EP:41 Personal Branding and Social Growth w/ Brittany Krystle

SPEAKER_02 0:42

What is happening party, people? Welcome to the show. Hey, welcome back. If you're a repeat listener, if it's your first time, hey, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Sebastian Rosk. And as always, I'm really glad you're here. I'm really glad you took a few minutes out of your busy day to listen to me provide some value as much as I can, to the best of my ability, if you will. I hope you're walking away with at least one or two things that you didn't know when you pressed play on today's episode. I'm really excited for my guest this week. I know I say that every single episode, but I'm going to give this a little bit more excitement than the norm. It's my friend Brittany Hoffman. She is a personal branding social growth expert and the host of the Beyond Influential Podcast. She's also a non-practicing lawyer. I love when that happens. Go to college, go to law school, and realize that you want to focus on branding. Welcome to the 21st century friends. Brittany and I connected uh probably about two years ago via email on an email thread with our mutual friend uh the one and only Mr. Gary Vanerchuk. And um fast forward, I think two years after that, I had a gig with Digital Marketer for their traffic and conversion summit, and Brittany was there um working uh the event um with um a talent personality, and uh we had a chance to put a name with an email, if you will. I kind of just walked up and was like, Hi, is your name Brittany? And she's like, uh who's asking? Anyway, I quickly explained we connected a few years back via Gary and an email. Uh we got in touch, we stayed in touch. Uh Brittany has since um moved on from Team Gary V to do um just some amazing things in the personal branding and social growth space. I'm glad that her and I have had the opportunity to stay in touch. She launched her podcast a year ago. She's been rocking and rolling with that. I think she just dropped episode 40 or 41. So congrats on that, Brittany. I think you guys are gonna get a tremendous amount of value out of this episode just for the simple fact that we're living in an age where having a personal brand is absolutely vital. Friends, will you please help me welcome to the show, my friend Brittany Hoffman. Brittany Hoffman, what's happening?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

How are you? So happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

It's great to have you here. Um beautiful uh Miami uh summer day here. I'm assuming it's the same for you out in Surf City, USA.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

It is. It's been kind of humid here, and if it's even kind of humid here, people make a huge sink about it.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

But I know you guys live in that, so you know, I missed it. I was out, I I lived in Orange County for 10 years. Um and uh I missed the subtropical, um, you know, that that I don't know what it was. Every time I would come back and visit, uh, I'd step off the airplane and it was that balmy, sweaty, like, yeah, I like it. I like it. And then out there it's like past the moisturizer because it's just crazy dry.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

I mean, the one thing you guys have out there that I do like is because of the humidity, it stays warm at night. Or I know people like that it gets cool here, but I like being able to just walk outside and not have to wear a jacket at night.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah, I well, I I'm mixed mixed in feelings about that because I did always like, I always said it's a hoodie in the morning and board shorts by noon. Yeah. It's true. I well, I brought the I brought that style, you know, back to Miami and it's it's it's no, not even a little bit down here. So um I've I've resorted to if I'm not on stage uh or doing something camera worthy, I don't have the bow tie on, but um, I do rock the podcast soccer if you don't have one shirt.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Um I've actually never seen you without a bow tie.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Hey, so that's this is my alternate uniform. I I constantly get asked. I was thinking about maybe putting a bow tie on the t-shirt, but that's a little you know, 80s, uh uh what do you call it? Um what are the uh movies in the 80s called?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Um I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Like uh like uh you know uh Pretty in Pink. Uh it's on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, I I always picture like one of those guys in the 80s movies with like a tuxedo t-shirt on. So um I'm excited to have you on the show. Thanks for taking time out of your day to hang out with me for a few minutes here. Uh we're recording video too, so you could be watching this on YouTube, you could be watching this on Facebook or maybe even LinkedIn, seeing a teaser of this or listening and tuning into the show. I sure do appreciate you tuning in from wherever you're viewing it here. Um, but Brittany and I connected funny story, probably about uh what year did Ask Gary V come out?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Oh, I mean, when I was working on when after Gary moved me to New York was 2015.

unknown 5:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

So it might have been 20. I don't know if you saw me on an episode in 2015 and 2016.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yeah, I think it might have been 2015 because the book, I know actually the book was not out yet.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

It was one of the the book, the book came out that I know very well because I worked really hard on that. That was March 2016.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Okay, okay, cool, okay, cool. So, so that's exactly right around that time frame is when uh you and I connected via email, just like in in in being CC'd on it. Like Gary had forwarded you an email and said, Hey, make sure my boy down in Miami gets a book. And um, we were hunting that book down for like a couple of weeks. So by default, you and I had started a conversation back and forth. Finally got the damn book. Actually, I got yeah, I got that. And then he had asked me to buy like, I don't know, four copies. They've made great gifts ever since then. Like, I need a door prize. I'm like, I got you.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, to give people context on that, just so just so people know, this was, I mean, influencer marketing is now such such a buzz term, but this was kind of, I don't want to say early on in the influencer game when it came to Instagram. And I had to find 750 influencers to hold his book for free. And I had to, I was DMing these people from my account, just like hand-to-hand combat to find these people. And uh, and then I was sending these crazy CSVs to Harper Collins, and then those weren't going out. So basically I ended up, and I'm not kidding, this is one of those things that I'll tell my kids. I was walking books in the snow to the post office with like hand, you know, hand put on my stamp and I put them in the envelope and I stuffed it, and I walked them with my like wheelbarrow pretty much down to the uh, you know, in Manhattan to get delivered. So so that book had my blood, sweat, and tears on it.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

I love it. I absolutely love it. Well, I had remembered, I think I looked you up on Instagram um through the email thread that we had had, and then I had started to follow you. And then shortly thereafter, like a few months later, was I don't even know how the anyway. We met it, we finally met in person. Hashtag IRL um in in San Diego, uh, but a gig I had for uh digital marketers, traffic, and conversions, and you were out there and I like came randomly walking up to like one of the hotel bars, and it was really quiet like during the day. And I was like, Is your name Britney? And you're like, um, I'm like, I'm a friend of Gary, I'm a friend of Gary, hands up. No. Um, well, actually, and your boyfriend looks like Gary. So I thought, oh my god, that's Gary and Britney right there. I'm totally going for it.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Well, sorry, so I don't seem like I'm completely off guard because I need to give context for this. We had gotten there early. I drove down to San Diego for um because I was there with a client, and uh we were kind of off, like like the traffic and conversion stuff was in more the main area, and we were pretty much we'd just gotten there, we're tired, we're sitting by ourselves. I had my back to you, I had my back to like where people would enter. So you like came around like this potted plant area. You like popped out and surprised me and asked if I was Brittany. And it was just like, oh my god, like all of it was not expected.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Who was this? But I thought, well, how random is that? I'm like, that has to be her. I've been following her on Instagram for a little while. So um, and then uh that was fun. We further connected. I we ended up having a few drinks on the rooftop with the crew you were there with and met Bonin, and um, he was running around with a camera guy too. So um it was great to connect and then stay in touch here. So let's back up a little bit. So your um you you got out of school and what happened?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

So, yeah, to back everyone up.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

I am gonna go we're going way back because I could we could sit here and talk about, I'll go on and on, like, look, squirrel. So I'm like, structure, Sebastian. We're gonna talk about a structured story here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

So as far as online, if you're looking for me, I'm probably under Britney Crystal, which is spelled K-R-Y-S-T-L-E. So that's my middle name.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

And a backstory on that?

