Transcript
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Kwame:
What's up, everybody? Welcome to today's episode of Beyond Influence. I am Kwame Appiah and I’m here with my co-host, Scott Sutton.
Today we are very lucky to be joined by a very outspoken, strongly opinionated, influencer. Well, you know, I guess I don’t know if he would like to call himself an influencer. I think he's more of a serial entrepreneur, but he is definitely a man with a lot of influence: Ryan Alford. Thanks for joining us today, Ryan!
Ryan:
Hey, guys, I appreciate being here. And I’ll take it, yeah. You can call me anything you want. You know, I take care of everything my wife calls me sometimes, you know. So, yeah. Influential sponsor? Entrepreneur? Whatever. Mad man. Just, I don’t know. I like to get my hands on a lot of things. So, I’m honored to be here. Thanks for having me.
Scott:
Well, super stoked to talk to you. I think, you know, we’ve had a lot of different influencers from different areas. And I think you’re the first, you know, person who’s really working to, like, drive an enterprise. Drive an agency. We talk a lot in our company about, you know, creating creator-first, go-to-market, or social content-first go-to-market.
And, you know, looking at your socials, what you’re doing with your podcast, with your business, the agency… there’s just so many proof points for social working, content working, engaging in social activities. So maybe for our listeners, walkthrough, you know, how you got started and kind of maybe some background on Radical and where you’re at now.
Ryan:
Yeah, man. I’ve been in the agency ad-life game, I guess, for 20-plus years. As I age myself a little bit. You know, I’m not—I’m not 28, damn it. But—or could I be? Maybe I was young.
So I’m from Greenville, South Carolina. You probably hear the accent. I’ve got the southern accent. It’s not Austin. It’s not Dallas. It’s good ole South Cackalacky, also known as South Carolina.
Southern, born and raised, and somehow… but I always have been a lifelong marketer and entrepreneur. My parents were multi-entrepreneurs, you know, and had multiple companies, side gigs, side hustles. So I learned it early.
And one of those rare people who went into college and was a marketing major from day one and graduated in marketing at good old Clemson University. Clemson Tigers—you probably know them if you follow college football at all. We’ve had a couple of national titles in the last ten years.
I always grew up, you know, a Clemson fan. I went there, as a marketing major. Then I went into ad agency life and did that right out of school for the same agency for 13 years. It was the largest agency in South Carolina called Irwin Penland. Now it’s called EP+Co.
We were 60 people when I started and 450 when I left. So I kind of grew up with the agency, literally.
We worked on a lot of business we may not have belonged in, as, you know, the big dogs would’ve thought. But we somehow opened a New York office. I worked for Verizon, Apple… “Can you hear me now?” was the first campaign I worked on for Verizon Wireless. I definitely aged myself there.
If you remember Test Man, you might actually remember him from Sprint, not Verizon, because he switched sides about ten years later. But we had him first.
Worked with Apple and Steve Jobs’ teams on the first iPhone launch. Marketed a ton of cell phones. Did all the—if you remember the old-school cell phone names like the Juke, the Chocolate. Every cell phone kind of had a marketing campaign behind it.
Worked on a lot of those: Blackberries, Motorola. Then, ironically, helped Apple sell a billion iPhones, then helped Motorola kick their ass for one year with the Droid. Do you remember that campaign? The Droid?
We made it badass, and then they watered it down, like good brands like to do. They like to kill good ideas from agencies.
But it wasn’t just a one-man show. I worked with hundreds of people, and dozens of agencies.
I spent six years in Manhattan. Had the penthouse—literally. But I wanted to get back to South Carolina, where I’m from. Beautiful, great place to raise kids and all that.
Started the whole serial entrepreneur thing about 8 or 9 years ago. I started my agency Radical. Started The Radcast, as it was called at first, my podcast.
And I’ll kind of end here to transition, but like—I couldn’t stand agencies that didn’t practice what they preached. The social media agency has two followers and one post.
Scott’s laughing because you know what I’m talking about. Or, you know, if you’re going to do influencer marketing or podcasting, practice what you preach, man.
So I overinvested in my podcast. Everybody laughed at me seven years ago, like, “Okay, you’re starting your agency, and you had a podcast.” They knew I knew my shit in marketing, but it wasn’t a credibility issue.
