE chopper.
Cool thing about Factory Lab isit's ran by Omar Bailey.
Omar Bailey was the head of theYeezy Innovation Lab.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yes.
So he built that foam runnerand so, doing that for years,
got that division to a billiondollars.
He had a lot of people in hisear that were like, hey, man,
you should probably start yourown shop.
And so that's what Factory labis.
It's mini manufacturing and 3dprototyping, and so it allows
them to actually take on anybodyand get them to market a lot
(11:17):
quicker than a larger situation,because we can do it within
these small batches, and sothey've done it.
For jayalen ramsey, the cleatthat he's playing in is a
factory lab shoe, uh, and elliechopper was the first sort of
more mainstream musical take onthings, I would say.
And so I just started talkingabout the duck boots and then
(11:41):
they reached out and sent meduck boots and then I shot a
commercial for the duck bootsand then they were like, hey,
we're going to ComplexCon, doyou want to go?
And which means I ended uphaving to do the whole campaign
for the duck boots and NLE Chopand them.
So it turned into like a reallycool cross collaboration where
it helped amplify Factory Labeven more, because now they had
(12:02):
this visual that really spoke towhat they were doing and mixing
in LA, which gave him reasonsto push it even more as well.
I think one of those videosended up hitting like 440,000
views.
This is big for me.
I usually don't get like a lotof looks, but it speaks to the
hacking of things and, like I'ma real big fan of saying great
things about people in a highquality way that kind of makes
(12:26):
them obligated to want to shareit.
It's like damn, I got to showthis to folks.
Like he said some really coolthings about me I probably
couldn't even say about myself,and this might be like the first
one that like went, went and sonow we're having conversations
about like well, what does itmean to kind of do this a little
bit more?
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Like how do we apply this to Jalen ramsey?
How do we, you know, apply thisto other folks that we have
coming down the pipeline?
You got some other artists andstuff that you that you uh that
they're designing uh shoes forum, I'm not sure who else is
like, because this was my myfirst run with them.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I know DDG was there and DDG was working with NLE and
he was like that wholeconversation was like you know,
how do we do this for us now andI think that's the cool factor
of it, where we don't have todeal with bureaucracy I can talk
to you right now.
This is what I was thinkingabout shoot-wise.
Do you want to do this?
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
We just figure out the business and get it to
market in like three to sixmonths.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
That's like unheard of, when you think about like a
large, it turns that quick.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, like there's just like,like they can move as fast as
they want because they're goingto sit down.
The folks are designing you 3dprint it.
How do we feel about it?
Let's press up a thousand, likethe timelines are a lot quicker
.
And so when you're dealing withan adidas or something, I think
omar was saying like you'retalking about like 18 months,
(13:52):
yeah, maybe more, yeah, six,because a lot of people want to
make sure that, like everybodyknows that I did it and yada,
yada versus like no, let's getstraight to it.
Let's go straight to theaudience.
Let's let's let the audience bethe a b test, versus us trying
to decide what's going to workon the inside because you don't
really know.
You can't plan for somethingyou never experienced.
You got to throw it out therelike like apple, like that whole
(14:14):
concept of you know how do youknow people want?
a home computer.
Well, how do you know?
They don't.
They never had it before, andso it creates those
opportunities.
Without the every accuracy tolike.
Just go straight to testing,seeing what works, refining
until you finally get somethingthat the people really want,
because they've literally beendictating it to you.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
So, mickey, if you need a shoe brand, the Mickey
Facts shoe, I'm already thinkingabout it right now.
Facts shoot, I'm alreadythinking about it right now.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
We tried with Supra back in 2008, 2009,.
And they glossed us over andwent over to Wayne and then,
once they went to Wayne, it kindof tanked, of course.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
I mean, I know we're getting kind of off track, but
my theory is always like whenyou try to launch something with
big artists, you catch an Lbecause the artist is doing it
for the check.
They're not into it.
They'll just maybe do a coupleof photo shoots and then bounce
off.
What you do with somebody who'sinto it, like even Chopper
(15:19):
Chopper's still, he's known,he's definitely known, but he's
growing, he's still got a lot ofways to grow to be a big artist
.
So he's not like that would beinto it, or even DDG it would be
into it now because they, youknow they can, they can grow
with it, as opposed to like justanother check on the pile of
the other 20 checks.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yep, yep, that's true , it's a classic.
Tell us a little bit about howyou got started in content
creation, right?
I mean, I understand the musicside, I understand the switch to
film, but now what you're doinga lot of, and I'm very
interested in from a brandperspective and even from a
music perspective, is how didyou really first start doing
this, like, what were some ofyour first milestones that you
(15:57):
conquered?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, I had when we were doing the music stuff.
I had this one homie that wouldalways hear me complain about
movies and and he presented mewith like the biggest dub moment
in my life where he was like,why don't you just make them?
And I was like, yeah, I guess,I guess why not?
And so we brought a camera andit was just started focusing on
(16:20):
trying to create what we liked.
Same same way with music, whereyou watch a film, and it was
like, all right, how do we getthat shot?
How do we get this, that andthe third, and so that turned
into.
Well, now we got to pay for it.
We got to, you know, like yougot to pay for your hobby, and
if you 100% nine to five, it'skind of really hard to
(16:41):
transition and find that spacefor creativity.
And so we just started sellingcommercials.
So like local businesses, likehey, man, I'll come through,
we'll do like a short film,we'll do a web series or
something along those lines.