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yeah, a little, oh crystal. The backstory on that was actually, it ended up being super smart. It was really because on Gmail I got Britney Crystal and Britney Hoffman was taken, and I didn't want to put a dot in my email address or whatever it was. And then just for handles, it was shorter. And I realized, and this is, you know, this is one of those things, but for a woman, maybe I would get married and maybe I'd decide to change my last name. So I just kind of kept the Britney Crystal because I knew that wasn't going to go anywhere. And then Crystal is, I found out recently was a character in Dynasty in the 80s, which I had no idea until like my parents, I asked my parents, and they were like, Oh, yeah, no, it was like the main character's name in the spelling. I was like, oh, cool. So that's that's that. And then as far as my education, grew up in now, people know what Calabasas is because of the Kardashians, but I grew up in LA. Uh, went to UCLA for undergrad. Basically, my choices were like lawyer and doctor for professions, and doctor wasn't gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Which one which one would you like, Brittany?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, exactly. I was like, doctor takes way longer. So I was good at reading and writing and whatnot. So that meant law. Um, I was really interested in entertainment at the time. There was no, you know, I love television, but there was no social media when I was in, you know, high school and middle school yet. So lawyer it was, and I thought the safest route, or I was told the safest route to monetization was to be an entertainment lawyer if I wanted to work in the entertainment field. So even in thinking my high school yearbook, people thought I was going to be an entertainment lawyer. Like this was a thing. Went to college, graduated early, went to Georgetown for law school. I was having doubts about law school before I went to law school, but I went and I did it. I knew in law school that was not for me, but I also knew nobody could take it away from me if I actually, you know, I graduated and I passed the bar in New York. Um and basically after I had two summers of work in I was in school during the time the economy tanked. And so the two summers I was working on securities regulations, litigations cases, and that was awful and boring, and as boring, like Sebastian's eyes are glazing over with me saying that sentence. That's how it felt working in it. And I was like, this cannot, this cannot be my life. Right. And so I passed the bar so nobody could say shit about me not being able to do it because this was a complete choice. And then I moved back to LA and started kind of going down that entertainment route. And I guess I don't, I don't know if you want me, if you have any questions about that before I go into the red.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Well, I mean, you seem like you figured out pretty quick, which is cool. I mean, I mean it doesn't, you know, in in in your well, we all have different timelines, but as far as like getting out of school, being in law school and realizing, you know, fuck this while being in while being in law school, you know, is a pretty good eye-awakening gift, really, right? So you did it anyway. And I love what you said about um I did it because no one could take it away from me. And it's always good to, especially I look in the I look back on my path of 15 years of entrepreneurship. I never went to college. Had I had an opportunity to do it all over again, I would have gone because there were some times in this entrepreneur journey that were just brutal that being able to fall back on something that I already had under my belt would be awesome. So that's why my daughter's going and it's not negotiable. But um, so so fast forward, uh, you you you you realize you didn't want to be um uh uh an attorney no more. You were still out in LA. How did you connect with Gary?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So just to just to give context for people, it's not like I knew, you know, when I was miserable, I was miserable in school. And, you know, everyone that you're around, it's kind of really it is really hard to just say, I'm not gonna do what everybody is telling me is the smart thing to do. Given that I was such a good student and and all of these other things, it's really hard to just be like, no, I'm not gonna listen to any of you. I'm really unhappy doing this. So that was a really tough time and one of the most difficult periods of my life. And and I just think that people don't, you know, it's easy to talk about it now and kind of gloss over it, but it was really tough because I did not know what I was gonna do because you still want that safe income. You know, entrepreneurship wasn't as hot as it is now. I wasn't, I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm gonna go work for myself immediately. I was still thinking, oh, I've got to go work, I've either got to find an in-house position or I need to go work for a big company. That was still the thought process. Right. So basically, I went, moved back to LA. I started working in Hollywood. I worked at a large talent agency, ICM. I worked at a large management company, which is Burlstein Entertainment Partners. I was working, I thought I wanted to represent writers and directors who who worked in television because I thought that was the I didn't think I was creative. I thought my best path to being in that creative field was to represent the people who were creative, know that those were the people who were hot, like use my eye to find those people and then advocate for them. So I was thinking about how to position myself that way. I ended up working in at a reality TV production company and then at the Lifetime Network.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

And basically I love those movies.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

The movies are good. I was working on the TV development side. So basically what was happening is I knew what I liked or like the ball, the arena of what I liked, but the jobs I was having, they just weren't the perfect, they weren't the right fit. They didn't feel right, but there were things to learn from each of them, and I needed each of them in order to get the next thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

And so when I was at the Lifetime Network, is when is how Gary comes in. Uh I noticed that they basically like the Lifetime Network is giant owned corporation owned by AE. And there's a lot of there's stockholders and there's a lot of people to answer to. It was extremely corporate.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

And I was really interested in what was going on on the social media side. I was interested in the marketing that was happening. I was looking at the Netflix and the Hulus, and they're taking these risks and these chances, and we were taking really safe, safe bets. Just wasn't even interesting. And at that point, I wasn't even, I used to watch TV like crazy growing up. That was my, you know, my kind of dessert. Like when I was studying for the bar, that would be my break. I would watch like a True Blood or just Friday Night Lights. I'd watch TV. And now I wasn't watching TV at all. I was spending my time on the internet. And so, again, going back to what is safe, my parents and pretty much everyone else were like, Oh, you need to get an MBA if you want to switch careers, you want to be in marketing and branding. That needs you should go get an MBA. Because I had a roommate who worked at Nestle and she went to UCLA for her MBA, and they only hired MBAs. So studying for the GMAT, and my boyfriend, the one who you think looks like Gary, he does not for the record, because I think that's kind of creepy. But yeah, from a distance.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