But even seven years ago, starting a podcast… they don’t laugh now, man. So yeah, I’ve just been building the agency and the network. I have a lot of scar tissue behind it, but it’s been fun.
Scott:
It's funny talking about, like, building out the podcast because it's funny. I talk a lot about this, and it’s—you know, it’s not a big podcast until it is. And it’s not a credible podcast until it is.
And it’s really interesting to define success for a podcast because there are so many different angles to it. I go, “You know, if we get the right perspective from the right creator on our podcast, that helps shape a campaign for a big client, is that worth it? If we get content out and help educate creators on how to make money, or brand marketers on how to go out and work well with creators to move the whole industry forward, is that worth it?
“What is success?” Because, you know, in all social media, is it views? Is it engagement? Or is it, you know, moving the needle in some other way?”
So I just think it resonates a lot. But yeah, also, shout out to the Carolinas. I spent a lot of time there. I worked—two stints ago—I was down with Trucks North America, Freightliner, back in Cleveland and Gastonia, Spartanburg. I spent a lot of time back there.
Yes, it’s a great place. I want to touch on that real quick, Scott because it’s a great point for people listening who might be influencers or might be doing podcasting.
Look, I’ve been doing it—I’m in the seventh year. You know, we started as The Radcast. We're Right About Now with Ryan Alford. Changed the name because we had the Radcast Network, and didn’t want the confusion between a show and a network having the same name. But we have the trademark and all the IPs on the Radcast Network.
But look, for two years, we had 100 listeners, and 99 of them were my mom. I mean, like, she was on repeat on the download. She’s like, “I’m going to get this popular for you.”
I listened to it three times today. I’m like, “Thank you, Mom. I appreciate that. I appreciate the love.”
But two things happen. One, you nailed it, Scott—it’s not big until it’s big. You don’t know when those moments happen. But there are so many different variables that define success.
And I was playing the long game. I was not going, “How can I generate leads here the first week of my show with 30 listeners?” I was playing the long game of brand. I saw what was happening with influencers—hate the name, but I don’t know of a better one yet—personal branding.
Look, I coined the phrase, “It pays to be known.” You know, we can all roll our eyes and do whatever, but it’s true.
And I played the long game. First two years? Slow. Went big. But like, “Why am I—I love my best friend, but why am I having my best buddies on this show? I’ve got a Rolodex as long as anybody’s.”
I’m like, “Alright, it’s time to open it up.” And so, it got bigger, invested more. And then I don’t know when that switch happened—downloads started to pick up, rankings, all that stuff. But look, it's slow—it’s an overnight success in seven years.
Kwame:
Yeah. No, it’s funny when we think about it, because we’re—you know, we’re going through that journey ourselves.
And we keep constantly thinking, like, you know, is it better that we had really, really great numbers this week? Or is it great that we had a really, really great conversation this week? Right? Like, where do we really leap and feel the success within what we’re building here?
And obviously, you’ve had quite a journey of, you know, a plethora of guests. Like you said, you used to just have your friends on. And now you have this Rolodex of really, really smart people.
I’ve listened to a couple of episodes, and I want to know from you—who do you think—you don’t have to single someone out specifically, because I know how that can be. But have you had any experiences or conversations where you’re just like, “Wow, I took a lot away from this. I learned so much, and I want to make sure that my audience hears this.”
Ryan:
Yeah, I’m going to give you two names. One, you’ve probably heard of; one, you probably haven’t.
So, Grant Cardone—I’ve had him on my show. He’s promised to come back again here soon. And I’m going to name him—it was a short episode, only 30 minutes, but a ton of value.
Here’s what it did: Two things. One, I learned a lot. And number two, I literally was impressed that he was exactly who he kind of portrays himself as, both before the episode—like, when he let his hair down a little bit—and after the show. And then during the interview, he was what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
That is me, and I appreciate that. I can’t stand the flip-floppers. Just be you, man. Some people will like you; some people won’t. It’s okay—different strokes for different folks.
But he was exactly who he portrayed himself to be in person and on the episode.
The second one—Chris Lochhead, literally the godfather of category design and marketing. Chris is brilliant and also no-nonsense. He will really hurt your feelings while telling you something smart.
He has this magical way, and some people get a little put off by Chris, maybe. I just—I eat it for lunch because he’s so real.
Scott:
I love that point. It’s funny—I try to convey that same message to a lot of people where there are certain people in life you meet who have a gift to tell you you’re dumb and you’re motivated by it.