And then so I'm from philly, soto me I like to study
advertisement and I feel likerocky is the greatest long form
(17:03):
advertisement of all time.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I would agree.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I feel like, for since the 70s it has driven more
than a billion dollars inPhiladelphia through hospitality
, travel, tourism, all thosedifferent things, because people
come here just to run up thesteps, take pictures in front of
the staff.
We got an actual Joe Frazier'sgym is a furniture store, like
we don't even care about thereal hero.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
This guy didn't even this guy didn't even exist and
he has a massive trophy that Ihave been to numerous times to
take my picture in front of.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Rocky one.
He don't even want to fightLike it's a, this is a, but what
it?
What it showed was it sold theidea of Philly grit, philly
toughness, and so people wantedto experience that.
And so my takeaway was yo, ifyou can create a character that
people can learn to love, thenby default you'll learn to love
(17:56):
the things that they're into.
And so those are the brandingopportunities.
And so we really focused onbecause I did a lot of theater
work and like sketch and allthose different things, and so I
was I would be the only personinside the theater.
That was actually like ropingin some fake brand just to see
how people reacted to it.
And so we got our first solidopportunity with a vintage store
(18:19):
in Philly where I was like, hey, tell me every week what you
want people to focus on.
And I'm going to shoot anepisode where I play the store
owner and my homie is like thatone customer that never leaves,
and the funniness of it is ustrying to figure out how to sell
the item, but all we're doingis putting the item in your face
for like three to five minutesthrough all these different
(18:41):
scenarios, and it was likeinspired by Atlanta.
So if you think about like thatslow sort of pace Atlanta feel,
with the quirky jokes andwhatnot, and then I watch,
people start to come to thestore because of the show.
And then somebody came in witha screenshot of an episode and
was like yo, do you have thissweater in the back?
(19:03):
And I was like that'sinteresting.
Like he saw something else inthe shot screenshot of the show,
roll all the way to the storeand then wanted to see if we had
it.
I was like yo, I think we gotsomething here.
And then next thing, you know,like people started they wanted
to be in the show because thestore was a part of a apartment
complex.
So, like people that lived inthe complex, they would cameo
(19:25):
somebody, let us shoot in theirapartment.
It was like because he lookedlike Action Bronson.
So we was like yo, we're goingto do a whole episode, we're
going to score with nothing butAction Bronson music just
because you look like him.
He was like I'm with it.
And it just kept growing andgrowing to the point where I was
like yo, people are coming tothis part of the city that they
normally wouldn't because ofthis silly show.
(19:46):
So let's see how big.
We can go with concepts likethis.
And so I ended up joining an adagency in Austin for a bit
during the pandemic, and thatdidn't work out.
But then the big next milestonewas a friend of mine started a
tech company called ChargerHealth.
She got like one hundredthousand in seed money and so I
(20:09):
don't know anything about any ofthis stuff.
And she's like, hey, can you?
I've always liked your work Canyou do our curriculum?
Because on one side, we feellike it'll make the techs want
to pay attention more, but onthe flip side, we think more
people will want to be a part ofthis conversation, because now
they feel like it's actually forthem versus like oh no offense
(20:30):
old white guys talking aboutthings in like a really boring
way, and so it only feels likeit's for a certain group of
people.
And that was sort of like mylight bulb moment of well, how
many things can I do this for?
And then you start to learn that, like man, there's a lot of
money flowing in tech.
Not only that, there's a lot ofpeople getting this money that
don't know how to talk aboutwhat they do on a on a like a
(20:53):
mainstream, like digestible, uhand entertaining level, and so
this ends up becoming like abeachhead for me.
Slowly but surely, somebodycomes around for we funder.
They're like hey, I'm not, Idon't want to tell you what to
do, but you should probably talkabout we funder.
And so I talked about them and,maybe like four videos in,
(21:13):
somebody gave one to the vicepresident and he dropped it into
the company slack and the ceowas like we should hire that guy
.
And then, like two weeks later,I was at the company first six
figure, first time gettingequity in a company, and I'm
like all right, art to equityman.
Like ideas are currency.
You just have to apply yourcreativity to something tangible
(21:36):
so you can properly understandthe return on investment.
And if you can explain that ROI, it makes sense for somebody
else to be like all right,here's a check.
And so since then it makessense for somebody else to be
like all right, here's a check.
And so since then it's justbeen how many times can we
create opportunities like this?
So, even with the factory labmaking that happen, spending 400
bucks on a commercial turnsinto hey, we're going to pay you
(21:56):
for two days.
Hey, we're going to cover yourtrip, we're going to cover your
flight, we're going to cover thehotel.
Hey, we're going to give youmoney to shoot more content.
And now we're havingconversations about like well,
what does it mean to kind of dothis whole time for you?
That's at this point I feellike I have a really good handle
on targeting something that haslike really good bones that I
(22:18):
can amplify and then have thatflip into like a, you know, like
a thousand X.
I think that I did the math onfactory lab.
It might be like an 800 Xreturn If you think about
everything that we've pulled insince then to shoot that $400
video and the one before thatfor free.
So that's like the goal rightnow.
How high can we go?
(22:38):
Can I get a Zuckerberg one day?
Why not?
Like it's just a matter of issix degrees of separation.
You talk about the right personthat knows the right person that
knows him.
It works its way over.
That's the game right now.
That's why I'm even interestedwith Factory Lab, because Omar
is so connected, working withYeezy, making Adidas a billion
(23:00):
dollars, being inside a complextown and him just pointing at
folks like that's the presidentof complex.
Yeah, those are, those are headCEOs over at Adidas.
Yo, that's such and such,that's such and such.