From a distance.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So this was in 2014. He sent me a Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk tweet. I had no clue who he was. It the tweet was just saying that there were openings in the LA office. It was new LA office. There were openings, not like a sexy tweet at all. My boyfriend was just like, listen, look into this guy. I think you'll like him. You're just don't study for the GMAT. You don't need to go to business school. And I know I told him he was an idiot and that nobody gets a job through a website. And I went to the inters website, I picked a job I hoped I could be qualified for. It was in project management. And I applied and went through a few rounds of interviews, and I was part of the first project management team that started in that LA office, and that was August 2014. Fast forward to December of 2014 at the Christmas party, and Gary was on, it was the first my first time meeting Gary, and he was on my trivia team because it was a British pub trivia Christmas party. And and I like to tell this story because I think it's so Gary. He there were two other guys on my trivia team. He literally ate our leftover chicken wing leftovers the entire night, like completely unapologetically. Like we would all actually, we all ate our wings, and he would go around. Now he's got a trainer and he doesn't eat like this, but he would go around and clean like the gristle off of our wings that we had already eaten. And I was totally like, This is this is like this is the guy. And it was pretty mind blowing. It was it was funny because he was and he was completely unapologetic. He was like, I'm just gonna do this all night. And I was like, that's disgusting, but okay. And and you know, we had a good conversation, and the next month he came back and he was like, You're overqualified for what you do. What do you really want to be doing? And he thought I should look into growth, which wasn't even a concept to me. I I used to play poker and I thought I wanted to invest his money. I was interested in that startup world, like that was appealing to me. And he was like, Look and look into growth. And then over the next few months, oh, and he asked me too if I'd consider moving to New York. I'd lived in New York, my life was in LA. It I said it it depends on what I'd be doing. And so we went back and forth for the next few months. Just, you know, he just casually asked me how long I'd consider moving to New York to New York for. And then in the summer of that year, 2015, he's just sat me down. He was like, listen, everything new that happens that I do comes out of New York. I'm about to get really serious about my personal brand. I think you know something about influencers, I think you know something about growth. Give me a year. Come out, move out in October, give me one year, and we'll see where it goes from there. And I treated that like that was my MBA.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah, yeah, it was. It really was.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

So, yeah, there's a whole story after that part, but that was the lead up.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Okay, let's just keep let's keep it going. Yeah, I was like popcorn. Popcorn, let's go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Moved out in October. Um, the role, if you want a super defined role, that job is not for you. This the team now is I think is very structured, is way more structured, has over 20 people, you know, dedicated to his personal brand. This was like six of us kind of filling in gaps and holes, but it was the best opportunity that will never exist again in his world at this point. But but I do tell people, because there's so many people now who want to work for Gary, work with Gary. I met Gary at the ideal time. There are plenty of other people who are, and I don't want to say they're like Gary, but who you can develop that experience with, and it would be so incredibly valuable. You know, people get stuck on the shiny object. I didn't know, I just knew Gary had the potential. He was who he said he was. I knew I could learn a lot, and I went in and I just had to be ready to do everything. So I got to, I got to touch everything from the strategy to the influencer marketing to the paid ads to having to reach out. At the time, now people are calling Gary to want to interview him, but at the time I was trying to reach out to small town newspapers in literally every state to see if their business section would want to syndicate his content. Like I learned paid ads, like everything, every everything and anything that goes into online brand building and personal brand building, I got to touch and learn. I was running help start Wine Library's affiliate program. Like the experience was invaluable, but I figured out that I loved personal branding and really fell in love with it when I had to do the promotions for the book, when I was reaching out to people. And basically, I was reaching out to people, I had to find those 750 influencers, like I said, and the responses I was getting back because these people had, I guess, and I didn't even know they had read Crush It. I was like just DMing, like, hi, I'm Britney with I work for Gary V. Gary is a blah blah blah, you know. And basically, these people were writing back saying, Oh my God, of course I will take and promote this book. No problem. Gary changed my life. The reason I do what I do is because, you know, Gary, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, and it's it was the first time I'd done I I was working on something that felt like it was making a difference for someone else. Like it was it was the very first time. And I'm sure actually, because we started filming Daily V kind of around the time that I might have had this conversation, because another thing is I never wasted Gary's time. Like if I met with him, I met with him five minutes every three months. You know, you casually have conversations, but you don't eat up his time. I know how busy he was. And when I had that whatever three-month meeting in early 2016 after reaching out for the book, I was like, I know you test everything on yourself. I love the responses I'm getting. It makes me feel so good. If you're I knew he was gonna build this into a product of some kind, which became Vayner Talent, the personal branding arm. I was like, I want in on this. Like, this is this is what I like, this is what I do. And from you know, from working for Gary, I got to a point where, and this is what that model was built on. Just it became a content machine. I could watch, first of all, I can give a Gary keynote at this point, but I can watch a Gary piece of content, a long form piece of content. I knew which two clips work, I knew which 10 image quotes I was writing his articles at a certain point. I knew which article to write, I knew how to write in his voice, I knew how to optimize it on all the platforms. I just I just internally became a machine knowing how to do that. And so So then I needed to make sure I could do it for other people.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

And then that's what led into the Vayner Talent. How did that transition take place?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

So that transition took place. We knew over the course of that year that he was doing this. And so he was bringing people in who were possible potential Vayner Talent clients or just friends who needed, you know, higher level people who needed help, you know, maybe had teams, but didn't really know the social landscape as well. And he kind of put them in the room with the team and have us go back and forth with them and explain the process and try to help them out. And then he built that out. I think we had our first clients for Vayner Talent in like August, like late July, August of 2016. Uh Bonin was one of those first clients. And so Bonin was my first Vayner Talent client. And so as soon as that was like really happening, I moved. I was still writing uh actually articles for Gary's team and like helping part-time on that. But then I was starting working full-time building other people's brands and incorporating what I learned from Gary's team into this machine. And that was a you know, that's a startup in itself, too. So yeah, just doing that. And so I was working with Bonin when I ran into you, and that was March of 2017.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah, I remember asking you about um you're like, yeah, we work with micro influencers. I think that's the first time I ever heard that term.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

I don't think I said micro influencer. They're definitely not micro influencers.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

No, no, no, but I think I asked about like a guy like me who may not be a celebrity yet and doesn't have a ginormous following. What does that work? And I think that's when you said micro influencer. That's I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

No, the basically like I think the pitch always was that this is for, you know, the 1% of the 1%. It's a $30,000 a month product. It's not for people who, you know, I think Gary, Gary's whole thing at the beginning was he didn't want, he wanted people who were super serious about it, who are at a certain level to take it to the next level. I think that's the that's the jump. I think they were going after. I mean, we had, you know, that core group of people. I don't really know who necessarily their clients are now, but I think he wanted a good range of athletes and musicians and people who weren't just wanting to be him. I think no, you know, he didn't want just to do that for a ton of marketers or a ton of people who wanted to be Gary's. That doesn't, you know, that that just wasn't the machine he wanted to build.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Right. So um um and then when when when when did you leave Vayner Talent? How long was it?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