Then the rest of the world tells you you’re dumb, and you just want to, like, punch them in the eye or something, or walk away sad. And, you know, I’ve had those sports coaches, I’ve had those mentors who—like, it’s funny because I’ve had different experiences with different types of mentors or different types of professors or teachers or whatever.
The ones that I feel I consistently get greatness from are people who have that unique gift—not even just the knowledge they have—but the straight ability to tell someone, “No, no, no. That’s a wrong take. This is the right take. Go do better.”
It’s funny because I think a lot of schools are like, “Hey, Jimmy, that was a really great try.” And if it’s wrong, don’t tell Jimmy it was a good try. Just tell Jimmy, “Hey, that wasn’t it. This is what it is.”
I think there’s—it’s funny because Gary Vee said something the other day: “There are things with wrong and right answers.” There’s a whole lot of the world where you can, like, choose, and navigate, but there are some things where it’s clearly the wrong answer. That’s clearly the right answer.
We shouldn’t be afraid to say, “That is the wrong answer,” when it’s clearly the wrong answer because it helps us move faster through the process.
You know, I’m all for self-discovery and all that, but at some point, just picking someone up and aiming them in the right direction in a tough way with their best interests in mind is helpful.
Ryan:
And that’s Chris, to a tee. I think it’s a gift, like you said, to be able to do it. But I don’t know—you never grow or learn if you don’t hear what you need to hear.
Chris preaches all about category design. Like, you know, own your differences. But he has a different spin on it. He has very specific examples and execution and tactics to do it. And a lot of people don’t do it because it’s hard as shit.
But, yeah—look, I’ve had Gary Vee on my show. I’ve had Mark Randolph, Founder of Netflix. I could name 50 people. We just hit episode 500 last week, so just did that.
I mean, that’s an accomplishment. And I will say this, guys: As you do it, sometimes we’re kind of terrible, I think, about stopping and appreciating certain things.
You know, we’re always pushing to the next thing. And I’m that way—being an entrepreneur and owning multiple companies now—it’s like, okay, you get the gift on Christmas, and the next day, you’re like, “Alright, what’s next?”
Appreciating the accomplishment and, you know, what it took to get there and reflecting—it’s, you know, it’s an honor to be able to do it and to have, you know, the voice to do it and people that actually want to listen. So, you know, I try. That’s not lost on me.
Kwame:
I mean, I think it all comes back down to, like you said when it comes to the people that you had in your Rolodex, when it comes to the people that listen to you. Right? The people that give you advice, the people that, you know, all the way through.
There are different forms, different levels of community that all come together to create the people around you—that, like, your foundation.
You know, you’ve obviously taken a lot of time to curate what your community is. It’s really funny when I look at our invite, even to have you on this podcast. Right? We had a decent amount of people. We had, like, four or five people on the invite. Right?
That must mean you have quite the team behind you, and you started this whole thing by yourself. And, you know, you started at your last company at, like you said, employee what? Sixty?
Ryan:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kwame:
Right. Yeah. And scaled it up from there. How many people are now behind the Radcast Network?
Ryan:
Well, honestly, it’s a good question, Kwame. It could be—it could be 100. But, I mean, it’s 100 people in New York, and I died doing it.
Yeah, direct reports—I didn’t have 100 direct, but, like, underneath the org chart. And so I died doing it.
When I started my own agency, “boutique” was what I wanted to be and stay. Because I’ve learned, you know, at least in the agency world, you don’t always make more money getting bigger. You just get more headaches.
Okay, well, your valuation goes up. Well, you know, if you know what you’re doing with the right revenue—it depends on what game you want to play.
I’m not looking for the $100 million sellout. So I intentionally have kept us anywhere from 12 to 20 people and hyper-focused on what we do.
We’re kind of in a little bit of a growth phase right now. I could see—but we’ll stay under 30. I’ll go ahead and tell you that right now.
That’s intentional. It’s hard to find great people that want to be here and have the same, you know, interests. Managing people is not easy. It’s probably not something I wanted to bite off either.
There are ways to scale differently. And so I’ve got multiple businesses—it’s how I’m scaling—that are all driven by employee revenue.
Scott:
I love kind of your sentiment around keeping things small and having, you know, full ownership and control.