They all know him, but hedoesn't have a vehicle that can
talk about them in a way whereit almost Trojan horse makes
them have to, like, throw thatto their audience Now, which
(23:21):
then amplifies this even more.
And so that's what I'mconstantly working on and seeing
like, how, who can I get next?
That gets us the next thing.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
So you consider yourself an advertising agency?
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I would say that A combination of advertising and
journalism.
Wow, advertising and journalism.
So my question to you is howdifficult is it for you to take
an artist and get them into aspace that he needs to be or she
right, she needs to be uh, tokind of have a foundation for
them to kind of live off oftheir art?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I think.
I think you have to be okaywith compromise.
So it's a little bit difficultat times, not saying you have to
lose all integrity, but youhave to find the balance between
what it is that you want andwhat it is that the people that
have the money want, and there'salways going to be lack of
common ground, but there'salways going to be some common
(24:18):
ground and you don't have to doit with everybody.
You just have to have thepatience to find those people
that understand you enough thatwill allow you to do your thing
enough, and it doesn't hurt youor hurt them, hurt their bottom
line, and so I think,unfortunately, a lot of folks
(24:38):
catch a little plow and thenthey turn that into a privilege
and that privilege then turnsinto an ego and then that ego
actually stops their blessings.
I don't think it's hard foranybody, because everybody has
an audience and larger companiesare constantly looking for
people that have audiences, likeif you already done the work,
(25:00):
we don't mind investing in you.
It's like a larger companybuying a smaller company.
Why will we build a wholedivision to do that when you're
already doing it at a high scale?
We'll just give you the moneyand say, put our name on it too.
Same thing with artistry.
And if you're not taking thattime out to become to be brand
friendly, like I found out thatlike the NLE situation was great
(25:24):
for him because a lot of peoplelooked at his situation and was
like I don't know, do we wantto associate with that?
You're judging him because ofthe music and because of the
audience and what they look like, and so on and so forth, and so
you don't know if that's a goodbet or not.
But then here comes Factory Lablike yo, we'll do it with you.
That created a pilot thatshowed that he was like super
(25:45):
brandable and now it's turninginto even more opportunities.
So I would say on the artistside, it's like properly
understanding your story andbeing okay with finding common
ground, that comfortable medium,because there's tons of
opportunities out there, anddon't stay local.
Like like, go outside, bro,like the real opportunity might
(26:07):
be on the other side of theworld.
Be okay with beinguncomfortable, because on the
other side you're onlyuncomfortable because you don't
know what's over there and it'sturning into a fear and that
fear is creating a paralysis.
But everything you want is onthe other side of fear and the
moment you like, take that leap.
Okay, we're finding commonground.
(26:30):
It's it's kind of off to theraces, because I'm an artist man
.
I was like the most stuck-upartist you could find like, no,
I'm not doing that, it's notcool.
No, I'm not doing that because,yada yada, I was broke for a
really long time because of that.
But once I was able to findthat way where I can be myself
and give you what you need,things got a hell of a lot
(26:52):
easier.
You started to become like verybrand safe.
More importantly, you become avalue add, because if you can
help somebody make money andsave money, you'll always have a
job, Wouldn't you?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
say, the best ever.
Example of what you just saidis Snoop Dogg.
Oh yeah, I mean talk about aguy who has, I would say,
probably, initially, probablymade some compromises.
Has, I would say, probably,initially, probably made some
compromises, but that has paidoff beyond belief.
I mean, he is everywhere todayand he is, I mean it's kind of a
(27:25):
remarkable to me to think aboutthis guy like how he is world
renowned right now, but if weremember where he came from, the
same people that love him todaywould have never listened to
him 20 years ago.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Some and if some people could argue that between
he, he could be one of the mostfamous artists like I, I feel
like I'll put him like neck andneck with like a kanye as far as
like globally renowned mostfamous hip-hop artists, just
because of integration and and.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Not because of music, but because of everything he's
done beyond music, including theOlympics.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I think they said he got like a half a mil a day or
something like that for theOlympics.
We just want your feed, don'tdo nothing else, just turn the
camera on and stay us.
That's crazy, but it's becausehe's created something that
people want to be a part of.
And now and now he's reachedthe point, he probably wasn't
(28:25):
really compromised.
Because you want to get intothe door, you do a couple of
things, a couple of favors thatyou may not be that crazy about,
but it don't hurt you Peopleremember those things.
And then later on down the lineyou have such a brand cache
that now you get to dictate theterms, you get to build your own
world and teach people how tolive in it.
Like that's what Snoop is doingright now more than anybody I
(28:48):
can think of, and he's havingfun doing it.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He just sold like a smokeless grill or something
like that, but to me it allcomes back to putting him next
to the person that he neverwould have been next to Martha
Stewart.
The two of them made no sensewhatsoever together, except for
everything that Martha Stewartwent through and having to
(29:14):
happen to just be sitting nextto him at the Justin Bieber
roast.
It was a Justin Bieber wrote.
The two of them happened to sitnext to each other and the
relationship began, it took themto a whole new stratosphere.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's an uncomfortable position to be in
for somebody normally, but it'san important position to be in
because I have this term, thebeautiful unknown right.
Like I know, I have a minimum.
I know what I'm not going to do.
I know as far as like valuewise, but as far as like the
most I'll accept, I don't know.
And so I don't put a price onit because I want to be
(29:49):
surprised.
I just want to position myselffor that blessing and make sure
that I can take full advantageof it when it comes, because you
never know what's going topresent itself.