I left in, I actually left not long after the end of April 2017. I knew Gary knew this too, that I wanted to work for myself. I needed to make sure I could replicate the results. I liked working for Vahner Talent, but there there just was going to be a point, even when I went to start to work for Gary, my goal was at that year, like when I finished my year, I was going to pitch him like a startup idea. I I wanted, I like partnering, but I knew I wanted my own thing. And uh, you know, that I didn't know I was gonna fall in love with personal branding, so that whole thing shifted. And I don't think, you know, taking start, we can argue the merits of taking uh funding and startup money and and whatnot, but uh he knew. And before I moved back to LA, because I was working on Tom Villew's brand at the LA office, I moved back to LA the start of 20, yeah, start of 2017, still working on Vayner talent. And Gary was like, you want to do your own thing, don't you? And I was like, Yeah. He was like, cool. Like he was he was fully supportive of it, but you know, I was also the first person to actually, and I think that's still, I mean, I just am. I'm the first person to spend any time on his team and actually leave Vayner. Um, now I think a few people are starting to leave, but other people who you might recognize if you were a fan of the Ask Gary V show, um, like in India or Stunwin or people who had been around are still at Vahner.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Like I was the first one to to kind of venture off.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Yeah, I was talking, I was talking, I met his um his uh his PR girl. Um and she was Emily? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah, Emily's amazing. I love Emily. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

I don't know why her name did not pop up, but um, she was more than accommodating for age of 2021 for myself and my team there, and we got a chance to chat. And I'm like, so how long have we been with Gary? She's like employee number six.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, no, he has leavers, and and you know, he's the best boss I've ever had. If I was had to have a boss, like it should be him. He uh he really does give a shit about the people who who he employs, and I have no negative, nothing negative to say about it. I just knew that that wasn't the path for me forever.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Well, I that sounds like a I mean, to to be able to get in there and get that experience underneath your belt, just like you said, you had wrote that off as got my master's and then some, really, because it really didn't stop in New York. You got the opportunity to find your way back out to to uh to the homeland on the West Coast um and finish your days out, you know, um and then decide, you know, that transition on what you're doing. So something stuck out uh that you said a couple of minutes ago, and that was um, you know, I I I had fallen in love with personal branding. When did that start to click?

SPEAKER_00 27:15

I mean, that started to click when I was when I was working with Gary and I was doing the influencer thing and they were writing back to me that it was changing, changing their lives. Okay. I think when I saw the responses to content that was coming out, because during that time was when all those viral pieces would come out, whether it was about uh when he was on the Breakfast Club or whether he was doing a rant about you know college and how you should just, you know, like don't give a shit about what you're doing in your 20s, try everything. Right. The feedback he was getting, I felt like his message was important. And it was really important to me. And this is something I've learned over the last, you know, year and a half of doing my own thing. It's really important to me to help people. I connect with people, like I connect with people more than brands. That's just the way it is. Right. To really connect to those people and help people grow their brands in order to build their business or their higher purpose. Like I know that sounds a little woo-woo and I'm really not woo-woo, but that's the case. Um, I noticed one thing I wanted to be doing outside of, you know, with Banner Talent, you get to work on whoever they tell you to work on. Like that's not, and this isn't, you know, this is what happens when you work for someone. Like you do the work that you're assigned. And for me, I found over the last year, I'm not interested in building people who just want to be famous to be famous. That holds nothing for me. Who I like working with the most are they're genuinely business people and entrepreneurs because they're willing to put in the work. If you have a business and you're a real entrepreneur, you know that you put in the work to build that. And for me to be able to help people optimize their process and really strategize their brand in order to make that machine happen for them, that just feels good to me. That's just my sweet spot.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Sure. Yeah. Um my friend Bruce Turkel says um uh a good brand makes you feel good. A great brand makes people feel good about themselves. Um and uh I I always thought about that um as being true because um and it's uh I think it really comes back to doing shit that matters too, right? So I I look at um and I think as entrepreneurs, we constantly run that tape, um, or at least if you're conscious about it, you're running that tape of like, like, am I am I really doing shit that matters? Like for a while I struggled with with the work that we're do here for our agency class because we just do buzz videos for Facebook and for and for and for YouTube. And sometimes I'm just like, yeah, I really like these because I found a streamlined way to be able to shoot and produce everything on iPads and iPhones and yay. At the same time, I'm like, ah, I'm tied to every shoot, like, et cetera. But then I took a step back and I started to hear testimonials from clients that say, I went from going, I I I'm not gonna be good on camera, to let's go, when we shoot the next series. And and and someone had said, Sebastian, makes you a believer in yourself pertaining to what you can do, pertaining to telling your story and and creating content. And I I I tell you, Brittany, it clicked almost immediately. Then I thought, that's it. I'm in a yes, it is a service business, but I'm almost also in service with the business because it's allowing the small guys to kind of catch up with the big guys. So yeah, doing shit that matters, I think is is is is absolutely vital. So so it brings you to present day today. Um you're you're working with um, you've you've done some work with um Marie Forlio. Marie's a big fan of the show here, big fan of hers as well. You did some uh after your Vayner days, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yes, after Vahner. So it was funny because I was working with Bonnen at Vayner, and then for people who don't know, Bonner Bonnen was a former uh advertising executive at Mondeleys and PepsiCo and now is it's been has his own like investment company and he's been on the speaking circuit and he's doing a bunch of other things, but he was my client at Vayner, and when he knew I was leaving, he was like, I don't, I don't want to lose you. Come, you know, come work for me on my side. So I was working on his brand, and I was working on there was another uh there's another client, Nikeo Rico, who's under the Sundale brand's uh umbrella, and she was also ended up being a Vayner talent client. So I was working with two Vayner talent clients on the brand side, approving Vayner's work. So working on that end. So it was interesting to see how it works on that side, but also a different shift in dynamic. So that was cool. And then yes, I started working for Marie Forlio that summer. I was working with her. Um, I was taking on, you know, I was starting to take on the clients that I thought I wanted to be taking on. And then just like anything else, your business evolves. It's like, okay, what else can this be? How can I help more people? How can I streamline this process? What don't I like about this? Because my goal was never, yes, I could have left Vayner Talent and just started a Vayner Talent somewhere else. There's enough agencies in LA who want to know that model, who want to be, who are, who want someone who has that experience to build it out. But that wasn't interesting to me. That wasn't the the dream wasn't to leave an agency and just start my own agency. And so after working with other people, I was like, okay, what do I really want to be doing? And so now I'm still consulting, but I've kind of moved off, like you said, you've you're you're producing people, you're behind the scenes, you're pulling things out of them. There's a cap on the amount of time that I have to be able to do that. So I kind of like I love QA, I love helping people at scale. So for me, the idea of only working with two clients or only three clients because that's all the time I have and I'm traveling with them, that just wasn't appealing to me anymore. Yeah. So recently I've been building out digital courses to try to kind of just scale my knowledge that way. If you can't afford me and that doesn't, that doesn't make sense, I can actually help people grow their businesses who couldn't afford a veiner talent, who can't afford, you know, 30 grand a month or 15 grand a month on their personal brand. So that's been just, I guess it's my passion project, but it's also my my job now.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Yeah. Yeah. What what kind of projects are you working on right now?