I love kind of your sentiment around keeping things small and having, you know, full ownership and control. It’s really interesting. I have, you know, a lot of people in our community that I talk to, and I think everyone idolizes these big Fortune 500 companies and having, like, a VP title.
This guy’s like, “I was the best Cutco knife salesman in the country. I’ve got, like, 200 guys under me. I have exclusive rights to engrave every knife. I make millions in free cash flow every year, and I work like ten hours. I’ve got a brilliant team to go do it.”
That’s 20 years of hard work. And just like you—it’s seven years, you know, into that journey. But you’re going to have a consistent income. You have full rights to that cash. You have full rights to that business. You can choose where you want to take it.
Whereas others, you’re driving an agenda, you know, for leadership from investors and others. And both have their place. But there is something to be said for that kind of smaller, more self-contained kind of free cash flow where you can control higher profitability. You can take money out of the business, you can fund growth—you can do whatever you want with that. There’s a lot of freedom.
Ryan:
And that’s what I’ve done, Scott. You nailed it 100%. That should be a highlight clip right there for why to keep it small.
But literally, I’ve taken money out of the company, and invested in other things. You know, it’s sort of a holding company now—Radical Inc. We’ve got the Radcast Network, Radical, I’ve got a company called Vibe Science, and I do another podcast on that.
There’s a media company in the holistic wellness space—Vacay—which is a plant-based supplement company.
So it’s all been—all of those have diversified within the one platform. And so on paper, all has grown much, but it’s just diversified across different companies.
That’s been the strategy because I’ve managed 50 to 100 people. And you know what’s most important? No one tells me. I go to every game, every practice. I have four boys under the age of 15, and I am at everything.
No one tells me what to do. Not a single client, not a single anything. And I love them all—I don’t mean that disrespectfully. We're a service-based company. But Ryan Alford is number one. If you take one of those personality tests, my top trait is freedom.
I’ve got plenty of money, but my time—I don’t get it back.
Scott:
I love that. It’s funny, too, because I’ve met, you know, quite a few people who you’d be like, “Oh, they must work 24 hours. They must, you know, have terrible family lives.”
I think it’s about what you prioritize and how you use your time efficiently. In the same vein, like, I work a lot. I’m coaching my kids’ soccer team. I make it to every meeting for my daughters.
I think you don’t have to sacrifice everything, but there are other things you have to sacrifice. And for me, like, I want to be successful, so I put a priority on that. My family’s the non-negotiable. I want to be involved.
We said this on another podcast, but like, you know, millennial dads are spending three to four times more time with their kids than their dads spent with them. And I think it’s just, you know, maybe coming from that type of environment where we didn’t have some of that interaction, we didn’t have that support. We just put such a premium on that time, you know, spent with family.
So I love that sentiment.
Ryan:
Yeah, man. It’s what matters to me. And I think you’re right—you just can’t get that time back. And I’m not a perfect father or husband. Far from it. But being available and around will not be—you know, it won’t be written that he wasn’t around or wasn’t available to his wife and kids.
Kwame:
Yeah. I think there are a couple of things I wanted to revisit, you know when it comes to the scaling aspect of it.
Through social media, you know, the side of things—I think it might be a guy. I forget the exact handle, but it’s a guy who walks around and asks people, “Hey, what do you do for a living?”
Ryan:
Yeah, I know who you’re talking about.
Kwame:
Yeah, right. And he interviewed a guy that said something that was really, really impactful. I think this is probably one of the most important bits of advice that anybody could learn, especially when they start to grow where they want to become an entrepreneur.
Especially when they take hold of their own finances within something that they are then trying to create something out of. He said, “Stay small enough long enough. You’ll get big enough soon enough.”
Ryan:
Yeah. That’s right.
Kwame:
It’s really important for people to have awareness of where they really want to go. And I feel like for a lot of people, the definition of success is growth. But just about every avenue—even when we look at our podcast—we’re like, “Oh if we got a million listeners, that’s growth. But if we had a million listeners and not one of them actually paid attention to what we say, is that actually growth?”
And so there are so many different ways that we can go about it. But I do think having an understanding and awareness of what you want to accomplish, and not just thinking growth in revenue or just growth in the size of the number of people at your company means success.