So by him walking into thatsituation, he just walked in
with the utmost faith that thisis going to be good.
Did he know how good?
Probably not he.
Probably.
There's no way in the world hecould imagine that everything he
has now was going to come fromthat relationship, and so he was
(30:12):
just open to whatever it wasthat was going to come and walk
into it, and that's the kind offaith that you need as an artist
when walking into theseopportunities.
You don't have to understandwhat this means.
Factory Lab.
I was super excited about thatbecause I can't guess the order
of effects on it.
I don't know how far it goes,and that to me is extremely
(30:36):
exciting because it can go tothe moon.
But even if it don't, it can goto the stars close enough, like
there's there's still like a aton of upside on that, and so
you have to think like aninvestor in that, in that sense,
and like you know, if I do this, what's the cause and effect?
And then what's the series ofcause and effects that happen on
the, on the on the backside ofthat, and if everything kind of
(30:58):
skews positive and there's likejust consistent gain, go for it.
But people won't allowthemselves to see past the
current moment and like what theperception is of this moment,
and so I'm not going to do it,because people might look at me
a certain way and then they killthis and the third off and it's
like, well, you, you're cuttingyourself at the knees, you're
(31:20):
stopping the train before iteven starts.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And this was the reason that we met a couple of
weeks ago or maybe a month ago,I don't know what it was now
that I was immediately attractedto what you were saying,
Because even the podcast we dotoday, right Unglossy is about
brand and culture.
It doesn't make any sense theway it was launched, in that it
was originally launched as partof Merit Creative.
(31:46):
Merit Creative should notnormally have a rapper, a music
guy and a brand guy doing apodcast for a company that
traditionally did real estate.
But it's my belief and Ibelieve your belief too, but I'd
love to hear more about it isthat brands got to think
differently.
It almost is full circle for us.
It brings us back to ourconversation we had with Mags
Miller a while ago in that thefuture of brand to me is.
(32:11):
It's about storytelling and it'sabout entertainment, and it's
about not overly sellingsomething but selling the
benefits of it, selling thevalue of it and selling the
lifestyle of it, and I thinkthat's ultimately what you're
trying to portray in the workthat you're doing.
That it's not about just here'sa shoe, buy this shoe.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's about creating a lifestyle.
Like if you were to take asnapshot of the room you're in
right now, like look at all theopportunities.
It's a microphone, it's a shirtyou're wearing, there's earbuds
, there's books, there's signs,there's HVAC.
Like, all of this is anopportunity to kind of tell a
story and combine those two,those different things, to the
(32:50):
best of your abilities.
And so if you're not goingoutside and looking at things
that you're not familiar with,then how can you find
correlations?
And I'm pretty sure it makesyou the same thing with battle
rap.
Like, if you're not introducingyourself to like a ton of
information, how can you findcross lines?
Where now I can you know, I wasthinking about coming into this
(33:14):
like, like, what's my favoritebattle rap line?
And I think, as of recently Idon't remember how he completely
worded it, but I think hismurder move saying to A-Verd,
this vegan must have made amistake.
And I was like this isbeautiful because he figured out
a series of words that soundlike two things at one time,
(33:37):
that mean literally twodifferent things this vegan that
made a mistake, battling me,and this vegan that made him,
made him a steak and I was likethat's freaking beautiful man.
But if you aren't, if you aren'topening yourself up to as much
as possible, how do you evenfind the opportunity to meld
(33:59):
things together like that?
And so the same thing withbrands.
Every, every audiencerepresents a culture and a
series of variables that isunique to them.
And if you aren't understandingthem, how are you actually
telling a story that resonateswith them?
And if you aren't understandingthem, how are you actually
telling a story that resonateswith them?
(34:20):
Like the story for the oldergrandma from Panama isn't the
same as the young Jewish kidfrom the Bronx that just happens
to be.
You know, mixing in whateverthey're mixed in.
But you can find common threadsand now put them in the same
room and now we're watching thething and we pull something else
.
That's very specific to me.
But now I've also learnedsomething about you.
(34:41):
And if your storytelling isn'tdoing that, then you're actually
isolating yourself and you'rekind of like stuck in one group
and there's no growth.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think that even going back to that
line right, like he was able tocreate a pathway for your mind
to hear one thing and translateit as something else, right, we
call that like a double entendreor potentially a minimal right,
(35:11):
because mistake made him astake right.
The m is also into a stakeright, um, but also, you know,
just kind of finding thesedifferent pathways for brands to
go into a way where it'sprobably unconventional and
something that they probably youhear it or you see it one way,
(35:32):
but in the flip side it can goanother way and we'll be right
back.
What's what's up?
Y'all?
It's Mickey Fax, ceo of PendulumInc.
The first ever online hip-hopacademy.
We're leveling up andintroducing the new Pendulum
with three free celebrityclasses on December 17th, 18th
and 19th.
To kick things off, we gotFlawless, the fire runner-up
(35:54):
from Rhythm and Flow, the OGSauce Money and Disaster, one of
the coldest battle rappers inthe game.
Ready to school?
You Don't sleep.
Head to PendulumInccom rightnow to sign up and explore our
online classes on lyricism,mental health and the culture of
hip-hop.
This ain't just a school, it'sa way of life.
Long live lyricism.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
And now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So I want to ask you something else right in terms of
algorithm.
Right, why does the algorithmlimit so much from?
You know, when I think about Idon't know when you know, jeff
and Tom joined Instagram, but Iremember joining Instagram in
2012.
Joined Instagram, but Iremember joining Instagram in
(36:43):
2012.