SPEAKER_00 33:15

So I've been, I think we were talking about this last week. I've been super hot on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn, there's a huge white space within the last year. Yes, everybody has their resume, everybody put their resume on there when LinkedIn was created, however many years ago, like almost a decade ago. And right now they've been embracing content creation. They have super favorable algorithms. I've had a lot of inbound come from LinkedIn. And it's just like anything else. I say I'm platform agnostic because I can build brand on any platform because it's usually the same, it's the same formula everywhere. Um, and we can go into that. But I'm building out a course right now that hopefully will be live in the next couple weeks on building your influence on LinkedIn. And then what I have two other projects I'm working on. One is a course on, I'm basically making a month's worth of content in a day. Like I was saying earlier, what I can do, if you if I'm working with somebody and I I like know you and your business, and we sit down and we have a conversation, I could literally schedule like two to four hours with you to film, and I could make a month's worth of content from that. So I want to, that's what the Vayner Talent model essentially was taking high net worth individuals and just making a shit ton of content from the little amount of time that they have. But if you're in the startup scene, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're just anybody who really is trying to go to work and you know you need to build a personal brand because that's the way people people know of you today, I want to be able to give those tools to them to actually walk them through that process of how to think about their personal brand, how to actually take those pieces of content and distribute it, like what to actually do. So that's that's kind of part two after this LinkedIn thing. And then the other project I've been working on is because I am a lawyer, I realize that it is not an obvious thing about when you're starting your own business to hire a lawyer, how to hire a lawyer, uh, tax issues, the finance people, just kind of the basics of business that I learned, even though I have a background in it, I fucked up a lot during the last year. And so I've been working with my attorney who works with a lot of influencers and entrepreneurs to kind of set up a like a reasonable, kind of like almost like a small business course. That's like, this is what you need. If you're a freelance photographer, or you want to be the next D-Rock, or you want to go like call that guy on Instagram?

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Is it like San Diego something?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Is there a he's Nico Becerra? So I don't know if he goes by the new age lawyer. We're kind of working on his branding now, but he is so smart and but he his bio says something like social media attorney, something like that. Yeah, I need I knew I needed a lawyer, and even as a lawyer, it's intimidating for people to hire a lawyer, and it really is necessary, especially if you're in anything client services based or not, like just in terms of having the right contracts, not just going a legal Zoom and just assuming that everything's fine, because you don't know until there's a problem. You just need to be prepared and do it the right way. So those are those are kind of my those are my passion projects, but they all revolve around helping people build out their businesses and do the thing that they're best at and that they love.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Um I'm taking notes as I did this. I learned that from my friend Michelle Villa Lobos. Um, she says it all the time on her um that's a great connection for you, by the way. I need to connect you with her. Um she helps people build out their brands and become a superstar, and that's her superstar branding is like her whole deal. And um, she launched her podcast last year, and she's been interviewing some pretty high-profile individuals doing some really cool stuff. But um at the end of our visit, she's like, holy cow, I took three pages of notes, and I thought that's a great idea. Like it really, like the goal of, and you know, you've got a podcast. I want people on my show that are smarter than me, know more than me, have a bigger following than me, because we learn from each other. There's something we're gonna, you know, we were able to take from that. But I learned that from here. So um from her, rather. Um so you said something a couple of minutes ago, um, and then you said something last week when we were on the phone too. Uh personal branding formula, and I'll follow that up with what you had said when we were on the phone last week. And you said, Sebastian, I just get it when it comes to branding and content. I don't care what the brand is or what the business does. I can sit down and execute a content strategy regardless because I understand the formula. Uh, what's the formula?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

So the formula is something that I call the three C's, and kind of like you were saying before, it's about them. It's about you, but it's about them. So the first C is clarity. You need to kind of do that inner work, and this is where the self-awareness stuff comes in, but you need to know who you are, what you're about, and also who you want to talk to. Audience, and I know it's so trite to be saying it, but the audience is the most important thing. If you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one. So I'd say it's internal and external clarity, and this is kind of what I'd go into super depth in in the course is how to achieve that. But the internal clarity is that work, knowing the answers to those questions. The external clarity is making sure that your social channels and your blog and your bios all match that internal work. Because it's one thing to know what you're about, but it's another to make sure that that's actually external facing. Because I'm sure people see this on Instagram all the time. You go to someone's bio and they're like, Oh, I'm a Libra dog mom, you know, interested in travel, fitness, whatever. And then they're like, Oh yeah, but I work in finance. And it's like, okay, well, your content's all around finance. Like, that's just confusing. So it's getting clearer. So people don't have people don't have fucking time. You don't have time. I need to know right away what the deal is. Sure. So that clarity. Then it comes down to cons the next C is consistent content. You need to be putting out consistent content. Does that mean 20 times a day? No, not necessarily. You can do consistent content just being, even if it's like a weekly podcast, but you just people just need to know you're there and what you're about. It needs to be consistent, that you're gonna show up, that you're not just gonna post, you know, five days a week for two weeks and then you disappear off the face of the earth. And that, you know, the content would be related to the clarity piece, should be related to what you do. And then the last piece is the community piece, which is again tying back to the audience. That's actually the genuine engagement that's that's building that those people who, you know, that community you want to have. Because ultimately those super fans and those people are what's gonna make your business or your brand.

unknown 39:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

And those pieces all tie into each other. And not only that, if there's a problem with, you know, if somebody comes to me and they have a problem with their growth or whatever it is, it is always in one of those things. There is nothing outside of those three things.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Got it. Clarity, consistent content, and community. Love it. Yep, love it. I couldn't agree with that more. Um, so what do you want to talk about now?

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Well, I you mentioned I have the podcast. Um, I have a podcast called Beyond Influential today. My well, we're on a Wednesday. So they go live every Wednesday. I'm episode 40 today. I've been doing it.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Really? Yeah, and I've been doing it for like five years. So congrats.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Thank you. So basically, knowing you got to eat your own dog food. The worst thing is to hire somebody who does not do what they're recommending. I completely do not buy that. So for me, I was like, okay, well, if I'm doing this and I'm telling all my clients to do it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna fucking do this too. Yeah. So every week for the last 40 weeks, I've been putting this out and I've been super consistent about it. It's so basically I've been obsessed with influence and how to grow influence, and that just makes sense for me. And I actually wanted to start the podcast when I was in uh when I was still at Vahner. But I realized that there is, I didn't want to start a podcast and have people say that I'm just talking about things that Gary, like I didn't want my things to reflect Vahner necessarily. I wanted to be my own person and sure and just be completely independent in terms of thought. So I waited until uh until I was completely done. And it's been amazing. And like you said, with with the podcast, I want to talk to people who are influential. And my whole thing is that um every industry has influencers. I call them industry influencers that just makes sense. Like if you're in the accounting world, you're in the legal world, I don't care what world you're in, there are people who are influencers and influential, and whether they're influential online or not, they're just people that you look to as the experts and the authorities. It's never been easier, and this is unfortunate for people who are actually really good at whatever whatever they do, to move up that that rank and that, you know, to move up in their industry and kind of get there by positioning themselves properly online. You've no idea how many people come to me who are like, oh, I've had so much experience in this world, I'm scared to put out content. But this person who like just showed up yesterday in this industry is getting these speaking gigs. It's like, yeah, like this is how it works. You can get there too. And if you actually have the experience and the know-how of your industry, we can make content around it. So it's just a really cool time. So I've been yeah, learning from all my guests.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