You have to define what that is, and then you have to go from there. Because if you look at, you know, Radical Inc., you could look at the size and revenue and say, as you said, it might not be growing. But in actuality, it has taken the time to understand its awareness, and it’s put investments in other places, and then it springs from there.
So I think the awareness piece is a really big one.
But coming back to you—I think occasionally we like to sprinkle fun parts of the conversation so that we don’t stay too business-y.
Ryan:
I love it.
Kwame:
Yeah, right? One thing that you mentioned, one thing that kind of embodies who you are—and I am as well—I’m a big car guy. This guy (referring to Scott) used to work at Daimler. So we’ve all been in the car space in some way.
Referring back to you—you’ve grown, you’ve now, you know, have nicer cars, and so on and so forth. What would you say is your favorite car that you’ve owned along your journey?
Ryan:
Yeah, I’ve thought about this one, you know. Because I’ve owned—I mean, I’m 47 years old, and I’ve probably owned 100 cars. I owned a dealership at one time.
I had a pit stop between starting the agency and lost a lot of cars, about $1 million in a two-year pit stop, literally owning cars. It was a concept that was essentially Carvana before Carvana. Had the right concept, the right marketing, and terrible operations.
It actually taught me a lot getting back, you know, to do what I’ve been doing the last eight years. But I had an Aston Martin that was a convertible, and it was—you know, I’m not a normal convertible guy, but a black Aston Martin convertible is pretty badass, you know?
I owned that for almost a year. I’ve gotten rid of almost everything I have because I’m literally—well, I do own a Rolls. But it doesn’t really fit. Like, it doesn’t really fit.
I’m comfortable in my truck. I’m comfortable—I have an Audi RS7 that’s got a Stage 2, like, 900 horsepower. That’s kind of my daily driver. I have a Range Rover, and—but now, because I’ve sold everything else, I’m just kind of like, “Okay, I’m getting the itch, but I don’t know if I’m going to actually get it.”
But I’ve driven a little bit of everything: Ferraris, Aston Martins, the Porsche 911s—I mean, supercars. I have friends that have them.
Here’s the thing—it’s kind of like they say this: Now, I have a houseboat that’s kind of like my car now, because like all my friends… They say, you know, let your friends get houses, beach houses, and boats.
I’ll let my friends get the cars now, like the supercars. I’ll just go drive them, and then I’ll take them out of my mind, you know? So, yeah, roundabout answer. But you could probably ask me about any model—I’ve probably had one or driven it.
Scott:
That’s funny. There’s a channel I think you’ll like if you don’t already watch it. It’s this guy, Matt Armstrong, who’s a former boxer. He’s from the UK, but he rebuilds all these random cars. He bought Marcus Rashford’s wrecked Mansory Rolls-Royce and rebuilt it all the way back up. It’s his whole channel. It’s pretty great. He did, like, an Urus, he did a Porsche.
Ryan:
Yeah, dude. My lawyer will divorce me if I get a Wraith, you know. Like, “Yeah, dude. Or, you know, we got kids!”
Scott:
So I want to come back to one thing you mentioned about all the different ventures you have. It lines up with this notion that I talk to a lot of people about and something that our company firmly believes.
We do influencer marketing with social media management, and I keep coming back to this statement that the future of go-to-market for organizations and brands will be creator-first. It will be social-first.
The effectiveness of marketing is stronger, the connection is stronger, and the authenticity is stronger. No one wants to hear your old ads, or your overly scripted marketing materials.
The other kind of notion with that is to build an audience and then leverage that audience to go out and sell a product or drive a great business.
I think—maybe speak to your journey about how you’ve built an audience and now you’re using that audience, you’re using that brand, positioning, and notoriety to go out and turn it into additional opportunities for yourself.
Ryan:
Yeah, I’ll say this—like, if that kid asks me what I do, I would say I use my talents to generate leverage for future opportunities. I’m a leverage engineer.
That’s what I do. Some people get that, some people don’t. And leverage engineers don’t worry about today and tomorrow. They’re playing the long game, and it’s brand engineering.
You know, I love the word engineering because that’s kind of the way I think of building out companies—you’ve got to engineer it.
I want to say this—I’m so glad you got here, Scott. Think about the media 10–15 years ago. Even when social media was around—Facebook’s older than it thinks it is—we lived in this traditional media world where you could turn off the media.
Yeah, there were outdoor billboards, but that’s not in your face at all times. So you turned off the TV, you turned off the radio, you went do whatever. Right?