And I remember having athousand, maybe 2000 followers
and receiving the same amount oflikes and visibility in 2012
that I'm seeing now.
Like, if I have a 2000followers, I was getting three,
four hundred likes and theanalytics were high.
Now, on Instagram, now I haveseventy six thousand followers
(37:04):
and I'm still getting 200 to 400likes and potentially shorter
viewed videos.
Is the algorithm?
Is it is?
Do you have to say specificwording for the algorithm?
Is it that?
Do we have to boost?
Do we have to pay for traction?
Is it a time thing, like how doyou break the algorithm?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So as a two-parter there there's what is the
algorithm and like what is itdoing?
And then how do you break it?
And I think what the algorithmis is like truly like population
control for the sake ofmonetization, Like if we can
make everybody like the reasonwhy it isn't hitting is because
you aren't doing trendy things.
(37:51):
There are, there are, there'salways going to be like a sort
of like a top 10, top 100 thingsthat are like just going viral
left and right because andthey're going viral not because
of one person is doing it,because millions of people are
doing it, and so if it doesn'tfall into that, then it's not
deemed as valuable and so we'renot going to boost it.
(38:13):
And so if you do want to boostyour originality, you got to pay
for it.
You have to pay to be yourself.
You have to pay to be organic.
Isn't organic food always a lotmore costly as well?
There's like this, these, thesevarious correlations between
like being real and the sugarcoating, uh, industrialized
version of things that somehowseems to always be cheaper and
(38:35):
always in front of you.
And so, just like a food deserton the on the food side, we're
on a, an, an, an or and notorganic, but more a unique
desert over on this side.
Every everything looks the same,right, music sounds the same
same flow, same beats, sameeverything.
(38:55):
No-transcript, you know wherethe algorithm doesn't affect you
(39:24):
.
A newsletter, a text thread,using something like SuperPhone
that Ryan Leslie created, likehow do you get the people that
do care over to something thatyou can own and can control and
now get that messaging to themand now?
So instead of I have to pay you, uh, just to be seen, now you
(39:45):
guys are paying me to uh, tojust to follow, like so you can
put like these small numbers onthings and like run it up.
You look at, like you know,ten10 a month isn't a lot of
money.
1,000 people isn't a lot ofpeople, but $10 a month, 1,000
people.
Now you've got 10 grand, 120 ayear.
(40:06):
What can you reinvest that in?
That now grows at 1,000 peopleto 10,000 people.
Now we're talking about 100,000a month, 1.2 a year.
People don't have the time andpatience going back to the
patience on the artist side toplay that compound game.
Same thing would happen withstocks and stuff like that.
Do you have the patience to getone person at a time and run
(40:27):
them over here, a palace is aseries of bricks.
But if you're stacking yourbricks and somebody walks past
and you only got six, you'relike man fucking hand palace.
Bro, watch when I'm done.
It's like they can't see that.
And because they can't see that, you may get, you may like, uh,
(40:50):
you may stop, and now I'm justgonna go through the thing that
they can see.
That's falling into thealgorithm.
Versus if you took the time out, if you just spent that time
being consistent, doing onething consistently, one person,
one person.
Give them that, like you said,you have 76,000 people.
Well, 76,000 people are payingyou $10 a month over on that
(41:13):
flip side, via that newsletter,via that, you know, like the
well Ryan Leslie did withSuperphone is like amazing man,
like he, he's crowdsourcing tothe folks, cause it's not just
like paying him for the musicdirectly through his platform,
but it's also like, hey, man,I'm going to be in X city, I'm
trying to shoot this video.
(41:33):
Anybody got a car dealership.
Just send that text out to thepeople.
This many people come back like, yeah, use my car dealership.
So now he's just cut the coston that music video.
Hey, we need wardrobe.
Now he's just cut the cost onthat video he did the same thing
.
I think I think the first casestudy was um, he was like hey, I
(41:55):
want to do this.
Uh, this new year's eve partyin a castle in vienna.
If I did it, who would come?
This many people said they'dcome and he was like all right,
well, here's the pre-order.
If we do this amount, I'mmaking it happen he hits his
number, he takes that money,rents the castle.
It's like the, the.
The opportunity is there.
(42:15):
If you can just stack thoseadvocates because a true
follower should actually be amarketing and your sales team
Are you incentivizing themaccordingly to be able to do
that for you, and are they alsopaying you at the same time?
And so pull it off thealgorithm, use the algorithm to
the best of your abilities torack those numbers up and then
(42:35):
break that percentage down intothe amount of people that you
can swing over to somethingowned and then grow that,
because then they'll go to runaround and be like hey, if you
really want Mickey facts, yougot to check out his newsletter.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
But I think that's true.
I mean, that's a great pointfor all brands.
So many brands think it'ssocial only, but it's really
social is just one trigger todrive somebody to the ultimate
place which, as you said, isyour own content.
You can do all the trendythings to get them there.
And then here's where I am, whoI am the new stuff, the
original stuff.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, so there's a company and not to cut anybody
off who may have had a question,there's a company that I'm
working with called Tapioca,where you get this card Right.
This is the card right here.
You get this card right, thisis the card right here.
And if you're a musician, youtap this card and your music is
just like Apple Pay.
You tap this card onto yourphone and the music uploads into
(43:25):
your phone immediately that youcan stream it right, and
basically you just kind of pay.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
So I'm paying for that card.
You're paying for the cardright.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Right now they also classic have this.
They have this analytictechnology that can tell you how
much money you should be makingby collecting all of the data
(43:55):
from all of your sites, fromYouTube, facebook, instagram,
da-da-da-da-da-da right.