It it is an exciting time to be alive. Um, um, Gary talks about that a lot. He always has for 10 years. For 10 years, it's been this is the most exciting time to be alive. And it just becomes more and more exciting. And he's also consistently said that, you know, this is just the beginning. Like, we're still in its infancy.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

And he's such a and he's a hyper optimist. I'm listening like compared to Gary, I'm I wouldn't say I'm negative, but I'm I'm a realist. Like, I've there's a reason I went to law school. I'm very logical. I'm not, you know, I'm not showering myself in crystals, like I'm not gonna sell you some kind of crap in that way. But it's true. I actually did, and it's amazing. I did a random photo shoot, and this is just like the power of Instagram for a hotel on Monday, and that's completely separate kind of from you know the brand business that I'm building. But they found me from Instagram. So much of my business now has been from people reaching out to me on LinkedIn. And I'm the beauty is I'm not even outbounding. I'm not like, hey, I want it's not the hard sell. I'm just putting out content related to what's going on in the brand world day to day, like just things that I think are interesting. And other people think that shit's interesting. The worst also is when I get people who come to me and they're like, oh, but my my industry is boring. It's like you're in your industry. There are people that want to be in your position that want to be in your industry. Your shit is not boring. Right. You need to get out of that. This is the best time. And if you want to switch industries, if you're not happy, Gary's right. This my job didn't even exist. Exist, you know, when I was in in college. This wasn't even a choice. This wasn't an option. Facebook started when I was in college. And now I'm doing something that I love. I transitioned, I was able to transition careers. I didn't need to go to the business school everybody said I needed to go to. I didn't need to do any of that.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

You went to business school, just not a not at a university.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

I know that if had I gone to business school, I would have wasted more time, then gone to go work at a company like a Pepsi, been in brand management, been miserable, tried to figure it out. It would have taken me the completely wrong way. And you don't need to do any of that shit anymore. So why would you?

SPEAKER_02 44:35

You don't. You can you can eliminate a lot of that. The only thing that you can't replace is the experience that you get while working underneath individuals like Gary. And I look back on my journey prior to being an entrepreneur. I became an entrepreneur young. You know, I think 24, 25 years old is pretty young to become an entrepreneur, especially back then. I want to say back then, but um I look at the individuals, but it that still continues. And if you if you position yourself correctly with the projects and the clients that you're working with, you're in turn, just like you said, the people that are on your podcast show, you're learning from these individuals um too. Uh when you're you're you're you're they're they're there's we all have our different smarts, right? You've got the branding content side down, they're clueless on that, but they may have their what they've mastered with their business down, and that's what we're able to reciprocate back to each other and really learn from each other, you know?

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah, you really need to learn from from the people. And you're right. Like I did, I knew when those jobs weren't for me, but each of those jobs I was taking something from. All the people I worked for and I was assisting and what I was doing, those people got to those positions for a reason. They all had great, just great knowledge. So I know that's kind of a thing now for people who are 19 years old to be like, I'm an entrepreneur, and just be putting out content and business content. And from a lot of that stuff, it's like, fuck you, like you don't, you don't actually know anything about business. And I really don't like that trend, but that's another reason why I'm so passionate about people who are actually entrepreneurs and actually building something, getting their message out there because what's so unique, they're not gonna all be like Gary. I could work with thousands of entrepreneurs, you're all gonna have different experience, you're all gonna have different areas, you're all gonna have different expertise, you don't need to all be yelling at the camera or cursing or whatever it is. It doesn't need to be, you know, just the content that's out there. So I think people need to think about if you are an entrepreneur, that you don't need to be putting out, you know, the hustle, grind, work shit that everybody else is putting out.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

Yeah, stop signing your fucking memes, okay? You're not Gary. Jamie Christmas. That's like the worst thing. I mean, that's like people send them to me because they know Gary and I are friends. So it's like, well, you want me to tell the guy to stop doing it? Like, I don't, I mean, yeah, Gary coined it and it's in his content's dope, but anybody else does it, it's whack a doodle. I got called a Gary V wannabe one time after a talk back in 2015, I think it was. And Gary gave a talk at that con. It was for EO. It was in Philadelphia for EO for the for uh for nerve. And he gave the opening keynote, and I gave a uh I gave the following breakout session on social media. And at that point in time, I was, you know, two, three years into the game. I was, you know, all out Gary V nuts, short of cussing people out on stage, which he doesn't really do, but uh uniquely for you know for delivering um the F-bomb, which which everyone kind of uh I and I I'm I'm hesitant. This day and age, I still I kind of do, but at the same time, you know, you're not Gary, you know, I mean like he can get away with a lot more. Unfortunately, just the way it is. You can call it fair, you can call it favoritism, whatever it is, but I think you know, you have a little bit more clout and credibility, you can. In fact, even in smaller circles, like I've given like chamber talks or like my networking group or whatever, I thought, what if somebody sees a video where I'm like, oh fuck, and they're like, he's a great speaker, but I don't know if I want to hire him because you don't have the chop, so I think I'm conscious about that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

But um It's funny you're talking about that because my my dad, so my I don't know why my dad was listening to my podcast, but my parents don't really listen to my podcast. But my dad was listening to one that I did a few weeks ago about uh LeBron moving to the Lakers and what you could learn from top athletes' personal brands, and I do naturally swear. I swore before Gary, I've that's my demeanor. And I think that's because that's authentic to me, the people who would be attracted to that are the ones that I would want anyway, because and I think this is the way Gary operates too, and I know it. He can't, even if he's hired for something where they're like, please don't curse, and he tries not to curse, that's it's just he just can't not be himself. So it's it's knowing when that comes from a place that it's it's real and being able to put aside that the content's actually valuable.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

I mean, yeah, it depends. Like if you want to be speaking at the chamber of commerce and you're gonna be speaking to people who are, you know, 50 plus and might not be as cool with it, then you might have to adjust your shtick. But for me, I I know there's it's very hard for me not to do it.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