Two things happened: smartphones proliferated—the TV that’s now in everybody’s pocket—and social media blew up.
We live in an always-on world. Your media is always on. You don’t turn it off. There’s a voracious, unending appetite for media and content.
So in a world that’s always on, there’s always opportunity. But if you aren’t entertaining, educating, or worthy of that time, they will swipe up, swipe sideways, or whatever.
The jig is up. Consumers know they’re being marketed to. Listen to that again: The jig is up. Your commercials don’t work because they know you’re marketing to them.
So you have to meet them on their terms, and you have to give—you have to be worthy of their time. It’s called earned attention.
You can buy attention, but it doesn’t stick around. When you earn it, it stays, and they’re tuning you in. You can be tuned in—chosen—or you’re going to get tuned out.
That’s for companies, brands, or people. So you have to be willing to invest in the organic content that people want to look at, that people want to watch.
I’ve been building a company for seven years behind that premise. I’ve been writing checks for seven years to start cashing them now. People ask, “Well, how did you do that?”
It’s back to that joke—overnight success in seven years. Now we’ve created a blueprint that shortcuts that for people in podcasts and stuff like that. That’s what we do.
But that’s what I’ve been doing—playing the long game of building content that generates an audience, that creates community.
Whether it’s plant-based supplements, the fastest-growing podcast network, YouTube channel, or insights on vibe science and what we’re doing there—you activate that audience for different things.
You’ve got to play that, but you don’t immediately turn it on. You don’t just plant land, own land, and sell land overnight.
Again, it creates leverage for the long term. That might sound like a negative word—“Oh, leverage, taking advantage of people.” No, it’s giving value.
I’ll even give Gary Vee the credit—you know, the old jab-jab-jab-jab-jab-right hook. That’s what he was saying: Give, give, give, give, give, and then ask. You get the permission to ask when you create content that people actually want to tune into.
I’m really into this always-on thing. Everybody kind of gets the analogy of turning the TV off or turning it on. You can get turned off real fast.
And the only way to stay top-of-mind today is to stay turned on.
Scott:
I love that. Speaking of Gary Vee, he had this whole video about day trading attention—this concept that, you know, right now it’s about how do you capture that attention.
But the day trading component is how do you do it with the resources you have in the most efficient way?
You talk about leverage—creating content, having an audience that’s tuned in to you, that continues to come back. That’s so much different than traditional advertising, where you pay an audience to see something.
They’re not coming back for your next commercial because they love it.
Ryan:
No.
Scott:
Whereas if you’re creating really useful, meaningful content that resonates with them, that they align with, that adds value to their life—they’re going to keep coming back and engaging.
There’s also—business has monetary incentives, but I would like to think that the best content creators and businesspeople are altruistic in a way. They genuinely want to help the people and the audience they’re fostering.
It’s just a different relationship. When we say, “Why content-first? Why creator-first?”—versus ad dollars on linear TV or ad dollars in Google Search—you’re not developing a relationship by paying Google to put something in front of someone’s search.
You’re not doing that by interrupting their TV programming. Why don’t you create the programming they’re watching? Embed your product deeply into something useful that helps move their life forward.
This whole creator-first, content-first strategy is the future.
Ryan:
It is the future. And I’ll add to that—with TV viewership and availability just going down.
Look, it worked. I was in the middle of it. When you could have the reach and frequency that you could get on television, where you could jam that commercial in—whether they liked it or not—they’d see it 400 times.
It does work to stay top-of-mind and drive sales down the road, but you can’t get that frequency anymore because people are so splintered in their media habits.
Not only is it just wiser to play the game you’re talking about—it’s what’s going to work. People have other places to put their attention now.
That commercial’s on for the fourth time—they’re turning it off, flipping it, doing whatever. Or they’re fast-forwarding through it because how many people watch linear TV anymore versus play-shifting to when, where, and how they want to?
That’s why podcasting is so great. It’s not all live—live is cool—but they can listen to it when, where, and how they want.
Kwame:
Yeah, it’s about meeting your audience where they reside and making it the most convenient for them.
Yeah, it’s about meeting your audience where they reside and making it the most convenient for them. I think when you think about growing a community and kind of just like starting a foundation, I saw something—I think I forget whether it was on LinkedIn or Twitter.