So I gave them all of my data.
I gave them all of my data andit took them about an hour and
they came back to me and theysaid yearly I should be making
(44:16):
$778,000.
What If I have a?
It's literally saying.
It's literally going with whatClassic is saying If I have a
dedicated, they're not fans.
You have to treat them likeinvestors.
They are investors in yourbrand that are dedicated and I
(44:38):
would have to constantly put outcontent, right, but sell
directly to them.
Do not go to streaming, do notjust stay on social media.
You know, put out merch, do ashow here and then, and these
particular fans will pay apremium price as opposed to the
streaming price that that Iwould get there or a feature
(45:00):
from here.
You know so.
When they calculated it andthey said that number, I was
just like and you know I brungthem also to my students there
was a student who had 3,000followers and they were like
your number is $12,000.
Another guy had 10,000followers.
He were like your number istwelve thousand dollars.
Another guy had ten thousandfollowers.
He's like your number is fortythousand and they, they did all
(45:22):
of the analytics and broke itall.
I want to see what my number is.
Yeah, I mean, it's probablyhigh, bro, it's probably I like
it.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
We've got, we've gotten so used to.
Man.
It's just like governmentintervention, anything else
we're like.
We feel as though like we can'tdo something unless somebody
gives it to us, and that's thebiggest trick of a lot of these
platforms and just anythingaround the world has kind of
played on us, where you can'tmove until I help you move,
(45:52):
whereas though, no, you actuallyhave more than enough.
Like I'm a firm believer in ifyou think you can, you're right.
If you think you can't, you'realso right.
Like whichever you know side,you kind of throw out into the
universe.
That's the energy that's goingto come back, and so it's really
hard for people to kind of beton themselves long term.
That's why I like folks.
(46:14):
You know you invest in thestock, it drops 10%, you pull
the money out, but then it'slike bro, you were there for a
week.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
Give it five years, give it ten years.
Yeah, it goes up everybody'smind.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, but just be mad at yourself for not betting and
thinking long term.
So the same thing with thecareers.
I put out a video.
It only got this many views Ah,I'm out.
No man, you gotta keep rockingand you gotta.
You have to continue puttingforth something that makes
people feel as though that, likeI, really rock with this person
(46:50):
because of something tangible.
It's not even just the music.
That's why it's important totell your story and where you
come from, because thatamplifies the music even more.
Your upbringing, what you'regoing through, that amplifies
the music even more.
Now you're starting.
Now people are like man, thisdude is real and it's real not
because of some like streetstuff, but it's real because of
like vulnerability.
(47:10):
People are scared to bevulnerable and and like
honorable and and just createsomething where, yes, somebody
is going to make fun of it.
So what?
That's not your audience.
They weren't going to buyanyway.
Why are we worried about them?
Worry about the people that arelike man, I'm going to do that
same thing, or I know somebodythat's going through that same
thing.
I can relate to that.
(47:31):
I'm actually.
Now I'm going to support.
Now it isn't even just buying.
Now I'm supporting because Iknow my little bit can be the
reason why you keep going andthat actually makes me want to
talk about it more, but thenit's probably going to help me
improve.
Some want to improve somethingin my life as well, and that's
that that, that reciprocation,that like is missing where, like
(47:53):
, everybody thinks everythinghas to be strictly entertainment
.
It doesn't.
Man like you can find thatbalance between, um,
entertainment and education,like they call it, uh,
edutainment.
And so, yeah, that's yournumber.
But you know my joe button rantwhat is the screen?
My most deaf rant.
Or yassine bay like, like who?
(48:14):
Who the hell said this is lessthan a fraction of a fraction of
a penny, like.
How do you break down a pennyLike they're?
And the fact that we can getthese views, we've valued being
seen more than being paid.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yes, that's it right there.
We value being seen more thanbeing paid For the past six
years.
No exaggeration, I will refuse,and I have refused to post my
Spotify numbers.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
That is nobody's business At the end of the year
they post their numbers.
But they really got checks forlike 600 bucks.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yes, I refuse like, and then my whole timeline
spotify spotify spotify spotifyon december 1st.
For what?
Speaker 1 (49:07):
for views only because, because everybody else
did it.
Speaker 4 (49:11):
Yeah, that herd mentality yeah, for cloud
chasing, because most peopledon't understand the formula of
what those views break down tomonetarily.
So it looks good.
It might look good but inreality, like my producers, I've
met some producers and we did arecord for this cat and it hit
like a million streams a couplemonths ago or whatever he said
(49:35):
the thing.
I got a million streams and Iwas like cool, I was happy.
But in reality I was like hey,ain't no bread, it's like 2,000
hours it looks good because Ithink you would still equate the
old with the new.
A million streams means amillion sales.
It's like nah, it means nothing, but again, it looks nice, but
in reality what are you runningthem into?
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Like, well, like, what's your call to action?
What's that other thing Like,whether it's a newsletter or
it's a uh on demand t-shirt,where, like you, you know you
ain't holding them in story andit's just it's.
It's sold for 80.
You pocketed you know howevermuch the distributor pocketed
that like uh, exclusive content.
(50:17):
Like you come over here and payfive dollars and get behind the
scene access to inside thestudio and little things like
that.
Like if people could thinkoutside of just that main thing.
Like that, million streamsdoesn't mean anything on its own
right when it attaches tosomething and you start playing
the 80-20 rule, like 10% carryover.
(50:39):
There's 100,000 people goinginto something, then 100,000
turns into that $10.