So he talks, he talks about it publicly a lot too, you know, about you know, being asked to not, you know, to refrain from. And I I get it, you're being centered. And I've noticed some talks that he actually has been able to pull it off. Um, and I just learned from that, you know, etc. I always think, you know, if my mom sees the talk, which she watches all of them, um, she's the first phone call. You know, you don't need to be used, you need to, what's her famous line? You need to find a new word, yeah. And my daughter's like, can't you just use pickles? You know, I'm like, it's not like 20 times on this podcast. So that's well, that's what podcasts are for. You know, you're you're uh, you know, Joe Rogan takes pride in the F bomb on his podcast. Um, so uh what else did I want to talk about? I think the personal branding stuff, your podcast stuff, the beyond the beyond the beyond the hustle, is that the name of it? Oh, what is it? Beyond Beyond Influential, Beyond Influential, listeners, beyond influential, uh, wherever you consume uh podcasts, you probably iTunes, unless you're some Android weirdo, then you can probably find it there too. But it's there too. Yes, of course. We want to meet our audience wherever they show. It was funny. I went live right before I had a few minutes to kill. And I was like, and I've been and oh, that's it we'll wrap up with with this is what I want to talk about. So you said, you know, I started my podcast because I can't be telling people to go start a podcast or creating content. I'm not doing anything, right? So you got to be a product of the product, right? To sell the product. Like that's just borderline, that's this bottom line sales 101. And um, I've always thought that, and that's why I'm doing this right now, and I continue the passion project, and I restarted my podcast for the third time. But as of late, I've been doing a couple, a couple things. The first thing is um taking the stage with zero planning and zero slides. I believe a true pro can get on stage and give a structured, detailed talk that makes an emotional connection and still delivers uh value where people are like, that was awesome. Um, and then I've been just hitting, like my buddy Brian Fanzo says, just press the damn button. I've literally just been going live and going, hey guys, what's happening? Um, I actually don't know what I want to discuss. Um, but some things are happening today. Uh this is what happened this morning based on what I got an email, an article, and I just kind of let it flow for the first couple minutes and it turns into something. Um, I said, Well, I've got 10 minutes to kill before I've got the interview with Britney. What can I talk about here? I said, uh, I always think about the case study in uh Gary's second book, The Thank You Economy of AJ Bombers and how they treat their customers and how they allowed them to create the menu and how they allowed to give them feedback and pricing and hours of operation and the peanuts and all that. So I busted out thank you, economy, from my bookshelf. And sure enough, it was an actual entire chapter. I bit off a little more than I could chew. I'm like, it's story time with Sebi. So I I so I didn't do that, but I opened it up and I had to laugh because that was the first time I met Gary, and it was here in Miami, and he signed it. C Bass, please, more than 10. So at the beginning of the interview, I'm all hyped. This is like pre-bow tie days. I got like the Poindexter glasses on, and I'm like, this is a very special episode 10 of Social Buzz TV, and I'm like all fired up. He's like, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you just say 10 episodes? Come on, dude. And he had just wrapped like a thousand of Wine Library TV, etc. So um I opened that up, sorry, telling the story of AJ Bombers because I think it's really cool. And I I was able to get a, I don't know, six or seven minute um little piece of content out. Because if people are if I'm asking people to buy videos for their business to tell their story or to start a podcast, I've got to have a podcast that I've gonna be creating that content, and it yields, like you said, a lot of it's inbound. And you're in in in business, if you're entrepreneurs that are listening to this or watching this or whatever you're doing, maybe watching it and listening, obviously, um you're you're you're you're able to to um what's the word I'm looking for? Um, you're able to to increase your credibility by authentically, that's an overused word in this industry, but authentically telling your story in a very transparent way. Like now I can talk about not having a car and riding my skateboard every day. When I first started, that shit wasn't cool. And it wasn't something I was gonna go talk about. Like I wasn't gonna go live from the bus stop. Live wasn't wasn't available then, but I could go live today from a bus stop and tell that story. So it's funny how that really increases our our credibility. Number one, number two, get the phone ringing, get the inbound business of saying, Hey, I saw that video. The opportunities that have happened, I'm sure it's happened for you two, that have that have come out of a YouTube video or an Instagram post or you know, something just random. I remember someone called because they had seen me having lunch with a buddy of mine, and he had a book, um, and he was part of a local church here that she went to. And she's like, Oh yeah, I saw, and my book was sitting on the table at the bakery while we were having lunch, and he was like looking the other way. And she's like, I know this is like random, but I'm a friend of I I attend Pedro's church and I'm a friend of his, and I saw your book with your name clearly on that. I go, that's why I always put the book on the table after I give it to someone on there. But it just, you never know what opportunities are going to show up. But you know, like Fanzo's constantly preaching these days, press the damn button. Like it's so simple, but so freaking accurate. And everyone can resonate with that phrase. People go, you know, how do I get started with with content, etc. Like, hey, do me a favor, take out your phone. Okay, cool. Pull up video. All right, right. You see that red button right there? Press the damn thing, okay? Right here, boom, press it. And people go, Oh yeah, but it's still that push, and that's why individuals like us exist because people need that push and they need the ability to yank that story out of them, I think.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Yeah, and for people who just uh I mean, you are a hundred percent correct, but just for people who because I know video isn't isn't something that everybody's very comfortable with right away. I'm still learning to get comfortable with video, but I know I can use my words, which is another reason why I like LinkedIn is because actual, like if you're good at just even typing out thoughts, words can actually go viral there, which is nice. Not that virality is the thing to to care about, but if you're you have three thoughts in a week, you you think three things related to your work for a week. Like just turn those into copy, read them if you or think about them before you, you know, talk on your phone if you want. It really doesn't need to be a big deal. The nice thing is content, even though things live online forever, it doesn't, doesn't really people have a short attention span with it, and the things that you do have to say are valuable and come from, you know, come from a different place than everyone else's. So people really shouldn't be afraid to do it.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

No, not at all. And I think it's becoming more of the norm. And you know, there's a lot of it was an old joke I, or not an old joke, a newer joke rather, of like the top three. I'm in this networking group weekly called B and I, and it's one category per chapter. So you got one marketing guy, you got one SEO guy, you got a doctor, you got a chiropractor, attorney, et cetera. Um, and we're always talking about growing our chapter, and here's the categories that we're looking for. Um, and then uh, so he started off with a joke saying, you know, the the realtor went in to get his hair cut. The barber said, Hey, you know, what are you doing? The guy's like, I'm a realtor. And the barber goes, Me too. But the top three, top three, the top three industries or jobs out there right now are realtor, social media manager, and uh personal trainer. So um I laugh about that a lot, you know, because it's it really is difficult to separate yourself from the crowd, but I think your experience and your content allow you to separate yourself from the crowd. And I I you know you live that, I live that on a daily basis. Um okay, we're gonna close things out with this. I I have a strong feeling that over the past 10 years, there's been a wave of influencers, right? The Gary's and the Grant Cardones and the uh, you know, the Lewis Howells and the people that have really come up and done some really, really cool shit and crushed it, right? I believe there's a new phase of of of talent and in in real true influencers coming up within that. There's like a new wave of it, right? And the existing wave of the Gary's and the Lewis Howes, and those guys are there to support the next generation. And then where everybody's an influencer, and I do this too, all those people start to start to kind of wean themselves out, if you will, because this new generation is coming up, and that's the guys like you know, Brian Fanzo and yourself and and and me. I really feel that it were part of that. So I think that um we've like been basic training, influencer, basic training. So like for the past like you know, X amount of years that it's been really figuring this whole landscape out. But it feels fun when a brand actually says, you know, we don't know what we're doing, but we want to know, and you know what you're doing, so help us out. But um, yeah, would you agree with that as far as I completely agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 58:00