I don’t know, I’m just getting information from everything nowadays. But one guy said that in order to start a company—this was their process—before they ever started a company, maybe like a year prior, what they would do is they would just start creating.
They would just get together, have, you know, incubators, whatever you want to call it. Then they would just share information and constantly post it on social networks. Right?
So relevant information from experts is being shared around social media to gauge interest. Right?
Before a product is released or even announced or people even know there’s a concept for it, for a year, they’re starting this conversation. Next thing you know, by the time that year’s over, they have 100,000–200,000 followers who are all dedicated to this topic and subject and loyal to it.
Then boom, you already have this incredibly loyal fan base and customer base who are now going to be interested in that product that you release. Right?
You’ve had conversations with them, you’ve listened to their feedback, and now by the time this product is out, it is something that they’ve already been taught.
So I think that’s a really important aspect. Like, the product phase has been so reverse-engineered now. It used to be just like bringing something out and seeing how many people are interested in it.
Now it’s: See how many people would be interested in it, and then bring a product out that meets their needs.
Ryan:
Yeah, I mean, you build authority, and you know what you’re doing. You’re building—you know what you should have, and you’re building a brand before you have the brand, so to speak. That’s what you’re doing.
There are so many use cases for social, like product research, and audience research. I mean, it’s endless what you can do.
That’s brilliant, and that’s a lot like podcasting. Same thing—start a podcast, then you create content from it. Like, Scott and I think you both intimated that with podcasting—so many different variables of what success is.
Even if you only ever had 200 people who listened, but you knew you were creating solid content that then was atomized—my favorite word is atomization of content, you know, spreading that thing out—then that was a useful use of your time.
A lot of people struggle with, “I don’t know what to post,” or “I don’t know what to do.”
But if you get on a podcast—great. That’s one of the reasons I started it. You know, I’m not Gary Vee. I can’t be followed around with a camera.
Now, I might be interesting enough, but I don’t want to be that interesting.
But to me, I think there are so many use cases for social and for ways to leverage and build authentic audiences with it.
Kwame:
Yeah. And, you know, I think it’s interesting when you think about where you go from there. You have started on so many social media mediums. You’re in so many different places.
Now, we’ll get a little bit more to the last conversation of that other social network. We’ll talk a little bit about the numbers.
You have so many different places that you’ve diversified. Where would you say is the most impactful revenue stream for you? Where are you spending the most time? Like, where should people focus their energy if they want to start making that money?
Ryan:
So for, you know, influencers and—again, I’m going to use it through the lens of podcasting, because that’s the one thing. What’s interesting is how separate, like, at the big brands, how separate these teams are.
We bring them the holy grail with our sponsorship offers. You get me, you get all my followers, and you get the podcast—which has a lot of crossovers but also different people who just might not be into social.
But what happens is if you go to the big brands, they’re so siloed off. “We can only talk about a deal for ads on the podcast.” And, “Oh, your social post is for our social team.”
Anyway, another story for another day.
But I will say this: The biggest numbers are custom sponsorships for us. Now, again, playing this game for seven years—building the podcast, building the following—we earned the right to have these discussions with brands and sell that.
One of our OGs—I’m wearing their hat now—Branded Bills, right? Brandedbills.com. Go check them out, and hit that custom button. They make the best custom gear in the U.S., custom hoodies, and custom hats.
They’ve been with me since year two. They were nothing then, and I was nothing then. Well, guess what? There are a lot of things now.
Those custom sponsorships where you can leverage multiple channels—that’s where the big dollars are.
Everybody thinks it’s programmatic ads. You can make money that way. You can sell the one-off deals and all that stuff.
But you want that integrated partner that’s playing the long game and the short game. That’s where you get the big deals and the big bucks.
I’ve had a couple of $10,000 posts. But I’ll say this—my counsel to other influencers: If you start kind of bastardizing your brand a little bit, doing one-week, one-post deals with 25 different brands, you water down everything else you get.
You can’t preach enough about playing that long game. Branded Bills don't stick around forever if I’ve got 50 other merch companies.
So I’ve said no a lot more than I’ve said yes, but that pays dividends in the long run.
Scott:
I love that. I love, like, talking about the longer-term partnerships that are really well-aligned to your audience, to your messaging. It’s just—it’s really easy to create consistent content and build real, authentic fandom from your audience.
And yeah, we always encourage folks.