Isn't that a million?
I'm not agreeing with math$100,000 is a million.
Yeah, so look at that on 10% ofthat stream number.
Just because you ran them intosomething affordable, that 10%
(51:00):
is not a large number of peoplein the grand scheme.
So even at that 5% to 10%, lookat how much you could have
flipped if you ran them intosomething that you owned on your
end.
That now allows you to slowlybut surely kind of buy that
freedom back and start doingthings a lot more independently
where you can see even moremoney.
So now a thousand streams turnsinto like even more things,
(51:24):
because now you have the bigbrand side.
If you're consistent, again amillion streams.
I want to give you a check justto do something with us.
But that don't stop the othercheck that you're getting over
here, that you own 100% of.
It has to be the balance of thetwo, otherwise you're
constantly at the mercy of whatsomebody else says you're worth.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
But in essence, this has been the evolution of social
media.
Right, because social media wasall about views.
It was all about people feelinggood, putting everything they
had.
And I think, as a society nowwe're getting smarter, because
now content people are realizingwhat they're doing is of worth.
Right, whereas before theplatforms were grabbing
(52:07):
everything.
Right, it was the Facebook, theInstagram, the TikTok, whatever
they were making all the money.
And it brings you back to likewhat's the basic facts of
advertising?
Right, it's consistency andaction, and we have to be
consistent.
Whether you're a musician, acontent creator, a podcast or a
brand, you can't stop.
You got to be consistentlyputting out content, but when
(52:29):
you're doing so, you got to havea reason for it, you got to
have an action for it.
You got to have a way to getsomebody from point A to point B
, which is where I think peopleare starting to rethink how
social media is used, rethinkhow video is used, rethink how
content is produced, and I thinkthat's the future, that's the
next wave of where we're heading.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
That's a lot of what I was thinking about.
Going into a lot of thesecompanies as I learned more and
more about the importance ofbottom line and like this is our
overhead and we only have thismuch to spend on this, but we
need to make X, y and Z andthese are our quarterly goals.
It's like, well, how do I takethat and rope it into the story?
Because that's an action that Ineed the folks to take.
(53:09):
So I can still talk about thebrand, but I need to talk about
it in a way where it activatesvarious consumers on various
levels.
If we're talking about a recordshop, look how many different
conversations you can have.
You can talk about running arecord shop, you can talk about
the history of music, you cantalk about the making of vinyl.
All these different thingsactually speak to a whole
different audience but also havelike a whole nother action on
(53:30):
the flip side the idea of goingto buy the vinyl.
Maybe I wanted to start my ownrecord shop, maybe I want to
invest in your record shop,maybe I have an artist and I
want to put them in your recordshop, and so if you're not
taking the time out tounderstand the different layers
of what it is that you're tryingto push, then, yeah, you are
going to be limited to that onestream, but these are all
opportunities to kind of likestack it up Like this the goal
(53:54):
is to make your millions, thegoal is to make your billions,
but but that's not supposed tobe one stream, it's supposed to
be a series of them and as anartist, you have the ability to
manufacture value in any ofthose spaces.
Like you can just come up withan idea right now, shoot it and
somebody will pay you for it.
(54:15):
Like that's.
Like I don't think peoplereally sit and think about.
Like how crazy that is.
We can come up with an idearight now, go shoot it.
Somebody.
Probably at some point, if wetap into the right number, we
could probably make a millionbucks on it.
Like that's, that'sunfathomable.
The currency flip on that, justby attaching it to the right
(54:41):
variables and it hitting theright time, right trend, right
this, that and the third and thenext thing.
You know you're out of hereLike Hawk to a girl.
What does she have to talkabout?
That one concept went like thisNow she got a podcast, she got
this, she got that.
I think if we take that forgranted, we can be a lot more
(55:03):
intentional about it and youactually create a lot more
purposeful opportunities thatwork their way towards you.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
So, as we talk about the evolution of social, the
evolution of advertising, howdoes AI play a role in this?
Because that, to me, is thecurrent wave that's happening
now, and I still think we're noteven close to tapping into what
the real value is, in the sameway that people really didn't
understand social at first.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Yeah, I think with AI .
I think AI is a beautiful thingif you view it as such.
I look at AI the the recession.
There's like one group ofpeople that are scared of
recessions and then there'sanother group of people that are
like I'm waiting for arecession, I'm about to be up
every, I'm buying everything low, and so ai is sort of like that
same thing, where on one side,it's like, oh man, it's gonna
(55:52):
take my job, it's like.
Or you can view it as it'sgonna make you super at your job
.
Like for every job loss.
You can create it as it's goingto make you super at your job.
Like for every job loss, youcan create one with AI.
Ai is going to be the reason whywe have a billion dollar
company with less than 10employees.
Yep, yep, because all you needis an idea, uh, uh, an
(56:14):
understanding of what it is thatyou're selling, uh, an
understanding of your audience,and you just let the agents run
you.
You and your a hundred personteam wasn be able to talk to
that many people.
Anyway, I came across a videowhere they were talking about
Salesforce was talking about.
I can't remember whichlarge-scale fashion house was
(56:35):
utilizing them in their callcenter, but it turned their
customer success team into asales team because generative AI
was on the call, like listeningto them as they were
troubleshooting issues and thenable to tell them like hey,
pitch them this, they mightactually need this.
So people are coming in with aproblem and leaving purchasing
(56:56):
something because of the powerof this tool listening on the
conversation and offering whatyou need.
And so I feel like if youaren't utilizing ai, you are
actually pricing yourself out.