And you know, people forget about this, but Gary's been making content since minimum 2006. You know, Lewis also, before he was doing all the things he's doing now, and I know he met Gary a long time ago, he'd been making content forever. He was actually like the LinkedIn guy, God knows how many years ago. All of these people, this is a journey, and the people who actually have put in true work and like I said, know who they are, they're staying consistent, have built this community, those are the people who are gonna do it. Like that's just that's just the end of the story. Like you actually need that experience. Everybody who's faking right now, that's just not gonna last. And Gary talks about playing the long game. It is a long game. Like, I know committing to the podcast. If you want to start a podcast, that's great. But I know that that's like a three-year minimum commitment of being consistent to something. Like you have to go in knowing that this is this is why I don't work with people who just want to be famous. Being famous, it comes from putting in a shit ton of work and having talent in that area.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

You don't get to be famous to be famous. So I see that that the cream rises to the top. There's no there's no way around that.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

It really, really, really does. All right, so we'll end things with, and I, and I I borrowed this from a friend of mine's show. Um, I thought it was very unique. Um, so uh let's say that you and I cut across each other's path again at another event or et cetera, and um uh your crew's there. We've met some mutual friends and we're at the hotel bar because we've been out at uh we've been out for the VIP party, but after the night, a quick nightcap. Um, and instead of uh just being one nightcap, I've convinced the whole crew and yourself that we're gonna go sing karaoke. But you and I are gonna sing a duet specifically. So what song would we sing?

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Which duet? It needs to be a speci it needs specifically to be a duet or Kenneth.

SPEAKER_02 59:46

Um yeah, oh absolutely. So I'm talking, you know, rivers in the stream, you know, a little uh because my best stuff is is rap.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

So my favorite was always the Beastie Boys, and there were three of them. So I feel like we switch off.

SPEAKER_02 59:59

We could totally recruit.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yeah, whether it's kind of I really do like um which would it be? Which one would it be? Maybe I'd go with Sabotage, is usually a pretty good karaoke song. Fight for your right is is good, but I feel like that's almost too trite. I'd want to go with something that actually had Brass Monkey. Brass Monkey is great. Yeah, I would do any of those. Anything Beastie Boys related, I will do with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

All right. Well, it's public now. It's on YouTube, it's on it's on the Facebooks now. So whenever I have an opportunity to do karaoke with Britney Hoffman, the Beastie Boys is what's going down.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

So I thought you were gonna ask me what drink I would get. I was like, oh, bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

Yes, hey, there you go. My kind of girl. So I think we did have a bourbon on that rooftop uh place. Uh I'm sure we did at that one evening there. So with Bonning around for sure. Got some dranks going down. So very, very cool. Uh well, this has been this has been awesome. I've I've learned a ton and it's been great to further connect with you and I. Uh, we got a few things that we chatted about that uh we may be able to work on um too, and just be fun to to see what what crossover um you know starts to reveal itself. But you keep rocking. It's been fun to uh to to follow you and then jump out of the bushes at the Grand Hyatt and introduce myself and um and uh and continue to support each other's journey. It's funny how it all works, isn't it? It all sort of over an email. You were trying to send me a damn book, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

I mean, that's the world the world is super small right now, so I know I'll be seeing you again. Yes, and if your audience has any questions when it comes to branding, please hit me up. I'm you know BritneyCrystal.com, but I'm Britney Crystal at all of my handles. Like you'll you'll find me.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

And that's K-R-Y-S-T-L-E, correct? Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

And B R I now Britney people spell different ways. B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

Well, I was like, which is the way you spell Britney? Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

That's how I think it's the way you spell Britney, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

Well, podcast listeners and YouTube, if you're watching us on YouTube, you look down in the description. All of Britney's links are there. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter. And 10 years ago, if you said you were following me, I'd call the police. But this day and age, it's so completely irrelevant. You'll be able to get a link to her podcast. Make sure you subscribe. She's getting some awesome guests on there. Um, that uh, like like I said, that are smarter than us, that know more than us, that we can learn from. So, which by default um makes for awesome, awesome content. Well, you keep rocking rocking and rolling out there in uh in Southern California. And next time I'm out there, I will for sure we're gonna get some fish tacos, dude. And some bourbon. And some bourbon. That's a great mix. You know, my favorite things to do. I don't know if they still do it on Thursday nights at um at the Shamrock. Is that the name of it? Shamrock Irish pub. It's it's off right off uh right off uh Main Street. Uh it's like the first block off Main Street.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Oh, yes, that is it. I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

Is it it's yeah, it's a it's a like the legit.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

Shamrock club or something. No, the shamrock. It's I know exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

It's like a legit Irish bar. You walk in, you're like, this is a pub, like type you. Anyway, they did on uh Saturday night, they have a fiddle player that does like uh what's it called music, and then um what was it? I think that was the night. Yeah, Saturday night. Saturday night, they have like Irish like fiddle. I don't know what it is, but it's one of my favorite things to do down there in crazy downtown Huntington Beach.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

I'm gonna have to go. I usually try to avoid the crazy downtown, but if you're out here, I'll go.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

And com and there's a comedy night some nights too at that same Irish. That was the only place I would go. They're in hurricanes, but you know, that's the tap beer. You wake up the next day and you're like, why? Why did I do the other, you know, they got Fred's is still there. Fred's Mexican game, they got those big like schooners, dude. They're like, dude, let's go get a schooner, you know. Meathead center out there. I never saw so many jerseys and tattoos and hats on backwards than I did in Huntington Beach, California. So that look didn't work for me, Brittany. I don't know if you didn't see me in a wife beater and a hat backwards with a bunch of tattoos, but with a raised, raised truck. Wow. Yeah. Could you imagine? No, no, not at all. Not at all. All right, Brittany, I will uh I'll talk with you soon. Thanks again for your time today. Uh, and this was awesome. Hey friends, it's Sebastian again. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode. I hope you really enjoyed everything that Brittany had to offer. I know that I took some notes myself, as I always do with my awesome guests, and I learned a ton. So be sure to follow Brittany. It's BrittanyCrystal on Instagram, and uh her website is BritneyCrystal.com. That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y-K-R-Y-S-T-L-E, is exactly how she spells it there.com. And uh learn how to create a personal brand and make a better impact with your social growth through the content she creates because she is awesome. If you haven't done so already, make your way over to iTunes or wherever you subscribe and consume podcasts. And if you like the episode, be sure to tell your friends and those that uh you share content with all about it. We sure do appreciate it. I'm Sebastian Rusk signing off from our studio here in beautiful Miami, Florida. We'll talk to you next time.