You.
Ai is the reason why, yo I, Iget so many scripts done in a
week just because I'm like, hey,this is the brand, this, I give
(57:21):
it a full profile.
I need, I need something.
I need you to explain it to me,cause I may not 100% get it.
I need you to explain it to me.
I need you to tell me theaudience is for, and I need you
to do it in a layman's way sothat anybody can understand it.
And I take that information andI'll all, right now, give me
the key selling points.
Then I take that informationand I write a script and I'm
(57:42):
just literally like this isinformation.
Speaker 4 (57:44):
Do you let chat GBT write the script?
Speaker 2 (57:50):
I write the script, I just let it give me bullet
points, because it doesn't knowhow to be like uber creative.
It knows how to beorganizational.
So like, whether you're usingchat, gbt, perplexity, claude,
it doesn't even matter, let itset you up.
So it was like all right,that's the selling point.
How do I say the selling pointin an interesting way?
Let me add a joke.
Selling point interesting way?
Let me add a joke.
And it's literally like that.
And next thing, you know, I'mlike breezing through.
(58:12):
And then on the editing side,it's like I can take the audio,
throw it into Adobe Enhancer.
Two minutes later she saysChris, like there's a ton of
things where it's like, yeah, onone side it's like all right,
now I don't have to pay somebodyfor that.
But that person that feels likethat they lost their job how
about you use that to enhanceyour job?
The engineer that I probablywould have sent this money to
(58:34):
initially, how about you usethis tool?
And now you've gone from mixingdown two artists this week to
10, 20, 30 artists this week,and now you can actually lower
your prices and play the volumegame because of how much is
running in.
(58:56):
There's so many different waysto look at it.
I just I view it as anamplification of whatever your
dreams are.
You just have to find the righttools, figure out the right way
to position it for yourself andgo out there and earn some
money, because there's a billionpeople in the world, so it is.
And, like we just said thatnumber, you only need a hundred
thousand to start Like.
So why not incorporate a toolthat can get you to that quicker
?
So now, if you can make thatmillion dollars quicker, what
can you invest in next?
(59:16):
And do the same thing, and dothe same thing, and do the same
thing.
I think, instead of it likemaking everything
disproportionate, I think it isone of those main things that
actually give us a fightingchance.
Like there's no reason tocomplain anymore about such and
such, won't give me anopportunity, I can't afford this
, that and the third to make ithappen, no, like there's nothing
you shouldn't be able to know,there's nothing you shouldn't be
(59:37):
able to do, and at this point,if you ain't got it, it's
because you don't want it.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
That's a great point.
I look at it as an accelerator.
It's the same way you said thatit gets us rolling and at a
faster volume.
All right, we're running alittle bit out of time, but I
want to mention this.
There's a rumor out there thatyou and I might be teaming up on
a podcast.
What that's the rumor, I'm notgoing to confirm it or deny it.
Did you start?
Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
this rumor.
Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
I didn't start this rumor.
This is a widespread rumor,mickey Fax and I think this
podcast has everything to dowith what we've been just
talking about.
It's understanding brands andit's using the right tools to
come back and tell a great storyabout a brand, and I'm very
excited about this class.
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Yeah, I'm excited about it too, especially with
the folks that we're going to beworking with.
I've always enjoyed helpingpeople try to figure it out in
the beginning.
Everybody wants to run to thewells because, of course, you
operate with them and that's thereason why you'll blow up,
because they're big and you'restanding next to them.
But I feel like there's even aneven bigger return if you can
(01:00:45):
help somebody become that, andso the the difference maker for
that is storytelling.
Like, if you can't outspendsomebody, you just gotta out
storytelling.
You gotta out weird them, yougotta out, you know, communicate
them.
You gotta out uh friendly them,like something where it just
allows you to uh catch anorganic wildfire, and so I I
(01:01:06):
feel like our little tool.
Uh, that's what I'm calling thepodcast.
It isn't just like anentertainment it's not a regular
thing, yeah yeah, our littletool will hopefully be the
reason why other folks feel asthough they can tell their story
and and do it confidently, sothat way they can get even more
folks to buy in.
Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
I like it Coming very soon.
Folks Coming very soon that'scrazy, Are you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
ready, mickey, I'm always ready.
Man, Y'all need a theme song.
What's up, man?
Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
We do need a theme song, and, don't know it, maybe
that too, but don't think I'mnot coming to you first.
That works, let's do it Allright, fellas.
This has been very interesting.
Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
Very very.
Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
It's a classic.
Before we let you go, tell thepeople everywhere where they can
find you.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Yeah, everywhere IG, twitter there's Classic LLC, cl,
ssc LLC.
Linkedin.
William Classic Thomas LLC.
Linkedin William Classic Thomas.
And then I have a website rightnow tioutsiderbeehivecom is the
newsletter that I do, whereright now I'm housing all of my
(01:02:10):
content and like droppinginsights around.
You know, like the process ofwhat I created.
Eventually it's going to rollover into a new site that's not
on Beehive but, as of right now,that's where you can check me
out.
Thank you, classic, thank y'all.
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Eventually it's going to roll over into a new site
that's not on Beehive, but, asof right now, that's where you
can check me out at.
Thank you Classic.
Thank y'all.
All right, folks, that's ourshow.
Tune in to Unglossy, the codingbrand and culture, on Apple
Podcasts, spotify or YouTube,and follow us on Instagram at
unglossypod to join theconversation.
Until next time.
Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
I'm Tom Frank.
I'm Jeffrey Sledge.
Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Smicky, that was good .
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